February 27, 2008
-
Ciao, Bill
William F. Buckley, Jr. is dead. I will keep my commentary to a minimum, because my tolerance for the old-school bigotry he represented, that has utterly permated and suffused the modern conservative movement, is very, very low. But hey, if standing athwart history, yelling "stop!" is your thing, so be it. But you're just setting yourself up to get mowed down.
I think the author of this obituary was trying to be kind, but you can tell his heart wasn't in it:
Yet on the platform he was all handsome, reptilian languor, flexing his imposing vocabulary ever so slowly, accenting each point with an arched brow or rolling tongue and savoring an opponent's discomfort with wide-eyed glee.
I can't help but picture him as a child with a magnifying lens and an anthill. One of those creepy children who you know ain't quite right, that look up doll's dresses, and takes a little too much pleasure in pulling girls' hair. That even the big kids keep away from, because he bites and kicks and gets you into more trouble than you signed up for. I hope the author didn't intend that, but that's not a very good image with which to memorialize.
See ya, Bill. Feel free to take that movement conservatism that you loved and defended with you.
Comments (2)
I had a similar feeling when I saw his death mentioned on the news last night.
The thing that has been of benefit to me from people like him has been the challenge.
I have often not agreed with conservatives, particularly with regard to social issues, but they have forced me to think very hard about exactly why I believe the things I do. More importantly they have forced me to ask the hard questions about whether my own viewpoint actually holds water or not by poking holes in it at every opportunity. And there have been occations when I have found myself forced to set aside much cherished assumptions because they couldn't stand up to examination.
If nothing else getting to understand his sort have explained to me exactly where the rocks are when attempting to continue moving downstream.
On of the reasons I started reading more conservative writers was for exactly that. Some of them had very good arguments that couldn't just be dismissed out of hand. I, too, have discovered that if your tightly-held belifs don't stand up to scrutiny, then you have no business holding onto them.
Buckley was most certainly a good writer, and I think he came around to certain things in his old age. At least he made the bigot's argument with some style and panache. But in the end, the arguments were, indeed, that of a bigot.
Too much today is the "conservative" movement of this country holding on to ideology over empiricism. Heads have been, charitably, deep within the sand or, uncharitably, so far up their asses that no light can penetrate. The genuine fear that seems to permeate Bush and his cronies is palpable. People with a grip on reality don't make 1% doctrines, pre-emptively attack, or feel the need to torture people to get information. That is the lesson the American right needs to absorb, because their fear is turning them into authoritarians of the worst stripe.
Comments are closed.