I miss him. He would have had a lot to say about Mr. Trump.
“I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.”
“The largest cultural menace in America is the conformity of the intellectual cliques which, in education as well as the arts, are out to impose upon the nation their modish fads and fallacies, and have nearly succeeded in doing so. In this cultural issue, we are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than “newness”) and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity).”
“To fail to experience gratitude when walking through the corridors of the Metropolitan Museum, when listening to the music of Bach or Beethoven, when exercising our freedom to speak, or … to give, or withhold, our assent, is to fail to recognize how much we have received from the great wellsprings of human talent and concern that gave us Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, our parents, our friends. We need a rebirth of gratitude for those who have cared for us, living and, mostly, dead. The high moments of our way of life are their gifts to us. We must remember them in our thoughts and in our prayers; and in our deeds.”
“We find that in the absence of demonstrable truth, the best we can do is to exercise the greatest diligence, humility, insight, intelligence, and industry in trying to arrive at the nearest values to truth. I hope, of course, to argue convincingly that having done this, we have an inescapable duty to seek to inculcate others with these values.”
***
Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, died the other day at age 91. I’ve been fascinated to see him mourned and celebrated as if he had made serious and significant contributions to Western civilization.
Happily, though somewhat belatedly, I’ve begun to notice some dissenting voices. Here are four, including (first) an article written by William F. Buckley, Jr., in October 1966:
“Hugh Hefner’s legacy has a dark side”
“Hugh Hefner’s Legacy of Despair”
***
On a matter that, in my judgment, isn’t as far removed from the foregoing as some might imagine it to be:
“Conservatism vs. crudity, &c.”
And its sequel:
“1968 and All That: An Update”
***
And, given that this is turning into something of a socio-political post, here’s a piece that I liked and that, in my view, is also relevant:
“Trump Is Exactly the President His Supporters Thought They Were Getting”
***
Also, this, which is on an entirely unrelated subject — maybe:
“Our Distracted College Students”
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