Peggy Noonan and the American Spirit
Point Two: Peggy says
I started noticing in the 1980s the growing gulf between the country’s thought leaders, as they’re called—the political and media class, the universities—and those living what for lack of a better word we’ll call normal lives on the ground in America. The two groups were agitated by different things, concerned about different things, had different focuses, different world views.
But I’ve never seen the gap wider than it is now. I think it is a chasm. In Washington they don’t seem to be looking around and thinking, Hmmm, this nation is in trouble, it needs help. They’re thinking something else. I’m not sure they understand the American Dream itself needs a boost, needs encouragement and protection. They don’t seem to know or have a sense of the mood of the country.
She’s got the substance right, but not the dates. The gulf between the intellectuals and politicians on the one hand, and “normal Americans” on the other, probably goes back to the first settlements in the New World. It most certainly did not originate in the 1980s, and to prove that all you have to do is pick up a book written back in the early 1960s by a distinguished Columbia University historian, Richard Hofstadter, called “Anti-intellectualism in American life.” When I first read that book (an elegant lament about Americans’ traditional lack of esteem for intellectuals), I agreed with Hofstadter that this was a very bad thing. It was only later in life that I realized what a good thing it was, and how fortunate we were to have withheld high status from professors and politicians. But however you may feel about intellectuals, Hofstadter’s thoughtful book will certainly show you how old and how deeply rooted anti-intellectualism is in our country.
Peggy is entirely right when she says that our intellectual and political leaders have no sense of the mood of the country. But that is not new. The new thing is that such types have now acquired an outrageous amount of power, and they are doing their damnedest to make us pay for our lack of adulation. That’s what the big fight is all about these days, and is likely to be about for several years.
Thankfully, our DNA is healthy: we’re fighting back against the revenge of the intellectuals (it’s the nucleus of the tea party movement); we know that if our children are to have it better than we do, we’re going to have to fight for it. And Americans love a good fight.
I’m not sure Peggy does. I hope so.
UPDATE: Welcome Instapunditeers. How did we make it through the day before Glenn Reynolds? Really!
UPDATE II: Welcome Rebellion News! I gotta check that out…cause there’s rebellion and rebellion…
MORE: Welcome Newsbeat1 folks.
I’m not a fan of Peggy Noonan. Frankly, I don’t know of anything she has done in her past, aside for working in the Reagan White House, that is of distinction. She seems terribly enamored with the DC elite circle to the point of losing any sense of perspective, much less being considered as an authoritative writer. In fact, she seems to repel from the “normal people” in favor of the self-appointed DC “experts.” She appears to have little insight or tolerance for the commoners and, heaven forbid, don’t force her to speak favorably about the likes of Sarah and Todd Palin, the great unwashed.
It’s also hard to really discern her world view other than she considers herself beyond reproach on many subjects.
Mr. P.H.
I was going to write just about the same you are saying. Now I don’t have to. Peggy Noonan never impressed me and I wrote her off entirely after the condescending remarks she make about Sarah Palin who to me is one of the normal people. Noonan seems to love to bathe in the “glory” of the beltway insiders, and she will do and say anything to stay in their favor. I feel the same is true of one Sally Quinn, but I digress….
Well, I did respect Peggy once upon a time. She made some very insightful principled points, for example, during Bush’s first term. But she fell into a Panglossian dream over Obama. And she now seems to have become a living embodiment of Iowahawk’s masterful parodies about T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII. It’s very disappointing to see her willfully ignoring the utter failure of the agenda of the Regressive “intellectuals” and turning her scorn, or her furrowed brow, upon the majority of Americans, whom she has clearly come to regard as benighted, dangerous, bigoted, or loony. But above all, she regards us as unable to build and run our own lives or continue to make America great. I think she knows better than this. I think her good intentions led her astray in the 2008 campaign, and now that she has incurred the scorn of the proletariat for it, she has copped a defensive posture that blames our problems on an imagined anti-intellectual rabble, instead of on gullible voters and opinion makers like her. Bad show, Peggy. Brooks, Frum, Buckley and others are all in the Van Voorhees club, and they are all copping the same posture. Everyone knows it except, apparently, them.
“Civil War, which was, after all, the bloodiest war in the history of the world to date”
By what measure? % casualty rate in a Unit? Perhaps……
But the Russian had more men killed in Stalingrad than UK and USA
combined during the entire war….
or – on the first day (the first DAY) of the battle of the Somme in WWI, the British had 57,470
casualties, of whom 19,240 were killed or died of wounds………
I doubt the pain and suffering of the Civil War – but it was certainly not the bloodiest war
in the history of the world
The civil war was our blodiest war because the casualties were all Americans
He said it, “was, after all, the bloodiest war in the history of the world to date.”, meaning until 1865, not of all times.
Formwiz, Ledeen may indeed have MEANT that the Civil War was the bloodiest war in the history of the world _as of 1865_ but we have no way of knowing that with any certainly; he is the only one that can say what he meant with any authority.
The remark he made simply isn’t true as written. Anyone with even a modest grasp of history knows that the two World Wars were FAR bloodier than the US Civil War. Frankly, I’m disappointed that Ledeen could have written such an inaccurate statement without realizing that it needed to be qualified.
Wikipedia lists a number of historic wars, many of which happened prior to the US Civil War, and many had FAR larger death tolls than the US Civil War, including various rebellions in China, the Napoleonic Wars, the Crusades, and the Mongol Invasion of Asia, all of which happened before 1865. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_disasters_by_death_toll. Clearly, it is NOT correct to say that the US Civil War was the bloodiest war in history, even if you qualify that to mean only wars fought up until 1865.
Wikipedia has this to say about the US Civil War: “It remains the deadliest war in AMERICAN history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilian casualties.” [Emphasis added.]
Pretty clear that he meant up to 1865, especially when you consider that the American
Civil War was quite different from preceding international conflicts (automated weapons (gatling guns), war on the civilian populace (Sherman’s march).
And getting back to the central point of Ledeen’s post, that war was essentially a ruling class- – country class conflict. See the ethnic populist industrial North fought against the slave-owning aristocrats of the south. In the movie Gettysburg, the Irish first sargent said it….’Aristocrats I fought them in Ireland and I’ll end it here’.
“War on civilian populations” didn’t begin with Sherman’s march. Pillage and plunder and sack was what warmaking was all about, except for a brief moment in the early Victorian period where it came to be seen as impolite. Sherman was just reverting (in a relatively mild manner) to tradition.
After all, Atlanta wasn’t sacked and burned (Sherman didn’t start the fire) and all its inhabitants sold into slavery, notwithstanding that it would have been poetic justice if they had been.
Red got it right: The American Civil War is considered to be the first modern war because of new technology. Indeed, this modernity that so many intellectuals criticize as inevitably genocidal is marked with the Civil War as the first important conflict. I have just finished reading Woodrow Wilson’s rather gripping account of the events leading up to the war in volume 4 of his History of the American People. The volume starts with Andrew Jackson’s victory and the transformation of politics: from a society based on family and deference to the dreaded mass politics and the spoils system. It ends with a reflection upon the horrid casualties and general suffering and weakness of the South. Wilson saw the war as not inevitable. The reason it happened at all was the decades of polarlizing strife leading up it. Moreover, he fastens upon the danger that the U.S. faced from European powers licking their chops hoping to see a divided country that they could pounce upon. He further mentions a transformation in the propaganda of the North: with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, it was no longer a war that tested the 1788 Constitution, but now a war over slavery in the territories. WW says that was supposed to appeal to European moralists.
great comment clare, but i detest Woodrow Wilson…
The Taiping rebellion, beginning around 1850 and concluding major hostilities by 1865, had an estimated 20 million war dead,
both civilian and military casualties…furious.
The Russians are fond of pointing to the number of Russians who died in the Great Patriotic War; but the Russians aren’t so fond of listing the numbers of Russians (and Ukrainians etc.) whom they slaughtered before and after WWII, nor how many of their casualties in WWII were killed owing to a lack of good leadership (not helped by Stalin’s earlier murder of competent generals), lack of training, and driving forward poorly equipped infantry into certain death to force the Germans to expend their amunition.
By the way, the number of daily casualties at the Somme and Paschendaele etc. were grim, but at the battle of Cannae, without the benefit of modern technology, using swords, javelins, arrows, sticks and stones, Hannibal’s army slew as many as seventy thousand Roman and allied troops in one day.
I think he meant that it was the bloodiest war up to that point. There have been many worse since.
There were many bloodier wars BEFORE the US Civil War, including the Crusades, the Mongol Invasions, various rebellions in China (one that rivals WW II for loss of life but was fought many centuries ago!), and the Napoleonic wars. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_disasters_by_death_toll.
Ledeen would have been correct to say that the US Civil War was the bloodiest was in AMERICAN history but certainly not the bloodiest in the history of the world.
I think he meant that it was the bloodiest war up to that point.
Still incorrect. As an aside, note how many of the bloodbaths did not involve guns
What an inane discussion! The Civil War was bloody, ok?
And wikipedia is a highly dubious source of facts on any subject.
Writing from the perspective of one whose ancestors gave their life blood in the War of Northern Aggression (two ancestors killed outright two more incapacitated) I say that war was illegal, as do most Constitutional scholars. Lincoln trampled the US Constitution in many ways to subdue the Southern States who wanted out of the Union. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Taney, tried to stop Lincoln’s suppression of habeas corpus. The Congress had it’s rights usurped. If a state opts into the Union, it has the inalienable right to opt out.
652,000 American Men were slaughtered in that illegal war. You yankees seem to love old “honest” abe. We who suffered unbelievable harm think Lincoln was worse than Hitler and Stalin combined.
Don’t be a dork… The casualties at the battle of Gettysburg were very close to the casualties of the Vietnam war. Your comments on whether it was the “bloodiest war of all time” are irrelevent. Don’t detract from the message of the article.
A Chinese civil war, the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), resulted in 20 million deaths, many of which were civilians. Just saying.
It took Noonan 20 years to recognize what many were seeing in the sixties as the academic world went wild with anti-American thought rather than nurturing the American ideal. She’s either cacooned to the same degree as those she laments or not too bright. Noonan abandoned “normal Americans” a long time ago in hopes of being accepted by what she then saw as the leftist tide. Now that she realizes that what she thougt was a tide was really just the last ripples of a big pile of crap dropping into the pond she wants to change sides again.
I hope she ends up not being able to get a job as a reporter other than covering the social life of Bumbphuck or some other equally refined place.
Wasn’t Peggy Noonan a supporter of Obama? It seems her insights are more a conversion of convenience than statements of long held belief. She comes off as a politician putting her finger up to find out which way the wind is blowing.
She was and she wasn’t – she was one of those who really did not want McCain but was not gaga over teh O.
Basically she became a rino some time back.
A good article, but I have one quibble. The American Civil War (fewer than one million deaths) was not the bloodiest conflict to date; you only need to look as far as the Taiping Rebellion in China (which also ended in 1864, but began in the 1850s), with a butcher’s bill of about 20 million, for that. There are lots of other examples, too: the Thirty Years’ War (seven million?) is another example, but there are others.
To be fair, these conflicts are not much taught in English-speaking schools, but it’s instructive.
This comment is awesome. I rarely learn anything that substantive in a comment thread.
“I was born a few months before the attack at Pearl Harbor, and my parents often told me that they wondered for many years if they had done the right thing by bringing a child into such a terrible world. ”
Tells quite a lot about your parents and how that likely influenced you right there.
I never went to an Ivy League school but I am at least as bright as George Bush and many other elected fat heads. I agree that there is a divide and I have no, and I mean no respect for Peggy Noonam. I do agree with Peggy that the Washington Elite have a disconnedt with the people of America. I do have a B.S. form a better than average East Coast University, buy I am much more at ease with in fly over land. Washington D.C and to a large extent the East Coast and the West Coast produce very little of value, and have an attitude of entitlement. Congress exempts themselves from laws that range from exemption from civil rights laws to discrimination laws, Even criminal Congressmen get a pension. Aside from this I am optimistic about the USA and have some advice for those inside the Beltway. Your time is limited, tic,tic,tic,tic,….
It will be a crazy few years– perhaps even a decade– and the damage may be long-lasting.
But at the end of the day, I have a deep faith in the American spirit.
As Wretchard has written at the Belmont Club, in the coming tumult, the greatest things we have going for us are the American ideal and American exceptionalism. But these are not mere constructs…the majority of Americans live them and advance them each and every day in the quiet, decent, positive, and effective lives they lead.
And those Americans, we Americans, will prevail.
“But at the end of the day, I have a deep faith in the American spirit.”
I’m with you on this one, Jake. Like the author, I think Americans love a good fight, because we don’t like being pushed around. When it comes to snobbery, Americans just aren’t impressed.
I agree with much of what Peggy said in her article and I believe she started out by saying things are at a boiling point. Many in flyover country are as angry and frustrated with Washington DC as I’ve ever seen them. Sure hope the elections act like a pressure valve….
The journey of a true intellectual should terminate imperatively with the epiphany of the revealed truth that the collective wisdom of the common man is always superior to the musings of any one philosopher or a person of letters. That is not theory, it is a fact. The American Experience is solid proof. If the intellectual should not arrive at such a conclusion then he or she is nothing but a pseudo intellectual who has convinced himself or herself, wrongly and arrogantly, that pedantic elitism is the revealed truth. And that is dangerous, as we can plainly see these days. And that is why I, for one, will never accept that the United States will fall as did the Roman Empire and today’s danger will and must pass. Hardships will continue, depressions will come and go, but ultimately elitism will fail. The common American, mullet and all, will prevail.
Horseradish,
Exactly right as to the powerful effects of the collective wisdom of the common man. Any serious student of the human experience that fails to grasp this concept is a fraud and unfortunately there are a great many examples. In fact it seems that the large majority of the class that society labels as intellectuals are in the fraud category. Your optimism concerning the outcome of our current struggles is refreshing and I wish I shared it but I am also persuaded by the relentless march towards greater statism under our current political structure. Neither history nor current trends provide any comfort as to reversing that tide. I for one have become convinced that term limits are a pre-requisite to seeing this trend reversed and the prospects for passing that into law are negligible.
I disagree. In fact history shows us quite the opposite; that all attempts at statism, left or right, have had a short shelf life and have ultimately failed. We can go all the way back to Sparta and follow the thread of history through Nazi Germany and ultimately the Soviet experiment. I plea with everyone reading this not to give up on the USA with pessimism, which stunts action. The Tea Party folks have eternal optimism and it is only through long term optimism and the innate belief that this is the only country built on the concept of “good” that the common man will prevail.
Your historical examples do not bolster your argument as in each case (other than Sparta who were overwhelmed by superior numbers) statist impulses leading to hubris and unwarranted confidence brought these nations to defeat and into the ash bin of history. What I share with you is an appreciation of the uniqueness of the American experience, a nation which owes its birth to the wisdom of its founders in their appeal to universal truths and the recognition of God’s blessing. If any nation has a chance to pull through the statist assault it is ours. Having said that, the odds are long. I also agree with you that only an engaged citizenry will provide us the leverage needed to prevail.
Hysteria #2 and Bernard #5 – I believe you misinterpreted the use of “to date”. I took that to mean the American Civil War was the bloodiest war in the history of the world at the time it happened, while it has since been surpassed by subseconflicts.
Even assuming he meant before 1865 he was still far wrong taking into account only Western Civ wars. Napoleon may well have lost 650,000 men merely during his disastrous Russian campaign in 1812, and his men killed more than a few Russians in their pyrrhic victories on the way to Moscow. Before that point Nappy had been raging across Europe for more than a decade.
When Ms. Noonan became a fan and backed Obama I said by by Peggy. You did wonders with the Snow incident in Ma. thank you but Obama. You did home work on one but no investigation on the other (Obama). What happened did you become a suck up to inside the beltway?
Peggy Noonan joined the list of people of whose opinions I couldn’t care less about some time ago, coincidentally with the 2008 Election, during which time she beclowned herself royally.
Hysteria #2 and Bernard #5, I believe you misinterpreted the meaning of “to date” here. I took it to mean the Civil War was the world’s bloodiest conflict at the time it took place, while it has of course been surpassed in aggregate bloodshed by subsequent conflicts.
Peggy Noonan’s arm must get terribly sore patting herself on the back so much. I have never seen a writer who fails so completely at concealing her Olympian self-regard while trying to appear reasonable and grounded.
Typical USA attitude. What happens in America = the world.
An Shi Rebellion (756-763) – 33 to 36 million.
Mongol Conquests (1207-1472) – 30 to 60 million.
Qing/Ming conflict (1616-1662) – 25 million.
Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864) – 20 to 30 million.
Timur’s conquests (1369-1405) – 15 to 20 million.
Napoleonic wars (1804 – 1815, note we are excluding the French revolution casualties) – 3.5 to 6.5 million.
Thirty Year’s War (1618 – 1648)- 3 to 6.5 million.
Yellow Turban Rebellion (184 – 205) – 3 to 7 million.
Polish-Lituanian conflict (1655-1660) – 3 to 4 million.
(Thank you wikipipedia)
So the US Civil War was not even in the top ten bloodiest conflict up to that point.
Get off your high horse. The fact is you guys have no idea what war really is like. For crying out loud, even the French had more WW2 deaths (granted, if you count civilians).
styx
I think your numbers of dead in these early conflicts are preposterous.
Those numbers may well be high, but it’s pretty hard to read much about the Mongol conquests and come away thinking Ghenghis and his merry men failed to total 650,000 victims on the road from Mongolia, through South Asia and the Middle East and on to the borders of Europe.
Your numbers are from the hallowed Wikipedia? They are thus unimpeachable. How did we ever start quoting a source as authoritative when it can be edited so easily? Politics plays way too much a part there.
Americans are the current center of the universe. So what? Get used to it.
I wouldn’t call Wiki the Gospel but it’s accuracy is much better than many things considered authoritative — the New York Times, for instance.
Other than dismissive ad hominem in what way are you rebutting the Wiki stats?
Yeppers. Because when you thugs start goose-stepping over the borders, we make sure that you suffer the consequences.
The classical Chinese mandarins were famous for adding zeroes to columns for dramatic effect — kind of like government contractors with construction invoices…
We are rather full of ourselves, comes from being the new Rome.
Ok, it’s time for everyone to start reading Eric Hoffer again. In this case I believe The Temper of Our Time and The Ordeal of Change (if you haven’t read The True Believer by now there is no hope for you.) Eric Hoffer, for our younger visitors, was a longshoreman who wrote some of the most astonishing and original works on sociology ever written. To say he was a genius is to gave other so-called genius’s too much credit. Among his discoveries, the intellectual is the enemy of the masses and that the intellectuals hate the US because this best thing in history was built without their input. (And if we survive it will be in spite of their input, see Obama trying to nice, nice Iran out of making nukes.)
Here’s an observation, I saw three mobs in my life, one by second-graders, one by fifth-graders and one by college professors (in 1970). Now I realize that the fifth-graders should have known better.
Anti-intellectualism in American Life, count me in.
note: I’m pretty sure Mike meant the Civil War was the bloodiest “American” war to date, though once Iran gets the bomb that will probably change.
great line about the 5th graders! I think the Civil War was the bloodiest modern war as of that time; worse than the Napoleonic Wars, for example. Again, I’m ignorant of Asian military history so I can’t speak to that.
It was our bloodiest, 10% of the population at the time, hundreds of thousands. We have to remember that we were killing each other, our fellow Americans.
No, looking at it that way, King Phillip’s war in 1675 crated the highest per cent of casualties, but, whatever; war is hell.
quick rundown.
I’m only listing killed, not wounded or missing to keep it simple.
Total Casualties Civil War = 620,000 killed
Russo-Turkish War = 45,200 killed
Boer War = 10,698 Killed
Russo Japanese War = 130,000 Killed
Franco Prussian War = 183,652 Killed
The Seven Weeks War = 103,000 Killed
The Crimean Wars = 517,600 Killed
The Franco Austrian War = 17295 Killed
I have no reliable numbers on the Thirty Years War as most casualties listed were from desease and famine rather than combat.
in the Taiping Rebellion, while the British and French allies had muskets, the rest of ‘em had mostly sword and shield. Again most casualties were chalked up to famine and disease during that conflict.
Hear, hear regarding Eric Hoffer. The man was an intellectual giant. My brain exploded reading The True Believer. While I don’t agree with his atheism, his wisdom of man, the social animal is blinding.
Absolutely Bob. Truely an extroidinary writer. I want to shill to anyone who can still find it his ‘WORKING AND THINKING ON THE WATERFRONT-a Journal June 1958-May 1959′.
Get it Read it and pass it on. Besides a more intimate insight into his journey to America it provides a facinating glimps of his enthusiasm for what was happening as we were transitioning from Eisenhower to Kennedy – and how deeply he appreciated that he was fortunate enough to find his way to this great country.
A fan of Peggy’s for many years, I regretfully noticed her “jumping the shark” with her dissing review of the second GWBush inaugural. She’s been in a steady decline since. She has plenty of time to recover but has shown no signs of it. I guess among elites, blood is thicker than brain waves.
Peggy Noonan is expressing the modern suburban notion that things will always get “better” because they did for her generation. If you go back to her parents’ generation and each generation before that, the majority of Americans were not convinced their children would even survive, let alone see a life improved from their own. Wonder what people thought in the Dust Bowl when their children were seeing a much worse time of it than they had.
The generation before had the Panic of 1873 (aka “The Long Depression”), a period of global economy contraction, the panics of 1893 and 1907.
Before that was the panic of 1819 and panic of 1797.
Americans have never assumed that their children would have a better life than they did until the postwar boomer generation.
Here, Here! Hit the nail on the head, perfectly (In my opinion). I will also add that it is my understanding that Ms. Noonan’s family didn’t arrive in America until the turn of the the 20th century and probably has always lived in New York. This can certainly affect your historical perspective.
Add this to what you observed and Ms. Noonan has a double disadvantage.
I will say her poetry of language is beautiful; her observations are what has limitations.
I agree that it would be instructive for ALL of us to keep our current recession/depression in perspective. I have a book on those busts and panics and need to go back to reading it. The book: “Manias, Panics, and Crashes A History of Financial Crises” by Charles P. Kindleberger. I picked it up on ebay for just a few dollars. It won’t solve our problems, but will give some corrective perspective on a lot of the current blather.
I believe Ms. Noonan is at her best when she is writing homilies for the recently departed.
I wonder after reading your thoughts Dr., if our consumption of the idea of making things better for future generations isn’t more in line with our own self-pity. After all, how would my 15 year old know how well he has it than I? Or worse? There must be some psychological payoff for us adults or maybe we need some concrete(?) unit of measurement to tell us how well we are doing at parenting.
Either way, history proves to us that things have been a lot worse and could be better at the same time. I do appreciate your musings as often as you throw them out there.
I ranted to my grandchildren for years how much better their grandma and I had it when we were first married. I made $500/mo, rented a one bedroom apt., owned a kinda nice used car. yada, yada, yada. Well, one afternoon in 2007 I decided to PROVE my rant. By comparing everything to the $10 US Eagle (Gold) I did all the math. You know what . . . things are amazingly the same! I think the difference was, I expected less when I was 20. I was so damn happy I was independent, and had the good chance of remaining independent for the next three months that all other fears paled.
I must applaud you for doing the homework.
Why take a small piece of the article and debate it? The bloodiest war? That’s not important to the meat of the piece. The main focus is how Noonan has gotten the present mood of the nation wrong. Or how she may have gotten it right but for the wrong reasons. Let all of us pray that the up coming midterms will indeed allow some of the steam to blow off by replacing many of the deaf Demorats with, I hope, more attentive Republicans. But make no mistake about these elections, groups like the Tea Party have already formed and do not want to replace deaf Dems with deaf Repubs. There will be a wave of anger like we haven’t seen in many years for the 2012 election if DC doesn’t start to listen to the country after the mid terms. For a good example of what happens when the elite ignore the people look no further than France.
Most of the commenters on this thread would reject Cindy Crawford because of the mole on her face. This nit picking was what drove Steven Den Beste from blogging.
Tell it, brother. I advise clients NEVER to enable comments on business blogs. Or anywhere else.
Thomas Paine: “Common Sense” Angelo Codevilla: :”America’s Ruling Class” May the latter be as influential as the first! GBUSA
The Codevilla masterpiece: America’s Ruling Class — And the Perils of Revolution, a must read! This is our tome people. It’s the elephant in the room that the bloodsuckers in D.C., the media, and academia don’t want you to discover.
Read it, read it again, then pass it along to EVERYONE you know. If you know someone not solidly “Country Class”, drop them like a hot potato. They want to – and will – destroy you. You can take that to the bank.
Intellectuals become dangerous the minute the ground fails to rise enough to meet whatever is at the end of their legs. This is why farmers are better intellectuals than those who hold the title. The tenure was invented as a cruel but not so unusual punishment for catching up to narcissus’ legendary perpetual orbit. It is a life sentence, that condemns you to preening while producing artificial BS for the rest of your life, while the real thing comes for free!
I rather believe in Victor Davis Hanson’s view, who made it clear enough that the tenure is nothing without the manure. One of these days, we might muster enough compassion to free these captives from the precious ivory of the elephant in the room. So far, I have not managed to visualize Peggy Noonan in overalls and rubber boots.
Honk if you can!
“doing their damndest to make us pay for our lack of adulation.”
Mike, you have said quite a few astute things in your life. But that remark
not only hit the bullseye, it cut the exact center of the X-Ring better than anything
I have read in a while. Thanks a jillion, sir.
Thanks. Glad to get the juices flowing…
I have to second that feeling. Witness in my state (Utah) the reaction of Senator Bob Bennett and his media cuddle-buddies to his loss in the Utah GOP Convention back in May. Bennett was speechless, until he began talking about potentially running as a write-in candidate. His pals in the media referred to him as “a victim of political anger” (the title of the Deseret News editorial the day following his loss). There was a similar response to Chris Cannon’s primary loss 2 years ago.
I read these reactions and think: massive financial collapse, worst recession in 70 years, highest unemployment rate in 3 decades, a $1.4 trillion budget deficit, 2 endless, unwinnable wars, an eternally expanding federal government, and 12 million people living here illegally. If we’re not allowed to be angry now, then when? Yet the media responds with an attitude of “how dare you question your betters.”
Those of us with real jobs would be fired for far less than what these guys do in any random hour.
Dear Mr. Ledeen:
Having read Ms. Noonan’s work for several years, I, upon occasion, find myself shaking my head and thinking that she sometimes seems to be caught up in that same sort of isolated, insular intellectual/elitist set that you decry. Like you, I think she’s wrong about this. May I offer a few reasons?
Americans have not always been uniformly optimistic that their children would have a substantially better life than they. But America has persisted and grown because they have believed that in America, unlike in every other nation, it was possible. They have believed that with the kind of clear headed practicality that would allow them to understand reality and appropriately respond to it, with hard work, they could reasonably expect to remain optimistic that the future could be better. Americans believe in luck, but they believe more that in America, you can make your own luck, that practicality and hard work can and usually will make a real difference in the future. An entire nation of people believing in that possibility have transformed America and the world, and for the better.
Americans don’t hate and reflexively distrust intellectuals, but they don’t automatically hold in high esteem those who think themselves to be intellectuals or anyone who imagines that their education, job or electoral post makes them superior to “normal” Americans. After all, if that is true, what’s the point in democracy? They know, practical people that they are, that a high degree of intelligence indicates only a high degree of intelligence. Without common sense, experience, reliability, responsibility, dedication and the ability to work with others, intelligence may well be a hinderance rather than a help. “You’re a professor? OK. So what have you done with your life? What have you accomplished? What can you build–by yourself? Do you see the world as it really is, or is your head full of silly, even destructive notions of human nature?” If the professor can provide reasonable answers to those questions, if they’re a “normal” American who happens to have a larger body of knowledge and experience in their discipline than most folks, well then most Americans will accord them a certain degree of respect.
In this, Americans have almost always been in line with Martin Luther King because they have always judged others by the content of their character. It is generally self described intellectuals who think that anyone who does not recognize and praise their inherent greatness and majesty must thereby hate intellectuals because they’re so much smarter than those who don’t acknowledge that self evident reality. It’s rather like the vacuous commercial where a model smugly gazes into the camera and intones “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.” Most Americans would likely reply “Sweetheart, I don’t give a boatload of dead rats about you in general, to say nothing of your so called beauty. Trot on down to McDonald’s. Your beauty and a buck will buy you coffee.”
“So Professor Smith, you have a doctorate in peace studies, eh? Right. What do you actually do and are you any good at it?” That’s a normal American talking.
RE: “Americans don’t hate and reflexively distrust intellectuals, but they don’t automatically hold in high esteem those who think themselves to be intellectuals”.
You make a great point. Just because you have a degree that doesn’t necessarily make you an intellectual. Just because you don’t have a degree, that doesn’t mean you aren’t smart.
Americans tend to withhold adulation from intellectuals and politicians because they know too many personally.
Peggy Noonan is supposed to be a good writer, but I stopped reading her Wall Street Journal column a few years ago. Too painful, like listening to a singer hit a sour note. It made me think of someone on the edge of composure, pleading, “Everybody be nice! Everybody be nice!” I actually feel sorry for her, but not to the point that I read her column.
I guess this jibes with Dr. Ledeen’s point about American’s loving a good fight.
She is supposed to have written great speeches for Ronald Reagan, but why is she so off these days? Maybe it is just that she needs Reagan’s ideas. It makes me think of the Gettysburg orator, Everett, who went for two hours before Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln got up and spoke for a few minutes, and that is the speech everyone remembers and memorizes.
Sometimes I read a sentence or so that another writer slices out for a quotation, but then when I follow the link to her actual article, it takes me like 30 seconds max before I turn sour and have to bail out.
Well, there is my critique of Peggy Noonan,
Prof. Ledeen is right about this fighting back DNA concept. He makes it sound like the nnational immune system kicking in.
Good.
I am sure Piggy considers herself to be in the “normal” category.
I find that most university grads consider themselves to be in the “normal” category except when it comes to entitlements in which case they consider themselves above others. @#@$%@ elitists!
…hey I didn’t say all of them.
regards …I always try to read you columns.
I’m tired of boomers thinking that every time period in history was like theirs.
Look boomers, =your= parents, who lived through Depression and War, figured it was going to be better for their kids post-War (if you forget the nuclear fears).
Learn some history, boomers.
We’re going to have to put up with this boomer crap for another 30 years, aren’t we?
(love ya, ma!)
Actually, Boomers were the last to get a good education in history. That’s one reason the Tea Party is full of Boomers. We were taught the Founding Fathers, that the USA had a special dedication to liberty, etc. The garbage history began in college and the easy acceptance of KGB propaganda spouted by Marxists leading the discussion for a lot of gullible kids. Now they teach Marxist history in jr high. It’s going be a job restoring reality to our schools.
We need to start by cutting off government funding to state universities who hire communists and bring them in as guest speakers. My local college had WARD CHURCHILL there, for God’s sakes. Taxpayers should not be funding this nonsense.
Great piece. Perhaps the bottom line is that while life for each succeeding generation has actually gotten better (and easier), there were always periods in time when it looked doubtful. I just hope that I have passed enough along to my children and grandchildren and they know what it takes to succeed. The current crop of politicians and intellectuals with power are concentrated on the coasts, but the people in “flyover country” are stubbornly refusing to bow to them. I wonder if the best and brightest for the next several generations aren’t being born and bred right there.
“I think there was a brief moment during which Americans deluded themselves into believing that we were part of an irresistible progressive march into the future, until we finally brought an end to history. That particular derangement syndrome, which is very closely linked to a near-epidemic of narcissism, has now thankfully come to an end.”
-To think that our children should have a better country for their children to grow up in is to be referred to as a “derangement syndrome”? He has his own segment of the intellectualism that he occupies. It is that he merely wants the “normal Americans” to reach for some other bright shiny object, while his friends prepare us for lower expectations…..
“we’re fighting back against the revenge of the intellectuals (it’s the nucleus of the tea party movement); we know that if our children are to have it better than we do, we’re going to have to fight for it. And Americans love a good fight.”
There is no “revenge of the intellectuals”, they are just a step ahead of us “normal Americans”. And by the way, he shows his utter disdain for our grasp of history by his silly remark:
“I doubt that most Americans felt that way during and after the Civil War, which was, after all, the bloodiest war in the history of the world to date.”
-It wasn’t the bloodiest war in history to that date, so just how stupid does he think “normal Americans” are? No, he is not one of us.
Mr. Walters, please explain to us dummies what it is that you are trying to say in your post?
OK, you have a point. William F. Buckley definitely was an intellectual, and he was about 50 years ahead of his time.
And the American attitude regarding the future is one of “hope for the best; prepare for the worst”.
Speaking of which, I’m off to buy ammo and bury gold coins in a safe place.
Mr. Ledeen,
I feel the overwhelming achilles for intellects, politicians is their, ‘Do as I say not as I do’ mantra. Their short-term memory regarding their actions, sound bytes is nonexistent.
Sure, they may come off as a balanced individual in a controlled environment. Get these very same folks in a gritty, quick thinking situation and they ALWAYS vapor lock.
The very same folks who talk a great game yet Lord forbid involve themselves in accomplishing said task.
As for ‘creating a smoother run country’ possibility with respect to our children – I believe it’s occurring.. now.
Are there areas needing our immediate attention? Absolutely. Though in the same instance we often brush aside advancements made. I’ll stay on topic..
I stopped reading Noonan sometime in the Bush years when she traded her credits for a place at today’s “Algonquin table”, wherever that may be now.
She writes with a warm lilt pleasing to the pseudo-intellectuals in touch with their Yins and Yangs. She sprinkles in pseudo “thoughtful” modifiers such as “odd” and “strangely” — which guarantee to make her seem, well, thoughtful.
She isn’t. She’s just found a trick or two to seem thoughtful while whaling away at what’s topical.
She started out as a young, fast-talkin’ dame, wordsmith the Reagenites needed for show.
Now she has become another hack writer hanging on to a column at WaPo beyond her scribe-o-pause.
“doing their damndest to make us pay for our lack of adulation.”
Exactly.
My husband is in a skilled nursing facility receiving intensive physical therapy following a knee replacement. He is British by birth–I’m American. So my mind is focused on the difference in available health care that he is receiving here as opposed to what he would have received in his native land–and what might soon disappear under Obamacare. It was underlined yesterday when a nursing assistant was applying cream to a nasty heat rash that he has developed. She was finishing her shift, getting ready to go to her waitress job. She also freelances as a private nursing assistant and will soon begin classes for her R.N. She is a legal immigrant. And she spoke eloquently about the unique opportunities she has in this country. (This is California, mind you, with its heavy taxation, idiot regulation and high unemployment) She spoke of how furious she gets when people talk down the U.S.A. “There’s no other country that comes close for freedom and opportunity.”
I am very, very angry with our elites. But I am very, very proud of my country. And that nursing assistant did more to spark my optimism than anything I’ve heard from any “elite”.
Of course not all Americans have ASSUMED their children would be better off. Good parents and citizens, however, hoped that the rising generation will have it better than they did. How selfish, egotistical and short sighted it is when adults are unconnected and unconcerned about the fate of the children within their, to use a Hillary phrase (yech) “village”.
As a society we have for the last 60+ year abdicated our responsibilities to assure that our children, be they by blood or by citizenship, have better lives than those who came before. While we still look for and develop new medical cures and procedures the emphasis is not on posterity but on “fix this for ME now!” While we plan city development the focus is “how can we bring in more tax dollars to pay for our new (fill in the blank with the expensive but oh so “necessary” activity/building/ service. Contrary to the hype the party with the most self-centered, self-absorbed, selfish, hubristic platform is not the “big business, greed, corruption” Republican Party. No it would be the party of redistribution of wealth (you have, I want, give it to me), abortion (the killing of viable fetus’, in some places that would called murder), health care (all you old people are too expensive- you have to go, for the good of all -meaning ME of course), government corruption (intimidation at polling places, vote early vote often vote dead -Chicago style politics)
So as usual with the elite media types, of either flavor, she had the initial premise right. It’s when she had to dig deeper that the hidden liberal made it’s appearance. It’s what happens when reality becomes a spectator sport.
You make a good point. If we as adults really cared about leaving a better future for our children, we wouldn’t have allowed politicians to run up a ruinous national debt, effectively buying votes today at the expense of future generations. I have four young grandchildren and fear for their futures.
I must say, I believe Peggy Noonan is a follower of the current leader in power. Anyone that can be a booster of both the Great Ronald Reagan and the most base Barack Obama has no solid personal principles. None at all. Peggy reminds me of the high school junior cheerleader with a crush on the senior quarterback. Her gushing support of Obama reveals a disturbing lack of both judgment and wisdom, although she would get an A in speech class. Peggy is indeed a member of the despised elite. She now has recognized her error in worshiping Obama, and is trying to salvage her position. She has lost forever the standing she built under Reagan. Peggy is a prime example of what’s WRONG with America!
I’m not sure they understand the American Dream itself needs a boost, needs encouragement and protection.
I find this an incredibly patronizing comment on Ms. Noonan’s part. And about what you’d expect from a member of the Ruling Class, frankly, though she probably doesn’t consider herself that.
The American Dream is not a hothouse flower needing special care, tender pruning and “protection.” It is the elitists who need protection from the American Dream, not vice versa. Because the American Dream is about self-directed achievement, enterprise, and INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY. It is a dynamo. It is a lion. All you have to do is stay the hell out of its way and it will take care of itself, thanks very much.
Ordinary Americans by the tens of millions are telling the Ruling Class in no uncertain terms: Back Off. Stop Spending. Leave Me Alone.
Does this sound like the whimpering of a helpless victim to you?
The problem with Washington (okay, there are too many to list here, but I’ll just go with one of the biggies) is that it is choked with lobbyists and sycophants and career-grubbers who ALL have their hand out to the pols. That is the only reason to be in Washington, frankly. You are either doling out or receiving the dole.
And so it is easy for the pols to arrive at the conclusion that that’s what all of America is like. Arlen Specter said as much on a visit back to Southwestern PA a couple years ago: Everybody wants a handout.
No, Senator Specter, NOT everybody wants a handout. YOU are living in a bubble, and the bubble is the problem.
The more byzantine the regulations and tax code get, the more lobbying becomes an ultra-rich-man’s sport, where only the most highly organized and lavishly funded can play. The ordinary taxpayer, who didn’t want a handout to begin with, is not only locked out of the process but is the one who gets shafted because he’s locked out.
This is what has productive Americans steaming mad. We know the laws being passed are not being passed on our behalf. We pay for them (oh, how we pay for them) but we don’t benefit from them.
Dr. Ledeen is right. The Ruling Class has grabbed an outrageous amount of power. Coupled with their attitude of superiority, indifference, and contempt, it has gotten, as you might expect, very ugly.
This is what the “exchange” has devolved to between the people and too many holders of elected office:
60% of America to D.C.: No Obamacare.
D.C. to 60% of America: Up Yours.
Critic to Nancy Pelosi: What in the Constitution authorizes Congress to mandate that individual Americans purchase health insurance?
Nancy Pelosi to Critic: The Constitution? Are you kidding? Are you kidding?
American citizen to U.S. Congressman Pete Stark (CA): “If this legislation [Obamacare] is Constitutional, what limitations are there on the federal government’s ability to tell us how to run our private lives?”
Pete Stark: “I think there are very few Constitutional limits that would prevent the federal government from rules, uh, that could affect your private life. … The federal government, yes, can do most anything in this country.”
On Pete Stark’s ignorant, outrageous comment, you should watch the entire exchange. Watch as an American citizen stands up, quite respectfully, fearlessly and with impressive knowledge and argumentation, to a Congressional imbecile. It is a thing of beauty:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1-eBz8hyoE
Now please tell me again, Peggy Noonan, who and what needs protection from whom?
An irony here is that if we stopped the illegal flow and removed the sense of emergency it generates, comprehensive reform would, in time, follow. Because we’re not going to send the estimated 10 million to 15 million illegals already here back. We’re not going to put sobbing children on a million buses. That would not be in our nature.
Well, maybe that’s the problem. Maybe it should be in our nature, sobbing children or not. Because no country ever benefitted from rewarding illegal behavior. Until it IS in our nature, we’re doomed.
So what is in our nature? Not putting sobbing children on buses bound for points south, where they will live, if somewhat more poorly; but sending half a million barely-adult Americans to their deaths in the Civil War and another 400,000 during World War II.
Sending 18-year-old boys to their deaths is (or was) in our nature. Safely repatriating 10-year-old illegals is not.
At some point in our history we actually won wars. At some point in our history the government did the necessary if undesireable work to protect and defend this country.
This is the thought that crossed my mind in the recent and eternal flap over the nuking of Hiroshima. Who the hell are we, who haven’t won a major war since those bombs dropped, to judge the people who actually did manage to win a war?
When’s the last time we fought a real war and won? When worrying about pictures of sobbing children on television wasn’t our politicians’ first concern.
Thank you for this – I was terribly depressed after reading Peggy. I wanted ask her if she felt guilty for her elitist guidance BEFORE the election…
I always liked what ole Peg wrote until she trashed Sarah P. in a WSJ half page rant about a year ago. That piece exposed her as just another beltway snob.
I won’t believe things aren’t getting better for the next generation until these spoiled, pampered “play date” princes and princesses can’t afford their iPhones, cars, custom shoes, organic foods and air conditioned homes with one bathroom per bedroom.
Thanks, Michael.
Your point is that people like Ms. Noonan often speak and write in terms of an appocalyptic decline of America and the American Dream. Those who understand (and not just know) their history understand that America has never been a sure thing, and that each era since our founding has featured its own crises, uncertainties, and hopes, and pessimists, and optimists, and sacrifices, and victories. This concept is not peculiar to any particular generation (the anti-boomer comment above is certainly unenlightening), or era, or any currently popular theories of political governance or politics.
Everything that we have as Americans is at risk – always. Everything that we can achieve, can be thwarted. It’s only when we fight for what we have, as the American idea, that we are able to preserve it.
We have much fighting ahead of us.
Michael captures these ideas of “American-ness” in his post quite nicely, and he also demonstrates that Ms. Noonan is, as usual, quite clueless.
Duane, “Americanness” was lost when they “drove old Dixie down.” Steven Vincent Benet in his Pullitzer Prize winning 1920s epic poem “John Brown’s Body” tells us about what was lost with Dixie: “the running stag, the gull at wing, the pure elixir, the American Thing.”
Re: riverstyx
“Typical USA attitude. What happens in America = the world.”
I believe the article is about “what happens in America” and how that shapes American opinion. Reread the title and maybe you’ll get a clue.
“So the US Civil War was not even in the top ten bloodiest conflict [sic] up to that point.”
Mr. Ledeen said “war” not “conflict”, and the poster you responded to clearly used the second word to mean the first. 200 plus years of Mongol depredations is not a single “war”, nor are most of the other examples you cite.
“The fact is you guys have no idea what war really is like.”
The fact is you don’t understand the author’s point. Even in the absence of intentionally slaughtering civilian populations, and not counting civilian deaths from famine and disease (The Black Death was a consequence of Mongol expansionism), the Civil War killed a million people over a period of four years. Modern weapons and tactics alone made warfare that bloody. The realization of the carnage wrought by only one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was very dispiriting to the American public.
BTW, had Europe understood the lesson, they may not have been so gung-ho about going to war with each other in 1914.
Peggy Noonan was disconnected for a long time but it became more pronounced when she fell in love with Obama. It is galling to see her columns week after week, calling him to task about this or that, and NEVER ONCE OWNING UP TO THE FACT THAT SHE WAS PART OF THE PROBLEM. She earns a good deal of money through the connections she has developed over the years and was able to parlay them into a writing career. Her association with Ronald Reagan was perhaps the greatest career move in her life and she has been living on the vapors ever since. She maintains the illusion of being centrist/right but that is just the part she plays in the DC soap opera. As long as she knows not to go over certain prescribed boundaries, she will continue to make a great deal of money producing absolutely nothing of substance. People like her style – it is soft and never obstreperous and she use language with a soft brush with pale comforting pastel colors. It is all rather candyland for any serious thinker and yes, she really exemplifies style over substance. When she endorsed the cretin currently occupying the White House she did what that old saying warned about: she opened her mouth and proved how dumb she really is.
Bingo!
Thread winner,best analysis of Ms. Noonan’s writing style.
“First, Peggy says that the biggest political change in her lifetime is that “Americans no longer assume that their children will have it better than they did.” I’m not at all convinced that Americans expected things to get better and better, uninterruptedly for the past 200-plus years.”
Yes, Peggy’s assertion here is pure tosh. I was seven years old when Rachel Carson published “Silent Spring” in 1962; I was 13 when “The Population Bomb” was published by Paul R. Ehrlich in 1968; and I was 15 when Alvin Toffler published “Future Shock” in 1970. Those books weren’t just required reading when I was in high school, they were considered received wisdom. And then there were the “duck and cover” drills, the Cuban missile crisis, the Bay of Pigs, the Vietnam war, the rise of “the Red Menace”, and on and on. Every day was another drum beat of doom. Anyone coming of age at that time who thought things were getting better was taking lessons from Pollyanna. Many of us simply assumed we wouldn’t live to see 30 due to plague, pestilence, starvation, or nuclear war.
Damn them all, if I’d known I was going to live this long I’d have taken better care of myself!
I remember having Toffler’s idiotic “Future Shock” shoved down my throat by a young prof freshly-minted by Harvard. I got one of the worst grades of my college career—not yet having learned that the Secret of Student Success is parroting back the prof’s most idiotic prejudices in laudatory terms—by pointing out in my paper on the book that everything in it was covered more thoroughly and more interestingly by the Firesign Theater’s album “I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus.”
In point of fact, that album’s “This way to the future…it’s just starting now” sequence by itself covers most of Toffler’s drivel.
I’m not sure that Michael Ledeen has grasped the subtext of the 1956 movie, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. It was not about disillusion with the American Dream, but about the need for work-obsessed fathers to steady the family that was being feminized through too close contact of male children with their mothers: a common theme in social democratic propaganda at the time. I wrote about it here: http://clarespark.com/2009/12/13/klara-hitlers-son-and-jewish-blood/. The lines about the movie are at the end of the essay, but the earlier part sets the analysis up, with some shocking info about psychological warfare taken from Hitler by Harvard social psychologists.
tks, clare spark. i never saw the movie; i thought the book described my worst nightmare: a monotonous grey world in which everybody goes to boring work in the morning and comes home for a boring evening with boring family.
There is a wonderful children’s story about a little girl who frees the world of greyness, of grey men. The little girl’s name is MOMO. We have Swiss friends who named their beautiful round the world sailboat MOMO. If we can dream happy dreams and tell the stories of our good dreams; if we can imagine happiness and a bright, good world I think we can make the planet a better place for our children regardless of what governments do to us.
if only it were that simple. come talk to our sons. marine officers. they know better, alas.
Dream happy dreams? Imagine happiness? There’s a reason this is a children’s story. I’ve never accomplished anything in my life by dreaming about it or imagining it. Adults go to work and make it happen. Grow up, sweetie.
“doing their damndest to make us pay for our lack of adulation.”
Noonan seems to have developed an addiction to such adulation. I stopped paying heed to her after the Catholic cable TV channel EWTN used her as an achor on their extensive coverage of Pope Benedict’s visit to the US. Her coverage was far more about Peggy than the Pope, including a rant about how the security people around the Pope weren’t respectful enough to her and other self important journalist.
One trait that separates the intellectuals and the politicians from the rest of America is rampant self promotion. When I lived literally in the afternoon shadow of Chicago’s Water Tower Place, everybody’s favorite topic of conversation seemed to be how important they were in their given field. In the shadow of the Great Smokies people tend to let the concrete results of their labors do all the talking.
yeah, mountain girl, lots of folks try very very hard to become celebrities. no doubt. it’s part of the narcissism thing.
Michael
Nice work, you uncorked a couple of beauties in this essay. “Punishment for lack of adulation” ought to go viral.
And one of your commenters lines about the 2nd graders, fifth graders and profs….is worth going viral as well.
Let me jump in on the fun here. I think cognitive dissonance has engulfed Peggy for a while now. The “disconnect” she senses makes her and David Frum and Buckley the Lesser…so darn “uncomfortable”, stems from THEIR need for the approval of the JournoKlan.
It’s as if they were somehow the “loyal opposition” or perhaps, more accurately, the Washington Generals to the Globetrotters. The easy foil, the “wink, wink” opposition that scored a few points, but never were intended to win any real game.
They put up token “resistance” in order to better show off the “superior skills” of the Globetrotters. They looked slower, pasty white and less “fun”…but, that’s all part of the “show”.
Peggy now sees that the “show” itself fails to hold the same appeal. It can’t attract massive audiences. Nobody wants to see a sham game and the Washington Generals are passe’, out of touch, weak reminders of those who choose to roll over for a living.
Peggy is becoming a relic and she thinks the world around her is at fault. It isn’t. They simply want a fair game. And she, wants to remain in a world that refuses to give it to them.
thanks, but i don’t for one minute think Peggy is a “relic.” Far from it. That’s why it bothers me when I find myself in a different universe.
I think your heart is having a fight with your head, Michael.
Your fondness for Peggy is clashing with your life on a different universe. She has been in an orbit that is drifting away, away, away. And the sadness you feel is making you avert your gaze.
The bright light that once drifted down from her, is light years away and takes longer to reach you these days.
Christopher Buckley and Frum and others have left many feeling the same way. They want to live life as it was, they are stuck with one foot in an old orbit. And perhaps, more than one foot.
Losing closeness with old friends can be a difficult experience. However, as long as Peggy continues to straddle this bridge to nowhere, she will force herself into the role of becoming a relic. Maybe that harsh reality would be more of a wake up call, than sparing her hurt feelings might. You know her better than I, and I admire your loyalty to your friend.
But removing the glitter and paste from your “separate universe” collage…and the harsh reality that remains underneath…is that Peggy has spun off onto an orbit that diminishes her once sparkling light. You are a good friend, Michael. Sometimes being one though, is a tough job.
yes, bleachers, but i have plenty of friends with whom i have profound disagreements.
The American Spirit triumphed during the 50’s and early 60’s during the time in which Peggy Noonan grew up. She surely remembers. But there was a shockwave that hit the attitude of ascendency in November 1963, followed by an intervention in Viet Nam which created a permanent divide in the country and a disdain for the “establishment”.
Now those with the disdain for the establishment have become the establishment, but still have the disdain…for the other half. Peggy seems to want to straddle the line between the two.
As they said in the 60’s, “you are either part of the solution, or you are part of the problem”.
“Now those with the disdain for the establishment have become the establishment, but still have the disdain…for the other half. Peggy seems to want to straddle the line between the two.”
This is the truth! I have seen two editorials from the Davids Brooks and Frum begging for solutions. Bemoaning the passing of the old establishment types who had solutions to problems and could make things “work”. They say in their writings they don’t really want them back in power, they like what they call their “meritocracy”, but they want the old solutions.
For at least two generations the Noonans, Frums and Brooks aided and abetted the Yale, Harvard all Ivy coffee house crowd of Alinsky, Clinton and Obama in playing “wack-a-mole” on the “establishment’s” head. They have succeeded. Anyone with any tangible solutions to tangible problems won’t run for office and problem solving has become subjective in our post-modern world.
Noonan apparently does not care to risk ostracism, so I have yet seen her forthrightly attack Obama on policy grounds other than to say if he were to be “lucky” Obamacare would not pass.
OT but all this talk by the Krugman’s of the world that the stimulus was too small seems disingenuous. In Keynesian terms it is the amount of deficit not what you call some particular budget item that counts. So the stimulus last year was 1.4 trillion plus the off budget spending by the Fed to purchase “toxic assets” held by banks. Ditto for this year and probably next year as well.
The battle between Adler and Dewey, expressed here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,816146,00.html
looks to be continuing, albeit amongst different people. Am I mistaken in concluding that this is another case of plus ca change?
Sister Peggy is still bleeding hatred for the repubican party ever since the first and second Bush threw her out of the White House circle. No more dinners for sister peggy-can’t be trusted. Been sour grapes ever since.
Noonan was kicked out by the Bush family and we’re to hold that against Noonan? Given the mess they made of America and the Republican Party I think it’d be wiser to hold that against the Bush family, not Noonan. Noonan hasn’t proposed anything half as bad as George W Bush actually did: a new Medicare entitlement, expanded federal control of public education, rapid increases in public spending, and two proposed amnesties.
I always liked Noonan, and still do. She may be a little out of tune, but she’s still playing a recognizably conservative song.
Hey WJ-Sister Peggy writing about policy disagreement was not the cause of no more dinners at the W.H. I don’t think sister peggy calling Bush two, a drunk is a little out of tune. It was a flat note for the entire Bush family. Especially mother Bush. That was sister peggy’s game changing moment as she is writing on discharge contents ever since.
Dear Mr. Ledeen,
Thank you for this column, I think that it’s right on the money. I do hope that Peggy is up for the fight as well, or I frankly don’t know what side she might finally come down on. I would one up the Hofstadter book, I am enjoying Gordon Wood’s Empire of Liberty immensely. In it he describes the disdain, more accute the further west you go (west being defined as Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio for this period), regarding both intellectuals and the professional class in general. The Federalists on the other hand attached great significance to intellectualism, Democrats, particularly Jefferson, wrote that they preferred the opinion of a “ploughman” to a lawyer.
Saludos,
JRV
Peggy was close, but missed the mark and Michael’s comments simply focus on her oversight.
It’s not that people don’t think their children will have it better than they. True to some degree.. The issue is that Americans don’t aspire to leave a better existence for their children than they had for themselves. We all know it. It bothers some of us. It is a rejection of what defined the American spirit after 200+ years. It’s really depressing and sad.
We are reduced to a “I paid into it so I will get as much as possible out of it” mentality on Social Security, insurance, Medicaid, unemployment, everything. I can’t blame people. The “screw whoever comes after me” mindset has taken hold and there is no consideration for leaving things better.
Here we are. Not sure how to fix it. Call me a pessimist, but both political parties reinforce this.
What I am getting at is the battle that is raging in more than one sphere, between those who lined up behind Mortimer Adler, and those who lined up behind Dewey.
It is a battle on various fronts, but it is one battle, or war.
We are not just talking about the areas of government, but also of education.
Have I made things clearer?
Y’all gotta understan’ that Peggy lives in Brooklyn Heights, or some place like that. She doesn’t live amongst the real people but amongst the folks who think they’re better than the rest of us grunts. Peggy has lost her way. I used to respect her … once upon a time. Then, she discovered Obama, and my respect floated away.
Prof. Ledeen:
Compliments on another thought provoking piece (in my opinion and as evidenced by the volume of comments).
Specifically, liberal intellectual and political leaders have now acquired an outrageous amount of power. One does not have to be an intellectual to oppose them: a basic understanding of our rights and the Constitution will do nicely.
Thank you.
Peggy Noonan was one of the Really Smart ‘Conservatives” (who live in either New York or Washington) who supported Obama and thought that Sarah Palin was dumb, and that those of us who thought that Barak Obama was a shallow, inexperienced Marxist who would take our country down a disasterous road were just unintellectual religionists who were mired in the past. Now, she has started talking about what a disaster Obama is to America. I must have missed her column where she said, “You were right and I was wrong”. I must have missed her apology to us unintellectual conservatives. I think that I will keep missing her columns, too, until she admits just how very wrong she was…
Spot on comments!
Oy, what a thread. You farmers toss around numbers from ancient history as if they’re anything more than wild-ass guesses. We don’t have casualty lists for most of these battles. Hell, too often we don’t even know where the battlefields were located. But while you’re having your fun, don’t forget the War of the Triple Alliance and what it did to Paraguay. Fun times.
I thought Noonan was fairly well aligned with the real world up through the Clinton days. Him, she understood pretty well. But something strange happened to her in the early Obama days. Maybe she’s just getting old. It happens to most of us, eventually.
Fearing the future won’t be better is nothing new, perhaps the size of the National Debt and the looming insolvencies of major states
like California, New Jersey and New York are the new ingredients.
Can’t imagine the national mood was any better after the images of the last helicopter out of the Saigon embassy, or the debacle at Desert One, or the rapid doubling of gasoline prices after the Oil Embargo, or the stagflation of the Ford-Carter years or the
popularity of disco (man, the 70s really sucked, didn’t they?).
Ms. Noonan’s apparent disconnect may have everything to do with wanting to stay “relevant” (i.e. quotable, in-print and invitable to
parties and NewsHour roundtables)–calling out her own class is not the way to do that.
Peggy wrote an excellent piece years ago for the Washington Post titled: “She’s Not Like You” about Hillary Clinton. She put her finger upon the real differences between an entitled Hillary, who has always run in different circles than most, and those women that grew up working for a second income and raised children in the midst of all of it. She told women not to be deluded into believing that Hillary, despite gender similarities, was not anywhere similiar to them. Hillary, in my opinion, is a sociopath. Those close to the Clintons note Bill’s ability to be warm and friendly to their daughter; Hillary frightened her. This should alarm those who are aware of what this class of people do to others-remember “Travel Gate?”
Otherwise, when I read her opinion piece in the WSJ lecturing Tea Party people to behave, I am repulsed. She voted for Obama, so who is she to talk?