A League of Their Own, &c.
The kid and the critic; capital punishment and the ‘seamless garment’; the talented Dr. Yang; and more
Over the years, I have often concluded a column with a letter or two—letters from readers. Today, I would like to put one at the top. It tickles me so. (In the Midwest, this is how we say, “It pleases me, it delights me.”)
In a column two days ago, I had an item concerning Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, who was one of the most famous literary critics in the country. For many years, he was the chief book reviewer of the New York Times. Later, he was the paper’s chief obituary writer.
Anyway, he was a literary luminary.
Here is a note from Noah Seton:
Chris Lehmann-Haupt’s son was in my class from 5th grade to 12th grade. I was in a fantasy baseball league when it was called “Rotisserie Baseball.” Participants were a mix of parents and kids. Mr. Lehmann-Haupt played but his son didn’t.
My mom has a vivid memory. Twelve years old, I was on the phone discussing baseball and a potential trade.
Mom: “Who are you talking to?”
Me: “Christopher Lehmann-Haupt.”
Mom: “The book critic?!?!”Anyway, I never won the league (I don’t think he did either).
By the way, Mr. Seton begins his note in the following way (and forgive me if I include some praise):
Jay,
As always, a great column. I have been reading you for over 20 years, and it continues to shock me how the same principles can appear to come from a totally different vantage point, now vs. then.
A remark worth pondering.
***
I am a funny kind of anti–death-penalty person: I often find myself defending the pro–death-penalty position. I believe it is a legitimate one. In this respect, I am not a “seamless garment” guy. I don’t think that, if you are not both anti-abortion and anti–death penalty, you are a hypocrite.
Three weeks ago, Pope Leo made a remark to reporters:
“Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion,’ but says, ‘I am in favor of the death penalty,’ is not really pro-life. Someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States’—I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
Again, I am against the death penalty (for reasons we need not detail now). But I believe there is a big difference between an abortion and the execution, or killing, of someone—a serial murderer, let’s say—after a fair and exhaustive trial.
In other words, Walter Berns wasn’t a bad guy. (He was a scholar of political philosophy who devoted some of his work to a moral defense of capital punishment.)
***
Once more, Trump will be meeting with Putin, this time in Budapest, with Viktor Orbán playing host. There is a lot to say about this—a lot. (These three are really amigos.) But, here and now, I would like merely to note something related:
In response to HuffPost’s query about who suggested Budapest, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded, “Your mom did,” and White House communications director Steven Cheung replied: “Your mom.”
(For this news story, go here.)
There are a great many people—a great many—who thrill to this kind of thing. (I know plenty, personally.) The White House said, “Your mom did.” LOL! They owned the libs! Other people think: “This is America? Really? What have we become?”
The division is stark.
***
For the last ten years, I have been asked, “Do they really believe it? Do they mean it? Or are they just pretending, for ‘professional reasons,’ if you will?”
I was asked that twice just last week.
The questioners want to know, “All the people who were formerly ‘normal conservatives’ and now cheer for Trump, or defend him: Are they sincere believers or are they doing it for the sake of donations, votes, ‘likes,’ and so on?”
Over the years, I have answered: “I think they started out ‘just playing.’ Just going along. But over time, I think, they drank the Kool-Aid and now more or less believe.”
My answer, David Brooks has put very, very well. He does so in a long piece for The Atlantic. I will paste a few sentences:
All around me, I see civic leaders not saying what’s really on their mind. And over time, self-censorship can lead to internal spiritual and moral collapse. When Trump initially defeated the GOP establishment a decade ago, the conquered went along only grudgingly, maintaining their capacity to be privately appalled by him. But over the years, acquiescence appears to have bled inward—and before long, they were conquered on the inside, too.
Oh, my gosh: yes.
***
In recent days, I have been talking to some journalist friends of mine—veteran and just-starting-out. They are conservative. I asked a Buckleyan question.
“Are you a conservative journalist? Or are you a journalist who is conservative?” Big difference.
A “conservative journalist,” I would say, is someone who works for a party or a movement and performs his journalism with that in mind. He wakes up and says, “Hmmm. What can I do for the party or movement today? What’s the line? What do I push or promote?”
A journalist or writer who is conservative is, you know: a journalist or writer (who is philosophically conservative).
Bill Buckley was certainly that. A journalist, a writer, without a qualifier or modifier. When he applied for a passport, and listed his occupation, he put “Journalist.”
On occasion, however, he would use a qualifier. For example, he subtitled his 1993 collection, Happy Days Were Here Again, as follows: “Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist.”
***
Did you see this? Anna Paulina Luna is a congresswoman from Florida, a Republican:
I have said many times, over the last ten years: The current GOP is a strange combination of George Wallace and Henry Wallace—of big-government populism and softness on the Kremlin (if not outright support).
***
Have you looked into Nathan Gill, the populist-Right politician in Britain who has pleaded guilty to taking bribes from the Kremlin? (To read a news report, go here.) They paid him to give pro-Putin speeches in the European Parliament and elsewhere.
I’m astonished that the Kremlin ever pays. There are so many happy to do it for free. They do it out of affinity, not venality.
***
David Frum sat down to talk with Charles Moore, the great British conservative and Thatcher biographer. The result is titled “When Conservatism Meant Freedom.”
Frankly, that’s why I joined (basically).
***
Chen Ning Yang was—how to put this cleanly?—one smart son-of-a-gun. He was a physicist, who shared the Nobel prize, and also a kind of artist—a scientific artist. He was dizzyingly smart and imaginative.
Yang has died at 103. To read his obit in the New York Times, written by George Johnson, go here.
I would like to note just one thing—or two things, related.
When Yang got to the United States (from China), he called himself “Frank”—after Benjamin Franklin. And he and his wife named a son of theirs “Franklin.”
I just think that’s kind of neat. I should know more about Benjamin Franklin, really. All I can think of is a kite; spectacles; a funky hairstyle; and a certain randiness.
Plus, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
***
The other day, “Flott” was trending on social media. I’ll tell you where my mind went: Dame Felicity Lott, the venerable British soprano. Her longtime nickname is “Flott.”
But the Flott in question—the Flott who was trending—was Cor’Dale Flott, a player on the New York Giants.
What would we do without music or sports? (Fortunately, we don’t have to find out.)
***
Thank you for joining me today, my friends. I’ll leave you with a picture—a little slice of New York, on a bright autumn day:
I met C.N. Yang when I was a graduate student Teaching Assistant in 1974. He was personable and very concerned and supportive of all of us young aspiring physicists. I'm sad to hear of his passing.
Thank you Jay. I would be curious on why you oppose the death penalty, as I do, indeed feel very strongly about it. Although I attend Quaker meeting, I am not a pacifist, not even a non interventionist, somewhere a little more hawkish than Obama and more dovish than Bush Jr. because I believe in the necessity of defending oneself, or others from bullies like Putin, in Ukraine.
And in the need for self protection, I have no compunctions about locking up people who would risk public safety, and it seems irrelevant what racial breakdown that results in.
But there is no public safety involved in executing a human being. It is not defense. It is vengeance, pure and simple. It denies the idea of redemption and that there is the light of God in even the worst of us. I am not particularly a Christian, but it seems the antithesis of what Christ taught.
I have no problem with prisoners living a spartan life and compelled to be useful and productive. After all penitentiaries are for penance. We have an ongoing prison ministry in our Meeting, and it always humbles me, because I think, there but by the grace of God go I.
As to Benjamin Franklin, one interesting aspect of him is that a younger version owned slaves but then later he was the leader of the Pennsylvania abolitionists. He also was a Deist, as was Jefferson and Madison, which is a belief in God within the confines of natural law and a denial of omnipotence and miracles.