Among the many powerful lines cited in Matt Welch's article, one in particular stands out in my mind as timeless, true, and deserving of my respect for Vaclav Havel, the incredible and brave gentleman whom the writer quite rightly identifies as the modern counterpart of Eric Blair, a.k.a. George Orwell:
"When the internal crisis of the totalitarian system grows so deep that it becomes clear to everyone...and when more and more people learn to speak their own language and reject the hollow, mendacious language of the powers that be, it means that freedom is remarkably close, if not directly within reach."
As for Christopher Hitchens, I admire his intelligence, powers of reason, and command of the language, and found his fine book Why Orwell Matters to be a persuasive and moving piece of work. But I somehow do not see The Hitch as the torchbearer of the Orwellian legacy. And while I also respect (for quite different reasons) the brilliant but not-so-gracefully-aging Noam Chomsky, who has he not railed against of late, apart from Ramsey Clark? It's become nearly a badge of honor for those on the right and on the left.
I have been giving a lot of thought lately to The Flying Dutchmen, the wonderfully diverse and fluid troupe of writers and poets of which I was a founding member, along with Herman Kluge, R.T. Castleberry, and Charles Harvey. The Flying Dutchmen were involved in what I consider to be some of the most important literary and artistic activities in Houston during the 1980s and '90s -- and their imprimatur remains to this day a valuable part of that city's small but vocal "Orwellian" legacy. I tip my hat to the original spirit which brought that wonderful group together.
Ron Christian Welch
Austin, TX
I must say I greatly enjoyed reading the piece on Vaclav Havel. But I'm curious about this passage: "His open, though qualified, flattery of the U.S. is one reason Noam Chomsky considers him 'morally repugnant' and on an 'intellectual level that is vastly below that of Third World peasants and Stalinist hacks.'"I haven't read a lot of Chomsky, but this surprised me. Where did these quotes come from?
Clay Young
Via e-mail
Matt Welch replies: In February 1990 Vaclav Havel gave his first U.S. speech in front of a joint session of Congress. Noam Chomsky, in a letter to Alexander Cockburn shortly thereafter, called it a "shameful performance" and an "embarrassingly silly and morally repugnant Sunday School sermon."
Later in the same letter, which is included in Cockburn's The Golden Age Is in Us (1995), Chomsky wrote: "So by every conceivable standard, the performance of Havel, Congress, the media, and...the Western intellectual community at large are on a moral and intellectual level that is vastly below that of Third World peasants and Stalinist hacks -- not an unusual discovery."
In a subsequent essay that appeared in his Deterring Democracy, Chomsky reflected on Havel's well-received reference to the United States as a "defender of freedom" by concluding: "There is only one rational interpretation: liberal intellectuals secretly cherish the pronouncements of Pat Robertson and the John Birch Society, and can therefore gush in awe when these very same words are produced by Vaclav Havel."
Gun Battles
I'm not sure why Julian Sanchez was given two pages to celebrate the major blow he struck against the right to bear arms ("The Mystery of Mary Rosh," May). I was going to say "minor blow," but that was before I looked up the matter on the Net. For example, in the March 20 St. Paul Pioneer Press (twincities.com): "Lott has been largely discredited as a reliable source of information on gun policy."
Judging from his blog, Sanchez now thinks Lott's questionable statistic, on brandishing vs. using a gun, was somebody else's editing error. But that will not change matters. Liberals are utilitarians in ethics; in other words, they have no rule against lying for a "good" cause. Long before any scandal erupted, they were already doing whatever they could to discredit Lott.
Sanchez never mentions this, the real reason why Lott's venial sins were immediately seized upon and broadcast. Meanwhile, both academia and the major media circled the wagons to protect historian Michael Bellesiles, whose entire thesis on gun ownership in America was based on fraud. Indeed, that eventual finding was barely reported by the same outlets that had once praised him to the skies.
Taras Wolansky
Jersey City, NJ
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
nfl jerseys|11.12.10 @ 10:15PM|#
nxt