5.29.2003
THE NEW CRITERION’S PRECIS FOR JUNE 2003:
[Posted 1:53 PM by James Panero]
Is the United States imperialist? Has it created, or is it creating, an empire?
So asks Paul Johnson in the June 2003 number of The New Criterion.
In his feature article “From ’the Evil Empire’ to the Empire for Liberty,’ Mr. Johnson writes that “one thing is clear: America is unlikely to cease to be an empire in the fundamental sense. It will not share its sovereignty with anyone. It will continue to promote international efforts of proven worth, like GATT, and to support military alliances like NATO where appropriate. But it will not allow the UN or any other organization to infringe on its natural right to defend itself as it sees fit. The new globalization of security will proceed with the UN if possible, without it if necessary. The empire for liberty is the dynamic of change.”
Be sure to catch the entire piece. We have placed a PDF of the article, exactly as it appears in the magazine, at a special address on our website.
https://www.newcriterion.com/johnson.pdf
In addition to Mr. Johnson, contributors to our end-of-season number include Brooke Allen, Mary Ellen Bork, James Bowman, Paul Dean, John Gross, Jeffrey Hart, Geoffrey Hill, Laura Jacobs, Roger Kimball, William Logan, Robert Messenger, Kenneth Minogue, Jay Nordlinger, James Panero, David Propson, Mark Steyn, and Karen Wilkin.
The New Criterion is must reading for June.
CONTENTS:
* “Notes & Comments” (page 1) “THE NEW YORK TIMES at bay,” on l’affaire Blair and the meltdown at our paper of dubious record; “How we do it,” on giving thanks to those people who make The New Criterion possible.
* “’Christophobia’ and the West” (page 4). Kenneth Minogue worries that as Western religion stumbles, secular faiths take its place:
“Today, a significant change has occurred in progressive opinion: in a multicultural context, religious beliefs are taken to be part of ’culture’ and hence off limits to criticism, unless they are Christian, and more recently also, Jewish We may call this sentiment ’Christophobia,’ and its simplest version is the legend people got from Voltaire and others, namely, that mankind had hitherto been dominated by all kinds of strange prejudices and superstitions but that now at last a dawn of reason was rising in which human beings would abandon these divisive absurdities and recognize themselves as sharing a human essence with a right to happiness and the power actually to bring this about. Such was the core of belief found in Jacobinism, socialism, rationalisms of various kinds (including that of the American founders), logical positivism, and all other versions of what the nineteenth century espoused as progress and the twentieth century came to call ’the Enlightenment Project.’ And it is very important to observe that all other civilizations and peoples were to be incorporated within this projected earthly salvation. It was a global project.”
* “Malcolm Muggeridge’s journey” (page 14). Roger Kimball dilates on the British writer, television personality, and moral and religious gadfly Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge at 100:
“Muggeridge was one of the first–perhaps he was THE first–Western journalist to expose the awful brutality of Soviet totalitarianism. He was equally prescieent about Hitler, early on warning against the British policy of appeasement. In addition, Muggeridge had the rare perspicacity to understand that left-wing tyranny is no less murderous than the right-wing variety. Reporting from Berlin in 1933, he wrote that ’It’s silly to say that the Brown terror is worse than the Red Terror. They’re both horrible.’
“It is one thing–an important thing–to proclaim the bestiality of Communism or Nazism. It is quite another to discern the ways in which libeeralism itself nurtures unfreedom. By the 1950s, Muggeridge had come to believe that liberalism is ’the destructive force of the age.’ In part, his criticism was reminiscent of Tocqueville’s. Unchecked, the impulse to equality became an impulse to homogeneity: the drive for democracy involved a democratic despotism that did not, as Tocqueville put it, so much tyrannize as infantilize. ’The welfare state,’ Muggeridge observed, ’is a kind of zoo which provides its inmates with ease and comfort and unfits them for life in their natural habitat.’”
* “From ’the Evil Empire’ to ’the Empire for Liberty’” (page 20). See above for the link to the PDF file of Paul Johnson’s essay.
* “Dreiser in 1925” (page 26). Jeffrey Hart revisits an essential author and an essential moment in American letters:
“Let us return to the year 1925. That year you would be reading Hemingway’s first substantial book, IN OUR TIME. There was also THE GREAT GATSBY. American poets were bursting in the night sky like shooting stars. And it was the year of Dreiser’s AMERICAN TRAGEDY. Assuming that by 1925 we have already read SISTER CARRIE, what do we make of Dreiser?”
* “Discourse: For Stanley Rosen” (page 32). This new poem from Geoffrey Hill will be part of a Festschrift in honor of Stanley Rosen, edited by Damjan de Krnjevic-Miskobic and Nalin Ranasinghe, forthcoming from St. Augustine Press in 2004.
* London journal: “The elusive truth” (page 35). Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blunt: John Gross discovers that Britain can’t stop loving their Cambridge Spies, as a new documentary by the BBC can attest.
* Theater: “A Rose is a rose…” (page 38). How unsinkable is GYPSY, now back on Broadway? Mark Steyn concludes that “GYPSY would work if it was me directing and Hillary Clinton as Mama Rose. But, even with somewhat better casting, the director and his concept and a not quite comfortable star just get in the way. If the play’s strong enough, as GYPSY is, all the most creative ’creative teams’ in the world can’t wreck it.”
* Dance: “Bubble Boy: Mark Morris at BAM” (page 43). The bubble goes pop, concludes Laura Jacobs, as Paul Taylor soars at City Center. Don’t miss this brilliant piece!
* Art: “Anywhere in between” (page 49). Karen Wilkin paints a picture of the state of painting with the review of four recent shows: Thomas Nozkowski at the New York Studio School Gallery, Pat Lipsky at Elizabeth Harris at L.I.C.K., and John Walker and Helen Frankenthaler at Knoedler and Company.
–“Gallery chronicle” (page 55). Summertime is sculpture time for James Panero, with reviews of Joel Shapiro at PaceWildensteein (Chelsea), Frank Stella at Paul Kasmin, George Segal at Mitchell-Innes & Nash, and Roy Lichtenstein on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum.
* Music: “Salzburg chronicle” (page 58). Jay Nordlinger reviews the Easter Festival in Salzburg, at which the Berlin Philharmonic performed Bruckner’s “Symphony No. 8,” Haydn’s “The Seasons,” Beethoven’s “Fidelio,” and Mahler’s “Symphony No. 5.”
* The media: “Spurious objectivity” (page 63). American and British news agencies claim to be objective. James Bowman begs to differ.
* Verse chronicle: “Satanic mills” (page 68). William Logan reviews THE UNSWEPT ROOM by Sharon Olds; JELLY ROLL (A BLUES) by Kevin Young; AT THE PALACE OF JOVE by Karl Kirchwey; POEMS THE SIZE OF PHOTOGRAPHS by Les Murray; SPRINGING: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Marie Ponsot; and MIDDLE EARTH by Henri Cole.
* Books: “A nose for the bogus” (page 76). Brooke Allen reviews AS OF THIS WRITING: THE ESSENTIAL ESSAYS, 1968-2002, by Clive James.
–Edgar Vincent NELSON: LOVE AND FAME reviewed Robert Messenger (page 80);
–Paul Elie THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN: AN AMERICAN PILGRIMAGE reviewed by Mary Ellen Bork (page 82);
–Fiona MacCarthy BYRON: LIFE AND LEGEND reviewed by Paul Dean (page 84); and
–James Wood THE BOOK AGAINST GOD reviewed by David Propson (page 87).
* Letters: “The future of abstract art” (page 89): Darby Bannard takes issue with Hilton Kramer; Kramer takes issue with Bannard. “The unsleeping eye” (page 90): R. J. Stove responds to Anthony Daniels’s April review.
* The Index to this year’s contents (page 91).
NEWS:
* Readers are reminded that The New Criterion does not publish during July or August. Our next issue will appear in September. Readers are invited to visit The New Criterion’s web page frequently at www.newcriterion.com, where we plan to post new material throughout the summer.
* Announcing the fourth annual NEW CRITERION POETRY PRIZE for a book-length manuscript of poems that pay close attention to form.
Judges: Roger Kimball, Adam Kirsch, Hilton Kramer, Eric Ormsby & Robert Richman.
The winner will receive $3000 and the winning manuscript will be published by Ivan R. Dee, Chicago.
Please address manuscripts to (note new address):
The New Criterion Poetry Prize
P.O. Box 4590
Grand Central Station
New York, NY 10163
An entrance fee of $10, BY MONEY ORDER OR CERTIFIED CHECK, must accompany each entry. Manuscripts should not exceed sixty pages in length. Submissions must be postmarked no later than 15 September 2003. The winner will be announced in December 2003. Manuscripts will not be returned.
Entrants are reminded to check www.newcriterion.com/constant/poetryprize.htm from time to time for updates.
* Charles Tomlinson’s SKY-WRITING AND OTHER POEMS, winner of the third annual New Criterion Poetry Prize, is forthcoming this fall from Ivan R. Dee.
* Roger Kimball takes on The Guardian’s sixteenth annual HAY FESTIVAL, at Hay-on-Wye. Read about it here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,967596,00.html
* Back issue special!
https://www.newcriterion.com/constant/backs.htm
For a limited time, we are running a special on back issues!
Act now and you can get the entire run of The New Criterion to date: from September 1982 through June 2003 at a special low price. Get the first twenty-one years of The New Criterion, including our special summer issues and the index for the first ten years (1982 – 1992), for the low price of $375. This is a substantial discount: the normal price would be over $1400.
Quantities are limited. Orders will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.