[lbo-talk] Buckley throws in the towel on Iraq

[KJ]

On 2/27/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Michael Pollak wrote:
>
> >I thought Buckley never saw himself as a neocon, and saw himself as
> >closer to the paleocons -- who, led by Buchanan and Taki at The
> >American Conservative, were always against this war.
>
> Buckley was always able to straddle the fault lines of American
> conservatism - he was able to be traditionalist & libertarian,
> reactionary Catholic and Market Man, all at once. It never made any
> sense intellectually but his charm managed to get him through.

Which is why the Churchill quote has it backwards.

Socialism is, or ought to be, an intellectually satisfying and elegant
proposition  to a young person. As the actually existing world of
capitalism, and the deformations it induces in all of us,  makes
itself felt, socialism, the intellectual construct, comes to seem less
feasible, and those who return the impulse monkey around with it to
come up with some version of a feasible socialism.

Thus, the quote should be: if you are a young man and you aren't a
socialist, then you don't have a head/brain, but if you aren't one
when you are old, then you don't have a heart. The heart has been
turned to stone by the filth of capitalism.

Which perhaps is one way to read Gramsci's pessimism of the intellect,
changing the optimism of the will to optimism of the heart. How else
could one carry on living?

kj