466
NORMAN BIRNBAUM
lem is more vexed in America because of the absence of a deeply rooted
tradition of humanism. At any rate, Lasch's brief for rational criticism
assumes what remains to be proven-that rational criticism is in contem–
porary America politically practicable.
Lasch emerges very well in one respect. He remarks that succeed–
ing generations of American intellectuals have almost invariably abused
their predecessors (and that some of those now aged forty-five or older
have taken to abusing their successors, as well). His own treatment of
our forebears is remarkable for its restraint, dignity and discrimination.
He is skeptical of Niebuhr's philosophic claims, sympathetic toward
Macdonald's spiritual journey, calmly tolerant of Mailer, and fair to
Sidney Hook while conspicuously unenthusiastic about Hook's ideas.
I wonder, however, what he thinks of the new Narodniki from the
American middle class, the allies of the southern Negro, the volunteers
for the Peace Corps- and of those who have refused military service in
Vietnam. The new organization of American power implicates the
educated young in its exercise from the very beginning. But if it has
provoked something like a qualitative change in consciousness, the com–
pulsive cycle Lasch sees has been broken.
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1934-1964
Norman Birnbaum
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