10
PARTISAN REVIEW
O'Brien cites this as an example of American hypocrisy - to which he is
not entirely opposed - though it seems to me to some extent a typical
example of the American tendency to cloak all its foreign policies in a lib–
eral and moral disguise.
O'Brien also makes a telling point - which if not totally original is
quite apt - about the politics of popularity. He sees American presidents
more and more substituting popularity for principles, and divides them on
this basis. Thus he cites Washington, Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt as
those who did not stray from their ideas to gain popularity, while he cas–
tigates Clinton as a captive of popular appeal.
O'Brien makes an observation I have not seen anywhere: that Hitler
was extremely intelligent. This would explain why Hitler's attempted
rebellion was only a symbolic one, in preparation for later events. It also
would explain Hitler's mesmeric influence on so many people.
There are, however, some questionable points in O'Brien's exposition.
For example, I think he has too broad a conception of art, which verges
precariously on postmodernism. Thus O'Brien relates art to spectacle and
ritual, which actually is an idea of art based on early tribal practices.
Also questionable is O'Brien's citation of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin
for their predictive prowess. He mentions only one instance of their abili–
ty to look ahead, but fails to note that all three did not realize that their
version of dictatorial socialism could not work and would lead to barbar–
ic practices. However, O'Brien's general discussion of the question of
prediction is quite suggestive, and he has an excellent account of Edmund
Burke's remarkable foresight into the darker consequences of the French
Revolution.
On the whole, O'Brien's lectures have a wealth of robust insight into
culture and politics. And his prose, while not elegant, is clear and direct.
Despite the recent revelations about
T.
S. Eliot's anti-Semitism, we are
publishing in this issue several of his early poems that have not appeared
before. Eliot's anti-Semitism has been known for a long time. Some of it
appeared in his early short poems; and there was a reference in a talk he
gave at the University of Virginia, where he mentioned that there were
too many free-thinking Jews. But it is generally agreed that his anti–
Semitism was not virulent. In addition, he was probably the greatest poet
of the twentieth century, and it is obviously desirable to know as much
about him as possible.
There is of course the difficult question of anti-Semitism which was
to be found in a number of Western writers. And unless we reject a sig–
nificant part of Western literature, we have, to some extent, to separate
personal prejudices from literary quality. Otherwise, we find ourselves in
