COMMENTS
Andrew Delbanco's book,
Reqllired Readillg: Why Ollr Allleriwll Classics
!l1atter
NOIII
(Farrar, Straus
&
Giroux) has many interesting pieces. He is a
good literary critic, and he has a lively sense of the past. Uut in his preface
to his latest book, he advocates a compromise between the methods of tra–
ditional criticism and those prominent in the academy today and generally
known as "political correctness." This strikes me as both foolhardy and eva–
sive. You can no more combine the criticism of, say, Eliot, or Trilling, or
the New Critics, with the jargonized and deconstructionist mumbo–
jumbo, than you can combine good and evil, or totalitarianism and
democracy, or atheism with religion. To make the compromise seem plau–
sible, Delbanco defines the new academic theory as a political approach to
Ii
terature, to go along wi th a textual approach. l3ut the poli tically correct
movement is not simply political; it contains a variety of trendy ideas. One
wonders why someone as accomplished as Delbanco should make such a
suggestion. Could it be that peace, even in intellectual matters, is more
desirable than controversy?
John Ellis'
Literatllre Lost
(Yale University Press) is a splendid book. His
analysis of the trendy movements and ideas that make up the Left today is
far-reaching and illuminating. I would question only his emphasis on fig–
ures like Taci tus and
I~ousseau
among the sources of the ideas that
constitute the academic Left. No doubt there have been dissenting voices
in the past, but they have been, however occasionally mistaken, authentic, as
compared with the ersatz Left today. It is difficult to understand why the
Left, especially the academic Left, should adopt such views, that are both
extremist and fashionable today. Unless, after the demise of Soviet
Communism, something had to be put in its place. It is as though the inau–
thentic Left abhors a political vacuum.
After al l, if we go back to the origins of political radicalism, to Karl
Marx himself, it is obvious that Marx did not promote gay liberation, or rad–
ical feminism, or sexism of any kind, or deconstruction, or affirmative
action, or cultural diversity. Nor did he find virtues in the Third World and
in backward countries general ly. And Marx was opposed to the kind of pop–
ulism that finds its home on our Left. It will be recalled that he talked of
"the idiocy of the village." I believe the Left has an honorable place in con–
temporary poli tics, but not the trendy concoctions that pass for it.
Isaiah Uerlin was an outstanding figure. Even if one disagreed with
Berlin on some matters, he was a brilliant historian of ideas and an original
exponent of traditional liberalism. He was an anti-communist, a believer in
political pluralism, an antagonist of utopian ideas. His reminiscences of lit–
erary life, especiall y among di ssenters in Soviet Russia, were memorable.
