292
PARTISAN REVI EW
civil liberties will ta ke a backseat at home, human ri ghts will do the
same abroad. The return of the state impli es th e ret urn of rea lpolitik. "
A mixed blessing, that; though there may be a silver lining in the sense
that (aga in according
to
Zakaria) "realpolitik a lso implies respec t for
and attention
to
other governments." Especially, I would add, paying
closer attention to our relations with those Western gove rnments whose
basic values we share, whose cooperation we will a lwa ys need, but
whose leaders (like de Gaulle not so long ago) refuse simply to pla y-in
perpetuity-second fiddle
to
Washington's concertmaster. In th e final
analysis, Zakaria is also right to distinguish between the specific acts of
terrorism of the past two decades, aimed directly a t th e United States,
and the more general "cultural backlash against the West ...
I
which
though] wrongheaded, destructive, and futil e ... is no affectation."
What is an affectation is the high moral to ne, with all its anti–
American condescension, adopted by some of o ur Europea n friends.
The proper riposte was provided by Mark Steyn (w riting in the Decem–
ber
22
issue of the London
Spectator):
"September
11
was a call
to
moral seriousness. You cannot compromise with a shark. You cannot
negotiate with a suicide bomber. And if you ca n't see that, you mu st
have rocks in your head; and it wasn't the Afghans wh o put 'em there. "
SUMMER
2002
WORKSHOPS
Week-long and weekend courses in poetry, fiction, memoir,
playwriting, web writing, nonfiction, and visual arts.
Sampling of courses
&
instructors:
Dean Albarelli • Fiction
Robin Becker' Poetry
&
Prosody
Amy Bloom· Writing Fiction
Olga Broumas • The Willing Ear
Rafael Campo ' Poetry
Michael Collier· Poetry
Mark Daty • Poetry
Forrest Gander · Poetry
Marie Howe' Poetry
Gish Jen ' Chewing the Fat: Fiction
Wendy Kesselman· Playwriting
Michael Klein' Short Poem
Elizabeth McCracken· Short Fiction
Eileen Myles ' Poet's Novel
Andrew Suillivan • Web Writing
Jacqueline Woodson ' Writing for Children
C.O. Wright · Writing Against the Grain
John Yau • The Prose Poem
For infollnalion about any of ollr programs
call:
!i08.~87.99GO
•
t'II1" ii:
w rite to :
FAWC, 24
Pea rl Street, l)rovillcctOWII,
MA
U:!G 57 • or v isit:
.o rg
