Feb 28 2008
The Scourge of Liberalism dies at 82
William F. Buckley Jr., who marshaled polysyllabic exuberance, famously arched eyebrows and a refined, perspicacious mind to elevate conservatism to the center of American political discourse, died Wednesday at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 82.
Here’s the first half of a 1969 foreign policy debate between Noam Chomsky and William F. Buckley. Part 2 is here. You decide who actually “won” the debate. But there’s no doubt that by 1980, Buckley would become the new establishment and Chomsky relegated to the “radical left fringe.” If you’re looking for more Buckley, try this episode from the Charlie Rose Show, “An Hour With William F. Buckley Jr.” Buckley both defined and epitomized the modern conservative movement.
Buckley had a love-hate thing going with the Beats. Dig this little exchange with Ginsberg…
What was Ginsberg doing? Also, could you expand on the love-hate thing?
It seemed like Ginsberg was taking the piss and that Buckley privately admired it from his look, but in such a short clip and without any other reference…hard to tell.
Both these clips are from Buckley’s TV program, Firing Line. The Hoover Institution has a list of all the programs, some available on Real Player.
I discovered that Buckley had many interesting characters appear on his show. For example, Timothy Leary appeared for a show titled, The World of LSD. How long did it take the producers to come up with that one?
I found Kerouac had appeared on an episode titled, “Hippies.”
Basically, just from the titles alone, one can see Buckley’s strategy of challenging, head on, liberal society, piece by piece. From the New Deal, to The Great Society, to the New Left, he set out to re-frame political and social discourse in America. Before Buckley, Liberal was a proud word and tradition. The American Left is only now beginning to reclaim the mantle of Liberalism and challenge Conservative dialog which has framed the socio-political discourse of the past 30 years. This is why Schlesinger called Buckley “the scourge of liberalism.”
Back to my question. I’m quite interested in how Buckley perceived the Beats intellectually, outside the context of the culture war he helped create.
Buckley, it seems, liked to have people on his show who had conflicting opinions, not just conflicting with his own views, but also mutually conflicting among themselves. The episode you refer to, featuring Kerouac, is a case in point. On the panel that night was also hippie activist Ed Sanders (famous, esp. in Denmark, for his band w. Tuli Kupferberg, The Fugs), and Kerouac, who was quite drunk, started maligning the hippies for being unpatriotic Commies and for perverting the Beat message. Sanders was quite gracious and openly forgave Kerouac for being such a lout, stating that he was still a great man and a great writer. Ginsberg was in the audience that night and has commented on the sadness he felt at seeing his friend so far gone. As I recall, Kerouac slipped in a few anti-semitic remarks too. The clip is part of the What Happened to Kerouac documentary I wrote about a few weeks ago. I think Buckley’s agenda in bringing these two generations of ‘freaks’ together was to surprise Sanders with Kerouac’s conservatism (Buckley must have known in advance that Kerouac would be willing to rant against the anti-war activists).
The other clip - the one I used in my comment - is Ginsberg doing Hare Krishna - one of Ginsberg’s usual chants which he would use for many different purposes, either to calm the mood at a demonstration, or in a more intimate setting to provoke his interlocutor into some form of new mindset. I am sure Ginsberg had a notion that Buckley would be provoked by this hippie-esque behaviour - note the mischievous twinkle in Ginsy’s eyes… I’d say that Buckley actually was quite tolerant and open - he usually let his guests have their say, but his manner could also occasionally be ironic and a bit snide - making sure that the audience would laugh in the right places, etc.
Personally I never cared for Buckley’s manner, but I respect his intelligence and talent as a polemicist (but not his politics). My guess is that he (like many others such as Norman Podhoretz and Herb Caen) was fascinated by the cultural expressions the Beats used to critique conformity, but that the overt politicization of the movement in the 60s was anathema to him - hence a love-hate relationship…
Wow, I’m even more intrigued. I’m not sure what can of worms we’ve just opened but this would be a most interesting topic for an article.