Karl Keating on the Decline of the National Review and Other Matters

I think I was in college when I first subscribed to "National Review" magazine. I kept renewing faithfully for more than three decades. Some years ago a youngish editor was brought in, and after a while I no longer saw any of the familiar names.

Of course, some long-time writers had moved into a well-deserved retirement, and some had died. It was natural for the roster to change, but other things also changed, including the magazine's intellectual level and commitment to principle.

This year I ignored the pleas to renew and let my subscription lapse. Occasionally I visit the magazine's web site, National Review Online, but the same new writers are there, producing much juvenilia and showing themselves to be more loyal to a political party than to traditional ideas.

Let me give one example. John Derbyshire, a transplanted Englishman, wrote this at the web site:

"At the Atlanta bash last month, an audience member asked the panel whether the [Terri] Schiavo case had caused us to change our minds about the underlying issues. I piped up and said, yes, the case had changed my mind in one respect. It had made me realise--a thing I never realised before--that I do favor euthanasia.

"Ramesh [Ponnuru, another writer for "National Review"] asked me at some point why, if I were willing to see Mrs. Schiavo have her feeding withdrawn so that she dehydrated to death over several days, I wasn't willing to just have her [be] given a lethal injection. I couldn't think of any satisfactory answer to this, and haven't been able to since; so in all honesty, I am bound to say I favor the lethal injection, in at least some cases.

"Since I have never had a strict anti-abortion position, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find that I don't have a strict anti-euthanasia position, either. I just hadn't thought it through before."

Sandra Day O'Connor has tendered her resignation, and President Bush is making preparations to nominate a replacement. We will know soon enough who that will be.

Liberals on the Senate judiciary committee are making the usual demands for a "centrist" nominee, which is to say someone who passes the pro-abortion litmus test. Unlike many others, I have no problems with litmus tests. I think the President should use one in making his choice.

The one he should use was given in our "Voter's Guide for Serious Catholics." The nominee should be someone who conforms to Catholic teaching on all five non-negotiables, even if the nominee is not a Catholic. Other considerations should be secondary: male vs. female, this ethnic group or that, long-time confidant of the President or not.

Just as a litmus test should be used in selecting a new member of the Supreme Court, so one should be used in selecting writers for a magazine that claims to articulate the conservative political position. While I hope that the President will have the courage to impose a litmus test (I have my doubts, but we shall see), I have no real hope that "National Review" will undertake an internal reform. I think the magazine is too far gone.

"National Review" has been reliably, if not ideally, pro-life, but why is a man such as John Derbyshire still associated with it?

I had not been aware that he "never had a strict anti-abortion position"--I do not recall his having written about abortion--but now he has admitted it, and he has gone further than most of the people who sided with Terri Schiavo's husband. Derbyshire says it would have been fine if she had been put to death the way inmates on death row are put to death (and the way pets are "put to sleep"), with an injection.

No matter what his skills as a writer--and he has produced nicely crafted columns--Derbyshire has shown himself to be a bad thinker. He may be expert at mathematics (I have enjoyed his frequent mathematical interludes), but he is hopeless at morals. That he remains at the magazine tells us much about its editors and their principles.

There was a time when "National Review" really did "stand athwart History, yelling 'Stop!'" (a line from its first issue). But that was a long time ago. Accommodation with the secular mind-set started several decades back, but with the almost complete changeover in staff the accommodation accelerated, and the result is a party magazine that increasingly follows the "big tent" strategy.

This is not a strategy based on firm principle but on the exigencies of political maneuvering. If today the magazine has no qualms running articles by someone who favors euthanasia, is there any certainty that in a few years it won't favor euthanasia as an editorial policy?

Yes, this is a look at another anti-pope. I ask you to read these few paragraphs because there will be a follow-up in next week's E-Letter. The follow-up will not be about the man who styles himself "Pope Peter II" but about a prominent American apologist who, it seems, has a connection with this anti-pope.

For now let me tell you about Maurice Archieri. He says he became the real pope in 1995 through the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Archieri was then 70, so he would be 80 now. Prior to his retirement he worked as an automotive mechanic. I have been unable to find at his site anything to suggest any sort of theological training. What I did find was a touching video. You can find it and his position papers at http://custodi.club.fr/Indexangl.htm

The video shows the 2002 episcopal ordination of Jean-Marie Archieri. The ordinand seems to be nearly as old as "Pope Peter II," so perhaps he is his brother. Be that as it may, the video shows a ceremony that takes place in a tiny chapel, cluttered the way most "independent Traditionalist" chapels are cluttered. The room may have been used previously as a bedroom. It is that small.

The two Archieris are assisted by a much younger man, dressed in a surplice. He looks a bit bored. He frequently turns his head to look around the room, and at one point he rubs his finger in his ear. I wonder what he really thought about these two elderly men playing bishop.

"Pope Peter II" heads a group called Catholici Semper Idem (Catholics Always the Same). Its web site is in French with an execrable translation into English. The translation apparently was generated automatically by a computer program--in this case a program that needs a more skilled programmer.

Despite the mock-English, you can make out well enough the group's arguments, the chief one being that John Paul II was not a real pope. In the mind of "Peter II," the late pontiff actually was a "prophet of the Antichrist" who merely dressed up as pope. This is ironic, coming from a man who dresses up as pope.

There are many anti-popes in today's world, perhaps more than at any time in history. In some cases--and perhaps this is one--it is hard not to feel empathy for the pretender because the man does not realize that he is pretending. For whatever reason, he really thinks that he is the head of the Church.

It is hard to be angry with someone whose actions may be the result of mental imbalance, senility, or grossly misguided idealism. (Some anti-popes are quite clearly con men, but most appear to be convinced of the authenticity of their papal status.)

As I said, these paragraphs about yet another anti-pope have a connection with something that will appear in next week's E-Letter. Stay tuned.

"You automatically assume that enforced community service will be for "the common good".

I don't "automatically assume" doodly squat. I think that it can be run for the common good, and I don't believe that the possibility of abuse is sufficient grounds to insist it not be done.

"Wars can be just or unjust, which is why we have conscientious objectors."

With very few exceptions, such as Quakers (who object to all wars, just or unjust), we have conscientious objectors because some people are always trying to scam their way through life.

"And "community service" is actually one of the most destructive government programs ever devised."

I'd prefer military service, but a stint repairing roads and bridges doesn't seem too destructive to me.

"Giving clean needles out, distributing condoms, midnight basketball, and whatever other whimsy some elite group of corrupt powerbrokers have decided for your children to do may be fine for you but I would not allow my children to be corrupted by their filth."

I see we have entirely different visions as to what sort of service should be performed, and who should be running it. I would define community service as finding people who think the things you name are a good idea and whacking them on the head with a baseball bat.

"If the French Army could supply mobile brothels for their soldiers, why is it such a far cry for U.S. women (and men)to be eventually conscripted for the "morale of the people" to bend over and 'take it like a man'?"

Because we're not French. Besides that, it's a total non-sequitur. Even the French didn't draft ordinary women to serve as hookers.

"After that, we'll be euthanizing people."

Yeah, euthenasia was such a *huge* problem back from 1941 though 1973, when we had a draft. There's a clear link.

Defense of the homeland is defense of life and property of the fellow citizen against an invasion. The rest is aggrandizing the state under one pretext or another, which is immoral for a Christian to contemplate. In particular, building up a cadre of militarily trained youth in anticipation of some imaginary invasion at some unspecified point in the future whets the aggressive instincts of the state and is a grave sin.

Hillary, is that you?

Need some Twilight Zone music here.

"Defense of the homeland is defense of life and property of the fellow citizen against an invasion."

Oh? And what do you call defense of life and property of the fellow citizen against home-grown barbarians? What do you call maintaining a decent and moral society in which the life and property of the citizens are routinely safe from their fellow citizens?

"In particular, building up a cadre of militarily trained youth in anticipation of some imaginary invasion at some unspecified point in the future whets the aggressive instincts of the state and is a grave sin."

That is far and away the worst looney-left whacko bilgewater I've ever seen posted on FR.

Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you wish peace, prepare for war. This is an immutable principle of life on Planet Earth, and I'm sure the Romans got that proverb from an earlier civilization who got it from an earlier and so on back to Urrgh the cave man, who noticed that the tribe down the river with 15 warriors didn't attack his tribe that had 30.

Further, the state does not have "instincts" to whet, so your position is in that regard utter nonsense.

On top of that, given the scope of aggressive evil in the world, it is lunacy of the first water to dream that being prepared to oppose it could be "grave sin."

Yet further, when military veterans return to society at large, they are not a "cadre," with all the spooky boogy-man implications of that loaded term.

And finally (because I'm tired of typing, and not because there are no more fallacies in your position) military veterans bring much more than military training home with them, and the things they bring make them more valuable members of society.

Jeez, did you just wander over from DU?

slander

I hesitated to include the third part, because it has nothing to do with the reasons I thought the E-Letter is remarkable, which is the observtions about NR. I ended up including it so that not to violate the copyright. I agree, the Peter II part is strange. If he has bigger news than an antipope dressing up like the big guys in his bedroom, he should have been direct about it. It is also mean to remark about the small size of traditionalist chapels when the powers that be did everything they could to keep them that way.

It was specifically stated by the Founding Fathers that the popular will would necessarily be informed by Christian principles, else the system would not work.

Well they goofed, because somehow that requirement didn't find its way into the Constitution. Any such "specific statement" (by whom, btw, and when?) was nothing more than a hopeful assurance, an undertaking that said founding fathers had no power to make or enforce.

Your proposal is utilitarian because it rests on nothing more than the promise that it will not be abused and its promised result is desirable. You are not looking beyond usefulness, to the fundamental question of whether the principle of compulsory service is good or evil in itself.

The Declaration implicitly holds that the power that derives from the popular will has its source in God.

Sorry; it does not. The Declaration states that:

1. Man is endowed by God with certain inalienable rights (one of them being LIBERTY, btw!)
2. Governments are founded to secure these rights.
3. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

The Declaration has nothing to say about an obligation of the popular will to be godly. It does affirm a God-given right to constitute whatever form of government "on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness" -- another appeal to utilitarianism. Finally, there's no suggestion that this political judgment be accountable to a higher power: the "Supreme Judge" of the world is invoked not as a source of authority, but only presumptuously, as a vidicator of the founders' decisions.

Chambers' reasoning was that Buckley was a conservative while Chambers considered himself a "man of the right". IOW, NR and Buckley would always be conservative within a liberal paradigm, while Chambers considered Christianity as essential to a true traditional stance. A difference WFB once described as a difference between the status quo and the status quo ante.

Great post! Thank you! And yes, that is something I have noticed too. You've articulated something that has had me perplexed for some time. There always seemed to be a limit to the logic of status quo conservatism as you so aptly describe it. It isn't enough to just shout "stop" if you have nothing to offer in the wake of train wreck of history.

But the deathist views of Ponnuru and Derbyshire are news to me

Whoa! Ramesh is not pro-death in any way. He is one of the most articulate pro-life writers I've ever read. And Derbyshire aside, I really do appreciate the fact that Professor Robert George is a frequent contributor to the magazine. It's not all bad. It just has some weaknesses.

I liked his columns about shopping in Home Depot though.

Ditto. The reason why I was so disappointed in Derb is precisely because I've enjoyed a lot of his other columns so much. His "moderate, tolerant homophobe" column had me in stitches. But in temperament he is a British conservative. I remember reading a post of his in The Corner in which he defined his Anglicanism in a way that made actual belief and doctrine seem secondary. It was really just a tradition thing -- a sort of useful cultural institution that acts as a safety net to keep the more egregious consequences of man's sinful nature in check.

That is correct. The state rightfully has only the powers that we give it constitutionally. . . . If we want to give it the power to require community service, we can do that.

As a practical matter, you may be right. Get enough people to go along, and there is no limit on the power of the state. (In other words, might makes right.)

But that is not what the Framers had in mind when they wrote of inalienable rights.

That's clever -- maybe too clever. The US did require up to four years paid service from people in the years 1941 to 1945. Was that slavery?

Was it "community service" or defense? (the issues are more complicated as to whether or not it was really defense vs. policy but we'll put that aside for now.)

It gave them up to four years paid food, shelter, and medical care. Was that welfare or socialized medicine?

Why didn't it give them cash to buy all of those goods and services in a free market? It was pretty much the same "voucher" style system that Hillary tried to impose on medicine and the Republicans want to compromise with on Education.

I'm not saying that mandatory community service is a good thing, just that not all forms of required service can fairly be called slavery. If the country is in trouble, and that service is necessary to prevent real slavery it's justified.

Agreed but I would argue that the current political atmosphere is incorporating a form of subjugation akin to slavery and they will gradually and deliberately strip away many of our rights in order to control the larger movements of populations.

The military is one of the most "controlled" of organizations by government. And, necessarily so, but at the same time, you can see a constant attempt by politicians to put that template onto the population at large (with pretty colors) and a little sweet talk.

I went to the Catholici Semper Fidem site and there was no mention of "Pope" Peter II. On "Pope" Peter II's site, there is a reference to material written by CSI. It's not clear to me that "Pope" Peter II has any affiliation with CSI.

Gerry Matatics is speaking at a CSI conference soon. I hope Keating has his facts straight before he launches another public attack on Gerry.

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