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Post by cato on Aug 6, 2017 12:05:16 GMT
WIlliam Buckley was one of the leading intellectual lights of the American conservative movement . The founder of the influential journal The National Review he chaired the entertaining and stimulating Firing Line series on TV where he interviewed a wide range of public figures from Naom Chomsky to Bernadette Devlin over several decades.
I have recently watched some of his Firing Line programmes on you tube and strongly recommend them. He had a patrician drawl,a languid style ,an ability to ask very searching questions, a willingness to talk about ideas - the complete antithesis of a modern chat show host. He also had a great mischevious sense of humour. He was a traditional catholic. A complete treat for the discerning conservative.
There is a documentary on Netflix dealing with the famous media spate between himself and Gore Vidal. It's quite critical of both men particularly Buckley but is well worth a watch if you are interested in America , TV , politics or the wider culture Wars.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 6, 2017 12:10:02 GMT
His most frequent guest was Malcolm Muggeridge and I particularly recommend these episodes.
I like the formality of the shows.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 6, 2017 12:11:47 GMT
I like the part in Annie Hall where Annie Hall calls Woody Allen's character over to squash a spider. He sees a copy of National Review and, being a liberal, is horrified that this ex-girlfriend is reading this. He asks her: "Why don't you call William Buckley Jr. over to squash the spider?"
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Post by Tomas on Aug 8, 2017 18:32:12 GMT
Just a few days ago I found his interview with mother Teresa, one interview where he was sparse with words and probably more personally taken by the moment than in many other shows.
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Post by cato on Aug 8, 2017 21:55:15 GMT
Watching the firing line has become one of my guilty pleasures. I like the way Buckley listens questions and develops an argument with his guests. There is something very civilised about the interaction . It's how I imagine Socrates conducted his dialogues.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 8, 2017 22:01:08 GMT
Why is it guilty?!
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Post by Tomas on Aug 8, 2017 22:05:11 GMT
Watching the firing line has become one of my guilty pleasures. I like the way Buckley listens questions and develops an argument with his guests. There is something very civilised about the interaction . It's how I imagine Socrates conducted his dialogues. Yes, it´s like a nice lecture hall and good entertainment at the same time, it must have been a much appreciated tv show when it was new too :-) I have never read philosophy but have always liked the figure of Socrates (and Aristoteles more than Plato, despite not having read any of the three like I said). |
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Post by cato on Aug 8, 2017 22:51:13 GMT
Maolsheachlann I think the best pleasures should have an element of the forbidden about them . Its my inner Augustinian moralist .Anyway in our pc world most enjoyable things are condemned by the new puritanical thought police. Buckley will probably eventually be banned for being elite or holding anti egalitatian views.
Tomas you should try Plato 's Republic sometime. Its his blueprint of the perfectly just state arrived at through debate and questioning. It turns out the perfect state is rather sinister and unpleasant. His rulers are an elite austere philosopher class who run a very rigid state where pleasures like music are outlawed. It is probably the first dystopian fantasy in literature.
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Post by Maolsheachlann on Aug 9, 2017 8:02:28 GMT
In all seriousness, I do greatly enjoy the formality of the approach, too, and the fact that Buckley was willing to give anybody a fair hearing. There is something reassuring about how structured it is, or perhaps the presence of standards.
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Post by Tomas on Aug 25, 2019 20:33:51 GMT
His autobiographical "Nearer, my God" (published in 1997) was a delight to read. Beside his own story a bit of pleasant indulgence in a social nostalgia that harks back to other times. Political parties had never turned into crazed carousel playgrounds for chameleons. Perhaps even up to the 90s it was by and large a world where most Orwellian madness were tangibly more fiction than fact. He touches on things that has escalated since then, yet without giving up on discussing the downfall. Toward the end of the book is expressed some of his open concern over American universities more or less formally abandoning their Christian status.
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Post by Tomas on Jan 4, 2020 16:21:16 GMT
Yesterday browsing in another of his many books, later purchased, there was mentioned in some of the online excerpts his near Irish heritage, and as recalled now it was his grandparents that emigrated from County Cork in the 1840s. Apparently theirs was a mixed marriage, the man Protestant the wife Catholic, soon leading on to this renowned genius line - among them arguably the most eloquent Conservative of the 20th century.
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