PrintMarch 1, 2007
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr, R.I.P.
Rick Moran, a man notable for his lucid and graceful prose, as well as his prodigious output, pens a thoughtful essay commemorating Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., an author with similar qualities, who died yesterday dining with his family.
In the end, he was stricken with a heart attack in a restaurant while dining with his family. For a man who could wax poetic about good food as easily as he could enthrall an audience with insider stories of the Kennedy White House, it is fitting indeed that he was taken while engaging in one of life's pleasures he so boisterously enjoyed while nestled in the bosom of his family
Rick pronounces Schlesinger a "titan". I am not certain I can agree, for some reasons Rick acknowledges, such as his tendency toward somewhat shallow ideas like economic determinism, but mainly because I saw him as a partisan intellectual courtier, more concerned with his standing within the powerful liberal establishment than a titan should be.
Still, there is strong brief for Schlesinger's integrity, and Rick delivers it with appropriate emphasis.
Schlesinger may have been a liberal's liberal. But that didn't stop him from challenging political correctness nor the dominant New Left ideas regarding foreign policy and America's role in the world. Not only a staunch anti-Communist, Schlesinger was an internationalist in the traditional sense. He saw America's mission as bringing freedom to the world wherever possible while working with international institutions like the United Nations to solve conflicts. While his faith in the UN may have been misplaced, he never lost sight of American interests and the need to defend them.
Where he parted company with the new left was in some of their wackier ideas regarding social policy. He was a vociferous critic of multiculturalism, specifically "Afro-centrism" that he at one time compared to the Klan
However, when Schlesinger rose to the defense of Bill Clinton's lying under oath, I lost a lot of respect for the man. It struck me as outright partisanship of the worst sort - the sort motivated by hatred of the other side.
Nevertheless, there is no question that Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was one of the principal public intellectuals of my lifetime, and that he deserves our respect, and his family our condolences over his death.
