Richard John Neuhaus says that my assertion in the (London) Sunday Times regarding Pope John Paul’s disability and early retirementto bed, etc., was a lie ( WhileWe’re At It, June/July 2000 ). I was given the informationabout the Pope on what seemed to be good authority at thetime, and so it was a mistake rather than a lie. I havenow double“checked the facts about the Pope’s day, and Ihave also checked Father Neuhaus’ extraordinary claim tohave spent many hours and meal times with the Pope, andI find that he is telling the truth. In consequence I acknowledgethat mistake publicly through your periodical and I shallseek to correct the error also at an appropriate point inthe Sunday Times .
While I am on the subject of mistakes, your periodical has perpetuated a seriousmistake about me. In your correspondence section in April 2000, William A. Donahuecited Ronald Rychlak’s accusation in Hitler, the War, and the Pope thatI wrote in 1991 that nothing short of a miracle would have prompted me to believein God. That statement was taken from a book I wrote (published in the U.S.as Hiding Places of God ) which was precisely about the miracle that didtake place in my life in the late 1980s, and that resulted in my return to theCatholic Church. My book tells at great length the story of a remarkable religiousexperience and a long journey back to faith. Whoever originally dug up the quotationcynically omitted the context of my confession of apostasy and the full storyof my reconversion. Hence it is not true, as has been reported by First Thingsand others, including Rychlak (who, incidentally, was well aware of it sincewe crossed swords over it in Brill’s Content in 1999), that I am an apostateonly pretending to be a Catholic in order to create a dramatic and untrue effectin my book Hitler’s Pope . My book on Pius XII may have errors and omissions,but I wrote it in good conscience. I am happy to debate what people considerto be errors of fact and interpretation and to publicly correct them as theycome to light. But those errors do not include telling lies about the statusof my faith. The false comments about my faith have been used to discount thethesis of Hitler’s Pope .
I will not whine to you about defamation; how could I when so many people areconvinced that I have defamed a saintly pope: “He who lives by the sword . ..” But I am sure that First Things would stop short of repeating such a seriousallegation”lying about being a Catholic”knowing it not to be the case. In fact,you might wish to put that right.
I feel bound to add that my jaundiced perception of Pius XII has not budgedmy faith in the Catholic Church one iota.
John Cornwell Jesus College, Cambridge England
RJN replies:
It is, of course, good to be reassured of the state of Professor Cornwell’sfaith. In Hitler’s Pope , however, he made his credibility part of theargument by asserting that, when he began his writing, he was an active Catholicdisposed to a favorable view of Pius XII and was subsequently shocked by whathe allegedly discovered. Among the reviewers of the book, Prof. Rychlak is byno means alone in challenging that assertion. Reviews of Hiding Places ofGod described Prof. Cornwell, with good reason, as an agnostic and formerCatholic. Other publications by Prof. Cornwell in the 1990s reinforce that assessment.The complete Brill’s Content exchange between Rychlak and Cornwell isat and readers maywish to consult that website. On the basis of the evidence, the account offeredin Hitler’s Pope of Prof. Cornwell’s status as a Catholic and attitudetoward Pius XII when he began writing the book appears to be disingenuous.
Darwin and Conservatism
In “ Conservatives, Darwin& Design: An Exchange” (November 2000) , Larry Arnhartrestricts the universality of William A. Dembski’s specifieddesign criterion and then criticizes it.
As I understand Professor Demb ski’s concept of specified complexity, the right combination of specificity and complexity simply ensures that chancealone cannot account for certain phenomena. The detection of intelligent designthat cannot be explained by human intelligence requires that other intelligencebe responsible. Barring fantasies such as the intervention of space aliens,a supernatural agent must by default be responsible for the creation of humanity.As a Christian, Prof. Dembski can hardly be blamed for discussing the implications.
However, Prof. Arnhart states that “we cannot infer a divinely intelligentdesigner from our human experience” and would essentially reduce Prof. Dembski’sintelligent design criterion to a method of detecting intelligence that givesfalse signals (false “positives”) when human (or animal) agents are not responsible.However, there is nothing in the underlying logic of Prof. Dembski’s intelligentdesign criterion that limits the detection of intelligent design to human oranimal intelligence. One assumes that logic is logic, human or divine.
Prof. Arnhart does make an excellent point, however, regarding the timidityof intelligent design proponents. They are quite adept at pointing out the inadequacyof Darwinian evolution to account for the creation of mankind, but offer nopositive explanation of how God accomplished this miracle. This is a very difficultarea to tread in since it requires reconciling the Bible with biology and isundoubtedly even more hazardous to one’s professional well“being than intelligentdesign. But sound work in this area is long overdue.
John F. Lang Florence, South Carolina
Although he does not state it explicitly, Larry Arnhart gives away the presuppositionon which the rest of his argument is based in the last paragraph of his replyto Michael J. Behe and William A. Dembski. “By what observable causal mechanism,”he asks, “does the ‘intelligent designer’ execute these miraculous acts?” Heshows his true colors as a believer in materialism, for a miracle, by definition,is supernatural and outside the laws of nature. So he keeps looking for physicalexplanations that at the end of the day are not there.
Science is a great tool, but it is not the only or even the best source forknowledge. Nor is it only a tool for the defense of materialism. It is in factdependent upon philosophy, for without certain philosophical assumptions beingtrue (e.g., the orderly nature of the physical world, our ability to trust oursenses to acquire data, etc.), science cannot even get started.
Prof. Arnhart’s differentiation between “humanly intelligent design” and “divinelyintelligent design” is merely a distraction. For what we do know is that thetypes of “specified complexity” we see in nature are not created by randomness.Further, appealing to “intelligent design” is not an explanation to fill inthe gaps of our knowledge, but is based upon what we do know. There is no reasonto expect that the apparent design will necessarily be explained in physicalterms.
Cory Wilson Forks, Washington
As a Coast Guard officer, I hope that Professor Larry Arnhart would think differentlyin real maritime distress than he does aboard the good ship Darwin. A cleardemonstration that the ship of natural selection is sinking will not coax himoverboard; he will remain at his post until another vessel proven to be seaworthypulls alongside.
This line of reasoning is problematic, for both the mariner and the scientist.At sea, many heavy weather rescues are now performed by helicopter. When nodirect hoist can be made, the pilot’s instruction, heard through howling wind,may be to don lifejacket and leap into the water. Only then can recovery beeffected, safely away from the wreck’s debris. People who insist on a smallboat recovery in such circumstances are the frustration of every lifesavingcrew.
Prof. Arnhart seems to be in similar straits with Darwinian theory. He apparentlyrefuses to take seriously any evidence against Darwin unless it comes with avalid alternative “positive theory” of origins. For a social scientist to takethis position puzzles me. Doesn’t the scientific method function by proposinga hypothesis and trying to prove it wrong, with negative evidence? Wherethe hypothesis is not strictly testable, doesn’t the same basic approach stillapply? In any case, why must negative evidence against one theory depend onpositive evidence for another?
Perhaps being a scientist without a theory is as alarming as being a marinerwithout a ship. Waiting for a “positive theory” may be the respectable and rhetoricallyadvantageous thing to do, but is it scientific, and does it grasp the truth?Jumping into the cold sea of not being “taken seriously by the scientific community”would surely be a shock, but the courageous heart will never look back.
Dean C. Bruckner Annandale, Virginia
In reading the exchange between them, I kept waiting for Larry Arnhart to scoresome real points against Michael J. Behe, William A. Dembski, and the otherintelligent design theorists, but all I saw was the standard Darwinian same“oldsame“old. This is a pity, because it seems to me that intelligent design islooking for a meaty argument to cut its teeth on. What we have seen so far,though, has been thin gruel indeed.
Professor Arnhart’s argument against Behe just plain missed the point. If Prof.Behe were arguing from ignorance (i.e., that no Darwinian mechanism is yet knownfor the development of, for instance, the biochemistry of vision), then it wouldbe reasonable to answer, as Prof. Arnhart does, that it’s just a matter of timeuntil we do know such a mechanism. Behe’s actual point, though (at least asI read him), is simply a matter of logic”the Darwinian mechanism, taken on itsown terms, cannot account for vision (or the immune system, etc.). There isno way to “get there from here” with random mutations as the only vehicle. Oneor two steps of the process confer no selective advantage, so there would beno reason for them to be retained. Natural selection can only operate on theraw material present to it at a given moment; “promising innovations” will notpass the filter unless they confer an advantage as they are , not as theymight someday become. Prof. Behe’s argument requires an answer to the effectof, “Here are examples of mutations that have been retained, even though theyconfer no selective advantage, and this is why they are consistent with Darwin’stheory.”
Prof. Arnhart’s take on William Dembski with regard to “recourse to the supernatural”simply seems disingenuous. Prof. Dembski’s theory of specified complexity, inand of itself, requires no theistic conclusions, but as a Christian Dembskiexplores the implications of the theory from a Christian perspective. A Jewishwriter (such as Gerald Schroeder) might have drawn Jewish conclusions (and wouldn’tlikely have invoked “the Logos theology of John’s Gospel”). (There is an ironicsymmetry here with the oft“repeated claim that Darwinism doesn’t compel atheism;and yet plenty of Darwinists think that it does.) At root, Prof. Dembski simplyformulates criteria by which an inference of design can reasonably be made”ifa thing looks designed, how do we decide if it makes sense to think thatit was designed? The question of the designer’s identity need only beaddressed, if at all, much later. (It should be noted, however, that havingidentified a thing as “designed,” the list of possible designers has been shortenedby one”“Nobody” would no longer be one of the options; therein, perhaps, liesthe rub.)
When Prof. Arnhart gets around to the point he really wants to make”that weshould embrace Darwinism because it supports the idea of a fixed human nature”itstrikes me as something of a non sequitur. If a fixed human nature is the requisiteconcept, I don’t think we need the Darwinian hypothesis to get there. Theremust be dozens of other (and better) candidates, including intelligent design.The only way that Darwinism distinguishes itself from the crowd is if we stipulatein advance that all candidates will be required to pass a filter for scientificmaterialism, and, in fact, that is Prof. Arnhart’s criterion. Why scientificmaterialism? He doesn’t really say; it’s something like a bedrock principlefor him. It’s just how things are, not subject to question.
Craig K. Galer Lansing, Michigan
Several obstacles stand in the way of Larry Arnhart’s assertion (borrowed fromFrancis Fukuyama) “that Darwinian biology rightly understood confirms our commonsenseview of human beings as naturally social animals whose social life depends ona natural moral sense, which thus supports the conservative view of human nature.”
First and foremost, Darwin’s materialist underpinnings are part of a far morecomprehensive account of nature, Epicurean materialism, stretching all the wayback to ancient Greece. He did not invent the theory of evolution. It was alreadyspelled out very clearly by the great Roman Epicurean Lucretius in his DeRerum Natura . Anyone reading this account can only be struck by how littleDarwin added.
Why point this out? Because both for Lucretius and for Darwin, nature is essentiallyamoral. Morality arises only as an accident of natural selection, and it doesnot arise in just one form; like finch beaks, it has many variations, none ofthem better than any other.
A sign of this is the strange plea with which Darwin ends his Descent ofMan . Man spends much time worrying about the breeding of his animals, Darwinsays, taking “scrupulous care” of the “character and pedigree of his horses,cattle, and dogs before he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriagehe rarely, or never, takes any such care.” The “social instincts” that form“the basis for the development of the moral sense” are a result of natural selection;therefore, we do not find them in all human beings. In fact, the problem isthat “the inferior members” of society, who lack not only intelligence but moralsense, are breeding at such an alarming rate as “to supplant the better membersof society.”
The cure? “There should be open competition for all men; and the most ableshould not be prevented by laws or customs from succeeding best and rearingthe largest number of offspring.”
The obstacle that Darwin so delicately wishes to lay aside is that most cherishedof conservative institutions, monogamous permanent marriage. After all, youdon’t breed your best racehorse with only one mare.
A second point. The materialism that undergirds Darwin’s account is today coupledwith the Baconian view of nature as malleable to technological force. Any morallimits based on natural limits are only as permanent as the limits of our currenttechnology. If the natural limits that supposedly form the basis of our “moralinstincts” are ultimately the result of the chance variations of matter andenergy under the pressures of the struggle for preservation, why shouldn’t wetake evolution into our own hands? There is no reason for prohibiting the manipulationof nature. Thus, the seemingly natural limit which evolutionary nature has handedus (say, that a baby comes from sexual intercourse between a male and female)can be overridden by in vitro fertilization so as to make the time“honored conservativeinstitution of marriage unnecessary. Darwin’s goal of the propagation of theright sort of human being would be greatly aided by sperm banks, genetic screening,and artificial insemination.
I’m sorry, but Mr. Arnhart seems not to have read Darwin, nor our present situation,very carefully.
Benjamin Wiker Department of Classics and Honors Franciscan University of Steubenville Steubenville, Ohio
Because Larry Arnhart criticizes opponents of Darwinian theory for neglectingthe truth and falsity of intellectual arguments in favor of defending the foundationsof traditional morality, I was surprised to find him defending Darwinism inmuch the same manner that he criticizes.
Professor Arnhart emphasizes biological evidence for social traits in humansand animals (possessiveness, territoriality, and cooperation) as support fora notion that these traits are evidence of Darwinian biology. From here, heargues that socialist theories which violate these “instincts” are doomed tofail, and concludes that “a Darwinian understanding of human nature confirmsconservative social thought.”
I ask, by what rationale am I compelled to believe that such “biological instincts”are the expression of traits that have been reproductively rewarded? The mereexistence of biological evidence for these traits no more proves evolution thanthe existence of my eye proves it. If we agree that man is biologically equippedfor possessiveness or vision, then we can expect to agree that he will demonstratethose whether or not we understand why. How, then, does Darwinism confirm conservatism?
Prof. Arnhart argues that Darwinism denies the Marxist notion of the radicalmalleabililty of human nature. But if, as he seems to assert, human nature isthe product of Darwinian evolution, it is inherently malleable, though perhapsgradually so. His argument that we must embrace Darwinism for its ability tosustain conservative reasoning is unpersuasive.
Mary Ann Field Kingston, Washington
Larry Arnhart replies:
Phillip E. Johnson, Michael J. Behe, and William A. Dembski have been tryingto persuade conservatives to reject Darwinian biology and to adopt “intelligentdesign theory” as an alternative. They assert that the case for Darwinism isboth intellectually weak and morally subversive. In my article I disputed theseclaims by arguing that Darwinism is intellectually and morally defensible andthat a Darwinian naturalism provides scientific support for the conservativeview of human nature.
Professor Dembski insists that intelligent design theory is “entirely separablefrom creationism,” because intelligent design can be detected through scientificmethods of natural observation with “no recourse to the supernatural.” Thus,proponents of intelligent design theory are not just criticizing Darwinian theory;they also claim to offer an alternative scientific theory of their own. LikeMr. Lang, I am disappointed by the failure of the intelligent design theoriststo fulfill this promise by developing a positive theory of the observable causalmechanisms by which the intelligent designer creates every species of life andevery “irreducibly complex” mechanism that is beyond human or animal design.I cannot understand how such a theory could be set forth with “no recourse tothe supernatural.” Mr. Wilson insists that the intelligent designer of the universewould have to work by miracles that are outside the observable laws of nature.But wouldn’t explaining such miracles require the “recourse to the supernatural”that Prof. Dembski denies? Believing in miracles is an exercise in religiousfaith, not in scientific explanation. Natural science can lead us up to ultimatequestions about the First Cause of the laws of nature. But answering those ultimatequestions is a matter of faith.
I agree with Mr. Bruckner that there are difficulties with Darwinian theory”difficultiesthat Darwin himself confronted. But I cannot see how emphasizing those difficultiesconfirms intelligent design theory as an alternative scientific theory.
Mr. Galer claims that Prof. Behe has shown through a purely logical argumentthat complex mechanisms such as the visual system cannot be explained by Darwinism.Actually, Prof. Behe seems to concede that Darwin offered a plausible accountof how complex visual systems could have evolved from simpler systems. As Prof.Behe indicates, however, explaining how a nerve becomes sensitive to light wasbeyond Darwin, because this would have required a knowledge of biochemistrythat was beyond nineteenth“century science.
Mr. Lang says that “there is nothing in the underlying logic of Prof. Dembski’sintelligent design criterion that limits the detection of intelligent designto human or animal intelligence.” But if Prof. Dembski is going to appeal onlyto natural human experience with “no recourse to the supernatural,” then his“underlying logic” does indeed prevent him from moving to supernatural causesthat would be beyond natural experience. As I argued in my article, Messrs.Dembski and Behe fallaciously employ equivocation in the use of the term “intelligentdesign” so that they can move from “ humanly intelligent design” to “ divinely intelligent design” without acknowledging that this transcends the world ofnatural experience and enters the realm of faith.
Ms. Field suggests that conservatives can accept the “biological instincts”of human nature without any need to accept Darwinian explanations for the originof those instincts. Moreover, she worries that viewing human nature as a productof Darwinian evolution would make human nature “inherently malleable, thoughperhaps gradually so,” which might sustain the Marxist notion of the radicalmalleability of human nature.
Although Darwinian biology denies the eternity of species, it affirms the realityof species over long periods of evolutionary time. Even if species are not eternallyfixed but have evolved from ancestral species, this does not make them any lessreal for as long as they endure.
Part of that reality is that the human species is endowed with instinctivepropensities to natural desires such as parental care, sexual mating, familialbonding, social ranking, and justice as reciprocity. (These are five of thetwenty natural desires that I explain in my book Darwinian Natural Right as rooted in human biology.) If the good is the desirable, then human ethicsis natural insofar as it satisfies those natural human desires.
Unlike Mr. Wiker, I see no evidence that Darwin denied the natural basis ofthe desire for conjugal bonding in marriage. On the contrary, Darwin’s biologicaltheory of marriage as an expression of human nature was elaborated in EdwardWestermarck’s The History of Human Marriage , which is still the bestdefense of the conservative view of marriage as a natural institution.
Against Marxists and other utopian reformers who strive to transform humannature through social experimentation, conservatives look to the natural normsset by human nature. Darwinism sustains that conservative view of social lifeas rooted in natural law by explaining the biological basis of the natural humaninclinations. A Darwinian conservatism could revive the natural law traditionby reaffirming Thomas Aquinas’ insight that “natural right is that which naturehas taught all animals.”
Cynical About Goo“Goos?
When James Nuechterlein (“ Goo“GooTime,” November 2000 ) suggests that the thoughtful andinformed independent voter is a treasured myth, he is certainlybeing cynical. That’s okay; cynicism is often justifiedby facts. But when he says that the beliefs of most Americanvoters “can be defined. . .as either liberal or conservative,which means they fit more comfortably within” one or theother of our two major parties, he is both cynical and mistaken.
In fact, most Americans of my acquaintance (and generation) hold an eclecticpattern of beliefs, and are not easily labeled. It is perhaps facile to observe,by way of example, that one of the major parties is consistent in its supportof abortion rights, and another is consistent in its support of capital punishment,while a significant portion of the electorate is appalled by both.
Because of our two“party arrangement, citizens are called, in election afterelection, to choose people and parties for whom they feel little passion (andthat little is often manufactured by advertising and ratings“hungry televisionprograms). At best, they may choose to vote on a single issue, be it the environmentor the military or some other specificity on which they can agree with theirchosen candidate. Never mind the deep and, yes, philosophical disagreementson a host of lesser subjects, all of which the voter has resignedly squelchedin order to fulfill his or her civic duty.
To dismiss as “radicals of right or left” those whose political convictionsare fully and effectively represented by neither the Democrats nor the Republicansis unfairly reductive. It presumes that liberalism and conservatism in theirpresent forms are the only viable philosophies of government; worse, it presumesthat two mammoth organizations, answerable both to corporate donors and to theirown radical fringes, are the natural and inevitable vehicles of American democracy.
The problem with those “good“government” types whom Mr. Nuechterlein disdainsis not that they want politics without partisanship. It is merely that theyneed more parties to choose from.
(The Rev.) Michael Church St. Luke’s Lutheran Church Farmingdale, New York
James Nuechterlein replies:
Three quick points: 1) I do not see why it is “cynical” to point out the fact,known to all careful students of American politics, that, as Pastor Church putsit, “the thoughtful and informed independent voter is a treasured myth.” There’sa difference between skepticism and cynicism. 2) I did not say that “the beliefsof most American voters ‘can be defined. . .as either liberal or conservative.’”I said that only of “strong partisans.” 3) I also did not “dismiss as ‘radicalsof right or left’” all those who think their political views are adequatelyrepresented by neither Republicans nor Democrats. I made the quite differentpoint that “it is only radicals of right or left who consider Republicans andDemocrats as Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”
Pastor Church’s argument, in short, is not with what I wrote, but with whathis misreading made of what I wrote.
Do We Need a Supreme Court?
How meaningfully can Steven D. Smith (“ LegalTheories Nobody Believes,” November 2000 ) analyze studiesof the Supreme Court when he apparently does not fully comprehendthe nature of the judicial process, the separation of powers,and the rule of law?
He says that “judicial invalidation of laws enacted by elected legislators(or, in the case of ballot initiatives, by the citizens themselves) appearsto transgress the premises of democracy. Why, in a nation committed to ‘governmentof the people, by the people, for the people,’ should five robed appointees”or,often, just one”be permitted to overrule the decisions of the people or theirchosen representatives?”
According to Professor Smith, the courts should never reverse an act of Congressor of a state legislature, or invalidate a referendum, no matter what they provide.But in that situation the political majority always has uncontrolled power,and minorities, including holders of property, have no rights.
In that case, why have a Supreme Court at all?
John Tomasin West New York, New Jersey
Steven D. Smith replies:
Though I would plead guilty to “not fully comprehend[ing] the nature of thejudicial process, the separation of powers, and the rule of law,” I protestthat I should not be convicted of this deficiency on the evidence of the essaythat Mr. Tomasin criticizes (but seems not to have read with any care). Theproblem of the legitimacy of judicial review in a regime that counts itselfdemocratic (or the “countermajoritarian difficulty,” as it’s often called) isa familiar one”and the subject of virtual libraries of analysis by politicaltheorists and legal scholars. In my essay (which was after all a review of severalbooks), I simply note that problem, as countless others have done, and I describeand comment on the responses of the authors whose books I reviewed. The reviewoffers no affirmative prescriptions or prohibitions”and certainly does not advocatethe positions Mr. Tomasin ascribes to me”concerning the proper judicial role.
Dangers for Voucher Schools
In “ Populism and Parental Choice”(November 2000) , Professor John E. Coons considers inpassing the dangers of a loss of religious identity forreligious schools; although he does not say so explicitly,he appears to think that they can be avoided by carefullycrafted legislation. He should, in my opinion, be far lessoptimistic. The relatively minimal regulations of todaycan easily be expanded later, and schools will then be deeplydependent upon public funds.
But I wish to concentrate on an issue that is often overlooked in these debates”theissue of distinctive educational identity. It has happened before that whensomething desirable (say, a college education) is declared a right for all,quality is lost in the attempt to provide it. This danger is more imminent forvoucher schools than is the loss of religious identity, for even the “minimal”requirements already proposed raise it to a serious likelihood. It is hard tobelieve, for example, that college“prep private high schools with stiff academicadmissions tests would be able to use these unmodified amidst regulations for“racial neutrality,” which always end up requiring particular numerical outcomes.As a plausible precedent, charter schools in Michigan are required to admitstudents without regard to academic ability. There is also the matter of standardsfor graduation. In the Michigan proposal, eligibility for vouchers is tied towhether particular public schools have an excessive proportion of student failures.This would provide voucher schools with a powerful incentive not to fail “toomany” students themselves.
Finally, would voucher schools retain undiminished their power to expel students?It is an unpopular fact that private schools are safer and academically betterthan their public counterparts in part because permanent expulsion is a realpossibility for incorrigibly disruptive, profane, or dangerous students. I amhighly dubious about whether this freedom would continue once vouchers wereaccepted.
Many private schools have viewed themselves as providing a highly specifictype of education to those who value it. Public schools, on the other hand,must regard themselves as providing general educational (and other) servicesto any who need them. Between these two visions there is a great gulf fixed.When private schools become quasi“public by accepting vouchers, they will sooneror later exchange one self“image for the other. Thus, in all probability, thevery educational superiority for which private schools are valued will be erodedas a direct consequence of universalizing “private” education.
Lydia McGrew Kalamazoo, Michigan
John E. Coons replies:
I take Lydia McGrew’s point seriously and have done so since the 1960s. StephenSugarman and I have consistently promoted strong private school identity bothin theory and in the details of model legislation.
The answer to the legislative threat to school identity differs from stateto state depending upon the availability of the popular initiative to reformthe relevant constitution. Ms. McGrew’s Michigan (along with roughly twentyother states) allows such amendment by the people without legislative involvement.In such states proponents of school choice can and should draft their proposalsso as to disable future legislators from increasing regulation affecting schoolidentity. One such model reform would simply cap all controls on private schoolcurriculum and hiring practices at their present (or some historic) level. Thisform of amendment would also continue the school’s control over its own discipline(academic and behavioral) so long as it disclosed its rules to parents at thetime of application.
Thus, the school could require its students to take and pass those ethics andreligion courses that it prefers. It would also control the bulk of its admissions,exactly as it does today, but now without fear of legislative manipulation.However, one“fifth or so of its new admissions each year would go to low“incomechildren of the school’s selection”in accord with the settled practice (or expressedaspiration) of most private schools.
New regulation of facilities and of health and safety would in theory remainpossible”but only by a substantial super“majority of both houses of the statelegislature, with corresponding protections against local government bodies.Schools would not be regulated fiscally beyond requiring general disclosuresindicating solvency. The initiative would guarantee a voucher large enough toencourage new schools, and extra tuition would be allowed, so long as it wasmeans“tested (a practice familiar in the private sector).
Obviously legislatures historically have had the capacity (and often the inclination)to overregulate schools. In states like Michigan, voucher initiatives, whenproperly drafted, thus represent the instrument not to diminish but to enhanceboth the security of the school’s identity and the diversity of choices forthe family. In non“initiative states, by contrast, the legislature will remaina threat to private schools until the general culture of schooling is altered.Such a fundamental shift is predictable as choice demonstrates its benign effectsin those states that successfully reform by initiative. In fact, the changemay already be occurring at some deep level of civic consciousness. This issuggested by the popularity of the Milwaukee program, a reform legislated ina state that lacks the popular initiative. State regulators in Wisconsin havetried and (so far) failed to strangle this promising use of private enterprise.
The Wisconsin experience holds a political lesson for other states”both thosewith and those without the initiative. As of last November, citizens in sixstates have sent eight voucher initiatives to the polls. Unlike the progressiveWisconsin program, none of these propositions was written to include the necessaryminimum protections for those non“rich families who most need choice; and alleight were crushed by huge majorities of the voters. Meanwhile, national opinionsurveys and electoral results show parental choice to be a very popular idea”butonly when vulnerable families are given a modest preference. Paradoxically,it appears that the best opportunity to protect the identity of private schoolswill come as society helps them to reach out to the poor through subsidizedchoice provided by well“drafted initiatives. Ms. McGrew’s saving remnant mayfind its own identity rescued by the democratic instincts of ordinary people.
Against Atheistical Fanaticism
In his review of Jacques Barzun’s FromDawn to Decadence (November 2000 ), John J. Reilly overlooks Barzun’s refusalto face the dark side of the Enlightenment. Barzun praisesthe admittedly subversive agenda of L’Encyclopedie ,thus embracing the atheism, materialism, and cynicism ofthe philosophes. Edmund Burke was right on point when, inhis Reflections on the Revolution in France , he stated,“We cannot be ignorant of the spirit of atheistical fanaticismthat is inspired by a multitude of writings dispersed withincredible assiduity and expense and by sermons deliveredin all the streets and places of public resort in Paris.These writings and sermons have filled the populace witha black and savage atrocity of mind, which supersedes inthem the common feelings of Nature, as well as all sentimentsof morality and religion.” In my view, From Dawn to Decadence carries on in that same “spirit of atheistical fanaticism.”
As for Barzun’s defense of Rousseau, if people can’t yetmake the connection between Rousseau’s puerile utopian socialismand the bestiality and madness of the Terror, the Holocaust,the Soviet Gulags, and Mao’s Cultural Revolution, it onlytends to prove that many of us are as self“deceiving andblind to human nature as Messrs. Rousseau and Barzun.
For Barzun to rail, as he does at the end of his book, at the incivility ofthe current “postmodern” generation is both disingenous and ludicrous. Our currentcrop of deconstructionist fanatics are the Frankenstein’s monsters, i.e., theunnatural children, of modernism. Mr. Reilly has, like most reviewers, chosento genuflect to Barzun, presumably due to Barzun’s great age and eminence inacademia. May I be permitted to raise a voice in dissent? Napolean Bonaparteis said to have referred to Talleyrand as “excrement in a silk stocking.” WhileI wouldn’t go so far as to say that about Jacques Barzun, it seems an appositedescription of his book.
Gary Inbinder Woodland Hills, California
John J. Reilly replies:
The Enlightenment is one of those things that it does little good to condemn.Since everyone, left and right, pious and atheist, has been about equally influencedby it, any critique is part of the phenomenon. Regarding Rousseau, I believethat Barzun’s point is that, while there have indeed been many puerile utopians,a fair reading of Rousseau’s works shows that he did not happen to have beenone of them.
There is a commendable lack of fanaticism, atheistical or otherwise, in FromDawn to Decadence . We would do well to imitate it.
Doctored Words?
Putting words into a writer’s mouth and then pillorying him for them is hardlya characteristic either of responsible journalism or serious debate.
There is nothing in my New England Journal of Medicine editorial”sounfairly criticized by Richard John Neuhaus ( WhileWe’re At It, November 2000 )”that would lead any objectivereader to the erroneous conclusion that I would recommendbasing a decision about physician“assisted suicide on sucha shallow notion as “whatever the patient wants” or “whateverthe doctor deems to be ‘the unique needs’ of the patient.”Neither in the article nor elsewhere have I ever writtenor said such a thing, nor do I subscribe to it.
Not only that, but I have been an outspoken critic of the Oregon legislationthat allows physician“assisted suicide without weighing the entire range ofcomplexity of an individual’s request. I am anything but the “strong proponentof physician“assisted suicide” that Father Neuhaus calls me. The fact is thatsituations do arise”no more commonly, perhaps, than one or two times in anyphysician’s career”in which even the finest efforts at palliation cannot relievesuffering. It is then, I believe, that a physician, a patient, a family, andthe wise counsel of consultants may come together in agreement that such a courseis permissible.
Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D. Yale University New Haven, Connecticut
RJN replies:
Dr. Nuland was quoted verbatim and in context. His editorial in the NewEngland Journal of Medicine concludes: “Physicians who believe that it isa person’s right to choose death when suffering cannot otherwise be relievedmust turn to their consciences in deciding whether to provide help in such asituation. Once the decision to intervene has been made, the goal should beto ensure that death is as merciful and serene as possible.” It is true thatin the New Republic (November 2, 1998) he criticized what he sees asseveral deficiencies in the Oregon law, but in the same article he writes, “Thisis not to say that it will ever be possible to relieve every patient’s sufferingso thoroughly that there will no longer be any occasion to consider assistedsuicide or active forms of euthanasia, such as lethal injections.” He furtherstates, “If the fully informed person whose suffering I cannot relieve repeatedlyasks that I aid him in his determination to end his life, whether by pill orinjection, I am obliged to do so. A tolerant society should allow it.” Assumingthat Dr. Nuland believes strongly what he says he believes, it is accurate todescribe him as a “strong proponent of physician“assisted suicide.”
Christians and (Some) Jews Together?
“ Dabru Emet :A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity” (November2000 ) is both heartening and a call to something morethan passive gratitude. At a recent reconciliation servicecosponsored by the Christian congregation I attend and ourlocal synagogue, I was very deeply moved and, at the sametime, fearful that the fraternal and spiritual intensityof that moment would dissipate in the light of our usualpreoccupations. It is true that our congregations alreadyshare ventures in public service. But the uniquely sacrednature of reconciliation, if it is to be effectively sustained,calls for a correspondingly sacred expression.
With this end in mind, I suggest that we need, more than anything else, topray together” to establish some calendar and ritual, grounded in our commonscriptures, that will place us, as one, in the presence of God. Nothing willso sustain our good intentions, prevent our slipping back into indifferenceand suspicion, or render us ready for new revelations as will our common prostrationbefore the mystery of divine purpose.
Until we pray together with some regularity, I fear that good will and gooddeeds alone will not achieve that familial harmony we are meant to enjoy aschildren of a common Father.
John J. Savant Professor Emeritus Dominican University of California San Rafael, California
Thank you for printing “ DabruEmet :A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity. ”I found the document heartening and moving. But its billingon your front cover, “What Jews Believe About Christianity,”is at least preposterous and probably irresponsible. Asthe document itself puts it, the authors and signatoriesare “speaking only for ourselves”an interdenominationalgroup of Jewish scholars.” The statement is the productof a group of more or less liberal“leaning, or at leastecumenically inclined, academics and rabbis. A statementby a similarly composed group of liberal“leaning, ecumenicallyinclined Christian academics and clerics on some major topicof Christian faith would hardly be billed in First Thingsas “What Christians believe about. . . ” I have not yetseen Jewish response to the statement, but it’s fair topredict it will cause some controversy in some influentialcorners of the Jewish world. It will no doubt be provocative,lauded by many, suspected by some, and rejected by others.In any case it will provide occasion for substantial conversationand debate among Jews, academic, rabbinic, lay, and secular.Wonderful though the document is to my eyes, touting itas “What Jews Believe About Christianity” is just plainsilly.
P. J. Nugent Earlham College Richmond, Indiana
The editors reply:
To Mr. Nugent: We thought of making it “What Somewhat More Than One Hundredand Seventy Distinguished Jewish Professors and Rabbis Think About Christianity,”but it just wouldn’t fit on the cover.
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