On Jeff Hart’s piece: I do agree that some of Jeff’s points are

vitiated by his having played fast and loose with the word “utopian.”

His anti-Wilsonian arguments need looking at again, too. As I

understand actual Wilsonianism, it would have divided Iraq into three

separate nations by now. I do think Jeff is right about the place of

abortion in America’s future, though too kind on Roe v. Wade as a

judicial imposition. For all its faults, though, this is the kind of

piece we all like to read and hope to write — a piece that gets

people talking.

As a founder member, with Tom Wolfe and Jonah Goldberg, of the

We-Really-Need-A-New-Metaphysics school of modern conservatism

(“Metacons”?)

I was disappointed in Jeff’s suggestion: “What the time calls for is

a recovery of the great structure of metaphysics, with the

Resurrection as its fulcrum, established as history, and interpreted

through Greek philosophy.”

We are, for better or worse, long, long past the point where a

metaphysics can be grounded in the tenets of Christianity even taken

in their most general interpretation. We are even further past the

point where an event like the Resurrection, which does not meet the

evidentiary standards modern man has become accustomed to — in law

and, especially, in science — can serve as a “fulcrum” for a general

outlook on our place in the universe. It may do so for individual

Christians, of course; but the common understanding we Metacons seek

should find favor with the one-fifth to one-quarter of our people (not

to mention much higher proportions of our intellectual elites, and of

our fellow Western Civ brethren in Europe and elsewhere) who are not

Christians.