Today, I wrap up my series on Bruce and Suzie Kovner with Part V. I ask them some fundamental questions about philanthropy: How do you know what to give to? How do you know how much to give? How do you know whether the money is doing any good? And I finish with some encomia, including one of my own.

I wanted to quote, here on the Corner, something that Bill Kristol said:

“While Bruce is well educated, he continues to educate himself, which is not the case with all of us. We tend to coast on our previous education. Also, Bruce is a man who thinks for himself. He is not a camp follower, of any group. I think he was really shaped by his teachers, especially Ed Banfield, who was such an original thinker, a strict thinker, without any sloppiness in him. Bruce reflects that.”

(Edward C. Banfield was the great political scientist at Harvard, the author of The Unheavenly City, among other works.)

Individualism is one of the things I prize about conservatism, broadly speaking. Thinking for yourself. Not running with the herd. Obeying conscience. When I was coming of age, the Left was strongly conformist. “Liberals” were not very liberal. The pressure they applied, to conform, to get with the program, was immense. Conservatives were far more liberal: They tolerated, even encouraged, individual thinking and expression.

In recent years, I have learned that the Right can be just as conformist as the Left. The Left does not corner the market on bullying. And groupthink is a curse all over.

What I heard from the Left, over and over, was, basically, “Shut up. If you don’t agree with me — if you deviate an inch from orthodoxy, as I define it, or as my friends and I define it — shut up.” I never heard this from the other side. But the urge to hush others is common.

One answer to “Shut up” is, “No, thanks: I’m an American.”

Anyway, to be continued, ad infinitum . . .