Books, Arts & Manners

JAMES Burnham once remarked that for Americans the only plausible ideal of conduct is the gentleman. That sounded rather insurgent. But what else is there? The rock star? Phil Donahue? The Godfather? Natty Bumppo or Huck Finn? The Plains Indian? Mailer’s criminal hipster?

Of course every civilization worth bothering about has projected ideals of conduct. Athenian schoolboys studied and commented upon Achilles and Odysseus. Socrates and Jesus asked for an almost impossible internalizing of the heroic. Other worthy ideals have been proposed: the Roman orator, the medieval knight, the courtly lover, the humanist statesman, the Enlightenment man of reason.

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Jeffrey Hart

Jeffrey Hart is a contributor to National Review.

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JAMES Burnham once remarked that for Americans the only plausible ideal of conduct is the gentleman. That sounded rather insurgent. But what else is there? The rock star? Phil Donahue? The Godfather? Natty Bumppo or Huck Finn? The Plains Indian? Mailer’s criminal hipster?

Of course every civilization worth bothering about has projected ideals of conduct. Athenian schoolboys studied and commented upon Achilles and Odysseus. Socrates and Jesus asked for an almost impossible internalizing of the heroic. Other worthy ideals have been proposed: the Roman orator, the medieval knight, the courtly lover, the humanist statesman, the Enlightenment man of reason.