Kirzner on Rueff

Podhoretz is very bright and his book very well worth reading, but it is also very thin, really, and terribly provincial. The target at which so vast a professed intelligence and ambition are aimed is almost ludicrously narrow: to be a recognized family critic and editor and pull a certain amount of cash and fame out of the commercial publishing world. Nothing wrong with that, certainly. But still there are other potentials—though you could hardly suppose so from this book, which tells of the New York literary and intellectual scene, or rather of the family and family-connected portion of that scene, as if this were the world, were all the world. Not only is there no mention of any region of America outside greater New York, or of any American activity other than writing, publishing and teaching; there are not even metaphors or images drawn from the sights, sounds and smells of American life. In fact, there is little concrete imagery of any sort; we are presented with the abstract population of an abstract landscape.

True, life in the family does not encourage a positive interest in America, as Podhoretz’ text amply indicates. “A sense of hopelessness as to the fate of American culture at large. . . .” “The [family’s] style took its bearings not from any American tradition of letters. . . .” “When the family spoke of itself or was spoken of as ‘alienated,’ the reference might be to any number of things, but the deepest thing of all was this: They did not feel that they belonged to America or that America belonged to them.” (N. P.’s italics.) “Far from entertaining the notion that its work was part of a battle for the soul of America which had a chance of eventually being won, the family thanked God (as it were) that it was surviving at all in so inhospitable a climate, and devoted much of its energy to protecting itself from the surrounding American world.” “But if not to America, then to what did the family think it belonged? Not certainly, to the Jewish people. They, of course, were universal men.” “Universal”— that is to say, abstract in an abstract world.

IK

About the Author

Israel M. Kirzner

Featured Tags

Podhoretz is very bright and his book very well worth reading, but it is also very thin, really, and terribly provincial. The target at which so vast a professed intelligence and ambition are aimed is almost ludicrously narrow: to be a recognized family critic and editor and pull a certain amount of cash and fame out of the commercial publishing world. Nothing wrong with that, certainly. But still there are other potentials—though you could hardly suppose so from this book, which tells of the New York literary and intellectual scene, or rather of the family and family-connected portion of that scene, as if this were the world, were all the world. Not only is there no mention of any region of America outside greater New York, or of any American activity other than writing, publishing and teaching; there are not even metaphors or images drawn from the sights, sounds and smells of American life. In fact, there is little concrete imagery of any sort; we are presented with the abstract population of an abstract landscape.

True, life in the family does not encourage a positive interest in America, as Podhoretz’ text amply indicates. “A sense of hopelessness as to the fate of American culture at large. . . .” “The [family’s] style took its bearings not from any American tradition of letters. . . .” “When the family spoke of itself or was spoken of as ‘alienated,’ the reference might be to any number of things, but the deepest thing of all was this: They did not feel that they belonged to America or that America belonged to them.” (N. P.’s italics.) “Far from entertaining the notion that its work was part of a battle for the soul of America which had a chance of eventually being won, the family thanked God (as it were) that it was surviving at all in so inhospitable a climate, and devoted much of its energy to protecting itself from the surrounding American world.” “But if not to America, then to what did the family think it belonged? Not certainly, to the Jewish people. They, of course, were universal men.” “Universal”— that is to say, abstract in an abstract world.