Planet Utah

"Polite Society," the book

I've got an assignment for someone who's got a year's worth of free time on their hands. I want you to write a book on the culture of what I often refer to here as "polite society." It's a bit of misnomer because the people who are part of this culture are often very IM-polite. I call it polite society, however, because polite society people tend to think that their political beliefs, and the beliefs of others in their circle, are the only reasonable, acceptable beliefs one might hold in 21st-century America. Their viewpoints have taken on the status of universal truths, disputed only by troglodyte Christian conservatives who think that the Earth is 10,000 years old and that teenagers can suffocate sexual urges by meditating on Christ's suffering on the cross. If you tell a member of polite society that you are a Republican and that you voted for John McCain, they will look at you as if you have just announced that you have leprosy (the contagious kind). Either that, or they'll look upon you with pity, certain that you must be suffering the after-effects of a rattlesnake bite that occurred during one of your bizarre Jesus-worship rituals.

Getting the idea? If not, just think well educated--or at least well credentialed--middle- and upper-class Democrat or liberal Republican, pro-choice since birth, casually dismissive of W and Sarah Palin as "morons" and Republicans in general as mean-spirited and/or racist. This person has probably never listened to Rush Limbaugh, never watched Fox News, and never read Ann Coulter, but has strong opinions about all of them. Finally, he or she has few, if any, close friends who are Republican, pro-life, and socially conservative. The daily lives of such people are as unfamiliar to the denizen of polite society as the daily life of a Liberian machine shop worker.

Now that you've got the set-up, I need you to write a book consisting of three main elements. First, I want a more detailed, more data-driven description of polite society than the one I've given here. I want a combination of beliefs and demographics. Second, I want an assessment of the extent to which members of polite society hold positions of power and influence in Washington, in Hollywood, in the media, and in the nation's elementary schools, high schools, and universities. Finally, I want an appraisal of the impact of polite society on American policymaking, popular culture, media coverage, and education.

Please have your manuscript on my desk by January 12, 2010.

The Reagan book that still needs to be written

I just finished reading Bill Buckley's final book, The Reagan I Knew. I didn't learn much about RWR by reading the book, though I suppose it was mildly interesting to see some of Reagan's heretofore unpublished correspondence with Buckley.

Actually, one thing did catch my attention. It comes almost as an afterthought, very late in the book. Buckley notes that as early as the late 1960s, Reagan had a tendency to simply "turn off" after a certain amount of time out in public. He recounts an incident in which, after about 45 minutes on a receiving line, Reagan got a glassy, distant look in his eye and began simply going through the motions, offering only cursory greetings and failing to make any meaningful connections or conversation--even with people he knew intimately.

This insight in particular grabbed me because I remember reading once what I was certain must have been an apocryphal Reagan story: that after serving as a speaker at his son Michael's graduation, when Michael later mounted the podium to receive his diploma, then Governor Reagan acted as if he didn't know or recognize his own son. In light of Buckley's observation, it seems likely that the governor had probably "switched off" somewhere close to the middle of the alphabet, and was on total autopilot by the time Michael came up for his sheepskin and handshake.

It also caught my attention that while the Reagan described in the book is (unsurprisingly) modest, humble, and largely unimpressed with himself, Buckley comes off as a bit of a poser. He will write to the Reagans and say things such as (paraphrasing), "Alas, only a week left here in Gstadt before I must return to New York to accept some book award or other. (Will try to meet with Dick Nixon during the trip, if my schedule cooperates.) Then it's a brief sailing excursion down through the Keys. There's a tiny island 20 miles off the southern tip of Florida that produces a most remarkable Carmenere. It's turned Pat--a former teetotaler, as you know--into a bonafide oenophile. You really MUST join us!"

Finally, and regrettably, I have to report that the book does not explain, or even attempt to explain, what to me is the central mystery of Reagan's mind: how could he be capable of tremendous insight and lucidity at some moments, and then unravel into fantasy, self-deception, and incoherence at others? How could the same man who foresaw the imminent demise of communism be unable to recognize his own secretary of Housing and Urban Development? How could the man who wrote eloquent, articulate, and thoughtful letters throughout his presidency also (incorrectly) remember himself to have been present at the liberation of a Nazi death camp?

The book that answers those questions is the one that still needs to be written...before it's too late (i.e., before all of the good sources are dead and buried).