Don’t Forget the Apocryphal Cocktail Parties!
When exactly did publisher of racist junk science Adam Bellow allegedly convert from liberal views he never seems to have expressed in public? Eric Alterman investigates:
Bellow has made a career of calling himself a former liberal, though just when he was a liberal is hard to say. Times publishing correspondent Julie Bosman cites having Saul Bellow as a father as part of his liberal pedigree, apparently unaware that the great Jewish American novelist was perhaps the heavyweight champion of literary neoconservatism. His final work, Ravelstein, was a celebration of Straussian philosopher Allan Bloom. Bellow fils has, on different occasions, dated his alleged conversion to Ronald Reagan’s election, Oliver North’s Iran/Contra trial, the publication of Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind and various offenses against decency he’s apparently witnessed while waiting on line for smoked fish.
Bellow seems to have been “transformed” into a conservative more often than baseball (and, therefore, America) have Lost Their Innocence. But, in fairness, without this transformation he could not have brought us original, not at all self-serving ideas such as “self-sustaining wealth and privilege are great!” The Republican Party, after all, is where the ideas are.
Give “liberal” the broad meaning that wingnuts do, i.e., anything left of Cal Thomas, and his claims to conversion make sensee.
Ironically, those were the very events responsible for my conversion to communism.
Correctly me if I’m wrong, but I don’t know of any Saul Bellow novels – I’ve only read five or six – that have cops, private detectives, or military men doing what it takes to defeat brown bad guys in 250 pages or less. Therefore: liberal.
I believe it was the brown bad guy in Mr. Sammler’s Planet that provided the first insight into the direction Bellow Senior’s thinking was headed. Later, of course, there was The Dean’s December.
I can pinpoint the precise moment.
It was when he, the short white guy, was chosen last for basketball at his local Chicago playground.
His dad blamed affirmative action. That was good enough for Adam.
Oliver North? Really? Yeah, I guess I can see it. Instead of being an unkown retired COL he has his own show on FOX and is considered hero by half the country. Oh, how that poor man suffered….
I’m guessing Bellow’s transformation came when he acquired his first calculator and a copy of the estate tax. Also, anyone who calls Goldberg’s efflatus “a serious work of intellectual history” should considering laying off the smoked fish.
What dat fish been smokin’?
Apocryphal cocktail parties? Yes, I well remember the part about cocktail parites in the Gospel of Thomas . . .
No, no – those are Gnostic cocktail parties. Apocryphal cocktail parties were discussed in Enoch. But the real fun is to be had with the Pseudepigraphica. Those guys knew how to party down.
You can distinguish between the two by the serving of Vienna sausages.
Would you settle for an apocalyptic cocktail party? There was that one in Berlin, at the end of WWII, and Jim Jones’ blowout in Guyana, and the comet folks in California…
I’m not so sure that Saul Bellow can be called the champion of literary neoconservatism. As I recall, he had a public falling out with Midge Decter and Norman Podhoretz when Decter’s political neoconservatism led her to attacks on all literary modernism. Bellow, as I recall, defended literary modernism
Decter? Norm barely touched ‘er! It’s a wonder Tiffany Midgeson was conceived.
the republican party is the party of ideas! just because they all happen to be bad ideas, failed over and over again in practice, is no reason to be snide about it.
Also the same half dozen ideas they have been selling since before Hoover.
As best I can determine, Adam Bellow is 55 years old. If Reagan’s election was his turning point, then he was a “liberal” until the age of about 25.
Just proof that the conversion narrative is as important for modern American conservatives as it was for their spiritual forefathers, the Puritans.
I learned recently that apparently several knuckleheads running around the country claiming to have been Islamic terrorists before they found Jesus. That’s hardcore conversion narrating. I found why the FBI hasn’t arrested them. Must be Jesus.
It makes sense though. “I went to church, I went to youth group, I went to church, I’m Christian” lacks a certain something that only a past of Satanic witchcraft gay abortions can provide.
I think that in the larger picture (for movement conservatism generally), it serves as a validation of the redeeming truth of their message.
It’s clear that Bosman doesn’t want to be a Truth Vigilante, or indeed a member of the Truth Neighborhood Watch.
I’m pretty sure he was liberal until that cute girl from the campus environmental club wouldn’t sleep with him
Compare and contrast:
Victimhood for me, but not for thee.