In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Norman Podhoretz emerged from semi-retirement to express his approval for Sarah Palin. No, I don’t propose to revisit the Sarah, pro- and con- debate, which will remain sterile and tedious until she actually, like, runs for something (or not). But I do want to suggest a revision to Podohoretz’s interpretation of William F. Buckley’s of most famous and, I think, misunderstood remark: that he’d rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phonebook than the combined faculties of Harvard and MIT.
Now Podhoretz admits that what Buckley meant is not immediately clear. Neverthless, he, like almost everyone else, takes it as endorsement of populism. Better Joe the Plumber–or, perhaps, Al the Electrician–than Quincy Mather Winthrop, the Lowell Professor of 14th Century Central Asian Aesthetics. Well, maybe so. But the thing about the phonebook is that the people it lists are pretty randomly distributed. And 2000 is a lot a names, which could very well include a few of the good professor’s colleges in addition to a healthy majority of regular folks.
So it seems that Buckley was suggesting that it’s better to be governed by something like a representative sample of the population as whole than a guild of professors. Which is even more plausible than betting on the individual Al rather than the individual Quincy. On the other hand, there’s likely to be a place in that sample for intellectuals, even if a smaller one than they often think they deserve.
March 30th, 2010 | 1:59 pm
Sortition for the lower house, and the Senate elected by the state legislature and while we’re at it, voter eligibility would be based on military service, property ownership, and a short history test…yeah, that’s the ticket!
March 30th, 2010 | 2:33 pm
Perhaps Bronson Alcott.
March 30th, 2010 | 3:41 pm
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March 30th, 2010 | 4:37 pm
Well done-you know your Brahmins.
March 31st, 2010 | 12:22 am
It seems to me it was an attack on Harvard elitists who had some pretty stupid views rather than an endorsement of populists who also have some pretty stupid views.
March 31st, 2010 | 8:09 am
And this is to say nothing of celebrity populists, who are neither ordinary populists nor ordinary people, for good or for ill. Then again, celebrities are taking on the role of representatives of wider populations. An issue probably not adequately addressed from Buckley’s still otherwise instructive point of departure.
March 31st, 2010 | 9:45 pm
Sarah Palin would not necessarily be a bad choice as a presidental candidate. However, she has, deserved or not, the reputation of not being the brighted of flashlights. My guess is this is due more to ignorance on her part rather than a lack of brains. Therefore, if she could become more educated, I might endorse her. My guess is that Buckley was more against intellectuals who espoused radical liberal ideas, who might then try to manifest those ideas through legeslation or public policy, than intellectuals per se. He, in my view, probably would prefer a random sample of conservative intellectuals to ru our county, rather than regular, average people.
April 1st, 2010 | 2:29 pm
My recollection is that Buckley comment was “the first 500 names”, referring to the approximate number of Congressmen in the House and Senate.
April 2nd, 2010 | 6:47 pm
We need intellectuals as well as those of us who have to rattle our brains like a can of pennies in order to make cents of things. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
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