European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 19, 1985, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes thursday december 19, 1985 columns & comments Anthony Lewis Neo conserva ves preaching gloom and bitterness few  Al movements in this country have won so much political influence so fast. The , he sect of one time liberals who turned right see their ideas on the March in american foreign and military policy. Their views proliferate in the journals. The president of the United Stales says they inspire him. The strange thing is that the neocon Scriva tics seem to pet so Little Joy from i hair Success. The dominant tones in their writing Are gloom and bitterness. They sound As if they were a hunted minority and the hated left were taking Over the country. The phenomenon struck me again the other Day when i read a piece in the new York. Times by a principal neoconservative figure. Midge Ducler. The piece at tacked a new organi action. Accuracy in Academia which is getting College Stu dents to Monitor their professors for lib eral  spying on teachers is a repellent no Tion reminiscent of totalitarian regimes idling children to re porn on their parents. Many conservatives have properly Crit Ici cd the idea and Decter did a Fine Job of marshalling the arguments against it. But she did not leave to Ltd matter there. She asserted that in fact there was a dangerous political problem in american col Leges and universities leftist influence that has put them in a deplorable Condi  Decter traced the problem to the 1960s, with its Vietnam protests. The country s colleges and universities. She said simply sloughed off the Burden of their proper authority and became a veritable hotbed of reckless mindless a  the Radical grip is still on the universities. Do ctr said. The authority that should inhere in the teacher Pupil relationship is perverted. If the . Govern ment considered a foreign policy Initia Tive As if by magic from one end of the country to the other the campuses will be instantly inundated by lectures rallies and propaganda films arguing that the . Is once again going to play the role of International  Reading All that. I wondered what country Decter was in what Century. George will aha a Liberal arts1 p65ree we no far-k16ht arts pe6ree? Asp we it Bachelor of arts obv/0usly anti family " american univ Cisily students today Are More conservative than they have been in Many years and anyone who has any con tact with universities knows thai. Student concern is with careers not ideology. In what political activity there is conservative influence is stronger than it has been in memory. The economist of London Drew the Pic Ture accurately in a recent Issue. Conserva Tives Are doing most of the political pushing on american campuses it said and Stu dents worried about their own Job prospects rather than Good causes have been going that Way anyway. Conservative groups Are pouring millions into proselytizing among Young  a group called College republicans get $100.000 from the Republican National committee and raises another $200,000 for its activities. College democrats has an an Nual budget of $1.000. In College publications Loo conservatives arc the aggressive Force. There arc Many new conservative magazines and newspapers on Campus. They gel More than $150,000 a year tic economist says from the Institute for educational affairs set up by  Irving Kristol. Decter says it is wrong to speak of Liber Al Bias in the United states because no one Means Liberal anymore the word has simply become a euphemism for leftist " again one rubs one s eyes and wonders whether she is living in a different country. America today has its most ideological conservative president. It is the Only democracy without a substantial socialist party. Financial support for conservative politic u overwhelming. Decter said Many Wise things in her piece about the danger of persecuting opinions that differ from one s own. The Only Way to Deal with words and ideas and teachings one deplores she said is to offer better words and ideas and  that is indeed the american belief the madisonian belief. How i wish that she and her fellow  would adopt that reflective Lone generally instead of seeing All life As a Zero sum game in which the Good Guys Are desperately behind. New York times news str vice Bill Buckley piloting conservatism info the Light this is a truth it is better to Light a Candle than curse the darkness. This is a fact when the third Day in his Cradle i la Wager Bill Buckley decided that darkness was descending on Yale and the rest of the wot. He resolved to Light a giant festive Bonfire. He did. It is called contemporary conservatism. He has just turned 60 and his Magazine National review has just turned 30, so it is time for me whose writing career began at or to write an appreciation. There is a misapprehension that to disagree with Bill is to risk disintegrating scorched and crinkled beneath the fire of his ire. Actually he knows that anger is a useful servant but a bad master. When he decided that Alc like much else including me was unsatisfactory he did not reduce his loyalty he redoubled his Alloca Tion of Energy toward improving it. It will be impossible to write a history of Amer a in the last half of the 20th Century without acknowledging the weight of Buckley s works. Of How Many journalists can that be said Bill once wrote that sailing and skiing arc the purest sports because they involve Sublime collaboration Between the participant and natural forces wind and Gravity. That thought is quintessential Buckley a Flash of insight couched As cheerful dogmatism. His degree of dogmatism often is inversely proportional to the Gravity of the Issue. Thirty years ago when or nailed its colors no pastels please to its Mast and set sail Bobbing out upon the Blue water of american controversy the list o Best Selling books included Sloan Wilson s the Man in the Gray flannel suit and Norman Vincent peal s the Power of positive  launching or required positive thinking because there was then so much conformity in the nation s intellectual life which was swathed and smothered in the Gray mental flannel of a land liberalism. As a Sailor Bill knows the truth of this Maxim voyaging is Victory. There can be ample exhilaration in the Mode of venturing. His voyage to the Victory of the conservative movement began As a lonely journey in a Small Sloop. The Early years were spent tacking into Strong winds. But Prince William the navigator undertook something no Mere Magellan Ever tried. He worked to change the wind he did change it using words. And such words. As someone once said of a Poco he kept As it were a harem of words to which he was constantly and absolutely faithful. Some he favored More than others but he neglected none. He used them More often out of compliment than of  throughout his exuberant Public career Bill has been stigmatized yes stigmatized As Clever merely Clever. People who have lost arguments to him have said they lost Only Only because he is articulate we arc a h Juca of Rule 8 pc acc � Lhoir razor like but Bill s career As a controversial St has underscored at the expense of adversaries the fact that you cannot thin1 what you cannot say. There is a Book to consider considered to be written on Why this country Ever came verbal facility the Way English puritans Church ornamentation As satan s work. Politically committed people live in constant danger of becoming politically obsessed and winding up like gatsby whose warped personality was the Price of Liv ing top Long with a single dream. The occupational Hazard of political movements is terminal earnestness. Political journals often become lumps of dullness leavened Only by outbursts of hysteria. What was said of Gladstone is True of them they do not exactly Lack a sense of humor but they Are not often in the mood to bemused. Furthermore because conservatism is realism about Mankind s limitations it docs not lend itself to the flattering of inc species. Conservatives arc healthily Dis posed to detect signs that the clock of time is running Down and things arc going to wrack and ruin. Thu disposition frequently gives them a certain Grimnes. Bui s singular achievement has been a compatible marriage Between conservatism and cheerfulness. The Range of Bill s pleasures sailing harpsichords Peanut butter Bach arc so numerous that none of them can really be a source. As has been said Happi Ness is not what it is How. It is a Talent and hence Nappy people have no particular reason for being so they just arc. Bill is fortunate but not More so than we to have profited from his example. Psi Hansjon Pojl will we Grecu