Happy Birthday, Walker Percy

The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. This morning, for example, I felt as if I had come to myself on a strange island. And what does such a cast away do? Why he pokes around the neighborhood and he doesn't miss a trick. To become aware of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.

Walker Percy, born on this day in 1916

As a guest with Eudora Welty on Firing Fine, December 12, 1972 ...

Finest.

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

Viktor E. Frankl, from Man's Search for Meaning

Execupundit has human beings behaving rightly, with dignity, respect, and decorum ...

Acuteness.

Has the passage of twenty years paid off in terms of public acuteness in listening to certain arguments?

Endless.

From the Firing Line episode that aired December 3, 1981, guests Paul Hollander and Ernest Van den Haag discuss why intellectuals are so dumb ...

WFB: Is it safe to say that once you've learned political truths you are not again easily deceived?

PH: No, I'm afraid that's not quite true, because many people who learned something from the case of the Soviet Union fell again on China and on Cuba, and are now falling for Nicaragua right after Cuba; so I think this quest for a good society outside your own is endless.

Nearer.

From a 1980 episode of Firing Line, Buckley and Malcolm Muggeridge discuss religion and the need for religions institutions (the segemnt from 12:39 -31:14 is outstanding) ...

BUCKLEY

Mightn't it be said, with some confidence, that the search for historical and sociological knowledge teaches us what in fact you have formulated in one of your propositions, the way you put it is as follows: "There can never be a good government, only governments that are less bad than others.  The quest for a perfect government ends infallibly in anarchy or the Gulag Archipeligo.

That is an anti-utopian conviction of yours that I happen to share, and it, once again using the Christian metaphor, distinguishes the City of Man from the City of God, does it not?  But, isn't it true that a pursuit of knowledge teaches us the limitations of government?

MUGGERIDGE

It should -- but it doesn't always.  In that it's done for itself alone, it tends to increase people's arrogance, rather than teach them humility, which, of course, is the condition of all awareness of truth.  Simone Weil says that the only purpose of seeking knowledge through education is to make men realize the inadequacy of their knowledge.  Realizing that, of course, then they're brought nearer to God.  But when you make knowledge an end in itself, then it's destructive of truth.

Titan.

Firing Line from February 18, 1977 ... "Borges: South America's Titan"

The discussion about technique from 9:00 to 36:00 is well worth the time ...

Rush.

Firing Line from October 16, 1989 includes Buckley's "Walter Mitty Rush," playing the clanger with the Phoenix Symphony (beginning at 17:11) ...

Listen.

From a 1983 episode of Firing Line, Buckley and guest Mortimer Adler in discussion on how to speak and how to listen ...

Life.

Never, our archaeologists of the future will surely conclude, was any generation of men intent upon the pursuit of happiness more advantageously placed to attain it, who yet, with seeming deliberation, took the opposite course—toward chaos, not order; toward breakdown, not stability; toward death, destruction and darkness, not life, creativity and light.

Malcom Muggeridge

From a classic episode of Firing Line, Buckley and Muggeridge discuss the topic, "How Does One Find Faith?" ...

Respectful.

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr., guest Noam Chomsky, recorded on April 3, 1969 ...

CHOMSKY: What seems to me a very, in a sense, terrifying aspect of our society and other societies is the equanimity and the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe such events. I think that’s more terrifying than the occasional Hitler or LeMay or other that crops up. These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity, and therefore I think that it’s in some sense the sane and reasonable and tolerant people who share a very serious burden of guilt that they very easily throw on the shoulders of others who seem more extreme and more violent.

An example of the respectful clash of two very different ideas.

Happy Birthday, Percy

The salvation of art derives in the best of modern times from a celebration of the triumph of the autonomous self—as in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony—and in the worst of times from naming the unspeakable: the strange and feckless movements of the self trying to escape itself. Exhilaration comes from naming the unnameable and hearing it named. 

Walker Percy, born on this day in 1916, from Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book

As a guest with Eudora Welty on Firing Fine, December 12, 1972 ...

Happy Birthday, Adler

We are tied down, all our days and for the greater part of our days, to the commonplace. That is where contact with the great thinkers, great literature helps. In their company we are still in the ordinary world, but it is the ordinary world transfigured and seen through the eyes of wisdom and genius. And some of their genius becomes ours.

Mortimer Adler, born on this day in 1902.

From 1983, Adler in conversation with William F. Buckley Jr. on Firing Line ... "How to Speak, How to Listen" ...

Firing Line was so calming.  The music. the set, the suits, the respectful discourse ...

Liberal.

From 1993, William F. Buckley Jr. discusses the question "What is Liberal Education?" with Elizabeth T. Kennan, John Agresto, and Cornel West ...

Respectfully.

Firing Line's Margaret Hoover hosts Dr. Cornel West and Dr. Robert George, the “ideological odd couple,” as they discuss the importance of civil discourse in this era of polarization.

CONNECT

Back.

Buckley, Kingsley Amis, and John Braine discuss the road back from socialism ...

Find.

Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. and Malcolm Muggeridge: "How Does One Find Faith?" ...

Faith.

William F. Buckley visits with Malcolm Muggeridge on Firing Line discussing "How Does One Find Faith" ...

Faith.

From the September 6, 1980 episode of Firing Line, William F. Buckley Jr. discusses religious faith with Malcolm Muggeridge ...