Journey into the Whirlwind
Within the Whirlwind
By Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg

The Thinking Housewife Book Club

Years ago, I picked up the books of Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg and was so astonished by the clarity of her memories and by both the Stoicism and feeling with which she described unimaginable suffering, cruelty and bureaucratic absurdity, that I vowed to actively remember her forever, as if she was a relative or a good friend lost in a plane crash.  That’s why I return, and I imagine others return, to these books every so often and remember her remembering, vicariously reliving that time when Ginzburg was in solitary confinement in the Yaroslavl prison, the days when she traveled the Sea of Okhotsk in the stench-filled hold of a slave ship and that moment when she encountered berries in the snow while felling trees in the subarctic Siberian taiga:

It was already May when, as I was crouching close to the ground in order to cut the branches off a felled larch tree, I noticed in the thawed patch near the stump that miracle of nature – a sprig with five or six berries on it, of a red so deep that they looked almost black, and so tender that it broke one’s heart to look at them. As with all over-ripe beauties, they could be destroyed by the slightest touch, however careful. If you tried to pick them., they burst in your fingers; but you could lie on the ground and suck them off the branch with your dried, chapped lips, crushing each ojne separately against your palate and savoring its flavor. The taste was indescribable, like that of an old wine – and not to be compared with ordinary cranberries: its sweetness and heady flavor were those of victory over suffering and winter. (Journey into the Whirlwind,  Transl. Paul Stevenson and Max Hayward)

Soviet Communism lies in the dustbin of history, but for all that has been said and written,  its full reality has not permeated the consciousness of many Westerners. The extremity of their suffering calls us to know at least some of the victims of Soviet Communism up close. Yet the inhabitants of the dark underworld of Soviet concentration camps, the zeks and deportees, the exiles and prisoners, still have not gained the attention they are due. Alexander Solzhenitsyn is world famous, but other accomplished memoirists have never achieved the ranks of Anne Frank, Primo Levi or Elie Wiesel. The warmth once extended to Stalin and, to Communism in general, perhaps lives on in the muted horror over their legacy. Lingering bad conscience, the close affinity of Communist ideals of equality and social justice to the objectives of modern liberalism, must explain why someone like Ginzburg is rarely read in American high schools or universities.  Here is an author meant for the student pondering the lessons of the twentieth century. And, regardless of its lessons, here is a story as gripping as the best works of the imagination.   Read More »

THIS EXPLANATION by Russell Kirk of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s former influence on American intellectual life is so funny and true that when I first read it I burst out laughing (in a very restrained and housewifely way). I have always found reading Ralph Waldo Emerson to be like riding a roller coaster. When the trip is over, you are exactly where you began except your hair is messed up. Here is Kirk:

When, as in some of the Transcendentalists and their Unitarian progenitors, the transplanted Germanic idealism which inspired their system seemed to sustain a kind of conservatism, this was by accident, not from the logic of things. Hegel himself was a conservative only from chance and expediency. The whole melioristic, individualistic tendency of their philosophy was destructive of conservative values. Reliance upon private judgment and personal emotion, contempt for prescription and the experience of the species, a social morality alternately and bewilderingly egocentric or all-embracing (the contradiction so frequently encountered in Rousseau) – these qualities of Emerson’s thought gratified a popular American craving which ever since has fed upon Emersonian “Self-Reliance” and “Experience” and “Nature” and his other individualistic manifestoes. Read More »

YOU’VE heard many fantastic liberal theories as to why members of the underclass are not responsible for their own actions and why government largesse must be increased, but here is one that takes the cake. Nicholas Kristof argues that early childhood intervention may be too late to “break the cycle of poverty.” The prenatal environment determines later success. The obese were exposed to doughnuts in the womb and criminals may have had mothers with worries.

This is a whole new frontier for socialist effort. Kristof does not say what the cure for these prenatal disasters may be other than cleaning up the environment. But imagine what this might cost with national health care. Head Start will seem cheap by comparison. Read More »

THOMAS F. BERTONNEAU writes:

The lore of alien visitation and the flying saucers is one of my hobbies. It occurs to me that the aliens might already be wise to Mrs. Othman. In the UFO lore, the “contactees” are never people of office or elevated station; they’re always backwoods people, dirt farmers, highway hamburger stand owners, slightly maladjusted teenagers and the like. The one exception that comes to mind is ex-President Jimmy Carter, who reported a close encounter, but without “contact.” Of course, Carter was also the only serving president to be the victim of a rabbit attack. It is difficult to interpret these things with certainty. If I were an alien visiting the earth in the late 1970s, I would probably have knocked on Billy Carter’s door. I have the intuition that Billy was a better greeter than his brother Jimmy. Considering his ears, Ross Perot probably was an alien. Obama is an alien of a different kind. Once or twice in a faculty meeting (a college teacher, I work in the most ferociously, homogeneously left-liberal institution of them all), I have gotten the distinct impression that I am an alien.

Klaatu barad nikto

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IMAGINE traveling millions of miles to a new planet and the first person you meet is a U.N. bureaucrat. Imagine your disillusionment when Mrs. Othman sits you down for a PowerPoint presentation or hands you a massive folder crammed with brochures, maps and coupons.

Aliens should be greeted by a small child of around four or five. He will know what to say.

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BIRTH CONTROL pills have already been linked in some studies to breast cancer and lower male fertility. New evidence suggests they may alter the brain structure of women too. According to Scientific American,  a study reported in the journal Brain Research “found that birth control pills have structural effects on regions of the brain that govern higher-order cognitive activities, suggesting that a woman on birth control pills may literally not be herself — or is herself, on steroids.” The brains of women on the pill show smaller amounts of the “gray matter” that affects learning and memory. 

The human endocrine system is remarkably complex and delicate. The full effects of a “steroid hormone cocktail” on this sensitive infrastructure may take many years to come to light. But there is already significant evidence that synthetic hormones damage the body and, when secreted into public water supplies, the environment. Here is a major public health issue seldom reported in the mainstream press.

Whether these effects on the physical structure of the brain are confirmed or not, artificial birth control unquestionably alters the psyche of women and tinkers with awareness. The birth control pill changes a woman’s mental outlook. Femininity is openness, a form of attentiveness which artificial contraception destroys.

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Ed Miliband and Justine Thornton

KATHERYN GALLANT writes:

Your post “Marriage Continues Its Downward Slide” has an interesting echo in current events in Britain. The new leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, is 40 years old and the father of a 15-month-old son, but is not married to the child’s mother, a barrister named Justine Thornton, who is expecting another child in November. Mr. Miliband is not a practicing Christian (he was brought up in a secular Jewish home: his father was a noted Marxist scholar) and considers himself an atheist (see the Wikipedia entry on him), and seems to consider “getting around to marriage” with his long-time partner perfectly all right. When “asked whether the state should promote marriage, [Miliband] admitted that given that he had not married, he could hardly tell other people to do so.”  Read More »

A. writes:

Here is a statue of Pancho Villa, a known murderer and rapist. I know of stories about him riding into town and the people would have to hide their little girls in holes in the ground, covered with boards and dirt to protect them from rape, kidnapping and killing. He stands in the middle of Tucson, Arizona at the main entrance to downtown. Read More »

The Cowboy, Frederic Remington

STATUES are living ghosts. They exist among us, frozen bronze and stone, silent and alive. This is the natural medium for heroes, the glorification of the individual and the sealing in stone of a spiritual narrative. No other art form depicts the important figures of the past in the same concrete, larger-than-life way. It is no wonder that the heroic statue is offensive to the contemporary sensibility, particularly the sensibility of the artist trained to be perpetually aggrieved and professionally stunned by the imperfections of warriors, political leaders, explorers and kings. Liberalism’s distrust of Western heritage and its suspicion of heroes is not conducive to affection for the bronze horseman or the marble saint. There must be some way to remove them from their pedestals, figuratively if not actually. The Metropolitan Museum put its paintings in storage during World War II to protect them. It would be too much to do the same here. But it would be nice if we could do something for these expressive artifacts in our parks and public squares. Perhaps the best  we could do is collect them all in some safe warehouse until we are permitted to love our ancestors again. 

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 SEBASTIEN WRITES:

For three years years now the Chateau de Versailles has been disfigured by temporary exhibitions of state-promoted contemporary art. This year the culprit is the Japanese manga ‘artist’ Takashi Murakami whose plastic sculptures have ruined the Versailles experience for hundreds of thousands of tourists from all the over the world. Some of the most angry tourists are the Japanese. The French Embasssy in Paris has been inundatedby phone calls from Japanese citizens apologising for the trouble caused by the artworks. Over 12,000 people have signed two petitions protesting the Murakami exhibit and demonstrations have been held at the gates of the 17th century chateau. As a result, the director of the Palace of Versailles has agreed to hold no more art exhibits in the chateau’s royal apartments,  a decision that has angered the contemporary art community. 

Murakami said in a press statement, “I am the Cheshire Cat who greets Alice in Wonderland with his devilish grin, and chatters on as she wanders around the chateau.” The leader of a group formed in protest has called him “a parasite that feeds on an existing work of art.” 

The financial interest at stake in these public arts displays is not insignificant. Read More »

THIS IS the Queen Victoria statue near Hyde Park in Sydney, Australia. The Queen’s get-up is part of a public art project that “celebrates the power of creativity in unexpected spaces.” Public art is another term for public desecration. Is that a dish brush (or toilet bowl brush) in Victoria’s hand?

The children who see this statue will probably never forget it. They will forever regard the Queen as a buffoon.

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COLLEGES, which are always seeking new marketing schemes now that they aggressively pursue a business model, almost universally advertise their study abroad programs. For $50,000, or whatever the going rate for tuition, parents send their college students to a foreign country for a year. Why should a young person party in his native country when he can live hard on an international scale?  Read More »

TRADITIONALISTS working for a turnabout in Western culture are often asked this question. What guarantee is there that civilization will be restored? Doesn’t it appear we are fighting a losing battle and, if so, why not hunker down and prepare for the worst?

Lawrence Auster gives an excellent answer here: Read More »

THE NUMBER of married adults has fallen to its lowest level since the government began keeping records more than 100 years ago. According to Census Bureau data in today’s New York Times, 52 percent of the population over 18 years is now married, as opposed to 57 percent ten years ago. That’s a drop of five percent in just a decade. For the first time in recorded history, the number of never-married young adults, between 25 and 34, exceeds those married.

Read More »

IMAGINE if instead of lame “Family Day” proclamations, a single prominent politician stood up and said words similar to those of Theodore Roosevelt when he spoke before the National Congress of Mothers in 1905:

In our modern industrial civilization there are many and grave dangers to counterbalance the splendors and the triumphs. It is not a good thing to see cities grow at disproportionate speed relatively to the country; for the small land owners, the men who own their little homes, and therefore to a very large extent the men who till farms, the men of the soil, have hitherto made the foundation of lasting national life in every State; and, if the foundation becomes either too weak or too narrow, the superstructure, no matter how attractive, is in imminent danger of falling. Read More »

YOU KNOW family has become a marginal institution when we have national “Family Day.” Stouffers, the maker of frozen dinners, is one of the sponsors of the event, which encourages families to do something radical – sit down and eat dinner. Columbia University, also a sponsor, says that families that eat dinner together are less likely to have teens who use drugs. Above is one of the photographs on the Family Day website. Two moms and their child. [Or, perhaps as noted below, it is a mother with two daughters?] Wouldn’t it be nice if eating dinner together were all it took to rescue families? 

Do any of the corporate, government or academic sponsors of this event say anything important? Family Day sounds, at best, trite and meaningless and, at worst, outright dangerous. Do these sponsors have any idea why families don’t eat dinner together? Read More »

REPUBLICANS continue to do a fine job of normalizing family breakdown and sexual freedom. This breezy New York Times profile of Carl P. Paladino includes information about his dog, his favorite vodka and his favorite nighttime ritual. He “travels to the home of Sarah, his daughter from an extramarital relationship, and puts her to bed.”  Read More »