Frum expresses indifference toward the cultural ruin of Britain

An exchange with Paul Cella about David Frum:

Mr. Cella writes:

Mr. Auster,

Don’t miss the astonishing piece that David Frum contributed to the London Times recently, “Earthy, highly sexed, and not the Britan I expected, May 6, 2003” (reprinted here—scroll down a ways). He sort of glibly celebrates the decay of British civilization into squalor. Derbyshire’s essay has caused a big stir among conservatives, but this one struck me as more objectionable.

Best,
Paul Cella

LA replies:

Mr. Cella,

Thanks for sending this. It’s disgusting and eye-opening. He describes this repellant degradation of the culture of our mother country, and expresses no concern about it at all but treats it as an amusing and enjoyable spectacle. The neocons are rational and useful in a certain limited sense (certainly far more rational than the paleocons), but they have no loyalty to our historic civilization. That’s the bottom line.

Larry Auster

PC to LA:

It’s remarkable that no one else seems to have picked up on it (although it might be that Frum’s blog isn’t very widely-read). I happen to be reading some of G.K. Chesterton’s rich and rewarding short stories, and his warmth and genius in evoking the older august civilization that was England provides such a stark contrast to the decadence that Frum depicts, and seems to take delight in. How can a soi disant conservative imagine that public urination is something to be smiled upon? Londoners do routinely what only drunken New Yorkers will, and David Frum sees no problem with it. I wonder: what would Theodore Dalrymple have to say about this kind of complacency toward the lawlessness and ugliness he has so painstakingly documented?

LA to PC:

I think it wasn’t widely read because it didn’t have its own headline but was buried way down in a larger entry.

I must say that when I read an article like this, I feel Frum is an enemy. That does not mean that, in the manner of the paleocons, I would then proceed to make personal hostility the basis of anything I write about him. But a “conservative” who cheerfully celebrates or makes light of the ruin of British culture is, objectively, an enemy. True, he says in the article that he likes the fact that the US has held onto British traditions that the British are throwing away. Yet at the same time he has no objection to Britain’s own decadence.

The baldness with which he states this makes this seem like the most eye-opening writing by a neocon I’ve ever seen.

So, in the last two days we’ve had John Derbyshire saying he prefers blue map to red map people; Stanley Kurtz accepting cohabitation and the rest of sexual liberation, so long as it is not given official rights; and Frum joking about the destruction of Britain. While I regard Derby as an ally of traditionalists (or at least certainly not an opponent) and admire Kurtz as an insightful and helpful writer, the totality of what the National Review Online people are revealing about their world view is stunning.

PC to LA:

I hear you. I thought of James Burnham’s Suicide of the West where he describes liberalism as a narcotic designed to dull our pain of civilization collapse (see my blog here) when I read the Frum piece.

I really want to avoid the descent into rancor that so often characterizes the paleconservatives in their treatments of the neocons, but I agree that Frum is no ally. He may have been during the Cold War, but no longer.

I still like Derbyshire. I think his “feeble Anglicanism” is the source of this. But he has written some unforgettable stuff. Kurtz is an honest man, and a serious thinker, but his project, as you and Mr. Kalb have pointed out, is to do the impossible: fashion a world respectful of tradition without God. Utility is no basis for ordered freedom.

You’re right: an eye-opener of a week.

Paul Cella

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 11, 2003 08:08 AM | Send