Solo: Soulless
Alden Ehrenreich in Solo: A Star Wars Story (Lucasfilm Ltd. )
The latest Star Wars film is just an intergalactic freeway pile-up
Hollywood filmmakers have overlearned Elmore Leonard’s sensible maxim, “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” Taken to its logical extreme by today’s blockbuster bards, this yields stories that devolve into a frenzy of chases and shootouts set to the music of nonstop wisecracks.
So low goes Solo: A Star Wars Story, a soulless intergalactic freeway pile-up, at least for its first hour. As with The Last Jedi, things perk up considerably in the last 45 minutes or so, but only enough to raise the overall impression left by the movie to “Meh.”
Maybe “Meh” counts as a win given the Alderaan-level disaster that hit the set last year, when the film’s original directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (who wrote and directed The Lego Movie and directed 21 Jump Street), were fired and replaced by Ron Howard (who enjoys sole credit on the finished version). Moreover, word leaked out that an acting coach had to be brought to the set to guide the new Han Solo, Alden Ehrenreich. Acting teacher? For the leading man? Star Wars fans could be forgiven for thinking, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Ehrenreich (who stole the show as a cowboy actor pressed into service in a dinner-jacket comedy in Hail, Caesar!) turns out to be fine, though. Harrison Ford more or less created the template for the modern movie hero — loose, irreverent, jokey, arrogant — and Ehrenreich has a lot of the same easygoing, caddish charm. It’s Howard who needs lessons: Never previously known as an action director, he lurches chaotically from one set piece to another without establishing why we should care about any of it. First we’re on Han Solo’s home planet of Corellia, where the villain is a centipede version of Jabba the Hutt called Lady Proxima and Han gets separated from his girl, Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke). Since we barely know the lady when she gets separated from Han, who cares about his quest to fight his way back to her? The same goes double for two other characters who come and go in the blink of an eye and are barely thought of again. Moreover, a chase scene and a gargantuan train robbery that are meant to be thrilling have so little context around them that they’re meaningless. These sequences amount to watching the CGI pros do their calisthenics. Who are those guys, the ones on the flying Jet Skis with fierce Road Warrior–grade costumes? Marauders, it turns out. Oh. They came and went so quickly I barely had time to be scared of them.
A chase scene and a gargantuan train robbery that are meant to be thrilling have so little context around them that they’re meaningless. These sequences amount to watching the CGI pros do their calisthenics.
The cynical, devious, thieving sidekick — Han Solo’s Han Solo — is Tobias Beckett, who joins him in a scheme to steal some enriched-uranium-style fuel. Beckett is played by Woody Harrelson, whom I love, but come on. This is his fourth major movie role since last summer, and he was a central player in two other recent blockbuster franchises. There is too much of him around these days. As for Paul Bettany, who plays the lizard-faced gangster menacing Han and Beckett, he’s right next door at the multiplex in Avengers: Infinity War. Could we have some fresh actors, please?
What gives the movie a big boost is the delayed appearance of that riverboat gambler–cum–space pimp Lando Calrissian, this time played by Donald Glover, who is a far more vital and amusing actor than Billy Dee Williams was in The Empire Strikes Back. Lando’s droid sidekick L3 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), a bossy thing with a female British voice, gives the movie its funniest moments by being a kind of Death Star of sarcasm. “You’re my organic overlord,” she tells Lando, not in a nice voice.
Dreaming up how Han first encounters the Millennium Falcon and Chewbacca and what exactly the Kessel Run is gives screenwriters Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan lots of opportunities for fun, but they bungle some of them. When we are told how Han got his surname, the sound of eyes rolling in the theater was almost audible. And the Han–Chewie partnership develops in about five seconds. Also, why does Han speak Wookiee (in other words, he can imitate the sound of gargling while being suffocated) when we never heard him do that before? What is the point of showing Han and Chewie taking a shower together? By the way, why do Han, Lando, and Beckett manage to survive a shootout while standing in the open as dozens of attackers fire at them from a few yards away? If the answer is, “Because they’re the heroes,” I’m afraid the screenwriters didn’t do their homework. Far too many times, I got the sense that everyone in the movie was pulling a Laura Dern and going, “Pew! Pew!” Things fall into place too easily. Intensity is in short supply. I dub this movie Soso.
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Cast and crew of the new Star Wars film gather on Hollywood Boulevard.
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%title%","advertisement":"Advertisement"}},"meta":{"authors":,"category":{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/photos/category/culture","value":"Culture"},"corner_response":null,"is_corner_post":false,"is_magazine_article":false,"more-stories":[{"id":595105,"date":"2018-05-15T10:00:27","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T14:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https://www.nationalreview.com/?p=595105"},"modified":"2018-05-15T10:05:47","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T14:05:47","slug":"new-jersey-cheer-team-no-cuts-inclusivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/new-jersey-cheer-team-no-cuts-inclusivity/","title":{"rendered":"You Shouldnu2019t Make the Cheer Team If Youu2019re Bad at It"},"content":{"rendered":"Hanover Park High School in New Jersey has reportedly announced a new policy that requires everyone who tries out for the cheerleading squad to make the team — all in the name of being u201cinclusive.u201d
nThe team held tryouts last month. According to an article in the Daily Mail, a parent complained about his or her child not having made the team, leading the school to change its policy.
nnttntttnttnttttjwplayer('jwplayer_m7BSSBsQ_wKJ9CRQU_div').setup(ntttt{"playlist":"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/feeds\/m7BSSBsQ.json","ph":2}nttt);nttntnA statement from the school explains that the school had initially divided cheerleaders into threeu00a0merit-basedu00a0squads — Black (the best), Gold, and White; for the schoolu2019s colors — but would now be dividing them simply into underclassmen and upperclassmen teams.
nu201cThe Hanover Park cheerleading program is not competitive and with this transition, they only will be supporting and encouraging more participation, which is Hanover Parku2019s goal,u201d the statement read.
nu201cTo quote from the Guidelines for Cheerleading at Hanover Park, ‘The emphasis of cheerleading within the Regional High School District shall be upon group involvement rather than featuring the performance of a single or select individual or individuals,’u201d it continued.
nAccording to the statement, u201cevery participant, regardless of squad, has always received a varsity letter.u201d
nAs the Daily Mailu00a0reports, several students and parents were upset about the change.
nu201cI tried my hardest, and now everythingu2019s going away, all because of one child who did not make the team, and a parent complained, so now all my hard work has been thrown out the window,u201d one student, Stephanie Krueger, tearfully said during a board of education meeting.
nNow, I was cut from the cheerleading team in middle school. I got cut because I was bad — so bad, in fact, that I really had some nerve to waste everyoneu2019s time by trying out in the first place. In high school, I never was able to make varsity cheerleading. In fact, Iu2019ve been rejected from almost every single athletic endeavor that Iu2019ve ever attempted, and do you know what? I think the policy at Hanover Park is ridiculous.
nSeriously — if youu2019re not good enough to make the team, then you shouldnu2019t make the team. Itu2019s not unfair. In fact, itu2019s the opposite. Whatu2019s fair is for talent and skill to be rewarded. Our society is supposed to be a meritocracy; thatu2019s how it works. I agree with the students who were upset about how including everyone equally, regardless of skill, diminishes their own accomplishments. It would be a huge disappointment to actually work hard enough to make the top cheerleading squad, only to find out that your hard work had made no difference. Does everyone, regardless of GPA, get a valedictorian medal? No, and so everyone, regardless of athletic ability, should not be getting a varsity letter. After all, giving them away to everyone renders those should-be-coveted letters completely meaningless. (I understand that the everyone-gets-a-varsity-letter was an existing policy and not a new one; however, itu2019s still absurd enough for me to have to say so.)
nnInclusiveness is great and all, but it shouldnu2019t be used as a substitute for reality.
Thereu2019s nothing wrong with being bad at cheerleading. Iu2019m bad at it, and my life has still managed to go reasonably well. In a way, itu2019s better for the students who arenu2019t good at cheerleading to just get cut, because then they can spend their time focusing on other pursuits. For example: When my own cheerleading dreams died, I joined mock trial, and I actually had some success. Nerdy or not, it was definitely much better for me to participate in an activity that aligned with my strengths than it was for me to waste my time somersaulting around a football field because I couldnu2019t do a cartwheel.
nWhatu2019s more, I never would have wanted my mom or dad to humiliate me by calling the school to complain about my not making a team u2014 I understood that my not making a team was because I didnu2019t happen to be good enough to make that team. I knew that I didnu2019t deserve it, and I was able to accept that and live my life anyway. The fact that a student reportedly had her mom or dad call to complain, to me, reveals a sense of entitlement that knows no bounds. We have a lot of rights in this country, but the right to cheerlead is not one of them — and it appears that at least one student did not seem to understand that.
nInclusiveness is great and all, but at the same time, it shouldnu2019t be used as a substitute for reality. Making the cheer team even if youu2019re bad at cheerleading shouldnu2019t make you feel any better about yourself, because it doesnu2019t change the fact that youu2019re still bad at cheerleading. Pretending that thatu2019s not the reality isnu2019t going to help anyone — itu2019s just going to keep students from pursuing endeavors where they might have real talent and be able to achieve real success.
n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Talent and skill are supposed to be rewarded.
n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":595127,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"authors":[{"ID":"355951","display_name":"Katherine Timpf","first_name":"Katherine","last_name":"Timpf","user_nicename":"katherine-timpf","href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/author/katherine-timpf/","twitter":"KatTimpf","hedcut":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/katherine-timpf_200.jpg","avatar":false}],"category":{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/post/category/pc-culture","value":"PC Culture"},"corner_response":null,"is_corner_post":false,"is_magazine_article":false,"more-stories":null,"section":false,"subtitle":"Talent and skill are supposed to be rewarded.","table-of-contents":null},"categories":[1290,3259,5878,1389],"tags":[2822],"section":[615],"share_buttons":{"facebook":{"title":"Share on Facebook","href":"https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com%2F2018%2F05%2Fnew-jersey-cheer-team-no-cuts-inclusivity%2F"},"twitter":{"title":"Share on Twitter","href":"https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com%2F2018%2F05%2Fnew-jersey-cheer-team-no-cuts-inclusivity%2F&text=You Shouldnu2019t Make the Cheer Team If Youu2019re Bad at It"},"email":{"title":"Email this article","href":"mailto:?body=You Shouldnu2019t Make the Cheer Team If Youu2019re Bad at It https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/new-jersey-cheer-team-no-cuts-inclusivity/"}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/595105"}],"collection":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=595105"}],"version-history":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/595105/revisions"}],"next":[{"ID":594993,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/594993"}],"previous":[{"ID":595105,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/595105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/595127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=595105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=595105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=595105"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/section?post=595105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https://api.w.org/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":595010,"date":"2018-05-15T06:30:59","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T10:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https://www.nationalreview.com/?p=595010"},"modified":"2018-05-15T10:55:47","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T14:55:47","slug":"comedy-establishment-liberal-slant-may-help-republicans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/comedy-establishment-liberal-slant-may-help-republicans/","title":{"rendered":"Comedians Are Catching On"},"content":{"rendered":"The comedians are beginning to catch on.
nOver the weekend — just one week after featuring a bevy of top-line Hollywood stars impersonating members of the Trump administration, as well as a cameo by a vengeful Stormy Daniels asking for President Trumpu2019s resignation — Saturday Night Live finally acknowledged that they may have gone overboard. Cast members of SNL showed up at the beginning of the Motheru2019s Day episode with their actual mothers, several of whom chided them on their myopic focus on Trump. Chris Reddu2019s mother said, u201cI donu2019t understand why everyone focuses on Trump when you should be focusing on Jesus.u201d Mikey Dayu2019s mother likened the witch hunt in The Crucible to the witch hunt of Trump. Luke Nellu2019s mom exclaimed, u201cEnough with the Trump jokes!u201d She added, u201cWhy doesnu2019t SNL talk about Crooked Hillary?!u201d Kyle Mooneyu2019s mother and Colin Jostu2019s mother complained in similar fashion.
nntttnttnttttjwplayer('jwplayer_m7BSSBsQ_wKJ9CRQU_div').setup(ntttt{"playlist":"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/feeds\/m7BSSBsQ.json","ph":2}nttt);nttntnWell, yes.
nMeanwhile, comedy pope Jimmy Kimmel appeared at the upfronts, where he explained, u201cI think people have had an ass-full of Donald Trump, and I feel like the upfront is a time to look within and make fun of ourselves.u201d
nThis is a problem for Republicans.
nMy mentor, Andrew Breitbart, was fond of pointing out that culture was upstream of politics. But so is counterculture. And as Hollywood and the media have come to be dominated in extraordinary fashion by the Left, the counterculture has risen: cynical about the entertainment industry, annoyed by their constant pandering, irritated by their snide self-assurance. Itu2019s not that the Right has created a cultural milieu that can counter the power of the Left — itu2019s that the Right has responded to the Left by channeling their lack of a cultural outlet into politics. Conservatives didnu2019t respond to Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert by creating a conservative version of Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert. They responded by electing Donald Trump, a Republican Congress, a Republican Senate, Republican governors, and Republican statehouses.
nThis has created a truly bizarre situation that feeds the polarization in our politics: Never has the hegemonic dominance of the Left been quite so strong in the cultural arena, and rarely has the hegemonic dominance of the Right been quite so strong in the political arena. And this polarization is self-enforcing: The cultural arbiters are so angry with the rise of conservative politicians that theyu2019ve doubled down on their rage and extremism. Instead of reaching out to the other side, theyu2019ve declared the other side evil, untouchable, foolish.
nEven the kindest comedians of the Left — relatively harmless funnymen like John Mulaney — canu2019t help but ding Trumpu2019s constituents. In his latest Netflix special, Mulaney begins by noting, u201cIt seems like everyone, everywhere, is super mad about everything.u201d He then softly mocks Trump as a u201chorse in a hospitalu201d: a bizarre and uncontrollable force in a normally staid and well-organized environment. So far, so good. But he canu2019t help himself. He adds:
nnSometimes, if you make fun of the horse, people will get upset. These are the people that opened the door for the horse. And I donu2019t judge anyone, but sometimes I ask people, I go, u201cHey, how come you opened the door for the horse? u201cAnd they go, u201cWell, the hospital was inefficient!u201d Or sometimes they go, u201cIf youu2019re so mad at the horse, how come you werenu2019t mad when the last guy did this three and half years ago?u201d . . . I used to pay less attention before it was a horse. Also, I thought the last guy was pretty smart, and he seemed pretty good at his job. . . . I donu2019t check up on people when they seem okay at their job. You may think thatu2019s an ignorant answer, but itu2019s not, itu2019s a great answer.
Itu2019s not a great answer. Itu2019s just an answer that provides a window into the confirmation bias of those on the left, who could not understand why anyone on the right might have thought that Barack Obama was, in fact, a snake loose in a hospital. If youu2019re on the right watching this routine — enjoying the rest of Mulaneyu2019s rants, which are extraordinarily good — itu2019s likely to make you think, u201cHey, screw that guy. Iu2019ll go give $10 to Trumpu2019s reelection effort just to keep self-righteously ignorant entertainers from picking who governs the country.u201d
nSo, in a way, the worst thing that could happen for Republicans is for the cultural Left to call for peace.
nThankfully, thereu2019s not much risk of that. The same weekend that Kimmel and the cast of SNL signaled that they might be waking up to their own pernicious effect on the political climate, Comedy Centralu2019s Trevor Noah appeared on CNN — yes, CNN — to explain that Trump was like an u201cAfrican dictator.u201d
nAnd so the chasm between culture and politics grows ever wider. Polarization grows stronger. And thatu2019s no joke.
n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Breitbart was fond of pointing out that culture was upstream of politics. But so is counterculture.
n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":595031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"authors":[{"ID":"265827","display_name":"Ben Shapiro","first_name":"Ben","last_name":"Shapiro","user_nicename":"ben-shapiro","href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/author/ben-shapiro/","twitter":"benshapiro","hedcut":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ben-shapiro_200.jpg","avatar":false}],"category":{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/post/category/culture","value":"Culture"},"corner_response":null,"is_corner_post":false,"is_magazine_article":false,"more-stories":null,"section":false,"subtitle":"Their strong liberal slant may end up helping conservatives.","table-of-contents":null},"categories":[1290],"tags":[4395,3296],"section":,"share_buttons":{"facebook":{"title":"Share on Facebook","href":"https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com%2F2018%2F05%2Fcomedy-establishment-liberal-slant-may-help-republicans%2F"},"twitter":{"title":"Share on Twitter","href":"https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com%2F2018%2F05%2Fcomedy-establishment-liberal-slant-may-help-republicans%2F&text=Comedians Are Catching On"},"email":{"title":"Email this article","href":"mailto:?body=Comedians Are Catching On https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/comedy-establishment-liberal-slant-may-help-republicans/"}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/595010"}],"collection":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=595010"}],"version-history":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/595010/revisions"}],"next":[{"ID":594851,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/594851"}],"previous":[{"ID":595105,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/595105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/595031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=595010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=595010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=595010"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/section?post=595010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https://api.w.org/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":594851,"date":"2018-05-15T06:30:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T10:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https://www.nationalreview.com/?p=594851"},"modified":"2018-05-15T10:49:14","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T14:49:14","slug":"book-review-suicide-of-the-west-gratitude-can-save-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/book-review-suicide-of-the-west-gratitude-can-save-us/","title":{"rendered":"Jonah Goldbergu2019s Good Medicine u2014 and Great Book"},"content":{"rendered":"It is difficult to decide what is more encouraging: Jonah Goldbergu2019s new book, with its extraordinary gratitude for the miracle of civilization, markets, and the American experiment, or the incredible success the book is achieving u2014 a reception that gives reason to hope that a Western suicide is less imminent than his ominous title suggests. Not only is the booku2019s success a prima facie sign that a good portion of our society is open to his exhortations, but it also reinforces Goldbergu2019s continuing relevance as arguably the most significant voice in conservative thought (Trumpian noise notwithstanding). We believe Suicide of the West reveals where Jonah Goldberg sits in the current conservative movement: in a pivotal seat. He is without peer in his ability to reinforce the deepest and most significant truths embedded in American democracy. His command of history, culture, and political philosophy u2014 not to mention his delightfully engaging prose u2014 is on full display in this masterpiece. We say this despite a weighty concern that we will soon address. But first, let us highlight some of its indispensable contributions.
nGoldbergu2019s contrast between John Lockeu2019s contribution to post-Enlightenment political philosophy with that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is the most helpful discussion of its kind. Parsing this distinction and demonstrating its relevance in the formation of the American experiment is key to understanding u201cthe two main currents in Western civilization and, increasingly, in modernity itself.u201d Rousseauu2019s romanticism is inherently totalitarian, Goldberg demonstrates clearly, laying down the most important building block for his real agenda: laying wood to the tribalism, populism, and identity politics he sees corroding, hollowing out u2014 or, literally, corrupting u2014 American political and cultural life today. Not only does Goldberg draw readers toward his key conclusions u2014 that human nature is unchangeable, that the Founders knew this and went about setting up a political system in light of that fact, and that we must never take its perpetuity for granted u2014 but he also provides a memorable history and philosophy lesson along the way.
nThe booku2019s unique value is that it takes a great deal of conservative dogma and puts ideological meat on the bone. At a time when our political conversation is often emotive, impulsive, and tribal, Jonah forces us to remember the real-world value of our liberties. His journey from 1650 through 2016 is not merely a history lesson but an infusion of ideology u2014 because ideas matter, and how we talk about ideas matters. He lays bare the dangerous utopian promises of progressivism and reminds 21st-century conservatives of their Lockean heritage and of the specific vision of the American Founders. With breathtaking logic and clarity, he connects the dots between romanticism and statism, between statism and nationalism, and between human nature and the quest for meaning and belonging that defines the present moment.
nPerhaps we should not have said we had a weighty u201cconcernu201d in our opening paragraph; it is more of a confusion. We take exception to one thread in the book that, while it did not damage his fundamental objective, nonetheless failed to clarify it. Sensitive readers may be distracted or bothered by Jonahu2019s awkward wrestling with metaphysical truth in the book. His first sentence signals that he intends to avoid wrestling with metaphysical questions (u201cThere is no God in this booku201d). But he does not make good on that promise. Thank God. Careful readers will notice that the rule he sets at the opening u2014 maybe thereu2019s a God, maybe there isnu2019t, but u201cwe have no choice but to live by the assumptionu201d that there is no purpose or plan to the universe u2014 is mirrored by the exact opposite sentiment at the end.
nThe booku2019s introduction insists that we are adapted (ergo, adaptable) products of blind, purposeless evolution. Chapter 1 then asks us to believe that human nature is immutable. Thatu2019s a jarring contradiction, and one totally unhelpful to his purpose, not least because every one of the hated mass utopian delusions of the past century was built on the idea of the perfectibility of human nature. And the utopians based that idea on, well, the materialist philosophy Goldberg pretends to embrace for the sake of his argument.
nnA widespread effort to pretend to believe in God will not stave off suicide. Mind tricks or figments of the imagination are not sustainable foundations for individual belief, much less a thriving, virtuous culture.
The standards by which we make the judgments that Jonah rightly makes (that the American experiment has been good, that the u201cmiracleu201d has aided civilization, that a better life has come as a result of Lockeu2019s and Burkeu2019s contributions to modern political thought) must be objective. But those cannot be accounted for in the framework of a blind and purposeless cosmos, and we confess to feeling dismay that Goldberg more than once flirts with the idea that meaning and significance are merely ideas we project onto the world. His dismissal of transcendent purpose ironically forces him into a pragmatic box: The miracle works; therefore, it is good. Goldberg is, of course, one of our most gifted decimators of pragmatism as a school of thought, and he surely knows that u201cthe miracleu201d is not good just because it worked. It worked because it is good, and it cannot be good if devoid of transcendent purpose.
nGoldberg will no doubt admit that he walks it all back in the concluding chapter (a chapter so masterful that it left one of us in tears). He explicitly acknowledges that the miracle will not be preserved without God, or at least u201cacting likeu201d there is a God. But a widespread effort to pretend to believe in God will not stave off suicide. Mind tricks or figments of the imagination are not sustainable foundations for individual belief, much less a thriving, virtuous culture. Goldberg essentially admits that defending the Western miracle cannot be done without belief in God. But our beliefs are not based on mere rhetoric; it is not all u201ctalk, talk, talku201d or u201cstories we tell ourselvesu201d or playacting. It is because God is real, and in him is the real providence and the real purpose by which the miracle can be sustained. Our civilization cannot be defended without telos, and our belief in that telos must be real, not a ponzi-like imitation of belief.
nThis tactic of pretending there is no God so that he may lay out the premises of the book, only to kick the ladder away once he arrives at the conclusion, is epistemologically unsound and an unnecessary, unhelpful drag on an excellent book. Goldbergu2019s argument is that u201cnatureu201d inexorably drags civilization back to its base origins, and something similar happens in his very own pages. All of the lofty rhetoric about a u201cmiracle,u201d meaning, significance, the good, the true, and the beautiful is rather sullied (Neil deGrasse Tysonu2013style) by the reminder that, actually, the u201cmiracleu201d is probably just a random, meaningless accident, and that our gratitude must remain sadly bereft of its much-needed indirect object: grateful to whom?
nSetting aside our theological and philosophical quibbles, we find that Suicide of the West is a marvelous work of political and cultural thought. It makes use of Goldbergu2019s vast portfolio of writerly and scholarly gifts. Fittingly, he has used them all for the ultimate purpose of gratitude u2014 which is, of course, the proper response to gifts. He is rightly petrified of those u201cso ignorant of their own civilization that they have no response to those who insist with righteous passion that our civilization is not worth defending.u201d Goldberg has given all defenders of our civilization a gift of his own with this book.
nThe mediating institutions necessary for good civic life need rebuilding in our society, lest the parasites of identity politics and populism corrupt and destroy us. One day we will see the miracle sustained, and we will be grateful, and we will thank God for it and for Goldbergu2019s contribution to that end. And we hope u2014 if he will indulge our modest proselytizing u2014 that Goldbergu2019s own gratitude finds its worthy recipient.
nu2014 David L. Bahnsen is the managing partner of a bicoastal wealth management form, a trustee of the National Review Institute, and the author of Crisis of Responsibility. Brian G. Mattson is Senior Scholar of Public Theology at the Center for Cultural Leadership; he writes at drbrianmattson.com.
n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gratitude can save civilization, if only we believe.
n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":595041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"authors":[{"ID":"387875","display_name":"David L. Bahnsen","first_name":"David L.","last_name":"Bahnsen","user_nicename":"david-l-bahnsen","href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/author/david-l-bahnsen/","twitter":"@DavidBahnsen","hedcut":false,"avatar":"https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/f4d1b3c063b5d7b1f73b4cf1b297b218?s=64&d=blank&r=g"},{"ID":"594852","display_name":"Brian G. Mattson","first_name":"Brian G.","last_name":"Mattson","user_nicename":"brian-g-mattson","href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/author/brian-g-mattson/","twitter":"","hedcut":false,"avatar":false}],"category":{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/post/category/books","value":"Books"},"corner_response":null,"is_corner_post":false,"is_magazine_article":false,"more-stories":null,"section":false,"subtitle":"Gratitude can save civilization, if only we believe.","table-of-contents":null},"categories":[5315,1290],"tags":,"section":[615],"share_buttons":{"facebook":{"title":"Share on Facebook","href":"https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com%2F2018%2F05%2Fbook-review-suicide-of-the-west-gratitude-can-save-us%2F"},"twitter":{"title":"Share on Twitter","href":"https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nationalreview.com%2F2018%2F05%2Fbook-review-suicide-of-the-west-gratitude-can-save-us%2F&text=Jonah Goldbergu2019s Good Medicine u2014 and Great Book"},"email":{"title":"Email this article","href":"mailto:?body=Jonah Goldbergu2019s Good Medicine u2014 and Great Book https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/book-review-suicide-of-the-west-gratitude-can-save-us/"}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/594851"}],"collection":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/types/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/users/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/comments?post=594851"}],"version-history":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/594851/revisions"}],"next":[{"ID":594977,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/594977"}],"previous":[{"ID":595010,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/595010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media/595041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/media?parent=594851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/categories?post=594851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/tags?post=594851"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https://www.nationalreview.com/wp-json/wp/v2/section?post=594851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https://api.w.org/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":594977,"date":"2018-05-15T06:30:44","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T10:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https://www.nationalreview.com/?p=594977"},"modified":"2018-05-15T14:29:23","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T18:29:23","slug":"progressive-insensitivity-projection-deceit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/progressive-insensitivity-projection-deceit/","title":{"rendered":"The Nature of Progressive Insensitivity"},"content":{"rendered":"Former vice president Joe Biden is back in the news yet again. For a second time, he seems surprised that poor residents of the inner city are capable of doing sophisticated jobs:
nnWe don’t think ordinary people can do things like program, code. It’s not rocket science, guys. So, we went and we hired some folks to go into the neighborhoods and pick 58 women, as it turns out, from the hood, for a 17-week program, if my memory serves me correctly, to learn how to code.
In 2014 Biden had said about the same thing about women from the u201choodu201d:
nnThey asked me to come by this program they had at a community college in the inner city in Detroit. And I walked in and u2014 I think it was a 15-week program u2014 and it was a group of women from the neighborhood. Or, from u201cthe hood.u201d
What was the point of emphasizing u201choodu201d instead of just u201cneighborhoodu201d?
nntttnttnttttjwplayer('jwplayer_SF4pwY7I_wKJ9CRQU_div').setup(ntttt{"playlist":"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/feeds\/SF4pwY7I.json","ph":2}nttt);nttntnMaybe the same condescending reason that the impulsive Biden once in 2016, speaking to a black audience, attacked Mitt Romney with the slavery slander:
nnHe is going to let the big banks once again write their own rules, unchain Wall Street. He is going to put yu2019all back in chains.
Earlier, Biden had scoffed:
nnIn Delaware, the largest growth of population is Indian Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkinu2019 Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.
The locus classicus of Bidenu2019s racialist sloppiness, of course, was his famous putdown-praise of 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama:
nnI mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.u00a0I mean, thatu2019s a storybook, man.
Conventional wisdom would suggest that liberal politicians and celebrities should be the least likely to express such racist condescension, if only out of cynical careerist and political concerns. Progressives see bloc minority, gay, and female support as vital to their project. The entire thrust of progressive charges of u201cwhite privilegeu201d and u201cwhite supremacy,u201d usually lodged against less enlightened and less affluent whites, is that the elite are confident theyu2019ve created a partnership of solidarity with minority activists. All deplore the supposed Neanderthal, red-state, and Trump-supporting white middle class.
nFew may now remember the post-election rant of Melinda Byerley, an obscure founder of the Silicon Valley company Timeshare CMO. She became a window into the mind of the furious 2016 progressive voter u2014 and infamous for five minutes for her candid, embittered, post-election Facebook posting that soon was enshrined as a credo explaining why miffed coastal elites hated people unlike them:
nnOne thing middle America could do is to realize that no educated person wants to live in a sh**hole with stupid people. Especially violent, racist, and/or misogynistic ones. . . . When corporations think about where to locate call centers, factories, development centers, etc., they also have to deal with the fact that those towns have nothing going for them.
Certainly, those who blast the clingers, deplorables, and irredeemables cannot themselves be racist or sexists or misogynists or homophobes.
nBy now, the number of MeToo accusers in the postu2013Harvey Weinstein era is legion. But increasingly, the most prominent of those accused of sundry harassments and, on occasion, assaults are liberal media and celebrity icons such as Tom Brokaw, Garrison Keillor, Matt Lauer, Ryan Lizza, Charlie Rose, and Tavis Smiley. How can that be?
nAside from the charges of treating women poorly are often the additional writs of racism. Some women, for example, have alleged that Weinstein has replied most vehemently to charges from his non-white victims, such as Lupita Nyongu2019o and Salma Hayek.
nAmong all the charges of lurid and cruel behavior leveled against social-justice warrior and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, the strangest and most disturbing might have been his racial slurring of his Sri Lankan girlfriend, the Harvard-educated activist writer Tanya Selvaratnam. The socially crusading Schneiderman allegedly called her his u201cbrown slaveu201d and told her to refer to him as her u201cmaster.u201d
nJoe Bidenu2019s putdown of Barack Obama in 2008 apparently was xeroxed by liberal icon and former senator Harry Reid, who likewise dismissed Obama as a veritable racial chameleon, a u201clight-skinned African with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.u201d
nReid also once addressed an Asian-American audience and sermonized, u201cI donu2019t think youu2019re smarter than anybody else, but youu2019ve convinced a lot of us you are.u201d In the question-and-answer follow-up, Reid offered: u201cOne problem that Iu2019ve had today is keeping my Wongs straight.u201d
nBoth liberal Dan Rather and Bill Clinton in the past had offered racist putdowns of Obama that no deplorable or irredeemable would have considered: Here is Ratheru2019s, speaking to Chris Matthews in 2010:
nnThe Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. . . . a version of, u201cListen heu2019s a nice person, heu2019s very articulateu201d this is whatu2019s been used against him, u201cbut he couldnu2019t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.u201d
And here is Bill Clinton, describing Obama in 2010: “A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.”
nRemember in 2008, in one of her earlier incarnations, a once national-populist Hillary Clinton was running against Obama by galvanizing the so-called white working classes. Often, she was not shy about saying so: u201cI have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,u201d Clinton bragged. As evidence, she cited an Associated Press story that found, in her words, u201chow Senator Obamau2019s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.u201d
nu201cThereu2019s a pattern emerging here,u201d she concluded.
nThere is.
nOf course, progressive Obama himself has played the racialist card on occasion. In his memoir Dreams from My Father, he described Gerald Kellman, the first boss he had as a community organizer: u201cStill, there was something about him that made me wary. A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.u201d Obama had once positioned his own grandmother as the moral equivalent of the racist and anti-Semitic Jeremiah Wright, his pastor for two decades. He went on to dub her a u201ctypical white person.u201d
nCable news anchor and anti-Trump activist Joy Reid apparently had posted an entire corpus of homophobic rants in years past. The late Helen Thomas had a history of anti-Semitic slurs. And Ta-Nehisi Coates is never held to account for many of his overt anti-white invectives.
nThere are various stock explanations for liberal prejudicial outbursts that earn the additional wage of hypocrisy u2014 given progressivesu2019 self-identification as the protectors of minority rights and racial sensitivities.
nOne, and the most charitable, might be that when one talks about race and gender nonstop, one is more likely to misspeak. Such an interpretation assumes, of course, that these revelations are not windows into one soul, as progressives allege of foul-sounding conservatives.
nnWas the reprehensible treatment of victimized women felt to be a small price to pay to protect high-profile progressives who were on the front lines of social justice?
Two, do not forget the cynical notion of deterrence. Humans are not necessarily nice people but behave well out of fear of punishments. In such a reductionist view, conservatives assume that one malapropism or sloppy phrase can end a career. Certainly, if a U.S. senator had compiled a record of racially insensitive rhetoric comparable to Joe Bidenu2019s, he would long ago have been ostracized. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is currently being blasted for clinically and quite accurately describing current waves of immigrants from southern Mexico as mostly poorer, less well educated, and for a variety of reasons less able or willing than earlier waves of immigrants to assimilate quickly. Kelly has certainly has not talked pejoratively about anyoneu2019s skin color in the manner of a Biden, Reid, or Obama.
nWhat exempted Harvey Weinstein or Eric Schneiderman from an accounting years ago was likely progressive cost-benefit considerations u2014 or perhaps even more disturbing rationales. Was the reprehensible treatment of victimized women felt to be a small price to pay to protect high-profile progressives who were on the front lines of social justice? And did Weinstein and Schneiderman bake such calculations into their behavior?
nCould not a few women be sacrificed on the altar of progressivism to allow far more to be helped? An even darker corollary is that the monsters like Weinstein and abusers like Schneiderman may have felt they deserved to be sexually rewarded for their progressive fides by progressive like-spirited women u2014 much as feminist reporter Nina Burleigh, during the Bill Clintonu2013Monica Lewinsky imbroglio, said sheu2019d have been happy to sexually service Clinton if meant keeping him out of trouble and thus preserving the feminist agenda.
nA cynic would conclude that once deterrence is lost and perpetrators have no fear of career or legal consequences, they feel justified in doing as they please and therefore can double down on their crudity. Al Franken certainly seemed surprised that a pro-feminist such as himself should be held accountable for a randy uninvited grab or two.
nOne analogy is the case of Obama adviser Ben Rhodes, who, in the context of the Iran deal, scoffed at the u201cecho chamberu201d and u201cknow nothingu201d White House press. The Obama administration realized that it was far less likely to be held accountable by the liberal media if it surveilled Associate Press or Fox News reporters, if it weaponized the IRS, if it jailed as a scapegoat for the Benghazi attacks an obscure video-maker, if it warped the FISA courts, and if it improperly surveilled and unmasked political opponents. And so it did all that and more in the absence of media deterrence.
nnOne of the great ironies of the entire 21st-century obsession with race is the fact that supposedly racist lower-middle-class whites are often more likely than gentry whites to live among non-whites.
There is a third and more controversial exegesis. There is a certain progressive profile that is, in truth, biased or at least tribal. One projects oneu2019s own prejudices onto others in the abstract, as a sort of psychological squaring of oneu2019s own shortcomings u2014 or the failure to live the race and class diversity one preaches.
nIn the last 30 years, weu2019ve seen the growth of an entire new class of bicoastal gentrified urban elites who are ostensibly — on matters of race, class, and sex — hyper-progressive. But are they really?
nOften their rhetoric is belied by their own behavior, if gauged by where they live, where they put their children in school, and the people with whom they socialize. One of the great ironies of the entire 21st-century obsession with race is the fact that supposedly racist lower-middle-class whites are often more likely than gentry whites to live among non-whites. The diversity they experience is a natural expression of shared work, neighborhoods, school, and class, not an artificial and boutique variant of the university, the media, or entertainment.
nAlso, when one by act and deed demonstrates more comfortability with oneu2019s own tribe, that de facto apartheid can be hard to turn on and off. In contrast, a white truck driver who lives with Mexican Americans, or a Mexican-American carpenter who lives in a working-class neighborhood of whites, realizes there are consequences to racialist slurs. And they are not confined to Twitter virtue-signaling or Internet mobbing but often are muscular and can be dangerous.
nI have found race, class, and gender tensions far greater at Stanford University than in San Joaquin Valley rural communities, where difference is incidental and not so essential to oneu2019s person. Perhaps the reason is that people share a lower middle-class existence, or that muscular work tends to outweigh rhetoric and abstraction. When one works and lives alongside someone of a different appearance, there is no need or time or affluence to create a fau00e7ade of identity politics.
nFinally, there is a final and mostly cynical explanation for the recent spate of progressive intolerance. Those who are by nature or habit intolerant mask their resulting guilt or fear by progressive virtue-signaling and occasional inadvertent revelations of their own moral selves.
nIn other words, perhaps liberal Harvey Weinstein and social-justice kingpin Eric Schneiderman really did have more contempt for their non-white targets, just as Harry Reid may feel more comfortable with his own kind. And one way that such progressives square the circle of that reality is with an unimpeachable progressive fau00e7ade u2014 and just maybe that reality is now becoming widely known.
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Why do so many famous social-justice crusaders turn out to be racist and sexist?
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