Bill Buckley: remembering an inspiration
Brad DeFlumeri, Collegian Columnist
Issue date: 3/3/08 Section: Editorial / Opinion
All those UMass liberals who love to hate me for my deeply held right-wing views have one man to thank or blame. William F. Buckley is the reason why I am a political person, the reason why I am a conservative and undoubtedly the reason why I lead the UMass Republican Club. He was an intellectual dynamo: intelligent and witty on-camera and off. He was a conservative's conservative and a liberal debater's most terrifying intellectual nightmare. His views, and more importantly, his electrifying articulation of what it meant to be a conservative, transcended intellectual history and are chiefly to thank for ushering in the Reagan Revolution and the three terms in presidential office of two men named Bush.
His intelligence and conviction made it intellectually feasible and defensible to be a conservative at a time in American life when there purportedly wasn't anything worth conserving. For so many on the right, he was an intellectual and ideological giant who could say what they were thinking, and in a way that they couldn't quite say it. Over the course of many decades, his persuasive writing and compelling commentary unleashed a political and intellectual fury on the left, from which it has yet to fully recover.
He was indeed so many of these things and so much more to a legion of adoring fans, admiring readers, employees and coworkers at National Review, and politicians and intellectuals across the globe. To the intellectual detriment of friend and foe alike, William F. Buckley passed away at age 82 last Wednesday.
Buckley became prominent on the national political scene in his mid-twenties with the publication of "God and Man at Yale" in 1951. In the book Buckley, a devout Roman Catholic and Yale graduate, aggressively challenged the liberal secular education that Yale University imparted. The book threw liberal elite academia, and its burgeoning love affair with collectivism, into a frenzy - it was a perspicacious and intellectually overwhelming rejection of everything elite academia was becoming. The book propelled the young writer into political superstardom in many conservative circles.
His intelligence and conviction made it intellectually feasible and defensible to be a conservative at a time in American life when there purportedly wasn't anything worth conserving. For so many on the right, he was an intellectual and ideological giant who could say what they were thinking, and in a way that they couldn't quite say it. Over the course of many decades, his persuasive writing and compelling commentary unleashed a political and intellectual fury on the left, from which it has yet to fully recover.
He was indeed so many of these things and so much more to a legion of adoring fans, admiring readers, employees and coworkers at National Review, and politicians and intellectuals across the globe. To the intellectual detriment of friend and foe alike, William F. Buckley passed away at age 82 last Wednesday.
Buckley became prominent on the national political scene in his mid-twenties with the publication of "God and Man at Yale" in 1951. In the book Buckley, a devout Roman Catholic and Yale graduate, aggressively challenged the liberal secular education that Yale University imparted. The book threw liberal elite academia, and its burgeoning love affair with collectivism, into a frenzy - it was a perspicacious and intellectually overwhelming rejection of everything elite academia was becoming. The book propelled the young writer into political superstardom in many conservative circles.
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
Sherman
posted 3/03/08 @ 7:20 PM EST
Well, at least Buckley wised up before he died and ditched the party.
CSM
posted 3/04/08 @ 3:45 PM EST
William F. Buckley was a brilliant man. There's no denying that, but at the same time, there's no denying the fact that, despite his astonishing intelligence, Buckley's preppy upbringing left him forever blind to certain things. (Continued…)
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