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| Brad Blog Feb 29, 2008 |
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| Friday, 29 February 2008 | |
   
Remembering Will, Praising Whoopi
posted by Brad Hirschfield
Recently two events occurred which point to the importance of civil dialogue and its rapid demise in our culture. First, William F. Buckley Jr. died and second, Whoopi Golberg accepted the apology of Gil Cates, whose Academy Awards retrospective of the show’s previous hosts left the comedienne out. How are these related?
Each event is significant not only because of the fame of the individuals involved, but because in each case we see something increasingly rare i.e. the opportunity to forgo ugly conflict around racial and political issues. Both Bill Buckley and Whoopi Goldberg have been know for taking strong positions on issues about which they care. In Buckley’s case, he made a career of it. But unlike most ideologues, he offered the world passion without anger, and intellectual rigor without stridency. In fact, his passing is being mourned almost as much by the liberals whose policies he opposed as by the conservatives whose policies he not only supported, but often best articulated. That is increasingly rare today, and that is a problem. How many contemporary conservatives function with Buckley’s light touch? How many right-wing pundits would be mourned by the left if they left the world, not because they had convinced the left, but because all were prepared to acknowledge the contribution that had been made by such pundit’s work to the level of political and cultural conversation across the nation? The same can be said about Whoopi, who passed up the chance to point out that her absence from the Academy Awards short film was a “black thing”, and quickly accepted the producer’s apology for his honest mistake. How often does that happen? It doesn’t matter that it really was an honest mistake. There are dozens of African American leaders who are always ready to see the workings of a “racist nation that “hates black people” – as there are leaders in the Jewish, Catholic, Hispanic and every other racial, ethnic, and religious community who make it there business to see the worst in everyone who is not already a member of their group. So kudos to Ms. Goldgerg and condolences to all those who mourn the loss of Mr. Buckley. The best way to honor both of them, would be to learn from their examples and conduct ourselves accordingly. |
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