March 20, 2004

Response to Readership

What do you think of the criticisms of President Bush coming from Angelo Codevilla and Mark Helprin? You may have read some of their pieces in the Claremont Review of Books.  Codevilla, among other criticisms, thinks we have insufficiently leveraged our victory in Iraq vis-a-vis Syria especially, but also Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, et al.

Hanson:  I have a great deal of respect for both their integrity and scholarship. I do, however, also imagine that while they are upset that we have not brought the full range of our power against those who employ terror in the Middle East, they would both acknowledge that we have come light years from four or five years ago. They play a valuable role in reminding us not to take counsel of our fears in this very dangerous time.

Why do you think those in the bay area in California (San Francisco, Berkeley, etc) are so liberal and so completely ignorant of the present war on terror?

Hanson:  I don’t know really. Ports are more cosmopolitan than places like Fresno. The weather and wealth there create a degree of unreality—and the Bay Area has an interesting cultural history that tends to promote a sort of relativistic ‘live and let live’—or in the case of terrorists “live and let kill.”

What impact does the increasing urbanization of the American economy and culture have on our ability to withstand totalitarian ideologies such as Islamo-fascism?

Hanson:  I wrote about this at length in a book The Land Was Everything—something about self-reliance and autonomy developed in farming that transcends agrarian life and I think will be sorely missed when gone.

Is a connection to the land an indispensable precursor to patriotism?

Hanson:  The Greek city-state originated out of the idea of property ownership—i.e., farmland. People who own land tend to be more willing to fight for it—at least Aristotle and a lot of ancient thinkers thought so. But in a postmodern society such as our own, I am not sure land is any longer the requisite for patriotism. Our common culture and appreciation for American exceptionalism seem to be what holds us together; and those who do not feel such bonds—and there are many—obviously don’t see much point in defending the United States.

Is there a biography or two about Sherman that you could recommend?

Hanson:  There are dozens. One of the most criticized, but I think still most brilliant is B.H. Liddell Hart’s. He was sort of hung up on the “indirect approach” and entertained strange political ideas, but the biography is brilliantly written and captures the essence of what Sherman is all about. I reviewed some biographies in The Soul of Battle and commented on them at length in the footnotes.

I recently visited VMI in Lexington and have been reading some of the books on T.J. Jackson. Any thoughts on his military skills or his innate abilities as a General?

Hanson:  I’ve spoken there and also liked the campus a lot. His career was so short that we are not quite sure how such genius would have weathered the entire war (look at the later lapses of Grant and Lee). But his conduct in the first two years was of the first order. He evokes almost religious awe in his admirers in a way Sherman or Grant does not.

Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis.”  I was wondering, in your opinion, how you think his ideas about the struggle of ideas (agrarian homesteaders v. European elites) have played out in modern America?

Hanson:  They are still there, aren’t they, albeit in shadowy forms? If Boston fawns on Paris, Grand Rapids and Fresno still don’t quite fawn on Boston. I suppose it is reductionist to say that being told the French think we are crass and uncouth is considered a compliment by some of us, and cause for a near breakdown for others.

What do you think is behind the tendency of some to always look forward in constant change and then abandon perfected wisdom of the past?  It seems to me that the only reason North and South Korea are still separated is because of the United States. Do you think there is a need for all the bases? Why is Korea still separated?

Hanson:  The arrogance of the present and living is not to be underestimated. My heart says “bring them all home” —especially given the ingratitude displayed by the current Sunshine policy in vogue there. My head reminds that Seoul would be lost in a week without American troops or the commitment to use them. If we withdraw, and I think we should start thinking about it, we must be adult enough to realize that a war might erupt and South Korea might lose 1 million casualties in achieving victory. How can one unite with a Stalinist failed state?

How do you define fascism?

Hanson:  Loosely as autocracy that believes in a mythical nationalism above all, based on an extremism founded on race, religion, or tribal ties, and intolerant of self-critique and free expression. They differ from communists in that the state does not control the means of production. So I think fascism of a certain type captures the Islamic fundamentalists.

What is your take on Plutarch?

Hanson:  The most enjoyable author to read in the classical corpus, and unduly neglected.

The wealth and power that Rome accumulated within a couple of generations, it seems, led to two civil wars and the destruction of the Republic. I feel as though our political situation is becoming as partisan and could very well end in some type of civil strife within another generation. Am I way off base here?

Hanson:  I can’t quite adjudicate all your comparisons, but I share your worry about polarization and think this next campaign will be the nastiest in some time. I didn’t really dislike personally Bill Clinton, although I felt he weakened the United States abroad. But there were many on the Right who did—and gave him no fair hearing, especially about his commendable though belated attack on Milosevic. Yet, their animus has been trumped by Bush-haters. And we are now in a spiral whose logical end is sort of frightening.

Carlo D'Este's biography, Patton: A Genius for War, doesn't give any actual reason as to why Patton became anti-Semitic.  Why did he become anti-Semitic?

Hanson:  I discuss that in the next Claremont Review of Books. In short, he married into a family that was anti-Semitic, and later associated Soviet communism with the Jews, presumably on the silly notion of Marx and his epigones being Jewish. All that being said, he often praised Jews and his most loyal staff members were Jewish. I think we underestimate the degree to which this 59-year old man was completely exhausted between June 1944 and December 1945, a period when he literally went without sleep for days and tried to be everywhere at once. And Patton was theater and said things for effect that he really did not mean and were not matched by his own deeds.