I suspect we'll be hearing a lot of stories like this one from Dean Abbott, who was surprised by the personal kindness of a stranger who happened to be William F. Buckley. You should read the story, which is unremarkable, and utterly remarkable at the same time. It ends:
We had come to meet him, to hear from him; and when we did, he only wanted to talk about us. Nothing could have done more to confirm his stature in my eyes than those few moments of his being truly interested in us.
Dean quotes from a Joe Sobran column written in 2006, when WFB was diagnosed with emphysema. Sobran, remember, had been fired by WFB from National Review some years earlier. Yet he recalls:
Over the years I came to know another side of Bill. When I had serious troubles, he was a generous friend who did everything he could to help me without being asked. And I wasn’t the only one. I gradually learned of many others he’d quietly rescued from adversity. He’d supported a once-noted libertarian in his destitute old age, when others had forgotten him. He’d helped two pals of mine out of financial difficulties. And on and on. Everyone seemed to have a story of Bill’s solicitude. When you told your own story to a friend, you’d hear one from him. It was as if we were all Bill Buckley’s children.It went far beyond sharing his money. One of Bill’s best friends was Hugh Kenner, the great critic who died two years ago. Hugh was hard of hearing, and once, after a 1964 dinner with Hugh and Charlie Chaplin, Bill scolded Hugh for being too stubborn to use a hearing aid. Here were the greatest comedian of the age and the greatest student of comedy, and Hugh had missed much of the conversation! Later Hugh’s wife told me how grateful Hugh had been for that scolding. Nobody else would have dared speak to her husband that way. Only a true friend would. If Bill saw you needed a little hard truth, he’d tell you, even if it pained him to say it.
I once spent a long evening with one of Bill’s old friends from Yale, whose name I won’t mention. He told me movingly how Bill stayed with him to comfort him when his little girl died of brain cancer. If Bill was your friend, he’d share your suffering when others just couldn’t bear to. What a great heart — eager to spread joy, and ready to share grief!
Compared with all this, the political differences that finally drove us apart seem trivial now. I saw the same graciousness in his relations with everyone from presidents to menials. I learned a lot of things from Bill Buckley, but the best thing he taught me was how to be a Christian. May Jesus comfort him now.
Bill Buckley accomplished many great things in the world. But I'd say that his generosity and indeed his love is what will be remembered by Him.
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Sig, Buckley may have been wrong in his belief that the free market would inevitably improve everyone's standard of living and that state intervention would always and everywhere make matters worse--I myself believe that to some extent he was--but he held those views with utter sincerity. It's just not true that he "scorned the poor."
Gayle, I'm trying to express my demurral politely, while respecting Rod's apparent wish to keep this on a eulogistic level. Since, therefore, I can't start whipping out the quotes, I guess you'll have to take my word for it that I do know a little bit about Buckley. Unlike some here, I did not know him personally, but I knew those who did. And I've read almost all of his books. As evidenced by the reminiscences, he clearly had many good qualities. But was he so good and great a man (and writer) that everyone, everywhere must wish to emulate him? Seriously?? EVERYONE? I think that's taking the dulia just a bit too far. Let's wait till he's worked a couple of miracles before anointing him as a saint.
Hunk, I do understand what you're saying. For many years, in fact, I had myself mesmerized into believing that Buckley's views on the free market were the correct ones. I agree that he was sincere . . . but I'm not sure that's enough to excuse an intelligent and privileged man for holding views that I now see as harmful, in practice, to those who had none of his privilege or opportunity. If sincerity is the important thing, we'll have to be fair and say that Fidel Castro and Osama bin Laden are very "sincere." I think you're right that Buckley would never have consciously scorned the poor, in the abstract, but I think that in practice he adopted positions and strategies that did treat poor people scornfully. "In theory, theory and practice are the same; but in practice, theory and practice are different." ; )
As I teenager, I used to watch Buckley interview British journalist/"Christian lay apostle" Malcolm Muggeridge on "Firing Line." They had several gorgeous conversations on the subject of faith that I believe were instrumental to me as a young person struggling to undertstand my own feelings. I got my hands on a paper copy of the broadcasts from Amazon.com two years ago and they are a treasured part of my library. Bill Buckley was a national treasure and even those who didn't agree with him will/should miss him. --Amy Cunningham
So, Sig, are you saying that during the years when you yourself believed in unbridled laissez-faire, you "scorned the poor?" If not, then why do you condemn Buckley for never coming to the conclusion you did? FTR, I think at the time of his death both of you affirmatively intended the good of the poor and just had radically different views about the means of effecting it. And while Osama, Castro and other malefactors were sincere, I don't see in what sense they could have intended the good of the people they knowingly and deliberately harmed. The difference does seem to matter, at least to me.
Hunk, I do blame myself rather severely for not coming to my senses sooner, for taking so long to figure it out. When I think of some episodes in my past--standing in line for hours in a cold November rain to vote for Richard Nixon, God help us--I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I listened to speech after speech by such as Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, thinking "what a repellent man" and "but what he's saying is BS," yet trying to persuade myself I must be missing something.
In my own defense, I can only plead humbly that while I may have claimed the mindset of a conservative, I lived like a liberal. That is, I passionately desired fairness and humane treatment for everyone, and whenever I got into a situation where those things were at risk, I went with my heart and not with the right-wing notions that had been drummed into my head. My time was spent with ordinary people, with the poor, with children and other marginalized folks, not with the rich and famous. I lived with little money for quite a few years, so I shopped at the food co-op and the Goodwill and wore handmedowns and rode the bus. I did not have the opportunities that Buckley had to do either good or harm through the use of power and wealth. Nevertheless, I cringe at the times when I blithely enjoyed my privilege without a clue about what it was doing to others.
So, yes, I do blame myself for assenting to beliefs and positions that, in effect, showed scorn for the poor, even though I never deliberately scorned them by my behavior. And I blame William F. Buckley--a man of wealth and taste--for not learning better before it was too late.
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