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It is a must read if you are a fan of this genius. This book could have been written a year ago. He has many other great works but it is good to see how he started out from college attacking liberal Godless propaganda that has only hurt our country. Poor Buckley. May he rest in peace forgetting that Yale and man cannot learn from him and adopt his timeless wisdom.
You will not like it.I do find it amazing that a young man could write such an important book about the importance of God at Yale. If God is not, don't bother. I really do not have much to add that has not already been written about this classic. If God is important to you, read the book.
Buyers considering this book should expect a dry read except for the introduction by Bramwell and foreword written by Buckley for the anniversary edition. Gamay is the fascinating introduction of a budding writer whose career would be made on impulsive ideas, quick wit, and idiosyncratic writing style. God and Man at Yale is not a literary must-read, but it ranks among the classics of political and journalistic writing. The ideas presented are narrow in scope (as they should be), focusing exclusively on Yale, and the solutions presented by a 25-year-old Buckley are implausible (alumni do not hold any sway on the university).
It is, alas, not a new phenomenon. The limits of academic freedom, equally amazingly, seem to arise right at the point where these ideas come under intellectual attack. Real, real bad. Buckley did not merely defend such concepts, but pointed out that the faculty often viewed such concepts as so beneath contempt as to be not even worthy of debate, only ridicule.A treat for anyone who has recognized the same is reading Buckley's take on academic freedom. You think the intellectual climate at our nation's universities is bad now.
Creating almost from scratch the modern conservative movement through the power of his intellect, Buckley reshaped the debate on the large issues of the day. The book also established Buckley as a force to be reckoned with, particularly important given his young age at the time.As we now know, Buckley did not waste the opportunity. Amazingly, such freedom seems to follow the exact contours, curve for curve, nuance for nuance, of the ideas of the far Left. It was among the first canaries singing in the coal mine about the threat of collectivist ideas and how far along those ideas had already advanced in an important institution in our society. That philosophy is the collectivist socialism and cultural Marxism so in vogue then, as now, despite the failure of its ideas when put into practice. But this book's impact went well beyond the academy. Buckley argued in this, his first shot in what has come to be known as the cultural war, the hostility of the educated elite at our finest schools to the beliefs and attitudes of everyday folk is nothing new.Buckley aimed his keen intellect and, more immediately powerful, his stunning ability to make magic out of the written word, on not merely the ideas of his professors at Yale, but on the underlying philosophy in which such ideas found, and continue to find, fertile soil. It is, therefore, not a surprise that the situation on campus has grown progressively worse since GOD AND MAN AT YALE first came out.
Well, it is. Amazing.Of course, since professors are significantly cut off from suffering the consequences for their ideas, such failure makes not the slightest dent in their vision. GOD AND MAN AT YALE was the first step on that road. As the late, great William F. Buckley, not content to simply graduate and join the alumni club, took a hammer to Yale almost as soon as he graduated, exposing the hostility towards religion, capitalism, and individualism rampant through the academy.
I suppose his pre-college experiences in World War II colored his thinking.Still current and important after all these years. I know at his age I would not have had the temerity to think of the biases of my college teachers. He saw it clearly and was not afraid to publicly criticize them in the pages of the Yale Daily News. As someone who grew up thinking that William F. (And true). was an incomprehensible bloviater, I have come full circle. Buckley, Jr. This first book shows great maturity for a 25 year old.
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