Word: viewpoints
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...other hand, and more important, I protest against the viewpoint that establishes the worth of a minister by the amount of his salary and by the size of his church. I protest against the whole attitude that a pastor can "work his way up" in the ministry, meaning that his ultimate goal is to become a kind of top executive. I protect against the usual definition of a minister's "competence," meaning how well he can lead, organize, and raise money...
...vast retreat from the crisp analysis of his earlier writing, is less literary criticism than a diatribe against Christianity. Empson fears that literary criticism has fallen into the hands of T. S. Eliot and the "neo-Christian movement." which judges all literature from a Christian viewpoint. Empson finds Satan a more likable character than God in Paradise Lost. Milton's God is "astonishingly like Uncle Joe Stalin" down to "flashes of joviality" and "bad temper," writes Empson. He tortures angels and mankind for his own amusement. Satan, on the other hand, behaves like a democrat toward fellow fallen angels...
...Faubus' talking about mundane issues is a startling sign, it is only because he believes that he needs a new image. By insisting that he was never an extremist on either side ("I am not a captive of any extremists of any viewpoint"), he is countering the welter of criticism with considerable success. He stands an excel lent chance of winning a majority in next week's primary or, if not then, in a runoff election that would probably follow. Old Tiger Faubus may have lost his teeth, but in Arkansas there seems to be no lion...
...much is fine storytelling; the remainder is an ironist's art. The viewpoint abruptly shifts to that of the new men. In their log boats, they are fleeing in panic from the terrors of the dark forests and the strange, hairy creatures whom they had, all unwittingly, already exterminated for all history. One of them works on a piece of ivory, grinding it to a point with a stone, and wonders why he bothers: "Who would sharpen a point against the darkness of the world?" he thinks...
Constant Grin. Now, once again, Vidal shows exceptional promise in a new literary line. His reviews and essays do not, of course, rock the boat enough to alarm the passengers. But to politics, for instance, Vidal brings the useful viewpoint of a fascinated outsider-insider (he is the grandson of the late Thomas P. Gore of Oklahoma, U.S. Senator from 1907 to 1937, and in 1960 he himself ran for Congress as a Democrat in a Republican upstate New York district). He observes that since F.D.R. set the fashion, all U.S. politicians must grin constantly in public; he recalls having...