Word: vogelgesang
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...policy in Vietnam was being openly set by the Kennedy administration? Did it have something to do with the closer relationship between the intelligentsia and Kennedy? There is no clear answer for these questions and the answers must necessarily vary among the vast spectrum of individuals and journals that Vogelgesang considers spokesmen for the Intellectual Left. But since Vogelgesang purports to offer a history of intellectual thought and involvement in the Vietnam debacle, her study would have been more complete had she offered more insight into these issues...
Another nagging question Vogelgesang fails to address is the issue of what the intelligentsia really advocated at each particular stage she describes. If many spokesman of the Intellectual Left, like Mailer and McCarthy, finally concluded that the New Left's call for revolution was a necessary one, how can they explain their subsequent actions? Their intellectual protest and expression of the destitution that existed in the American government never really attempted a thorough-going transformation the American power structure, rather it just got stuck in the stage of moral exercise...
...reprinted a 1912 essay by Leon Trotsky, "Concerning the Intelligentsia," that called upon intellectuals to use the time of decreased political efficacy as a mere prelude to revolution, rather than succumbing to depression? The final verdict is not in because the repressive Republican interregnum has not yet ended. But Vogelgesang might have either scored those who have merely returned to their former quiescence or explained how, for instance, Mailer is preparing for revolution or at least necessary social upheaval by writing books about Marilyn Monroe...
...FINALLY, Vogelgesang does little to resolve the dilemma that all intellectuals must face. That of morality versus political reality, conviction versus officous power. She does not confront the debate on the proper course for an intellectual faced with the choice of accepting a position of power but knowing that in its exercise he must vitiate many of his beliefs in favor of political expediency. This dilemma is a particularly painful one for contemporary American intellectuals who were so badly burned by their forays into policy-making with the Kennedy administration. Vogelgesang postulates three interconnected preoccupations of American intellectuals: the exercise...
...Vogelgesang's study is well researched and written and provides a great deal of information and insight into the evolution of intellectual thought during one of America's most controversial and eventful decades. But it does little to answer the questions with which future works on the subject must grapple. That The Long Dark Night of the Soul both begins and ends with the same question is an indication that it is ahead of its time. It was written when the impact of the experiences and events it describes are not fully known or calcuable. Vogelgesang has traced the history...