Palace Council

Stephen L. Carter is one of my favorite novelists. He also writes nonfiction, but I haven't yet read any of it. The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White told brilliant tales. The Palace Council is equally wonderful.

Carter is one of those unique authors who is entertaining, but also teaches. He is insightful and thought-provoking. And he is not trendy or quirky; he is not, I'm sure, a favorite of the cognescenti. In other words, he won't win many of the awards that some other, much less deserving authors are given.

"You die young or you get old." That one has prompted a lot of thought, esp with the recent deaths that seem to have surrounded us--not to mention getting older myself! "Sometimes the 'what ifs' are all we have." Wow! "What's the sense of being a lawyer," one of his characters says, "if one can't make a difference?" Fill in any other career for "lawyer."

And, in his Notes, Carter writes this: "...the dawn of modern America--the mean-spirited America of me-first, trust-nobody, sound bites, revile-anyone-who-disagrees, and devil-take-the-hindmost. All of this misbehavior is a mark of our timidity, not our confidence. Americans across the political spectrum cannot bear dissent because we lack the courage to meet it squarely." Yep, Yep, and Yep again.

I would add, we lack the intellectual ability to defend our postures. It's much easier to call names, smear with a wide paint brush, ostracize, etc. than to rationally argue and attempt to persuade.

That's what has made, for me at least, the 2010 Amherst College Class of 1970 dialogue about "Lives of Consequence" so appealing and riveting. Opinions have varied, as expected. But they have been respectful of differing thoughts. They have examined the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments, pointing out what needs illumination. There has been no attempt to "revile-anyone who disagrees," to ostracize or marginalize, to call names. The discussion has been the epitome of intellectual rigor. Our professors, I think, would be proud of what we have learned from them.

Now, contrast that, as Carter notes, with our politicans and government officials, those who run our schools, etc. They won't or more likely can't justify what they do. They unable to defend their ideas. So, instead, they attack the questioner(s), from individual critics to the Tea Partiers.

I certainly recommend Carter's novels.....