- Sep 2023
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Wills, Garry. “After 54 Great Books, 102 Great Ideas, Now—Count Them !—Three Revolutions.” The New York Times, June 13, 1971, sec. BR. https://www.nytimes.com/1971/06/13/archives/the-common-sense-of-politics-by-mortimer-j-adler-265-pp-new-york.html
It's not super obvious from the digitized context (text), but this review is in relation to The Common Sense of Politics (1971) by Mortimer J. Adler.
Wills criticizes Adler and his take in the book as well as the general enterprise of the Great Books of the Western World.
There seem to be interesting sparks here in the turn of the Republican party in the early 70s moving into the coming Reagan era.
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This done, Adler can say that young crit ics of “the System” are not true revolutionaries. Real revolutionaries work within the System — since the System is the Revolution.
How does the general idea of zeitgeist of the early 70's relate to the idea of "revolution"?
See also: Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (1970)
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Adler's record of ineptness is pret ty good so far — but he surpasses it with his third Revolution. He dis likes both Marxists and Moscow, so how did the Russian Revolution be come one of the great sources or change in modern society? Because “with the Russian Revolution, we have, for the first time, the emer gence of the welfare state” — mild offspring sired from such ferocious parents. In the past, only right‐wing kooks thought F.D.R. derived his in spiration for W.P.A. from the Bol shies!
Reference to the "welfare state" in 1971 by Gary Wills.
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