My personal paean to a few great men, now lost to us, who had the capacity to think critically, to write movingly, to engage thoughtfully on the plain of ideas.

To love words is to be, increasingly, a stranger to our extant popular culture.

And to read words in such a way that all wisdom is reduced to factoids is, of course, to rob the world of the deep yearnings that lead to allegory, poetry and ultimately grace.

What we see in our popular culture today underscores this reality with the heaviness of a California mudslide. There is no art, or very little, in the writing and pronouncements that permeate from the centers of popular cultural and political discourse.

Vulgarity reigns, and subtly is disappearing. To grasp what is subtle, after all, requires exercising a sensitivity to nuance that allows us to penetrate the mere construction of words and get to hidden meanings and silences that are, in themselves, often more eloquent than surface words themselves.

And the ability to grasp what is subtle is also the beginning of thoughtful criticism, because we cannot make fine distinctions until we can discern the various levels of meaning and truth that attach to so much of what we read, particularly those works that rise to the level of great art or expression. So this is my personal paean to a few great men, now lost to us, who had the capacity to think critically, to write movingly, to engage thoughtfully on the plain of ideas.

This is a personal list. These men gave me the gift of their friendship and their words, some for many years. I corresponded and shared with them – and while they are gone, their love of words and ideas well expressed remains, for me, as that darkling thrush that lifted the heavy gloom of Thomas Hardy.

First, there was my father, Peter Shadroui, who passed away in 2001 but who taught me to love words. Pete was a failed lawyer but a highly successful parent who used to read the dictionary, just for the pleasure of discerning the fine distinctions in the meaning of words. He wrote hundreds of letters during his lifetime out of concern and love for his country, and while I cannot boast that my father mastered subtlety, he defended the high forms of expression — classical music, political discourse, and a relentless critique of the cliches and vulgarities that, alas, poison purposeful political thought and obscure understanding.

He once pinned up in his bowling alley, which he ran for over 30 years, a cartoon that exclaimed: profanity is an attempt by feeble minds to express themselves forcibly.

Now, he was trying to make a point that was not aimed at the great cursers of our age – Patton comes to mind. My father could on rare occasion use a curse word to make a point, but it was not a mindless, vulgar exercise, but rather one aimed at putting emphasis on an emotion or sentiment that required it. To curse effectively is, in itself, a kind of art form. To curse thoughtlessly and vulgarly is to sink into an abyss of ignorance. 

Then about a year after my father died, the writer Fred H. Young passed away, a dear friend who conveyed for many years his love of literature, art and fine writing. Fred lived surrounded by friends and the best books, poetry and music. He published a novel, Many Lovely Ingenious Things, and a number of poems while dedicating his life to teaching.

Fred and I probably disagreed politically more than we agreed, but no conversation with him was ever boring or pointless. He was a serious man of letters who rejoiced in the great poets like Eliot, Pound and Yeats and whose admonition to our society was simple and profound: nurture your children! Fred meant, of course, in all ways — by guiding, educating and cherishing them as they navigate their own journey through life.

Richard William Burniske died much too young. A life-long teacher and educator, he published two books about how to use the emerging world of technology the right way – to enhance our humanity. Buddy Burniske, as he was known to his friends, was a prolific letter writer – I suspect he and I exchanged hundreds of letters during our 25 years of close friendship. Here is just one of the pearls he left to me which I now share with you.

I just spent a summer teaching Conrad, Eliot and Fitzgerald, all of whom acknowledged the truth of Conrad's claim in Heart of Darkness: "we live as we dream – alone." Eliot's poetry of the 1920s voices a concern with "self possession." His protagonist in "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is no longer capable of participating in life. The same is true of the fragmented/tormented narrator in The Wasteland. Ultimately, Eliot turned to Eastern religions — Hinduism and Buddhism – to reinvigorate Western theology and teaching. The Upanishads called for three things that were the answer to the self possessed in the waste land – give, sympathize, control. In other words, the only way out of the prison of self is through concern for someone, something, other than self. This is not easily done, however, and Eliot addresses the complexity of the issue in several poems. For Eliot, an extremely shy, sensitive man, the biggest decision in life was focused on communication. As I have seen it, he perceived a clear dichotomy with respect to this issue. One could do either of the following:

Break from self possession:

Risks involvement
Risks personal chaos
Risks misunderstanding
Avoids isolation and detachment

Or:

Embrace self possession
Risk isolation
Risk detachment of feelings
Risk loss of humanity
Avoid personal chaos

The soul that wrote these words was deep and generous, one capable of appreciating the complex dimensions that enrich life.

Nathan Alexander was known to me only by the generous, thoughtful emails he sent to me in response to the many essays I have written on this website. His death came as a shock and a sincerely felt loss – for he had a remarkable graciousness that shone through everything he wrote.

What I found most interesting about Nathan was that I suspect he disagreed with me as much as he agreed, and yet he appreciated the serious purposes to which I and other writers exerted their craft. If you made a thoughtful, compelling argument, Nathan had the great capacity to find value in it, even when he did not agree. He once wrote me asking for a detailed list of books about Jefferson and American history, curious to know what I valued in the way of historical perspective.  When I wrote a long essay on Noam Chomsky for this site, Nathan returned it with commentary scattered throughout the essay, raising points of agreement, disagreement or simple observation. He sent notes to me about essays on Hitchens, Edward Said, and Buckley. And Vidal:

I bought Vidal's collection of criticism eight or nine years ago — a heavy tome, and this wasn't that bad. But he's so filled with self-loathing and outrageous self-promotion that he comes across as pitiful. His solicitations of Capote appear to have been rejected — resulting in the wild attacks in Palmimpsist. Julian, one of his better novels, eventually bogs down as he loses himself in the lurid details of various Christian homosexuals. Give it a rest! I need to read Burr, which has sat on my shelf for nearly a decade.  I can't wait to read your piece on WFB and GV!

To be engaged is the first step toward deeper wisdom and knowledge and Nathan had engagement in spades. I miss his notes greatly.

William F. Buckley Jr. certainly needs no reintroduction to readers of this site. I befriended him in the final years of his life, and had dinner with him at his Stamford home only months before he passed away. I have written about Bill a great deal because he was such an important force in my life, both spiritually and politically – his grace, his wisdom, his remarkable writing style all shaped my worldview and helped reconnect me to the parts of our intellectual patrimony that we should all cherish. Bill wrote volumes and there is no need to dwell on his immense body of work, but I would encourage readers to review again his obituary for his mother or Grace Kelly, his two wonderful essays on Whittaker Chambers, and his collection of speeches, Let us Talk of Many Things or other collections in which his dazzling ability to communicate, debate and deconstruct are on display.

Bill was not only brilliant in his use of words, he was also a man of remarkable generosity, and this makes some of the recent, not always charitable, written treatments of him a little tough to take. That being said, he left this short, but wonderfully instructive reminder:

We need a rebirth of gratitude for those who have cared for us, living, and, mostly, dead. The high moments of our way of life are their gifts to us. We must remember them in our thoughts and in our prayers; and in our deeds.

It is in the spirit of this comment that I have offered this personal remembrance. At a time when we are all thankful (Christopher Hitchens excepted perhaps) for the birth of a child in Bethlehem 2000 years ago, who grew into an adult who used words as adeptly and effectively as anyone who ever lived, it seemed fitting to remember a few departed friends and to offer this public thanks to them for the special gifts of learning and language, all cherished, they left to me and many others.