I stumbled across a Netflix documentary on the “debates” between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal in 1968. I remember this as an historical matter, not because I was keenly watching third-rated ABC News coverage of the 1968 conventions when I was 13. The background is, ABC needed to generate a reason for people to watch their coverage of the conventions, and Buckley had established himself as a TeeVee presence on PBS with “Firing Line.” ABC needed someone for Buckley to respond to, and asked him for suggestions. Buckley responded, basically: anybody but Gore Vidal. So ABC responded, quite appropriately: “Let’s get Gore Vidal.” And they did.
And invented the television we now all know and… love?
The advocates of Buckley insist he was the greatest debater of his time. Which makes me more and more dismissive of the concept of debate. James Talarico and Pete Buttigieg are excellent champions of their point of view, because they are very persuasive. Debate is not about persuasion, it’s about scoring points and appealing to the mob, usually via ad hominem. It’s about clever retort, not reasoning; and it’s about having about half the audience on your side before you start. It can work, in limited circumstances, but it usually doesn’t. It just sets everything in quick drying cement. Talarico or Buttigieg leave you thinking. Buckley just left you annoyed or, if you already agreed with him, impressed with his arrogance.
Buckley basically had a position, and insisted against the world and all comers, that his was the correct position. He hated the civil rights movement, (the documentary is about 1968, and I’m no Buckley scholar), probably hated the women’s liberation movement, certainly hated the gay rights movement (in anger at being called a “crypto-Nazi” by Vidal on camera, Buckley calls Vidal a “queer.” And there our media troubles began.), and generally had little regard for anyone who wasn’t an ultramontane Catholic. (I’m sure Leo has Buckley rolling in his grave.) He actually said once that his purpose was to stand athwart history and yell “STOP!” If that isn’t fascistic, I honestly don’t know what is.
He was not a persuader, in other words. Talarico’s opponents fear him precisely because he is so persuasive. Reason actually is persuasion, when wielded correctly. Buckley never sought to persuade. Buckley merely insisted. His reasoning was, his opinions were right, and that was the end of it.
Vidal, in his own words (in the documentary), was an analyst of power. He thought people weren’t driven by sexual appetite or desire, but by the desire for power. It’s how he explained his thesis in Myra Breckenridge. A book, by the way, Buckley wrote about reading, but dismissed it out of hand. Not after a careful analysis, but just as a matter of personal distaste and a personal refusal to accept that such ideas could even exist in the world.* (There are noxious ideas that shouldn’t exist, but they do. Racism, for example. But if you think you can banish it, you actually just make it harder to recognize. Ideas can’t be killed, or banished.) For Buckley the personal was not just political, it was the only reality. As he thought, so should we all think; and if we didn’t, well, more fool us. In Buckley’s view, as is apparent from his “review” of Vidal’s most famous book, all ideas Buckley rejected should be expunged from the world, as evil. Not just bad or disappointing; actually evil. It is, ironically, a very Manichean vision. (His brother appears in the do, and argues, bizarrely, that more overt racist contemporaries of Bill were “gnostic” in their conservatism.) Vidal’s arguments about the nature, and importance, of power, make a great deal more sense. I don’t mean they are ultimately persuasive, or that Vidal is impressive as a thinker. But Vidal has ideas: Buckley just has a position.
Buckley is largely forgotten these days. His show has been resurrected by Margaret Hoover, who does a much better job being reasonable and seeking insight, than Buckley ever did. He has, like Barry Goldwater, vanished into history; which is ironic because, as the documentary notes, the fall of Goldwater spurred the reactionary movement in American politics which is always present, if sometimes moribund, and has produced the present moment (which is prompting the counter-counterrevolution; but, ‘twas ever thus.). His debates with Vidal really did create the modern media culture Twitter knows and loves to hate (what would we do without CNN’s panel “discussions” to complain about?). Especially because they weren’t debates. But then, we don’t really want those. Exchanges of ideas aimed at achieving some kind of consensus are… dull television. 📺 And, according to Twitter, shouldn’t even be a part of our politics.
But then, unsocial media is a product of the Buckley-Vidal debates, too.
*Buckley could have been insightful and countered the ideas he disliked in the book. Instead, he just discards it. It was, at the time, a very popular book. Telling people they shouldn’t accept its existence, is hardly an argument, much less a debating strategy, for why they should reject it. But Buckley’s “method” was:,if he couldn’t accept it, it was rejected, no further explanation necessary. This is what passed for intelligent debate. Buckley’s supporters didn’t want to listen to Vidal. They didn’t see any reason to bother. This, too, is as American as cherry pie.
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