
The Ghetto and the Mansion - samclemens
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/fire-is-upon-us-by-nicholas-buccola-book-review/
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ceilingcorner
This is a pretty weak article with a smarmy attitude and mostly just a hit
piece on Buckley (who I certainly have no love for) and a lionization of
Baldwin. It's also filled with quite a few misleading, if not actually false,
statements. See the paragraph mentioning Malcom X for an example.

Nonetheless, it's interesting to watch old episodes of _Firing Line_ on
YouTube. Buckley doesn't generally come across as the smarter person, but the
guests themselves are usually worth watching. The show is a calm, rational
discussion between people with diametrically opposed worldviews. This seems
almost unthinkable in the shouting match, tribalistic media we have today.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFeoS41xe7w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFeoS41xe7w)

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lukifer
+1, I also fell down a rabbit role of old _Firing Line_ episodes recently.
Buckley can be condescending and paternalistic; but he nonetheless engages in
good faith with the other side, letting them sink or swim by their own words,
which is an immense improvement compared to today's soundbite-strawman media
landscape.

A couple elements I found interesting: young Arianna Huffington was explicitly
anti-feminist [0], and Ann Coulter's case for impeaching Clinton [1] provides
an interesting contrast to her modern support for Trump.

[0] [https://youtu.be/NDs966SDgVY](https://youtu.be/NDs966SDgVY)

[1] [https://youtu.be/YbmAROJMswU](https://youtu.be/YbmAROJMswU)

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oh_sigh
Except when he gets talking with Gore Vidal.

~~~
lukifer
True. As overloaded/charged as the term has become, it's hard to describe
Buckley's reaction to Vidal as anything other than "triggered". :)

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mcguire
Poking around, I also found this interesting article about Buckley, Vidal, and
the movie _The Best of Enemies_ :
[https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/buckley-
vs-v...](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/buckley-vs-vidal-the-
real-story-121673)

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pmoriarty
Buckley vs Chomsky:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DvmLMUfGss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DvmLMUfGss)

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blorenz
I thought this was going to be a take on "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" but
how scrappy startups should be building a house like in a ghetto where they
make do with anything they can in contrast to building a mansion where the
ornate fixtures and appliances are highly expensive, specific purpose, and
more refined quality. Boy, was I off!

