Late yesterday, I cross-posted a couple dozen blogospheric rants against Bill Buckley that I collected for 43sb. Starting with the insult from Gore Vidal, 'TinPlated CryptoNazi -- Good Riddance', I explained I didn't want to waste the effort on him.
Among the few dozen comments here (most whinging because speaking ill of the dead is bad juju) were several that nod respectfully at his talent. And in trying to explain this morning why that talent made what he did all the more wrong... I accidentally took the time I'd hoped to not waste:
I utterly disagree with Driftglass's painting him as tragic. Or the way the quote you used lets him build a figurative cathedral that his followers tear down. That implies nobility I just don't see.
Sailing rhapsodic without a compass is tragic. Using one's talents like Buckley did isn't a tragedy but an abuse. I spend most of my life gently tucking a rather fat vocabulary under the proverbial bushel so it doesn't get me into trouble. And one of the more subtle ways it gets me into trouble is when it interferes with others' reasoned responses. Wordsmiths and smart people without my vocabulary can be distracted and sometimes people with a lesser vocabulary take any message they want without understanding the nuance. We're stuck with Tweety, Pantload, Oxycontin and the shrieking harpy sisters in large part because of the vile groundwork laid by him and because Buckley's effort legitimized so many of their bad ideas: he cultivated a legion of dittoheads for them to inherit and for Rupert Murdoch to further debase.
Tragedy? No. Wrongheadedness ending badly is something kids start to grasp by kindergarten or sooner. And in my book, a lifetime of sophistry writ large like this deserves an exemption from ever being forgiven. He was an elitist who dedicated his considerable talents to gumming up the works of humanity. The only tragedy I see looks more like a greek tragedy: everyone dies and the protagonist has to endure the chain reaction caused by his massive fuckup in acts 1 and 2.
Best analogy? Leni Riefenstahl.
Appropriate literary genre: Morality Play.
My real wish? That he could have gotten the final Act of Reifenstahl's life: decades of having seen one's brittle cathedral of shit collapsed and of being tarred with the ignominity of being the last surviving cultural architect of the most infamous generation since the dawn of history. Fifty years of universal public scorn might tone down my bellicosity one notch.