Shine, Perishing Republic
He admired Sherwood Anderson and Robinson Jeffers and after college dreamt of building an intellectuals’ commune on a farm in Ohio. He opposed almost every war of his lifetime (1906–1982). He execrated masscult and midcult alike — in particular updated translations of the Bible and the Mortimer Adler / Robert Hutchins “Great Books” library (“densely printed, poorly edited, over-priced and over-syntopiconized”). He belonged nowhere in the political spectrum, and he was one of the great American essayists of the 20th century — one of about three, total. Critic, journalist, pacifist (sort of), anarchist, Jeffersonian, reactionary, radical — that was Dwight Macdonald. ~Daniel McCarthy, Reactionary Radicals
I have to admit that I don’t know Dwight Macdonald’s writings at all, but his appreciation for Robinson Jeffers immediately recommends him as being capable of discerning judgement.
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