Reply #57: Though Vidal was his nemesis, the opposite of Buckley is William Burroughs [View All]

[McCamy Taylor]

Burroughs comes to mind because he had a hard to place drawl---in his case a combo of Midwestern/prep school/Harvard and because he continued to dress "square" even when he was the height of "hip"--both he and Buckley looked like undercover cops---and because he was a social critic. But the similarity ends there. Burroughs was an artist and creative thinker who encouraged the growth of American culture, while Buckley seemed determined to stand in its way. The result was Burroughs always had laughter behind his eyes and words and Buckley always had pent up hostility and frustration.


Here is Burroughs on SNL at the same time that Buckley was hosting his snooze fest on PBS. Note how the audience just loves Burroughs. He could always connect, no matter how old he got.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw1U4EJdtgs

Here is Burroughs from "Commissioner of Sewers"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Urn2ryLwI&feature=related

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake writes

The Giants who formed this world into its sensual existence and now seem to live in it in chains, are in truth the causes of its life & the sources of all activity, but the chains are the cunning of weak and tame minds which have power to resist energy, according to the proverb, the weak in courage is strong in cunning.
Thus one portion of being is the Prolific, the other the Devouring: to the devourer it seems as if the producer was in his chains, but it is not so, he only takes portions of existence and fancies that the whole.
But the Prolific would cease to be Prolific unless the Devourer, as a sea, recieved the excess of his delights.
Some will say: 'Is not God alone the Prolific?' I answer: 'God only Acts & Is, in existing beings or Men.'
These two classes of men are always upon earth, & they should be enemies; whoever tries to reconcile them seeks to destroy existence.

When I compare the two men, I thought of this passage, with Burroughs as the Prolific and Buckley as the Devourer. I can not escape the suspicion that young William F. Buckley was searching for something like what William Burroughs achieved when he (Buckley) entered academia (rather than business). However the circumstances of his birth, upbringing and character made it impossible for him to escape the right wing, and hard core conservativism is death to art. The speech he delivers in the video on Nov. 1968 before Gore Vidal in which he utters a depressing stream of conscious monologue in place of an argument hints at someone who wants to be a poet. However, his poetry has no self conviction. No soul.