WHO HAS THE BETTER HOPE

the culture war at its best is deadly ... at its best it's a war of ideas a war of words in which each battle is expected to produce for the winning side a number of captives a pack of words a bundle of books and notions sent off to the provinces to die out ... ideas versus ideals and execution by exile ... comfortable enough but as deadly as lying down to a lethal injection ... it's not as if such conflicts with no blood lost are unusual ... we see them all the time in games and in sports where one possible true sentence is killed by its opponent ... the one answering best the question who won ... it's at such moments that we know the truth isn't trivial ... we see it we feel it in the face ... there's nothing we enjoy so much as winning ... nothing that satisfies us as much whether at the end of a game a debate an election a courtship pregnancy or war ... if the last seems out of place it isn't ... play the tape ... I only mention it last to go on the record as not to minimize the war of ideas ... I know as well as you where it can lead ... do I have a better hope where it will