Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Is Dead. And so is James Brown.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr is dead.
I note him as this Historian of a Liberal bent who championed FDR and JFK. I note him, and his father, for being of that “Adlai Stevenson” Egghead type, the professorial class who were attracted to Stevenson seemingly because they share the same idiosyncrcies with that man (and the same telling head shape).
Yes, there’s the phrase “Vital Center” — a phrase and ideology that blunted anti-communist liberalism from Henry Wallace-types, but could mean practically anything as we navigate toward a center between two anythings. Hence, Americans for Democratic Action — the organization advocating that cold war liberalism which has a decidedly mixed legacy (one need only look to Vietnam).
But his most endearing legacy, to me, and really I’m conflating Schlesinger Jr and morphing him with his father into one entity (which is just well and good, because he kept a family legacy going) — because I really have only rudimentary knowlege of him anyway…
… and because I gravitate toward these with a certain affinity and a certain queasiness…
commissioning fellow historians to compile those Presidential rankings. Wherein we can track the bottom feeder from Grant to Harding to Buchanan, and contemplate the meaning behind what this shows regarding our American values.