New American Heroes: Angelo Codevilla

America and all of humanity will wake up and recover from the current, ongoing nightmare (see our essay from more than a year ago, “Waking Up from the Soros/Obama Nightmare”). And when historians chronicle the wake up process, they will see American heroes who made it happen, some of whom in their time were widely known and others who were little known. Some of these heroes will make their contribution through simple actions that speak a thousand words; others will do it through quips and soundbites and speeches; some will run for political office, and some will not. But they will canvass the entirety of the war we are engaged in, from the tiniest skirmish on Main Street in Smalltown, America, to the self-important clashes in media boardrooms in Manhattan.

One of the battlefronts in this war is academia, and one of the heroes who will stand out is Angelo Codevilla. To single him out in this essay is not to suggest he is otherwise unknown or obscure. He is professor of international relations at Boston University and author of several important books, including The Character Of Nations: How Politics Makes And Breaks Prosperity, Family, And Civility. He has been a warrior in the culture war for a long time already. But what marks him as a new American hero is his recent essay in The American Spectator, titled “America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution”. It’s not a fast read nor a light one, but when you have the time, it’s definitely a worthwhile one.

And the reason it marks him as a hero is that he is stepping up in America’s hour of great need, and delivering with enormous intellectual firepower a message on the nature of what America is facing. His bottom line characterization—that we’re in a revolution between the ruling class and the rest of us, or in his terms, the ‘ruling class’ and the ‘country class’—is not the only way to frame it, nor do we think he has rendered the definitive diagnosis in all particulars. He doesn’t even attempt a prescription for winning the revolution. But the important point is that this revolutionary war needs to be won in every heart, and on every level of society, however one defines levels. What Codevilla does is take a stand in the intellectual arena—in the otherwise elitist realm of Boston and the Northeast corridor—and step in with a discussion and analysis that cannot be brushed aside by the leftist Ph.D. The most hardened leftist might have just a bit of inner stirring that ‘you know, maybe this guy is onto something’.

A key "stirrring" excerpt from Codevilla's essay:

"At stake are the most important questions: What is the right way for human beings to live? By what standard is anything true or good? Who gets to decide what?

Codevilla will not in one essay turn Cambridge into Dallas; even the hardened leftist who feels an inner stirring will be a long time admitting it and voicing it. But it means that no part of the battlefield is being surrendered. Where many look at academia and view the cause of restoring the America of the founding as a lost cause—an attitude that could leave academia even surer of itself and its leftist worldview—Codevilla enters the domain of academia with full credentials, and demands re-thinking. He won’t get it from everyone, but he will get it from some. And from those will spring others who will wake up and step up and shake up the leftist orthodoxy that has turned so many academic institutions into havens of mesmerized groupthink that wouldn’t know truth if it smacked them in the face.

So thanks to Mr. Codevilla, and others who follow him. Keep writing. Keep fighting. We’re going to win.

Paul Gable

July 18, 2010