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C00002 00002	Dear Serge:
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Dear Serge:

	I got your letter addressed to ``cc list for the file'', the
letter to Science, the advertisement for the file and the excerpt
with graffitti.  Congratulations on its publication by Springer.

	I haven't read the FILE itself, but the material you sent
me can presumably be evaluated on its own, since it was sent as
a package.  In that respect I find it intellectualy self-indulgent.
You put lower requirements for meaningfulness on yourself than
you apply to Lipset.  Everyone has a certain tendency to do this
for two reasons.  First everyone tends to regard himself as the
underdog and the other fellow as the establishment.  I suppose
you feel that way with regard to Lipset's position in the opinion
measuring field and perhaps with regard to conservative
``domination'' of certain aspects of our society.  Second,
behaving this way is reinforced by applause from people of similar
views who are glad to see someone smite the enemy.  These people
don't require detailed arguments, because for them it is already
settled who are the bad guys and who are the good guys.  One is sometimes
surprised, however, when one asks a supporter whether he finds
the arguments conclusive or is merely happy to see others taking
positions he agrees with.

	Let's come to particulars.

	1. The excerpt and the graffiti.  It appears that Lipset
shared a view common in 1960 that the main problems of society
were well on the way to solution and that the intensity of
political conflict would decline.  The first part is still arguable,
and I would say that on the whole U.S. society in particular
and capitalist society in general continues to make progress.
Current arguments for this point of view are in a recent book
by Ben Wattenberg, who probably has much in common with Lipset.
On the other hand Lipset would presumably admit that he was
mistaken in the view, which he shared with Daniel Bell and others,
that the intensity of ideological conflict would diminish.

	However, consider the graffiti.  Their date isn't given,
but I would suppose that if the Library copy is old such
graffiti would be common by the late sixties and would be likely
well into the seventies.  They would tail off in the eighties,
but still might occur on even new books.  They represent the
intellectual self-indulgence of that era.  Each of several students
felt encouraged to add his own to the previous graffiti.  None felt
inclined even to the level of refutation feasible in the margin
of a book.  Perhaps some would say that intellectual refutation
is inappropriate.  My erstwhile debate oppponent Joseph Weizenbaum
would say that such ``obscene'' views require indignation not
the honor of refutation.  This attitude was certainly common in
the 1960s, tragically so, in my opinion.  In America it led to
a certain amount of terrorism and murder.

	Its worst excess, however,
in Cambodia, where Left Bank attitudes were carried to an
extreme far beyond what Pol Pot's Paris mentors would themselves
have done.  You yourself seem to feel that no actual analysis
of Lipset's opinions is called for.  Nor is there any discussion
of the relation between the opinions expressed in the book and 
his public opinion studies.

	I go on too long.  My main point is that an argument from
graffiti is no argument, but merely spluttering with indignation.