The National Review has published some excellent obituaries in its day. The magazine's founder, William F. Buckley Jr., was a master of the form. But in this day many of NR's obituary notes, which appear in its front-of-the-book roundup called "The Week," are little bundles of casual contempt. Recently deceased celebrities whom the mainstream media have stupidly praised are here smartly tried, found wanting, and condemned. In the February 22 issue, for example, the editors note the passing of Louis Auchincloss, J.D. Salinger, and Howard Zinn. Of Salinger they write,
Unfortunately he was embraced as the symbol of an age group. Even dark fiction once gave young readers something to aspire to. Caulfield left them with their sometimes tender, always ineffectual feelings: a pernicious legacy. Salinger enacted his hero's funk, retiring to the womb of a cabin in New Hampshire, and assorted food manias. The lawyer [Auchincloss] died at age 92, the recluse at age 91. R.I.P.
R.I.P.? The Zinn note follows:
Howard Zinn was a historian who rose to fame and fortune by turning heroes into villains. Columbus wasn't an intrepid explorer, but a bringer of genocide -- and so on, ad nauseam. His signature book, A People's History of the United States, sold millions. It became required reading on many campuses. It was also a piece of unabashed leftist agitprop.... Honest historians may have viewpoints, rooted in fact and argument, even to the point of revisionism. Zinn, by contrast, pushed an agenda. In his mind, capitalism always exploited and America always oppressed. On January 27, he became just another dead white male. R.I.P.
Best not to speak ill of the dead. If one must (or will) speak ill of them, better to wait until their bodies are cold. But if one is going to comment uncharitably on a recent death, perhaps on the reasonable assumption that no one expects graciousness from journalists, one might at least refrain from an idle desecration. The editors of National Review are too smart not to know that R.I.P. stands for "requiescat in pace," and that "requiescat in pace" is a prayer, which you don't need to add as a flourish, and which you should probably avoid after spitting on someone's grave to amuse your readers. NR obits, go to hell.
