16. What Vidal realized is that violence is failure. Buckley threatened to punch out Vidal & lost. Mailer did head-butt Vidal and lost.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
17. Vidal after being physically attacked by Mailer. "Once again, words fail Norman Mailer."
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Replying to @HeerJeet
18. In sum, Gore Vidal was much more of man than William F. Buckley. This indisputable fact reflects badly on Vidal.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
19. In other ways, Buckley and Vidal reflect the narcissism of small differences: elite, pseudo-aristos, isolationist & Old Right origins.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
20. But perhaps precisely because of their shared origins, Vidal knew exactly which buttons to hit to set Buckley off.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
21. Buckley's weakness was that in his conventional morality he thought he could shame Vidal by calling him perverted, degenerate, & "queer"
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Replying to @HeerJeet
22. Buckley miscalculated. Impressive, radical thing about Vidal was he had absolutely no sense of shame or guilt about his sexual practices
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Replying to @HeerJeet
23. The true extent of Vidal's sexual radicalism has yet to be appreciated. He preceded Stonewall & felt no common cause with "gay rights"
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Replying to @HeerJeet
24. Vidal didn't see himself as a member of a gay community needing rights but as a man with appetites that deserved freedom.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
25. Vidal's sexual politics were in essence aristocratic, like an 18th century libertine or Roman Senator. That made him unshakable.
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26. For Buckley, being called a queer was a grave insult, a cutting remark. Vidal, subscribing to a different morality, could laugh it off.
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Replying to @HeerJeet
27. Vidal the would-be populist had aristocratic values, Buckley the supposed aristocratic conservative appealed to mob morality.
1 reply 6 retweets 25 likes - Show replies
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