William Buckley Interviews Hugh Hefner on Firing Line (1966) Part 6

[@TairyGreen89]

It was on PBS. Basically the only channel that still has good programming.

[@jonnylawrence3818]

That was very interesting... people should watch the entire interview

[@Brakathor]

You just said composing a sentence while composing an argument makes for a bad use of a rhetorical point, and people gave you multiple thumbs up..... HEAVEN HELP US!

[@chrisyost8167]

That was quite enjoyable!

[@ironpirites]

I thought that Hefner did very well in this discussion. The problems, if any, that Hefner had in understanding Buckley, derive from Buckley's frequent habit of composing an argument and a sentence while in the process of delivering that argument and sentence, a torturous process, not conducive to clarity. This discussion is a good way to measure the decline of public discourse in the United States. This program wasn't cable fare. It was on in prime time on a major network. Heaven help us!

[@ironpirites]

The following is from the Firing Line archive: hoohila.stanford.edu/firingline/preface2.php Firing Line kept substantially the same basic format throughout its life, but with certain variations. (1) It began as an hour-long show for commercial television (i.e., with time subtracted for commercial breaks), syndicated by WOR in New York City. In 1971, under the auspices of the Southern Educational Communications Association (SECA), it moved to public television The Hefner interview was in1966

[@Jthechosenone]

that was great thanks

[@WilliamKapourelos]

Hi how are you

[@ironpirites]

Maybe it was the need to avoid "dead air" on live television that led Buckley to his television speaking style. Whatever. The program was great and is missed. There is nothing like it today.

[@nooniemanuel7178]

YAY HEF!

[@griffintgulledge]

@dlane0308 It's a dialogue, not a debate. His genius is in his writing. Check it out some time.

[@ironpirites]

I remember watching Firing Line on my parent's black and white TV on the one channel we could get, a CBC affiliate out of Saint John, New Brunswick, in the early 60s. Prime Time commercial television with intelligent discourse. A different world. People were more polite too. Less gratuitous foul language and attitudinizing. Less pride. More humility and decency. I wish I was still what I was, in many ways, not what I became.

[@ironpirites]

You might be right. I prefer Buckley's boa constrictor-like throttling of an opponent in conversation to the sort of rude, shout-em-down style employed by many of today's TV interrogators looking for the quick conversational kill. Of course today's interviewers are often dealing with blatant propagandists and liars and need to cut through this line of defense/offense. Buckley was fun and a good representative of the Establishment, but Hefner was very potent in the effect he had on America.

[@MrTruthAddict]

@dlane0308 Well put, well put...

[@magicbeam6821]

I think Hefner is a great man and a true visionary. Not only that but he gave a lot of males a sexual outlet. He truly is a legend.

[@edleonardleonard8045]

William Buckley is the last man.

[@dlane0308]

The idea of Buckley as some sort of intellectual giant is laughable. It seems many people are making the mistake of confusing verbosity for logic. Buckley defends arbitrary religious sexual morality, giving no justifications for such mores, while questioning Hefner's "moral authority" to question such injunctions. Hefner most certainly won the logical argument, all smirks and snide comments from Buckley aside. But I'll concede that next to buffons like O'Reilly, Buckley may as well be Socrates.

[@wwc51450]

Of course, one of the priceless "gifts" of liberalism has been the notion that a child under the age of 10 could possibly have a self of the opposite sex; in other words, chemical castration of young boys instead of letting them grow up and deal with their misconceptions. In fact, the country is in decline. You and your fellow leftists should really be proud of yourself.

[@Brakathor]

If anything, what bothered me about Buckley here is I found him frustratingly too gentle in pushing forward the many GLARINGLY arrogant hypocrisies in Heffner's philosophy, and actions. In a way, that makes him a good interviewer, but I also think the somewhat more aggressive modern style can be more effective in getting people to defend their ideas in such a setting.

[@ironpirites]

It is scary to think it but you could very well be right.

[@rickrick5041]

Afterwards they went outside and got into a fist fight

[@eragon2121]

I wonder why Hefner doesn't defend himself more strongly, he seems to almost be beating around the bush. In that last question, Buckley basically asks him "Why do you do A," and he pretty much responds, "oh, we don't do A, what we really do is actually A."

[@TheSkepticalHumanist]

In spite of my considerable sympathy for Mr. Buckley's position, the fatal flaw in his construct is that he seeks to rest his cultural traditionalism on, quite literally, nothing. In fully embracing the Enlightenment and classical liberalism upon which the United States was founded, the post-war conservative movement effectively acquiesced and surrendered, though unwittingly, to the cultural revolution of the 1960's and 70's. This is the problem with conservatism in the United States -- i.e., our conservatism is fundamentally and substantively liberal in its philosophical orientation. We're in a position where two opposing liberal forces are having it out: one is a conservative or classical liberalism, and the other is a radical, progressive or leftist liberalism. But in embracing the individualism, the egalitarianism, and the utilitarianism of the Enlightenment, modern American conservatives rendered themselves absolutely impotent to combat the forces of "sexual liberation," feminism, abortion, homosexuality, cohabitation, and so forth that sprang from the counter-culture of the 60's. They were doomed to failure from the outset, and things will only continue to deteriorate.

[@dgontar]

That's the position I think of Robert Bork in his Slouching Towards Gomorrah. But I don't think he is right, because it seems to make political history, modern political history, solely about the forms of liberalism. This is an unbalanced and bigoted view. It's a post-Enlightenment position, as if the dialectic began at that time, with the beginning of modernity and German idealism. Actually I think the dialectic can be traced back to the Greeks who invented the concept. One thing though it seems to resolve is the paradox of Hegelian synthesis: how we can have two opposing or negatively related concepts which fuse into one. One can observe how conservative and classical liberalism could be two sides of the same coin and are derived from perhaps what one would call dialectical nihilism.

[@tb352999]

re: “an awkward pipe prop that he doesn't quite know how to handle” Agree, but even more striking is that though at a lower level than Buckley, both are objectively intellectually superior to what passes for public debate today on TV or in most visible public mediums.

[@brock2387]

Buckley went straight to the shower after that interview.

[@MrTruthAddict]

@townsendjean Wow, you live in an alternate reality if you really believe that. Just because someone with an accent sounds like they know what they're talking about doesn't mean they do. His points were silly, and Hef explained to him exactly what was going on in the culture at that time. Conservatives ALWAYS end up accepting the ideas of the liberal. We just have to bring them kicking and screaming into the modern world.

[@TairyGreen89]

Really? It was in 1966? I had no idea. Oh wait it says so right in the fucking title.

[@pontificateus]

Interesting. Super trendy Heffner in the sixties suggests that "perversions" would be reduced by abandoning our restrictive attitudes toward sex. He specifically refers to homosexuality when thinking of perversions. If homosexuality is a perversion, as Hefner Mark 1966 thinks, then he was utterly wrong in thinking that a relaxation of sexual customs would stamp it out! Got that one wrong big time.

[@pontificateus]

Thanks for that.

[@terryallen9546]

Not what he said. Listen again.

[@gorryman]

I agree mostly with everythin except that there in'nt intelluctual discussion like this today because people now adays are just stupider and would have to probably look up a simple word like solopsism becaues today people are so monosylabic if you get my drift ha

[@ariedlin]

Nither one would debate anyone in this generation

[@abaseraserhead]

I'm glad Mr. Hefner has grown more concise and less verbose, employing more laconic wit, in his later years.

[@herbertwells8757]

Hefner's predictions have, of course, long ago come to pass, and the repressive and hypocritical ethos Buckley irrationally defends now seems a barbaric relic.

[@wwc51450]

Three cheers for adultery and various forms of unnatural perversion, eh? Funny that you've chosen "Herbert Wells" for your username. H.G. Wells was a socialist skunk, a compulsive adulterer. Let's throw in a few broken hearts while we're at it. All in good fun!

[@Speegs23]

@MrTruthAddict have you ever considered undertaking an intellectually honest position, one free of rhetorical fallacy and platitude? I think your adversaries understand your own precepts better than you do and that is why they frustrate you so when they articulately deconstruct the logic ends of your worldview because they know what they believe and why it is they believe it, do you? That question will be considered rhetorical if you are unable to provide a thoughtful reply, save your ad hominem

[@PillCozbee]

@townsendjean I see nothing intellectual or philosophical about Hefner. He sounds as unread and arrogant as anyone on CNN today, whereas we have no one like Buckley, not even the chalkboard guy. We've made our choice. Hefner is a superpower, porn and sexual deviation has slain it's millions, and Buckley's dead and forgotten.

[@pontificateus]

Thank you Lynne. Most western cultures (apart from a period in parts of Ancient Greek society) regarded homosexuality as criminal for forever and anon. In the early to mid sixties, some of the Avant Garde began to suggest that it's a sickness that should be treated, rather than being a phenomenon to be dealt with as a felony. Today - right or wrong - it is the homophobe who is seen as sick and in need of counselling. Yesterday's trendy can become today's conservative in the blink of an eye. But Heff, as a sex expert, probably should have kept abreast of this trend. That said, with his empire of Playboy clubs he had already made a serious investment in the then prevailing heterosexual lay of the land . . . Mort Sahl once said that if we live long enough, we'll all have to turn ourselves in for treason . . .

[@sarahh367]

Who was to really know that the opening up of " sexual sin " to the American people, would we know that about 90% of American homes are broken...sad ..when u hear him he seems to have great ideas about sex and freedom of thoughts !! The worse part is now ( not one person's thoughts ) but to open up do as u please , has broken down all morals are humans !! 40-50s we opened yo about sex and freedom..70s ..sex , drugs and rock...80 s aids started ..90 threw today ..no we have centers all around Houston Texas to change your small small children into male to female female to male or androgynous by the time before they start puberty they have completely changed their genetic birth given sexuality... Consequences of this is horrific!! Anyone it's gone through any major surgical operations can tell you that it can be absolutely life-altering without it being a sex change!! That being said let alone the mentality of it!!!