William Buckley Interviews Norman Mailer on Firing Line (1968) Part 2

[@gmeliberty]

Was there really a time when two, politically diametrically opposed people could have an intellectual, stimulating, funny and warm debate? I remember this time. My world is long gone.

[@raginald7mars408]

I do too - but back then we were still in Kinder Garden in that World with play mobile self created problems now we appraoch HELL and we HATE each other

[@somethingyousaid5059]

I always loved those Buckley mannerisms! (Must be something wrong with me.)

[@SarahJones-wy5us]

@Billy Bob Oh stop it.

[@indianavince]

My father was a union factory worker, yet I remember weekend mornings playing with my silly toys on the living room carpet, my father taking in this and other news shows. I do also wish stuff like this was available without the grandstanding and such. This is civility.

[@carryclass6807]

what does his ability to watch this have to do with how he makes his living?

[@tiredofsacred]

@@carryclass6807 I'm pretty sure youre being crass, the commenter is reminiscing about how his father had a menial job but was actually quite intelligent.

[@johnnyg3603]

carryclass because now they watch idiots on Fox News with dumbed down exploitation of the masses. At least these guys could talk.

[@alexlee7773]

gore vidal wipes the floor with both

[@nelsano3]

'They tend to consider as mitigating that your muse stimulated Stakanovite acyivity' lol i nearly fell off my chair.. There will never be another William F Buckley

[@CadeCYC]

nelsano3 what does this mean?

[@nelsano3]

@@CadeCYC not entirely sure but Stakanovich was a famous soviet miner who won the Lenin Award for mining a record quota of coal during his shift. Ironically he did it by disobeying the rules. He was the most famous soviet citizen role model used by the regime, he ultimately became disillusioned by the whole chirad.. as for it applying to Mailors 'muse` im insure.. like i said the dont do em like Buckley anymore!

[@Mazurka1001]

Plus his head it's about three times the normal size. Just amazing.

[@mstalcup]

0:55 "They [the people who read you] tend to consider as mitigating, that your muse has been stimulated into Stakhanovite activity every time you get into a jam, but this doesn't necessarily mean you were right in what you did..." We don't hear conversational eloquence like this on TV anymore. Did people in the audience actually know what a Stakhanovite was? I had to look it up.

[@michaelreidperry3256]

I miss the America where Americans from oddly unique and exceptional perspectives could respectfully talk with each other.

[@Carlos-ql8sh]

True, but this conversation is every bit as vicious as a knife fight. The knives are just beautifully sheathed in intellectually bejewelled scabbards until they’re deftly and smilingly pushed into rhetorical rib cages. Good stuff!

[@michaelreidperry3256]

@@Carlos-ql8sh Thank you. It is an art to talking with each other like adults but still be allowed to deliver arguments with the hard often-vicious honest truth the arguments depend on. Now all we can typically expect in a conversation is a childish food fight.

[@michaelreidperry3256]

@@Carlos-ql8sh CNN started the food fight as a response to Rush Limbaugh’s sensationalized “Newsiness,” but FOX perfected and weaponized the “Newsiness” art into something that is anything but real. Americans have been badly burned by the food fight masquerading as free speech, as I’m sure you know.

[@zachromero]

damn mailer loves to use a lot of words to say only a few things.

[@stephenpitkin5492]

I agree. Maybe he was sounding out and editing various possibilities that would end up distilled in his writing.

[@mstalcup]

It's funny that Buckley seems impressed that Mailer had used the word "micturation" because it contains many syllables. Maybe Buckley was enjoying a private joke in that Mailer should have said "micturition," not "micturation."

[@ZenFox0]

Seems like an unintended portmanteau, i.e. micturition + urination = micturation.

[@FungusMossGnosis]

5:36 -- that's interesting, the Firing Line audience doesn't get chairs. What hippie ethos Buckley had here.

[@tomakafrankconlon3207]

There was no need for any money to have been wasted on anesthesia. Mankind should just have waited for Buckley to come along. There is nothing more numbing than listening to him. I have no doubt he told himself bedtimes stories so he could fall asleep.

[@cultfilmfreakreviews]

it's weird how LEFT WING he is here, Mailer, but when he argues with Gore Vidal he calls him a LEFTIE and bags on him.

[@finlayson6868]

To be fair, he calls him a "libby". A liberal and leftist are two different things. But yeah, he seems to have gone completely to the right by that time.

[@michaeldobish4770]

​@@finlayson6868i read "libby" in the vidal/mailer debate as "liberationist", as in women's liberationist, the term they used for feminism then and which was under discussion just when mailer started accusing people of being libbies.... :)

[@grega1972]

Mailer so bad wanted the world to regard him as an intellectual on the same level of Gore Vidal and William Buckley but If you notice in most early interviews He CANNOT hold it together for very long until he starts falling apart . He also tried to develop his own brand of an intellectual accent which sounds hilarious . He was at the very least a pretentious prick ,and Rip Torn was right for smacking him with a hammer !!

[@pryan37bb]

I wonder if Mailer can pick up FM stations with those dinner plates on the sides of his head.

[@PaulThronson]

A guy who hates himself too much and a guy who loves himself too much get married? Seems like the odd couple origin story.

[@JTHSanDiego]

@chimphater Concur. The cable and broadcast networks should fire all of their "talk show" hosts and just do reruns of Firing Line and The Dick Cavett Show. The issues haven't changed...just the presentation (and intellect). BTW, why did Mailer effect the Irish accent?

[@Lisavieta]

Buckley's face after Mailer called Time magazine psychotic was priceless!

[@jadezee6316]

is mailer really this insecure a man..or is he trying to act someone else? i cant find the intellectual abilities that he should possess but i wonder if i am being influenced by what others say about him...

[@timwarrington2752]

they say so much but they have no point

[@jameselixson5907]

It's an attempt to derail the interview. Mailer talked about doing this when he was uncomfortable. He would take the discussion down a dirt road for his own purposes.

[@spiritualED]

Buckley has that "snooty" thing goin on in a bigway throughout this interview(imo).

[@kenvee2166]

My imagination or was Mailer simply inviting Buckley to go after him every 30 seconds...?

[@BookClubDisaster]

The notion of the Macho Male Writer. Does this even exist anymore? Hemingway, Mailer. Even Tolstoy was kind of in this category. Or Nietszhce the macho philosopher. Now any male writer must write about maleness in an almost apologetic way. Granted, guys like Mailer embody exactly WHY such behavior needs to be apologized for. Males are in a curious limbo state intellectually. Macho guys are typically poorly educated boorish jerks. Educated guys are almost made to feel guilty for having a penis. There has to be some middle ground.

[@Lucien1st]

Parallels between Mailer and Kanye West - overwhelming egos obscuring level of importance in the world.

[@jas778]

ppl sitting on the floor

[@johnjohnson68510]

7:14 Mailer starts hitting his fist, meaning Buckley is winning, and he wants to fight him back.

[@HaleysComet81]

Mailor was so fucking tedious.

[@michaelgarza8271]

We will never see their like again.

[@KentBuchla]

@HumanStrategy Agreed. I often find Buckley to be much the same. Plus, he interrupts others far too often.

[@CARDUELIS999]

@HumanStrategy Yes, but at least he was worth talking to. Buckley is toying with him, but, as has been pointed out, we should miss this type of discussion between left and right. Cheers.

[@BobLoblawbob]

That's no forehead on Mailer, gotta' be a six or seven head. Buckley always reminded me of Peter Fonda and Mailer looks like Peter Faulk. TV then and now: blowviation device.

[@unowen334]

I believe WFB, Jr. provided Mailer the opportunity to speak and listened carefully. I disagree with others that state is a "typical...". No one is TYPICAL, everyone is dynamic and non-static. Indeed, if WFB were a "snob and a bore," he would never had the opportunity to film over 1500 episodes of The Firing Line; therein lies the key to debate and discussion. Name-calling and mis-characterizations are the sins of the ignorant. Good for you Patrick, but for you, Rex Mundi, take your head out of the sand and hear intelligent discourse and debate without pre-assuming a point of view.

[@OKandNOWwhat]

Learned a new word! Gobbet- quantity of liquid or excerpt of writing, but, as used, a slimy turd ball. Learned another! Micturation, that is, urination.

[@JudgeJulieLit]

Hello? Mr. Mailer passed away a few years ago. Or by "in person" do you mean, in this video from 1968? His talent (as manifested in, for example, The Naked and the Dead) matches the ego, so it's earned.

[@anothertime1282]

These two were made for each other. Brilliant and entertaining stuff.

[@RogerFedTennis]

Yeah, Mailer is a very disappointing guest. After seen this, I am amazed that his writing is as good as it is...

[@AS-bv6qc]

Weird accent on Mailer. Almost Irish-Australian.

[@santasubsify]

Mailer is unbearable.

[@Charybdys]

@alexlee7773 Do you wipe the floor with both? If not, why take your comment seriously?

[@johnmctim7742]

Remember when people used to be clever and articulate?

[@SarahJones-wy5us]

Add Gore Vidal and bang even more snide , intelligent wit and slander!

[@brentlittle8075]

Bill is saying uhu uhu pretty much during the entire drone.

[@seangelarden8753]

Mailer is either drunk or on drugs because we recognize our own

[@lanser87]

@borjon23 I'm sure he had a good reason.

[@gorecassady1632]

Exculpate

[@traceywilkes7870]

... Expiation!!!!

[@rexmundi1570]

Buckley: typical example of a guy who automatically assumed an ivy league education and a knowledge of the classics always made him the smartest person in the room, or the tv studio. That's why he constantly exuded the smug condescension of an arrogant, self-satisfied snob and bore.

[@Macknsteez]

But you have to hand it to him, at least he interviewed these people, at least he had discussions with intellectuals, even if he was arrogant and half as smart as the people he talked to, as opposed to pundits today who just surround themselves with guests who simply nod their heads in consension.

[@eddiegalon3714]

totally agree. So much hot empty air filling that studio, they needed sandbags to throw off the stage.

[@eddiegalon3714]

+Nick b or say nothing we the viewers already know or think. The death of intellectualism today in the U.S. is so overwhelmingly evident when watching this, even if I find them both incredibly full of themselves.

[@MassiveJungle]

lol

[@boogster123321]

why would you compare it. there is still intelligent television such as 60 minutes, this week, or face the nation.

[@Myndir]

1:31 . Pure lust.

[@JakeMabe1]

I can think of no better pleasure than, as you put it, being "stuck" in a car driving cross country with Buckley and Mailer. At the very least, it would produce intelligent, learned conversation, something that is now about as extinct in this country as manners, taste, and common sense.

[@curtiskretzer8898]

w/o a thesuarus & dictionary it may well b an interminable ride (interminable😹)!

[@confucius2616]

Buckley always thought he was smarter than he actually was