Witness by Whittaker Chambers, from the foreward

The crisis of Communism exists to the degree in which it has failed to free the peoples that it rules from God...The crisis of the Western World exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God.

p. 18 Fellow Teachers, Rieff

"Our higher schools have the burden of teaching the art of critical interpretation; but they cannot, at the same time, serve as bases for thrusts of power against established authority...The arts of criticism can remain true only when they are unarmed...As the Marxist case demonstrates, even the highest criticism, armed, will defend its own establishment soon enough and prevent mind from entering those interior spaces opened and shaped by our continuous interpretative sciences...Our schools must be powerless institutions of the political orders in which they exist; otherwise, they cannot be schools...The relation between political power and pedagogic authority can never be simple and direct without becoming brutal, inartistic."

."..True criticism is never armed. Marxism lost in truth what it gained in power when it gained power over the Russians."

Personal note: relate to Matthew 22:17-22

p. 18 Fellow Teachers, Rieff

Rieff makes an argument in principle against a teacher taking sides while arguing that the politician is always wrong to struggle for neutrality. The principle for the teacher is patient thought (p. 13 footnote). The principle for the politician is right authority. The politician who apes the principled teacher is a fraud--the politician is always armed and always aiming to win. We can agree or disagree with whether the right or the left is correct in claiming "right authority," but the claims of neutrality by the moderate should always be distrusted because he's gotta gun and is aiming to win on his terms.