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[1] Every skilled high school English teacher should be telling their students that when writing a “compare and contrast,” they should not only say how they are similar and different but also tell the reader why those similarities and difference are significant. In other words, we should know why it is particularly appropriate, useful, or meaningful to compare Gore to Faulkner. Are the two emblematic of their times, issues, communities? Those are the compare and contasts
that are awesome.

[2] Richard Lindzen is an oil company shill who is rather fortunate to have tenure.

“Al Gore may have given one of the finest speeches of his career. It had poetic resonance but was rooted in real science. It was politically visionary but was animated by an, alas, secure sense of climatic disaster. It was quite plain-spoken about the economic realities that made global warming so ordinary but argued the hope that suicidal habits were good for no one, not even the greatest suicidalists, China and, most significantly, the United States. “

There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed–love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Gore, one of the more shallow alumni of Harvard, writes mostly from the politically correct glands with a dubious thesis that is questioned by eminent scientists, most especially Richard Lindzen, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at M.I.T.

It was stupid of Harrison to write as though Gore could make a reference to “mutually assured destruction” without having learned anything from his predecessor’s Nobel speech about a previous threat to survival. The only thing Gore expressed any fear about was that his words would fail to “match this moment.”

Faulkner would have applauded the line: “But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst - though not all - of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.”

Faulkner celebrated endurance, not passivity. Faulkner and Gore had a shared theme of work, struggle, and survival. Neither offers comforting assurances that we can expect “to be redeemed,” in Harrison’s words. Harrison’s belief that Providence will do for us what we will not do for ourselves is profoundly pessimistic about man’s capacity to prevail, let alone endure. It certainly was not a belief that Faulkner peddled.

Don’t worry though, even if you can’t tell me what “simple point” Graceland alludes to in post 7, I’m sure you’ll manage to turn this into a commentary about how the world abuses writers. The trade off is more than fair.