'Extremism': A Moderate Pan

There are three reasons why you shouldn't buy this book. Each reason has a refutation.

1) It costs $2.50, even though it's worth only 50 cents. For $2.50 you can get a roast beef special and a student membership in the American Civil Liberties Union. Or a roast beef special and an evening for two at the Brattle. Or a roast beef special and 200 copies of the Catholic Worker.

The refutation is that some people can afford to pay $2.50 for a 50-cent book.

2) If you want to read this book, you don't have to buy it; you can write it yourself. First, close your eyes and remember an article called "The Old Sentimentality and the New Sentimentality," which was written by the people who wrote this book, and which you read in Esquire a couple of months ago. Remember that the article involved taking lists of names, such as "Dwight Eisenhower, Bat Man and Jackson Pollack," and putting them under headings like "Old Sentimentalists," and then taking other lists of names, such as "Bobby Kennedy, Wonder Woman and Jeanne Moreau," and putting them under headings like "New Sentimentalists," and then printing them neatly with lots of white space all around. Second, imagine how this article would have been if it had been about Extremism. Third, write the book, which is 32 pages long. Fourth, read the book.

The refutation is that you may not have read the Esquire article.

3) Most of the jests in the book are not too funny. For instance, a "Right-Wing Palmistry Chart" contains an "itchy trigger finger" and a "party line." Instructions for "the extremist dance" include "take one step to the Right" and "swing over to the Left." Yok. A list of "known extremist groups" intersperses organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Muslims with thigh-slappers like the Mickey Mouse Club and Peter, Paul and Mary.

The refutation is that some of the jests are funny (for example, an Extremist Literacy Test with questions like "Define the following words: Defoliation: 1. Mowing the lawn. 2. Taking a girl's virginity. 3. Blowing the bejeezus out of North Viet Nam," but not many. Only about 50 cents' worth.