"It seems to me that the idea traditionally defended of endeavoring to maintain existing ethnic balances simply doesn't work any more"
About this Quote
Buckley’s real move here is to smuggle a radical pivot through the calm voice of an exhausted realist. “It seems to me” is the classic Buckley softener: a patrician shrug that signals moderation while teeing up something incendiary. Then he lands the payload in bureaucratic language - “existing ethnic balances” - a phrase that turns people into a ledger. It’s technocratic on purpose, designed to make the politics of demographic control sound like mere policy maintenance, not moral coercion.
The key verb is “maintain.” Buckley isn’t describing prejudice as passion; he’s describing it as infrastructure. The “idea traditionally defended” nods to an older consensus - explicit or implicit - that a nation could and should preserve a preferred demographic composition, whether through immigration restriction, housing patterns, or informal social barriers. By calling it “traditionally defended,” he invokes continuity and legitimacy, even as he prepares to declare the project obsolete.
“Simply doesn’t work any more” is doing double duty. On the surface, it’s an admission of failure: the old tools can’t hold back modern mobility, civil-rights enforcement, global migration, and economic demand. Underneath, it’s also an attempted escape hatch from moral argument. Buckley frames the issue as practicality rather than justice: not “it’s wrong,” but “it’s futile.” That’s a telling posture for a conservative public intellectual navigating post-1960s America, when openly defending racial hierarchy had become reputationally toxic, yet anxieties about demographic change remained politically potent.
So the intent isn’t reconciliation so much as repositioning: conceding the impossibility of control while leaving the underlying premise - that “balances” are something to be managed - conspicuously intact.
The key verb is “maintain.” Buckley isn’t describing prejudice as passion; he’s describing it as infrastructure. The “idea traditionally defended” nods to an older consensus - explicit or implicit - that a nation could and should preserve a preferred demographic composition, whether through immigration restriction, housing patterns, or informal social barriers. By calling it “traditionally defended,” he invokes continuity and legitimacy, even as he prepares to declare the project obsolete.
“Simply doesn’t work any more” is doing double duty. On the surface, it’s an admission of failure: the old tools can’t hold back modern mobility, civil-rights enforcement, global migration, and economic demand. Underneath, it’s also an attempted escape hatch from moral argument. Buckley frames the issue as practicality rather than justice: not “it’s wrong,” but “it’s futile.” That’s a telling posture for a conservative public intellectual navigating post-1960s America, when openly defending racial hierarchy had become reputationally toxic, yet anxieties about demographic change remained politically potent.
So the intent isn’t reconciliation so much as repositioning: conceding the impossibility of control while leaving the underlying premise - that “balances” are something to be managed - conspicuously intact.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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