U.S. intellectuals have often complained that America, wrenched by fear and suspicion, is at war with itself. Last week one intellectual tried to put things back into perspective. "From a casual glance at the contemporary scene," said Yale's President A. Whitney Griswold, "it might almost seem that we were again living in a house divided against itself and all but inundated by a lawless, anti-intellectual flood ... Is the picture too dark?" Griswold's answer: yes.
Compared to the dissensions of 1854, "our differences today are hot and superficial, like sunburn, not like a fever. The burning issue of 1854 was slavery. Its...
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