Sir: It was interesting to read John Braine's account of
his conversion from being a Peter Simple caricature of the Establishment leftie' into an equally uncritical acceptance of the `Rightie' package of attitudes (19 July). Parti- cularly striking was his new-found faith that such few problems as America has (e.g. poverty) would shortly be ironed out.
Yesterday evening I watched a cas film on hunger in the usa, which reminded us that thirty million Americans live in poverty, and ten million of them are permanently hungry. I mean 'reminded': this knowledge is not new. (How long is it since 'the other America' appeared?) Yet nothing effective has been done; and, as the film showed, there are clear reasons for this to be found in the unyielding opposition of powerful sectors of American society. (There was an amazing interview with a senior public official of San Antonio, Texas, where half a million Mexican-Americans live in appalling poverty; he attributed this poverty to laziness: 'some men ain't worth a dime . . . you'll always get Indians and Chiefs.' That children in San Antonio were dying of malnutrition didn't bother him.)
Does it, I wonder, bother John Braine, after his road to Damascus? Since he also asserted that his former internationalism has been re- placed by patriotism, I dare say he's not con- cerned to look too deeply at such foreign phenomena—let alone to trace their roots in the social structure of a country whose values he has totally embraced.
Far be it from me to suggest that he should
return to being an uncritical Leftie. But both his former and present ideologies have in com- mon the blind acceptance of a not necessarily related package of attitudes. Surely we expect our intellectuals to be sceptical of such emo- tional ideologism, not to lead the way in it?
Aidan Foster Carter Brompton House, Frimley. Camberley, Surrey
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