Steyn on Miller

As it is, Miller’s play is an early example of the distinguishing characteristic of the modern Western Left: its hermetically sealed parochialism. His genius was to give his fellow lefties what’s become their most cherished article of faith — that any kind of urgent national defence is, by definition, paranoid and hysterical. It was untrue in the Fifties and it’s untrue today. Indeed, the hysteria about hysteria — the ‘criminalisation’ of ‘dissent’ — is far more hysterical than the hysteria about Reds.

The Crucible will survive because it’s the modular furniture of left-wing agitprop: whatever the cause du jour, you can attach it to and it functions no better or worse than to anything else, mainly because it’s perfectly pitched to the narcissism of the Left. As for Salesman, I agree with the Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout that it works because, underneath its pretensions to forensic realism, it’s grossly sentimental. What else is that ‘attention must be paid’ moment about?

The rest is here.