Whittaker Chambers

Question 1

What work did he write and when?

Answer 1

Witness in 1952.

Question 2

What did Witness do in broad terms?

Answer 2

Crystallized the emergence of conservative thought and provided a serious alternative to communism. It is an autobiography of Chambers with profound lessons.

Question 3

Describe Chambers life,

Answer 3

• ) He had a troubled childhood.
• ) During his college years, he was a member of the Communist underground. He found community where he couldn’t find it in the Church. He was seeking to infiltrate the U.S. government and convert politicians to communism.
• ) He eventually broke with communism but still believed he was joining the losing capitalist side.
• ) He went to his grave in the 60s thinking communism would win just like Solzhenitsyn during his Harvard Address. The decadence of the west will lead to its moral downfall.
• ) He thought he would be assassinated but became an editor at TIME Magazine.
• ) Conversion from Communism was Inseparable from his Conversion to Christianity.
• ) Chambers had to say what he knew to Nixon’s committee to eradicate communist influence. He quit his job and knew his testimony would cost him dearly. He pointed his finger at Alger Hiss, a State Department Official.
• ) Hiss denied the charges and ran a smear campaign directed at Chambers. Hiss was convicted of perjury but not espionage on the true testimony Chambers provided.
• ) The Opening of the Soviet archive further proved that Chambers was right.

Question 4

Describe the Trial Christianity faces according to Chambers in light of Communism.

Answer 4

• ) Societies live and die by faith.
• ) Chambers gave three examples of men who had faith in communism: one served others through menial tasks, one was willing to die for his beliefs, and one burned himself in protest.
• ) All were deeply committed to creating a better world and there was a sense of large meaning in Communism. It’s almost a Christian heresy.
• ) The difference between Communism and the West is the degree of faith. The West, unlike the communists, have lost their desire to affect the world and their moral conscience. It’s unwilling to do the hard work to maintain a civilization.
• ) The two visions of the future are either God or man without God.
• ) Liberalism is what will lead to communism. The idea that humans ought to be emancipated from culture invariably leads to an emancipation from limits on freedom and God. Limitless freedom with only the limits I prescribe to it. (Nietzsche’s personal will.)
• ) Empiricism is the predecessor. If the basis of all knowledge is measurements, then all metaphysics and theology are thrown out. (Hume-esque.)
• )Empirics are not bad but Empiricism is.

Question 5

What are the three encounters that led Chambers to challenge empiricism?

Answer 5

1) Conversation with His Mother - An Opened Mind is Closed at one End.
2) Watching Goldfinches - God and Beauty are One.
3) Stugatz and Sister - Corruption and Uncorrupted.
- ) Encounters With Beauty Draw Him Closer to the Source of Beauty.