Ralph Nader reconsidered.

• Author: Rowe, Jonathan
• Position: Putting Yourself on the Line

Among the individuals in our age who has most put himself or' the line is Ralph Nader. This piece appeared in 1985.

I remember that day, in a law school dorm, that I happened upon a Playboy interview with this Nader fellow. The magazine dubbed him the "zealous consumer crusader," but it was the crusader rather than the consumer part that lit the fire. Here was a man who lived in a rooming house, owned no car, and kept his material wants to a minimum so he could do the work he really cared about. The pictures on the opening spread showed him in varying degrees of discomfort, as though defying the feel-good aura of the magazine. "Is it so implausible, so distasteful," Nader said, "that a man would believe deeply enough in his work to dedicate his life to it?"

It was Nader's commitment to the old-fashioned virtues of individual hard work, thrift, and civic responsibility that put him right at the geological fault line between profession and practice in American ]ife-between the values a Reagan kitchen cabinet member might profess and the values his company spreads through its advertising. If this could seem a specter in the nation's boardrooms, it was also unsettling in Washington, where commitment is expected to remain within polite limits and where many people see no inconsistency between aspiring for a six-figure salary on the one hand and social values that include a cleaner environment or helping the poor on the other. Nader was saying that there was an individual price to be paid and ordered his own life accordingly.

It was enough...