Right is the New Left
The 1960s are an era celebrated – justly, in many cases – by liberals for the progress made in civil rights, economic justice, personal expression, civil liberties and political openness. Others are quick to note the serious problems that came with these changes: occasionally-harmful excesses in personal behavior, overly-permissive attitudes toward anti-social activities, political radicalism that was often misguided and destructive, and, of course, the ugly clothing and furniture.
Because the 60s remain so controversial for American culture and 60s liberalism is today in such deep eclipse, many embattled progressives are reluctant to consider valid criticisms of the harm done by hard-Left ideology and the breakdown of establishment values during that era. They feel, with some justification, that this is simply giving aid and comfort to implacable cultural enemies who would just as soon roll back the good with the bad. Unfortunately, this posture has led the moderate Left into an intellectual dark-alley, and for the past ten years, we’ve been getting brutally mugged because of it.
Here’s the problem. Prior to the 1960s, women and minorities were systematically excluded from American political, economic and social life through a variety of formal and informal barriers. The formal barriers – segregation, discrimination, poll taxes, gerrymandered districts, etc. – could be addressed fairly readily (and were, through Constitutional amendments and legislation). The informal barriers, such as attitudes and perspectives reinforced by custom, history, and cultural expression (art, literature, pop culture), proved harder to fix. As the Left began looking closely at American culture, they found more and more instances of subtle (and not-so-subtle) instances of injustice in the discourse and the educational system.
This led to the proposal of a series of remedies. The first set of demands was to include those who had been unfairly excluded. In education, this meant a revision of the “canon” of Great Books and the formation of departments to engage in scholarly study of minority art and culture. This often led to absurdities in the curriculum, but because the entire issue was so heavily politicized, it became difficult to speak of traditional standards of study and scholarship without appearing to be objectively in opposition to the entire enterprise of inclusion and social justice. Gradually, the argument that we need to include more seats at the table turned into an argument about whether there should be a “table” at all – that is, whether the whole idea of traditional standards was itself not inherently biased and unjust.
Those Left-wing academics who pushed this line of reasoning were probably animated by a genuine passion to do justice. But they were also perhaps over-eager to mimic the genuine courage and practical achievements of the earlier generation of Civil Rights activists and, incidentally, make their own reputations as socially-relevant intellectuals at the same time. Their ideology and ambition blinded them to the potential consequences of their position while spurring them on with a zeal that alienated moderates and repulsed conservatives.
It is these misguided people whom we have to thank for perverting the legitimate aspirations of tolerance and inclusion into the odious and Stalinist concept of “political correctness.” But that is the least of their sins. By the postmodern logic of the Academe, the aesthetic, experiential and cultural value of art and literature became subordinated to political considerations, such as the identity and attitudes of the author and the historical circumstance in which the work was created. In this atmosphere, it became possible to dismiss writers like Shakespeare and Dante as “dead white European males,” as if this were reason enough to judge their work less “relevant” than the output of artists whose racial identity better matched the inclusion agenda of the moment.
The arguments supporting the liquidation of traditional standards for judging the quality of art and literature were also used to challenge models and methods that had proven useful in anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science and other social sciences. It became fashionable to view all knowledge, not just artistic expression, as the product of a culture – often a corrupt and unjust culture – rather than on its own terms. The application of judgment was frowned upon. According to the new rules, every situation could be looked at in any number of equally-valid subjective ways, with no perspective having a “privileged” or objective truth. This is perhaps a reasonable way to look at art and literature. But as a means for trying to make sense of the world at large, it is a recipe for chaos and mischief.
What neither liberals nor conservatives seemed to realize at the time was who really benefited from the new “anything goes” intellectual environment. In the absence of commonly-accepted standards for truth, objectivity and the admissibility of facts into intelligent discourse, anyone with a platform to put forward their views had a claim to be taken seriously. A media that tried earnestly to be “inclusive” and even politically-correct no longer had the means at hand (or perhaps the inclination) to dismiss preposterous, tasteless, irrelevant or outright false discourse without appearing “elitist” and judgmental. So who got through? Those with the most money to buy access or the most sensational appeal. And this was supposed to be the formula for a more inclusive, progressive society?
Worst of all, the public and the younger generation who had been the victim of post-modern educational experimentation lacked the intellectual tools to filter out the nonsense on their own. In the past, school kids read John Locke to be better citizens and Shakespeare to be better people. Lately, these values have been supplanted by the urgency to expose them to the voices of the “other” and to boost their dignity instead of strengthening their judgment. This superficial sheen of tolerance indoctrinated in the schools often does not survive contact with the real world, but the basic ignorance imparted by the failed education system is permanent. A generation and more now lack not only an understanding of our cultural heritage and our political values, but are intellectually defenseless against transparent lies and misleading claims foisted on them by commercial culture and a mean, manipulative style of politics.
I reiterate: this project of cultural decentering was the work of the hard Left, the former 60s radicals who filtered into the ranks of higher education in the 1970s and 80s. Conservatives, for good reasons and bad, stood opposed to it. However, the nature of the opposition, and the suspicion that they opposed not only the excesses but also the valid points of the PC-crowd, led moderate liberals to mute whatever misgivings they might have had.
The “reality-based community” is being beaten senseless these days by a well-organized gang of ruthless political operatives who care nothing for the welfare of most Americans and who are gleefully pursuing policies that will leave the country and the world in tatters by the time they’re done. They maintain themselves in power through brazen deception, playing the loopholes and blindspots in the system that refuse to call lies lies, or to speak with authority for the higher values of democracy.
The academic Left thought justice would be done by removing the old barriers. They thought the barriers were there to hold back the oppressed and the unfairly excluded. In fact, they were there to hold back something far worse. And now we know.
12:18:29 PM 
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