On Bork, and the 1968 Columbia University strike
Betty, you inspired me to take another look at Bork"s "Slouching Towards Gomorrah" (the sub-title of which, may I remind you, is "Modern Liberalism and American Decline"). Unfortunately, the book has a lousy index, so it is not easy to find succinct quotes linking "modern" liberalism with moral relativism.
But the intro gives a sort of over-all framework. Bork begins by definining "the enemy within" as "modern liberalism, a corrosive agent carrying a very different mood and agenda than that of classical or traditional liberalism."
According to Bork, the defining characteristics of "modern liberalism" are "radical egalitarianism" and "radical individualism", both of which are supposedly "antagonistic to society's traditional morality." “Radical individualism”, in particular, is said to lead to “rootless hedonism” (and that, in turn, of course, to “moral relativism” --”anything goes”).
But my major problem with Bork's analysis of “modern liberalism” is that he selects, as its symbol, the 1968 Yale University student strike that he had the misfortune to live through.
Let me share a few moments from my own experience of the 1968 Columbia University student strike (which I experienced as a graduate student, rather than a professor). Well, it was led by largely Marxist radicals, not liberals. In fact, it was specifically, and deliberately, anti-liberal.
Some of the leaders came from one of my graduate seminars, which dealt with the Russian “pre-revolution”, 1900-1917. All but three of us enrolled in the seminar were Marxists, who were taking the course apparently in order to learn how to “make” a revolution. They were fairly evenly divided among Stalinists, Maoists, and Trotskyites. (Post-scriptum: those I have kept up with are now Republicans. So it goes.)
I remember vividly one “informational meeting” I attended, to find out just what was going on. One student, a young fellow, got up to protest something or other. Well, immediately a crowd of young thugs began stamping their feet to drown him out, bellowing: “Liberal! Liberal! Liberal! Liberal!” After struggling to make himself heard, the young man finally retreated to his seat, red-faced, and almost crying. I was so shocked and angry I got up and left.
I never took the strike -- or much of the 60's radicalism -- very seriously. Too “media-eventish” (Remember “The whole world is watching”?) How could you take seriously a movement that proceeded under the slogan “Never trust anyone over thirty”?? Too much adolescent acting-out there.
jbe |
