To: Zoltan! who wrote (10090 ) 10/19/1998 11:50:00 PM From: Daniel Schuh Respond to
Bork's Bite By Richard A. Epstein search.nytimes.com Mr. Bork rolls into the culture wars firmly on the side of traditional values. If he makes one positive statement about the past 30 years, I missed it. Everywhere he seeks to slay the left-wing dragon. He deplores the rise of a vulgar pop culture and makes an impassioned case for censorship ''for the most violent and sexually explicit material'' now routinely available, especially on the Internet. Substitute ''subordination of women'' for ''debasement of culture'' and he sounds just like Andrea Dworkin. But there the resemblance ends, for Mr. Bork regards the universities as veritable swamps of political correctness dominated by radical deconstructionists and mindless Afrocentrists. He lashes out at many leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant denominations for living in a ''leftist dream world'' that denounces capitalism and embraces Cuba and Communism. (For good measure he doubts the soundness of the Darwinian view of evolution.) What is Mr. Bork's alternative? ''Slouching Towards Gomorrah'' is vague on prescription. He cannot take much refuge in the primacy of democratic politics (except in denouncing the Supreme Court), for he protests its outcomes on the feminization of the military and on the continuing power of affirmative action. Nor in this sprawling country can he find a core set of moral values that command widespread assent: the moral harmony of ''Father Knows Best'' exists only in reruns. Rather than knocking down the classical liberal model of the state, he should insist that its limitations on individual behavior are as essential as its celebration of freedom. Instead of attacking the excesses of individual behavior, he should try to strengthen the autonomous position of private institutions, especially private universities, from government control of their hiring and admission policies. Unfortunately, Mr. Bork wants to control the political levers to implement his vision of proper moral conduct and of the collective good. A better program is to disable those levers altogether. Mr. Bork rolls into the culture wars firmly on the side of traditional values ... Everywhere he seeks to slay the left-wing dragon. The term common good makes libertarians cringe, because they view it as a catch-all excuse for governments to increase the power of the state. America's foremost libertarian legal mind, Richard Epstein, addresses these worries, acknowledging a tension between personal freedom and social goals, while suggesting that they can be mutually reinforcing: "Laissez-faire is best understood not as an effort to glorify the individual at the expense of society, but as the embodiment of principles that, when consistently applied, will work to the advantage of all (or almost all) members of society simultaneously." amazon.com
