Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501070016
SECTION: EDITORIALS PAGE: G-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RONALD M. LARSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This is from writer Tom Wolfe. Is Wolfe correct?
Public-opinion polls indicate that Americans are deeply concerned about the sad state of American culture. And have not voters subscribed to the GOP'S "Contract With America?"
If so, contract proponents face a daunting challenge. They must confront an inexorable historical force, described by political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville as "possessing all the characteristics of a Divine decree." This force - "the principle of equality" - was identified and described by Tocqueville more than 150 years ago in his classic work, "Democracy in America."
But Tocqueville also tells us that the equality principle's consequences aren't divine. They are diabolical, because they dissolve social and religious bonds. These consequences are now being felt with a vengeance in America, and constitute what I call a "Contract on America."
If the Republicans' 10-point contract appeals to reason in an effort to reinvigorate social institutions, the "Contract on America" appeals to emotion to keep it from happening. Here's how it works.
Democratic people love equality, Tocqueville writes, and the more equal they become, the more they love equality. People turn to the central government to remove inequalities because solutions at other levels are more likely to result in delays and half-measures. Over time, Tocqueville believed, governmental centralization increases as inequalities are removed.
With increased political centralization, people become more ignorant and apathetic about civic matters. As the transaction of public business moves from the local to the national level, people are less involved with and less committed to community affairs.
As people become more equal, they become more "individualistic." To Tocqueville, individualism is a pejorative term, better understood today as "self-centeredness." The equality principle impoverishes social life and heightens self-preoccupation. History shows that the principle of equality doesn't respect the family threshold. Women and children, traditional victims of inequality, petition government for relief from "abusive" relationships. When relief arrives, traditional breadwinners may vanish and women and children may slip into poverty.
As people become equal, they, according to Tocqueville, become susceptible to pantheism. Pantheism is the belief that God is everywhere, the ultimate religious manifestation of the principle of equality. But if God is everywhere, then he is also nowhere. In short, pantheism is a superfluous term for atheism, and atheism can only increase anxieties in the only animal who is aware of his mortality. Witness the New Agers and environmental extremists.
As people become more atheistic and self-centered, they become more anxious about their physical well-being and, unable to fully assuage these anxieties in the private sector, turn to the public sector for help. But heavy taxation can't meet the insatiable desire for well-being. Voters object because such taxation interferes with private efforts to promote material desires. Thus, massive borrowing occurs, eventually leading to onerous public debt, a reduced standard of living and increased anxiety.
As democracy becomes popular worldwide - Tocqueville writes that the principle of equality doesn't stop at the water's edge - foreigners ask for assistance in seeking it. Western leaders are sympathetic to these calls. But their people aren't, especially if answering the pleas entails sacrifice. Many Americans resent our Haitian efforts, and are blind to events in Eastern Europe. Yet Westerners will wage war if it is inexpensive and designed to protect resources necessary for hedonistic lifestyles. Witness the Gulf War.
As the principle of equality spreads globally, international cooperation results, in such agreements as NAFTA and GATT. These efforts are aided and abetted by an "aristocracy of manufacturers," as Tocqueville terms it. While these agreements benefit mankind in general, the public soon learns that they are detrimental for Americans in particular. As this reality comes to light, Americans will be outraged.
As people become more equal in a meaningless world (an agnostic world with weakened social bonds), religious people become objects of hatred and contempt. Communities of believers are a standing rebuke to the principle of equality because they manifest social solidarity, claim moral superiority and won't conform to secular norms. Witness the Waco massacre.
Similarly, conventional deviants such as rapists, murderers and thieves are "defined down," to use Sen. Patrick Moynihan's term: That is, heinous behavior is so commonplace that it becomes more acceptable. But new "criminals" (e.g., child-abusers, smokers and sexual harassers) are "defined up." Perhaps some day these new deviants will have equal moral status with conventional deviants. All of this is consistent with the principle of equality.
Political correctness becomes fashionable. People fear offending minorities, and ridiculous euphemisms are adopted. At major universities, politically correct speech codes are enacted, and academia's open mind is closed, save in less prestigious colleges and universities. Media elites go along with this business. They are members in good standing in the AA Club - advocates of the poor and adversaries of the rich - demonstrating that they are in harmony with the principle of equality.
Taken together, these absurdities are sending our culture down the slope to Third World status. In our unheroic age, it will take a heroic effort to stop the slide. While Tocqueville thought social conditions in democracies would make revolutions unlikely, he also thought the same conditions might make coups likely.
Ronald M. Larson is a professor of social science at Wytheville Community College.
by CNB