Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 7, 1995 TAG: 9503070061
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RONALD M. LARSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Until the 1960s, the ideological gap between the two parties was narrow. Both were more or less centrist in outlook. Republicans conceded that a social problem existed when a significant number of people thought there was one. Democrats, who held and still hold commanding positions in the ``caring'' institutions of church, media and higher education, identified a problem when a number of significant people (themselves) agreed on the issue.
Because this elite has long been governed by compassion, most members believe that social problems are rooted in the ``inhumaneness'' of inequality. Thus they have used the power of government to make incremental changes in the redistribution of resources by convincing voters of the truth of this ``reality.''
Republicans, thinking that their definition of a social problem had been met, and fearing rejection on Election Day, either cooperated or acquiesced, pleading only that less government be used. Thus the welfare state was born and nurtured.
Only in the past decade has the ideological gap widened enormously. There are three reasons for this polarization.
Current leaders of both parties came of age in the divisive 1960s as symbolized by the Vietnam War.
Since that time, billions of dollars have been spent on domestic programs, yet the decline of American culture accelerated. Many Americans began to sense (correctly) that well-intentioned liberal policies had, in fact, caused great damage.
Republicans, ignoring the fact that their party helped erect the welfare state, veered to the right and began denouncing liberalism in full-throated indignation. Democrats, already on the move leftward, quickened their pace and matched the GOP's shrillness with high-pitched sounds of their own, proving once again that one is often wrong at the top of one's voice.
But Republicans are wrong because hypocrisy is wrong. Democrats are wrong because their policies are deadly.
It is a truism that cultural traditions provide values and norms that promote physical and psychic survival.The former entails physical and economic well-being; the latter, purpose or meaning. Meaning is association, and people find meaning by associating with others who share the same values and norms. These two functions are culture's Siamese twins: When one thrives, both prosper; when one fails, so do both.
Anthropologists also tell us that the hero brings life, health and prosperity to his or her people. Perhaps the salient hero is a priest, a captain of industry, a sport figure or a military general. But even the obscure person is heroic if he or she contributes to society. In short, all societies provide a stage for heroic activity.
Since the 1960s, the ever-leftward moving intellectual establishment has steadily impugned Western culture, thus diminishing the stage for heroic activity. It has trashed white males and their accomplishments; derided traditional roles of women in family life; cast laborers and people of color as pitiful victims of exploitation; and generally fostered unheroic attitudes.
From the liberal's viewpoint, the debunking of Western culture is warranted because it is rooted in racism and sexism. Never mind the countless women and nonwhites who have emerged from the system to take leadership positions.
Liberal egoism and misguided compassion have produced malevolent results because Americans no longer share a firm commitment to traditional norms and values. In short, psychic survival is impaired, and with it economic well-being. Is it any wonder that since 1973, Americans have experienced a 20 percent decline in their standard of living?
Liberals also have challenged the legitimacy of tradition by using the law, that other great source of legitimacy. Unable to satisfy their extremist goals in legislative chambers, they have relied on the frail reed of judicial activism to pursue utopian agendas.
When the U.S. Supreme Court legitimized affirmative action, it contributed mightily to the delegitimization of society. Such rulings are not conducive to heroism. Heroism is earned in individual activity; it is not conferred on the basis of membership in a racial or sexual category. Affirmative action is not only patently absurd on its face, but a dispassionate searcher of the Constitution will find no justification for it.
With other rulings, such as those that prohibit Bible reading in the classroom, or those that extend greater protection to criminals than to their victims, liberal judges have pitted the slender legitimacy of their opinions against the robust legitimacy of tradition.
What must people think when the unheroic vanquishes the heroic? How does this absurd reality contribute to psychic and physical reality? Survival?
How gratifying to the liberal's ego to play God. The people don't know what's good for them.
But perhaps they do. The people are at last fed up with the wasteland created by liberalism. Let's hope it's not too late to restore the arena of the heroic.
We can start by abolishing the National Endowment for the Humanities and its state-based affiliate, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy. William Bennett, former director of the NEH, calls for its abolition because it is opposed to mainstream values. As a director or co-director of five VFHPP projects, I can say the same for this organization.
Ronald M. Larson is a professor of social science at Wytheville Community College.
by CNB