
                         THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
                 Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 29, 1994                    TAG: 9406290010 
SECTION: FRONT                     PAGE: A10    EDITION: FINAL  
SOURCE: Medium 
DATELINE: 940629                                 LENGTH:

TRUCKLING TO UNSCHOOLED FEARS, HOPES

{LEAD} It's election year, and once again those cries for a return to ``traditional values'' approach a crescendo. The seasonal clamor is ear-splitting in this year when the notion of Xeroxing Victorian morality onto the 21st century is hitting high notes in the polls. Yikes! Am I the only one who finds this sort of moral/political traditionalism alarmingly at odds with the progressive nature of American democracy?

Traditionalism sees moral history as cyclical; that is, constantly repeating rather than progressing in a straight line. This view is at the heart of China's, India's and much of Africa's values systems. But China's ancestor worship, India's caste system and Africa's tribalism are perhaps the most daunting forces with which these nations grapple on the road to economic, social and political development. Like the flower of American Protestant fundamentalism, these myths are powerful and beautiful but politically poisonous.

{REST} I am thankful that the American democratic tradition is inherently linear and progressive. The United States moves dialectically toward an ever-evolving idea of political perfection; so too with morals. America's perception of women and minorities has evolved significantly since 1776; I certainly hope history won't repeat those ugly chapters!

So why is traditionalism so catchy in a culture infatuated with the sort of progress embodied in the touted ``information superhighway''? Moral nostalgia is tasty: It's sweet, simple, and it sells. But right and wrong are slippery, well-camouflaged animals. It takes far greater intellectual and spiritual efforts to relentlessly pursue them in their changing forms than to lie back and finger the sort of religion yellowing between the pages of history books.

There will always be a party that truckles to our unschooled fears and hopes. That is a political fact. The tragicomedy in Virginia this year is how many of us have fallen for the frail ploy.

TARA ROWAN

Virginia Beach, June 3, 1994 by CNB