THE IDEAL BLOG RATIO...
...I believe, is 2 funny posts to one tedious one. So, to balance things out, here's an addendum to my earlier thing about "Taleban-ification" and "cultural liberalism."
The more I think about it, the more I'm certain that "cultural liberalism" isn't adequate as a term for the complex of social, political, moral and intellectual pathologies that has been brought to the fore in a new way by 911, and more recently by the related "John Walker situation" (by which I mean not only the kinder-traitor himself, but also the purported "culture which produced him," and the reaction of everybody else who is trying to figure out a way understand what's going on.)
It's clear that we are dealing in some broad way with the well-rehearsed litany of the failings of the "world-view of the loony Left," the moral relativism, the speech codes, the identity politics, the ironically illiberal social ideas, the reflexive anti-Americanism, etc.; it's also evident that these affectations thrive in cultural environments (San Francisco, Seattle, Manhattan, university towns everywhere) where people venerate them all the more as their deficiencies are the more clearly exposed (though there are lot fewer worshippers in the temple in post-911 America, in my opinion.) There is a cultural divide in America (the blue and red on Andrew Sullivan's map.) But I can't help thinking that the most troubling aspect of the statements of Walker's apologists (as well as those of the "Sontagistas") doesn't really have to do with cultural sensibilities, or permissive habits, or any of the superficial characteristics of the "divide:" rather, they are failings of intellect, of moral sense. They reflect a refusal to acknowledge reality and a disinclination to take sides even when the choice is a clear one between good and evil and even when the alternative is their own destruction. (It still surprises me to hear people speak of our enemies with such equanimity, though you tend to hear a lot of that kind of thing in Berkeley: has it ever occurred to these people that, in fact, someone is trying to kill them? And can there really be a "cultural" explanation for this kind of pychotic, Fisk-like ambivalence?)
I'm going to go out on a limb here (which I readily admit I'm not qualified to occupy) and risk the suggestion that this is really a spiritual problem, and that it reaches further than the misguided child-rearing ideas of some hippies in Marin County, also further than the pathetic relativistic syllogisms of decadent academics. And it would be a mistake, unfortunately, to think we can "solve" such a spiritual problem simply by exposing its proponents and casualties to ridicule (though don't get me wrong: I'm not knocking ridicule, which is fun as well as instructive and will always have a special place in my heart.)
Like I said, I admit I'm not qualified to expound on such matters with any special knowledge or authority. But never let lack of authority get in the way of a good time, or rather, never let it get in the way of sticking to the ideal 2 funny: 1 tedious blog ratio.
Posted by Dr. Frank at December 15, 2001 08:22 AM | TrackBack