The roots of our present rot

In the comment thread of a recent post, a reader asked me which side declared our present civil / cultural war.

I traced it back to the New Left academicians of the 1950s, particularly William Appleman Williams, the University of Wisconsin history professor who introduced the concept of moral equivalence. He posited that the US and the USSR were each just hegemony-bent superpowers with no discernible distinction between the righteousness of their aims. I then went into the radicalization that the New Left wrought, the militancy that filled the race-relations vacuum after Martin Luther King's death, the rise of feminism and the politicization of homosexuality, and, of course, the coarsening of our culture.

But I really think I could cede the floor to David French at NRO for presenting the most visceral account of the declaration of the war:

I grew up in rural Kentucky and went to college at a conservative Evangelical college in Tennessee. So it’s a bit of an understatement to say that I had limited exposure to the Left before my days at Harvard Law School. I was immersed in a new culture, and what I encountered was both reassuring and ominous. And it’s the ominous side, unfortunately, that is coloring much of American debate. 

I met liberals who are even today among the people I respect the most. They have keen intellects, gracious spirits, and virtuous goals. We disagree about means and sometimes disagree about ends, but I don’t doubt their ethics, intentions, or good faith. Liberal professors mentored me, I forged friendships that will last a lifetime, and I still learn from and appreciate the best expressions of liberal points of view.

But I also encountered cruelty and sheer malice. As I’ve written before, this was the era of the shout-down. This was an era not just of protests but also of malicious retaliation. Classmates told me to “go die” because of my pro-life speech. Some of my friends had their faces pasted on images of gay porn and posted around campus. Other friends were subject to campaigns to call future employers demanding that offers be revoked. The atmosphere was so toxic that GQ magazine wrote a piece describing the law school as “Beirut on the Charles.”

Yet in many ways Harvard embraced these hateful radicals. It gave them a home. It gave them a hearing. It gave them tenure. The most prestigious educational institution in the world was wrapping both its arms around some of the most vicious people I’d ever met. It was at Harvard that I came to understand the dynamic so powerfully described by Tom Wolfe in his legendary essay “Radical Chic.” All too many liberals admire radicals. They envy their commitment to the cause. They’re fascinated by their arguments, by their style, and by their very presence:

. . . and now, in the season of Radical Chic, the Black Panthers. That huge Panther there, the one Felicia is smiling her tango smile at, is Robert Bay, who just 41 hours ago was arrested in an altercation with the police, supposedly over a .38-caliber revolver that someone had, in a parked car in Queens at Northern Boulevard and 104th Street or some such unbelievable place, and taken to jail on a most unusual charge called “criminal facilitation.” And now he is out on bail and walking into Leonard and Felicia Bernstein’s 13-room penthouse duplex on Park Avenue. Harassment & Hassles, Guns & Pigs, Jail & Bail — they’re real, these Black Panthers. The very idea of them, these real revolutionaries, who actually put their lives on the line, runs through Lenny’s duplex like a rogue hormone.

The radicals mix with the liberals, and the liberals empower the radicals. What’s happening on college campuses today? A small fringe defies the rule of law, it shuts down free speech, and it sometimes even physically attacks speakers or their allies. It acts out of cruelty and sometimes even race-hate, spitting out the word “white” as if it’s inherently evil. And yet the liberal establishment caves into their demands (all while lauding their commitment to social justice), even issuing “stand down” orders to campus police that put innocent people in physical peril. The goal? To protect the safety of the rioters. At best, mainstream liberals deliver mild slaps on the wrist, like the joke punishments given to protesters at Middlebury College.

At best, a few brave souls will issue statements and write stern op-eds condemning censorship and academic intolerance. These voices are vital and appreciated, but it often feels as if they represent mere fingers in the dike — doing their best to hold back a torrent of radical rage.

The liberal response to Black Lives Matter is one of the best examples of this sad phenomenon. Millions of well-meaning Americans — justifiably eager for racial reconciliation and often deceived by misleading statistics and sometimes outright lies — have elevated an organization that has dedicated itself to the disruption of the “western-prescribed” nuclear family, celebrates cop-killers, and keeps mounting protests that turn violent (and sometimes even deadly). 

And there you have it.