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The Pursuit of Knowledge
Waving, Not Drowning
Our task is now less political than cultural — though for the young the trap has already been set.
WHEN THE SELF-POLICING REGIME of morality breaks down, the state must take charge of the mess and rescue the victims—both the unwilling victims, like the fatherless children of casual relations, and the willing ones, who have chosen dependency on the state as the easy option.
Faced with this situation, many conservatives feel inclined to blame the liberal establishment, which has devoted so much energy to undermining moral norms and inherited institutions. But although ideas have consequences, ideas are also the consequences of other things. The demoralization of society is the effect of many causes, only some of which belong in the realm of ideas. Prolonged peace, unprecedented abundance, social mobility, contraception, drugs, and stimulants — all these have a predictable effect in weakening the bonds of society. And to those well-known temptations we must add the effects of recent technology: human brains are now saturated by ephemeral messages, while human relations have been transferred from real to virtual space. Sexual love is notorious for changing its locations and its style. But we have entered a new situation in which much of this love occurs in the realm of electronic signals. We should not be surprised if this virtual love often looks like hatred. Virtual space is Mercurial, demonic, a space of transformations that we cannot control. Living with your eyes fixed to that space, you acquire a mentality that has no real precedent in the annals of mankind. Young people therefore find it hard to envisage the future as something for which they are accountable, and which requires them to make sacrifices on its behalf.
The problems we confront cannot be solved by philosophy, since they lie deeper than thought. Even if we defeat the liberals in debate, refuting to our satisfaction the labyrinthine arguments of Rawls and the clever-dick challenges of Dworkin and company, it cannot conceivably change what most concerns us. No doubt it was perfectly reasonable for conservatives, at the time of the New Deal, to warn against the growth of state power and the erosion of individual responsibility. Looking back, we can feel the pull of their arguments and recognize there was much truth in what they said. But we must also recognize that their arguments made no difference, just as the arguments of Hayek in postwar Britain — so manifestly superior in power and scope to the arguments of the paltry figures like Harold Laski, who packed Hayek off to America — made no difference. State power continued to grow.
And such is the situation today. State power increases and individual responsibility declines, regardless of whether liberals, socialists, or conservatives are in government; regardless of the social and political legacy; and regardless of which intellectual faction seems to be winning the battle of ideas.
Moreover, we should recognize that this process is not strictly a phenomenon of developed nations. The dependency culture arose simultaneously in Europe and America, and the traditional family disintegrated right across the Western world. The “decline of the West” may not be the inevitable process described by Spengler in a famous book of that title that first appeared in 1918. But it is certainly not a process that can be tied to any particular nation or any one form of national politics. Nor is it a process that can be arrested in the realm of ideas or easily deflected by affirming traditional values against the liberal alternative.
Moreover, the expansion of the state into every area of our lives and the steady contraction of the sphere of personal responsibility have produced a new order of things — one that makes it very difficult for us conservatives to communicate with those whom we hope to influence. So many of our arguments and insights depend upon the old order of virtue, on the old moral assumptions, and on the old conception of the human being as a free and responsible agent. Yet those old things have gone, and we look foolish if we do not recognize the fact. It is not just that society has changed; the human being has changed with it. We belong to the same species as Homer, Aquinas, and Mozart. But we are also products of social interaction and change our nature according to the context in which we grow. Our societies are now radically different from those observed by Burke, Maistre, Tocqueville, and Hegel, and the thoughts of those great men, whatever their intellectual value, will not enable us to construct a conservative politics suited to our needs today.
We have to accept that it is no longer possible to govern young people by the methods that were used to govern and influence the young of my generation. Exhortation, example, the stories of saints and heroes, the life of humility, sacrifice, penitence, and prayer — all such moral influences have little or no significance for them. And although from time to time they encounter obstacles, and perhaps experience real love, real jealousy, real fear, and real grief, these emotions are not available to them in the regular doses and predictable circumstances in which they were available to us.
SO WHAT SHOULD CONSERVATIVES BE DOING? This is the last of my regular articles for The American Spectator, so let me conclude a happy period of my life with a few observations for future use. Our work, it seems to me, consists in what Plato called anamnesis — the defeat of forgetting. We cannot ask young people to live as we lived or to value what we valued. But we can encourage them to see the point of how we lived, and to recognize that freedom without responsibility is, in the end, an empty asset. We can tell them stories of the old virtues, and enlarge their sympathies toward a world in which suffering and sacrifice were not the purely negative things that they are represented to be by the consumer culture but an immovable part of any lasting happiness. Our task, in other words, is now less political than cultural — an education of the sympathies, which requires from us virtues (such as imagination, creativity, and a respect for high culture) that have a diminishing place in the world of politics.
Of course, we should do our best to control the growth of the state and to make it more difficult to depend upon its constant expansion. We should seek, through whatever avenues remain, to rebuild our education system with knowledge rather than “self-esteem” as its product. There are a hundred small-scale ways in which we can help the next generation not to fall completely into the trap that is being prepared for it. But there is no way, I fear, to destroy that trap entirely. For it is built from human ingenuity and baited with our own desires.
About the Author
Roger Scruton is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His latest book, How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism, has just been published by Oxford University Press.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (119) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 8.6.12 @ 7:34AM
"Virtual space is Mercurial, demonic, a space of transformations that we cannot control. LIVING WITH YOUR EYES FIXED TO THAT SPACE, you acquire a mentality that has no real precedent in the annals of mankind. Young people therefore find it hard to envisage the future as something for which they are accountable, and which requires them to make sacrifices on its behalf."
This is the one string on which I have been harping whenever I get the chance: the Binkie Slingers do not believe in the corporeal reality of other people. Their reality is contained inside that binkie between their thumbs. And when you can "deal with" something you don't like by deleting it, you become increasingly bewildered by people who stand before you and refuse to be deleted. I had a brother in law who used to point the remote control at his kids and repeatedly press the MUTE button. He was joking. Modern day binkie slingers are dead serious. The best thing that could happen to this society is an EMP. The withdrawal would be ugly and painful, and I predict a wave of suicides in the under 30 toddler cohort; but ultimately it would be the saving of America.
PolishKnight| 8.6.12 @ 11:15AM
Appleby, sometimes the parent is right and a problem with a child's failing grades can be corrected simply by turning off cable TV (and internet) and making the kid go outside and study more.
And sometimes it's something else. In this case, what the author refers to as a problem of fatherlessness and social irresponsibility stems from something you and I have clashed on before: The notion of women's equality and choices combined with women's biological desire for breadwinning, protector males. When culture grants women equal access to status with men while requiring from men duties and burdens with few benefits, it's obvious the young men are going to choose rap music and twitter just as teenager will choose to play video games rather than mow the lawn if the parent insists that the teenager "share" their lawnmower money with someone else.
Regarding this technology. All of this is nothing new. During the 70's, there was this newfangled thing called the CB radio. And we had these MP3 players called walkmen. And kids would sit in front of the TV for hours and watch something far more sinister than Jersey Shore: primetime sitcoms!
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:03PM
My children are homeschooled by my wife, a genius SOUTHERN WOMAN of rock solid principles. I back her up as the Daddy who is also an MD.
The kids are fine. My son leaps into my arms for his hug every night, and we are completely sympatico (he announced he was a capitalist at age 3). My daughter loves and respects her dad, and idolizes her mother. They ride and take care of horses weekly. My son has an indoor garden that he takes care of in his room, and adores cacti.
Both score 99 percentile each year on the California Aptitude Test. And, before you note that an offspring of a Mensan dad who grabbed his MD at age 25 and a Summa Cum Laude mom who had 2 full ride academic scholarships should be performing well, please note that both are adopted Mayan Indians from Guatemala and that they are not biologically related, either.
"All men are essentially the same. He does best who trained in the severest school." Thucydides. It takes effort to do this, and I blame the parents, not the children.
Appleby, an EMP would result in too many tons of rotting meat. Re: "The Marching Morons" by Kornbluth.
Truncheon| 8.6.12 @ 8:43AM
Where's JC Denton when you really need him.
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 9:02AM
Generations have gone through these kinds of (for lack of a better term) millenial changes before, as in the Enlightenment and in the period between the American Civil War and World War I, or in the early Christian era, or in the Renaissance or the period after the Black Plague; the succeeding generations have survived by developing their own cultures and values largely from scratch.
I don't worry about people surviving the changes we're beginning to go through; intelligent people have seen it coming for a century; I worry about what I perceive as a tendency of people to choose the social option of giving up on the responsibility of personal liberty and yielding to the temptation to have the state amass enough power to make our decisions for us.
TLP| 8.6.12 @ 9:23AM
The problem with your analogy, is that you have it all backwards.
We're heading in to The Civil War, not coming out of it.
We're heading in to the Dark Ages, not coming out of it.
The Black Plague is just beginning. And, should he be re-elected? He will Consume us all.
We are where ROME was, just before the Visigoths got on their Horses, and made for the Gates.
The time between the Fall of Rome, and The Rennaissance, was 1,000 years.
All good things..........................
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 2:37PM
Yes, the time between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance was 1,000 years.
And in between were the rise of Christianity, the barbarian conquest of Europe, the Dark Ages, the Muslim incursion, the Byzantine Empire, and the Black Plague.
All of which were survived, as the present times will be, by people using their ingenuity to rebuild.
John Navratil| 8.6.12 @ 3:23PM
Bill8472,
But that doesn't do the thirty-plus generations who have to live through it much good, does it.
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 3:58PM
Nope. But there's nothing for that. If Scruton is right, there's no going back, so it's just a matter of moving on and trying to retain the urge for liberty.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 5:29PM
Deafeatist much? Read my parts 1 & 2 below. We could go back today, but we would rather commit suicide by romney.
TLP| 8.6.12 @ 5:56PM
And Who The Fck is Scruntin?
That's the Bar?
Scrutin?
Do everyone a favour.
The next time you're sitting on your bed, with your Gun in your Mouth?
Pull the Trigger.
This Country was BUILT on the idea that everyday could be better, if we all just got out there and followed our dreams.
Go impersonate The Jackass from Winnie the Pooh, someplace else.
We've got enough Dumbfcks here, already.
Bill8472| 8.7.12 @ 9:19AM
Wow, clever. Do you do that kind of thing often?
Bill8472| 8.7.12 @ 9:27AM
Scruton is Roger Scruton, the guy who wrote the article you're involved in commenting on.
Duh.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:05PM
The Byzantine empire did quite well for the thousand years, and did a good job of saving the West. Where's our buffer should the US fall?
R Martin| 8.6.12 @ 9:04AM
I could not pretend to address this subject with the same erudition as the author, but the piece left me with an uneasy feeling that it is incomplete, somewhat contradictory and a little too defeatist.
This is a piece about morality and culture and at the outset Mr. Scruton tells us the state must take charge when morality breaks down. He then goes on to tell us how and why morality is breaking down but concludes that “we should do our best” to control the growth of the state. That seems like too fine a line to tread for a society Mr. Scruton believes is breaking down. Changing the education system or somehow better communicating our older point of view doesn’t seem adequate.
Society, culture, people, whatever change and evolve over time, and technology drives much of that change. That there is now a virtual world out there into which people can escape responsibility is too simplistic. There is no virtual food, no virtual clothing, no virtual housing and no virtual protection when a street thug pulls a gun and demands your money. Those people who choose dependency on the state as an easy option can see that, and they can also see what virtues create and sustain happy and successful people. If it is now too easy for people to avoid personal responsibility, shouldn’t the solution be to make it harder and, eventually, require such personal responsibility.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 5:36PM
I did not find the write defeatist, merely honest. & it it were as easy as living within our means, we would have had freedom back by now.
The left has created a culture that is marxism compliant. The American People build their despotic governments over their lives because marxist culturalism instructs them to do so, & the people think never to doubt such an honest institution as tv.
We, America, live by cultural marxism. & we, America, will be a nation of slaves until we the people change the culture back to that of a free civil society.
We were duped into never doing the work that it takes to keep freedom alive. As long as we fail to do the work, we will keep ourselves enslaved.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 5:38PM
Darn no edit button, first sentance it's "writer" not "write". Gosh darn it, there are eroors. errors, darn it soery, sorry.
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 9:05AM
And, after all, there have been greater upheavals than the one we're heading for, as with the falls of the Roman Empire, the fall of Byzantium, and the demise of the Persian Empire as well as the rise of Islam.
TLP| 8.6.12 @ 6:00PM
You can't be this Stupid.
We went through 1,00 Years of the Dark Ages, once before.
So, what's the problem?
In 1,000 Years, everything will be fine.
So, quit your Bitching, already.
Nice Plan.
Bill8472| 8.7.12 @ 9:21AM
The Dark Ages lasted (counting most liberally) from the fall of Rome in what, 412 A.D. until the crowning of Charlemagne in 800 A.D., a period of slightly less than 400 years.
If you're going to express your opinion, please at least have some intellectual backup for it.
Bill8472| 8.7.12 @ 9:30AM
The sack of Rome by the Visigoths occurred in 410 A.D. The Fall of Rome is usually pinpointed at 476 A.D. Sorry about the error.
Bill8472| 8.7.12 @ 9:49AM
On the other hand, some historians mark the end of the Dark Ages as occurring with the improvement of conditions in Europe in the early years of the 8th Century, when there was an agricultural boom. So, fall of Rome in 467 A.D. to say, 750 A.D., a period of 283 years for the Dark Ages, according to some experts.
Not 1,00 (sic) or even 1,000 years.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:19PM
476, Bill, with the deposing of Romulus Augustulus, but it was over well before that. But the dark ages did not end with Charlemagne in 800 AD---the Renaissance does not have a proper beginning, but, say, Dante wrote Inferno in 1302, I believe. Figure 900 years, since the last great Roman Emperor, Diocletian, voluntarily retired in 305 AD, and Constantine the Great took over in 306, but ended up focusing on the Eastern Empire, essentially founding the Byzantine Empire. I bow to Stuart Koehl in correcting all of my mistakes in these brief sentences.
H. Asher| 8.6.12 @ 9:12AM
Mr. Scruton, you write "Sexual love is notorious for changing its locations and its style . . . in the realm of electronic signals . . . virtual love often looks like hatred."
Love? Rampant Pornography is degrading the very concept of love.
Today, the majority of teenage boys are looking at hardcore pornography on an almost daily basis. The sex turns them on, but the biggest turn-on for them is the depravity.
Sexual depravity is what they desire. Sexual acts that were unthinkable in my time are now seen regularly on porn sites, and the young men will demand these sexual favors from their girlfriends, and I am not talking about fallatio and cunnilingus, which are perfectly normal and everyone practices.
The worsening, weird sexual practices--many of them violent and extremely degrading to women--will do unimaginable damage to the libidos of these teenage boys.
But, interestingly enough, it seems that radical feminists are the only ones alarmed with the deepening depravity of pornography--conservatives never address it.
Seek| 8.6.12 @ 11:46AM
Read about sexual practices during Victorian England. They were every bit as "perverted" as those of contemporary America. Somehow the English survived. And so will we.
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 4:19PM
If only we could return to the sensibility that gave us the phrase "the love that dares not speak its name." Now it screams in our ears.
THKrupp| 8.6.12 @ 11:53AM
Depravity has been around for a long time. Examples being the Marquis de Sade and Victorian era erotica. Its fairly easy to see earlier examples. I remember the stories one of my friends' grandfather told us of the stuff they did during the depression. There isnt really anything new under the sun.
S O the Border| 8.6.12 @ 2:43PM
To Seek and THKrupp:
The Victorians did not have an internet with millions--millions-- of pages of hardcore porn. Hardcore porn that is just a mouse-click away.
The Victorians had to go to a great deal of trouble to see pornography, and the porn they saw was nowhere near as ugly and violent as today's internet porn. Children, by the way, are pulling it up on their phones with internet access.
A recent article about men's changing taste in pornography revealed that porn makers have to get filthier to satisfy the modern man's lust. (Most women find porn repulsive).
Examples : two men, one woman, "double penetration" vagina and rectum
two men, one woman, "double penetration" rectum
Men p****** on women, p****** in their mouths
I could go on to even more examples of the "evolving 'taste' in porno," but I think you get the idea (or perhaps you don't get it at all--perhaps this is what you like to see)
From today's comments, I can infer that many of you find nothing alarming about today's violent porno world.
"It was always this way," you say. The usual depth of thinking from this blog.
Or more likely it's the acceptance and approval of the subjugation of women in general (You Bible thumpers would approve, no doubtof the submissive role of women)
But porno both subjugates and humiliates women.
Evidently, for some, humiliation is a turn-on.
TLP| 8.6.12 @ 6:03PM
Are you sure you're not Confusing today's Elementary School Cirriculum, with the Porn on the Internet?
I'm thinking that you are.
RCV| 8.7.12 @ 6:12PM
Some people sure spend a lot of time studying this stuff they're sooo upset about.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:52PM
RCV: Hey, I at least have a professional reason to do this. "Alienation and Perversion" by Khan was in my assigned readings at UCLA for psychoanalytic psychotherapy training.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:53PM
Gotta agree, RCV.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:51PM
I know of no Orthodox Jewish writings or Evangelical Christian writings that endorse anal sex or golden showers. I know of plenty of their writings that endorse men being responsible to care for their wives and children and stand by them in adversity. My wife has had cancer twice, for example.
Contrariwise, I know of plenty of Left Wing writings on the subject that do endorse these things, and plenty of Liberal Welfare policy designed to marginaloize fathers. Point, SO?
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:21PM
And radical feminists never have concerns regarding Islam's severe degradation of women---similar to PALEO-Conservatives and Paulist Libertarians on that score (but not to mainstream Conservatives). Sling away.
By the way, Benjamin Franklin belonged to the Hellfire Club.
Anna K. from Emory U.| 8.6.12 @ 9:25AM
Conservatives are not addressing the harmful effects of the more extreme, horrific pornography-- accessible to any child who can click a mouse-- because conservatives (those from the Red States) are more regular, more insatiable consumers of internet pornography.
Studies conducted by examing the geographic locations of porn internet subscribers bear this out.
Internet pornography is becoming uglier, more violent, more debased, and its easy access will have disastrous results. The culture is sliding into a cess pit. But . . . as you say, with the exception of a few leftist feminists, who cares?
Nick| 8.6.12 @ 10:50AM
Another stupid deduction turned into a talking-point, from the moronic liberals.
So, there are no lefties in any of the "Red States" looking at internet pornography, Anna? Spare me.
Christians constantly speak out against pornography as a degradation of women. It is the O'Bama regime that isn't doing anything to crack-down on pornographers.
And who do the radical, leftist feminazis support, Anna? Not Mitt Romney.
Vita| 8.6.12 @ 11:09AM
Get the facts, Nick. Do a Google Search on "red states and pornography" and become more informed on the results of the study before screeching your knee-jerk opinion.
And what has Obama said about the coarsening of our society? Here are his own words:
Obama: The degrading images towards women I think are a problem and when the Imus issue came up, one of the quotes that stirred up a little bit of controversy for me was, sadly, as offensive as what Imus said, was we hear some of that language on the radio in our own communities.
I do think as President you can use the bully pulpit to speak out against some the coarsening aspects of our culture.
Get the facts, Nick. Ditto to the rest of you AmSpec posters.
Truth to Power| 8.6.12 @ 11:26AM
The big O just appeared with a gay porn money bundler. Nick is right on. Cities are blue whether in red states or blue and are centers for moral corruption. Get the facts vita and stop being a tool of the corrupt progressive establishment. They are unsustainable whether in matters of morality or finance.
JP| 8.6.12 @ 11:31AM
You Progressives should delight in porn. For, it represents the high point of Leftist/Progressive culture.The Bourgeoisie virtues of family, marriage, and religion are not only mocked but laid to waste. Gender differences are also destroyed in the anything goes wasteland of modern porn. The world of porn leads to the class-less, gender-less, anything goes reality that Leftists have dreamt about for many decades.
S O the Border| 8.6.12 @ 4:29PM
Really? Then why is it that conservatives--red state right-wingers--watch more pornography than blue state progressives?
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:23PM
Because Blue State Progressives have no interest in sex; hence their pathetic birth rates compared to red staters.
You Progressives are gonna lose because you have NO KIDS.
Nick| 8.6.12 @ 12:12PM
You have no facts, Vita. Only ad hominem and one non-relevant quote.
What has the O'Bama regime done to prosecute pornographers? Loretta (Sanchez) Brixey, democrat from CA, tried to have a fundraiser at the Playboy mansion, some years ago. Larry Flynnt is a huge democrat.
It is ignorant twits, like yourself, who are coarsening the culture, Vita.
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 2:41PM
That, I gather, would be Imus, the Great Conservative, right? Or was it Howard Stern, another notorious Son Of Limbaugh?
CJW| 8.6.12 @ 4:51PM
The spread of porn is due to the difficulty in defining porn so that prohibiting it does not violate the free speech protection of the First Amendment. If it is porn it can be regulated but first you have to define it. Justice Stewart said he knew porn when he saw it but he could not define it.
How did Bubba help against coarsaning the culture? Remember the cigars. stains, and definition of "is?"
Gary B| 8.6.12 @ 6:10PM
Vita: Such high-minded words from mouth of that lying bastard while he's dragging our entire society down the drain are disingenuous in the extreme. It's like praising Hitler for patting a little girl on the head.
Seek| 8.6.12 @ 7:15PM
Has it occurred to you that conservatives love pornography, that it's not "liberal" outliers in those Red States who buy or watch it? Every red-blooded conservative male I know, in fact, once they let their guard down, talks like a sexually hungry man. As for women being "degraded" by pornography, get real. Who do you think poses for the camera, willingly and happily, often for profit?
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 2:39PM
Tell it to Lot, who saved the angel of God from the interferences of the Sodomites.
Jeff R| 8.6.12 @ 9:28AM
"We belong to the same species as Homer, Aquinas, and Mozart. But we are also products of social interaction and change our nature according to the context in which we grow."
I'm simply not convinced that human nature is so malleable.
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 2:42PM
I agree; it's not our natures that change, it's our mores.
Jeff R| 8.6.12 @ 9:40AM
"We cannot ask young people to live as we lived or to value what we valued. But we can encourage them to see the point of how we lived, and to recognize that freedom without responsibility is, in the end, an empty asset. We can tell them stories of the old virtues, and enlarge their sympathies toward a world in which suffering and sacrifice were not the purely negative things that they are represented to be by the consumer culture but an immovable part of any lasting happiness."
Events have a way on intruding, distrupting lives and established, seemingly, unchangeable patterns.
The consumer society is a recent phenomenon. It may be false to assume that it continues open-endedly. Affluence is in many ways the product of the virtues that the author states have past.
Events and lack of virtues may eventually prove rude shocks to younger people accustomed to insulated, easier lives.
Constancy isn't the norm on the planet.
jaytrain| 8.6.12 @ 9:57AM
I 'm sorry , I think the battle is over and the war itself is lost. The Academy is firmly in the hands the hoi poloi and there will be no taking it back until things get much worse , if even then . High Culture is actively despised and taught , if at all ,as somrthing to be avoided at all costs , all those dead white males , Plato , Dante , Goethe and the like . The Professoriat will replicate themselves in their graduate schools and the so-called " Studies " curricula will thrive . And therefore there is no one , there will be no one, to whom the banner might be passed . Sorry to spoil your farewell , but that's the sad state of things now and for the foreseeable future .
jeff cross| 8.6.12 @ 10:27AM
It's lost all right, and those responsible for the trashing of high culture--especially in music and film--are young males.
Young males with malignant taste. I despise them.
Young male tastes and interests are driving our culture. Young males, who are comfortably nestled in the culture's driving seat, are inflicting their rap/heavy metal/action, action, action movies on the rest of society, and we sit back and let them inflict their trash culture on us. Rarely is a voice of criticism raised.
Young males, incapable of appreciating the melodic and harmonic nuances of theater music have denounced it as "faggot music." As for classical music, they had rather be tortured than listen to it. They want their music to be aggressive and hostile, like their uninhibited porn-saturated libidos.
I'm an intelligent 29-year-old heterosexual male, but I despise the dominant, dumbed-down young-male culture.
And here's the real killer: The popular culture media is run by young male sensibilities. That's why television is so dumb and vulgar.
PolishKnight| 8.6.12 @ 11:09AM
Jeff, you need to get out more. Let's try this: Go to a local shopping mall and count the stores that appeal to women versus those that cater to young men. Then go to universities and colleges and count the number of women and the number of men.
Perhaps what you mean is less that the nihilistic culture you describe permeates society but rather is beginning to take hold of young men because of the hyper chivalrous culture we live in. More on this above in my response to Appleby.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:25PM
PK: The current sexual imbalance in Universities, which was present in the middle to late 1980s on, undermined the chivalrous culture in colleges. As long as men "talked" a good game, they could use and abuse, as they were a sought after minority.
THKrupp| 8.6.12 @ 12:11PM
We have never had a high culture that was also the dominant popular culture. The upper classes have had high culture but not so much for people in the middle and the bottom. Do you really think that young men coming back from a cattle drive thronged to poetry readings in the late 1800's? Why did the prohibition movement even start? It was because lower class men were blowing their entire paychecks at bars before they could get back to their families. Im sorry but we have never been a high culture nation except for a few.
Seek| 8.6.12 @ 7:17PM
You're just jealous of Sylvester Stallone.
JP| 8.6.12 @ 11:14AM
The late Alan Bloom wrote extensively about the "academy" and its decline. What will more than likely take place is means of thought independent of the academy. Four centuries ago, philiosophers and artists worked outside of the Ivory Towers. The high point of European or Western Culture occured during a period when no serious thinker would ever consider working for one. Our academies are so corrupt, degenerate, and ideological that nothing new could ever come out of them now.
There is nothing that exists in our pop culture worth writing about. It is even more so of our so-called "High Culture". Perhaps there is a Flaubert, or Nietzsche out there who can do the work the Hebrew Prophets did for Isreal some 3000 years ago. Nietzsche had a word for the people who live in a world devoid of meaning, beauty, and God- The Last Man.
S O the Border| 8.6.12 @ 4:34PM
A world devoid of meaning, beauty, and God?
Sounds to me like an apt description of the world subscribers to American Spectator inhabit. Such hatred! The likes I've never seen on any other blog.
Nick| 8.6.12 @ 6:24PM
"The likes I've never seen on any other blog."
Then go to kos-kids, huffpo, or the democrat underground. You'll see much worse.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:28PM
My second favorite Catholic in the whole world is back in AmSpec. Good to hear from you, Nick! (My college classmate who is an uber-Conservative pro-Israel Catholic who I've met is #1. Gotta keep the non-virtual world predominant, Nick---but if you ever find yourself going to be in Fargo or Grand Forks, let Ken know...)
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:26PM
Bye-bye, Troll.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:28PM
Troll in the above comment is SO Border.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 5:19PM
It's been blocked out by cultural marxism. Our traditions of gravitating towards morality have dominated humanity, ever since humanity began. You do have times when our nature is blotted out of us, like today. Although I think that shortly when America falls due to he unhindered marxist nanny state, we will eclipse any other tragic event in human history.
That we don't write, but to serve the marxist agenda, & our talents are unapreciated in the tradional field of human morality, we are indeed either very near to the end or very near to the end.
I'd say or near to a civil rebellion against our oppressors, but I think America would die before her people rose against the current oppression.
See my comments below on Mitt Romney. We the people have willfully chosen suicide.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 5:25PM
I love Flaubert, by the way. Hawthorne, R.L.Stevenson, Mark Twain, these are the classics to me. But if you like Flaubert, be sure to see De Maupassant. The story behind his life is tragic, but his stories, if in good translation, rise above all others, in my opinion.
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 4:22PM
The academy is in the hands of the Great Levelers, but they're on the verge of retirement. Students today (I teach them at the college level) thirst for something other than the politically correct and the homogenized. They know America is something special, and they yearn to know the details. Fortunately, there are teachers who are doing the actual hands-on teaching who are also interested in passing on the knowledge of what has made us great. So all is not lost. We are living in Rorke's Drift, not Isandlwana.
Vita| 8.6.12 @ 10:34AM
Thanks, Jeff, for stating the facts.
What a breath of fresh air to read something that makes sense on AmSpec.
How right you are! I've been making this same complaint for years. It's the young males who are the manipulators of high tech and the controllers of culture--the destroyers of High Culture. But you won't see this problem addressed anywhere.
Is it because the cultural culprits are males instead of females? And straight males at that. If they were gay males that were destroying our High Culture, they would be demonized (as they already are for other reasons). In fact, it is mostly gay males who appreciate High Culture, but mr. scruton would not point this out for the world.
Thanks for your perceptive analysis of the culture problem, Jeff. As I said, 'a breath of fresh air."
JP| 8.6.12 @ 11:02AM
"Is it because the cultural culprits are males instead of females? And straight males at that. If they were gay males that were destroying our High Culture, they would be demonized (as they already are for other reasons). In fact, it is mostly gay males who appreciate High Culture, but mr. scruton would not point this out for the world."
The US doesn't have "high culture", and the US never possessed one. The Gays may have a pretence to High Culture, but it is as shallow as the top soil of South Dakota.
High Culture at its roots points to what is highest in Man. Religious expression in Europe was the high point of European High Culture. Whether it was architecture, paintings, scuplture, or music, High Culture pointed to the Mystic and Eternal.
And the Progressive Left has been at war with European High Culture for many decades. Bourgeoisie Kitsch is what most Progressives call it. And Gays were in the vanguard of this movement.
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 4:05PM
Quite right. Political leadership in the United States until the 20th Century came from the elite. Cultural leadership came from a mix of the intellectuals and their wealthy patrons. I don't know what is meant by "High Culture" as opposed to some other kind(s) of culture, but Americans have been laughed at since the Founding for their lack of Europeanized cultural sensitivity. There was a relatively short period during the period between the end of the Civil War and the 1960s when there was a perception of "middlebrow" culture, which was identified as the culture of the middle class and thinking working people. That culture has been long gone, for about half a century.
THKrupp| 8.6.12 @ 12:04PM
High culture has never been this nations strong suit. It is mostly for the upper echelons of society and always has been here. The lower classes have always enjoyed their lower culture and in pure numbers has always been the dominant culture.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 5:11PM
You clearly didn't take your medicine today vitamix. The writer of this story was talking about traditional vs. marxist culture. & how are we to instill traditional values that are the foundation of freedom, into a generation who revolves around a computer screen.
Your "high culture" was seen through the glass of your pipe, not what this story said.
Vita| 8.6.12 @ 11:23AM
If you know anything about high culture, JP, you should know that there has been a long-standing interdependence between high art and homosexuality, an interdependence that in the Western tradition, includes classical, Renaissance, and contemporary art.
If I had to name all the great homosexual artists, it would take me the rest of the day.
Anyway, you will deny through the corner of your mouth any homosexual's contributions to high culture.
I see clearly where you're coming from. Don't let your bigotry override your ability to reason. And do a little more reading on the subject.
JP| 8.6.12 @ 11:33AM
You cannot name one gay artist whose sexual drives were the force behind his art. Not one.
Butch| 8.6.12 @ 8:08PM
Gore Vidal.
Bill8472| 8.7.12 @ 9:23AM
Robert Mapplethorpe.
RCV| 8.7.12 @ 6:15PM
I don't know... Michaelangelo's "David" was driven by religious sensibility.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:33PM
Mapplethorpe is pretty solidly there, and Vidal wrote that horrible "Golden Turkey" winner movie "Myra Breckinridge." Vidal was a worthless Nazi bastard who also supported NAAMBLA. He deserved disembowling---he was lucky to die the way he did.
R Martin| 8.6.12 @ 11:39AM
According to this analysis the average gay bar should, ipso facto, be dripping with high art/culture. Ms. V, you make usual mistake common to so many leftists--generalization.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 5:05PM
Someones' drug dealer didn't get to it on time. Vita, you should have gone to the next corner, instead of posting here. We try not to feed the trolls. So go suck on your bong somewhere else. Your kind are too far gone to ever be worth anything in the future.
Vita| 8.6.12 @ 11:25AM
And one more thing, JP. Surely you know that the late, great Alan Bloom was gay.
Truth to Power| 8.6.12 @ 11:28AM
Vita, you project your petty bigotries on your betters.
JP| 8.6.12 @ 11:34AM
And Alan Bloom had nothing good to say about Gays. He especially had harsh words about their destructiveness to High Culture.
Vita| 8.6.12 @ 12:03PM
Having read AmSpec almost daily for about three months, I have never commented before today.
But let me say this:
I have seen little evidence of civility on this site. In fact, the posters, for the most part, are obviously mean-spirited, close-minded reactionaries who resort to name-calling and profanities when they become exasperated, as some of you obviously are today.
Consider what TLP has said today on his post:
"The Black Plague is just beginning. And, should he be re-elected? He will Consume us all."
TLP vents his hatred every day, but you turn a blind eye to his hysterical racist ravings.
When I read that the shooter at the Sikh Temple was a white soldier from Fort Bragg (domestic terrorism, of course), I thougt to myself, "He's probably a devoted reader of AmSpec, so dumb he thinks the Sikhs are Muslims.
So keep on blabbing your nonsense. I'm signing off. I have far more important things to do. It's a beautiful day here in Charleston, and I aim to enjoy it by driving over to Hilton Head for an afternoon at the spa. Bye bye, blowhards.
Petronius| 8.6.12 @ 12:34PM
We shouldn't be surprised. Those who have enough money to insulate themselves from Obama and every other cultural vandal in our midst could care less how they damage the lives of anyone else. Go kiss a cactus Vita.
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 2:44PM
My experience has been quite different from yours. While I have met, from time to time, an occasional impolite point-scorer-type flamer, far more often I've run into people who know how to take an idea and build on it, and encourage a real dialogue.
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 2:45PM
Charleston, South Carolina, home of the Citadel.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 5:01PM
Sorry there Vitamix, I call b- s-! You've been reading for three months & you haven't commented? Well I say you were in your mothers basement sucking off of some kind of drug that you traded your welfare & foodstamps for, for the last three months. & when you had to go out, you made your mother push your taxpayer bought wheelchair, for effect on the public, when you could have walked. Yes, we are sick & tired of people like you who aren't even bright enough to refuse the sickest of sick governmental functions.
& what we say here may not always be up to you high (wasted) standards, but we are Americans. & we will enjoy the last of our freedoms before people like you suck it all down your bongs.
Have a nice day : )~
Bill8472| 8.7.12 @ 9:39AM
How do you know she was in her mother's basement? You didn't happen to spend some time with her there, did you?
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:34PM
Bye, Vita. Charleston is the home of VMI, whose graduates protect your worthless hide.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:36PM
Wrong! Sorry, Vita---it is the home of the Citadel, whose graduates protect your worthless hide.
RJ| 8.6.12 @ 11:27AM
Thank-you for the thought-provoking article. I certainly agree that culture shapes political values and my biggest worry are how our moral and character values have changed, in many ways for the worse, during my lifetime.
Al Adab| 8.6.12 @ 11:29AM
This continues the conversation we were having the other day. Since the breakdown of the cultural consensus we find various positions, often at odds one with another, regarding a common morality; the role of government; the meaning of America and other facets of our national experience.
Until and unless we rebuild a common culture we will find ourselves ever more intensly opposed to each other over several aspects of the cultural divide. Abortion on demand, national health care, social-welfare spending, drug policy, belief systems (religion) and the like seperate us more and more, The dangers therein far exceed the benefits of this battle.
THKrupp| 8.6.12 @ 12:00PM
I dont know that the USA has ever had a common culture other than the fact that we are all US citizens. The South is very different from the North, the East is different from the West. I would say we are more closer to a common culture now than what we have ever been. As my friends overseas say...The USA doesnt have a culture unless you count McDonalds, blue jeans and pop music etc etc.
Petronius| 8.6.12 @ 1:14PM
How could you omit the new state religion? The Church of Disney.
THKrupp| 8.6.12 @ 2:18PM
LOL actually I dont know...its huge
Bill8472| 8.6.12 @ 4:08PM
Oh, I don't know; to us Americans, there seems like a lot of distinction between regions and types, but to people in other countries, Americans are quite recognizable as type no matter where they hail from.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:39PM
Well, my response to my acquaintances overseas when they go on that blather is to simply note that America had to be pushed into WWII, a war in which it fought for no territorial gain, and a war caused by the moral cowardice and evil of the French and Germans, and by the almost fatal stupidity of the British.
We have a distinct culture of decency, one that is invisible to Leftists and You're a Peon(s).
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 4:54PM
You only feel that way because the right has always forfeited on social issues. With people like John McCain & Mitt Romney, it's easy to feel as if the whole world is against traditional family values & freedom. But if you had a conservative on the right fighting for these issues, we could win.
The fatal flaw of the right is that it chooses people who won't fight. Why that is I am not sure. But it is not that we can't win. Senator Santorum had a huge win on religious freedom, for example, when he actively, openly & loudly opposed what the left was doing to the American Peoples' religious freedom.
Again, it's not that we can't win, it's that our leaders won't fight. How long have we been talking about gay marriage? The left is concerted pro-gay marriage now. From the romney camp, nothing.
This is the root of your hopelessness.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 6:37PM
A story in newsmax says romney is once & for all refusing to stand up for the traditional family values that brought America freedom. There's a link on this page, there is the source of the rights sadness.
Petronius| 8.6.12 @ 1:10PM
Roger
I will miss your stimulating rhetoric. It's too true that westerners no longer contemplate the number of Angels dancing on the head of a pin. They are now obsessed with how many devils dig into the heads of their zits. Self and selfish carnal desires are paramount. Philosophy and thought are alien intrusions interfering with satisfaction and the extent of one's last orgasm. But even the subroobs know life is a shit sandwich: the more bread you've got, the better the taste in your mouth. What more does a plebe need to know? Outside of amusement, there's nothing else plebes want to know. That is the one cultural constant. The BAFTA's have mass appeal and the Bookers are barely noticed. We know what we like and like what we know. Is there a better explanation for the reason men would rather dig ditches than digest the contents of great books? The shovel and the use of are readily apparent to them, but reading any work of fine literature is more daunting than ascending K2. Duh. Or to quote Homer, the most eminent cultural icon of our age, "doh!"
THKrupp| 8.6.12 @ 2:28PM
If only men still got satisfaction from digging ditches. If we used to have a common culture it was one of "can do" and doing big things. We were never a nation of high culture except in minor ways. We were a nation that got things done. Thats not a nation of poets or artists. Thats a nation of men and women that did great things. We settled the west, we built canals and railroads. We built huge dams , created cities where none existed. Thats not saying those people were inferior or stupid its just that I dont know a whole lot of iron workers that attend the opera or theatre.
PolishKnight| 8.6.12 @ 4:47PM
I'm curious, do you know a whole lot of iron workers? I haven't met one in my whole life!
CJW| 8.6.12 @ 4:55PM
By iron workers do you mean the steelworkers in the steel mills, or the iron workers who construct the steel framing of buildings, as in the Iron Workers union?
Move to Pittsburgh and you will meet both.
THKrupp| 8.7.12 @ 6:27AM
I know quite a few of both kinds, guys that work in steel mills and guys that build stuff....like buildings and bridges.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:41PM
I lived near Birmingham. I treated lots of people who worked with their hands.
vigilant| 8.6.12 @ 1:51PM
Thoughtful commentary from knowledgeable, skilled communicators is the draw that has kept me coming back to AmSpec for some time, and it has been in abundance today. Vita was right that some people relish being as crude and bigoted as they can get away with, but she failed to understand that the seeming "blind eye" turned to them is just the grownups in the room not giving the desired attention to the child's tantrum. I found it amusing that she failed, also, to see that her angry "hit-and-run" blast puts her in the same category of childish outbursts rather than the ongoing, civil engagement of ideas, such as this article stimulated today.
I see no evidence that "humans have changed", even though society has. The social context affects attitudes and beliefs, and therefore the ways in which human nature is expressed, but I contend that human nature itself has remained unchanged since man's creation. And, if you are one who looks to the Bible for wisdom and instruction, as I do, you know that in the last days human behavior will grow worse. Right will become wrong and wrong right. You don't stop trying to shine a light into the darkness, but, hopefully, neither do the gathering shadows catch you unaware and unprepared.
RJ| 8.7.12 @ 2:47AM
Great post, Vigilant. Much to reflect upon in your second paragraph. Thank-you.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 4:44PM
(part 1): I disagree that it is so far gone that we can never get it back. Though that will be true if conservatives & the right fallow through & elect obama again by standing by the one of the few on the right who refuses to even acknowledge that we have any cultural issues, Mitt Romney.
We could get it all back if we had a conservative leader. Our problems today are that we all stand behind romney while he let's cultural issues all be won by the left. If we had someone actively, & loudly opposing cultural marxism, we could win every issue that plagues America today.
Our decline is cultural in nature. So to stand with Mitt, who is liberal culturally, socially, is suicide right now. & since these thing are pretty far gone, by sticking with him, America has no future.
We are a computer screen driven society, & young people are not active in conservatism in any sort of way that would bring viability to Americas' future. But neither are any of the rest of us. What our cultural marxism has done is create a marxist compliant society. We watch the screen, & question it not.
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 4:45PM
(part 2):The way home is by first having a conservative leader. Second by winning on cultural issues. Third by getting every American involved. Forth by having a nation wide civil rebellion against despotims over the American People. And finally having all Americans do the work that it takes to throw out cultural marxism, & replace it with a second life for American freedom. We would have to do the work to shrink the government, ourselves. & keep all communications to the public marxist sway free. In short, we could create a working free republic.
What stops us now is that we are today in the habit of looking for someone else to do the work to change America back. Romney for instance. We the people need to realize that you get as much freedom as the work that you put into keeping freedom real. We could do it, but not with romney. We need a Tea Party presidential ticket or this America won't even look good on the screen anymore.
Petronius| 8.6.12 @ 7:07PM
The primary reason we cannot win politically is that we have all the risk while those who control the powers of state have NONE. When we lose we lose all we have. The only thing the despots lose if we can remove them is what they were taking from the rest of US. How many are so desperate for cultural change willing to take that risk?
S O the Border| 8.6.12 @ 5:01PM
Speaking of young males' penchant for aggressive, hostile, abrasive music, I quote from Fox News on Sikh temple shooter andextreme right-winger Michael Page's musical "talent."
"Playing guitar and singing in various bands -- including Definite Hate and End Apathy -- in the obscure skinhead punk scene, the 40-year-old Page spewed his lyrics at ear-splitting volume in small underground bars and on independent record labels."
" . . . ear-splitting volume . . ."
No surprise here.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:44PM
And Johnny Rotten is pro-Israel and a philosemite, SO. You know,lead singer of the Sex Pistols, THE Punk Rock band of all time.
On the other hand, speaking of Lefty assholes, The E street band didn't blare out its stuff at ear-splitting volume?
I think you're going nowhere here. Alice Cooper is a born again Christian.
Jeamar| 8.6.12 @ 5:55PM
Fellow (and/or gal) columnists: For once I am rendered speechless. I don't know where this country is headed but it doesn't seem any place good.
Yesterday, I read in the local paper about the investigation code-named, Holitna, that involved forty-three men from the US to the Netherlands and has identified 140 young victims so far, the oldest aged four down to infants. Victims not of pornography but of child rape. This is a world I cannot even fathom. For the first time in seventy-five yrs., I read something that brought tears to me eyes. That it was not fiction makes me glad I will be checking out in not too many more years.
disheartened| 8.6.12 @ 10:08PM
Jeamar,
You write, "Victims not of pornography but of child rape."
I can assure you that these forty-three men (unspeakable monsters) watched the most twisted, violent pornography imaginable, and they watched it by clicking the mouse on their computer.
It's interesting that the voices raised in protest against the easy accessibility of pornography on the internet are almost entirely women, and only a few women.
I agree with the women. The internet porn is becoming too violent, too sick. And as the women say, the sexual tastes of young men are being corrupted by the extreme porno images they consume. There will be a terrible price our culture will pay for internet porn. But, like you, I won't be around too much longer either. I'm 79.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 7:47PM
Much of the child abuse is endemic to the European Islamic community. I did not say "epidemic," I said "endemic." As an MD, I choose those words carefully and am aware of the distinction.
Europe IS gone, folks. They are the walking dead. Check their birth figures. No one is above 2.1, most are in the middle ones (children per woman).
Burlington| 8.6.12 @ 6:26PM
The demoralization of America. Where did I hear that first? G. Edward Griffin interviewed a KGB defector, Yuri Bezmenov, in 1984 and he was most prophetic. He defected circa 1972. He pointed out the steps and process that the KGB uses to overthrow a country. Bezmenov was prophetic and the KGB won. Take 17 min. to listen to this man speak in 1984!
http://www(dot)dailymotion(dot)com/video/x32cxf_yuri-bezmenov?from=rss
Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 6:40PM
Roger, the source of Americas' decline is clear now, Mitt Romney has just officially refused to stand up for the traditional family values that gives America freedom. The story is in newsmax, & there is a link to it on this page now. The right will ignore this refusal to help us, I assume. But it is real. Conservatism committed suicide by romney in 2012. Please read newsmax. Romney says it will detract from his message, which is $$$.
Bill8472| 8.7.12 @ 9:37AM
Yes; fortunately, that perception that one has nothing to lose as one accumulates things that one does not want to lose. Most often, that state of affairs begins to gel in one's mid-twenties or even a little earlier; after that, one begins to feel a stake in things as they are, and begins to look toward the future. Also, looking toward the future also begins to occur as one begins to consider seriously marrying and having children.