From: "Dorkin, Eric" <EDorkin at jenner.com> To: "'lbo-talk at lists.panix.com'" <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Subject: RE: farewell to academe Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 13:45:22 -0600
The country is more conservative because of the successful liberal critique of tradition and inherited legitimacy. By debunking much of the heretofore shared ideology and culture as decidely sexsit, racist, etc., we have left the world full of independent and isolated thinkers, each as his or her own context, with a different history. As such, there is no unit larger than the individual that deserves or requires allegiance. Even the family has received a thorough debunking as a patriarchal institution designed to foster achievement by boys over girls, etc. To what then are people to turn, if not to that which makes everything possible -- money? oney no longer services the greater good, it services only the self. Even the great mammonites of the early-20th century understood that there was more to their existence than themsleves.
What we want now is a return to ideology and community -- ones more consistent with our broader and more inclusive conseptions of justice. Yet, there is an argument we have failed to make to a wide audience: "why our ideology and not the ones we debunk?" We have met the enemy and it is us.