Hoover Institution - Policy Review - Why There is a Culture War

However, the defection of "traditional"             intellectuals from the dominant groups to the subordinate groups, he held, is also             important, because traditional intellectuals who have "changed sides" are well             positioned within established institutions.

meaning that morals, values, truths, standards and human nature itself are products of             different historical epochs. There are no absolute moral standards that are universally             true for all human beings outside of a particular historical context; rather, morality is             "socially constructed."

So too is the very core of the             Gramscian-Hegelian world view — group-based morality, or the idea that what is moral             is what serves the interests of "oppressed" or "marginalized" ethnic,             racial, and gender groups.

She writes in Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (1989), "The rule of law and the rule of men are one thing, indivisible," because "State power, embodied in law, exists throughout society as male power." Furthermore, "Male power is systemic. Coercive, legitimated, and epistemic, it is the regime." Therefore, MacKinnon notes, "a rape is not an isolated event or moral transgression or individual interchange gone wrong but an act of terrorism and torture within a systemic context of group subjection, like lynching." Similarly, MacKinnon has argued that sexual harassment is essentially an issue of power exercised by the dominant over the subordinate group.

Such thinking may begin in ivory towers, but it does not end there. The United States Supreme Court adopted MacKinnon’s theories as the basis for its interpretation of sexual harassment law in the landmark Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson (1986). This is only one example of how major American social policy has come to be based not on Judeo-Christian precepts nor on Kantian-Enlightenment ethics, but on Gramscian and Hegelian-Marxist concepts of group power.

s he noted in "Thought Reform 101" in the March 2000 issue of Reason,             "at almost all our campuses, some form of moral and political re-education has been             built into freshmen orientation." A "central goal of these programs," Kors             states, "is to uproot ‘internalized oppression,’ a crucial concept in the             diversity education planning documents of most universities." The concept of             "internalized oppression" is the same as the Hegelian-Marxist notion of             "false consciousness," in which people in the subordinate groups             "internalize" (and thus accept) the values and ways of thinking of their             oppressors in the dominant groups.

At Columbia University, for instance, new students are encouraged to get             rid of "their own social and personal beliefs that foster inequality." To             accomplish this, the assistant dean for freshmen, Katherine Balmer, insists that             "training" is needed

Kors states that at an academic conference sponsored by the University             of Nebraska, the attendees articulated the view that "White students desperately need             formal ‘training’ in racial and cultural awareness. The moral goal of such             training should override white notions of privacy and individualism."

Vasquez’s study guide for a Ford Foundation-funded             diversity film, Skin Deep, explains the meaning of "white             privilege" and "internalized oppression" for the trainees. It also explains             the concept of an "ally," as an individual from the "dominant group"             who rejects his "unmerited privilege" and becomes an advocate for the position             of the subordinate groups. This concept of the "ally," of course, is Gramscian             to the core; it is exactly representative of the notion that subordinate groups struggling             for power must try to "conquer ideologically" the traditional intellectuals or             activist cadres normally associated with the dominant group.

d "diversity training" is rampant among the Fortune 500.             Even more significantly, on issues of group preferences vs. individual opportunity, major             corporate leaders tend to put their money and influence behind group rights instead of             individual rights.

nterestingly, private corporations are also more supportive of another             form of group rights — gay rights — than are government agencies at any level.             As of June 2000, for example, approximately 100 Fortune 500 companies had adopted health             benefits for same-sex partners.

the companies offering same-sex benefits include the leading corporations in the             Fortune 500 ranking: among the top 10, General Motors (ranked first), Ford (fourth), IBM             (sixth), AT&T (eighth), and Boeing (tenth), as well as Hewlett-Packard, Merrill Lynch,             Chase Manhattan Bank, Bell Atlantic, Chevron, Motorola, Prudential, Walt Disney,             Microsoft, Xerox, and United Airlines.

The             primary resistance to the advance of Gramscian ideas comes from an opposing quarter that I             will call contemporary Tocquevillianism. Its representatives take Alexis de             Tocqueville’s essentially empirical description of American exceptionalism and             celebrate the traits of this exceptionalism as normative values to be embraced.

Americans today, just as in Tocqueville’s time, are much more individualistic, religious, and patriotic than the people of any other comparably advanced nation.

What was particularly exceptional for Tocqueville (and contemporary Tocquevillians) is the singular American path to modernity. Unlike other modernists, Americans combined strong religious and patriotic beliefs with dynamic, restless entrepreneurial energy that emphasized equality of individual opportunity and eschewed hierarchical and ascriptive group affiliations. The trinity of American exceptionalism could be described as (1) dynamism (support for equality of individual opportunity, entrepreneurship, and economic progress); (2) religiosity (emphasis on character development, mores, and voluntary cultural associations) that works to contain the excessive individual egoism that dynamism sometimes fosters; and (3) patriotism (love of country, self-government, and support for constitutional limits).

Like thoughtful scholars             before them, both make a sharp distinction between the moderate (and positive)             Enlightenment (of Locke, Montesquieu, and Adam Smith) that gave birth to the American             Revolution and the radical (and negative) Enlightenment (Condorcet and the philosophes)             that gave birth to the Revolution in France.

Tocquevillians are also represented in             business and government. In the foundation world, prevailing Gramscian ideas have been             challenged by scholars funded by the Bradley, Olin, and Scaife foundations. For example,             Michael Joyce of Bradley has called his foundation’s approach             "Tocquevillian" and supported associations and individuals that foster moral and             religious underpinnings to self-help and civic action. At the same time, Joyce called in             "On Self-Government" (Policy Review, July-August 1998) for             challenging the "political hegemony" of the service providers and             "scientific managers" who run the "therapeutic state" that Tocqueville             feared would result in "an immense and tutelary" power that threatened liberty.

American             Enterprise Institute’s Michael Novak and the Faith and Reason Institute’s Robert             Royal — who have argued, in essence, that America’s founding principles are             sound and that the three elements of the Tocquevillian synthesis (entrepreneurial             dynamism, religion, and patriotism) are at the heart of the American experience and of             America’s exceptional contribution to the idea of ordered liberty.

. Only the Tocquevillians appear to have the strength — in terms of             intellectual firepower, infrastructure, funding, media attention, and a comprehensive             philosophy that taps into core American principles — to challenge the Gramscians with             any chance of success.

Tocqueville writes in Democracy in America that "mores" are central to the "Maintenance of a Democratic Republic in the United States." He defines "mores" as not only "the habits of the heart," but also the "different notions possessed by men, the various opinions current among them, and the sum of ideas that shape mental habits" — in short, he declares, "the whole moral and intellectual state of a people."

One of the leading manifestos of the Tocquevillians is "A Call to Civil Society: Why Democracy Needs Moral Truths," published by the Council on Civil Society. It outlines the traditional civic and moral values (Tocqueville’s "mores") that buttress the republic.

the "civic truths" of the American regime are             "those of Western constitutionalism, rooted in both classical understandings of             natural law and natural right and in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. . . . The             moral truths that make possible our experiment in self-government," according to this             statement, "are in large part biblical and religious," informed by the             "classical natural law tradition" and the "ideas of the             Enlightenment." The "most eloeloquent expressions" of these truths are             "found in the Declaration of Independence, Washington’s Farewell Address,             Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address, and King’s Letter             from the Birmingham Jail."

At the same time there are other Tocquevillians, including Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute, who favor tax credits, but worry that by accepting federal grant money the faith institutions could become dependent on government money and adjust their charitable projects to government initiatives.

not to mention what they might mandate be taught

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the intellectual             underpinning for the Gender Equity in Education Act of 1993 (and most gender equity             legislation going back to the seminal Women’s Educational Equity Act, or WEEA, of the             1970s) is the essentially Gramscian and Hegelian-Marxist concept of "systemic"             or "institutionalized oppression." In this view, the mainstream institutions of             society, including the schools, enforce an "oppressive" system (in this case, a             "patriarchy") at the expense of a subordinate group (i.e., women and girls)

one of the remedies to "systemic oppression" is             "training" (of the "reeducation" type described by Professor Kors)             that seeks to alter the "consciousness" of individuals in both the dominant             groups and subordinate groups. Thus, Sen. Snowe also advocated "training"             programs to eliminate "sexual harassment in its very early stages in our             Nation’s schools."

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