Well, I think it does matter. Because the same worldview that diminishes the standing and claims of moral judgment has disabled many liberal-minded people from noticing when the world around them is being dragged down into moral anarchy, and from acting to oppose that descent.
Recall how many on the left excoriated Tipper Gore back in the 1980s when she simply called for labeling music CDs for the character of their lyrics. She just wanted to help parents to be able to monitor (and thus exercise some control over) what their children get exposed to""this at a time when many of the lyrics to popular music were brutal, misogynistic and vile. But from the outcry from some liberal circles against poor Tipper, you'd have thought she was for book-burning.
One of my correspondents wrote: "The entertainment media is mostly liberal, but only because it's run by conservatives who know that radical, shocking entertainment sells, and morality is not fun. Remember that Fox TV has some of the most liberal programming, while Fox News is a right-wing propaganda machine."
The evidence this correspondent presented corroborates an image of Rupert Murdock as a person whose politics are dictated by whatever will best advance his power and wealth. He may make common cause with value-conservatives but, as Sam's observation about Fox programming suggests, he does not seem "conservative" in any sense that has to do with moral values. His right hand gains power by railing against the kind of thing his left hand is doing. So in this, Murdock seems a close kin of the Bushites""using values talk to pursue amoral goals.
But what of the role of the liberals? I would say that liberals have helped promulgate a perspective that enables the trash-programming of networks like Fox. The liberals look at the coarse and crude stuff that much of our popular culture has become and see only "free expression." Who am I to impose my opinion on anyone else? Who is anybody to judge the preferences of anybody else.
And meanwhile the culture is training people""shaping their consciousness and their character through the vicarious experiences given them by the TV, movies, music, etc., that they consume. The experiences in which Americans have been rehearsed by these cultural expressions are not about striving toward an ideal. Not about making ethical choices from devotion to the greater good. Rather, again and again, people have been given practice in giving free rein to their lower impulses.
But many liberals have slept through this degradation, as if it really does not matter to the development of individuals, or to the development of the cultural ethos, what kinds of experiences the culture encourages them to have. Cultures throughout history have acted as if the moral quality of its art works mattered, but liberals acted as if all that concern was misguided.
Surely, it is true that liberal tolerance and relativism are not the only factors here. There's the whatever-sells-is-good ethic of the market-place, too, for example.
But even if it is the Rupert Murdocks of the world who have gladly exploited this opportunity, the liberal mindset has helped create the opportunity in the first place to sell what is debasing and not what's ennobling.
Surely also, this is not true of all of the liberals or all the strands of liberalism in our time. But it is not a trivial part of the picture of how American liberalism has dealt with cultural decadence.
For several decades, it seemed that New York City was in inevitable decline""with graffiti everywhere, with Times Square a cultural cesspool, etc. Why did it take Republicans to reverse the presumably irreversible? What was it about the liberals of that very liberal city that led them to stand by idly by while their city and its culture were falling to pieces?
My point here is that there are aspects of the worldview and attitudes embedded in some aspects of contemporary liberalism that helped erode the structures of goodness in our country. And we will increase our moral credibility as a movement -and help thwart the advance of the opportunistic forces of evil""by confronting them.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
