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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx

liberal virtues « Previous | |Next »
March 1, 2006

Try this one. It's by Steve Matteson in American Prospect online:

I have news for you: conservatives are winning the culture wars. OK, that might not come as a shock, but here's the scary part: They have reason to be winning. The right has done a superb job at exploiting certain weaknesses on the left; liberals, in the meantime, have become gun shy.

Well John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister is celebrating ten years in power tonight. Conservatism rules in Australia and it has roots in the young.

Steve Matteson continues:

But we should not duck the culture wars. Instead, we should see them as a golden opportunity to stand up and explain just what we think is right for America in terms of values and culture. Liberal values are in stronger shape than many believe. Look behind the right's cultural crusades -- David Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights," the push for intelligent design, the attack on secondary education as mere liberal indoctrination, and the assaults on the media -- and you start to notice a consistent worldview emerging. Call it conservative postmodernism. It is composed of numerous cultural strains that feed off one another. There's anti-intellectualism, mixed in with a populist distrust of professionalism and higher education as well as "objectivity," which is seen as a smokescreen cloaking the sinister ambition of imposing a liberal worldview on unsuspecting students or media consumers. For the conservative mind of today, everything is political; there is no set of competences that rises above the struggle for political power. Following from this, there is no real truth. There are only clashing viewpoints relative to one another, all deserving equal treatment in the public square.

Hmm. The culture wars are about political power but as some conservatives in Australia still adher to objectivity and truth, not all conservative are postmodern or embrace anti-intellectualism. But it is not just conservatives who argue that nothing is neutral in the media, there is no disinterested version of the news, as everything reflects politics and relationships to power and cultural perspective.Such an argument comes from the left as well, and it is based in the practice of the media.

So what are the liberal virtues that enable us to stand up and explain just what we think is right for (liberal?) America or Australian in terms of values and culture.

Matteson says that:

Liberals must elucidate the crucial relationship between professionalism, objectivity, and democratic deliberation.... Liberals must defend a culture of professionalism grounded in civic responsibility. "Reportial authority" (and responsibility) for the press and professorial responsibility and academic freedom for university teachers require rigorous defense today, lest they be replaced by the desires of those holding political power...While conservatives denounce objectivity to the point of seeing bias in all news reporting, liberals should champion the ideal of objectivity in reporting and argue for a press that is fair-minded and dedicated to the diffusion of knowledge necessary for democratic deliberation. This is not about winning political battles; it’s about something far more important. It’s about protecting institutions that sustain democratic discussion.

I concur that there is a need to defend and protect institutions that sustain democratic discussion. Do we need to do this with reportial authority (and responsibility) for the press based on the ideal of objectivity as neutrality or disinterest, given the bias and differing perspectives of much political discussion and media commentary.

Matteson notes the overlap between the postmoderen conservatives and postmodern left.

All of this brings us to the difficult matter of truth. It’s remarkable to note the parallels between the academic left and postmodern conservatives on this count. Historically, liberals inherited the tradition of the Enlightenment, with its belief in rationality and universal values. Against conservatives who upheld organic traditions rooted in religious faith, liberals stood for what Immanuel Kant called the public use of reason to criticize existing social and political arrangements. But since the 1960s, the academic left has attacked the Enlightenment tradition. It has become fashionable to doubt that the universal claims made by liberals -- grounded in values like equality or freedom -- can stand up to scrutiny. In the fields of literary theory, philosophy of science, sociological theory, and cultural studies, the Enlightenment tradition has taken a beating.

So it's postmodern that is the problem not conservatism.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:02 PM | | Comments (0)
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