10
PARTISAN REVIEW
It leaves out the levelling effects of mass education and anti-elitist
agitation, the stifling effects of super-specialization, and of the em–
phasis on practical benefits in the curriculum and the classroom.
It
also does not take account of the fact that so many professors, who
lack ideas of their own, are susceptible to every new intellectual fad.
In the universities, at least, the left does not have a monopoly on
bandwagon thinking.
Joseph Epstein's contribution was to rebuke such novelists as
Doctorow and Coover for writing political tracts. This is legitimate
criticism. And Epstein recognizes that one cannot will a change in
the literary scene. But then he goes on, as do many of the other par–
ticipants, at least to imply that neoconservative criticism can clean
up the culture.
One of the more sensible and quietly argued pieces is Irving
Kristol's. He is certainly right in his description of the mindless
media. But it is an exaggeration to blame it on the "adversary
culture." Most of the mindlessness is due to the insatiable quest for
novelty to reach new and larger audiences; much of it is due to the
endless talk shows and political discussions that sensationalize and
grind every question into a meaningless pap. Some does come from
the new wave of radicalism that has invaded the universities and the
media. But this has to be seen as a perverted ideology taking the
place of the traditional left. No longer communist, but without a
mind of its own, this ideology which is left only by default fills the
political vacuum by echoing currently fashionable pacifist and third
world propaganda.
The best comments were made by Peter Berger, who tried to
separate himself from ideological crusades. He acknowledged the
decline of intellectual life in the academy, as most of us do who are
not rationalizing our predicaments. However, his answer was not to
promote neoconservative theories, but to emphasize the value of free
inquiry, particularly by setting an example in one's own writing and
teaching.
If
the peace movement, for example, has swept the univer–
sities, it is because neither students nor professors have been trained
to examine ideas and movements critically. Hence they are not
aware that a cause is not the same thing as an idea.
If
there is a lesson to be drawn from the tendency of the con–
ference to ascribe the problems of democratic capitalism to the
"adversary culture," it is that ideology is not a substitute for history.
W.P.
