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PARTISAN REVIEW
Reviewing the findings of all the elite studies carried out so far,
Rothman concluded in 1985 that "while some commentators believe
that the 1980s have been characterized by a revival of mere tradi–
tional values, my research thus far indicates that appearances are
deceptive. The rate of change may have slowed, but the patterns
which emerged in the 1960s have been incorporated into American
culture, to a considerable extent."
Another development that has signaled the gains made by the
social-critical spirit in American life has been the growing entrench–
ment over the past two decades of Marxist academics. As stated by
two of them - Bertell OIlman and Edward Vernoff- "A Marxist cul–
tural revolution is taking place today in American universities ." They
noted among the gains made by this movement the new spurt in the
publishing of Marxist texts and textbooks by prestigious academic
publishers and over four hundred courses offered in Marxist philos–
ophy, as well as the election of Marxists to head the organizations of
American historians and teachers of literature.
There have been other indications of the persistence and revival
of the radical-critical attitudes on American campuses and of the
domination of the public political discourse by left-wing causes and
groups. Speakers disliked by radical groups still cannot, as a rule,
exercise their right to free speech, be they officials of the United States
Government (such as Jeane Kirkpatrick or Caspar Weinberger), or
representatives of anti-Sandinista groups in Nicaragua (like Eden
Pastora), or scientists who believe in the importance of heredity (like
William Shockley and Arthur Jensen) or former radicals converted
to evangelical Christianity (like Eldridge Cleaver).
The presence of social criticism and the influence of the sensibili–
ties of the 1960s is not limited to higher education .
In
an exhaustive
study of the presentation of religious and traditional values in public
school textbooks read by an estimated sixty percent of all American
students taking United States history, Professor Paul Vitz found "a
strong liberal bias" and role models who were predominantly associ–
ated with liberal political or social causes . The political bias of these
texts was also reflected in their tendency to characterize recent Ameri–
can history in terms of three issues: minorities, feminism, and ecol–
ogy, and in an antibusiness attitude.
The critiques of the 1980s are hard to distinguish from those of
the 1960s. Both focus on the evils of capitalism: impersonality, injus–
tice, inequality , and greed. Capitalism is also blamed for the under–
mining of community and the impoverishment of personal relation-
