To few Americans is Antonio Gramsci
a familiar name.
That is to be regretted because the
work of the late Italian Marxist sheds much light on our time. It was he
who first alerted fellow revolutionaries to the possibility that they would
be able to complete the seizure of political power only after having achieved
"cultural hegemony," or control of society's intellectual life by cultural
means alone. His was an incremental, rather than an apocalyptic, revolution-the
kind, that is, that we have been witnessing in the United States, and the
Western world generally, since the 1960s. With this in mind, we ought not
to treat the contemporary "culture war" lightly; the fate of what remains
of civilized life may well be decided by its outcome.
Few Leftists now adhere strictly to
the original tenets of Marxism, or even to those of Marxist Revisionism,
but, what is every bit as dangerous, they, like Gramsci, often succumb
to a temptation that appears to be irresistible to those who dream utopian
dreams: the passion for negation that often shades into nihilism. Utopianism
and nihilism may seem to be antithetical, but they are not; both derive
from the same source-undying hatred of the world as it is.
Much of contemporary American culture
has as its aim the trampling of moral and aesthetic standards that were
once all but universally acknowledged, even when they were being violated.
With few exceptions, contemporary movies, television shows, and popular
music portray Judeo-Christian morality as laughable at best and tyrannical
at worst. To hear them tell it, America is in danger of becoming a theocracy
governed by the "Religious Right." This despite the fact that the reigning
culture is pagan through and through. It therefore assumes casual or impersonal
sex to be the norm; feeds the public's increasing appetite for sexual perversion;
depicts all fictional tyrannies as "right wing"; and pollutes the public
square with scatological language. Only in rare cases are the purveyors
of this "culture" challenged; and then, like the egregious Howard Stern,
they pose as persecuted defenders of free speech and command even more
money. Almost no one-Judge Robert Bork is an honorable exception-has had
the courage to make the case for censorship, in part because of the widespread,
but utterly mistaken, belief that there exists a "right of free expression"
that is absolute.
Another oft-repeated, but spurious,
argument against censorship is that "you don't have to watch (or read or
listen to) it." Others, however, do and even those who are not motivated
thereby to commit crimes-think only of the Littleton, Colorado murderers-are
coarsened by it and thus contribute to a further lowering of public taste,
with what consequences for individual, often young, lives we have reason
to know. Those who can endure a veritable torrent of linguistic vulgarity
will find Tom Wolfe's recent novel, I am Charlotte Simmons, instructive
in this regard.
Following Gramsci, Leftists know that
Christianity remains the greatest obstacle to their total victory in the
culture war. "The civilized world had been thoroughly saturated with Christianity
for 2000 years," the Italian had written; something, he insisted, had to
be done about that, and something has. The de-Christianizing of America
and the West that he advocated is by now well underway. Inspired by the
anti-Christian French Revolutionary calendar, publishers now insist upon
the secular "B.C.E." (Before the "Common Era"-whatever that means) rather
than "B.C." and "C.E." (the Common Era) rather than "A.D." Booksellers,
popular magazines, and television treat with respect anti-Christian screeds
such as The DaVinci Code. Courts, including the Supreme Court, declare
most displays of the Decalogue to be "unconstitutional." The media repeat
the mantra according to which Islam is "the religion of peace" (daily evidence
to the contrary notwithstanding), find nothing to criticize in Buddhism,
and remain "non-judgmental" concerning scientology and other cults, while
at the same time they portray Christianity as the religion of "crusaders,"
bigots, and yahoos. Members of the Christian clergy have themselves joined
in the relentless attack on orthodox Christianity.
Few thoughtful people deny that we are
living in a time of decline. Judge Bork entitled one of his books Slouching
Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline. Pat Buchanan
recently published The Death of the West. The only question that remains
is: Is the decline reversible? There are a few signs of hope, including
the much commented upon challenge to the "mainstream" media presented by
talk radio, bloggers, and Fox News. That is something, but not enough.
Gramsci counseled his side to begin a "long march through the institutions,"
by which he meant the capture of the cinema, theater, schools, universities,
seminaries, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and courts. It is
past time to begin a long march in a new and better direction. |