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From: Philosophy and Psychology of Cyberspace
[mailto:CYBERMIND@LISTSERV.AOL.COM] On Behalf Of Alan Sondheim
Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 5:23 PM
To: CYBERMIND@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
Subject: Scrooge's Nightmare: 60's Morality is Winning (fwd)
Despite Bush's election, the cranky old conservatives' days
are numbered. The future belongs to middle-aged boomers and
their kids, who embrace the tolerant values of the '60s.
Nov. 25, 2004 | Cowed by exit polls showing that "moral
values" motivated one in five American voters on Election
Day, chastened journalists have begun to spin a new narrative
about our national political culture: that "ordinary
Americans" can be found only in socially conservative red-
state pews. "Ordinary people, the people in the red states"
is how conservative media critic Bernard Goldberg puts it,
and many in the press seem to be saying amen.
But once again the media have it wrong. Missing in this
discussion is that most Americans -- even many Bush
supporters -- would recoil and rebel if the evangelical right
ever got its way and began to limit the personal freedoms
most of us now take for granted.
All the claims about mandates and values notwithstanding, the
very fact that one-fifth of voters cited moral values means
that four-fifths didn't. In fact, we heard much the same talk
about the rise of conservative social values in the Reagan
'80s, yet scholars who have studied attitudes in that period
have found little evidence to suggest any reversal of the
social liberalism that began in the '60s, particularly on
issues involving family, women, morality, sexuality and
overall tolerance. We must be careful not to confuse election
results with cultural trends.
As survey after survey of contemporary social attitudes
demonstrates, social conservatives no more represent the
mainstream or the future than Prohibitionists did in the
1920s. If anything, it's the baby-boom sensibility spawned in
the 1960s that has become mainstream in America today. As
conservative columnist George Will lamented a few years back,
politics "seems peripheral to, and largely impotent against,
cultural forces and institutions permeated with what
conservatives consider the sixties sensibility."
How little the "moral values" voter represents the future is
evident in surveys of today's youth, who may be the most
inclusive, tolerant and socially liberal generation in our
nation's history. From the media we hear all about the
controversies of the so-called culture war, such as the
occasional school superintendent who shuts down all school
clubs to keep gay and straight high school students from
forming "gay- straight" clubs. But what we don't hear is that
these clubs have quietly formed in about 2,800 schools
nationwide. In fact, research on young people confirms that
they have little patience for intolerance, that they have no
problem accepting homosexuality, that most even support the
right of gay people to marry.
Indeed, today's youth reject many of the social rigidities,
prejudices and orthodoxies of old. As many as half of all
teens say they've dated across racial or ethnic lines,
including more than a third of white teens, and most of these
are "serious" relationships. On race, homosexuality,
premarital sex, gender roles, the environment and issues
involving personal choice and freedom, younger Americans
consistently fall on the liberal and more tolerant side of
the spectrum.
If younger voters were the only ones with these attitudes,
social conservatives might be able to lay claim to a "moral
values" mandate for a very long time. But younger voters
represent the mainstream much more than the initial exit
polling would indicate. The illusion of a predominant "moral
values" voting bloc has much to do with the fact that the
most traditional and socially conservative Americans, pre-
baby boomers, are living much longer lives and voting in very
large numbers -- skewing exit polls and thus our image of the
mainstream. Once younger voters begin to replace them, the
socially conservative vote will return to the margins of
American life.
There's a good reason why young people feel the way they do,
and that's because their baby boomer parents overwhelmingly
agree with them. So forget any talk of a generation gap
between boomers and their children. On a wide range of social
and cultural issues, they are united in their attitudes of
tolerance and inclusiveness. The only generation gap that
remains is the same one that began in the '60s, between pre-
boomers and the rest of us. What we have today is a pre-baby
boom cohort that's steadfastly conservative, with the vast
majority of everyone younger leaning the opposite way.
Take race, for example. Young whites who date across racial
lines feel comfortable doing so because their boomer parents
say they have no problem with it. Yet for older white
Americans, who in surveys continue to oppose the idea of a
close relative marrying a black, interracial dating remains a
taboo. Should blacks push themselves where they're not
wanted? Two-thirds of pre- boomers in one survey said no, a
view rejected by a vast majority of everyone younger.
It's the same with the hot-button issue of gay and lesbian
rights. Pre-boomers are the only group that believes society
should not recognize homosexuality as an acceptable way of
life, according to a 2002 poll by the Center for Information
and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Those who
still oppose the idea of gay teachers may recall the glory
days when Anita Bryant's antigay crusade to "Save Our
Children" seemed to represent a broad national consensus, but
today they are a minority.
So powerful is the new norm of tolerance and inclusiveness
that more than 200 cities and counties now have laws
protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination, and among
Fortune 500 companies, 227 now offer domestic-partner
benefits. Straight job seekers have been known to ask whether
companies offer same-sex- partner benefits not because
they're secretly gay but because they prefer a company that
promotes diversity and tolerance. Even in this supposedly
conservative political year, exit polls found three in five
voters supporting marriage or civil unions for gays.
Nor is it any different in the way we view the family: The
socially conservative attitudes held by many evangelicals and
older Americans are simply out of step with what most
Americans believe.
According to my cohort analysis of surveys conducted by the
University of Chicago's highly regarded National Opinion
Research Center, large majorities of Americans born from 1943
onward strongly reject the traditional view that families and
children suffer if Mom works full time or if Mom works and
Dad takes care of the kids. When asked during the 1990s
whether it was better for men to work and women to tend to
the home, 60 percent of those born before 1943 said yes,
while nearly three- fourths of those born afterward said no.
Young and old are united in support of families, but from
boomers on down it's equality in a family that is believed to
make it strong.
Many conservatives, of course, continue to resist the
realities of the modern family, arguing that working mothers
don't really want to work but have been hoodwinked by liberal
elites who want to impose their feminist views. But when
women are asked if they would continue working even if they
didn't need the money, as many as two-thirds say yes. And
when NORC asked in 2002 whether "both the husband and wife
should contribute to the household income," fewer than 10
percent said no. The egalitarian model -- not the Donna Reed
stereotype of 1950s sitcoms -- represents mainstream America
today.
This mainstream liberalism also reaches into the most
intimate of decisions. On cohabitation and sex before
marriage, few in the older group call it acceptable, while
most in the younger cohorts seem unfazed. The younger groups
tend to be more pro-choice than their elders. And while no
one wants teenagers engaging in sexual activity, only the
pre-boomer group would deny birth control to sexually active
teens. Two-thirds of the younger cohort would support it.
Does all this mean that boomers and younger Americans reject
the traditional family and all restraints on personal
behavior? Of course not. They simply accept that people are
different and have a right to make their own choices and lead
their own lives, and that the moral imperative is not to
condemn those who are different but to include and support
them. Diversity is not just a slogan -- it's a moral value
for these generations.
Much has been made of the Roman Catholic hierarchy's
opposition to John Kerry's pro-choice stance, and by
inference the press has bought the stereotype of the socially
conservative Catholic. But again the stereotype misleads.
Among boomer and younger Catholics, NORC finds, only 27
percent label themselves traditional, compared with 44
percent among pre-boomers. And religious liberals now exceed
traditionalists in this younger cohort. Most Catholics now
reject, if not resent, church dogma restricting social
tolerance and personal freedom. Recent surveys by the New
York Times and Newsweek show large majorities favoring
married priests, female priests, gay adoptions and birth
control. And barely a third want abortion outlawed, no
different from the proportion in the rest of America.
Nor are these mere attitudes. Most estimates suggest that
Catholics obtain abortions at the same rate as other
Americans, and despite the church's ban on divorce, the
percentage of Catholics separated or divorced is right at the
national average. Growing numbers of boomer and younger
Catholics also believe you can marry outside the church and
still be a good Catholic, and about a third of younger
Catholics do just that. If the church required adherence to
its traditional teachings, one Jesuit writer observed, "I'm
afraid we're going to have nobody taking Communion."
What we see among Catholics is happening with Americans of
all faiths. Indeed, the traditionally religious American --
what the press has anointed the faith or moral values voter
-- may well be in decline. According to NORC's 2000 General
Social Survey, only two in 10 Americans born from 1943 onward
attend religious services once a week or more, while six in
10 attend infrequently -- at most a few times a year -- if at
all. That's almost the opposite of older Americans, 55
percent of whom attend once a month or more and 36 percent of
whom attend once a week or more.
In fact, the fastest-growing group of religious Americans are
those who claim no religious identity at all; their number
now almost equals the number of people who call themselves
Baptists, according to the 2001 American Religious
Identification Survey. These numbers track with findings by
Independent Sector, a group that studies nonprofit trends,
which show that the share of Americans giving their time to
religious organizations declined from 28.6 percent in 1989 to
22.8 percent in 1998.
It's not that Americans aren't seeking spiritual guidance --
they are, and in large numbers. But they're finding it in
nontraditional ways. Much has been written about the number
of baby boomers who have returned to the religious fold after
the turbulence of the '60s and '70s, but as religious scholar
Wade Clark Roof has reported in his various books on boomers
and religion, many of them are "re-traditionalizing" their
faith, elevating individual worship over deference to
authority and embracing modern values over outmoded rules.
This yearning for spirituality over religiosity can be seen
in the estimated 20 percent of Americans who show interest in
New Age ideas, and in the 20 million who take yoga classes,
which approaches the number of boomers and younger adults who
attend church at least once a week. A generation ago, most
Americans believed in moral absolutes, biblical truth and the
authority of their religious leaders, but today, the vast
majority say that religious morality is a personal matter.
And the trend is increasingly in that direction; only the
social conservatives think otherwise.
Nervous Democrats who counsel their party to offer a me- too
religious moralism fail to grasp that mainstream morality has
changed over the last generation. What's different is that
most Americans no longer feel comfortable imposing their
personal morality on another's private behavior. But that
doesn't mean this new majority is any less moral.
For baby boomers and younger people, there's nothing
equivocal about their views of right and wrong. These
Americans condemn bigotry, intolerance and discrimination.
They reject constraints on personal freedom and don't like it
when women are not treated as equals. They find pollution
objectionable and see nothing moral in imposing religious
beliefs on others. They believe a moral upbringing is
teaching kids to think for themselves, not to follow
another's rules. What they embrace are pluralism, privacy,
freedom of choice, diversity and respect for people with
different traditions. Perhaps the only thing missing from
this new morality is a politician capable of articulating it.
Why isn't this new mainstream more vocal in our politics
today? To borrow a phrase from Richard Nixon, they've become
a new "silent majority" -- not the socially conservative
silent majority of old, but a silent majority that's fairly
content with the new morality and unwilling to believe that
America will turn back the clock on their rights and
freedoms.
Yet if anyone crosses this silent majority, by passing laws
to restrict personal freedoms, they will be silent no more.
When the trustees at James Madison University in rural
Virginia voted to ban the morning-after pill from the student
health center in 2003, the largely conservative student body
rose up within 36 hours and demanded change. Consider that a
microcosm of what would happen nationwide.
And why do social conservatives loom so large in our politics
today? The best historical parallel for them may be the
Luddites who terrorized Britain two centuries ago, the
workers who traveled around the country smashing machines for
fear that the Industrial Revolution would destroy their jobs
and way of life. They were loud, and their tenacity gave the
impression that they represented more Britons than they
actually did, when in fact they were merely acting out their
despair and outrage at a world that was passing them by.
Today's social conservatives are our cultural Luddites.
In the aftermath of the 2004 election, religious and social
conservatives have begun to demand their spoils and due.
Evangelical leader Bob Jones III, head of the eponymous Bob
Jones University in South Carolina that until 2000 banned
interracial dating, has called upon President Bush to appoint
conservative judges and pass legislation "defined by biblical
norm." Pro-choice Republicans like Sen. Arlen Specter have
been threatened with loss of power if they refuse to rubber-
stamp anti- Roe judges. The president himself has said he's
ready to spend his "political capital" to enact his moral
values.
It was a gleeful Karl Rove who let the evangelical genie out
of the bottle to win this election, but what worked this year
may come back to haunt the GOP in the decades to come. For as
much as Rove needed these religious voters to get his guy
over the top, let us not forget that the primary reason
President Bush won is that he quite successfully turned the
election into a referendum on leadership qualities for the
war on terror, and in the process subsumed all other issues.
Perhaps Rove should have sat in on my undergraduate course on
this year's presidential campaign, which I've been teaching
this fall at American University in Washington. About two
weeks before the election, I asked the students, "Would you
be more or less likely to support George W. Bush if you knew
he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would erode the
right to an abortion, the right to sexual privacy, gay
rights, church-state separation, federal environmental
regulation, family leave laws, and both affirmative action
and diversity programs?" And before I let them answer, I
added that these were not mere abstractions, that Justices
Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas had both voted or vowed to
erode these rights and protections, and that these were the
two justices Bush has cited as his model nominees.
Predictably, the Kerry partisans shuddered at the idea of a
Supreme Court stacked with Bush appointees. But more
interesting was the reaction from the Bush supporters. With
clear discomfort, most wanted to wish the question away,
saying they don't vote on hypotheticals, and anyway, they
couldn't imagine the Court reversing such settled law. But
when I pressed them and asked them to take the president and
his favorite justices at their word, one finally conceded
that his perspective was based on "wishful thinking."
The "wishful thinking" student intrigued me most because he
was a hard-nosed thinker, a strong Bush supporter from the
heartland, and he spent much of the semester critiquing the
Kerry supporters for "wishful thinking" about terrorism,
saying that we needed to stand tough against Islamic fascists
regardless of what the rest of the world says. So after the
election I asked him about his "wishful thinking" on the
Supreme Court, and after a few moments of cognitive
dissonance, he admitted that a rightward Court that overruled
Roe vs. Wade and other rights might eventually force him to
rethink his political loyalties.
So be careful what you wish for, Mr. Rove. The moment the
courts start reversing our personal freedoms -- or the
religious right overreaches and tries to impose its will --
millions of Americans who voted for President Bush might
regret their decision to let wishful thinking guide their
choice back in 2004.
The new silent majority will rise again.
[About the writer Leonard Steinhorn teaches politics and media
at American University and is the author of the forthcoming
book "The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom
Legacy," to be published by St. Martin's Press in 2005.]
portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news,
discussion and debate service of the Committees of
Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to
provide varied material of interest to people on the
left.
Joined: 27 Nov 2004 {Posts: 1763 } Location: Hudson Valley, NY
Posted: Wed 01 Dec 2004 15:19 Post subject: Scrooge's Nightmare: 60's Morality is Winning
jyerby wrote:
Some interesting statistics from we pinkos. Yes, there is interracial
information here also.
You don't have to look any futher than the Netherlands where extreme tolerance has made the pendulum start to swing back in the other direction. Extreme in-tolerance is not good as well, but the PC crowd will be in for a rude awakening.....here's a counter article by Walter Williams:
Attack on decency
Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction," Nicollette Sheridan's towel malfunction and naked leap into the arms of Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens in a promotion before ABC's "Monday Night Football," and the recent Detroit Pistons/Indiana Pacers game melee are just the most recent signs of a new culture that has emerged among Americans, and it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Years ago, the lowest of lowdown men wouldn't use the kind of language that's routinely used today not only in the presence of women, but often to women. To see men sitting while a woman was standing on a public conveyance used to be unthinkable. Children addressing adults by their first name was also unthinkable, not to mention the use of foul language in the presence of or to adults. How about guys and girls walking down the street whilst the guy has his hand in the girl's rear pocket?
What might explain the differences in behavior today vs. yesteryear? A significant part of the explanation is seen by recognizing that society's first line of defense is not the law, but customs, traditions and moral values. Customs, traditions and moral values are those important thou-shalt-nots such as: thou shalt not murder, shalt not steal, shalt not lie and cheat. They also include respect for parents, teachers and others in authority plus those courtesies one might read in Emily Post's rules of etiquette.
The importance of customs, traditions and moral values as a means of regulating behavior is that people behave themselves even if nobody's watching. There are not enough cops, and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct so as to produce a civilized society. At best, the police and the criminal justice system are the last desperate lines of defense for a civilized society. Unfortunately, too many of us see police, laws and the criminal and civil justice systems as society's first line of defense.
For nearly a half-century, the nation's liberals, along with the education establishment, pseudo-intellectuals and the courts, have waged war on traditions, customs and moral values. Many in this generation have been counseled to believe that there are no moral absolutes. Instead, what's moral or immoral is a matter of convenience, personal opinion, or what is or is not criminal.
During the 1960s, the education establishment launched its agenda to undermine lessons children learned from their parents and the church with fads like "values clarification." So-called sex-education classes were simply indoctrination that sought to undermine family-church strictures against premarital sex. Lessons of abstinence were ridiculed, considered passe, and replaced with lessons about condoms, birth-control pills and abortion. Further undermining of parental authority came with legal and extra-legal measures to assist teenage abortions with neither parental knowledge nor consent.
Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not laws and government regulations, are what make for a civilized society. These behavioral norms, mostly transmitted by example, word of mouth, and religious teachings, represent a body of wisdom distilled through ages of experience, trial and error, and looking at what works and what doesn't.
Customs, traditions and moral values have been discarded without an appreciation for the role they played in creating a civilized society, and now, we're paying the price. What's worse is that instead of a return to what worked, many of us fail to make the connection and insist "there ought to be a law." As such, it points to another failure of the so-called "great generation" the failure to transmit to their children what their parents transmitted to them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
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