Ethan Porter: V-Day in the Culture Wars for the Left
[Ethan Porter is the managing editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.]
His left arm trembling, his back stiff, and his gait still nearly regal, The Greatest held the torch aloft and lit the flame. Millions–several hundred million, in fact–watched, and many cheered. Here was Muhammad Ali, representing America on the highest world stage. This was Atlanta, 1996, at the opening of the Olympic Games; 25 years had passed since his last match, and the wounds he used to delight in opening appeared to have healed. In his prime, Ali stood for all that divided America. Now, he was its appointed representative to the world. Ali’s ascent to mainstream respectability would be completed nine years later, as George W. Bush draped the Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck.
One could view this tale skeptically: As they age–and few have aged as visibly as Ali–our rebels are robbed of their edge and repackaged as benign role models. But one could also view Ali’s path as emblematic of a broader shift in our culture. Ali was, of course, at the center of the paroxysms of the 1960s. His refusal to fight in Vietnam–"I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong"–his alliance with the Nation of Islam, and his denigration of Joe Frazier as an Uncle Tom sealed his status as perhaps the counterculture’s most famous torchbearer. How is it, then, that later in his life, he would come literally to bear the torch for the culture at large?
Ali’s grand trajectory, from defiant foe of America on matters foreign and domestic to knighted symbol of the same nation, bespeaks a largely unheralded verdict in the "culture war," a phrase that pundits and politicians use incessantly. And on matters of race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation, the brawls of the past half-century might be best understood as one continuous war. But what the about-face in Ali’s status indicated, Barack Obama’s presidential election only confirmed. The left has won the culture war. We would do well to acknowledge and celebrate this victory, however belatedly; and then we should consider what it portends for the future of politics on the left.
Broadly speaking, there were two central planks to the conservative cultural philosophy that dominated belief in this country well into Ali’s time: an allegiance to traditional institutions, primarily marriage and the church, and an allergy to legally enforced egalitarianism. This conservatism was advanced by proclamations like Barry Goldwater’s: "It may be just or wise or expedient for Negro children to attend the same schools as white children, but they do not have a civil right to do so." William F. Buckley’s voice was also essential.
The left, on the other hand, was predicated–and still is–on the suppositions that, while institutions have their role, they must evolve with the times, and they must not undermine the individual’s right to self-expression; and that egalitarianism must be encouraged by law if necessary, and that the diversity egalitarianism produces is something to find joy in. (There are tensions here, quite clearly, between the left’s admiration for the individual with its support of government programs; these tensions are serious but do not undermine the point that, for the left, individualism remains a principle of first priority.)...
But something deeper is at work in the left’s reluctance to claim victory. Call it the spirit of oppositional politics. A legacy of the angry and more than merited anti-conformist spirit that undergirded leftist thinking in the immediate postwar decades, oppositionalism’s creed is straightforward enough: that America, while not to be outright resisted, is never worth trusting. Instead, better to mutter about "the system;" if you vote, do so for Democrats, but always half-heartedly; and assume that any signs of progress are more mirage than reality. Fetishize the avant-garde. Bomb the suburbs. Liberal scholar Todd Gitlin once called this "negative faith in America the ugly," but that’s too harsh a term for what I’m talking about, which is more precisely understood as un-faith. (In his essay in this issue, Michael Tomasky refers to the exponents of this belief system as "professional disgruntleists.")
The ecumenisms following Howard Zinn’s passing showed how strong this un-faith still is. While Zinn ought to be credited for popularizing American history, and exposing the dark underbelly that is indeed inextricable from it, his story is monotonously one-sided. In his telling, America is a litany of abuses and a synonym for exploitation. In many respects, it once was. But can anyone still claim that this is so?...
Read entire article at Democracy
His left arm trembling, his back stiff, and his gait still nearly regal, The Greatest held the torch aloft and lit the flame. Millions–several hundred million, in fact–watched, and many cheered. Here was Muhammad Ali, representing America on the highest world stage. This was Atlanta, 1996, at the opening of the Olympic Games; 25 years had passed since his last match, and the wounds he used to delight in opening appeared to have healed. In his prime, Ali stood for all that divided America. Now, he was its appointed representative to the world. Ali’s ascent to mainstream respectability would be completed nine years later, as George W. Bush draped the Presidential Medal of Freedom around his neck.
One could view this tale skeptically: As they age–and few have aged as visibly as Ali–our rebels are robbed of their edge and repackaged as benign role models. But one could also view Ali’s path as emblematic of a broader shift in our culture. Ali was, of course, at the center of the paroxysms of the 1960s. His refusal to fight in Vietnam–"I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong"–his alliance with the Nation of Islam, and his denigration of Joe Frazier as an Uncle Tom sealed his status as perhaps the counterculture’s most famous torchbearer. How is it, then, that later in his life, he would come literally to bear the torch for the culture at large?
Ali’s grand trajectory, from defiant foe of America on matters foreign and domestic to knighted symbol of the same nation, bespeaks a largely unheralded verdict in the "culture war," a phrase that pundits and politicians use incessantly. And on matters of race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation, the brawls of the past half-century might be best understood as one continuous war. But what the about-face in Ali’s status indicated, Barack Obama’s presidential election only confirmed. The left has won the culture war. We would do well to acknowledge and celebrate this victory, however belatedly; and then we should consider what it portends for the future of politics on the left.
Broadly speaking, there were two central planks to the conservative cultural philosophy that dominated belief in this country well into Ali’s time: an allegiance to traditional institutions, primarily marriage and the church, and an allergy to legally enforced egalitarianism. This conservatism was advanced by proclamations like Barry Goldwater’s: "It may be just or wise or expedient for Negro children to attend the same schools as white children, but they do not have a civil right to do so." William F. Buckley’s voice was also essential.
The left, on the other hand, was predicated–and still is–on the suppositions that, while institutions have their role, they must evolve with the times, and they must not undermine the individual’s right to self-expression; and that egalitarianism must be encouraged by law if necessary, and that the diversity egalitarianism produces is something to find joy in. (There are tensions here, quite clearly, between the left’s admiration for the individual with its support of government programs; these tensions are serious but do not undermine the point that, for the left, individualism remains a principle of first priority.)...
But something deeper is at work in the left’s reluctance to claim victory. Call it the spirit of oppositional politics. A legacy of the angry and more than merited anti-conformist spirit that undergirded leftist thinking in the immediate postwar decades, oppositionalism’s creed is straightforward enough: that America, while not to be outright resisted, is never worth trusting. Instead, better to mutter about "the system;" if you vote, do so for Democrats, but always half-heartedly; and assume that any signs of progress are more mirage than reality. Fetishize the avant-garde. Bomb the suburbs. Liberal scholar Todd Gitlin once called this "negative faith in America the ugly," but that’s too harsh a term for what I’m talking about, which is more precisely understood as un-faith. (In his essay in this issue, Michael Tomasky refers to the exponents of this belief system as "professional disgruntleists.")
The ecumenisms following Howard Zinn’s passing showed how strong this un-faith still is. While Zinn ought to be credited for popularizing American history, and exposing the dark underbelly that is indeed inextricable from it, his story is monotonously one-sided. In his telling, America is a litany of abuses and a synonym for exploitation. In many respects, it once was. But can anyone still claim that this is so?...