HUMAN DIGNITY

AND CONTEMPORARY
LIBERALISM
Brad Stetson

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Stetson, Brad.
Human dignity and contemporary liberalism / Brad Stetson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0275946258 (alk. paper)
1. LiberalismUnited States. 2. Dignity. 3. Natural law.
I. Title.
JC574.2.U6S74
1998
320.51'3'0973dc21
9722813
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright
1998 by Brad Stetson
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 9722813
ISBN: 0275946258
First published in 1998
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
TM

The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.481984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my precious daughter, Hannah

How but in custom and in ceremony

Are innocence and beauty born?
Ceremonys a name for the rich horn,
And custom for the spreading laurel tree.
William Butler Yeats,
A Prayer for My Daughter

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments

ix

Preface

xi

A Word to the Reader

xiii
I
THEORETICAL

Human Dignity: Rhetoric Versus Reality

The Importance of Desert

3
43

II
PRACTICAL
3

The Work of Contemporary Liberalism

Concluding Remarks: Human Dignity in the Twenty-First

Century

87
165

Selected Bibliography

171

Index

181

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am grateful to many people and organizations for their various kinds
of assistance in the development and production of this book.
I would specifically like to thank William B. Allen, Tony Battaglia,
Steve Bivens, J. Budziszewski, Joseph G. Conti, Jim Elmore, Stan Faryna,
Clarke D. Forsythe, Jim Ice, Anne D. Kiefer, Wendy Lucas, Frederick R.
Lynch, Alicia Merritt, Liz Murphy, John H. Miller, Frank Montejano,
Betty Pessagno, Nina Pearlstein, Jesse Peterson, Carlos Piar, Dennis Rasmussen, Patrick Robertson, James Sabin, Al Schmidt, John and Carol
Stetson, Nina Stetson, Stephen Thacker, Ed Trenner, Anthony and Delia
Trujillo, Olivia Vlahos, Lynn Zelem, Americans United for Life, Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, Capital Resource Center,
CityTeam Ministries, and the David Institute.
Of course, none of these individuals or organizations are responsible
for any errors or omissions in this work.

PREFACE
As the American century draws to a close, the United States finds itself
caught in a troubling paradox: while it enjoys an unchallenged geopolitical hegemony in the postcold war world, its internal civic life is riven
with strife and deep disaffection. From affirmative action and immigration to racial politics, welfare reform, and abortion, American public life
seems little more than a monotonous series of acrimonious and routinized debates, consistently generating more heat than light. Increasingly,
the stark analysis of Alisdair MacIntyre is proving true: Modern politics
is civil war carried on by other means.1
And yet the Kulturkampf continues, unexhausted by the depth of conflict or incommensurability of moral and political bases and assumptions.
There are no doubt many different explanations for this persistence, but
undeniably it demonstrates the essentially moral nature of the human
being, the irrepressibly ethical bent of each of us. We are driven to normative deliberation even in the context of intractably rival visions. We
are chained to questions of the good and the right. Inevitably, we confront one anotherand sometimes ourselveswith such questions, as
we expect our social order to embody at least a modicum of sound moral
reasoning and principle. This is cause for a restrained optimism, for if
we as a fractured people are ever to begin the journey back toward a
coherent public philosophy and the recovery of a common citizenship,
it can only be through a moral lingua franca of some manner and degree.
This book is a limited effort at limning one aspect of this endeavor, an
aspect centered on the viability of human dignity, rightly understood, as
an ordering concept for contemporary political theory and social life.
With any physical illness, pathogens must be identified and examined
if efforts at remedy are to forge any progress. So too, with the body
politic. Hence, this books reflections on human dignity in American po-

xii

Preface

litical thought and practice are combined with concurrent criticisms of

what I see to be a primary impediment to American civic restoration:
the complex of ideas and values that comprise the core of contemporary
liberalism. This book argues that the nature and application of contemporary liberalism is significantly dissonant with the deepest inclinations
and most persistent moral sentiments of human beings, and it therefore
distorts human self-understanding and defaces human dignity. This mismatch between human nature and the essence of contemporary liberalism hobbles our public life, andI would like to suggest in this
argumentis the Gordian knot that must be loosened if the new
millennium is to manifest a more humane and generally satisfying American civitas.
This book is divided into two sharply distinct parts. The first part, the
theoretical, begins with a discussion of certain consequences and implications of contemporary liberalisms heavy emphasis on individual
rights, and moves into a reflection on two general categories of human
dignity, suggesting that there is in contemporary liberal thought a lack
of clarity concerning the meaning and gravity of this concept. This first
chapter concludes with the assertion that contemporary American society has profoundly degraded the value of human life and that the critical
force of postmodernism is a primary reason for this tragedy. Chapter 2,
which is more academic in tone, focuses on the idea of desert, or deservingness. After tracing some of the major lines of scholarly debate
over critical aspects of what I take to be this centrally important topic,
the viability of desert, rightly understood, is advanced as a useful general
concept for understanding American public life, and as an important tool
for restoring a measure of common sense to our politics.
Part II, the practical, is a less formal discussion, since it concentrates
on the actual operation of contemporary liberalisms values as it has
occurred since the 1960s, particularly in the culturally contentious areas
of race and abortion. Emerging from this survey is an unflattering image
of a political paradigm that must be abandoned, or at least radically
revised, if America at the dawn of the new millennium is to strike a
posture of moral intensity and genuine social understanding, an orientation that can incite a social ethos able to provide both national stability
and enduring global leadership.
NOTE
1. Alisdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd ed. (Notre
Dame, Ind. : University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 253.

A WORD TO THE
READER
This book aims to address vast topics (human dignity, liberalism, etc.)
and to engage in synthesizing broad spheres of inquiry (e.g., human
dignity, desert, the workings of contemporary liberalism). Therefore, the
discussions perforce remain on a decidedly general level, holistically
treating subjects that, on their own, could fill volumes. I have chosen
this format of analysis in an effort to provide a wide perspective, one
that may raise new possibilities of political criticism regarding contemporary liberalism, and thereby stimulate socially useful thinking about
human beings, social organization, and cultural conflict. The nature of
the discussions and notes on sources reflects this high degree of generality.
Partly as a consequence of the holistic nature of the narrative, some
detailed discussions and important qualifiers appear in the endnotes of
each chapter. Hence, the notes as a whole should be treated as a sort of
parallel narrative rather than as bibliographical messages only. For the
reader to have an accurate sense of this books substance and thrust, it
is important to read the notes.
While much of this book is polemical in nature, sometimes sharply so,
the work is intended as a constructive critique of contemporary liberalism, and not simply as a rhetorical assault. That is, I hope ultimately to
open doors of dialogue through these reflections, not close them. I certainly recognize that philosophical alternatives to contemporary liberalism are not themselves free of difficulties and shortcomings. Hence, any
writers or individuals described as representing some aspect of modern
liberalism should not construe any criticisms of their ideas as personal
attacks or as attempts to denigrate them. Similarly, readers who understand themselves to be part of the contemporary liberal paradigm should
not feel that any animosity is directed at them individually.

xiv

A Word to the Reader

I have selected remarks from the late journalist Walter Lippmann as

epigrams for this book. His various remarks are drawn from a 1940
speech presented at Harvard University on the eve of American involvement in World War II. In this speech, he scathingly criticized what he
saw as the moral lassitude of his generation. Its successors, those who
came of age in the 1960s and established the hegemony of contemporary
liberalism, still stand in need of his wise words. While Lippmanns own
politics were moderately liberal, he stood in the tradition of classical
liberalism, not its modern descendant which has so profoundly defaced
that respectable name. Lippmanns journey from New Dealer to firm
opponent of collectivism, along with his keen moral insight and bracing
honesty, well represent the political and ethical sense we desperately
need today.

I
THEORETICAL

1
HUMAN DIGNITY:
RHETORIC VERSUS
REALITY
For every right that you cherish, you have a duty which you must
fulfill. For every hope that you entertain, you have a task that you
must perform. For every good that you wish to preserve, you will
have to sacrifice your comfort and your ease.
Walter Lippmann

This can hardly be said to be a time when talk of human dignity is scarce.
The violence of our time and the coarse spirit of the age have compelled
people of vastly different worldviews and moral codes to recognize the
precariousness of the human condition, and the imperative of articulating defenses of human beings and human liberties. The high value of
people and their freedom is a regular theme of social and political organizationsfrom governmental to civic to religiousseeking to justify
and secure the fundamental liberties of their constituencies. In the wake
of two world wars and the horrors of Auschwitz, Dachau, and other
atrocities across the globe, the human community at this fin de sie`cle has
authored numerous far-reaching and potent statements intended to safeguard basic human welfare, rights, and freedoms.1
Indeed, the prevalence and vigor of such articulations are testimony
to their theoretical and practical importance. As social philosopher Joel
Feinberg has well-noted, without bedrock human rights
Persons would no longer hope for decent treatment from others on the
ground of desert or rightful claim. Indeed, they would come to think of
themselves as having no special claim to kindness or consideration from
others, so that whenever even minimally decent treatment is forthcoming
they would think themselves lucky rather than inherently deserving. . . .
Rights, on the other hand, are not mere gifts or favors, motivated by love

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

or pity, for which gratitude is the sole fitting response. A right is something
a man can stand on, something that can be demanded or insisted upon
without embarrassment or shame.2

CONTEMPORARY LIBERALISM AND ITS ASSERTION OF

HUMAN DIGNITY
When Joel Feinberg wrote those words in 1966, in the midst of the
cold war and communist repression of a sizable percentage of the
worlds population, the bold demand and unwavering insistence on the
nonderogability of human rights was fitting and obviously appropriate.
But today (1997), in the United States and much of Europe, the language
of human rights and personal entitlement has been degraded and perverted. The promiscuous incanting of rightswhether from racial interest groups (e.g., the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, the
Rainbow Coalition, MALDEF, MECHA), womens rights organizations
(e.g., NOW, NARAL, AAUW, EMILYs List), welfare rights defenders
(e.g., Childrens Defense Fund), public-interest legal lobbies (the
ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, People for the American Way), or
animal rights advocates (e.g., PETA)has led to a colossal devaluing of
the concept. Where once the language of human rights primarily concerned the most basic entitlements to personal safety and freedom of
conscience, it is now little more than a shopworn and often discounted
trump, shouted by an advocate against his opponents in an effort to
intimidate them into silence and submissive acceptance of the advocates
claims.3 All too often, especially in the United States, this political bullying succeeds.
Contemporary Liberalism
This is, of course, a tremendously destructive phenomenon. We are
now a decisively rights-saturated society, with manic concern for peoples entitlements and self-asserted liberties conditioning virtually every
framing of social and cultural considerations. American political discourse at the end of the twentieth century has become, in Harvard Law
School professor Mary Ann Glendons now common phrase, rights
talk.4 The consequences for the American commonweal could hardly
be worse, as Professor Glendon writes:
An intemperate rhetoric of personal liberty . . . corrodes the social foundations on which individual freedom and security ultimately rest. . . . Our
rights talk, in its absoluteness, promotes unrealistic expectations, heightens
social conflict, and inhibits dialogue that might lead toward consensus,
accommodation, or at least the discovery of common ground. In its silence

Human Dignity

concerning responsibilities, it seems to condone acceptance of the benefits

of living in a democratic social welfare state, without accepting the corresponding personal and civic obligations.5

The rhetoric of rights is definitional of the national language today

because it is definitional of the dominant political philosophy: contemporary liberalism.6 Later in this book we will address the nature and
work of contemporary liberalism; at this early stage of our discussion,
we must note its conceptual rudiments. Robert H. Bork, in his bestselling,
comprehensive critique of contemporary liberalism, Slouching Towards
Gomorrah, presents its two philosophical foundations: radical egalitarianism and radical individualism.7 Radical egalitarianism is a commitment to equality of outcomes rather than simple equality of opportunity,
whereas radical individualism is an insistence on eliminating virtually
all social and legal curbs on personal gratification. Egalitarianism, enforced by the state and its bureaucratic apparatus, and hyperindividualism, enforced by both antibourgeois activist courts and the culturally
ambient hedonism that characterizes American life today, combine to
propel American culture down the paradoxical path of intellectual conformity and personal debauchery.8
Throughout his exhaustive study, Bork is careful to distinguish between contemporary and classical liberalism. Other trenchant critics of
todays liberal mind have done likewise.9 Classical liberalism is quite
unlike todays liberal orientation, as it bears a greater consonance with
what is today called conservatism. Classical liberalism, sometimes called
laissez-faire liberalism, is in its historic philosophical sense broadly
descended from the Enlightenment project of Thomas Hobbes, John
Locke, Adam Smith, Voltaire (Franc ois Marie Arouet), Jean Jacques
Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill.10 Filtered through the
prism of the American founding and the new nations fitful rise through
two centuries to international hegemony, liberalism (in its now largely
conservative sense) primarily centers on concepts such as property
rights, reduced taxation, bourgeois values, anticommunism, legal colorblindness and equal protection under the law, a libertarian view of personal liberty, and laissez-faire capitalism.11
Contemporary liberalism, spawned from the intercourse of American
leftism and liberalism in the context of the new affluence, moral adventurism, and cultural restlessness of the 1960s has come to carry little
resemblance to the rational tradition whose name it bears.12 The liberalism of today is a decisive rejection of the true liberal tradition and the
American mores that tradition has been so central in forging. A profile
of the new liberalism as practiced in this country at the end of the twentieth century is not flattering. It would include the assertions that contemporary liberalism is: addicted to the politics of victimization; averse

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

to the nuclear family; deeply hostile to basic welfare reform; reluctant to

genuinely condemn out-of-wedlock births; supportive of racial quotas
and race-based policies in government and public education; supportive
of group identification and doctrinaire multiculturalism; disinclined to
advocate personal moral accountability, instead blaming criminal behavior on economic conditions like poverty; obsessed with the categories of
race, class, and gender; supportive of misandrist gender feminism and
quotas for women; profoundly disrespectful of prenatal human life; opposed to open, public expressions of conservative Christian and Jewish
faith; supportive of judicial activism and the courts as agents of cultural
change; and intolerant of those who oppose its positions, routinely replacing debate with ad hominem attacks such as racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobe, and mean-spirited.13
Ironically, then, while contemporary liberalism in this country tends
to tout itself as tolerant and intellectually wide openand while the
spirit of true liberalism is genuinely tolerantthe liberalism of today is
decisively authoritarian in its inclinations and intolerant in its characteristics, with standards of political correctness that are as discernible here
on the left as they were in the former Soviet Union. Paramount for the
contemporary liberals is conformity to their ideological paradigm, not
liberty. This is highly problematic for our commonweal, for a fundamental presupposition of democratic government is that citizens can debate among themselves the respective merits of various ideas and
policies, and then through their common human experience and good
judgment reach a consensus on the best course for their country.
Underlying this basic political mechanism is the assumption that partisans will confine their polemics to issues and resist the temptation to
attack the personality or motives of those who disagree with them. If
this unspoken agreement is violated, the vehicle of democracy becomes
stalled, and what could have been unfettered, open debate degenerates
into a narrow, routinized contest of slogans and political manipulation
of the public.
But this is the lamentable state of affairs in American politics today,
and it is a major reason why the national disagreements over culturally
defining issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and immigration are
mired in such intractability. True debate, which requires at least two
parties, has died at the self-congratulating hands of a holier-than-thou
contemporary liberalism.14
By endowing itself with superior political motives, greater empathy,
and a more refined moral sense, contemporary liberalism has shortcircuited the democratic process that was designed to extract from philosophical frictions the distilled substance of democracy. Why dialogue
with your opponent, if you know that opponent is not dealing in good
faith with you, and is only capable of unkindness and brutal but veiled

Human Dignity

selfishness? Your attitude will naturally take on the rigidly doctrinaire

partisanship displayed in the title of Democratic super-consultant James
Carvilles recent book, Were Right, Theyre Not!15
Consider these typical, common responses of many American liberals
to some recent political and social controversies. Do they not illustrate
liberals commitment to the belief that conservatives are mean people?:
If you are dissatisfied with current immigration policies and favored Californias Proposition 187 in the 1994 midterm elections, youre a Eurocentric racist.
If you disapprove of prevailing affirmative action practices, and question
the morality of racial and gender preferences, youre also a racist, and
you want to restrict career opportunities for women and minorities.
If you do not think abortion on demandthroughout the nine months
of pregnancyshould be legal (as it presently is) and paid for by taxpayers in some states (as it presently is), then you are a misogynist who
wants to control womens bodies.
If you resist the public and legal recognition of homosexuality as morally
identical to heterosexuality, then you have a mental illness, homophobia,
and this disease causes you to favor discriminatory policies against homosexuals.
If you think the full integration of women into military cultureincluding air, ground, and sea combat unitsis unwise, and if you think it is
valuable to preserve the venerable option of all-male college education,
you only show how much you want to turn the clock back on womens
equality.

And the list could go on and on. The basic truth defining current
political discourse is this: conservatives simply think liberals are wrong, but
liberals think conservatives are bad. The conservative is willing to accept
the noble motivations of the liberal, but the liberal commonly ascribes
meanspiritedness or simple selfishness to the conservative. Thus, the
ad hominem argument has become the currency of contemporary liberal
political practice, and the whole republic is diminished because of it.
While, as we have said, the new liberalism diverges at many points
from its classical antecedent, it most significantly does so concerning
human nature. Though Enlightenment liberalismparticularly in the
hands of Rousseau and Voltaireitself evidenced a newfound confidence and trust in mans own rational capacities and in his ability to
autonomously manage the circumstances of his life (both individual and
social), this amelioristic optimism about humanity was nonetheless tempered by the myriad social, cultural, and religious controls of the still
ascendant Judeo-Christian heritage and deeply bourgeois ethos. But now
at the end of the millennium a stridently reformistand not merely op-

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

timisticperspective on human nature characterizes liberalism. Contemporary liberalism, is, in its essence, a political movement defined by its
commitment to reshape human nature.
There can be no doubt that reflections on human nature are vast and
have preoccupied much of the history of philosophy.16 While the full
derivation of contemporary liberalisms outlook on human nature is well
beyond our purview, it is important for us to highlight the new liberalisms depth and intensity of belief in the positive malleability of man.
Thomas Sowell has helpfully located this advocacy of the ameliorative
plasticity of human nature in what he calls the unconstrained vision
held generally by the political left and contemporary liberalism.17 This
is a posture that sees man as naturally capable of ranking other peoples
needs higher than his own, and naturally able, and willing, to act altruistically.18 On this reckoning the human being is not constrained by nature or the unpredictableness of social and political contingencies.
Rather, the basic problem facing humanity is that prevailing policies and
programs are not yet designed sufficiently well. Sowell presents concisely the key elements of this perspective, explaining that the unconstrained vision holds that
Man is, in short, perfectiblemeaning continually improvable rather
than capable of actually reaching absolute perfection . . . The notion that
the human being is highly plastic material is still central among many
contemporary thinkers who share the unconstrained vision. . . . [In this
view] there are no intractable reasons for social evils and therefore no reason why they cannot be solved, with sufficient moral commitment. . . . The
unconstrained vision is a moral vision of human intentions, which are
viewed as ultimately decisive. The unconstrained vision promotes pursuit
of the highest ideals and the best solutions. . . . [It] tend[s] to view human
nature as beneficially changeable and social customs as expendable holdovers from the past.19

Hence contemporary liberalism operates on an anthropological base

that is quite different from the Judeo-Christian heritage so foundational
to Western culture. In that view, man is fallen and imperfect, inclined to
selfishness, and opportunistic. He can learn a measure of virtue through
the practice of sound moral habit, but his natural state is persistently and
deeply self-regarding.20 This was the general view of the Founders, as
evidenced, for example, by James Madisons famous statement in Federalist 51, [W]hat is government itself but the greatest of all reflections
on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.21 Indeed, the suspicion with which human nature has traditionally
been considered has been a bulwark against naive and overly optimistic
public policies. Failure to carry on in this tradition has been a source of

Human Dignity

much of the anger sometimes felt by the American public toward contemporary liberalism. One of the more famous examples of this disgust
occurred in 1988, when Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis was criticized for having issued a weekend pass to convicted murderer Willie Horton, who again murdered while on furlough.
But jettisoning the low view of human inclinations in favor of the belief
in mans positive plasticity has generally, beyond liberal circles, been
held to be a grave mistake. This is fortunate, as the conviction that human nature is dynamic and improvableand that therefore the social
world itself can be remadeturns out to be, ironically, a recipe for human catastrophe. But while it is largely an accepted fact in todays liberal
circles that human nature is a varied and purely social construction,
greatly amenable to progress, liberals seem to be unaware of the serious
danger inherent in this idea. George Will explains:
The idea that human nature has a historythat human beings only have
a nature contingent on their time and placeis the idea that has animated
modern tyrannies. It has done so because people susceptible to that idea
are susceptible to the idea that self-government is a chimeraan impossibilitybecause the self is a fiction or, at best, a flimsy reflection of the
individuals social setting. To say that human nature is utterly plastic is to
open the way to governments that regard the creation of a new, improved
form of humanity the highest government project. Such governments are
apt to unleash consciousness-raisers, who would use political power to
extirpate false consciousness. Such people insist that, until proper consciousness is made universal, any consent necessarily arises from false consciousness and, hence, is not worth seeking. . . . [Conservatism] warns that
people who believe there is no human nature must believe that no rights
are natural rights. Indeed, if there is no human nature, then rights are just
appetites tarted up in the aggressive language of rights-talk in order to
acquire momentum for respect.22

For the purposes of our larger discussion of human dignity, it is also

true that the assertion of the malleability of human nature is a dangerous
move, for it fails to yield adequate bases and understandings of human
worth.

Human Dignity
The perfectionistic bent inherent in contemporary liberal thought and
its naive confidence in human nature have led to one of the hallmarks
of contemporary liberalism: the program. Since the New Deal, and especially the War on Poverty, armies of policy engineers and analysts
have been committed to ever more sophisticated solutions to social, po-

10

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

litical, and economic problems. Charles Murray captures the sweeping

scope of this mentality:
Over a period of time from the New Deal through the 1970s, the nation
acquired what we have come to call social policy, with dozens of constituent elementswelfare programs, educational programs, health programs, job programs, criminal justice programs, and laws, regulations, and
Supreme Court decisions involving everything from housing to transportation to employment to child care to abortion. Pick a topic of social concern or even of social interest, and by now a complex body of federal
activity constitutes policy, intended to be an active force for good.23

As Murray points out, this activism is well-intentioned, hoping to improve peoples quality of life. But many times it fails, often due to analysts inattention to the unintended consequences of policies and their
latent functions.24
Significantly, the proliferation of programs, even amidst their patent
failure, is directly related to contemporary liberalisms conception of human dignity. This conception is, first and foremost, emotive. It construes
human dignity essentially as self-esteem, as having warm and positive
feelings about oneself and ones present station in life. Any policy that
enhances these feelings is thought to be an affirmation of human dignity,
regardless of how that policy practically performs and actually affects
peoples lives. To be pleased with oneself, to feel good about oneself,
and to insist others display respect toward oneself is to experience and
apply the current liberal understanding of individual dignity.25
This ambiguous and unsystematized meaning of human dignity has
served policy architects well, for it allows them to use human dignitya
phrase with substantial moral capital, and one everybody wants to supportas an elastic, all-purpose justification for their programs. Indeed,
talk of human dignity has been used to underwrite the legitimacy of
a wide range of liberal public policy initiativesusually directed at poor
peoplefrom welfare programs to job training programs to educational
reform to services for unwed mothers.26
This equation of human dignity with self-esteem fits very nicely with
the public language of rights talk and the cultural ethos of entitlement
it fosters, since any desires that can be construed as rights, and publicly
represented as such, can easily be enhanced as necessary and integral to
ones dignity. After all, if a self-declared right of mine is denied, I can
easily perceive this as detrimental to my self-esteem and my selfvaluation, and this ultimately undermines my personal dignity, which
is united with my self-esteem. In other words, what I want is important
to me, so if it is denied, my sense of personal worth and dignity has
been hurt. And of course, the solipsistic nature of this reasoning insulates

Human Dignity

11

it from attack, since who can contest that what I assert is essential to my
self-esteem is in fact so? In this way, human dignity becomes a do-ityourself endeavor, with definitions varying with the individual or community and the satisfaction of personal wants or group demands
becoming constitutive of individual dignity.
When rights equal needs (and ones dignity ), they are not easily denied. So it is that the liberal interest groups that dominate legislative
debates and media representations of issues today eagerly present their
agenda in human rights language, with the trump of human dignity
close at hand, ready to intimidate dissenters into silence. Thus, for example, Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights Action
League will claim that 24-hour waiting periods prior to aborting compromise a womans essential reproductive rights, which, it is said, are
basic to her autonomous humanity and sense of dignity. Or, likewise,
the American Civil Liberties Union may claim that same-sex marriages
are a right of gay couples who wish to publicly express their commitment to one another, and if the law withholds this right from them, it is
impugning their equal worth as human beings, that is, hurting the selfesteem (feeling of equal worth, dignity) of gay couples who wish to
marry.
But dignity as self-esteem, although a handy equation for the manipulation of politics and law, is not morally coherent. Besides being a poor
definition of dignity, it is completely arbitrary and subjective.27 One persons self-esteem may be affirmed by feeding bedridden senior citizens;
another persons self-esteem may be affirmed by beating them and looting their homes. Self-esteem, feeling self-satisfied and worthy of the respect of others, is a purely formal category; it is not itself morally
weighty. The empty shell of self-esteem can be filled with whatever
sound or perverse moral content a given individual wishes to provide,
and in its solipsism it is utterly dead to the reality of the human penchant
for self-deception and self-righteousness. To say that a person has
healthy self-esteem is to say nothing whatever about the quality of their
character, the integrity of their self-analysis or their moral life.28 Charles
Murray provides an all too frequent example of this reality, recounting
that in 1985
a star basketball player in a Chicago high school was walking along the
street with his girlfriend and brushed against a youth standing in his path,
whereupon the basketball star was shot to death. . . . The brushed against
youths sense of dignity had been offended. Where would the young man
who did the shooting show up on a sociological measure of self esteem?
Judging from subsequent newspaper accounts, very high.29

Clearly, inflexibly relating human dignity to a concept like self-esteem,

which is wholly amoral and subjective, is a mistake. Contemporary lib-

12

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

eralism, in its obsession with entitlement without obligation, right

without duty, and liberty without judgment, has brought our social life
to the absurd point where respecting a person and essentially reckoning
him dignified is a process completely unrelated to his character and
manner of behavior.30
Fundamentally, this incoherence about dignity rises out of modern
liberalisms anthropology. Unable or unwilling to accept the tradition of
basic human nature as unchanging and uninvented, it lacks a sound and
stable ground on which to found human dignity. Without a static and
unwavering core to the human person, there can be no enduring, invariable, and nonrelative residence for human dignity. The fluidity of human
nature on the current liberal paradigm, as well as our infatuation with
rights, has effectively led liberals to the following backwards conception
of the relation of human rights to human dignity: human beings have
dignity because they have positive rights and expectations of their fulfillment. But, as we will later see, a more intellectually stable formula is
the venerable, traditional conviction that human beings have rights (and
duties), of various kinds because they have natural dignity.
This is hardly a complicated or offensive idea; so what could account
for contemporary liberalisms practical animus to it? The astute political
scientist Francis Canavan has highlighted two main features of contemporary liberalism that help explain how it has come to oppose the historic, Judeo-Christian concept of the priority of human dignity to human
rights: the first is relativism, and the second is its obsession over the
concept of right itself.
The moral relativism of contemporary American life is rife and destructive.31 Canavan succinctly captures this definitional spirit of the age:
For multitudes today, truth is only what the individual thinks is true, good
is only what the individual personally prefers, and justice is his right to
act on his preferences, so long as they are compatible with the equal right
of others to do the same. . . . Liberalism, which we may credit with beginning its career as the political philosophy of freedom, has blossomed into
mere permissiveness, and is now a menace rather than a support of constitutional democracy.32

The moral relativism ascendant today renders impossible the recognition of a transpersonal, transcultural, and transhistorical human dignity, and the objective ethical obligations it enjoins upon people, since
moral claims can always be trumped as subjective.
This hyper-subjective ethic has powerfully abettedperhaps even definedliberalisms devolution from its classic form into its contemporary
condition: a relativistic, rights-centered creed that has insulated itself
from criticism. Liberalism has done this by construing every criticism of

Human Dignity

13

it as a malevolent attack on its most cherished idea and ideological polestar: rights. Any suggestion from critics of liberalism that liberty unordered to a higher end is self-defeating, or that a constantly expanding
body of rights is socially and personally unhealthy, is regarded as prima
facie invalid and misguided by the modern liberal mind. Rights uber
alles, is the anthem of contemporary liberalism, and not even human
dignitysince it inevitably implies rights-constraining duties and obligationscan conceptually precede this god. Canavan elaborates on
liberalisms enthroning of rights by presenting an editorial from nothing
less than the once leading organ and apologist of contemporary liberalism, The New Republic:
Contemporary liberalism is so intellectually and psychologically invested
in the doctrine of ever-expanding rightsthe rights of privacy, the rights
of children, the rights of criminals, the rights of pornographers, the rights
of everyone to everythingthat any suggestions of the baleful consequences of that doctrine appears to them as a threat to the liberal idea
itself.33

The liberal idea itself is a telling phrase, for it suggests that this
ideahuman liberty, unfettered by tradition or duty of any sortis the
summum bonum. In Chapter 2 we will evaluate the coherence of liberalisms prioritizing of the right over the good, but at this point we should
note in passing that this ordering prevents liberalism from recognizing
any human telos other than naked liberty. As Stanley Hauerwas writes,
We have been told that it is moral to satisfy our wants and needs, but
we are no longer sure what our wants and needs are or should be. After
all, wants are but individual preferences. Americans, as is often contended, are good people or at least want to be good people, but our problem is that we have lost any idea of what that could possibly mean. We
have made freedom of the individual an end in itself and have ignored
the fact that most of us do not have the slightest idea of what we should
do with our freedom.34

Neither human life, the common good, nor virtue for its own sake can
serve as justifying reasons for circumscribing personal liberty. Yet this
unhitching of freedom from ultimate values is suicidal for freedom, as
it inevitably diminishes the scope and efficacy of freedom itself.35 For, as
liberalism, especially since the 1960s, has been so slow to recognize, freedom and license are not one and the same. Freedom is more than simply
the maximization of behavioral options in any given context. As a concept, it implies the deliberate action of purposive moral agents, which is
to say, it presupposes a sound, substantive reason or telos for action. Selfgratification, for its own sake, doing something because it feels good or

14

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

simply because it is possible, is a rather low view of human freedom,

one that features human beings as little more than physical mechanisms
of pleasure and opportunity, or, in the dehumanizing words of that icon
of contemporary liberal sensibilities, Phil Donahue, the human animal.36
So, ironically, contemporary liberalismwhich has understood itself
to be emancipatory and thus in its view serving the best interest of people (freedom)has in fact been undercutting and corrupting their freedom by absolutizing it. Furthermore, it has been the prime ideological
mover in dehumanizing people by reducing them to mere choosers of
options, individual and isolated pursuers of wants and desires often uncritically construed as needs. In rejecting an unconstructed human nature, rights-based liberalism has removed any solid foundation for
intrinsically valuing peoplethat is, regarding them not for what they
have (rights) or what they can do (choose), but for what they are (human
persons). And in its substitution of formal, value-free self-esteem for intrinsic, natural dignity founded in human identity, contemporary liberalism has trivialized and minimized the general concept of human
dignity and its import.
TWO TYPES OF HUMAN DIGNITY
This trivialization is partly the product of the new liberalisms abiding
discomfort with immutability and unalterable realities, especially with
regard to human beings. As we remarked earlier, the contemporary liberal mind shares the anthropological optimism of the Enlightenment, an
optimism now greatly exaggerated and magnified as it has been filtered
through the Great Society mentality and the self-righteous, activist
statism of elites such as Hillary Rodham Clinton.37 Todays liberalism is
essentially subjectivist, deeply addicted to change in man, and inveterately inclined to reliance on government as the main engine of social
improvement. Since contemporary liberalism is not at all convinced
the human being is going to remain substantially the way he is or has
been, and since it conceives of man as a fabrication of history and culture,
it has had no need to articulate a comprehensive understanding of his
basic absolute features, including his inherent dignity.38
Ironically, although our rights-soaked age features many passing references to human dignity and the dignity of individual persons, and
although many political movements across the ideological spectrum have
participated in asserting the reality and high value of human dignity, it
is not as common as one might think it would be to find extended,
sensitive contemporary reflections on the subject.39
As we here consider the place of human dignity in social life and
political theory, it would be helpful to broadly draw a distinction be-

Human Dignity

15

tween two general types of human dignity and their respective meanings. I would suggest that thinking of human dignity as being both
intrinsic and extrinsic to the person helps coherently organize analysis
of the idea.40
Intrinsic Dignity
To speak of human dignity as intrinsic to persons is to speak of human
dignity in its most traditional, Judeo-Christian sense. This dignity or
worth that is intrinsic is unearned, unmanufactured, and unmaintained.
Like an involuntary bodily function such as the heartbeat, it simply occurs naturally, by design, without any thought or effort being devoted
to it by the individual who possesses it. In addition, being intrinsic to
the human individual, this dignity is universal to humanity, which is to
say everyone has it; it is not reserved just for the specially virtuous. This
is a significant point, because it means that the bad and the good, the
evil and the virtuous, each possess this manner of dignity equally. That
being the case, it would seem that this kind of dignity is unrelated to
what we think about certain persons, whether or not we like them,
whether or not we think they deserve it, whether or not they are decent,
whether or not they are brilliant.
But do the bad and the good, the genius and the imbecile, possess
intrinsic dignity in equal amounts? It would seem that they do, for if
this property is natural and universal, and if it is wholly unrelated to
individual behavior or physical state, it must be constitutive of human
identity itself, which is to say that it essentially goes along with being
human and is independent of everything except human essence. Just as
to own a car is to own four tires and a steering wheel along with the
other features and equipment that comprise the vehicle, so to be human
is to be in possession of this intrinsic value.41 Furthermore, this type of
human dignity is an absolute value. It cannot be possessed only partially
or fractionally by someone.42 Rather, it is wholly and permanently present within every human being. So we might summarize the nature of
this type of human dignity with this statement: All human beings, as
such, have full, equal, and constant intrinsic human dignity, regardless
of any other considerations or claims.
This is the core of the traditional Judeo-Christian conception of human
dignity which has been so influential in Western civilization. The human
being, made in the image of God for union with God, the object of Gods
attention in the creation, incarnation, and atonement, and endowed with
capacities to creatively exercise liberty and responsibility under the regime of well-formed conscience, is the ontologically unique vessel characterized by intrinsic dignity.43 This is an intuitively satisfying concept,
for it confirms our sense that human beings are utterly unlike other crea-

16

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

tures, that there is an unmistakably unique gravity inherent in human

lives, and that the belittling of this aura is morally wrong.44
But the intrinsic, unqualified dignity of the human person is certainly
not, at the end of the twentieth century, a fully accepted proposition. Indeed, the general cultural lack of regard for the value of human life today is due in large part to a lack of respect for intrinsic human dignity.
An assortment of political and philosophical movements since the 1960s
have been in the vanguard of inciting diminished valuation of human
life and dignity. We will have an opportunity later in this chapter to
discuss in detail major philosophical causes of the contemporary devaluation of human life. At this point I would simply assert that the following three broad social/intellectual trends have been influential in the
last half of this century in undermining the view that man is uniquely
and intrinsically valuable: an aggressive and absolutist animal rights
and environmentalist rights advocacy; the determinist, behaviorist psychology classically enunciated by B. F. Skinner; and a tendency from
various quarters to recommend functional definitions of human personhood.45
But this is not to say that certain contemporary organizations and
movements are not committed to the genuine defense of human dignity.
London-based Amnesty International, which has had some success in
monitoring and exposing basic human rights abuses across the globe,
and the United Nations with its seminal 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, are two notable examples.46 Similarly, the pro-life movement in the United States is rooted in regard for the inherent value of
all human life, even if it is unwanted or thought to be inconvenient.47
But without question, the morally leveling and homogenizing tides of
contemporary liberalism have washed from the general public mind an
abiding consciousness of all human life as qualitatively extraordinary
and inviolable.48
Extrinsic Dignity
The dehumanizing social consequences of a lack of recognition for the
intrinsic dignity of man are exacerbated by a similar deficit of understanding in the contemporary American mind of extrinsic human dignity. This type of dignity is not essential to the human person but rather
contingent. Different people possess this dignity to different extents, depending on their mentality and conduct. The idea of extrinsic dignity
helps us to draw distinctions between people and to some extent characterologically assess them as people. This, of course, is anathema to the
modern liberal, whose moral egalitarianism cannot tolerate this kind of
discriminating public judgment. Nonetheless, in our daily lives we do

Human Dignity

17

make judgments about people and situations, and so recognize that

sometimes dignity (of the extrinsic type) is present, and sometimes not.
For example, we sense and acknowledge that the libertine is not as
dignified as the morally upright person; the thief is not as dignified as
the honest man; the slothful man is not as dignified in his inactivity as
the diligent person in his legitimate work; the loud, rude fellow who
cuts in line is not as dignified as the courteous, patient gentleman. We
commonly use a whole host of phrases to describe this type of dignity,
what we might think of as the dignity of everyday life, or practical
dignity. For example, we might describe someone as having a dignified air, carrying himself with dignity, doing dignified work, dignifying an unpleasant task by doing it responsibly and well, gaining a
personal sense of dignity by finding a job or overcoming hardship,
being generally dignified or handling a difficult situation with dignity. In these contexts, the word dignity denotes a certain respect,
admiration, civility, and virtue. We might also speak of a ceremony or
atmosphere, or even a building or clothes, as dignified. Here the concept of dignity is deployed as a compliment and salute, an affirmation
that the objectand its human creatorhas recognized and honored the
gravity of the human dimension of the situation, the seriousness of the
context to the human psyche. In all such cases, the basic, overarching
context for dignity is behavioral.
Extrinsic dignity is fundamentally behavioral, while intrinsic dignity
is theoretical. Extrinsic dignity can be outwardly apparent, while intrinsic dignity remains unseen. Extrinsic dignity is the practice that rises
from the idea of intrinsic dignity. Extrinsic dignity is conditional on the
fulfillment of certain rules, norms, or expectations, but the intrinsic is
completely unconditional. Extrinsic dignity is an index to personal character, revealing what a person values and believes. It is earned. Intrinsic
dignity inheres in the human person per se, regardless of what that individual is like, and is unearned. Extrinsic dignity can be mimicked by
a noble animal or object. In such cases, this apparent dignity is an allusion to extrinsic human dignity and its intrinsic foundation. It is a testimony to the human-like character of the animal or object. Intrinsic
dignity cannot be echoed in the visage or conduct of any object or creature. It is radically confined to the human person; it is that essence that
serves to ontologically differentiate the human from nonhuman being.
Extrinsic dignity has some historical and cultural relativity, as customs,
norms, and decorum may differ from time to time and place to place.
Intrinsic dignity is independent of culture, ethics, and time. It is objective
to all human social, cultural, and moral constructions, while extrinsic
dignity may in part be defined by them.
Extrinsic dignity is derived from intrinsic dignity and is a tangible

18

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

manifestation of it. Just as fire, though unseen, causes smoke that indicates its presence, so intrinsic dignity can give rise to attitudes and behaviors that we esteem as dignified (extrinsic dignity). So, while every
human being has identical intrinsic dignity, they do not have extrinsic
dignity in equal amounts, or, even, necessarily, at all. Indeed, there is a
sense in which authentic extrinsic dignity, which I maintain implies a
certain virtue, can be counterfeited. For example, Adolf Hitler, in neatly
pressed uniform and military regalia, may have outwardly appeared dignified in the sense of respectable and important, yet since inwardly he
was thoroughly evil and corrupt, he did not manifest an authentic extrinsic dignity. He may have projected airs of importance, but as with
Saddam Hussein and other tyrants, the respect he commanded from others was given more out of fear and zealous participation in evil than
from a recognition of intrinsic human dignity being outwardly manifested.49
In contemporary American life, the politically correct imperative to be
tolerant and nonjudgmental often means that the ability and willingness to evaluate individual behavior, and so perceive and acknowledge the external manifestation of intrinsic dignity, is lost. The death of
shame in our time has hampered our ability to recognize extrinsic dignity, since the deplorable and the respectable have largely merged as
categories of human conduct. Our moral aphasia and moral egalitarianismborn of contemporary liberalisms peculiar understandings of
tolerance, compassion, and fairnesshave undercut our moral literacy,
our ethical acuity. We have been desensitized to the sometimes subtle
demonstrations of dignified behavior, unappreciative of the admirable
habits formed by practical wisdom. Indeed, even to assert that there are
such things as admirable habits strikes a chord very dissonant with the
contemporary American zeitgeist. But if we are unable to discern and
acknowledge the distinctively good (an inability that is partially a consequence of being unwilling to name the bad)whether culturally, morally, artistically, or otherwisewe are unable to recognize and salute
extrinsic human dignity, which is nothing less than the best we have to
offer one another.
This ethical stultification quickly leads to an impoverishment of civic
and intellectual life, and a cresting nihilism as people, particularly youth,
search for meaning in their lives. Indeed, the American mood of today,
especially among youth, has been convincingly portrayed as deeply nihilistic.50
How has contemporary liberalism brought us to this despairing point
where genuine human dignity is merely equated with feeling good about
oneself, and, although the crowning reality of humanity itself, all but
unrecognizable amidst todays cacophony of equal values and endless
rights claims?

Human Dignity

19

OUR DEGRADATION OF HUMAN LIFE: PHILOSOPHICAL

ASPECTS
The degraded conception of human beings and human dignity that
dominates contemporary liberalism is not a random occurrence. Rather,
it is rooted in the intellectual mood of the time, a mood that is decisively
postmodernist, or, perhaps a better word is hypermodernist.51 In an
effort to better understand why the new liberalism conceives of people
and their value the way it does, we will take a critical measure of the
postmodern mood, a mental outlook that has become in some ways the
philosophical pet of contemporary liberalism and American intellectual
life.52
Postmodernism
Any meaningfully specific definition of postmodernism is not strictly
possible, since the movement itself admits of no firm definitions. Any
definition of postmodernism mustbecause of the nature of postmodernism itselfbe provisional and incomplete. Having said that, we
must make clear one beginning point: though a vague notion, postmodernism has arisen and become prominent because of the collapse and
apparent impotence of modernity as an omnicompetent social and intellectual explanation of human history. Deep cultural divisions, incommensurate politics, and the horrors of the twentieth century, seared into
the modern consciousness by the ovens of Auschwitz and Dachau, have
for many people relativized the authority of reason to provide a competent morality and a universally valid understanding of man and the
world. The randomness of violent crime, economic precariousness, and
contemporary religious bodies that seem unable to provide meaning for
living have all led some people to question the viability of grand unifying theories, meta-narratives explaining basic questions.53
Into this existential vertigo has come postmodernism, with its deliberate avoidance of meta-narratives and pretensions toward comprehensive explanation. While a concise summary of what postmodernism
means is not attainable, some general features can be delineated.54 Prominent postmodernist writers such as Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault,
and Jean Baudrillard argue that language is basically arbitrary and
whimsical, and not the product of any categorically valid, overarching
linguistic laws. Human language is unavoidably contextual, and its
meaning community-specific. Essentially it only entrenches and perpetuates the belief systemsand the powerof those who create it and
superintend its use. Thus, to put it in postmodernist terms, the signifier
has supplanted the signified, the expression the expressed, as the center
of value and orientation. Meaning is bestowed by the critic rather than

20

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

received from the speaker or author, subjectively presented rather than

objectively exegeted.
The aspect of postmodernism that most clearly evidences this idea is
deconstruction, the method of literary criticism that holds that the authors identity and personal intentions are not relevant to the interpretation of what she has written and that, in any case, essentially no
monolithic meaning is to be exegeted from any text. Indeed, as Paul
de Man, a leading American deconstructionist has confidently announced, the very idea of meaning smacks of fascism.55 This is a common view among postmodernist or poststructuralist critics: attempts at
objective meaning are essentially immoral and ought to be eschewed out
of moral duty and civility. All interpretations have equal standing, and
no one perspective is to be privileged above any other.56
Thus, postmodernism is a world without opposites. The driveso
prominent in modernismtoward bifurcation and dichotomization, dualism and polarization, is transcended in postmodernism. In the postmodern world distinctions have been broken down, unmasked as the
social constructions and language games they are. The result is an incredulity toward meta-narratives that lay claim to describing the Truth,
and the demise of what is seen as the modernist, technological myth of
the unity of knowledge.57 Postmodernism lacks the modernist idea of the
concentricity of circles of truth, each oriented toward an objective center,
opting instead to see the world in terms of discrete, plural centers and
personalized truth, eschewing confidence in universal, trans-historical
truth.
So for the postmodernist there can be no grand meaning to history,
no teleological development to human experience. Tradition, too, is bereft of any great landmark or epicenter, being instead a purely human
and often noxiouscreation from the disconnected phenomena of random history. The modernist tendency to turn to some metaphysical idea
of a continuous thread of human reason passing throughout history,
somehow indicative of a great Transcendental Subject, is seen by the
postmodernist as a Procrustean reading of history, not a justifiable deduction from human experience. It is but another interpretation of human being and human experience, a vain positing of a mythic continuity.
The following comparative list serves as a helpful shorthand for contrasting modernity and postmodernism:58
Modern

Postmodern

Rationalistic science

Alienation from objective knowledge; chaos theory

Static human nature

No human nature; dynamic possibilities of remaking self

Purpose

Play

Human Dignity
Design

Chance

Centering
Technology

Dispersal
Ecology

Virtue possible

Virtue person-relative; not an important idea anyway

General morality

No general morality

Cold war

Breakup of empires; rise of societies

rooted in nationalism

Belief in general truth, capable of

abstract or scientific statement

Skepticism; reign of personal truths

21

Obviously then, postmodernism itself is not a good candidate for an

omni-explanatory point of view. To regard it as such would be a plain
contradiction of the most basic premises of postmodernism. It is inherently limited in its explanatory power. Postmodernisms project is literally deconstructive; it is a potent analytical tool for critical analysis,
but it is not so easily able to fill the voids it creates. It is able to say
no, but it is unable to say yes in any general way. The postmodern
lack of commitment to rational, analytical consistencysomething it
would see as an artifact of a discredited, totalistic modernist view of the
worlddisables it from speaking transpersonally.
In such an arrangement, the center of meaning has multiplied according to the plurality of individuals. There is no longer one locus of meaning and truth, to which ones thinking and being either corresponds or
does not correspond. There are many centers of meaning, each an equally
legitimate focus among the many personal human foci. Different people
make different decisions about values, lifestyle, and moral duty, and
these decisions are not arbitrable in any linguistic or socioculturally independent, objective way. All choices must be left on an equal plane of
veridicality.
What then are we to say of the internal consistency and plausibility of
postmodernisms theses and of its implications for human valuation?
First, we must stress the obvious: postmodernism, as relativism, focuses on subjectivity. But it fails to observe that a belief, however strong,
in the reality and importance of subjectivity does not by itself automatically negate the existence of objectivity or obviate the need to consider
the possibility of an underlying objective reality. The mere variability of
perception about values does not itself endorse a complete skepticism
toward objectivity. The absence of consensus does not necessarily require
a conclusion of complete subjectivity. After all, some epistemological actors may be cognitively wrong. If we did not all believe this to be the
case, we would never argue with one another about knowledge or values, but instead we would let mental solipsism and simple personal taste

22

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

completely reign. Some things we are convinced we know, whether or

not another person seems to share our knowledge or agree with us.
It would seem to be a foregone conclusion that any intellectual inquiry
or dialogue would have to begin by acknowledging that differences in
perception do not necessarily mean different objects are being perceived.
Nor do these differences necessarily mean that all differences in perception of a single object are of equal intellectual coherence and veridical
validity. Stipulating ones subjectivity and taking inventory of the various relationships and contexts that generate this subjectivity is not equivalent to demonstrating the subjectivity of objects of perception. Nor is it
tantamount to settling the question of whether or not ones perceptions
of objects could possibly be mistaken in their conclusions.
The official apotheosis of subjectivity is a mistake that inheres in postmodernist analyses and contemporary liberalism as an intellectual posturealthough both inconsistently speak in a normative voice when
preaching sexual liberty, choice, tolerance, and other cardinal virtues of political correctness. Yet they fail to see that complete and total
subjectivity prevents any interpersonally authoritative conclusions whatsoever, and it insulates us from valuable criticisms external to ourselves,
since there will always be recourse to the trump Thats just your perspectivea tool that liberals use selectively to counter the claims of
traditional values. This extreme subjectivism is inevitably self-refuting,
foreclosing on the possibility of employing public argumentative criteria
and the very trans-personal distinctions it needs to sustain its own critique of objectivity. Disparaging value-claims such as Thats just your
opinion rather than openly debating those assertions does not sustain
subjectivity, since Thats just your opinion is itself a private opinion,
and therefore is not relevant to anyone beyond oneself. It is selfreferentially incoherent.59 The ultimate consequence of this incoherence
is, unavoidably, nihilism, and so we see in American life today the existential nihilism of secular contemporary liberalism and the cognitive
nihilism of postmodernism.
Postmodernism and any effort at radical and complete subjectivization
encounters another problem: to make positive statements, to criticize,
and even to think intelligibly, one must operate according to certain formalities. A particular concept is one thing and not another, an assertion
or conclusion is either true and coherent or not, and any idea cannot be
both true and false, either substantively (if plain facts are available) or
syllogistically. These are the laws of human thought (the principles of
identity, excluded middle, and noncontradiction, respectively). They are
not aligned with any particular ideology.60 They are the cognitive building blocks of verbal communication and straight thinking. It is simply
not possible to evaluate ideas without them. They are the very minimal
conditions of coherence. So the postmodern critic himself must inevitably

Human Dignity

23

play by the cognitive rules of classical philosophy, in clearly differentiating the concepts of his own perspective and that perspective from all
others. Pure subjectivity in language or method will not permit the articulation of subjectivity in substantive questions of value and ideas.
What protection then exists for the dignity of the human person under
the regime of postmodernism and the ethos of contemporary liberalism
which it helps sustain? Lacking any thick theory of the good, any stable
unconstructed understanding of what it means to be human, and any
hope for knowing truth itself, the hypermodern posture has nothing to
offer the human being except an ever-changing packet of socially conferred rights and entitlements. But this is surely a foundation of shifting
sand, since rights that are purely socially generated and bestowed can
be, with equal decisiveness, socially destroyed and revoked. Of course,
this has happened before in human history, and in American history as
well. For example, in the middle of the last century (in the Dred Scott
case of 1857), the United States Supreme Court decided that black people
were bereft of any rights that white people had to observe, and a century
later in what was arguably at that time the most intellectually sophisticated nation on earth, an entire minority was declared subhuman and
their lives became, by law, lebensunwertes Lebenlives unworthy of life.
More than a century after Dred Scott, in the Roe v. Wade case of 1973, the
United States Supreme Court incoherently ruled that an entire class of
human beings were non-persons.61 The deconstruction of natural rights
and the abolition of categorical truthor its possibilitynever conduce
to the benefit of the whole human community. Inevitably, some minority,
ethnic, cognitive, religious, or developmental, is marginalized and reviled as vermin or unwanted. While in this country today the excesses of contemporary liberalism have not issued in general bigotry
similar to Nazi persecution, the construction of our public life on the
ambient sociocultural forces constitutive of contemporary liberalism
(radical egalitarianism, hyper-individualism, and the accompanying antitraditionalism and relativism), will only ensure instability and insecurity for human life. Despite its obsession with rights, our elite secular
liberal culture, both political and legalwith its twin foci of relativism
and leftward political partisanshipironically undermines the most fundamental of rights, the right to live, and through its encroaching statism
subtly withdraws other rights disfavored by the egalitarian and governmentally authoritarian character of modern liberalism.62
As the relativizing work of contemporary liberalism proceeds apace,
the Judeo-Christian moral capital of American culture increasingly weakens, drained of the ideological substance and values of which it consists,
and on which American life ultimately rests. This does not bode well for
the future welfare of the human community as a whole.

24

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

Egoism
The mood of contemporary liberalism and its entrenchment in this
country is further aided by the egoism that it and postmodernism inevitably produce. This is, of course, paradoxical, since contemporary liberalism exercises such lofty expectations for the virtuous reformation of
human nature. But the fact is that postmodernisms pure subjectivity
that is, its renunciation of transpersonal language and truthalong with
the rights-based mentality of todays liberalism only leaves us to do what
we personally believe are in our own best interests. Thus, a supreme
ethic of selfish private interestmasquerading as libertyhas arisen as
a result today, and the unremittingly selfish language of rights and
choice is its expression.
But again, as with postmodernism, egoism is self-refuting and incoherent on its own terms. First, we must understand that the egoist has
not privatized the egoistic idea of action and judgment. The egoist could
do this and recommend altruism to others, and thereby perhaps best
serve his own welfare. But in so doing, he is not adopting a principle of
personal or social ethics, because if one takes a maxim as a moral principle, one must be ready to universalize it.63 So we understand the egoist
as advocating that everyone should behave so as to best serve their own
long-run advantage. Some would say that egoism, so understood, is selfcontradictory because it cannot be to one persons advantage that everyone pursue their own advantage with equal vigor. But this does not
necessarily render egoism contradictory, if it is possible for the advantage of one person to coincide with the advantage of all others.64 If this
were true, egoism could be universalized.
The idea of a harmonic and orderly world, however, is clearly not
realistic. That this is true is self evident. One look at the morning newspaper shows that people, consumed by their desire for self-advancement,
do not get along. The preestablished world harmony that a universalized
egoism postulates is very hard to prove and patently unbelievable.65 Egoism involves a basic conflict of human wills and cannot be sustained as
a moral theory. Egoism cannot realistically serve as a basis for good
judgment and sound moral direction.66
But even beyond this significant, fundamental moral impotence, egoistic theory is guilty of an internal contradiction of the first order. As G.
E. Moore trenchantly points out:
The only reason I can have for aiming at my own good is that it is good
absolutely that what I so call should belong to megood absolutely that
I should have something, which, if I have it, others cannot have. But if it
is good absolutely that I should have it, then everyone else has as much
reason for aiming at my having it, as I have myself. If, therefore, it is true

Human Dignity

25

of any single mans interest or happiness that it ought to be his sole

ultimate end, this can only mean that that mans interest or happiness
is the sole good, the Universal Good, and the only thing that anybody
ought to aim at. What Egoism holds, therefore, is that each mans happiness is the sole goodthat a number of different things are each of them
the only good thing there isan absolute contradiction! No more complete
and thorough refutation of any theory could be desired.67

This irrationality of egoism would seem to preclude it from practical

use today, but such is far from the case. Indeed, the contemporary American decline into a nation of self-interested and hyper-individuated autonomous selves indiscriminately exercising freedom, has been
hastened by the very widespread employment of egoism.68 Rationality
is hard work; hence the irrationality of selfishness is more attractive. This
simple fact, as well as the febrile commitment to axiological relativism
seen in postmodernism and the overarching anti-intellectualism displayed by modern liberalism as a movement, all combine to render the
lure of egoismto which we are naturally disposed anywayirresistible.
Even so, egoism as a behavior cannot see past its own nose. In its
selfishness it is incapable of offering cogent moral direction and judgment. When this reality starts to deeply concern more of the general
public, and especially the elites in the intellectual professions and chattering classsince they are most infected by the subjectivist and selfregarding germs of contemporary liberalismour decline will slow, and
we will be in a cultural position to rightly value and protect human
dignity.
William Sullivan, in Reconstructing Public Philosophy, argues forcefully
that the protection of human dignity depends on the moral quality of
social relationships, and that this is ultimately a public and political concern.69 Todays liberal outlook on human dignity, human relationships,
and society has ignored this truth and consequently corrupted the moral
quality of our lives together. The result is modern liberalisms hollow
logorrhia of personal rights and respect. It is a discourse void of genuine
and uncompromising regard for the intrinsic dignity of all human life
(whatever its condition), and an ethic largely unprepared to apply basicand essentialmoral distinctions to everyday life.
NOTES
1. For a short history of human rights and contemporary understandings, as
well as commentary on significant recent formulations, see Mary Ann Glendon,
Rights Talk (New York: The Free Press, 1991), pp. 117. See also, generally, Ronald
Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1977); John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

26

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

1986); Louis Henken, The Age of Rights (New York: Columbia University Press,
1990); and Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1953).
2. Joel Feinberg, Duties, Rights and Claims, American Philosophical Quarterly
3, no. 2 (1966): 8.
3. This same point is also tellingly made by R. G. Frey in his book, Rights,
Killing and Suffering (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), pp. 4344. Frey highlights
the fact that Moral rights have become the fashionable terms of contemporary
moral debate, and one interest group after another has moved to formulate its
position in terms of them. The reason is obvious: to fail to cast its wants in terms
of rights and so to fail to place itself in a position to demand its due is to disadvantage itself in this debate vis-a`-vis other groups which show no such reluctance. And what group is prepared to do that?
4. Glendon, Rights Talk, p. x.
5. Ibid., pp. x, 14. As Professor Glendons discussion suggests, our rightscentered public language, with its inherent proliferation of personal entitlement,
is in no small part responsible for the stultification of social discourse that has
led to the intractability of the culture wars with which American society is so
wracked. For clear delineation of the battlegrounds in these conflicts, see James
Davison Hunter, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define American Democracy (New
York: Basic Books, 1991) and Before the Shooting Begins: Searching for Democracy
in Americas Culture Wars (New York: The Free Press, 1994).
6. Throughout this book I will differentiate between the terms contemporary
liberalism (a.k.a. modern liberalism) and classical liberalism (a.k.a. traditional liberalism).
7. Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 5.
8. Sociologist Robert Bellah and his collaborators have documented the moral
aphasia that the consequent expressive individualism, utilitarian individualism and other manifestations of the contemporary liberal ethos have instanced
in American life. See Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and
Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). For
a provocative discussion of the extent and harmfulness of unbridled judicial activism, see the symposium, The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of
Politics, First Things, November 1996, pp. 1842 and The End of Democracy?
A Discussion Continued, First Things, January 1991, pp. 1928.
9. See generally, Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1987); Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the Sixties (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990);
Dinesh DSouza, Illiberal Education (New York: The Free Press, 1991); Glendon,
Rights Talk; Gertrude Himmelfarb, On Looking into the Abyss: Untimely Thoughts
on Culture and Society (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994); Stanley Rothman and
S. Robert Lichter, Roots of Radicalism: Jews, Christians, and the New Left (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1982); Ronald D. Rotunda, The Politics of Language (Iowa
City: Iowa University Press, 1986); Michael Sandel, Democracys Discontent (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996); and Liberalism and the Limits of
Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
As some of these writers and many critics of the new liberalism have pointed

Human Dignity

27

out, the present social hegemony of the liberal creed is in no small part protected
and advanced by the obscurantist and quasireligious devotion of its adherents,
generally highly educated people influentially positioned in elite culture. The
following remarks by Norman Podhoretz, the long-time editor-in-chief (now editor-at-large) of Commentary magazine, effectively portray this emphatic allegiance: [The arts, media, universities, entertainment, and mainstream churches]
is a world inhabited and controlled by people whose attachment to the liberal
creed has proved at least as unshakable as the religious faith of the most fervent
fundamentalist. Indeed, for all their trumpeted devotion to pluralism, the culturati could give the Christian Coalition a lesson or two in intolerance of other
points of view. . . . Moreover, not since the Stalinists of the 30s have we seen a
political faction so slavish as the liberal culturati have been in following every
new twist in their partys line, even if it represents a 180degree turnsay, from
the principle of individual merit to the principle of group entitlement, or from
the anathematization of genetic theories where intelligence is concerned to the
sanctification of genetic theories in the case of homosexuality.
No wonder, then, that the culturati have responded to the growing power of
their conservative adversaries in the political realm by digging in ever more
deeply in the territories they continue to occupy, by consolidating their control
over those territories, and by using them as staging areas for ideological attacks
on the enemys ideas and attitudes. Norman Podhoretz, Liberalism and the
Culture: A Turning of the Tide?, Commentary, October 1996, pp. 2532.
10. See Sandel, Democracys Discontent, p. 271, for the identification of classical
liberalism as laissez-faire liberalism. Sandel designates contemporary liberalism as procedural in nature. See Part I of Democracys Discontent. For detailed
discussion of the philosophical derivation of the liberal tradition, see the works
of John Gray: Liberalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986) and
Liberalisms: Essays in Political Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1989).
11. Admittedly, typologies of this sort can never be complete and fully satisfactory. The conceptual waters become a bit murky here as well, since, as with
liberalism, two main strands of conservative thought are prevalent today, paleoconservatism and neoconservatism, neither one of which is strictly identical to
the description of classical liberalism Ive provided.
[Generally representative works of paleoconservatism are Russel Kirk, The
Conservative Mind, 7th ed. (Chicago: Regnery Books, 1986) and Samuel Francis,
Beautiful Losers: Essays on the Failure of American Conservatism (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993). Helpful discussion of other key figures of this line
of conservatism is found in John P. East, The American Conservative Movement:
The Philosophical Founders (Chicago: Regnery Books, 1986). Generally representative works of neoconservatism are Robert Nisbet, Conservatism (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1986) and Irving Kristol, Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (New York: The Free Press, 1995). Important analyses of
neoconservatisms substantial political influence are Mark Gerson, The Neoconservative Vision: From the Cold War to the Culture Wars (Lanham, Md: Madison
Books, 1996), Peter Steinfels, The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing
Americas Politics (New York: Basic Books, 1979), Paul Gottfied and Thomas Fleming, The Conservative Movement (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1988), and Mark
Royden Winchell, Neoconservative Criticism (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991)].

28

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

Nevertheless, the aforementioned profile of paleoconservatisms foundational

ideas is substantially shared by neoconservatism, augmented by, I would suggest, a greatly heightened concern with community and the institutions that form
it; a recognition of the value of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition as a source
of social cohesion; and an emphasis on democratic capitalism as an engine for
socioeconomic mobility, minority empowerment, and urban renewal. The conventional bifurcation of conservatism between paleoconservatives and neoconservatives is complicated by the rising influence of conservatives speaking in an
explicitly religious voice. For discussion of this trend, see Jacob Heilbrunn, Neocon v. Theocon, in The New Republic, December 30, 1996, pp. 2024 and Michael
Novak, Robert George, and Jacob Heilbrunn, Neocon v. Theocon: An
Exchange, in The New Republic, February 3, 1997, pp. 2829. For remarks on the
unique difficulties faced in constructing complete typologies of conservative political thought, see Thomas Sowell, Knowledge and Decisions (New York: Basic
Books, 1981), pp. 366367.
Importantly, as communitarian critics of liberalism (both in its classical and
contemporary form), neoconservatives are by no means ideologically unique. The
critique of neoconservative writers such as Peter Berger, Richard John Neuhaus,
Michael Novak, and Robert Nisbet has been partly echoed from the left by writers who are likewise communitarian critics of classical liberalismand even
much of contemporary liberalism. The work of Robert Bellah, Michael Sandel,
Michael Walzer, and in many ways Christopher Lasch protests, with the neoconservatives, the centrifugal, socially atomizing thrust of liberalism, especially
the modern type.
As an alternative to liberal theory altogether, the civic republican political tradition (which, like communitarianism cuts across the political spectrum) has been
a central consideration for the last quarter of this century. For general presentations of the civic republican tradition and its dissent from the liberal paradigm,
see J.G.A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the
Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975);
Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967); and William Sullivan, Reconstructing Public Philosophy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986).
See also the bibliographical references of Christopher Lasch, The True and Only
Heaven: Progress and Its Critics (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), pp. 540542.
12. Bork sees contemporary liberalism as the creation of a complex confluence
of factors. He holds that classical liberalism, with its heavy accent on liberty and
equality as values, has always borne within itself the seeds of its own devolution
into its modern perversion. But for most of this countrys history there were
bulwarks against this degeneration, specifically a vigorous, traditional Christian
religious practice; the dominance of the Judeo-Christian moral tradition; a body
of law closely hewn to the constitutional principles of the Founders; and the
simple reality of hard work as a prerequisite for economic survival. (See Bork,
Slouching Towards Gomorrah, pp. 79.) Throughout the convulsions of the twentieth century (World War I, the Great Depression, World War II), these realities
prevailed. But with the onset of remarkable affluence in the 1950s, and the concomitant boredom, along with the technologizing of life and the overweening

Human Dignity

29

valuing of personal convenience it brings, Americans grew impatient with the

religious, moral, and legal traditions that circumscribed their lives and their now
energized pursuit of self-gratification (Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, p. 9).
This tide, joined with the swelling influence of intellectuals and literati, collided
with the socialistic student radicals and national upheavals of the 1960s (the
assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy,
Vietnam), settling in the antibourgeois, nihilistic, hedonistic, and collectivist configuration recognized today as contemporary liberalism.
Valuable, brief reviews of Slouching Towards Gomorrah include Todd Lindberg,
Borking the Culture, The Weekly Standard, October 21, 1996, pp. 3436; John
Leo, In the Matter of the Court v. Us, U. S. News and World Report, October 7,
1996, p. 28; and Don Feder, Borks Book an Antidote to Cultural Poison, The
Orange County Register, September 8, 1996, p. Commentary 3.
13. Interestingly, some who identify themselves as liberals would not subscribe to all of this partial resume of liberalism. Yet, they persist in identifying
themselves as liberals. This indicates, I would suggest, a definite, palpable social
pressure to be liberal. For discussion of the general phenomenon of preference
falsificationclaiming to hold a position one does not actually hold and publicly praising views one privately knows to be falsesee Timur Kuran, Private
and Public Preferences, Economics and Philosophy 6 (1990): 126, and especially,
Timur Kuran, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995).
Standard critiques of contemporary liberalism documenting the tendencies and
values I have described include: William Bennett, The De-Valuing of America (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1992); David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem (New York: Basic Books, 1995); Bloom,
The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987); Bork,
Slouching Towards Gomorrah; Lynne V. Cheney, Telling the Truth (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1995); DSouza, Illiberal Education, and The End of Racism
(New York: The Free Press, 1995); Glendon, Rights Talk; William A. Henry III, In
Defense of Elitism (New York: Doubleday, 1994); Philip K. Howard, The Death of
Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America (New York: Warner Books, 1994);
Edith Kurzweil and William Phillips, eds., Our Country, Our Culture: The Politics
of Political Correctness (Boston: Partisan Review Press, 1994); Myron Magnet, The
Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties Legacy to the Underclass (New York: William
Morrow, 1993); Charles Murray, Losing Ground (New York: Basic Books, 1994);
Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William
B. Eerdmans, 1984); Marvin Olasky, The Tragedy of American Compassion (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1992); Dennis Prager, Think a Second Time (New
York: HarperCollins, 1996); Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Disuniting of America
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1991); Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism?
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994); Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed:
Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (New York: Basic Books, 1995); and
Charles J. Sykes, A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character (New
York: St. Martins Press, 1992).
14. See Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social
Policy, particularly Chapters 1 and 2, for basic outlines of the mindset and op-

30

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

erating methods of those politicians, policy-makers, and bureaucrats who justify

their positions on the basis of their own surety of their superior motives.
15. James Carville, Were Right, Theyre Not! (New York: Random House, 1995).
16. This is illustrated by the helpful survey edited by Leslie Stevenson, The
Study of Human Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), as well as
Leslie Stevenson, Seven Theories of Human Nature (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1974). For a comprehensive discussion of human nature and its expression
in the human person, see James B. Reichmann, Philosophy of the Human Person
(Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985).
17. Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions (New York: William Morrow, 1987),
Part I.
18. Ibid., p. 24.
19. Ibid., pp. 26, 31, 3334.
20. Obviously, the literature discussing the Judeo-Christian anthropology is
far too extensive to document here in any thorough way. Some useful sources
for concise statements on various aspects of the general tradition include: Paul
Althaus, The Ethics of Martin Luther, trans. by Robert C. Schultz (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1972); Gordon H. Clark, A Christian View of Men and Things (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1952); Richard M. Gula, Reason Informed by
Faith (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1989); Jacques Maritain, The Person and the
Common Good (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966); Wayne
A. Meeks, The Moral World of the First Christians (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1986); Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 vols. (New York:
Charles Scribners Sons, 1964); and Bernard Ramm, An Offense to Reason (San
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1985). On the relationship of human nature to virtue
and its cultivation, see the informative discussion by Stanley Hauerwas, A Community of Character (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981),
pp. 121125.
21. James Madison, The Federalist No. 51, in The Federalist, edited by Jacob
E. Cooke (Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1961), p. 349.
22. George F. Will, The Cultural Contradictions of Conservatism, The Public
Interest, no. 123, Spring 1996, p. 46.
Eminent social scientist James Q. Wilson concurs with Wills basic assessment,
writing: If man is infinitely malleable, he is as much at risk from the despotisms
of this world as he would be if he were entirely shaped by some biochemical
process. The anthropologist Robin Fox has put the matter well: If, indeed, everything is learned, then surely men can be taught to live in any kind of society.
Man is at the mercy of all the tyrants . . . who think they know what is best for
him. And how can he plead that they are being inhuman if he doesnt know
what being human is in the first place? James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (New
York: The Free Press, 1993), pp. 250251.
For further elaboration on the significance of the mistake of denying human
nature, see the discursus by Mortimer Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes (New
York: Macmillan, 1985), pp. 156166. For a creative and thoughtful presentation
of the case for a universal, unchanging human nature, see Sidney Callahan, In
Good Conscience: Reason and Emotion in Moral Decision Making (New York:
HarperCollins, 1991), pp. 177182.

Human Dignity

31

23. Charles Murray, In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government (San Francisco: ICS Press edition, 1994), p. 4.
24. See Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed, pp. 730, for the common pattern of
response, or, on Sowells analysis, nonresponse, of policy engineers to programmatic failure.
25. For an excellent discussion on these themes, see Chapter 6, Dignity, SelfEsteem, and Self-Respect, in Murray, In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government, pp. 8399. For a discussion of the ironically negative effects in education
which the cultural emphasis on self-esteem has wrought, see Bork, Slouching
Towards Gomorrah, pp. 243244, 251, 253.
26. Murray, In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government, p. 83.
27. We will advance a sound understanding of dignity later in this chapter.
28. Murray draws a valuable distinction between self-esteem and self-respect,
the latter implying a self-responsibility and accountability for behavior which the
former lacks. See Murray, In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government, pp. 87
89. On the importance of distinguishing between self-esteem and self-respect, see
also Anne Taylor Fleming, The Importance of Earning Respect, Los Angeles
Times, February 19, 1997, p. B9.
Indeed, regarding the presence of high self-esteem within a person, I would
suggest that this is more usually an index of pride and self-obsession rather than
of individual virtue. Humility, modesty, selflessness, service to others, these are
traits and habits we commonly construe as virtuous, and which, in my view, are
not at all promoted or enhanced by heavy emphasis on self-esteem.
29. Murray, In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government, p. 86. Such events
are more common than one might think. In Atlanta a 13-year-old suspect will
be tried as an adult for murder because he shot a man three times in the chest
while the mans children watched in horrorbecause the youth felt the man had
not been adequately respectful toward him. See Crime and Punishment, World,
March 1, 1997, p. 10.
30. See Murray, In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government, p. 98, for a
slightly different statement of this same conclusion. For an excellent discussion
arguing against the right of respect, see Robert A. Licht, Respect Is not a
Right, Crisis, July/August 1993, pp. 4147.
31. On liberal relativism, see the bibliographical references critical of modern
liberalism in note 13 above. For an interesting discussion of this general issue,
see S. D. Gaede, When Tolerance Is No Virtue (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity
Press, 1993).
32. Francis Canavan, The Pluralist Game (Lanham, Md: Rowman and Littlefield,
1995), p. 133.
33. Ibid., pp. 133134, quoting an editorial in The New Republic, February 8,
1988.
34. Hauerwas, A Community of Character, p. 80.
35. See Pope John Paul IIs tenth encyclical, Veritatis Splendor for the full
unfolding of this principle. Concise commentary on the encyclical is provided by
Richard John Neuhaus in The Truth about Freedom, The Wall Street Journal,
October 8, 1993, p. A12. On the natural unity of freedom and virtue, see also the
reflections of Doug Bandow, Freedom and Virtue Are Inseparable, The Orange
County Register, January 29, 1997, p. Metro 7.

32

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

36. Phil Donahue, The Human Animal (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985).
For an insightful and compelling discussion of the consonance of individual freedom with the common good, and the application of self-interest rightly understood, see Michael Novak, Free Persons and the Common Good (Lanham, Md:
Madison Books, 1989), esp. Chapter 2.
37. Her book It Takes a Village (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), is indicative of the activist statism advocated and practiced by todays liberalism.
38. This was not always the case. As John Hallowell has pointed out, the original liberalism of the seventeenth century, what he calls integral liberalism,
embraced the inherent moral worth and individual dignity of the human person,
autonomous and rational. Mans value was seen as socially transcendent and
independent of the vicissitudes of social convention and construction, and discernible as such through human reason and conscience. Hence, this integral
liberalism, whose ideological heirs are todaythough diffusedclearly distributed to the right of center on the political spectrum, did feature a stable and
objective understanding of human dignity. See John Hallowell, The Decline of
Liberalism as an Ideology (New York: Howard Fertig, 1971).
Contemporary liberalism, in its emphasis on dignity as socially conferred
through legal rights and personally determined through self-valuation, and in
its philosophical abrogation of an objective foundation for human dignity, does
not very well cohere with its philosophical ancestor. For commentary on Hallowells work, and an excellent synopsis of liberalisms transformation from its classic to contemporary form, see Canavan, The Pluralist Game, pp. 115122. For
discussion on contemporary liberalisms often incoherent use of the concept of
human dignity, deploying it as a trope intended to compel public respect for
unconventional lifestyle choices, see Licht, Respect Is not a Right.
39. Some notable exceptions include Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 122123; Tibor Machan,
Private Rights and Public Illusions (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers,
1995), esp. pp. 61101; Jurgen Moltmann, On Human Dignity, trans.by M. Douglas
Meeks (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984); John Warwick Montgomery, Human
Rights and Human Dignity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1986); Stephen
Charles Mott, Biblical Ethics and Social Change (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1982), pp. 4358; Murray, In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government, pp.
83100; Michael Novak, Free Persons and the Common Good, and The Catholic Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: The Free Press, 1993); J. I. Packer and
Thomas Howard, Christianity: The True Humanism (Waco, Tex.: Word Publishing,
1985), pp. 135160; and Charles Taylor, Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995).
40. A similar distinction, termed appraised and bestowed dignity, is
found in Gene Outka, Agape: An Ethical Analysis (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972), p. 157. Outkas model is discussed in Mott, Biblical Ethics
and Social Change, pp. 4647. See also Licht, Respect Is not a Right, pp. 4243.
41. This presupposes that humanity and personhood are identical. Definitions
of personhood are beyond the scope of this study, but accepting all humans as
persons strikes me as the most humane and reasonable option, and most consistent with the view of human dignity being limned here. For general discussion
on definitions of personhood, see Norman Ford, When Did I Begin? Conception of

Human Dignity

33

the Human Individual in History, Philosophy and Science (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1988) and Michael F. Goodman, ed., What Is a Person? (Clifton,
N.J.: Humana Press, 1988). We will again address this issue in Chapter 3.
42. The objection that someone who is partially human can be partially intrinsically dignified depends on the intelligibility of the concept of partial humanness. The coherence of that idea will be addressed in Part II, while considering
abortion.
43. Theological derivations of this general principle, from a variety of perspectives, can be found in Ray S. Anderson, On Being Human: Essays in Theological
Anthropology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1982); Nigel M. de S.
Cameron, The New Medicine (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1997), pp. 172174;
National Catholic Welfare Conference, A Statement on Mans Dignity, in David M. Byers, ed., Justice in the Marketplace (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1985); Anthony Hoekema, Created in Gods Image (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1986); National Council of Catholic Bishops, Economic Justice for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy
(Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1986); Montgomery, Human Rights and Human Dignity, pp. 189218; Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of
Man, vol. 1, Human Nature (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1964); Packer and
Howard, Christianity: The True Humanism, pp. 139160; Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1995), Veritatis Splendor (Washington, D.C.: Catholic News Service, 1993) and Centessimus Annus (Vatican City:
Vatican Library, 1991); Robert L. Saucy, Theology of Human Nature, in J. P.
Moreland and David M. Ciocchi, eds., Christian Perspectives on Being Human
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1993), pp. 1751. R. C. Sproul has simply
summarized the general Christian grounding of human dignity: It is because
God has assigned worth to man and woman that human dignity is established.
Mans glory is derived, dependent on Gods glory for his own. It is because
mankind bears the image of God that he enjoys such an exalted rank in the nature
of things. From his creation to his redemption, mans dignity is preserved. He is
created by One who is eternal and is made for a redemption which stretches into
eternity. His origin is significanthis destiny is significanthe is significant.
R. C. Sproul, In Search of Dignity (Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1983), pp. 9899.
See also The Basis for Human Dignity, in Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett
Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1979), pp. 121158, for discussion of the Judeo-Christian grounding of human dignity.
It is important to note that the religiously particularistic nature of the Christian
grounding of human dignitywhile certainly a definite truth-claim and one that
should be rigorously investigatedcan be bracketed for the present sociological
purposes of comparing and analyzing types and understandings of human dignity. One need not accept its literal truthfulness to recognize that it has been our
most influential tradition of thought about human dignity, and, in its own right,
a valuable and humane way of understanding human beings. Human dignity
articulated in this religiously particularistic way can still serve as an ordering
concept for contemporary civic and social life, and it compares well with alternative models. The fact that it currently does not function as a civicly unifying
theory is not itself sufficient ground for deeming the Christian architectonic of

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

human dignity anachronistic or retrograde. Religious particularity itself is not a

theoretically disqualifying factor if, as I suggest, a normative verdict on that
particularity can be suspended for the purposes of public philosophy and reflection. For discussion on the justification for such a methodological agnosticism,
see Peter Berger, An Invitation to Sociology (New York: Doubleday, 1963) and The
Sacred Canopy (New York: Doubleday, 1967).
44. The aura of significance attaching to human beings is recognized through,
for example, the covering of dead bodies with a sheet, certain funeral rituals,
and the occasional respect accorded the site of a loved ones or venerated figures
death. This realization of the sui generis importance of human life was exemplified in the burial service arranged for two newborn infants who separately
washed up on the shores of Orange County, California, beaches in March 1995.
The newborn infants had been abandoned just hours after their births, thrown
into the ocean. Father Patrick Callahan of St. Matthew American Catholic Church
in Orange, California, arranged the service. Explaining why he did so, he said,
I really feel it would be unfortunate for these children to be just cremated and
placed in a common grave as if they never existed. . . . There should be some
awareness that they were here, even though they only lived for a brief period of
time, maybe only a matter of hours. . . . I think [the memorial service] is the
respectful thing to do. It celebrates the dignity of children. A Dignified Goodby
to Two Abandoned Infants, Los Angeles Times, (Orange County Edition), July
16, 1995, p. B3.
Obviously, however, it is tragically true that mankind is able, all too easily, to
break through the knowledge of innate, universal human dignity and mistreat
his fellows. The record of history is clear: human dignity, unprotected by statute
and disrespected by custom, is easily trampled under the ruthless wheels of
bigotry, pride, violence, and selfishness. In an important sense, the awareness of
human dignity is similar to what many writers have asserted to be the innate
human knowledge and experience of a Creator. In this context, sociologist Peter
Berger developed the idea of signals of transcendence, that is, ideas and phenomenalike the human religious impulse and, I would suggest, human dignitythat point beyond natural, human reality to a transcendent realm. For
Bergers development of the notion of signals of transcendence, see his book,
A Rumor of Angels (New York: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 5254. For a unique discussion on the relation of intrinsic dignity to contemporary social life, particularly
with regard to the concept of honor, see Peter Berger, Brigitte Berger, and Hansfried Kellner, The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness (New York:
Vintage Books, 1974), pp. 8491, and Peter Berger, On the Obsolescence of the
Concept of Honor, in Stanley Hauerwas and Alisdair MacIntyre, eds., Revisions:
Changing Perspectives in Moral Philosophy (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre
Dame Press, 1983), pp. 172181.
45. On animal rights and environmentalists generally, see Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, pp. 272, 282, 298; James Bovard, Lost Rights: The Destruction of
American Liberty (New York: St. Martins Press, 1994), Chapters 2 and 3; Al Gore,
Earth in the Balance (New York: Penguin, 1992); Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt,
Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (Baltimore, Md.:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); Howard, The Death of Common Sense; Thomas B. Littlewood, The Politics of Population Control (Notre Dame, Ind.: University

Human Dignity

35

of Notre Dame Press, 1977); Carolyn Merchant, Radical Ecology:The Search for a
Livable World (New York: Routledge, 1992); and William Salomone, Earth and Its
People: How Can We Prosper? A Response to Al Gore (New York: Carlton Press,
1994).
The antihuman and atavistic nature of some such advocates is well-illustrated
by the following quote, from animal rights activist John Aspinall, who said: I
must say that I am among that group of people who, to borrow an expression
from Teddy Goldsmith, would regard a demo-catastrophe as an eco-bonanza. In
other words, I would be very happy to see three and one-half billion humans
wiped from the face of the earth within the next 150 or 200 years and I am quite
prepared to go myself with this majority. Most of you [reading this] are redundant in every possible sense of the word. . . . I would just remind you of Professor
Revies famous article in the Scientific American, in which he described the increase of mans population from one million years ago, when he estimated the
world population of human beings at 100,000 . . . to a time after the discovery of
fire, when the figures started to soar to todays four billion. If that is not redundancy, if that is not a burden of unnecessary bio-mass, then I dont know what
is! Let us all look forward to the day when the catastrophe strikes us down! With
what resounding applause would the rest of nature greet our demise! John Aspinall, Mans Place in Nature, in David Peterson and Richard D. Ryder, eds.,
Animals RightsA Symposium (London: Centaur, 1979), quoted in Montgomery,
Human Rights and Human Dignity, pp. 1819. For analysis of animal rights advocates outlook on human life, see Cal Thomas, Animal Rights Claque Targets
Human Life, Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1997, p. B9. For a brief and concise
debunking of overpopulation myths, see Steven Mosher, Too Many People? Not
by a Long Shot, The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 1997, p. A18.
On Skinnerian behaviorism and its deterministic anthropology, see, first, seminal works of Skinner: B. F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity (New York:
Knopf, 1971); Science and Human Behavior (New York: Macmillan, 1953); Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis (New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1969); About Behaviorism (New York: Knopf, 1974). See also these critiques:
Tibor Machan, The Pseudo-Science of B. F. Skinner (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington
House, 1974); Sidney Hook, ed., Dimensions of Mind: A Symposium (New York:
New York University Press, 1960); and Francis A. Schaeffer, Back to Freedom and
Dignity (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 1972). For a brief discussion of
the social influence of Skinners ideas, see Machan, Private Rights and Public Illusions, pp. 6365.
Functional definitions of personhoodthat is, a definition of humanity or the
person which makes such status contingent on action, potential for action, or
valuation by others rather than on simply beingcome from a very wide range
of sources. Some influential ones include: Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics
of Radical Feminism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978); Edd Doerr and James W. Prescott, eds., Abortion Rights and Fetal Personhood (Long Beach, Calif.: Centerline
Press, 1989); Barbara Duden, Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and
the Unborn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993); Beverly Wildung
Harrison, Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1983); Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer, Should the Baby Live? (New York:

36

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

Oxford University Press, 1985); and Lloyd Steffen, ed., Abortion: A Reader (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1996).
46. For an example of Amnesty Internationals documentation of atrocities, see
its publication Torture in the Eighties (New York: Amnesty International, 1984).
A useful survey of Amnesty Internationals philosophy and work is Jonathan
Power, Amnesty International: The Human Rights Story (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1981). For the full text of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, see appendix one in Montgomery, Human Rights and Human Dignity.
47. For a general background discussion on the abortion conflict in America,
see Hunter, Before the Shooting Begins: Searching for Democracy in Americas Culture
Wars. For a collection of politically and religiously diverse pro-life arguments,
illustrating the humanistic concerns of the movement, see David Mall, ed., When
Life and Choice Collide: Essays on Rhetoric and Abortion (Libertyville, Ill.: Kairos
Books, 1994, Vol. 1 of To Set the Dawn Free), and Brad Stetson, ed., The Silent
Subject: Reflections on the Unborn in American Culture (Westport, Conn.: Praeger
Publishers, 1996).
48. Any doubt as to the low regard with which human life is commonly held
in American society should be dispelled by these facts: since 1960 violent crime
has increased 560 percent; since 1960 the rate of teen suicide has risen by more
than 200 percent; since 1960 the rate of homicide deaths for children younger
than age 19 has more than quadrupled; from 1990 to 1994 more than twice the
number of people were murdered in the United States (119,732) than died in the
Vietnam War (58,000); abortions are at the rate of approximately 1.5 million per
year, with about 40 percent being obtained by women who have already had at
least one abortion. For documentation of these and reams of similar statistics, see
William J. Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1994) and William J. Bennett, John J. DiIulio, Jr., and John P. Walters,
Body Count (New York: Simon and Schuster 1996). Although homicide rates have
recently decreased in many major urban areas, this decrease cannot plausibly be
attributed to greater respect for human life. Rather, increased police activity in
violent communities is a more apparent cause for the abatement. For discussion
on the decline of murder rates in some cities, see Several Major Cities Had
Murder Decline, Orange County Register, January 1, 1997, p. News 20, and U.S.
Violent Crime Drops Record 7%, Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1997, p. A1. Indeed,
it is widely anticipated that serious crime such as homicide is likely to increase
in the near future. For discussion of this anticipated trend, see Body Count, pp.
2634; John J. DiIulio, Jr., The Coming of the Super-Predators, The Weekly Standard, November 27, 1995, pp. 2328 and DiIulio, How to Defuse the Youth
Crime Bomb, The Weekly Standard, March 10, 1997. See also the articles by John
J. DiIulio, Jr.: The Question of Black Crime, The Public Interest, No. 117, Fall
1994, pp. 356 and My Black Crime Problem, and Ours, City Journal, Spring
1996, pp. 1428 for discussion of how future crime trends will uniquely terrorize
urban black communities.
49. For general discussion of Hitlers personal dealings and the diplomatic
respect unfortunately accorded him, see A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second
World War, 2nd ed. (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1961).
50. See Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, pp. 125126, 192, 276.
Indeed, the shocking prevalence of teen suicide in America today is an index

Human Dignity

37

to the nihilistic currents defining popular culture. While in communities across

the country, school counselors, teachers, and parents have all responded with
diligence and deep concern when their towns or schools are stunned by a childsuicide, seldom is it wondered aloud if these bewildering and numbing events
can be explained, in part at least, through reflection on the cultural forces ascendant today.
It is a rather stunning fact that the rate of teen suicide in this country has more
than tripled since 1960. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death among
American adolescentsthis, in the wealthiest, best educated, most technologically advanced and privileged society in the world. Why is this happening?
Any social explanation can only be partial, for each case is unique and an
element of the inexplicable always seems to be present in such epic tragedies.
Furthermore, we must admit that in moments of anguish and despair cultural
and political recriminations come easy: Newt Gingrich faulted the Democrats for
the child murders committed by Susan Smith, and Bill Clinton blamed Rush
Limbaugh for the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. Still, we are
not without some objective knowledge about the tides of our corporate life.
It is part of our social history that the last thirty years have seen a radical shift
in the moral ethos and self-understanding of the American individual. The cultural critique of the leftwith its heavy accent on personal autonomy and suspicion of authorityhas decisively altered the avenues of self-formation in
American life. In postmodern America, meaning-making is very much a do-ityourself enterprise, detached from the moorings of previously embedded traditional religious and ethical convictions. Although progressives and liberals
frequently deride as oppressive the cultural framework of moral norms, behavioral expectations, and social conventions that conditioned American life from
the end of World War II to the sixties, this was an authority that served the
practical purpose of placing teenagersoften given to instability and insecurity
under the regime of a nurturing discipline that functioned as a caretaker until
they were mature enough to rationally deliberate about their own future, values,
and worldview. Adult, professional elites may revel in the antinomian effects of
the leftist critique of middle-class values, but for youth the murky worldview
and moral relativism that often ensue is stressful and discouraging. They can
become anti-life, submerging themselves in dark music, dark moods, and a general rebellion that makes romantic fantasies of punishing peers and parents by
ending it all seem attractive.
This is not to suggest cynically that liberalism causes children to kill themselves. Rather, it is to recall us to the sobering reality that changes in the macrostructure of society inevitably filter down to alter the microstructure of
individual life-attitudes, often in a negative direction. Those of the left, possessed
as they are of an unconstrained optimism about human institutions and human
capacities, often fail to see this. And it is young people, being at a stage of
psycho-emotional development where they are very sensitive to cues from their
social milieu, who are most exposed to the unsettledness that this antirealism
brings.
Children, especially teenagers, need a solid framework of behavioral guidelines and rules in their liveseven though they may deny they do. Contemporary liberalisms resolute unwillingness to publicly affirm a rudimentary vision

38

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

of the good life and fundamental values to live bycoupled with its decisive
portrayal of old-fashioned mores as unenlightened and intolerantcan contribute to a deep sense of anomie and a pervasive feeling of nonattachment among
some young people. Drifting toward nihilism and meaninglessness, they wonder
Why does it matter how I act? An unsatisfying answer to this question can
quickly evaporate the will to live in teens who may have isolated themselves
from family, friends, and any close association. The deconstructive tides of the
American left have emancipated many teens from traditional values; yet these
young people are not sufficiently developed psychologically or intellectually to
manage this unencumbered freedom. They find that liberty unordered by any
ultimate ends or limits brings on an existential vertigo, a maelstrom of confusion
that makes it hard for them to see purpose to their lives.
Of course, the searing social and personal tragedy that is teen suicide is not
new. But the frequency of it is, and if we do not honestly consider the possibility
that our efforts at social engineering generate psychologically debilitating cultural messages for some youth, we risk continuing to reap this harvest of grief
that is the most profound failure of any civilization. For discussion of teen suicide
and its increasing frequency, see Children Who Kill Themselves: A Grim
Trend, Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1997, p. A1.
51. Richard John Neuhaus has suggested hypermodern as a preferable
phrase for the complex of ideas and assumptions often described as postmodern. See Richard John Neuhaus, The Empty Creche, National Review, December 31, 1996, p. 29. I will use postmodern and hypermodern interchangeably,
though I will primarily use postmodern, as it is the current practice.
For helpful discussion of the definitions and relationships of modernist and
postmodernist intellectuals, see Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy (New York:
Penguin Books, 1994), pp. 500504.
52. For an examination of the more recent academic, cultural, and social influence of postmodernist thinking, see Cheney, Telling the Truth, esp. pp. 87ff.
Some portions of the following discussion of postmodernism are drawn from
Chapter 3 of Brad Stetson, Pluralism and Particularity in Religious Belief (Westport,
Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1994). The first part of that chapter, the first part of a
reprint of that chapter in Criswell Theological Review (7:2), and part of the discussion here are patterned after the fine treatment of Alistair E. McGrath, The
Challenge of Pluralism for the Contemporary Christian Church, Journal of the
Evangelical Theological Society 35, no. 3 (September 1992): 361374. Inadvertently,
this acknowledgment was omitted from Chapter 3 of Pluralism and Particularity
in Religious Belief. McGrath has expanded his analysis of postmodernism in Chapter 4 of his book A Passion for Truth (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press,
1996).
53. On the impotence of much of mainline Christianity, specifically, to provide
stable life-foundations for parishioners, see Thomas Reeves, The Empty Church
(New York: The Free Press, 1996). For discussion of myriad ways in which contemporary life has impacted human consciousness and contributed to a general
and pervasive sense of displacement, ambiguity, and restlessness, see Berger,
Berger, and Kellner, The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness.
54. A usefulif tongue in cheekaphoristic summary of the meaning of postmodernism is provided by James Byrne: Descartes, Kant, epistemology, ontol-

Human Dignity

39

ogy, meaning, the signified and the subject are out; Nietzsche, Derrida,
discourse, the text, the trope, the signifier and grammar are in . See James
Byrne, Foucault on Continuity: The Challenge to Tradition, Faith and Philosophy
9, no. 3 (July 1992): 335.
The following works provide a general understanding of the main analytical
thrusts of postmodernism: Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity (Durham,
N.C.: Duke University Press, 1987); Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic
(Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1990); Ernest Gellner, Postmodernism, Reason and Religion
(New York: Routledge, 1992); Kevin Hart, The Trespass of the Sign (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989); David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity
(Oxford: Blackwell Press, 1989); John McGowan, Postmodernism and Its Critics
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991; John Murphy, Postmodern Social
Analysis and Criticism (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989); See John McGowans
clear delineation of postmodern theorys most prominent schools and argumentative thrusts, in his book Postmodernism and Its Critics, pp. ixxi.
Important to understanding the argumentative thrust of postmodernism is the
work of Max Horkheimer and the Frankfurt School. See Horkheimers seminal
essay contrasting traditional and critical theory, Traditional and Critical Theory, in Critical Theory: Selected Essays, trans. by Matthew J. OConnel and others
(New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), pp. 188243. See also John ONeill, ed.,
On Critical Theory (New York: Seabury Press, 1976) for a helpful collection of
essays on Horkheimer and critical theory.
55. Presumably then, de Man does not intend any particularand therefore
fascisticmeaning by that assertion. All ironies aside, postmodernism clearly has
a problem with the self-referential applications of its own radical subjectivization.
This will be a topic of discussion later in this section.
With specific reference to de Man, this insistent discounting of static and unequivocal meaning became an occasion for great embarrassmentboth to him
and the deconstructionist movement to which his work is so centralwhen, in
1989, the New York Times reported the discovery of de Mans anti-Semitic and
pro-Nazi writings, penned while in Belgian exile in 1941 and 1942. (See Peter
Shaw, The Rise and Fall of Deconstruction, Commentary, 92, no. 6 [December
1991]: 5053, for a description of this episode.) Neither de Man nor his defenders
in academia could claim that de Man actually meant something other than the
impression left by the articles, given the axiomatic status of the fallacy of authorial intention in deconstructionist criticism. After all, what the author really
thought was not relevant. In addition, de Man could not be acquitted by appeal
to his historical circumstances, since an authors actual and historical existence
is not pertinent to analysis of his text. The very premises of postmodernism itself
left no room for de Man or his apologists to construct his defense. This episode
pictures in little the way in which the postmodern attitudewhich claims to
enhance human life through emancipation from moral constructions and sociocultural artifactsin fact threatens human life by exposing it to the chilling vicissitudes of total relativism.
56. For a useful analysis of this critical style, see David Lehman, Signs of the
Times (London: Andre Deutsch Publishers, 1991).
57. See Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge,

40

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

trans. by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), p. ix.
58. This chart is based on a similar device in Robert S. Ellwood, Jr., The Sixties
Spiritual Awakening (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1994 ) and
McGrath, A Passion for Truth, p. 185.
59. The debunking project of postmodernismand the anti-Judeo-Christian
selective moralism of politically correct contemporary liberalismdo not understand themselves to be engaged merely in some kind of giant exercise in intellectual tail-chasing. They employ intuited values, both positive and negative (e.g.,
the wrongness of repression and hypocrisy, the rightness of freedom, and, in the
case of postmodernism, honesty about the human condition). This employment of
moral values shatters postmodernismsand contemporary liberalismstheoretical pretensions to Archimedian critique, or any posture that would claim to
be immune from the constructionist attack. As horrifying as its advocates may
find it, the Foucaultian, postmodernist critique of knowledge/power and the
moralizing of todays liberalism (e.g., affirmative action, choice, gay rights,
etc.) are parochial (though unsystematic) visions of the Good, laden with assumptions about the human beinghis constitution, telos, and duties. This moral
particularity is widely unacknowledged by partisans of these positions, since
they wish to retain the social and political capital they accrue by asserting their
own tolerance and open-mindedness.
Certainly, the contemporary American zeitgeist, especially in academe, is
wholly hospitable to the critical orientation of postmodernism and the politics of
contemporary liberalism. The historic iconoclasm of higher educationwhich
today seems to be heightened to such an extent that novelty and activistic antagonism toward bourgeoisie America seem to be the main criteria of what constitutes good workhas been a context within which the critiques brought by
postmodernism and modern liberalism have flourished. For an insightful discussion of the growing favor accorded heretofore novel fields of study, see Jerry
Z. Muller, Coming Out Ahead: The Homosexual Moment in the Academy,
First Things, no. 35 August/September 1993): 1724. The postmodernist view of
the state of knowledge and the academy in the Western world is found in Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. For critical discussion of
Lyotards views in this regard, see Barry Smith, ed., European Philosophy and the
American Academy (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1994).
60. This is not an uncontested point in some quarters. Such logical laws are
sometimes faulted as logocentric, and biased against affectivity and nondiscursive reflection. But, of course, even such a criticism makes use of noncontradiction by asserting a definite difference between the two perspectives, as well
as a discursive, rational argumentation. For discussion of uniquely female epistemologies, see Mary Field Belenky et al., Womens Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice and Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1986) and Carol Gilligan,
In a Different Voice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982). For criticism of this general idea, see Christina Hoff Sommers, Who Stole Feminism? (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), Chapter 4.
61. As Robert Bork has succinctly put it, Whatever ones feelings about abortion, [Roe v. Wade] has no constitutional foundation, and [in it] the court offered
no constitutional reasoning. Roe is nothing more than the decision of a Court

Human Dignity

41

majority to enlist on one side of the culture war. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, p. 103. For analysis of the politicization of the U.S. Supreme Court and
the law in general, see Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America: The Political
Seduction of the Law (New York: The Free Press, 1990).
For further criticism of the reasoning of Roe, see Francis Beckwith, Politically
Correct Death (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1993); John Hart Ely, The
Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade, Yale Law Journal 82 (1973);
Mary Ann Glendon, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); David Mall, ed., When Life and Choice Collide, vol. 1
of the series To Set the Dawn Free (Libertyville, Ill.: Kairos Books, 1994); John T.
Noonan, A Private Choice (New York: The Free Press, 1979); and Tom Poundstone,
Supreme Court Jurisprudence and Prenatal Life, in Stetson, ed., The Silent Subject. A defense of the Roe decision is found in Laurence Tribe, Abortion: The Clash
of Absolutes (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990).
62. See Bovard, Lost Rights, for extensive discussion of the rights of independence, association, speech, and property eroded by liberal activist statism. On
the loss of property rights specifically, see James V. DeLong, Property Matters
(New York: The Free Press, 1997).
63. William Frankena, Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p.18.
My discussion of egoism is informed by Frankenas coverage in Ethics, particularly pp. 1522.
For defenses of ethical egoism, see Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness (New
York: New American Library, 1964) and Tibor Machan, Individuals and Their
Rights and Capitalism and Individualism (New York: St. Martins Press, 1990).
64. Frankena, Ethics, p. 19.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid., pp. 1920.
67. G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1965), p. 99. Given such an emphatic theoretical defeat, how can we account for
egoisms historic and contemporary appeal?
Much of egoisms roots can be found in the thought of Thomas Hobbes (1588
1679). Though neither an egoist nor a hedonist himself, Hobbes nonetheless held
self-interest to be the basis of social duty. His Leviathan (1651) was widely influential in seventeenth-century England. In it he advocated an absolute sovereignty
by the ruler in order to ensure social security . Hobbes based all morality on the
decisions of the sovereign power, and the citizenry was in self-preservational
submission to his authority. This paramount regard for self-interest is the key
basis for egoistic action. Yet in terms of personal action or social ideology, selfconcern apart from immutable moral standards has historically had disastrous
results. Hitler, the paragon of evil, could claim that he was acting in his own
best interests when he took 6 million Jewish lives. If the only grounds one has
for disapproving his actions is self-interest, then we have no basis of arbitration.
Egoistic theory, as subjectivity, cannot affirm the guilt of someone like Hitler,
only his choice.
In terms of egoism vis-a`-vis social morality, the Playboy philosophy of the
sixties and seventies can be seen to be largely synonymous with egoism. Yet the
Playboy philosophyand its descendant, the heightened sexual liberty of todayhas not produced the social freedom and happiness many thought it

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

would. Instead, modern society features rampant child abuse and violent pornography, the dehumanization of women, and epidemic social diseases. Indeed,
in the eighties and nineties the Playboy philosophy lived-out could be fatal.
While it is true that ethical egoism is not the sole culprit of all these problems,
it has largely provided the ethical foundation and moral impetus for their rise.
The theorys stubborn persistence is testimony to the naked power of selfishness
over the human being. For classic discussion of the social consequences of insufficient cultural awareness of mans intransigent selfishness, see Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1932).
68. See Sullivan, Reconstucting Public Philosophy, pp. 72ff, for discussion of how
liberal individualism strongly inclines toward egoism, and how historically liberal philosophy, through the utilitarian and social contract traditions, has attempted, obviously unsuccessfully, to inspire citizens to rise above raw
selfishness.
69. Sullivan, Reconstructing Public Philosophy, p. 22. See Novak, Free Persons and
the Common Good, esp. Chapter 5, for a comprehensive meditation on the possibilities of merging self-interest, rightly understood, with concern for the general
social welfare, and so forging a truly morally reflective political culture and society substantially capable of sustaining a genuinely high regard for human dignity.

2
THE IMPORTANCE OF
DESERT
We shall turn from the soft vices in which a civilization decays, we
shall return to the stern virtues by which a civilization is made, we
shall do this because, at long last, we know that we must, because
finally we begin to see that the hard way is the only enduring way.
Walter Lippmann

Having surveyed the disrepair of the contemporary liberal mindseen

in its anthropological optimism, misapprehension of human dignity, and
captivity to the meaningless, relativist thrall of postmodernismwe are
now in a position to focus more tightly on a concept I contend is equally
central to modern liberalisms dysfunction, and one that if reconstructed
from its current misunderstanding could serve a restorative function in
our public life. This is the concept of desert, or deservingness.1

DESERT
In many ways the idea of desert is out of fashion today. The relativist
ethos of our culture and the primacy of equality as a socially organizing
value have made it difficult to speak of merit or desert, for this is an
idea that inherently differentiates people from one another. Desert introduces categories and a hierarchy of condition to life, and this is anathema
to the morally leveling spirit of todays liberalism. To think in terms of
desert means to designate some people as diligent and successful at
having met the conditions of desert, and some not; some talented in a
certain way, and some not; some personally responsible, and some not;
some worthy of reward, and some unworthy. This is not a direction of
contemplation comfortable to an ideology averse to behavioral distinc-

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

tions. Contemporary liberalism, of course, is not averse to distinctions

based on race, gender, and class, but it is comparatively uninterested in
differences centering on behavioral qualities.
In an important way, desert is a basic element of our natural moral
sense and an ethical touchstone we rely on in our daily lives. It is an
important tool of moral analysis that we readily employ, believing it to
be a valid arbitrative device. Generally speaking, human beings manifest
a sense of justice and fairness, an ethical compass not whollyor perhaps even substantiallydependent on socialization and culture. While
certainly an element of social construction is present, and while certainly
moral particularities can vary with time and place, human beings think
in moral terms without having been trained, instructed, or cued to do
so.2 While the acuity of this sense is more comprehensive and developed
in some individuals than in othersand more cultivated by some societies than by otherseveryone, especially children, seem to have an innate objection to inequity and unfairness.3 We want to see people receive
what is rightly theirs, and when they do not, or when they receive what
they do not deserve, we believe an offense has occurred, justice has not
been done, and some manner of effective and fair rectification is in order.
We certainly feel this way when we ourselves are the victims of inequity.
So we feel the claims of both positive and negative desert, and are aggrieved when they are not met.
Under the auspices of contemporary liberalism during the last half of
this century, one of the major public outrages has been the lenient treatment afforded violent criminals.4 With a dominant penology that privileges rehabilitation over punishment, understanding over anger, and
compassion over blame, contemporary liberalismsteered by professional policy-makers, knowledge-class elites, and litigious interest
groupshas again alienated the common sensibilities of much of the
general public. Modern liberalism and its sentinels have never really
understood the desire of the public to see those people who are guilty
of crimes, especially violent assaults on the innocent, receive their just
deserts of severe punishment. Todays liberalism tends to chide such
reactions as vigilantism and mean-spirited right-wing hysteria,
sometimes claiming a surreptitious racism on the part of those calling
for stiffer penalties.5
Yet, it would seem reasonable to assert that morally mature people
naturally feel a sense of outrage and moral anger at deeds of great evil.
Genocide, murder, gratuitous and systematic torture, deliberate and purposive betrayal of pure trust, and hypocrisy are all deeds that morally
responsible persons find not simply immoral, but revolting. Our sometimes visceral reactions to these heinous, intentional actions reflect the
presence inside us of a strong sense of desert. People should get what
they deserve. We demand retribution for great wrongdoing; that is, the

The Importance of Desert

45

perpetrators of moral crimes ought to, in some tangible, meaningful way,

pay for having so chosen to act. They should be punished for what they
have done.
While the specific prescription for retribution may vary widely, there
is present still the understanding that intrinsic human dignitypossessed by both the perpetrator(s) and victim(s) of crimesas well as
simple justice require a penalty for egregious ethical transgressions. The
innocent should not be allowed to be violated or destroyed with impunity by assailants. This is a point tellingly echoed by Peter Berger when
he writes:
There are deeds that demand not only condemnation, but damnation in the
full religious meaning of the wordthat is, the doer not only puts himself
outside the community of men; he also separates himself in a final way
from a moral order that transcends the human community, and thus invokes a retribution that is more than human. . . . The massacre of the innocent . . . suggests the necessity of hellnot so much as a confirmation of
Gods justice, but rather as a vindication of our own.6

Berger is suggesting that some deeds, or strings of deeds, are so vile,

so heinous, and so essentially evil as to merit and justly require nothing
less than damnation to meet the demands of the humannot to mention
divinesense of fairness. Desert must be observed. Holding persons
genuinely and proportionally accountable for their free actions is a primary intuition of human moral awareness, and is required if one is truly
to respect free human agency and autonomy.
So desert as a concept is primary to the human moral experience and
is a good candidate for a focus of any deliberation concerning the conditions of justice and the proper inferences about social organization to
be drawn from the realities of human constitution and human dignity.
Rawls
Almost since the advent of contemporary liberalisms political hegemony in American culture, a reign that we might date from the effective
sacking of the elite universities by student radicals during the mid1960s,7 the polestar of discussions about desert and material entitlement
has been John Rawlss 1971 monument, A Theory of Justice.8 It therefore
merits extended discussion here. After alluding to some key themes of
Rawlss singularly influential theory of justice and its pivotal conception
of the human person, we will advance an alternative, skeletal communitarian understanding of the substance of the person through discussion
of central Rawlsean themes, all with an eye toward accurately understanding the nature of desert.

46

Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

It is not an overstatement to credit Rawls with having singlehandedly

defined the agenda of contemporary political theory.9 His reckoning of
justice as fairness and the tools he employs in his deliberations about the
conditions of fair social organization largely embody the culturally pervasive spirit of contemporary liberalism, and so serve as a valuable focus
of study.10
A centerpiece of Rawlss approach is to place individuals in the original position behind a veil of ignorance, where they are unaware of
their talents, abilities, socioeconomic standing, specific interests, and anything that differentiates them from others. Persons behind the veil are
free, rational, and self-concerned, but lack individualized tastes and interests. The parties in this position do have particular conceptions of the
good, but they do not actually know the substance of these conceptions;
they only know that they value certain primary social goods, such as
rights, liberties, opportunities and powers, income, and wealth.11
Rawls postulates two principles that he asserts rational contractors in
the original position would consensually adopt.12 The first principle
maintains that each person should have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. The
second principle holds that inequalities of all kinds should be arranged
so as to benefit the least advantaged. It is this difference principle
which is his primary instrument of distributive justice.
Rawlss view of social justice is grounded in the questionable idea that
human beings in their social role are mainly disinterested, calculating
individuals. He assumes that individuals logically precede any social
belonging or sense of prior relatedness. But this liberal assumption works
to isolate individuals and strip them of the social ties and historical lineaments that lend meaning to the very kind of social contract Rawls is
postulating. Importantly, as we will see later, in the Rawlsean archetectonic, the fittingness of the radically autonomous, independent choosing
self of contemporary liberalism is clearly assumed. I would suggest,
however, that as an ethical heuristic Rawlss portrayal does not authentically and comprehensively account for true human experience and the
means by which individual persons actually deliberate. As Richard John
Neuhaus has pointed out, Rawlss theory, though apparently mindful of
the individual, in fact eclipses the individual by depriving him of the
personal particularities that are constitutive of individuality. Behind
Rawlss veil, genuine humanity recedes, and those situated there are in
fact nonpersons.13 Larry Churchill explains:
Not only is the Rawlsean contract a hypothetical agreement that never
happened, it is an agreement which could only be made by persons who
never existed and never could exist. . . . The hypothetical nature of the contract removes it from history, but more importantly, the mono-dimensional

The Importance of Desert

47

contracting agents are not fulsome persons with whom we can identify,
but logical constructs which we can merely apprehend as rational ideal
types. We never were, nor will we ever be, stripped of the particularities
of place, social role, and circumstance because these are not mere accidental
attachments to our essential . . . nature. The historical particularities are us;
they are the way we find our identity at all, and they require a social
ambiance which is given rather than wholly chosen by acts of will.14

Rawls and the Identity of Persons

What then does it mean to be a person? In what does individual, constant human identity consist? The contemporary scholarly debate over
the nature of the person has been formed largely around the conceptions
presented in A Theory of Justice and the many responses to it. Rawls, the
social liberal, and his communitarian critics have argued for mutually
exclusive notions of human constitution, with Rawls claiming that people are essentially formal satisfiers of wants and preferences, and his
various critics countering, in different ways, that people are more thickly
constituted, only fully comprehensible in terms of their social selves.15
These two polar general conceptions have perdured for two decades.
Echoing the Rawlsean understanding have been various authors, including Richard Rorty, Bruce Ackerman, Will Kymlicka, and Ronald Dworkin.16 Articulating versions of a more substantial definition of the self
have been writers like Michael Sandel, William Sullivan, Mary Ann Glendon, Alisdair MacIntyre, and Charles Taylor.17 Between them, these two
positions have functioned as the major anthropological presuppositions
for both liberal and conservative politics in postVietnam America, and
they have jointly limned the dominant conceptions of the self and individual identity which have undergirded a wide range of deliberations
about the nature of the human person.
Only a description of the human self that consciously focuses on human dignityits meaning and implications for public lifeis able to
forge a viable public passageway through the labyrinth of conflicting
political values and cultural histories, a path open to all citizens of goodwill, regardless of their ultimate values. The rudimentary philosophy of
human identity I will outline contains three elements. Each of these elements seems indispensable to the human self and is indicative of the
sui generis gravity that inheres in being human. It should be noted, however, that they are not intended to be a comprehensive description of
human identity, but rather only a statement of some necessary and universal aspects of personhood. That is, people are, and have, at least these
aspects and quite possibly additional features.
The first piece of this triune anthropology is a view of the self as in
some general sense partly constituted by the relationships it has with

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

others. This is the essential communitarian idea that has been developed
in some detail by Michael Sandel, Alisdair MacIntyre, Stanley Hauerwas,
Michael Novak, Amitai Etzioni, and a number of other writers.18
As articulated by Sandel vis-a`-vis Rawls, the communitarian claim is
that Rawlss theory of justice presupposes an intersubjective conception
of the person that Rawls himself officially rejects and repudiates. Sandel
insists that if Rawls is to be true to his classic liberal heritage and avoid
using some persons as means to others ends, he must acknowledge that
there is indeed a common subject of possession, that those who share in
the use of my assets are not strictly to be seen as others, but rather as
individuals who, through my relationships and attachments with them,
participate in the genuine constitution of my identity as a human being.19
So where Rawls explicitly enunciates the separation of a person and his
attributes, this view, which Sandel says Rawls must hold to avoid inconsistency and incoherence, qualifies the distinction between persons
by allowing for the possibility that a description of the true self may
encompass more than one single empirically individuated human being.20 In other words, the boundaries of a person do not necessarily correspond to the bodily individuation of human beings. Relationships and
their quality are partially constitutive of human identity and consciousness. This is not to say that the hermit or shut-in is less of a human being
than the gadfly, but simply that their human experience and psychic
development as a self is not as existentially textured and personally enriched as it could be.21 By the same token, however, neither should human identity be understood as radically communal.
Rawls, at some points, appears to be congenial toward this communitarian intersubjective conception of the self.22 In the end, however, he
cannot accept it, since it would mean amending his anthropology to acknowledge that the human self is not as thin as he has arguedand
contemporary liberalism understood. Rawls is unwilling to do this because his philosophical anthropology, as he has enunciated it, must remain unchanged if the original position is to function effectively as the
device of representation and the generator of the social contract.
Rawlss anthropology disallows for the possibility that the human self
could be touched at its core by relationships between people, because,
in Rawlss account, such attachments can be possessed only by the self,
who is always at a certain distance from them. They can never be constitutive of who that self actually is. But the intersubjective conception
seems to better approximate our actual experience of understanding ourselves, in part at least, by the persons and institutions with whom we
have intimate social intercourse. This means that we regard others as
moral subjects, like us, who are capable, indeed consigned, to this dialectical process of partly establishing and discovering our identities

The Importance of Desert

49

through our continual interactions with others. Brian Crowley summarizes this general idea:
To realise our full potential as people, we must be capable of, open to, and
engage in such intersubjective attachments while they, in turn, help to define who we are. Such relationships are partly constitutive of who we are,
and to that extent our reflection on, and reasoning about, that part of our
deeper self will entail the coming to self-awareness of an intersubjective
being, whose boundaries transcend those of the individuals it comprises.23

So then the intersubjective conception goes beyond the thin self of

Rawls and hypermodern liberalism to a self thickened by its unavoidable
relationship to others, a self in part, but by no means totally, defined by
the intersubjective dimension.
This constitutive dimension, though significant, is partial, because otherwise we would be guilty of misapprehending the self as radically situated and completely embedded in its social context, and as a result
basically indistinguishable from it. Thereby it would be diminished as a
fully free and self-responsible moral agent. Such a situation, as we previously said, is the polar opposite of Rawlss radically disembodied self,
which is so thin and dispossessed that it is an idea stripped of any meaning. Thus, as a representational imageas part of the original position
it is not an effective intellectual vessel. It is this middle way of intersubjectivity, in which, in Crowleys words,
the self chooses the kind of life it will lead and the values it will have, but
against a background of ties and commitments (themselves not necessarily
chosen) which give meaning and moral substance to those choices.24

So, by explicitly acknowledging the element of intersubjectivity, we can

begin to move toward an understanding of the human self that is cognitively meaningful and plausibly accounts for the construction of human identity.
In addition to intersubjectivity, the second part of the alternative philosophical anthropology we are examining features a person who is partially constituted by the reality of his self-awareness. That is, the
individual is self-cognizant and able to understand himself as that genus
of being which is human, with all the potentialities and intentions that
awareness allows. In other words, the human being as a moral subject
under normal circumstances and at some meaningful levelis aware of
itself as such, and this very awareness and its construal by the self is an
important part of who the person is.25 Self-awareness is a thickening trait
that is partly constitutive of ones identity.
Admittedly, self-knowledge is a rather subjective and self-defined

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

idea, but it is not without any check whatsoever. The key to establishing
the trustworthiness of self-knowledge is realizing that it takes place primarily in a social context. That is, the self-reflective experience of other
people, though not defining my own self-awareness, can nonetheless
serve as a background of accumulated experience and discovery against
which I can compare my own discoveries. In this way, the self-awareness
of others serves as a kind of general guide to my own self-discovery,
one that can help inform and interpret my own experience. Crowley
summarizes the necessity of a social context for self-knowledge:
Self-knowledge, then, can only be achieved in a social context in which
each struggles to render intelligible to others what one has discovered. A
being incapable of offering an account of his actions or of articulating his
sense of self, cuts himself off from the best available check on error: the
experience of other beings like himself.26

This concept is hardly novel. Classical Greek philosophy had a notion

of the self and of human nature. It held these ideas to be objectively
meaningful and capable of being known. To the Greeks the most noble
human endeavor was the quest to know human essence and to strive to
live in conformity with it.27 So it would seem that it is not straining
credulity for us to suggest that authentic self-knowledge, as a constituent
of our selfhood, is attainable and best forged in a social context.
The third element of our sketch of personal identity is the contention
that every human self is partially composed of an intrinsic human dignity and worth. Note: this is not the Rawlsean distinction between person
and attribute, holding that each person has attributes of which they, from
a distance, possess. Rather, I am locating this dignity in the core of the
persons themselves, making it a constitutive part of their human identity.
It is inseparable from being human.
As we indicated in Chapter 1, intrinsic human dignity is effectively
grounded in the religious themes of the Judeo-Christian tradition. But I
would like to take a brief detour into the possibility of providing a deliberately public and purposely nonsectarian base for human dignity.
Toward that end I will now advance four reasons, which in my view
appeal only to common human experience.
First, the mannishness of man, the distinct ontological otherness
about him, indicates to us the specialness of the human being. He is
uniquely creative, connected to history in the function of his memory
and to the future through his aspirations. He has hopes and fears, including, importantly, an often overwhelming consciousness and fear of
death and judgment. Human awareness and concern for the aesthetic
similarly reveals this distinctiveness of being. There is within the human
heart, all things being equal, a sensealbeit easily corruptibleof the
gravitas of human life.28

The Importance of Desert

51

Second, the conscience of man, which can be a very powerful force,

stands as a signal that differentiates him from all other living beings.29
All persons, at some level, have an innate sense of the moral quality of
their actions. This idea has much in common with the Kantian theme of
Achtung, or respect for the force of law which all people feel impinging
on their mind. The human individual merits the status of intrinsic worth
in part because he is a being so constituted as to be concerned, sometimes
profoundly, about the moral value of his actions.30
Third, human dignity can be partially grounded in the psychological
generalization that under normal circumstances (e.g., not in the heat of
combat or in the throes of deep depression or mental illness), no one
thinks of himself as expendable or replaceable. That is, we understand
ourselves to be existentially unique and, perhaps in a vague and unarticulated way, important. We resist the idea that we, as human individuals, can be blatantly used as mere means to utilitarian ends. Of course,
this is a broad psychological generalization that makes no pretense of
being sociologically demonstrable. I am only urging readers to consider
whether or not their self-understanding includes the idea that they are,
as human beings, totally replaceableor replicablecommodities or entities with no uniquely differentiating personality features. I maintain
that people do not normally see themselves in this instrumental way,
and that as an absolutely unique and irreplaceable human person, every
individual merits being accorded profound intrinsic worth.
Fourth, the very existence of millennia of human philosophical reflection indicates a unique human concern for truth and value, a concern
that should issue in deep respect for human life. Although this idea has
clear similarities with our earlier point about mans moral sense, it is not
the same. For I am here pointing to the mass of human cogitation, the
history of knowledge and reflection, and holding it to be indicative of
an intrinsic human quality, viz., dignity, which must be highly esteemed.
The reality of mans reflectivity bespeaks a universal capacity for nobleness and inherent worth that can contribute to a meaningful public
grounding and recognition of intrinsic human dignity.
This dignity, in conjunction with mans intersubjectivity and selfawareness presents a textured view of the self and societyand their
interrelationshipwhich most accurately reflects their reciprocally
dependent dynamic and the primary constitution of the individual person.
Rawls and the Right Versus the Good
It is a central feature of contemporary liberalism and its most sophisticated theoretical expressions that the right decisively precedes the
good as a moral principle and as a basic organizing concept of ethics
and political institutions. It is well beyond the scope of this study to

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

delve into this idea in significant detail, but it is of sufficient moment

that we should consider it briefly, not only because of the intrinsic importance of the issue itself, but also because the priority of the right over
the good is, in a subtle way, fundamental to conceptions of desert we
will discuss later.
Immanuel Kant, the philosophical inspiration for much of Rawlss
work, believed that people were essentially autonomous and selfdirecting. They were to be understood as authors of values and ends in
themselves, the ultimate authority of which is derived from the fact that
they are willed freely, freely chosen, and universalizable. This means that
human beings are self-determining, that persons must not be seen as
mere means to ends, and that there is no basis for preferringespecially
in the public squareone persons ultimate values and vision of the
good life to anothers. Kant agreed with the empiricist theme that knowledge begins with experience, but he also agreed with the rationalist claim
that the human mind has a central and formative role in our knowledge
of reality. Thus, sensual experience constitutes the primary input for
our knowledge, but all such data are inevitably conceptualized within
the human mind. This elaborate conceptualization process (which occurs
naturally or automatically so that the person does not have to will
it to happen) involves what Kant called the Forms of Intuition (e.g., time
and space) and the Pure Concepts of Understanding (e.g., quantity and
quality). Never are phenomena experienced directly; rather, they are filtered through this lens, this natural perceptual apparatus of the human mind. The mind does not simply and directly reflect or mirror the
order of nature, it actively constitutes that order. Thus, a human being
is always at a certain epistemic distance from the object of putative
knowledge, say, for example, God or goodness; he is always one step
removed from the object of perception as it is in itself. Only phenomenal
knowledge is available to each individual, knowledge of the thing as it
appears to the person, after having been affected by the human interpretive process.31
Rawls, working from within this tradition, sought rationally to establish principles of just social and political organization which would be
untainted, on the one hand, from subjective individual experience, and
on the other hand, from external contingencies, for example, the Good.
Detaching his work from Kants metaphysical underpinnings, Rawls
as we have describedsought to ground principles of justice in the discovery procedure he called the original position, where thin persons
stripped of personal attributes and other contingent aspects are placed
behind the veil of ignorance. Importantly, for Rawls, the most attractive virtue of this arrangement is that each individuals pursuit of happiness, as he understands it, is unconstrained by parochial conceptions
of the good (as conceived by others), which the individual may not have

The Importance of Desert

53

chosen. Rawlss whole model is an example of privileging the right over

the good, founded on a purely procedural as opposed to substantive
conception of justice, intended to be uncommitted to any unacceptable
axiological particularities. Michael Sandel crystallizes the Rawlsean
and I would suggest contemporary liberalrationale for strongly prioritizing the right before the good:
According to Rawls, a just society does not try to cultivate virtue or impose
on its citizens any particular ends. Rather, it provides a framework of
rights, neutral among ends, within which persons can pursue their own
conceptions of the good, consistent with a similar liberty for others. This
is the claim that the right is prior to the good, and it is this claim that
defines the liberalism of the procedural republic.32

But does Rawlss theory, and the modern liberal posture it has so critically influenced provide enough substantive information about human
beings to ethically inform our treatment of our fellows? It seems that it
does not, inasmuch as it leaves certain vital questions largely unanswered: In what general dispositions and endeavors does human happiness consist? What is the purpose of a community? What does it
mean to respect another person? What does it mean to exercise autonomy? Each of these questions drives at a particular yet transpersonal
human telos, but the liberal mind is officially committed to not recognizing any such human unity, and with the contemporary liberal denial of
a static human nature, it is ill-equipped anyway to support such an idea.
Thus, it would seem that Rawlss approach is not morally informative
in a practical sense. Indeed, this is a problem inherent in the prioritizing
of the right over the good, and it is only exacerbated by the essentially
formal nature of the thin person of ethical liberalism who seeks happiness, desires community, and deserves respect.
Indeed, as Michael Sandel further explains, the arrangement of the
right over the good is directly related to the radically shorn image of the
self which characterizes Rawlsean liberalism. Sandel writes,
The priority of the self over its ends means I am never defined by my aims
and attachments but am always capable of standing back to survey and
assess and possibly to revise them. This is what it means to be a free and
independent self, capable of choice. And this is the vision of the self that
finds expression in the ideal of the state as a neutral framework. On the
rights-based ethic, it is precisely because we are essentially separate, independent selves that we need a neutral framework, a framework of rights
that refuses to choose among competing purposes and ends. If the self is
prior to its ends, then the right must be prior to the good.33

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

This conception of the person misses the reality that the question
What is good for persons? is not separable from a substantive answer
to the specific question Who or what am I? And this latter question
iscontra Rawlsnot answerable apart from a deliberate consideration
of the real and actual place and roles in society that I occupy, situations
that are necessarily, if partially, constitutive of my person.34
But if this is so, then my good must in an important sense be related
to the good of those around me, the people who are part of the various
communities and associations that partly contribute to who I am. As
Alisdair MacIntyre put it, What is good for me has to be the good for
one who inhabits these [same] roles.35 Thus, in the program of contemporary liberalism, my isolated considerations of my good, based on my
personal wants, feelings, and inclinations whatever they may be at this
time, run the risk of violating the autonomy and intrinsic worthiness of
others. For in deliberating and establishing my own good I draw on and
interact with the wills and lives of other free moral agents, who, if my
private and radically individuated quest for the good is to be successful,
mayin fact, despite theoretical safeguards to the contrarybe required
to subjugate their preferences to mine. The question What is good for
me? cannot be strictly independent of the question What is good for
others?
To this, someone in the tradition of Rawls may reply: Whatever the
true essence of the self may be, and whatever the human summum bonum
may be, pluralistic societies bear divergent understandings of it, as well
as of morality itself. Thus, we must strive for an overlapping consensus
among the myriad reasonable but disparate worldviews. We must eschew privileging one notion of the good above others, except to say that
persons should be treated fairly and their rights should be respected,
and that individuals should be free to mutually pursue their own ends
within a broad circle of personal responsibility, respect for others liberties, and the rule of law.36
Does this manner of defense truly work? I think not, but even if for
the sake of discussion we assume it does, it succeeds only at the expense
of effectively constituting a remarkably thickened theory of the good. As
Charles Taylor has pointed out, an inevitable incoherence attaches to the
minimalist insistence on the thin theory of the good which the right over
the good requires, for it is the good, in its expression, that gives the
[very] point of the rules which define the right.37 Without the normative
distinctions that inform a substantial view of the good, we are unable to
realize the ethical significance of the actions and sentiments that our
moral intuitions, which Rawls fully acknowledges, enjoin upon us.38
Thus, the practical exercise of the right over the good requires a moral
particularity that liberals do not wish to acknowledge. Mulhall and Swift
summarize this aspect of Taylors critique:

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55

Taylor argues that if the grounds for accepting the priority of the right are
fully articulated, they will be found to constitute a very substantive sense
of the good, one in which a set of qualitative distinctions hangs together
with a particular ontological account of human nature. . . . The absolute
priority assigned to the right over the good reflects Rawls assignment of
absolute priority to the value of autonomy; it reflects the fact that autonomy is the Rawlsian hypergood. Reliance upon a hypergood is not in itself
a flaw in any moral theory; it is rather de rigueur.39

The basic reality, then, is that the priority of the right over the good
is undeniably a normative distinction, a strong and closely held statement about the ordering of values. Furthermore, it does not hang by
itself in midair, but rather is undergirded and derived from a framework
of prior values, assumptions, and sentiments that also bear a normative
character and are themselves born of still deeper particularity.
So in terms of our discussion, it seems that perhaps the conceptual
framework of the right over the good can only be defended by deploying
some kind of substantial understanding of the good. This has the effect
of particularizing any ethics that leans heavily on such a model, and
introduces an especially meaningful normativity into the concept of
right, transforming it from a procedural formality into one more distinctive, parochial vision.
Liberalisms positing of the right as conceptually prior to the good is
caught on the horns of a simple dilemma: If it wishes to remain above
the philosophical fray between rival conceptions of the good, it risks
being so formal as to be ethically vacuous. On the other hand, if it enters
into a detailed defense of its basic neutrality as a conceptual order, it
becomes effectively yet another distinctive vision of the good, wedded
to antecedent philosophical and quite possibly religious assumptions
detailed ideas that cannot be authentically unbiased as to competing understandings of the good.
Justice as Redistribution?
If, then, there is an inevitability of particularity in political theory and
social organization, what is the most appropriate conception of the person? Can the unencumbered, shorn, rational chooser of rights-based liberalism still be sustained, or is the more situated, complex, social self of
communitarianism which we have discussed preferable? This inquiry
into the substance of a person (his essence, attributes, inclinations, abilities), the content of the immaterial human self, is central to considerations of desert, since we must first have a substantive understanding of
the person before we can significantly ponder what he deserves, as a
person.

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

But even prior to meaningful talk about desert and the outlines of
human self-constitution, it is important for us to realize that consideration of these topics is perhaps most significantlythough not exclusively, of coursecarried out within the context of discussions of
distributive justice. The primary questions of the substance of human
identity and the entitlements this identity implicates are those that unavoidably arise when the basic, critical principles of socially just distribution and redistribution try to be articulated. Indeed, the absence of a
consensus on just policies of redistribution serves to underline the primacy of the underlying dispute over what a person is, and hence what
he deserves. Our general endeavor in this section then will be to analyze
the nature of desert in distributive justice and the conception of the self
it requires. Such a task would be prohibitively broad if this very discussion was not well represented in the seminal works of Rawls and Robert
Nozick, which we will now descriptively compare on this general point.
From a practical political standpoint, Rawls and Nozick take diametrically opposite positions. Nozicks libertarianism stands in stark contrast
to the egalitarianism of Rawls, who has been typified as a welfare state
liberal.40 Yet, despite their divergent conclusions, it is worth noting that
both have much in common philosophically.41 First, both define their
theories in explicit opposition to utilitarianism, which they, consistent
with their shared liberal framework, see as obliterating the vital distinction between persons. Second, and further evidencing their shared philosophical roots, both Rawls and Nozick describe their positions as rights
based, and therefore in their view ensuring the liberty of individuals.
Although Nozicks position is highly Lockean, both he and Rawls appeal
to the Kantian principle of treating people as ends, not means, and they
portray their theories as embodying this ideal.42 Furthermore, they see
no social entity beyond the individual, and they emphatically agree on
the plurality and distinctness of persons, heaping calumny on the utilitarian tradition for diminishing this point. Yet, despite this rather substantial philosophical agreement, these two thinkers represent views on
the redistribution of wealth that are at polar opposites. In an effort to
uncover key elements of their respective understandings of the human
person, we will now locate their point of departure on this matter from
one another.
In discussing the distribution of economic benefits, Rawls considers
three principles that could serve as regulative and normative. The first
of these is what he refers to as a system of natural liberty. This view
defines as just and acceptable any distribution that results from the workings of an efficient market economy in which legal equality of opportunity dominates. The second position Rawls calls liberal equality,
which he sees as essentially the same as a standard meritocracy. Third,
Rawls suggests his own theory of distribution, democratic equality,

The Importance of Desert

57

which is based on his celebrated difference principle (inequalities should

be permitted only insofar as they benefit the least advantaged members
of society). It is in the course of discussing the merits of these three ideals
of economic justice that Rawls fully reveals his view of the human self
as a moral subject.
Rawls disagrees with a system based on natural liberty on the grounds
that it tends merely to replicate or reproduce the initial distribution of
individual talents and assets. That is, those possessing the economically
lucrative talents and abilities, or the requisite features to obtain those
talents and abilities, will inevitably end up better endowed economically
than those who did not possess those abilities or the means to obtain
those abilities. Rawls further argues that the results of the initial distribution are just only insofar as the initial distribution of assets itself is
just. And he maintains that this initial distribution is patently unjust and
simply arbitrary, the product of fortuity.43 Since there is nothing to demonstrate the justice of initial endowments, to install them in the name of
justice is to embrace pure luck and mistakenly call it not only fair, but
also just and tolerable.
Rawls sees the principle of liberal equality as slightly less unfair, since
it purposes to go beyond mere formal equality of opportunity and compensate for personal, social, and cultural disadvantages by equal educational opportunities, redistributive practices, and other social policies.
This would all be intended to provide people with the same prospect
of success regardless of their initial place in the social system, that is,
irrespective of the income class into which they are born.44
But Rawls still considers this to be too acquiescent to the arbitrary
winds of fortuity. He holds the influence of social and cultural contingencies to be simply too great to allow for any just economic results.
Those born into favorable sociocultural frameworks are thereby given an
advantage that has no basis in justice. In such circumstances a true meritocracy is simply impossible. To Rawls, both natural liberty and liberal
equality are equally arbitrary, and for the same essential reasons, from
a moral standpoint.45 In Rawlss mind, the same reasoning that leads us
to prefer liberal equality over natural liberty will also lead us to prefer
his democratic equality, based on the centrally important difference
principle, to liberal equality.
Rawlss difference principle, however, has been convincingly criticized
as being no more than a clumsy leveling agent. That is, it does not just
strive for equality of opportunity, but rather for rigid equality of result.
Critics have suggested that anyone who rejects a meritocracy on the
grounds that its consequences are morally arbitrary (as Rawls does) must
be committed to a meddlesome, hyperinterventionist philosophy that
would unrealistically necessitate constant readjustment of distributive
shares to rectify persisting discrepancies of native talent, abilities, effort,

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

and personal success. Among the most prominent of these critics has
been Daniel Bell. He writes:
Rawls concludes that one cannot equalize opportunity, one can only bend
it towards another purposethe equality of result. . . . We have here a fundamental rationale for a major shift in values: Instead of the principle
from each according to his ability, to each according to his ability, we
have the principle from each according to his ability, to each according
to his need. And the justification for need is fairness to those who are
disadvantaged for reasons beyond their control. With Rawls, we have the
most comprehensive effort in modern philosophy to justify a socialist
ethic.46

Charles Frankel has voiced a similar concern, arguing that people do

play a vital and unavoidable role in the formation of their character
despite the influences of environment, which Rawls so heavily stresses.
He also suggests that Rawlss understanding of justice as fairness critically diminishes human responsibility:
. . . [T]he man of twenty in possession of a superior character that enables
him to cultivate his abilities, can usually be shown to have done something
to produce this character . . . a theory of justice which treats the individual
as not an active participant in the determination of his fate, and which is
guided by the model of life as a lottery, is unlikely to strengthen peoples
sense of personal responsibility.47

For Rawls the basic purpose of the difference principle, which is the
foundation of his distributive philosophy, is to arrange the state of benefits and burdens so that the least advantaged may participate in the
very resources generated by the fortunate and privileged.48 Michael
Sandel concisely describes the basis and effect of Rawlss difference principle:
The difference principle is not simply a fuller version of the principle of
fair opportunity; it attacks the problem of arbitrariness in a fundamentally
different way. Rather than transform the conditions under which I exercise
my talents, the difference principle transforms the moral basis on which I
claim the benefits that flow from them. No longer am I to be regarded as
the sole proprietor of my assets, or privileged recipient of the advantages
they bring. . . . In this way the difference principle acknowledges the arbitrariness of fortune by asserting that I am not really the owner but merely
the guardian or repository of the talents and capacities that happen to
reside in me, and as such have no special moral claim on the fruits of their
exercise.49

The Importance of Desert

59

Clearly, then, Rawls regards a persons talents and assets (possessions)

as common, not individual. That is, the abilities and character traits I
have do not strictly belong to me, but rather they are the common assets
of everyone. That being the case, justice requires that all benefit from
these common assetseven though I am the one exercising them. The
difference principle monitors the corporate benefits of my labor. Although the difference principle as an idea is clearly inclined to egalitarianism, Rawls holds it is ultimately the fact of our common assets that
ensures our common fate. Thus, the difference principle functions as a
sort of socialistic governor within Rawlss overall philosophical framework, so that inequalities in either wealth or talents always work to
improve the status of the least advantaged, before they work to increase
the status of the fortunate.
It is abundantly clear at this point that Rawlss main ideas are working
to seriously diminish any role for desert. He readily acknowledges that
the difference principle and his notion of common assets clash with traditional understandings of desert: There is a natural inclination to object
that those better situated deserve their greater advantages whether or
not they are to the benefit of others.50
But Rawls maintains that the usual conceptions of desert are without
question incorrect. He thinks that the argument from arbitrariness bears
this out:
It seems to be one of the fixed points of our considered judgment that no
one deserves his place in the distribution of native endowments, any more
than one deserves ones initial starting place in society. . . . The assertion
that a man deserves the superior character that enables him to make the
effort to cultivate his abilities is equally problematic; for his character depends in large part upon fortunate family and social circumstances for
which he can claim no credit. The notion of desert seems not to apply to
these cases.51

Rawls essentially maintains that all the wealth an individual has is in

significant part the product of fortuity, and not deserved. To Rawls, even
the willingness to strive for economic success is the result of arbitrary
sociocultural and familial forces, and so the fortunately situated individual is not entitled in any credible moral sense to exclusively benefit from
his success. Although I am entitled to benefits that legally come my way
within a given social polity, there is no reason to believe that I am entitled to have this polity, which rewards the virtues I possess, to be in
force rather than some alternative arrangement. So, Rawls says, the welloff person
cannot say that he deserves and therefore has a right to a scheme of cooperation in which he is permitted to acquire benefits in ways that do not

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

contribute to the welfare of others. There is no basis for his making this
claim.52

So not only is the initial distribution of personal assets and talents

arbitrary, but so is the social organization one finds oneself in. Since this
is the case, to Rawls the most forceful argument anyone can make for a
concept of desert is that one is entitled to the benefits answering the
legitimate expectations created by public institutions. This falls far short
of traditional ideas of desert based on personal effort, personal character,
or other personal actions.53
So it is Rawlss anthropological notion of common assets that largely
underlies his theory of distributive justice, empowers his difference principle, and significantly shapes his philosophical anthropology.54 Given
that the doctrine of common assets is so heavily freighted, it is worth
noting that itas well as the difference principle and many key aspects
of his social understandingare derived from the hypothetical, preexperiential postulate of the original position, an instrument hardly
recognized as an unproblematic starting point.55
At any rate, the pivotal anthropological issue of possession, which we
have been discussing in terms of Rawlss view of assets as common, is
a topic that is plainly controversial and lends itself to variant characterizations, as Robert Nozicks similarly influential ideas on this point illustrate.
Nozicks defense of natural liberty and his reply to Rawlss assertion
of the commonality of assets stresses the inviolability of the individual
and the clear separateness of persons, classically liberal themes:
People will differ in how they view regarding natural talents as a common
asset. Some will complain, echoing Rawls against utilitarianism, that this
does not take seriously the distinction between persons; and they will
wonder whether any reconstruction of Kant that treats peoples abilities
and talents as resources for others can be adequate. The two principles
of justice . . . rule out even the tendency to regard men as means to one
anothers welfare. Only if one presses very hard on the distinction between men and their talents, assets, abilities and special traits.56

Here Nozick is highlighting the fact that Rawls makes a sharp separation between the human self and its various possessions (talents, abilities, etc.). This distinction is key, because it allows Rawls to advocate,
in liberal fashion, the priority of the self over its ends and the concomitant primacy of right over good, as well as enabling him to offer an
elaborate defense of his difference principle.
In the passage just quoted above, Nozick is intimating that Rawlss
notion of common assets is untrue to its liberal Kantian heritage because

The Importance of Desert

61

it opens the door for some people to be used as a means by other people.
That is, the talents resident in one person could be utilized to serve the
purposes of someone else. But to Rawls this objection fails to realize that
my attributes (talents, intelligence, even effort) are only accidentally
mine, the product of mere contingency, and are incidental and nonessential to my identity as a person. They are more properly regarded as
societys. For Rawls all personal endowments are accidental and separable from the self, whose antecedent value and priority are therefore
secured by its ability always to remain differentiated and separated from
social circumstances and conditions. This is the aspect of the liberal self
that preserves its identity, by securing its invulnerability to transformation by experience.57
In this way Rawls believes he avoids the inconsistency of using some
people as means to others ends. Since the self is not identical to its
possessions, it is the possessions and not the self that is being used. But
inasmuch as he does this, he invites an important related objection that
Nozick addresses:
Whether any coherent conception of a person remains when the distinction
[between self and attributes] is so pressed is an open question. Why we
thick with particular traits, should be cheered that (only) the thus purified
men within us are not regarded as means is also unclear.58

Nozick perceives correctly, I think, that to maintain that it is only my

assets, and not me, which is being used as a means to someone elses
ends is to breach the bounds of coherence. This is a significant shortcoming in Rawlss exposition. What exactly am I if I am not at least in part
the characteristics and traits I evidence? Rawls does not provide us with
a substantive answer to this question. Indeed, no view can, which so
comprehensively severs the self from any of its attributes. He leaves us
with a subject so empty of empirically identifiable features as to resemble
nothing more than a formal category, a philosophical abstraction. This,
ironically, has the effect of bringing into question the actual individuality
and separateness of people, since the differences between them would
be concealed. These differences would be entirely immaterial and imperceptiblein other words, of no practical significance. Further still,
inasmuch as Rawls commits himself to following this course, he is advancing the same kind of transcendent and disembodied theory of the
self as Kant.59 Yet the Kantian idealistic metaphysics of the self, which
Rawls has called a radically disembodied subject, is something Rawls
himself set out to avoid. He has explicitly criticized it as obscure and
arbitrary, and unable to produce practical principles of justice.60
Regarding desert specifically, Nozick also criticizes Rawlss position
by holding that the foundations of desert need not themselves be de-

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

served all the way down. That is, although I may not deserve, in any
direct and strong sense, the talents I have, I am still entitled to the benefits that flow from them because my possession of them is not illegitimate. Nozick disputes Rawlss notion that no one can be said to deserve
the benefits of their natural talents and abilities. He writes:
It is not true that a person earns Y only if hes earned whatever he used
in the process of earning Y. Some of the things he uses he just may have,
not illegitimately. It neednt be that the foundations underlying desert are
themselves deserved, all the way down.61

But this point about desertwhile important and validpresupposes

a theory of the person Rawls has actually already rejected. For Rawls the
traits one possesses are only related to the self, standing always at a
certain distance. They are attributes rather than constituents of the person. They belong to the person, and they are not essential to his identity.
In this way Rawls undermines the usual understanding of desert by
claiming not that I cannot deserve what is arbitrarily given (the point
Nozick refutes), but rather that I cannot possess what is arbitrarily given.
To Rawls an arbitrarily given asset cannot be an essential attribute of the
person; rather, it must remain at some distance from him.62
So it is apparent that Rawlss denial of desert does not depend on the
exact desert argument Nozick effectivelyand valuablyrefutes, but
rather on a notion of an unencumbered self, a subject of possession that
does not possess anything at all in the strong constitutive sense necessary
for desert.
Interestingly, Nozicks libertarian theory of justice as a whole has also
been criticized, in a different way. The charge is that his theoryand
libertarian theories in generalrest on the questionable supposition that
all legitimate entitlements can be traced to legitimate acts of original
acquisition.63 Nozicks libertarian zeal and Lockean character have led
him, some say, to propound a one-sided view of justice as entitlement,
a position radically distinct from Rawlss view of justice as fair redistribution. MacIntyre summarizes this criticism of Nozick:
[C]entral to Nozicks account is the thesis that all legitimate entitlements
can be traced to legitimate acts of original acquisition. But, if that is so,
there are in fact very few, and in some large areas of the world no, legitimate entitlements. The property owners of the modern world are not the
legitimate heirs of Lockean individuals who performed quasi-Lockean . . .
acts of original acquisition; they are the inheritors of those who, for example, stole, and used violence to steal the common lands of England from
the common people, vast tracts of North America from the American Indian. . . . This is the historical reality concealed behind any Lockean thesis.

The Importance of Desert

63

The lack of any principle of rectification is thus not a small side issue for
a thesis such as Nozicks; it tends to vitiate the theory as a whole.64

But as we are beginning to see, the rectifying force of Rawlss theory

which is held out as its moral vindicationis itself in danger of being
vitiated by the employ of an incoherent metaphysics of the self. In fact,
this incoherence is the primary problem with Rawlss philosophical anthropology. This is the point hinted at earlier, when we showed Rawlss
empirically unencumbered self to be ultimately very much like the overly abstract Kantian model he eschews. This radically disembodied subject, purged as it is of any assets or possessions, is essentially nothing
more than a place holder. Rawls has discussed away the person, killed
it by qualification. He has pushed the distinction between person and
attributes so far as to eliminate any meaningful or intelligible role for
the person. In Daniel Bells words The person has disappeared. Only
attributes remain.65
Rawls thinks he protects the self by detaching its fate from the fate of
its attributes and goals, contingent as they are on circumstance. True to
his liberal heritage, he has tried to preserve the autonomy of the self.
But, by so emphatically separating it from anything concrete, he effectively dissolves it into a cognitively empty abstraction. Rawls makes the
human person inviolable at the cost of also making it invisible and irrelevant. Brian Crowley nicely summarizes the inherent contradictions
of such an anthropology which seeks to understand the self as totally
unencumbered by constitutive attachments and as a radically free subject
of choice:
In the case of Rawls . . . values are seen as self-validating to the extent that
men hold them as the result of a process of choice in which they strip
themselves down, remove or ignore all desires and empirical circumstances, everything that is contingent and therefore morally arbitrary, and
then choose their values through a process of pure reasoned reflection. . . .
[but] while claiming that the liberal self is pure reason and ability to
choose, liberalism denies to the self a morally significant context within
which either reasoning or choosing can take place. . . . this view simultaneously affirms the absolute responsibility of each person for his values
and desires, because he or she has chosen them, but sees that choice as
capricious and arbitrary. The person I am is not engaged in the first crucial
choice of values, because that person, conceived as an agglomeration of
wants, desires, attachments and goals, can only exist after the choice. . . .
The abstract nature of the conception, far from being its greatest strength,
is its fatal flaw. A self without attributes and constitutive attachments cannot possibly choose, in any significant sense of that term, what its attributes
ought to be, any more than a mind bereft of knowledge can reason about
what the world or the person ought to be like.66

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

It seems clear that Rawlss argument has the paradoxical effect of disparaging the classically liberal ideals of human dignity and autonomy it
purports to enhance. Nozick, perceiving this, remarks tellingly:
So denigrating a persons autonomy and prime responsibility for his actions is a risky line to take for a theory that otherwise wishes to buttress
the dignity and self-respect of autonomous beings; especially for a theory
that founds so much (including a theory of the good) upon a persons
choices. One doubts that the unexalted picture of human beings Rawlss
theory presupposes and rests upon can be made to fit together with the
view of human dignity it is designed to lead to and embody.67

Although Rawls wants to propagate and strengthen a high view of

human dignity and the intrinsic worth of the individual person, it is the
greatest weakness and shortcoming of his theory that it holds people to
have no intrinsic worth at all, apart from whatever worth just institutions
attribute to them. I would like to draw attention to this point. To Rawls
people have no intrinsic value, prior to and independent of social structures, because he has rejected the antecedently necessary substantive theory of the person that would warrant and support this valuing. 68 Of
course, he does not baldly assert this point. It appears within the framework of his overall theoryas we have just presentedand is part of
his larger, general argument that the principles of justice should not reward virtue and moral desert but rather should encourage and enhance
the resources and talents necessary to improve everyones interests, beginning with the least advantaged.69
Rawls is effectively affirming that you and I, as human beings, derive
our value from social institutions, and not from our ontological status as
human beings. This is a blatantly instrumentalist view of people. They
are no longer seen as antecedently valuable and worthy of service by
government and social structures, but rather they have their value ascribed to them by social structures and have become the means by which
the government, as it sees fit, establishes justice and furthers equality.
Inasmuch as Rawlss macro-theory is moving in this direction, he is betraying his liberal heritage and impugning the absolute and unconditional value and dignity of the human individual.
I would assert that no set of claims about the person and the human
self which do not allow a central place for the naturally intrinsic, immutable, inviolable dignity of the human individual can be accepted as
credible and fully explanatory. While Rawlss approach does well to remind us of the contingencies of life and the primary importance of tolerably just social arrangements, it does not present us with a satisfying
picture of the person, human freedom, or human dignity, and so cannot
compel allegiance.

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65

Justice as Desert
It is Rawlss distinctive view of the person, which, as we have seen,
licenses him to understand desert in the disparaging way he does. For
Rawls it cannot serve as a basic factor in social justice, because nobody
can be said to deserve their standing, in any strong sense, since they
themselves have not brought it about.70 But I maintain that this deterministic view is a mistaken evaluation of the potential importance of desert
for social justice theorizing and an underrecognition of its moral power
as an idea.
We intuitively expect desert to play a role in our moral evaluations,
and we understand there to be a moral relationship between what a
person does and what he gets. We feel slighted or offended if we do not
get what we know we have earned (a paycheck, for example). Similarly,
we feel outraged or abused if we get something bad which we do not
deserve (arrested for a crime we did not commit, for example), and we
know that if we receive something good we have not earned (e.g., a
larger than usual paycheck) that it is a giftor a mistake. It is not an
overstatement to say we define moral acceptability on the basis of fittingness, or desert, in both its positive and negative senses.
If Rawlss rigid and sweeping doctrine of common assets and the redistributional imperative of the difference principle are rejected (as they
must be if we recognize that human beings, being intrinsically dignified,
are more substantially constituted and to some extent more firmly embedded in their social context than Rawls is willing to allow), then the
way is clear for us to construct a social role for desert that better coheres
with our moral intuitions.71
The fundamental reality that a fuller conception of the self allows us
to embrace is no less than authentic human freedom itself. If the self is
thick with traits and qualities, then that which is essentially caused by
the employ of those qualities through freely willed personal effort, persistence, and skill is rightly judged as belonging fundamentally to the
individual himself. Rawls, of course, maintains that the claim that one
deserves the superior character that empowers him to cultivate his abilities is false, since his character depends in large part on favorable family
and social circumstances for which he cannot legitimately take credit.72
The phrase in large part, which appears in Rawlss text, is significant
because in its ambiguity and vagueness it draws attention to the speculative and unsupportable nature of the claim that the formation of my
character is not something over which I have decisive control and for
which I am responsible. This must be wrong. In Rawlss view, we are
all essentially products of fortuity, and the circumstances of our births
and the environments of our lives hold sway over any decisions we
might make, or wish to make, to be one way or another. This appears

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

to be an unforgivably deterministic thesis, and one that edges close to

the Marxist theme of economics as the ultimate arbiter of morality. To
accept Rawlss claim is to believe that wealth and privilege cause social
competence and practically useful character, and that those born in unfortunate familial and social contexts cannot attain the character traits
required to succeed. But birth is not destiny, and, contemporary liberal
assumptions to the contrary, ones economic origins do not dictate ones
economic future. This, of course, is the beauty and power of democratic
capitalism, and the great virtue of the American experiment that has
been borne out in this century. In this country perhaps more than any
other, who ones parents are does not determine who or what one will
be. Contemporary liberal theory does not concur with this basic lesson
of the American experience.
Characterthe complex of thoughts, emotions, and attitudes that are
one important aspect of the substance of ones identityis not wholly
or even primarily bestowed on us by forces exterior to ourselves. We are
not passive recipients of our character; rather, we are active agents in its
formation, volitionally participatingthrough our behavior and mental
dispositionsin who we are becoming. This is not to say that we are
impervious to familial and social influences, or that our larger social
context is utterly irrelevant to our personal development and selfformation. Certainly such factors play a part in the construction of our
character, but our personal experience indicates that our free will is a far
stronger and more pressing factor in forming our character. Someone
born into wealth and privilege, with the most nurturing environment
possible, could still end up a penniless sloth or convicted felon. Similarly,
a poor child raised in the midst of urban decay and dysfunction could
nonetheless end up a successful, eminently competent individual.73
The distribution of economic assets, then, is not necessarily immoral
simply for being unequal. Income inequality, as a bare and relentless
social reality, is not necessarily immoral, despite the absolutist egalitarian
dogma that it is.74 Inequalities that flow from disparate effort, education,
experience, or market placementunder the prevailing conditions of legal equalityare morally unproblematic. Unequal distribution on
grounds of merit or desert is morally permissible; indeed, justice requires
it if unequal levels of desert exist.
A critical distinction can be made between equal distribution of goods
and equitable distribution of goods.75 The former mandates identity of
quantity and is appropriate in the contexts of legal protection and basic
human rights (such as the right to live, freedom of religious belief, etc.).
The latter requires only that the context of desert is fair; that is, given
the constraints of human finitude and governmental competence, a maximum of equality of opportunity has been provided. Thus, all other factors being fair, the individual who works at a job fifty-five hours a week

The Importance of Desert

67

out of a desire to be promoted has earned the extra economic rewards

she receives, as compared to a co-worker who chooses to work only forty
hours a week. Similarly, the man who invests the effort to become a
software designer and earns more money than the receptionist at the
company where he works is fairly entitled to that money. To say he does
not deserve it because he did not earn the superior intellect that enabled
him to write software is to misapply desert as a concept. The putative
negation of desert is not a great eraser, which can remove the circumstances of life or homogenize initial endowments. He did not have to
apply his intellect in the ways he did to achieve what he has achieved.
The education, labor, and antecedent will to engage in those practices
qualify him to benefit exclusively from their fruitsexcept for a restrained level of taxation to fund civil protection and public works, and
ensure a minimal floor of well-being for the handicapped and legitimately indigent.76 Similarly, it is by no means a sound assumption that
the receptionist could not have become a software engineer. Given the
context of legal equality, it would be patronizing, if not insulting, to
believe that she could not have reached this personal accomplishment.
The extra personal practical hurdles she may have had to overcome to
achieve this standingfor example, innate low math aptitude or no computer experienceare not the moral fault of anyone and should not be
reckoned insurmountable. That some people have more difficulties in life
than others is a brute fact of the human condition and is beyond the
capacity of social policy to redress.
Rawlss and contemporary liberalisms attempts to do so through, for
example, such compensatory tools as the difference principle can never
be truly just or comprehensively successful since human institutions
never have full and total knowledge of peoples potentials and circumstances. This is the basic thesis of F. A. Hayek in The Mirage of Social
Justice: no government or central authority can have sufficient knowledge
to establish its preferred distributional pattern on a society.77 Such
attempts are doomed to fail. As John Gray succinctly writes,
[G]overnment could never have sufficient information to know whether
[Rawlss] Difference Principle . . . has been satisfied.78 The world is as it
is, people are not identical, people will not be equally motivated to excel,
and we cannot make the world otherwise. Indeed, the effort to do so in
its statist machinations results in withdrawing a degree of freedom from
the public. As Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman said, A society that puts
equalityin the sense of equality of outcomeahead of freedom will
end up with neither equality nor freedom.79 It is indeed ironic that
contemporary liberalism, flush with the thrills of diversity, would seek
to suppress the inevitable socioeconomic manifestations of differences in
innate talent, demeanor, and will.
Its effort to do so has created a pronounced sentiment of revulsion

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

among some social critics and many citizens. They have grown tired of
the routinized, de rigueur accent in public life on entitlement, and the
widespread sense of victimization such emphasis creates. As the late
journalist William A. Henry III insightfully wrote:
We have foolishly embraced the unexamined notions that everyone is
pretty much alike (and, worse, should be), that self-fulfillment is more important than objective achievement . . . that a good and just society should
be far more concerned with succoring its losers than with honoring and
encouraging its winners to achieve more and thereby benefit everyone. . . .
We have devoted our rhetoric and resources to the concept of entitlement,
the notion that citizens are not to ask what they can do for their country,
but rather to demand what it can do for them. The list of what people are
said to be entitled to has exploded exponentially as we have redefined
our economy, in defiance of everyday reality, as a collective possession
myth of communal splendor rather than simultaneous individual achievements. . . . We have taken the legal notion that all men are created equal to
its illogical extreme, seeking not just equality of justice in the courts but
equality of outcomes in almost every field of endeavor. Indeed, we have
become so wedded to this expectation that our courts may now accept
inequality of outcomes as prima facie proof of willful bias.80

The hubris required to thus violate the common sense of the general
public stems ultimately from the anthropology of contemporary liberalism. As we alluded to earlier in our discussions of human nature, the
animating belief of much modern liberal sentiment and policyas constructed by knowledge class elites and academicsis a strongly utopian
confidence in the capacities of human social and political construction.
Utopian fantasies are characteristic of such people.81 Realism and practicability do not decisively condition the plans of those caught in the grip
of utopianism and the self-satisfaction it brings. Hence, schemes of redistribution and the low view of desert they tend to emphasize sail
through critical scrutiny, vindicated by their intended ends, however
amorphous and dissonant with common sense and human experience.
But utopianism is not the full story of the motivation driving contemporary liberalism. There is also the pungent and pronounced hostility to
mainstream American bourgeois culture. During the cold war this was
seen in the American lefts idealization of Soviet communism and the
Marxist critique of Christianity and capitalism.82 The sweeping demise
of the Soviet Union and Marxism as a worldviewalmost everywhere
outside of elite American universitiescreated an embarrassing vacuum
for progressives. This void was filled with the sustained hegemony of
the politically correct critique of American politics, with its emphasis
on liberal compassion, the comparatively uncompassionate mean-

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69

spirited philosophy of Newt Gingrich and his ilk, and the worry that
the religious right would impose its benighted values on everyone.83
Ironically, the coercion of liberty in this country today comes far more
from the left than from the right. The recent actions of the San Francisco
Board of Supervisors are a case in point. Not exactly known for its traditionalism, San Francisco is now setting new trends in the liberal encroachment on free thought. In 1996 the city council declared that
contractors wishing to do business with the city must extend full insurance benefits to the domestic partners of all employees. As Jewish ethicist
Dennis Prager remarked, if a southern bible belt city required contractors
to post the Ten Commandments in their offices if they wished to do
business with the city, there would be a massive outcry of offense from
the seats of liberal advocacy in this country.84 But the efforts of liberals
in San Francisco to impose their morality on employers goes unchallenged by the American left and virtually unnoticed by the American
press.
Such double standards flourish in the American social landscape because contemporary liberalism is intoxicated with its own moral superiority over its ideological competitors. The ends are seen as justifying
the means when the cause is so obviously important and so undeniably
correct.85
This supreme confidence is born of the quite definite religious zeal with
which many liberals hold their politics. Contemporary liberalism functions as the personal religion of many of its more committed adherents,
who tend to be secular, educated, urban, and white.86 This helps explain
its success in American culture, despite its many excesses. The boosters of
contemporary liberalism are activistic, litigious, and deliberately working
for change, and they are doing so with a missionary zeal.
In contrast, conservatives and traditionalists, by definition, do not tend
to press their personal involvement in the workings of politics and controversy. This historical pattern is slowly changing, however, as the face
of American life becomes difficult to recognize to those most familiar
with its traditional form. The substantial demise of desert as conceptually
essential to justice is emblematic of this transformation.
A Philosophy of Human Accomplishment
What, then, are we to say about how a general social reintroduction
of the basic concept of desertone based on a sound understanding of
the personwould proceed? It would most essentially require an intellectual foundation that is presently absent in American social criticism:
a philosophy of human accomplishment. It is the absence of such a rigorously articulated framework which has helped suppress discussions of
desert, as well as stall and deadlock much of our consideration of cul-

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

turally contentious issues. While it is well beyond our scope to limn such
a philosophy here, we can point to what some of its key elements would
be.
In my view, the essential components of an understanding of individual accomplishment would include at least the following ideas: individual accomplishments should be recognized as ultimately self-generated;
the rewards or consequences of individual accomplishment must overwhelmingly accrue to the individual; and not all human accomplishments are of equal value to society. While these points in their full
exfoliation would evince an interrelationship, such exposition is too far
afield for us here, and, as I indicated above, they do not by themselves
constitute a full-fledged theory of human achievement at any rate. However, they are three useful and important conceptual ingredients.
To say that individual achievements should be recognized as ultimately self-generated is to offend much of the deterministic analysis by
race, class, and gender that is so popular in the rubric of contemporary
liberalism. And yet if human freedom is to be genuinely acknowledged,
and if we are to authentically understand the means by which people
prosecute tasks, it is an understanding we must embrace. Although each
of us lives in a particular social, political, cultural, and familial context,
and although our psychobiological processes and communities of association act on our intellection, each of us nonetheless possesses the remarkable power of will. We can choose to do simple actions, and we can
choose to do complex actions. We are to varying extents and in manifold
ways influenced and affected by the factors comprising our personal
contexts and contributing to our self-formation; yet still we must acknowledge that in the end our substantial freedom is a reality.87 We are
not fully free and autonomous, but if we are able to suppress our natural
drive to rationalize and justify our behavioral, relational, or professional
shortcomings, and if we are able to frankly be objective to our personal
history of choices and selected attitudes, we can admit that our lives
could have turned out differently than they have (for better or worse),
and we can acknowledge the perhaps painful reality that we have navigated our own existential ship to the shore on which it now sitsand
the ports it visited along the way. Hence, whatever aids or hindrances I
experienced along the journey were not decisive. They played a role in
my journey, and they inevitably did foreclose on some opportunities and
open up others, but my substantial freedom still perdured, and I could
have formed my life in ways other than I did.
The penchant of the liberal narratives of human life ascendant today
is to infer, erroneously, that since I have been impacted by circumstances,
my personal freedom was therefore neutered. But this is an unrealistic,
atomized understanding of freedom. To be at liberty does not mean that
one can do absolutely anything and that one is utterly untouched by

The Importance of Desert

71

unwilled forces external to their person. To live in society is unavoidably

to be under constraint and to be touched by other people and the consequences of their deeds. But this does not warrant the inferential leap
to determinism. I am still a free person though I live under the wide
range of constraints that necessarily accompany family, the rule of law,
the free market, social life, my physical appearance, and a whole collection of other variables. Whatever I have accomplished for good or ill has
mainly, though not exclusively, been accomplished because of choices I
selected. My life today is the expression of my general freedom up to
this point. Although for some more than others the context of their personal history has more tightly impinged on their freedom and more decisively circumscribed their behavioral options, only in the most
psychologically traumatized of persons can it reasonably be said that
they are not responsible moral agents. With this understanding, we can
accept the notion that individuals themselves are primarily to blame or
praise for the state of their lives. However dissonant with the spirit of
our age and the prevailing habits of social analysis, individual selfresponsibility is a reality.
A further component of how we might understand and react socially
to human achievement is that we insist that the rewards of individual
accomplishment overwhelmingly accrue to the responsible individual.
The one who has shouldered the psychic burden of self-responsibility
and achieved positively has a moral claim on the benefits derived from
his work. This is simply to observe desert. The importance of this principle lies in the psychological fact that violations of desert are psychologically disabling to the individual and, eventually, to society. People
who work but then are prevented from reaping the vast preponderance
of benefits from that work become demotivated and less productive. Oppressive and high rates of income tax have borne this principle out repeatedly. When people are prevented from access to what they deserve,
they become angry, resentful, sullen, and alienated from work. This idea,
writ large, can stall the economic engine of a nation.88
This imperative of desert is also true negatively. When people do not
suffer punishment for crime and lawlessness they have practiced, besides
the intrinsic injustice and righteous social anger that results, that individual perpetrator himself has also been harmed (internally), since a primary means of moral instruction and recovery (the censure of society)
has been withheld from him. This is not to say that criminals will not
be aware of their immorality unless they are caught and tried; rather, it
is to say that the absence of consequences and censure (shame) for
wrongdoing functions as a lure into further wrongdoing.89 As welfare
analyst Lawrence Mead of New York University said simply: The sanction of social disapproval seems essential for deterring antisocial behavior.90 The intrinsic dignity of the criminal is further prevented from

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

manifesting extrinsically when he is not publicly held to account for his

transgressions.
We have greatly erred in this country by failing to follow as closely
as possible the moral imperative of desert. Like so many of the disordered values of our time, this too is fostered by contemporary liberalisms unbalanced commitment to egalitarianism. As William A. Henry
III wrote,
In the pursuit of egalitarianism, an ideal wrenched far beyond what the
founding fathers took it to mean, we have willfully blinded ourselves to
home truths those solons well understood, not least the simple fact that
some people are better than otherssmarter, harder working, more
learned, more productive, harder to replace.91

And this refusal to see differences in people and what they have deserved is socially disruptive, engendering anger and a general lack of
confidence from the public that the deeds of government, the courts, and
legislators will correspond with the sentiments of common sense.
Closely related to this idea is the recognition that not all human accomplishments are of equal value to society. There is a loose but perceptible general hierarchy of objective social value to what people do
with their lives, and we cannot pretend otherwise. Some people simply
contribute more to the general welfare of their society than do others.
For example, Jonas Salk in his polio vaccine contributed more than most
people, whereas the serial killer Richard Ramirez contributed nothing
positive to the common good. Most of us fall between these two poles,
and our lives in their moral decency, occupational productivity, and interpersonal relationships amount to a definite addition to the future viability, wealth, and humanity of our commonweal.
This is not to present a utilitarian calculus of each life and somehow
pretend to be able to comprehensively arbitrate between each person.
Rather, it is to insist on the acknowledgment of what we already know
to be the case, an awareness we evince in our civic rituals of parades
and awards, and in our death rituals of praise and eulogy: some lives
are publicly heroic in their clear service to others, other lives are anonymously heroic in their steady virtue, still other lives are unremarkable,
and some are simply bad. Contemporary liberalisms need to avoid ranking human behaviorexcept when it serves its political values (as with
the exaltation of the avant-garde artist, AIDS activist, religious renegade,
or multiculturalist zealot)suppresses our public recognition of what we
intuitively know to be the unequal nature of individual activities. The
man who regularly feeds the homeless and hungry at the downtown
mission when he gets off work is objectively better than the man who
goes home and watches pornographic videos each evening. The modern

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73

liberal inclination to term these disparate habits simply lifestyle

choices obscures the inevitably value-laden nature of human behavior.
They are certainly lifestyle choices, but they are not that merely.
Having said that, however, it should be pointed out that the personal
internal, subjective valuation of ones accomplishments does not necessarily correspond to the social valuation of ones life and work. For example, perhaps in Jonas Salks own mind his greatest accomplishment
was his relationship with his family or friends, and not his work on the
polio vaccine. Given the often complicated and sometimes nonrational
nature of interpersonal relationships and self-understanding, psychological or emotional accomplishments may hold the ascendancy in ones
own mind over professional or public achievements. But whether or not
there is a correspondence between self-valuation of private and public
achievements, it is irresistibly true that not all lives issue in socially equal
achievements, though they are all, as human, intrinsically dignified.
The achievements of human beings, from the obvious to the subtle,
form the basis of our social maintenance and cultural life. Further reflection on the proper manner of understanding true human achievement
would allow us not only to celebrate, as we too rarely do, authentic social
accomplishment (and not merely fame), but also to forge rudimentary
elements of a philosophy of accomplishment that would allow us to begin relying more regularly and significantly on the critical concept of
desert as a distributional judge and moral referee. As an ethical concept
to which we are naturally, deeply, and indissolubly attached, it is
uniquely suited for that role.
NOTES
1. Merit could also be used as a synonym here.
2. This line of thinking is sometimes introduced as supporting theism. It is
related to a family of arguments for theism usually called arguments from
mind or consciousness. Useful general treatments of this approach are A.
C. Ewing, Value and Reality (London: Allen and Unwin, 1973) and Stephen Clark,
From Athens to Jerusalem (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).
3. This point, especially with respect to childrens moral sense, is argued
cleverly by C. S. Lewis in his Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan Publishers,
1943), pp. 1743. Of course, offense at injustice can be trained out, as it were, of
the individual through the suppression of conscience and the cultivation of habits
counter to this sense.
4. Indeed, currently, the average convicted murderer spends just 8.5 years in
actual lockup before being released. See William J. Bennett, John J. DiIulio, Jr.,
and John P. Walters, Body Count (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), p. 50.
The misplaced compassion of contemporary liberalism has constructed a criminal
justice system that is all too often more solicitous of the rights of convicted criminals than it is of their victims. For example, one man in California, who con-

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

fessed to terrorizing more than 100 women, and who in 1982 was convicted of
multiple rapes, was released from prison in 1997, after serving just fifteen years
of his twenty-five-year sentence. See Thomas Sowell, Criminal Justice System Is
Cruel to the Innocent, Human Events, February 28, 1997, p. 18. Similarly, James
Lee Lyles, age 53, was driving drunk in August of 1996, when he plowed into
the parked car of 27-year-old Mexican immigrant Carlos Granados Gallardo. Mr.
Granados, his wife and four children, ages 8, 4, 3, and 1, were sitting in their car
eating a fast-food dinner in celebration of Mr. Granados obtaining a new job.
They were all killed when Lyles car recklessly plowed into theirs. As punishment for driving drunk and killing these six people, Lyles was sentenced to nine
years in prison. See Mourners Recall Family Killed in Crash, Los Angeles Times
(Home Edition), August 31, 1996, p. B1.
5. On the disproportionately high rates of violent crime committed by blacks,
see Bennett, DiIulio, and Walters, Body Count, pp. 2223, 45, 67, 78. See also the
articles on black crime by John J. DiIulio, Jr., in note 48 in Chapter 1.
6. Peter Berger, A Rumor of Angels (New York: Anchor Books, 1969), pp. 67
69.
7. See Robert Borks discussion of this conquest in Chapters 1 and 2 of his
Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline (New York:
HarperCollins, 1996).
8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971. I will be quoting from
the 1973 Oxford University Press paperback edition of that book.
It is nearly impossible to comprehensively document the commentary on a
book so emphatically discussed over twenty-five years, but the following references include some standard critiques of A Theory of Justice and its themes, and
they are themselves replete with bibliographical references that will aid the
reader in further research. See Bruce Ackerman, Social Justice and the Liberal State
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982); Brian Barry, The Liberal Theory
of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973) and Theories of Justice (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1989); Brian Crowley, The Self, the Individual, and
the Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987); Norman Daniels, ed.,
Reading Rawls: Critical Studies of A Theory of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1975);
Stuart Hampshire, ed., Public and Private Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978); Michael W. Jackson, Matters of Justice (London: Croom Helm,
1986); Chandran Kukathas and Phillip Pettit, Rawls: A Theory of Justice and Its
Critics (Cambridge: Polity, 1990); Rex Martin, Rawls and Rights (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1985); Stephen Mulhall and Adam Swift, Liberals and
Communitarians (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publishers, 1992); T. W. Pogge, Realizing
Rawls (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989); Joseph Raz, The Morality of
Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986); Michael Sandel, Liberalism and
the Limits of Justice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); David Schaefer, Justice or Tyranny? (London: Kennikat Press, 1979); Michael Walzer, Spheres
of Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1983); and Robert Paul Wolff, Understanding
Rawls (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977). Helpful journal issues
wholly devoted to Rawls are Social Theory and Practice 3, no. 1 (Spring 1974) and
Midwest Studies in Philosophy 1, no. 1 (February 1976). Powerful criticisms of
Rawlsean liberalism are to be found in two books by J. Budziszewski, The Resurrection of Nature: Political Theory and the Human Character (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell

The Importance of Desert

75

University Press, 1986) and True Tolerance: Liberalism and the Necessity of Judgment
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1992).
9. A point well made by Mulhall and Swift, Liberals and Communitarians, p.
1. With good reason, John W. Montgomery has referred to Rawlss ideas as the
single most influential moral philosophy of this generation. J. W. Montgomery,
Human Rights and Human Dignity (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing
House, 1986), p. 93.
10. On the claim that Rawls represents the spirit of contemporary liberalism,
see Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, p. 13.
11. Ibid., p. 25. For some valuable criticisms of the device of the original position, see D. J. Bentley, John Rawls: A Theory of Justice, University of Pennsylvania Law Review 121, no. 5 (May 1973): 1074; The chapter entitled Character,
Depth and Rationality in Crowley, The Self, the Individual and the Community;
Thomas Scanlon, Jr., Rawls Theory of Justice, University of Pennsylvania Law
Review, 121, no. 5 (May 1973): 1069; Alan Gewirth, Human Rights: Essays on Justification and Application (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), esp. p. 44.
12. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), pp.
6065, 122126.
13. Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William. B. Eerdmans, 1984), p. 257.
14. Larry Churchill, Rationing Health Care in America: Perceptions and Principles
of Justice (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987), pp. 4546.
Rawls, in Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), classifies such criticisms as a misunderstanding of the nature of the original position
as an abstraction. See his discussion on pp. 2628 of that work. Rawls cites the
response of Will Kymlicka to Michael Sandels powerful criticisms of the Rawlsean person in Chapter 4 of Kymlickas book, Liberalism, Community and Culture
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) as generally authoritative. See Political
Liberalism, p. 27 n. 29.
15. Certainly, Robert Nozicks Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic
Books, 1974) is among the most important challenges to A Theory of Justice, but
it is best thought of as distinct from the communitarian responses to Rawls alluded to here. Nozick, as a libertarian conservative, shares Rawlss voluntarist
notion of human freedom as well as much of his highly individualist conception
of the self. Later in this chapter we will explore some critical differences between
Nozicks and Rawlss thought. For an excellent survey and critique of Nozicks
thought, including his anthropological arguments, see the compilation of articles
in Jeffrey Paul, ed., (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981). Alisdair
MacIntyre in After Virtue (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press,
1981), pp. 246253 presents a helpful comparison of Rawlss and Nozicks theories of justice, as does Sandel in Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, pp. 7785, 94
102.
John Rawlss latest major work Political Liberalism is a revision of A Theory of
Justice inasmuch as he offers a distinctly political conception of justice appropriate to a deeply pluralistic society riven by reasonable but competing conceptions
of the good. But much of his thinking remains the same, and the elements of
Rawlsean thought we will reflect on are substantially unchanged from their presentation in A Theory of Justice. See the Introduction to the Paperback Edition

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

of Political Liberalism for Rawlss contrast of these two books. See also the fine
discussion of Mulhall and Swift in Chapters 5 and 6 of Liberals and Communitarians for reflection on ways in which Rawlss thought has evolved since A Theory
of Justice. For insightful reviews of Political Liberalism from a variety of perspectives, see Stuart Hampshire, Liberalism: The New Twist, New York Review of
Books, August 12, 1993, pp. 4347; Stephen Holmes, The Gatekeeper, The New
Republic, October 11, 1993, pp. 3947; Robert Bork, Justice Lite, First Things,
November 1993, no. 37, pp. 3132; and Ernest Van Den Haag, Is Liberalism
Just? The Public Interest, no. 113, Fall 1993, pp. 122127.
16. See, generally, Richard Rorty, Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1982), Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Ackerman, Social Justice and the Liberal
State; Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community and Culture, Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990); and Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights
Seriously (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), A Matter of Principle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), Laws Empire (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1986), Lifes Dominion: An Argument About Abortion,
Euthanasia and Individual Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993).
17. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice and Democracys Discontent (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996); William Sullivan, Reconstructing
Public Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Mary Ann Glendon, Rights Talk (New York: The Free Press, 1991); MacIntyre, After Virtue; and
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1989), Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1, Human Agency and Language, and Vol. 2, Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985),
and Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995).
18. For critiques and commentary on the general communitarian theme from
various perspectives, some of which are themselves imbued with communitarian
ideas, see Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self (New York: Routledge, 1992); Amitai
Etzioni, ed., New Communitarian Thinking (Charlottesville, Va.: University Press
of Virginia, 1995); Amy Gutmann, Communitarian Critics of Liberalism, Philosophy and Public Affairs 14 (Summer 1985): 308322; Stephen Holmes, The Anatomy of Antiliberalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993); Mulhall
and Swift, Liberals and Communitarians; Nancy L. Rosenblum, ed., Liberalism and
the Moral Life (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989); and Murray
Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1982).
19. See Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, pp. 168183.
20. Ibid., p. 80.
21. A full-blown discussion of complete human identity as it exists through
changes in time and space is well beyond our scope and purpose here, although
that general issue is obviously relevant to the overall moral question of the relationship of desert to human nature which we are considering here. For valuable, comprehensive discussions of the identity of persons, see Derek Parfit,
Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984); John Perry, ed., Personal
Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975); and Amelie Oksenberg
Rorty, ed., The Identities of Persons (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976).

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77

22. See Rawls, A Theory of Justice, pp. 529ff, 560ff, and Rawls, Political Liberalism, pp. 2735.
23. Crowley, The Self, the Individual and the Community, p. 218.
24. Ibid., p. 219.
25. This should not be read to imply a functional definition of personhood,
for I am addressing the elements of human identity, not of human standing. That
is, my point here is psychological and moral, not ontological. So those persons,
for example, who are unconscious, comatose, or in a persistent vegetative state
would not be considered nonhuman or partially human, or in any ontological
way different from people who are conscious and fully functional.
26. Crowley, The Self, the Individual and the Community, p. 217.
27. Ibid. See Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1958), Chapter 2, for an explanation of this idea.
28. See Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human
Race (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1979), pp. 125126, for a brief discussion of the uniqueness of man.
29. The case of career-criminal Julian Imperial is an example of the remarkable
power of the human conscience. In 1977 Imperial and an accomplice broke into
the home of 73-year-old Mary R. Stein and beat her to death. The womans dying
words, Oh Lord, Im coming home haunted Imperial, and when he became a
Christian a year after the murder he was stricken with an intensified sense of
guilt, shame, and responsibility. These feelings endured, and grew, over the
course of seventeen years. Although the police were not actively considering him
a suspect in the casenow seventeen years oldImperial still felt inwardly compelled to tell the truth. He freely turned himself in to the police station, admitting
his involvement in Mary Steins murder, in the fall of 1994. See A Conscience
Cries Out, and Finally Wins the Fight, Los Angeles Times, October 20, 1994, p.
A41.
30. For discussion, see C. S. Lewiss famous appendix, Illustrations of the
Tao in his The Abolition of Man (New York: Macmillan Press, 1947) as well as
the section entitled Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe
in Lewiss Mere Christianity for explanations of the universality of the human
conscience and moral sense.
31. See Francis Canavan, Liberalism in Root and Flower, in Canavan, The
Pluralist Game (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995), pp. 115123 for
discussion of the political and moral consequences of this manner of approach.
Helpful expositions of Kants full epistemology are found in Robert Paul Wolff,
Kants Theory of Mental Activity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1963); Graham Bird, Kants Theory of Knowledge (New York: Humanities Press,
1962); and T. D. Weldon, Kants Critique of Pure Reason (London: Oxford
University Press, 1958).
32. Michael Sandel, Democracys Discontent (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 290.
33. Michael Sandel, The Political Theory of the Procedural Republic, in Richard John Neuhaus, ed., Reinhold Niebuhr Today (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William.
B. Eerdmans, 1989), p. 25. This essay also appears in Allan C. Hutchinson and
Patrick J. Monahan, eds., The Rule of Law (Toronto: Carswell, 1987).
34. Crowley, The Self, the Individual and the Community, p. 222ff. On such an

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

intersubjective view of the self, see Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, pp.
7982 and elsewhere. See also Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community and Culture, pp.
2140 for discussion of the various different senses in which Rawls employs the
distinction between the right and the good. Also see Rawlss article, The Priority
of Right and Ideas of the Good, Philosophy and Public Affairs 17, no. 4 (1988):
251276 for Rawlss own updated thoughts on the right and the good, and his
contention that in his theory no specific, comprehensive religious, moral, or philosophical system is presupposed. For helpful analysis, see Mulhall and Swift, Liberals and Communitarians, pp. 215219. Since the criticism presented here of the
priority of the right over the good is a holistic one directed at the general concept
as an ordering device for social and political polity, it is essentially unaffected
by Kymlickas and Rawlss explanations.
35. MacIntyre, After Virtue, p. 205.
36. While this typical formulation of the philosophical rationale for the right
over the good has some persuasive power, that is, it sounds like it might work,
the social and political practices it actually issues in are far less neutral than this
statement assures. As Sandel points out in Democracys Discontent (pp. 2021; 100
103), the minimalist self of liberalism and the Rawlsean political conception of
justice (as opposed to a philosophical one) cannot sustain true moral neutrality
and the bracketing of ethical and religious questions in politics. Inevitably, social
and political life engages substantive moral and religious questions, showing that
the priority of right over good cannot be practically sustained. There is an inevitability of particularity in social and political organization, and the liberal construction
of the right over the good obscures this, pretending to be able to function as a
political construct which can serve as an arbitrative framework for social controversies. But as Sandel shows with respect to abortion and other controversial
issues, liberal neutrality ends up being quite parochial. Canavan makes this same
general point in The Pluralist Game, when he explains: A pluralist society must
perforce strive to be neutral about many things that concern its divided citizens.
But it cannot be neutral about all of them. If it tries or pretends to be neutral
about certain issues, the pluralist game becomes a shell game by which people
are tricked into consenting to changes in basic social standards and institutions
on the pretense that nothing more is asked of them than respect for the rights
of individuals. Much more, however, is involved: on the fundamental issues of
social life, one side or the other always wins. . . . There is inescapably a public
moralitya good one or a bad onein the sense of some set or other of basic
norms in the light of which the public makes policy decisions (pp. 7879). The
general point about the strong moral particularity of contemporary liberalism is
well-documented in Robert Borks survey in Slouching Towards Gomorrah (New
York: HarperCollins, 1996). See also J.Budziszewski, The Illusion of Moral Neutrality, First Things, July/August 1993, pp.3237.
37. Taylor, Sources of the Self, p. 89.
38. See Mulhall and Swift, Liberals and Communitarians, pp. 119120.
39. Ibid., pp. 123124. For further discussion on the unacknowledged particularity of Rawlss theory as a whole, see Budziszewski, True Tolerance: Liberalism
and the Necessity of Judgment, pp. 7678.

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79

40. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, p. 66.

41. Ibid., p. 67.
42. See Cheney C. Ryan, Yours Mine and Ours: Property Rights and Individual Liberty, Ethics, January 1977, pp. 126141, for a description of Nozicks
Lockean foundations.
For a brief discussion of the formative and influential role classical liberal philosophy has played in both Rawlss and Nozicks social thought, see Sullivan,
Reconstructing Public Philosophy , pp. 99117. Michael Novak holds that many
contemporary liberals (he uses Rawls as an example) have departed from the
classic liberal political tradition in favor of a less credible, modern variation. See
Novak, Free Persons and the Common Good, pp. 157158.
43. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 72.
44. Ibid. , p. 73.
45. Ibid. , p. 75.
46. Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (New York: Basic Books,
1973), pp. 441, 444. For a summary and analysis of the social thought of Daniel
Bell, see Peter Steinfels, The Neoconservatives (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1979), pp. 161188.
47. Charles Frankel, The New Egalitarianism and the Old, September 1973,
pp. 5859.
48. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, p. 70.
49. Ibid.
50. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 103.
51. Ibid. , p. 104. See the books by Joel Feinberg, Social Philosophy (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1973), pp. 112117, and Doing and Deserving (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970) for clear explanations of concepts of desert.
52. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 104.
53. The force of such traditional understandings of desert (e.g., the principles
of effort, due return, contribution, etc.) has been located in their intuitive cogency. See Feinberg, Social Philosophy, p. 116.
54. Although Rawlss theoretical bases are unique, and although the thrust of
his thought is toward redistribution in a particularly zealous way, his broad
descent from classical liberal thought is well illustrated by the analysis of Brian
Crowley in The Self, the Individual and the Community. As Crowley points out,
both Rawls and conservative capitalist F. A. Hayek, who obviously have very
different views on redistributive policies, actually evidence great similarities in
terms of their understandings of justice and the self.
Their affinities regarding justice can most clearly be seen in Hayeks Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. 2, The Mirage of Social Justice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), Chapter 10, esp. p. 132, which in Crowleys words is a passage
so Rawlsian in flavour that it might have been written by Rawls himself
(Crowley, The Self, The Individual and the Community, p. 201). This excerpt from
the passage in Hayek which Crowley is referring to would seem to bear out such
a description:
The conclusion to which our considerations lead is thus that we should regard as the most
desirable order of society one which we would choose if we knew that our initial position

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

in it would be decided purely by chance (such as the fact of our being born into a particular
family).

For an elaboration of the affinities between Rawlsean and Hayekian concepts

of justice, see Crowley, The Self, The Individual and the Community, pp. 200202.
Pages 200202 also include Crowleys explanation of the similar anthropologies
of Rawls and Hayek. Crowley locates Hayek in the liberal tradition of Kant and
Rawls, but with the crucial anthropological difference of Hayeks skepticism of
the efficacy of human rationality. Hayek would prefer to allow the superior rationality of the market to indicate the values of rational choice, rather than
Rawlss hypothetical discovery procedure of the original position (see Crowley,
p. 201). Crowley suggests that Hayeks low view of human ratiocination is a
product of Humean influence, and that his differences with Rawls are really more
methodological than ideological in nature (Crowley, p. 201). See John Gray ,
Hayek on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), Chapter 1, esp. p. 8, for
a discussion of Humes influence on Hayeks view of man.
55. See Wolff, Understanding Rawls, p. 20.
56. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, p. 228.
57. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, p. 79.
58. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, p. 228.
59. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, p. 79.
60. Ibid., pp. 1314.
61. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, p. 225.
62. Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, p. 85.
63. See Macintyre, After Virtue, p. 251.
64. Ibid. For a brief critical evaluation of Nozicks entitlement theory of justice,
see Hillel Steiner, Justice and Entitlement. Ethics, January 1977, pp. 150152;
Israel Kirzner, Entrepreneurship, Entitlement and Economic Justice, Eastern
Economic Journal 4, No. 1 (January 1978).
MacIntyres argument on this point strikes me as a bit unrealistic, for conquest
and plunder of some sort have inevitably characterized the geographical residence of many people. It can hardly be historically established that a specific
people or group has an original and morally untainted claim, and possession
through time, to a particular parcel of land. Similarly, principles of rectification
are practically impossible and notoriously flawed, given the finitude of human
knowledge, the vicissitudes of social forces, and the unintended consequences of
sweeping social policies. The more important point here, I think, is Nozicks idea
of possession which is not illegitimate. Providing that the resources possessed
by an individual were not acquired by immoral actions committed by that individual, or obtained by immoral means which that individual knowingly and
willfully participated in or allowed to function, and assuming he did not have
the wherewithal to prevent such means from functioning, his possessions are
legitimately held. Nozick is correct to deny that the concept of desert applies to
an infinite regress of circumstances and conditions beyond the control of the
individual. Thus, for example, inherited wealthif freely bequeathed by its
owner who himself obtained it through morally sound personal actions that were
the product of his primarily self-generated characteris legitimately possessed.

The Importance of Desert

81

Certainly, institutions such as slavery and legal disenfranchisement have seriously negative consequences for their victims which indeed at least partly perdure, but macro-policies of compensation are more likely to be iatrogenicto
their intended beneficiaries and society as a wholethan truly restorative. In
those situations where victims of systematic, de jure unfairness are individually
identifiable and still living, direct economic compensation of them is warranted.
Otherwise, the best and most comprehensively satisfying means of compensation
is the creation and maintenance of strict legal equality, effective educational institutions, and a vigorous market economy that provides a context for anyone
diligent to thrive. The pursuit of justice must be realistic and cognizant of the
inevitably partial nature of its accomplishment.
But none of the foregoing is inconsistent with the argumentwhich I accept
that America, with regard to black Americans descended from slaves, bears
unique debts. The question is how to best satisfy those debts, and as I indicated
in the preceding paragraph, legal, educational, and economic means, rather than
redistributive and political, are preferable.
65. Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society, p. 419.
66. Crowley, The Self, the Individual and the Community, pp. 203, 207208.
67. Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia, p. 214.
68. See Sandel, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, pp. 8788.
69. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 311.
70. For a fine discussion of this theme in Rawls, as well as an examination of
critical theory and postmodernism as general movements, see Stanley Raffel,
Habermas, Lyotard and the Concept of Justice (London: Macmillan Press, 1992), esp.
Chapter 3.
71. Besides the implausibility of Rawlss conception of the self which we have
been discussing, there is a basic self-refutational quality to Rawlss general approach: if differences in individual welfare status are not legitimately possible in
moral terms, how can it be that Rawlss theory is morally superior to all others,
and a citizenry is obliged to observe it? As Tibor Machan explains it, On the
one hand, then, no one is free to choose and gain moral credit, while on the
other hand we should freely choose (and thus might be credited with) being on
the side of justice. . . . [This] both denies and affirms that we have moral responsibilities the fulfillment of which makes us deserving of certain rewards. See
Tibor Machan, Private Rights and Public Illusions (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1995), pp. 8081. For a radically egalitarian perspective on merit
and desert, see Kai Nielsen, Equality and Liberty: A Defense of Radical Egalitarianism
(Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld, 1985), pp. 103190. See also the broad
defense of egalitarianism presented by Amy Gutmann in her work Liberal Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
72. Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 104.
73. As an example, see the autobiography of neurosurgeon Ben Carson, with
Cecil Murphey, Gifted Hands (New York: HarperCollins, 1993, first published in
1990 by Zondervan Publishers, Grand Rapids, Mich.).
74. On income inequality generally, see Herbert Stein, The Income Inequality
Debate, The Wall Street Journal, May 1, 1996. For interesting commentary on this
general topic, see the discussions by Daniel Bell, Robert Nozick, and James Tobin,
If Inequality Is Inevitable What Can Be Done About It ?, New York Times,

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

January 3, 1982, p. E5 and Roy E. Cordato, Income and the Question of Rights,
The Freeman, January 1997, pp. 1213. For comprehensive analyses of inequality
as a concept, see Amartya Sen, On Economic Inequality (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1973) and Inequality Reexamined (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1992). For presentation and commentary of Michael Walzers unique concept of
complex equality, under which inequalities are permitted in different spheres
of life while a larger equality between citizens is still preserved, see Walzer,
Spheres of Justice and David Miller and Michael Walzer, eds., Pluralism, Justice,
and Equality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). For a critique of redistributing wealth as a means of compensating for financial inequality, see the
thoughts of David Horowitz, Redistributing Wealth: Unfair and Useless, Los
Angeles Times, May 27, 1997, p. B7.
75. A point well-discussed by D. D. Raphael, Problems of Political Philosophy,
2nd ed. (Atlantic Highlands, N. J.: Humanities Press, 1990), pp. 119 ff.
76. The legitimately indigent being those who because of disability or genuine
trauma cannot work, not simply those who are able-bodied but choose not to
work.
77. See F. A. Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol. 2, The Mirage of Social
Justice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976).
78. John Gray, introduction to Bertrand de Jouvenel, The Ethics of Redistribution
(Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Press, 1990), p. xvii.
79. Quoted in Walter Williams, The Expensive, Futile Quest for Cosmic Justice, The Orange County Register, January 28, 1997, p. Metro 7.
80. William A. Henry III, In Defense of Elitism (New York: Doubleday, 1994),
pp. 1213.
81. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, pp. 8384.
82. See David Horowitzs compelling personal and political memoir, Radical
Son (New York: The Free Press, 1997) for biographical evidence of this practice.
83. As columnist Don Feder well argued, such fantasies about religious conservatives are baseless. See Don Feder, Whos Afraid of the Religious Right? (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1996).
84. See note 74 in Chapter 3. I have no citation for Pragers remark, as I heard
it one day on his radio talkshow, broadcast Monday through Friday from noon
to 3:00 P.M. on station KABC in Los Angeles. Issues of related concern are frequently covered in his bimonthly newsletter The Prager Perspective, published
at 10573 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, Calif. 90064.
85. Christina Hoff Sommers has documented numerous outright lies of the
feminist establishment in the pursuit of its goals, and former abortionist Bernard
Nathanson acknowledges the lies told in the drive to legalize abortion. See respectively, Sommers, Who Stole Feminism? (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994),
pp. 1315 and the following works of Nathanson: Aborting America (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979); The Abortion Papers: Inside the Abortion Mentality (New
York: Frederick Fell, 1983); and The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by
the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1996).
86. This point, minus the qualifiers, is clearly made by Bork in Slouching Towards Gomorrah, pp. 8586.
87. Of course, I am bracketing here politically repressive or underdeveloped

The Importance of Desert

83

regimes, slavery, and other social phenomena that directly and forcibly constrain
liberty. My discussion here assumes a Western, First-World context.
88. See Bovard, Lost Rights, pp. 259292 for discussion and illustration.
89. For discussion on this general point, see the chapter Character and Community: The Problem of Broken Windows, in James Q. Wilson, On Character
(Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1995).
90. Lawrence Mead, The New Politics of Poverty, (New York: Basic Books, 1992),
p. 146.
91. Henry, In Defense of Elitism, p. 14.

II
PRACTICAL

3
THE WORK OF
CONTEMPORARY
LIBERALISM
We are where we are because whenever we had a choice to make,
we have chosen the alternative that required the least effort at the
moment. . . . [We] have dissipated, like wastrels and drunkards, the
inheritance of freedom and order that came to [us] from hardworking, thrifty, faithful, believing, and brave men.
Walter Lippmann

There is no question that contemporary liberalism has radically changed

American culture since the 1960s. As David Blankenhorn, Allan Bloom,
Robert Bork, Dinesh DSouza, William A. Henry III, Philip K. Howard,
Myron Magnet, Christina Hoff Sommers, and numerous other critics of
contemporary liberalism have documented, many of these changes have
not enhanced our social life.1 The precise reasons why many of the varied
social innovations of modern liberalism have been destructive are complex and far beyond our constraints here to examine comprehensively.2
But in an effort to more fully convey the flavor of modern liberalism, its
animating impulses, and their consequences, we will briefly discuss four
persistent postures of todays liberal mind, utopian, irreligious, selfrighteous, and intolerant, with an eye toward their consequences. Then
we will look more specifically at the general subjects of race and abortion, contemplating the profound depths to which our national life in
those spheres has descended.
THE UTOPIAN POSTURE
With its inveterate utopian bent, modern liberalism tends to overmanage social life and intervene in human interactions with statist manipulation of social forces. Rather than trust the free hand of the market

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

or free associations to manage individual and social interactions, contemporary liberalism reflexively looks to the power of the state to enforce
its normative vision.3 This is mainly because of its conception of government as a highly qualified, desired, and efficient supplier of what people
need, whether morally or materially. But this perspective, in my view,
is dissonant with the most persistent inclinations and deepest sentiments
of human beings.
It is a mistake to believe government is our friend. Top-down, megastructure-to-citizen government is inevitably alienating and dehumanizing. The misery of our inner cities, with their managed populations,
testifies to that. The impressive collapse of state-heavy civilizations
within the last few years is an object lesson in the truth that biggovernment suffocates peoples initiative, creativity, and enterprise. It
tends to undermine citizens personal and social competencies, just as
political self-government tends to enhance them. Disconnected from a
clear sense of self-determination and self-responsibility, human beings
become passive and frustrated. Writing over a century ago, Frenchman
and American national biographer Alexis de Tocqueville saw this tendency, and noted that the American penchant for free and voluntary
association as a means of political problem solving was the great genius
of the new nation.4
Todays liberalism fails to see that being a cog in the mechanism of a
great government simply is not valuable to people. Any leader who believes that a disaffected people only need better management in order to
be content is quite mistaken. A public malaiselike the kind so plainly
apparent in the United Statesis more the result of crises in culture and
social ethics than it is a deficit in federal control over peoples daily lives.
But the utopian mind misses this, wanting instead to believe it can control outcomes, and so it accordingly politicizes solutions ad nauseum. It
is self-condemned to that eternal optimism that unceasingly drives for
the right mix, never willing to consign government to a short legislative leash and modest civic aspirations, leaving people to their own
devices for forging a measure of satisfaction and contentment. Seriously
lacking here is an abiding awareness of the tenuousness of human societies and the fragility of the social contract, not to mention the great
disasters governments can produce and have indeed wrought, unwittingly, under the banner of reform.
Certainly, a citizenry should remind themselves and their governors
that it is not the end of the human being to be a subject of government.
People ultimately do not find that fulfilling. It does not answer to the
aspirations of the human spirit or to our uneasy sense that our personal
conduct deeply matters, evenor especiallywhen we wish it did not.
Being efficiently managed will never confer meaning or satisfaction on
human beings, it does not make them feel or believe that they are truly

The Work of Contemporary Liberalism

89

participating in something of genuine goodness and deep significance.

Yet it is this very sense that we seem to order our whole lives to achieve.
As we indicated earlier, all politics presuppose a vision of the self, and
it is the great folly of modern liberals that they often exchange sober
attention to the anthropological for overenthusiastic attention to the
structural. We see this in Bill Clinton, with his persistent incanting of the
change mantra in the 1992 election, as though change was by definition desirable. He and others like him err by tryingthrough the manipulation of delivery systemsto bring to people that which cannot be
externally delivered: personal satisfaction with ones life and a firm sense
of ones rootedness in moral social order. Generally, it seems that the
former can only be the product of introspection, and the latter of mutually meaningful voluntary associationsboth in intimate personal relationships and in larger social ties. This is one reason why Michael
Lerners and Hillary Rodham Clintons politics of meaning was so
misguided.5 But these distinctions are largely lost on those who make
their livings designing programs and constructing policies for the
hordes, since their own interests are served by the widespread proliferation of government-as-social-savior hopes and expectations. These experts commitment to change is often not constrained by the realities
of human affectivity. Abstract, nonquantifiable considerations like human inclinations and abiding dispositions have always been the bete noire
of social engineers.
The alternative philosophical orientation, political realismembodied
today in American conservatism generallydoes not forbid essential reform or cement the status quo. However, it does wisely remind us about
the persistent reality of the unintended consequences attached to policy
changes and of the unwieldiness of massive bureaucracy.
Ironically, one of the first casualties in Bill Clintons and modern liberalisms brand of utopianism was the classically liberal thin theory
of the good. Its claim is that citizens should be left to pursue their own
vision of the good inscribed within a broad circle of liberty, and responsibility, unencumbered by any strongly particularized ideas of what constitutes the human summum bonum. This is the historically democratic
manner of allowing autonomous individuals to achieve self-fulfillment
individually. Yet in a subtle but real way, this most American of
traditions is threatened by the ever-encroaching system under construction by the Clinton presidency and modern liberalism as a movement.
Lying behind the increasing array of specific programs is an understandingnascent and perhaps unarticulated, but still strong and particular
of what people deserve, what human life should be, and how it should
be lived. Now these are questions any politics must engage at some level,
but undoubtedly the more comprehensive the government, the more
tightly defined the answers to all these questions become. As this spec-

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

ificity grows, we ebb further away from the individuated pursuit of

happiness, and paradoxically, from the historically liberal roots Bill
Clinton and contemporary liberalism claim but have betrayed. With so
many busy projects designed to make life better, President Clinton and
those of his ilk risk overdefining the shape of American public life, imposing the peculiar, idealistic normativity of contemporary liberalism.6
As an antidote to this overweening confidence in the state, all such
would-be reformers should heed the value of voluntary associations and
peoples capacity to address and manage their distinctive problems and
circumstances through their own agency.7 This confidence is central to
American self-government and is lacking in what Thomas Sowell describes as unconstrained visionaries, those who believe that the control
mechanisms of anonymous bureaucratic structures are best able to diagnose, prescribe, and solve.8 But government can only make people so
happy, and it ought not try to function as a kind of Grand Caretaker.
The wisdom of this limited state lies in the implicit recognition that
there is a definite limit to the communitas it can yield. Presidential tinkering and micro-managing in an effort to make it all workin the
belief that this will make people happyis a sure way to fail, and in the
process upset and alienate just about everyone. Yet those in President
Clintons generation and political tradition are addicted to the governing
process, driven by an idealism that seeks fulfillment in the political rather
than the personal. Bereft of a practical, realistic anthropology and the
tempered politics it yields, contemporary liberalism presses on, forging
a mess in the image of a now anachronisticand always problematic
sixties-type idealism.9
One obvious reason for this inevitable failure is simply that governmental performance on a mass scale is almost always inefficient. For
example, the city of Washington, D.C., long a laboratory for statist governance, is currently in an unprecedented condition of disrepair. One of
the post offices there was recently closed because rats were eating a significant percentage of the mail. The city-administered nursing home for
indigents, which has 300 D.C. workers on the payroll to care for just
twenty-eight residents, is being closed after seven of its residents had to
have limbs amputated when their bedsores became infected. In the cockroach-ridden D.C. city morgue, which is in need of $800,000 in repairs,
corpses are stored everywhere, including hallways. On any given day,
30 percent of the citys police cars are out of service, for lack of money
to repair them. And, of course, uncollected trash mounts up on the capitals potholed streets in summer, and snow goes unplowed in winter.10
Not surprisingly, this kind of government inefficiency and the utopian
current driving so much policy construction by liberal politicians has
enflamed the antigovernment passions of many conservatives and libertarians. Indeed, in American life today some citizens harbor a deep

The Work of Contemporary Liberalism

91

hostility toward the work of federal, state, and local governments. The
historic American defiance of statism and bureaucratic encroachment has
permutated into an active animus against the governing process. The
increase in dangerous militia activities and the bombing of the Oklahoma
City Federal Building, by disgruntled self-styled patriots, have all
brought attention to this phenomenon.
But todays conservatism, the most promising alternative to contemporary liberalism, faces a serious contradiction. In strongly reacting
against statism, it risks disabling political government, which is an important vehicle of character formation.11 Anarchy is certainly not an attractive alternative to the overenthusiastic machinations of contemporary
liberalism. As George Will explains,
The contradiction in todays conservatism is, happily, a contingent, not a
necessary, aspect of conservatism. But it can be a crippling contingency if
it is not corrected. It is this: Conservatism is advocating not just disrespect
for many activities of government, but even blanket disdain for government, and hence for the political vocation. However, conservatisms vision
of civic virtue depends on more than adherence to a particular policy
agenda. It depends on respect, even reverence, for our political regime
for our constitutional order understood as a formative enterprise.12

It is contemporary liberalisms anthropological optimism and utopian

confidence in the comprehensive malleability of human nature that supports its perfectionism, the force that drives it to the statist micromanagement some have found so alienating. The old motto, The perfect is
the enemy of the good, holds no sway over the liberal mind, convinced
as it is that social forces can be easily and precisely manipulated. Similarly, such a perspective is comparatively unconcerned about the latent
versus manifest functions of its policy programs.13
And, as one would expect, the optimistic anthropocentrism of the utopian mind is closed off to transcendent religious social critiques, and
religious beliefs and practices in general, especially those of a traditionalistic, Judeo-Christian nature. This is especially tragic, because it is the
religious voice that is best able to pierce the utopian fantasies of statist
liberalism.
THE IRRELIGIOUS POSTURE
In 1984 Richard John Neuhaus clearly demonstrated in his book, The
Naked Public Square, that modern American liberalism evinces a systematic bias against public expressions of religiosity and deliberately resists
the introduction of religious critiqueseven mere religious themesinto
debates over public policy and social organization.14 But the irreligiosity

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

of modern liberalism is selective. The religious left, seldom a target of

the media critiques and scrutiny routinely directed toward their counterparts on the right, fits quite well into the political program of contemporary liberalism. Indeed, many of its organizations constitute part of
the net of liberal interest groups and bureaucratic bodies pressing the
causes of liberty, autonomy, and compassion. In many ways, on
policy questions, liberal religionists are indistinguishable from secular
liberals.15 But the jettisoning of traditional, Judeo-Christian religious
practice by contemporary elites has been ill-advised both personally and
socially. Still, even though their irreligious inclinations have been in
many ways culturally influential, the religiosity of the general public
persists.16
The Personal Value of Religious Belief
In the personal realm, the rejection of religion by opinion-makers is
harmful because it can discourage people, especially youth, from pursuing and embracing the psycho-emotional stability and spiritual welfare
that religious commitment can provide. For example, it has become common to hear of studies bearing out traditional Judeo-Christian understandings of family life. One study showed that men who have a wife
they sleep with are more apt to enjoy health, happiness, and prosperity.
Another study claimed that divorced men are more likely than other men
to experience health problems and early death.17 And the fact that the
mortality rate of single men is higher than that of married men has been
widely documented.18
But perhaps the least discussed baleful consequence of contemporary
liberalisms cultural signaling that religious faith is unsophisticated,
unreflective, or useless is the loss of individual meaning and eternal
vision so well provided by traditional, structured Judeo-Christian religious belief. The following personal interlude is a story that illustrates
the priceless sense of humanity and perseverance that earnest faith can
uniquely instill within a person, particularly one facing great hardship.
Miles. When I first met my late friend Miles, about fifteen years ago,
he was already bedridden and immobile. Multiple sclerosis had seized
his body, and except for slowly blinking his eyes and moving his jaws
to chew or speak in his nearly inaudible, whispery voice, he was totally
paralyzed. But his mind was finein fact, better than fine. He was able
to recount the detailssometimes quaint, sometimes salaciousof his
fraternity days at the University of Missouri some thirty years ago, as
well as the emotions he felt when he learned he had MS, and when his
wife, care-weary and fearful of the physical devolution that was still to
come, finally left him. He also had a relentless, searching inquisitiveness
about current affairs and ultimate issues: Why is everyone so angry these

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days? How come cars are so expensive now? How can I serve God motionless in bed? What will happen when I die?
When I would see him at the convalescent hospital where he lived, I
would always find him staring at some distant point I could not see. He
shared a rooma different room each month it seemed, for he was constantly being moved for no apparent reasonwith one or two other
anonymous individuals, ancient people who seemed always to be asleep,
if not lost, babbling in their senility. When he noticed I was in the room,
Miles would hail me with an enthusiastic wheeze, Young Brad!
Although his disease had reduced Miles to a 6'2" long mannequin-like
shell, totally dependent on others for all of the most basic bodily functions, he maintained a dignity and sense of wisdom about him. He had
experienced much of life before falling ill and had now spent years reflecting on it, watching the world flicker before him on the television set
that was always on in his room. Everything from mind-numbing game
shows to Sally Jesse Raphael to the local news (which he referred to as
the nightly murder report) passed before him, subject to his critique
distilled from experiences most human beings mercifully never know.
He saw in American life today the perennial story of human acquisitiveness: a self-defeating insatiability that was a hell on earth, chaining
its prisoners to permanent dissatisfaction. Devout in belief, Miles unknowingly echoed the great Fathers of the church in lamenting the inevitability of human self-destruction when the moorings to God are not
established and tended. His worldview quite completely presented Augustines humble declaration of divine reliance: [W]ithout Thee, what
am I but a guide to my own destruction?19 But such reflection was by
no means an inevitability for Miles. He could have simply passed up on
thinking about life or submerged his mind in what anyone who beheld
his state would reckon a quite reasonable self-pity. Yet Miles had invested substantial effort, mostly unaided by books of any kind since he
was unable to read to himself, in pondering the frustrations and psychology of contemporary living. Becoming something of a mandatorily
cloistered contemplative, he always counseled unremitting patience and
persistence as solutions to problems, from the personal to the interpersonal and societal.
But his blend of personal optimism and tenacity was not of a piece
with the saccharine, inspirational platitudes of the many self-help gurus, motivational speakers, and television ministers who have installed
themselves in American popular consciousness. To Miles, hardship and
sufferingand our ignorance of Gods purposes for allowing them to
come upon ushad to be borne in the unadorned confidence of Gods
love, justice, and omniscience. He saw this as an obligation, a true Christian duty that he always reminded himselfwith the purest of sinceritywas not more difficult than what Jesus had endured for him. Giving

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

in to complaining and self-pity, though not irrational (in his case), was
still faithless and morally wrongnot just unproductive, pessimistic, or
uninspiring. We were to ask not Why, Lord? but What, Lord?
What would You have me learn and understand from this experience?
This is not to say that Miles never sank into depression. When he had
to start taking all his meals through a tube connected to his stomach, he
was angry and sad. In part, this was because it meant an end to his
beloved cheeseburgersan important delicacy to him that was basically
his only source of physical sensation and pleasure. But it was also because it was yet a further development of his MS, another way in which
the disease had taken from him one more avenue of contact with the
world, a means of self-assertion, however primary. And when his
motherwho had talked with him on his speaker-telephone every night
for decadesdied, he became morose and desolate. Who is going to
call me, who will I talk to? he once cried, like a small child.
It was at this point in his life that his psychological agonywhich had
always been more acute to him than his physical painbecame its worst.
Why wont God just let me die? he would ask, his pale blue eyes
slightly dilating with the question, underlining the intensity of his bewilderment. It seemed to him that all which could be taken from him
had been, and that of all the appropriate times to die, this was surely
the best.
But still he lived on, a well of insight and simple, stubborn faith. No
one who passed by his room seemed to know the treasure that was in
there, the stark, unglamorous recommendations for living Miles had
tried, tested, and applied. The staff at the convalescent hospital was not
able to interact with Miles on much more than a rudimentary level, since
most of them were very recent immigrants from Mexico and Central
America, who spoke and understood little or sometimes no English. Beyond the bars to meaningful friendship that this language barrier created, it was also dangerous for Miles. Unable to communicate with his
immediate caregivers (charge nurses spoke English, but they were rarely
eager or at hand to help), Miles couldnt tell them when he was lying in
his excrement and needed to be changed, or when he was drowning in
his phlegm and needed to be suctioned. For the most part, the immigrants who staffed the convalescent hospital were compassionate and
diligent, doing unpleasant work for little more than minimum wage. But
they would get tired too, and the opportunity to talk with their coworkers about the details of their common struggle in El Norteor
sometimes just to flirtoccasionally meant that patients like Miles languished unnoticed.
The convalescent hospital was, by any standard, an unpleasant life for
Miles. Yet, he never wanted to take his own life or attempt to have
someone discreetly dispatch him. Such an idea was anathema to him

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because he recognized Gods dominion over human lifewhatever its

circumstancesand the capitulation to darkness such a decision constituted. What he wanted was to live well, not to die. He wanted to serve
God. When he could not see how that could be accomplished, and when
he was at his lowest, he would ask God to take him, but always out of
a sense of a life lived to its utter completion, not out of a sense of unredeemed suffering, hopelessness, or bitter self-pity. When he finally did
die, about a year after his mother, his relatives were visibly relieved. No
more visits to the hospital, no more haggling with the apathetic charge
nurses over the standards of care, no more sharing in Miless frustration
and wondering what all their lives would have been like without MS.
At Miless memorial service, his brother recounted a story about a time
shortly after Miless sixth birthday, when he and Miles were walking to
the store. Excited at the prospects his sixth year held, Miles said that his
life was just beginning. When youre four and five, you dont really
know what to do, and how to act. But when youre six, you do, and so
your life is really just starting. Some fifty years after he spoke those
words, Miless life has truly started anew, heralded by such a noble
preamble.20
The Social Value of Religious Belief
The most apparent consequence of the liberal elites public disparagement of traditional religious conviction and its perspective on public
policy and cultural controversies is the marginalization of its contributions to the nations civic life historically and to our current social exigencies, for example, welfare reform.21 The conservative religious voice
of our culture is not taken seriously by those who hold the most cognitively influential positions (for example, professors, editors at the New
York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, print and electronic
commentators, network programmers, and film producers). As a result,
the ideas uniquely residing in traditional religious values have difficulty
gaining a widespread and comprehensive hearing.22 The country at large
is the worse for this selectivity, for some extremely potent and valuable
social criticisms have stemmed from American piety. Abolition and the
civil rights movementboth led by Christians, with civil rights spearheaded by a theologically traditional clergyman whose advocacy was
utterly imbued with religious values, rhetoric, and symbolismare the
paradigmatic examples.
I would now like to take a brief look at one example of a very successful conservative Christian organizations approach to solving the social problems of welfare, drug addiction, and homelessness. This section
concludes with two short discussions further illustrating the general social value of religious commitment, as well as an explanation for the

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popularity of the reenergized social phenomenon of the evangelical crusade, and how it may affect future political alignments.
CityTeam. When the city of San Jose, California, launched an ambitious program to renovate its downtown neighborhoods, its first task
was to move the homeless out of the area. But to do that, the city fathers
knew they had to move the CityTeam Ministries rescue mission out of
its downtown home, since its chapel and coffeehouse programs regularly
drew the weary and wayward. It is a measure of the success and integrity of CityTeam Ministries that the city of San Josewith virtually no
public oppositiondid not hesitate to pay the $11.5 million relocation
costs of CityTeam. Patrick Robertson, the president of CityTeam Ministries, was not surprised. We have purposely cultivated a good relationship with the city of San Jose, he said, and they know we are
committed to helping people recover their lives.23
CityTeam, a nondenominational Christian ministry, operated through
several buildings it owns around the city of San Jose, carries out that
commitment in many ways, including the rescue mission, a shelter for
homeless women and their children, a family services center providing
food and furniture to impoverished families, an annual summer camp
for hundreds of urban poor kids, drug and alcohol recovery programs,
English and literacy classes, weekly Bible clubs for kids, a home for unwed pregnant women, and occasional special programs such as On the
Right Track, which provides a free haircut, backpack, and school supplies to hundreds of underprivileged children preparing to return to
school.
All that CityTeam does is free to the poorand free to the city of San
Jose. No wonder San Jose mayor Susan Hammer has publicly stated her
support for CityTeam. The group does a lot of good and doesnt cost the
city of San Jose or the county of Santa Clara anything at all.
This is all made possible by CityTeams massive volunteer base
about 3,000 people drawn from area churches and civic groupsalong
with its 75 full-time staff members. They operate all of CityTeams programs, and the ministry does not accept any money from government
sources. But the aspect of its work that is causing CityTeams fame to
spreadso much so that recently a church in the Philadelphia area asked
CityTeam to start a ministry thereis its comprehensive approach to
treating the drug- and alcohol-addicted homeless.
CityTeams approach to compassion is overtly religious; it maintains
that true recovery is a spiritual issue and must be spiritually based. It is
this guiding conviction that sets CityTeam apart from other secular approaches to helping the homeless and addicted. Most groups that try
to help the homeless and addicted do so with a liberal sympathy that is
undirected, that just shovels money out there, Robertson explained.
But this we care attitude is actually harmful to the homeless, it aids

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their dysfunction. Their root problems are not economic, theyre internal.
They need to start taking responsibility for their lives, and they need to
be willing to accept guidelines, and to accept personal accountability for
themselves. We insist that they do that.24
And there is no doubt that the CityTeam philosophy of Biblical accountability has produced impressive results, with over 65 percent of
CityTeam graduatespeople who were hard-core, lifetime addicts
clean and sober one year after their completion of the twelve-month long
CityTeam drug and alcohol recovery program. Steven, a 45-year-old
drug addict whose weathered face bears the scars of addiction, is a case
in point. I went through half a dozen re-hab programs before entering
CityTeams, and it is by far the best one I have experienced. I have
learned more about myself during the last year here than I had learned
in all my 44 years before.25 Pat Robertson explained, We are trying to
be a mirror, and say, look at yourself, do you like this picture, what else
would you like, where else would you like to be?26 This confrontational
approach bears fruit with people who really want to change, he maintains.
The essential uniqueness of CityTeams method is the comprehensive,
Christ-centered nature of its program which takes hold of peoples lives
and brings genuine change. The organization requires chapel attendance
and participation in recovery and literacy classes. CityTeam has volunteers from local churches that form friendships with the men and who
help them become involved at a local church. It sees itself as teaching
self-sufficiency, preparing people for independence, so that when they
have completed the program they already have a network of friendships
and support relationships that can sustain them.
So in a very real sense CityTeam is out to change lives, not merely
ease some immediate pain or material need. This is in sharp contrast to
the conventional, secular liberal approach to homelessness and addiction.
Robertson explains, Liberals are out to alleviate pain. They are not out
to demonstrate productive results, theyre just out to alleviate pain. But
sometimes pain is a very good thing that forces people to look at their
lives, and start making some right decisions.27
This philosophy clearly worked with Ray, a middle-aged man whose
long battle with drug addiction had basically paralyzed his life. He said,
CityTeam has helped me deal with my inner problems, and I know
those are the real source of my trouble.28 CityTeam staff members are
able to bring hurting people to these realizations by showing them that
their concern for them is sincere. Hakim, an ex-addict, is one program
participant who was especially touched by the compassion shown to him
by CityTeam. He is a middle-aged African immigrant who speaks English haltingly and with a thick accent. His eyes welled with tears as he
said in a firm voice, The people here at CityTeam care for me. They

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have shown me love. No one has ever done that for me before. I was
lost before I came here, I was dead. But I have found life here, the Lord
has given me life through this ministry.29
Perhaps the city of San Joses recent Guadalupe Creek Project offers
the most illustrative contrast between the comprehensive methods of
CityTeam and the more common band-aid approach of city social service
agencies. In 1990 San Jose wanted to create a park at Guadalupe Creek
near its downtown. But this area was a major homeless encampment,
with several hundred people living there. The city brought together numerous public agencies, including the departments of social service, welfare, housing, mental health, job development, and the California State
Employment office. They provided the homeless people who had been
living at the creek with virtually everything they would need to reenter
society: social security numbers, identification papers, bus passes, and
free Section Eight welfare housing, with the city providing a security
deposit and first months rent for an apartment. We had large tents set
up all around the creek, said one official in the San Jose Housing Department who wished to remain unidentified, it was like a carnival.
But many of the homeless that the city and county had worked so hard
to relocate did not fare well in the community. One person used the
apartment we had placed him in as a party house, and he sold drugs
out of the place, the city official said. The landlord was pretty upset
with us.30
Commenting on the citys Guadalupe Creek program and the comparative approaches of CityTeam and conventional government-centered
methods, Robertson said,
They meant well, but they werent dealing with the core issues. There is
this whole homeless movement in America that thinks that the root
problem of homelessness is not having a house. The root problem is not
houselessness, the real problem is that these folks dont have the mentality
of a home. Theyve cut themselves off from family. The overwhelming
majority of them are addicts also, and their addiction causes them to become involved in criminal activities. Nobody is dealing with these real
problems, theyre thinking if we just put these people in houses we have
dealt with the problem.

He continued,
But in the case of the Guadalupe Creek program, within months, many of
the apartments were trashed, and these people were back on the streets,
because the root problem of their emotional, mental, and personal state of
well-being was not addressed. There is a backlash against homelessness in
this country today, because people are seeing that weve spent millions of
dollars on the problem of homelessness, but its not getting any better, its

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getting worse. More and more people are going to start recognizing that
you have to deal with the root problems, and that is the only thing that
can really make a difference.31

Robertson went on to explain the basic flaw in the contemporary liberal philosophy of compassion: Liberals regularly assert that they care
about the homeless, the addicted and people who are hurting. And they
do. But all of us need to understand the implications of our actions. If
we are not careful, in trying to show our compassion and demonstrate
how much we care, we will rob people of their independence; we will
prevent them from engaging in the necessary personal struggle that creates their independence and self-sufficiency.32
He continued,
I like to use this illustration: a boy was walking along and he came across
a cocoon on the ground, partially open, and inside was the butterfly, agonizing and thrashing around trying to get out of the cocoon. The little
boy sees this and decides hes going to help the butterfly, so he reaches
down and carefully, gently opens up the cocoon so the butterfly can go
free. He does this with good intentions, but the reality is that he has now
cursed that butterfly, because it is the struggle to emerge from the cocoon
that causes blood to flow to the butterflys wings, so they can mature properly, allowing the butterfly to fly. Without the struggle to break free of the
cocoon, the butterfly will never fully develop, and it wont survive. This
is an illustration of what is wrong with our welfare system, and with liberal
thinking: it is rightly motivated in that liberals care deeply, and they are
trying to show their compassion by helping people escape their pain. But
in pain, and in the process of our struggles, are some of the greatest lessons
that we will ever learn in life. Liberals dont see that the process of the
struggle is as critical to what the individual becomes as is the end result.
You must not rob people of the process of their struggle, because that is how they
grow. Had the prodigal son not gone hungry, he would have never gone
back to his father, he would have continued slopping hogs. If there had
been somebody there to say Oh, you poor boy, come over to my house
and Ill give you clean clothes and take care of you, and help you get back
to your life, then nobody would have been challenging him in terms of
the long-term implications of the decisions he had made, and he would
have continued in that destructive lifestyle. He had to go through the process of understanding that he had sinned against his father, he had blown
all of his money, and his fathers hogs were eating better than he was.
After that process, he came to his senses and said Im going to go home.
So, we need to help conservatives understand that they should truly care
about people, but we need to help liberals understand that sometimes their
acts of compassion are sentencing the individual to a lifetime of defeat.33

Religious Belief as Social Critique. But beyond specific, practical contributions such as the religiously inspired work of CityTeam, the larger

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dimension of prophetic social critique is also lost when religious voices

especially conservative ones, as they are the most contrary to the contemporary zeitgeistare muffled.34 Perhaps the social value of a transcendent perspectivewhich is often overlooked by those on the left,
and sometimes by those on the rightcan be seen by reflecting on the
1996 national elections.
Once again the vigorous involvement of religious conservatives in this
past election cycle was controversial, and we again heard the perennial
debate over the propriety of religion in politics. However, the main antagonists in this regular argumentreligious conservatives and secular
liberalsconsistently fail to give careful consideration to the possibility
that religion, and specifically belief in the personal infinite God of the
Judeo-Christian tradition, has a social utility regardless of its truth or
falsity.
Certainly, theists maintain that God actually exists, and great minds
through the centuries have offered a battery of presentable reasons in
support of that proposition.35 But for our common social purposesin
a comprehensively pluralistic countrywhat matters most is not the
metaphysical truth of theism, but rather that the concept of God itself
affects human conductgenerally for the better.
It does this primarily by holding before us the image of a perfect and
impartial judge who always sees what we do, and who promises to reward good and punish evil. This resonates with our deepest moral sentiments: we intuitively know that how we behave matters (even if we
think no one is watching), and we yearn for justice. We want the good
rewarded and the bad punished. A consciousness of God-as-judge confers order on what is for us an often chaotic world and helps us reckon
human behavior as meaningful, and not merely an exhibition of random
absurdity.
Furthermore, the diffused belief in a transcendent God also underlines
ontological human equality. Bigoted claims to racial or ethnic superiority
shrink before the image of a personal, infinite creator of all persons. We
come to recognize our ultimate commonality and shared human experience when we understand ourselves not as heroic self-made, wholly
self-determining masters of the universe, but rather as imperfect
creatures of the same Maker, mutually challenged by the fears, complexities, and promises of life.
The abiding belief in God also humanizes us. This is a paradox: by
focusing on God, we become more concerned about people. By recognizing God as beyond all immanent, human constructions, we suddenly
come to a greater valuation of earthly relationships, understanding them
as a sacred gift to be cherished, not simply as our chosen arrangements,
instruments serving our own calculated ends.
The fact is, human nature is not admirable. Genuinely virtuous peo-

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pleand the good society that can resultcan only be formed by the
practice of habits inspired by knowledge of the profound gravity of our
lives, and the anticipation of divine judgment and reward.
Acknowledgment of the social benefits of belief in God could lead
religious conservatives and secular liberals to a substantial common
ground: the recognition that we need neither a religious government nor
a secular society. The former understanding is appealing to secularists
and should be accepted by religious people because they know true faith
cannot be coerced and must have a wide latitude of religious liberty in
order to flourish. The latter realization is appealing to religious conservatives and should be accepted by secular liberals because it does not
constitute any establishment of religion or actual imposition of particular
belief, but it does humanize our social order as nothing else can. It simply
acknowledges the religious voice in human society and the general need
for human beings to sense that they are accountable to someone beyond
themselves for their behavior.
As our inhumanity to one another attests, when we become a law unto
ourselves we are notoriously lenient judges. This historical reality should
compel us to welcome religious critiques of political life and to be open
to the shafts of light the sacred may cast on the profane.
Promise Keepers. One religious movement that has received substantial media notice is Promise Keepers, the evangelical Christian Mens
movement.36 It continues to attract national attention and has been hailed
as a valuable instance of religious renovation of civic life.37 But it is certainly not embraced by American feminists. One would think that every
woman would want to hear the man in her life sincerely affirm to her,
I will respect you, I will be faithful to you, I will provide for you and
your children. But that is not the case.
Promise Keepers vigorously advocates these commitments, and so it
generates significant hostility from much of the liberal cogniscenti, particularly women. Most basically, the movements feminist critics are opposed to Promise Keepers implicit gender traditionalismthe idea that
men and women generally have different social and familial roles, that
these roles tend to reflect inherent psycho-emotional differences, and that
men and women generally feel more fulfilled when they perform their
respective roles.38 They are angered by the supposition that a man should
lead his family, and they see the ethic of chivalry that the Promise Keepers outlook represents as an oppressive and galling artifact of times past,
when women were locked out of positions of social and economic power,
doomed merely to cook and clean in their husbands shadow.
But American feminisms myopic jihad against gender traditionalism
is increasingly straining the patience of women and men. In the crucible
of growing economic pressure and an unraveling of social civility, they
have come to see each other not as opponents in a zero-sum contest for

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professional success, but rather as partners in the ultimate human project

of forging solid families and personal contentment in a violent and coarsening world. Mainstream feminisms continuing drive to invert traditional gender roles is seen as anachronistic and irrelevant by a growing
number of women whose deepest concerns center on their families rather
than their careers. Indeed, according to a recent Parents magazine survey,
nearly half of working mothers said they envied stay-at-home mothers,
but only 11 percent of at-home mothers envied working women.39
Yet feminist icon Gloria Steinem, in a recent Smith College graduation
speech, commended the graduating young women about to launch their
careers for becoming the men you once would have wanted to marry,
and she lamented that too few men are becoming the women they want
to marry.40 But to the vast sea of women beyond Gloria Steinems insular island of gender revolution, the hope of marriage to a man who
will be a faithful and committed provider is very important, and for
them Promise Keepers is a much-welcomed affirmation of an older orders wisdom.
Promise Keepers constitutes a reassertion of traditional, servantcentered masculinity (set in the context of evangelical Christianity). It is
therefore a much needed antidote to the anomizing strains of contemporary American life which have alienated so many men from women,
their children, and self-responsibility. Today many American men are
abandoning responsible masculinity, with these frightening consequences: rampant fatherlessness (40 percent of American children are
living apart from their father, says sociologist David Blankenhorn);41 outof-wedlock births (which are currently about 30 percent of all births nationwide);42 and juvenile violence (between 1982 and 1991 the juvenile
arrest rate for murder increased a staggering 93 percent).43 While the
amelioration of such massive social pathologies must be broad based,
serious talk of masculinity which emphasizes self-responsibility, personal
integrity, and sexual restraint can begin to compensate for the socialization into sound masculinity that is so lacking in American society.
Promise Keepers provides this compensation and so serves a vital social
purpose.
Dissident feminist Camille Paglia captured the fundamental paradox
of gender differences when she wrote, A woman simply is, but a man
must become.44 Authentic masculinitythat is, a masculinity that is
able to cherish children, respect women, and assertively express itself
nonviolentlymust be learned. The Promise Keepers movement should
be applauded, especially by women, for seeking to articulatethrough
the moral and religious resources of the Judeo-Christian traditionthe
true meaning of manhood in what can only be judged to be an unmanly
time.
A Harvest of Discontent. Similar to Promise Keepers, but organizationally unrelated, is the annual series of evangelical crusades held at

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stadiums across the country each summer, particularly in southern California, called the Harvest Crusades. These gatherings are oriented primarily toward baby boomers and their children, and are strongly
conservative in both religious and political tone, though they are not
always overtly political. Appealing to the growing interest in religion
among baby boomers, as well as providing a clear path to individual
fulfillment and moral assurance amidst what is widely perceived as an
American cultural crisis, these rallies tend to draw younger, enthusiastic
crowds.45 Important political consequences flow from these annual gatherings of evangelical Christians and those contemplating such identification, consequences that the national press has generally ignored.
Overwhelmingly, the Crusades draws and produces conservative
evangelicalsthat is, the religious right, in the parlance of todays
political acrimony. The political profile of such religious believers is wellknown. They are almost uniformly pro-life, disapproving of homosexuality, supportive of school voucher programs and prayer in public
schools, creationist, and suspicious of large, activist government. Thus,
in effect, the evangelical Harvest Crusades directly yield recruits for the
Culture War, people whose religious beliefs incline them decisively to
the right on many of the most contentious issues in American society.
And it does so in substantial numbers. The gathering in Anaheim in 1995
attracted approximately 175,000 people in four days, a better turnout
than the California Angels baseball team had in the entire month of
June.46
But perhaps more important than the sheer number of people inadvertently drafted for the American Kulturkampf as a result of their participation in the Crusades is the fact that these Christians bring an
unusual fervor and depth of commitment to their political opinions.47
For them, conservative political beliefs are a subset of conservative theological beliefs. Political values are derived from religious values. This is
not always the case with liberals. It may somehow be the case with the
religious left, but their political power is small compared with that of
religious conservatives. The religious left is a largely gentrified and intellectual body, hard pressed to compete with the younger, more
numerous and more grass-roots evangelicals typified by the Harvest
Crusades. Moreover, the secular left, which is easily the dominant component of contemporary liberalism, is not energized with the religious
themes that animate politically conservative evangelicals. These themes
include a moral absolutism; a missionary impulse that aggressively seeks
to persuade and convert others to ones own worldview; and a visceral
alarm at what is seen as the nations apocalyptic decline into social debauchery.
Over the last two decades, sociologists of religion have documented
the stunningly rapid growth of evangelical churches.48 Their literalistic

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belief systems, their emphasis on Bible study, and their individual service form and nurture a commitment to their local church. This religious
commitment translates into strong political allegianceagain, usually
rightwardbecause of the clear meaning and moral confidence evangelical faith provides in the midst of an increasingly ambiguous and
unpredictable world.49 Thus, the political conservatives produced by the
now nationwide Harvest Crusades are enthusiastically committed to at
least the outlines of a culturally conservative ideology. In addition, their
political influence is enhanced because their commonly held and clearly
identified religious beliefs allow for a ready-made solidarity among
themselves. And since the left has no vehicle equivalent to the Harvest
Crusades for laying a religious foundation for its politics, the political
impact of the Crusades is further magnified. They are a powerful conduit
to conservative politics, without liberal peer.
And so the Harvest Crusadesalong with their organizationally unrelated counterpart, Promise Keeperswill continue to multiply and solidify conservative evangelical Christians. Moreover, the Crusades, as
annual conventions, will have a cumulative effect on the political climate.
Year after year, in city after city, they will lead thousands of people,
particularly young people, into political conservatism generally. The full
significance of this double harvest will begin to unfold in the first years
of the new millennium.
THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS POSTURE
Without question, a primary trait of contemporary liberalism is its palpable self-righteousness. Liberals are quite convinced that they occupy
the moral high ground on policy questions and that their response to
social problems is notable for its compassion and sensitivity.
Thus, as a matter of course they treat dissent from their views with
contempt and disgustand are almost never taken to task for doing so.
Liberal debate by ad hominem is the usual procedure of American politics.
Hence, it goes virtually unnoticed when Jesse Jackson declares the
United States Supreme Court guilty of ethnic cleansinga form of
mass murderfor its opposition to the practice of drawing congressional
districts on the basis of race.50 Similarly, those who contest the fairness
of racial and gender set-asides in college admissions are routinely and
publicly labeled by the left as simple bigots.51 Further illustrating this
liberal tendency is Bill Clinton, who, during his two presidential campaigns, consistently and without hesitation portrayed his opponents as
heartless enemies of social security, Medicare, immigrants, women, minorities, gays, and basically anyone who was not a wealthy, straight
white male. Indeed, Dick Morris, the presidents disgraced political adviser, recorded Bill Clinton as describing his opponent in the 1996 pres-

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idential election, gravely wounded World War II veteran and U.S.

senator Bob Dole, as essentially an evil, evil, man.52 Not surprisingly,
this liberal self-anointing as morally superior has by now become internalized among American liberals, and so serves as an unexamined, unquestioned autonomous justification for their many statist programs.53
The one-dimensionality of the liberal political style is no cause for any
sense of satisfaction from the right. Although the cogency of conservative
ideas has forced liberal opponents to vindicate their own policies largely
on the crude basis of self-righteousness and personal epithets, this tactic
impairs the health of our social organism as a whole. As history makes
clear, the vacuum created by the absence of genuine intellectual conflict
is always filled by demagogues, propagandists, and those who place the
best interests of the nation last. Thus, the vitality of our public life continues to decline, even while liberal politicians and advocates glibly assure us that their work is motivated by an unmatched compassion for
people.
And it is compassion that serves as perhaps the most powerful moral
absolute in the political universe of contemporary liberalism and the
foundation of its self-righteousness. But it is an unsystematized and
mushy compassion, roughly equal to be nice to people. The concept
of inappropriate compassion, or a compassion that is in tension with
justice and personal accountability for behaviorand perhaps incommensurate with these valuesis unknown to the modern liberal mind.54
The misunderstanding of compassion has led to many serious liberal
dysfunctions, not the least of which is this tendency to eschew selfresponsibility and fail to hold people morally liable for their own actions.
This pervasive tendency in American society to excuse people from
individual accountability and find external causes of human moral
failurea habit fomented by liberalisms infatuation with sociologyis
well illustrated by a recent Los Angeles Times editorial. The article was
written in the wake of a savage beating of an infant by a 6-year-old boy
and his two 8-year-old partners who had broken into the house where
the infant was asleep and beat the baby with a blunt object. The editorial
wondered, Why did this act of brutality happen? . . . what conditions
produced the youngsters who hit and kicked the baby?55 The assumption
that the childrens actions were exclusively or mainly the result of mysterious outside forces acting against the childrens otherwise benign wills
is emblematic of the contemporary liberal mind. Although it is prudent
to take stock of the assailants social situation, it is a fallacy to believe in
the deterministic notion that their behavior was in some irresistible way
produced by forces outside the children themselves.
The emetic refrain of the criminal, society made me do it, has been
a well-known personal manifestation of the liberal habit of looking to
causes outside a person which might explain that persons bad behavior.

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One such manifestation of this flight from self-responsibility is to be

found in the musings of one convict, who wrote the Pittsburgh PostGazette to say:
I am . . . awaiting to [be released], with nowhere to go, no money in my
pocket. . . . I had asked to go to a halfway house, so that I would be able
to make a couple of hundred dollars to be able to support myself until I
could improve myself. But it was denied because . . . I owe money to the
magistrate for fines which I was paying previous to coming to jail. For this
they said, No, you cant help yourself by going to a halfway house.
When one of your readers falls victim to meand one of them will fall
victim, because of my need for survivalthat person should understand
it was nothing personal. I did what I did because I had to do what I was
forced to do by the state system.56

This confused mans rant illustrates what has been called the basic
creed of liberalism, poverty causes crime.57 Most often parroted by
academics and elite journalists, this Marxist reduction of morality to economics is concisely described by Dennis Prager:
The essential belief of contemporary liberalismowing to the influence of
traditional Leftist thought on liberalsis that economics is the primary
determinant of human behavior, crime in particular. As the Clinton [1992]
campaign theme put it, Its the economy, stupid!58

Not only does self-responsibility become largely anathema, but compassion also dictates that freedom itself becomes questionable, since
freedom implies accountability, and holding people accountable is judgmentalwhich is uncompassionate and therefore forbidden in the liberal
moral universe (unless conservative values are in the balance). Contemporary liberalism tends to describe human behavior, if it is negative, as
nonvolitional. Hence, alcoholism, promiscuity, homosexuality, a bad
temper, and other forms of traditionally disparaged behavior are often
portrayed as nearly compulsory.59 Escaping such descriptions, however,
is the simple fact that if my dysfunction is not a product of my liberty,
then neither is my virtue. If I cannot be bad, then I cannot be good.60
The compassion imperative that is the essence of liberal selfrighteousness also leads to other gaps in social vision. For example, the
need not to disapprove of out-of-wedlock births has led to casual attitudes toward illegitimacy, a practice that has proved utterly ruinous to
society in general, and minority communities in particular.61 Similarly,
the drive for egalitarianism in public schools means that gifted students
are restrained and deterred from excellence, lest their distinguished performance injure the self-esteem of their classmates.62

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Furthermore, the societal refusal to firmly condemn the violent misbehavior of children and hold them personally responsible is generating
a culture of violence among American youth. Contemporary American
youth are capable of incredible brutality. For example, five San Francisco
area teens were recently arrested for abducting a classmate after school
one day, handcuffing him, beating him, making him eat leaves and coffee
grounds, repeatedly shooting him in the chest with a bee-bee gun, and
dripping hot candle wax all over his body.63 Todays urban high school
is nearly a war zone, with weapons and deep ethnic strifeinduced by
race-consciousness and group identification advocated by the lefta
constant presence.64 The most rapidly growing segment of the American
criminal population is children.65 As John J. DiIulio, Jr., has pointed out,
there is a pervasive lack of belief among political leaders that criminals,
especially child-criminals, are free moral agents, and therefore deserving
of aggressive punishment for their crimes.66
Perhaps one of the least discussed but most troubling aspects of the
perverse compassion of contemporary liberalism is the philosophy of
child custody in which it has culminated. There is nearly an iron-clad
presumption in favor of what Dennis Prager calls blood over love,
with the courts regularly bestowing custody of children on parents who
are patently unfit or undeserving. This, of course, is to the great detriment of children.67 But todays liberalism, which, in the name of compassion, is so averse to standing in judgment of personal moral
incompetenceexcept when practiced by conservative public figures
is unable to acknowledge this harmful effect.
THE INTOLERANT POSTURE
There is then a paradox: while contemporary liberalism is morally laissez faire in some respects, it is oppressively intolerant in others. Before
considering instances of liberalisms illiberalism, we should first contemplate the idea of tolerance itself.68
What does it mean to be tolerant? How should tolerance as a concept
be understood? First, we might note that tolerance does not mean merely
the uncritical and unreflective embrace of any and every idea or supposition. Tolerance is not indifference to competing and irreconcilable
values, and it does not mandate moral neutrality, despite the ethos of
contemporary liberalism which generally insists otherwise. Tolerance
should not be understood as an absolute or acontextual concept; it is not
to be extended to every person, in every circumstance, regardless of the
particular situation. For example, an individual who, out of a strong
desire to be tolerant and nonjudgmental, stands by and watches a heinous crime being committeddoing nothing to stop it, when he or she
has the ability to do socould hardly be praised for being tolerant of

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the beliefs/actions of another. In fact, we would normally assign moral

culpability to such an individual, because we know that some actions,
and by implication the attitudes from which they spring, ought not be
countenanced in any way. We should be intolerant toward them. In
much the same way, never to disagree with others, for the sake of tolerance, even when their statements are incoherent, dubious, or known
to be untrue, could not really be said to be tolerance. In fact, true and
genuine concern for othersand respect for their dignity as individual
and autonomous agents of serious reflectionwould seem to drive at
prudently pointing out those instances in which they appear to have
erred or are plainly in the wrong. Open debate and intellectual confrontation, when performed with respect and sensitivity, is not a sign of
intolerance or bigotry. Rather, it constitutes an overt recognition of the
individuality and moral agency of the person with whom one is dialoguing.
Tolerance is best understood by realizing that its exercise does not
presuppose or require the acceptance or agreement of the notion toward
which I am being tolerant. In fact, in tolerating an idea x, there is a plain
sense in which I am not approving of x. Tolerance, in one sense, involves
the abiding of something toward which one has a negative estimation,
perhaps strongly so. It is the honest and forthright engagement of an
idea or set of ideas with which I disagree. After all, it does not make
sense to tolerate an idea that one actually agrees with, or in some
meaningful way believes to be deeply right. If a person thoroughly
agrees with the concept of racial equality under law, it is nonsense for
that person to speak of tolerating racial fairness. It seems appropriate,
then, to conclude that the concept of tolerance has an element of disapproval or disagreement inherent in its application. Its relevance presupposes the presence of discordant viewpoints. Thus, the modern liberal
habit of ascribing intolerance to conservative critiques of abortion, homosexuality, illegal immigration, and so on, is incoherent, since tolerance
as a value is relevant only in the context of disagreement. Maurice Cranston, in his definition of tolerance, has recognized this point, writing
Toleration is a policy of patient forbearance in the presence of something which is disliked or disapproved of.69 Tolerance, rightly understood, is essentially a conceptual deviceprescribing a certain mode of
thought and actionthat makes it possible for persons of diverse opinions to cognitively interact within a bond of civility. The incivility of
contemporary liberalism is revealed in part by the rapidity with which
its adherents ascribe intolerance to those who dissent from its program.
So in a social context, being tolerant of anothers beliefs means that
one accepts the presence of the belief and recognizes its holders right to
it, while at the same time rejectingnot necessarily out of arrogance or

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meannessthe content of that belief. So one can tolerate a belief and still
hold it to be misdirected or in some sense false. In addition, one need
not be unsure of ones own beliefs in order to be tolerant of divergent
ones. A clear and important distinction can be made between accepting
and acknowledging that someone can hold a certain belief, and accepting
and embracing the substance of, and warrant for, that belief. Genuine
and reasonable tolerance requires the former but not the latter. If it did,
then to be genuinely tolerant would mean accepting as true or accurate
every value held by any person at any time. Besides straining credulity,
this constitutes an infringement of the cognitive freedom of those who
might choose not to hold a given belief(s), or choose to believe in the
falsity of anothers beliefs. Now, of course, a theory of truth could be
advanced which perhaps made possible such an approach. For example,
a belief is true if someone holds it, or wants it to be true, but such
constructions edge toward the most extravagant and implausible relativisms as not to warrant serious consideration.
So tolerance, as a practice, is rightly applied to people, not ideas. Failure to fully recognize this principle is at the heart of modern liberalisms
overreaching notion of tolerance.70 There is nothing necessarily immoral
about rejecting an idea, even if it is the most important idea to its holder.
Rejecting an idea is simply a formal cognitive-volitional act. The moral
quality of embracing or rejecting an idea is determined by the substance
of the idea under consideration. It is immoral to reject a prohibition on
rape. It is morally good to embrace an acceptance of the equality of all
persons under the law without regard to their skin color. Rejecting an
idea or belief, even if it is sincerely held by another person and even if
it is of great import to them and their community, is not necessarily an
immoral act. However, if I were to harass them, beat them, or imprison
them personally because I disagree with their position, that would be
intolerant and immoral. But if I respectfully disagree with my gay friend
over the moral nature of his sexual practice, I have not committed an
intolerant and bigoted act.
Human persons, as dignified, autonomous agents of reflection and deliberation, are the proper objects of tolerance. In contrast, ideas, of whatever sort, are not to be tolerated; they are to be evaluated and examined
with an eye toward their sensibility, moral justification, and social consequences, ever mindful of what they may mean to the individual embracing them.
But in American life today deviant behavior, and not merely deviant
thought, is granted a vast range of tolerance. The moral shield that makes
this possible is one of the cardinal moral absolutes of contemporary liberalism, self-expression. Few could gainsay the ascendance of the concept
of self-expression in American public life.71 Today doing your own thing
and expressing yourself serve as unquestioned justifications for all

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manner of behavior. Any activity that is asserted to be the manifestation

of some deeper conviction, whatever that may be, is blessed with the
patina of moral legitimacy. The absolutizing of freedom in contemporary
American life and the prima facie rightness accorded actions performed
by individual choice insulate the work of self-expression from moral
criticisms of even the simplest sort.72 Apart from the stultification of public discourse which this solipsism leads to, it overlooks the plain fact that
self-expression is not an intrinsic value; there is nothing inherently good
about it. Stalin and Hitler, John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmers exhibitions of their values and worldviews were wholly evil, devoid of any
redemptive features. The virtue of ones self-expression is directly related
to the complex of character, values, purposes, and relationships which
together substantially determine who one is. To simply display, through
some chosen action, what one has become does not equal a morally valuable
practice. The formality of self-expression requires some antecedent personal virtue to merit ethical approbation. Our popular and intellectual
cultures greatly err by uncritically embracing all self-expression as
healthy and appropriate, without regard to its content. Indeed, the
entire edifice of contemporary psychotherapy and psychological analysis
is predicated, in part, on the conclusion that some forms of behavior are
pathological, indicative of inner turmoil and dysfunction, and in need of
remedial therapy.
It is the moral absolute of self-expression, in conjunction with the selfbestowed moral superiority of contemporary liberalism and its inveterate
antitraditionalism that produce its intolerant thrust, a force directed primarily at conservative politics, dissenters from liberal orthodoxy, and
heterosexual white men. Consider the following short menu of intolerant
remarks and deeds sanctioned by modern liberal policies, values, or attitudes.
A nationally prominent liberal economist and social commentator attending a conference on race and ethnic relations in higher education openly
proclaimed, I want equality of outcomes [for women and minorities],
not equal opportunity, and then she deemed the 1992 Los Angeles riots,
in which over fifty people were murdered, a long overdue insurrection.73
In November of 1996 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a
billthe first of its kind in the nationrequiring all organizations that
do business with the city to offer full benefits to domestic partners, whatever their sex. Those who fail to comply will not be allowed to do business with the city. This includes Catholic Charities, which operates an
array of services for the citys poor and needy. Archbishop of San Francisco William Levada remarked that the bill is an effort to force a church
to adopt a policy on the basis of activity which is contrary to its moral
code.74

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Ron Greer, pastor, firefighter, and black community activist in notoriously liberal Madison, Wisconsin, was recently suspended from the fire
department without pay for two months and ordered to undergo diversity training because he passed out a religious tract at work which denounced homosexuality as unbiblical. His home has been the target of
gay and lesbian protestors, who have placed small pink signs all around
his yard reading dyke power, queer and proud, and queers against
Greer. And his church was blockaded by the gay protestors, who prevented parishioners from entering, and then, upon the commencement
of services, the protestors, now inside the church, shouted continuously,
their jeers overpowering anyone who tried to speak from the pulpit.
While all this was taking place, more protestors chanted Bring back the
lions! Bring back the lions!75
In late 1996 Jewish ethicist Dennis Prager published an essay in the Jewish
Journal of Greater Los Angeles asserting that publicly practicing gays or
lesbians should not be rabbis because of the special and privileged nature
of their office. He was then pilloried by another rabbi as going beyond
his usual diatribe against homosexuality and feed[ing] a climate of hate
and exclusion. Pragers belief about the special nature of the rabbinate
was also labeled as arrogant and inappropriate. Prager later wrote
of the incident. His words merit quotation, for they accurately portray
the intolerance of todays liberalism:
In the 1950s, America suffered through a period known as McCarthyism. Its distinguishing characteristic was the leveling of charges
of Communist and other terrible labels on a person solely because
his views differed from those of the Right wing senator, Joseph McCarthy, and his supporters. Opponents were not debated, they were
labeled.
For the last 20 years, there has been a resurgence of such tactics,
this time from the Left. Rather than dialogue with those who differ,
many of the Left simply label their opponents racist, sexist, homophobic, mean-spirited, intolerant etc.76
Intolerant liberalism will go as far as to deny the reality of biology as when
Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who has three children and is the former U.S. ambassador
to the United Nations, was said by a liberal feminist critic to be without a
uterus, and was reviled by another feminist as not someone I want to represent feminine accomplishment. Another woman, Carla Hills, active in the
Ford and Reagan presidential administrationsand therefore insufficiently liberalwas described by a prominent feminist as not a woman.77
At Brown University during the Gulf War, some patriotic students decided to
hang a United States flag from their dorm room window. University officials
told the students to remove the flag, for its presence might offend other students who, for whatever reason, disapproved of the war.78
In 1984 San Francisco State University approved two new academic positions
in its English Department, but with the proviso that candidates recommended

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for the positions must be of any skin color except white. The provost of the
university emphasized, Let me underscore that [this] stipulation is an absolute
condition.79
Former Democratic Governor Robert Casey of Pennsylvania was forbidden
from speaking at the 1992 Democratic National Convention because his prolife position is at odds with the official position of the party. Later, when The
Village Voice invited him to speak on the possibility of being a pro-life liberal,
he was shouted down by audience members who disagreed with his views.80
In a 1975 interview with Betty Friedan, feminist Simone de Beauvoir openly
stated the foundational principle of feminism regarding women and work: No
woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise her children. Society
should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.81
In 1992 protestors at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst stole 10,000
copies of the student newspaper The Daily Collegian, because the paper didnt
publish an editorial about the first Rodney King trial. In 1993 at the University
of Pennsylvania, a group of African-American students destroyed 14,000 copies
of the student newspaper because they disagreed with its coverage of blacks.
The university administration at Penn did not discipline the students.82

Similar examples could be multiplied many times over. Contemporary

liberalism, separated from its classical origins by its alienation from bourgeois values and its animus against the Judeo-Christian moral tradition,
has been transmogrified into a neo-Marxist leftism, with minorities,
women, homosexuals, and the poor as the new proletariat and the Great
White Male/Christian Oppressor as the capitalist who exploits their suffering. Indeed, as we remarked at the beginning of this book, the conservatives of today largely bear the mantle of classical liberalism, and
those who are today called liberals are better classified as statists and
socialists operating beneath the cloak of rights-talk. Liberalism has become pungently illiberal, and most types of conservatism have become
reformist vis-a`-vis prevailing cultural tides. The current situation bears
out the maxim that liberals always fare better under a conservative regime than do conservatives in a dominantly liberal political milieu. The
imperative for change and the ideological aggressiveness resident in contemporary liberalism does not hesitate to enlist the power of the state,
litigation, or public invective to achieve its ends, and this invariably leads
to a coercive effect on conservatives who, by ideological orientation, are
directed more toward their families, vocations, and personal relationships rather than politics and social transformation. Surely this must
change if the devolution of American life is to abate.83 For as Richard
John Neuhaus has frankly warned, citizens of goodwill must not underestimate the force of the profound bigotry and anti-intellectualism and
intolerance and illiberality of [todays] liberalism.84

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RACE
It is in the hypercontentious areas of race and abortion that the dysfunctions of contemporary liberalism are perhaps most clearly apparent.
Yet, because of the force of political correctnesssired by contemporary
liberalismwhich superintends discussions of these topics, it is seldom
the case that open, honest, common-sense-based commentary is presented. The basic reality that supports this phenomenon is preference
falsification.85 This phrase, coined by economist Timur Kuran, refers to
the mobilization of social pressure to incline people to publicly praise
ideas as true which they privately believe to be false. So in public, out
of fear of being labeled racist or insensitive, people may accept the
reasonableness of affirmative action, but in private they deem it a program for reverse racial discrimination. Similarly, in private, blacks and
nonblacks may criticize black politicians whom they think exaggerate
about the power and prevalence of racism in America, but in public they
are silent, since they do not want to be called an Uncle Tom or a
racist. The same idea holds true for the rapidly growing number and
scope of corporate diversity programs, except that here the pressure to
be approving is magnified, because peoples promotions and jobs may
well be jeopardized if they are too forthright in their disagreement.86
Our task then is to frankly reflect on the American dysfunction of
racial politics and specifically present six lamentable phenomena that
characterize the current racial discourse, and that substantially stem from
social forces and ideas generated and enforced by modern liberalism.
Anger
Many African Americans today feel a great deal of anger: anger at
white people, anger at Jewish people, anger at black conservatives, and
anger at America.87
Usually in public settings the press, politicians, and commentators pay
obeisance to this anger. It is rare to find it challenged. But I would like
to suggest that the widespread anger in some black communities is selfdestructive and socially harmful. To get an understanding of the depths
and intensity of this anger, consider these realities:
Emphatic cheers erupted at a filled-to-capacity Madison Square Garden,
during a rally held by the Nation of Islam, when a speaker merely mentioned the name of Colin Fergusonthe Long Island commuter train
gunman who murdered several people out of anger at whites and Uncle
Tom Negroes. A National Law Journal survey showed that 68 percent of
African Americans believed that white racism caused Ferguson to kill.88
A black professor at New York University called Ferguson a hero and

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said he knew colleagues who were placing Fergusons picture on their
walls, next to Malcolm X.89

Raptivist Sister Souljah described American society as a race war and

suggested that if black people kill black people everyday, why not have
a week and kill white people? Jesse Jackson called her critics divisive,
and said that Bill Clintons criticism of Souljah was indicative of a character flaw in Clinton.90
Upon O. J. Simpsons acquittal in his criminal trial, students at a Howard
University auditorium, who had gathered to watch the verdict, cheered
ecstatically.
A celebrated black author called the 1992 Los Angeles riots, in which
more than fifty people were murdered, a display of justified social
rage.91 Black economist Julianne Malveaux declared, Racism is as
American as the Constitution and attributed the L.A. riots to ineffective
affirmative action programs and declining urban aid.92
In Brooklyn in 1991, after an elderly Hassidic Jewish man killed a black
child in an auto accident, black residents took to the streets yelling, Heil
Hitler! and Zionazi! When they came upon Australian rabbinic student Yankel Rosenbaum, someone in the mob yelled, Get the Jew!
Rosenbaum was stabbed to death. One Lemrick Nelson was charged with
the crime, but was acquitted by a predominantly black jury, even though
police found him near the scene with a bloody knife in his possession,
the blood on the knife was verified by DNA analysis to be Rosenbaums,
Nelson was identified by the dying Rosenbaum as his attacker, and Nelson confessed to the murder. After the verdict, the jury partied with
Nelsons attorney. As Eric Breindel wrote of the events, For Hassidic
Jews New York City today is a lot like the Jim Crow south was for blacks
themselves 30 years ago. Justice is all but unattainable.93
Ice Cube, a millionaire rapper, has said: The American Dream is not
for Blacks. Blacks who [still believe in that dream] are kidding themselves. Theres only room in that dream for a few Blacks.94
Black anger often manifests itself in racial hyperbole and exaggeration.
When in the spring of 1997 the Los Angeles Police Commission exercised
its legal prerogativeas per the Christopher Commission for police reformsnot to recommend rehiring black police chief Willie Williams for
another five year term, Los Angeles city councilman Nate Holden, who
is also black, termed the police commission a kangaroo court [which]
lynched Police Chief Willie Williams.95
Professional football player Reggie White, speaking to a group of mostly
black high school students in Knoxville, Tennessee, said that police intentionally provoke young black men in order to have an excuse to arrest
them. He further explained to the black teens, Why do you think theyre
talking about building more prisons instead of creating opportunities for
you? Because they want you in jail. They want you to be ignorant.96
Despite emphatic efforts at racial fairness and more than widespread

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public dialogue about race, not to mention a very high-profile civil rights
movement and academic enthusiasm for African-American studies and
writing, black Americans are overwhelmingly pessimistic about racial
progress.97
Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney denounced the Supreme
Court decision forbidding racially gerrymandered congressional districts
as racist, and white voters as race-based. Her newly drawn district was
a majority white district; yet, when these voters returned her to Congress
in the 1996 election, she complained that her victory would be used by
opponents of affirmative action to assert that whites are not racist.98
Writer Ellis Cose says middle-class blacks have deeply repressed rage,
and are as pessimistic about this country and their life chances as the
seriously poor.99

And on and on. Many black Americans are convinced that most white
Americans are racists, that American society is institutionally racist, and
that black socioeconomic success is rendered impossible by these realities. White reporters, white liberal politicians, and white liberal commentators and academics obediently affirm these sentiments, terrorized
by the threat of being called racist. Contemporary liberalism, in its
aversion to self-responsibility, in its proclivity to posit structural explanations for individual behavior, and in its misapplication of compassion,
has produced a moral double standard in this country: one for black
Americans, one for nonblack Americans. As Dennis Prager has insightfully remarked:
[T]he laborious, unromantic, un-revolutionary work of developing character, personal ethical values, is the most important of any society, including and especially black society in America today. The only reason I say
especially is that it is the community least expected to live by moral
norms. Thats because liberals, black and white, make exceptions for black
behavior that they would never make for whites.100

Black Americans, of course, are the ones most injured by this double
standard, as it unavoidably diverts their attention from the cultivation
of the personal responsibility and individual capital that make for social
and economic success and mobility. Contemporary liberalism has created
a cultural context that has nurtured black anger at America and resentment of whites, and this has produced a pronounced separatism in much
of black life, as well as an inclination to withdraw from the American
social and economic mainstream. This only entrenches poverty and further resentment on the part of blacks. As Clarence Thomas explained to
a group of graduating black collegians:

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You all have a much tougher road [than I did]. You now have a popular
national rhetoric which says that you cant learn because of racism, you
cant get up in the mornings because of racism. Unlike me, you must not
only overcome the repressiveness of racism, you must also overcome the
lure of excuses. You have twice the job I had.101

Pervasive black anger has had many other effects as well. Fundamentally, it is the source of blacks prevalent belief that most whites are
racists. Uncritical acceptance of this idea has led to an irrational conspiracy mongering, seen in the conviction of 29 percent of New York
City blacks that AIDS (that is, HIV) was, or possibly was, deliberately
created in a laboratory for the purpose of infecting black people.102 This
paranoia, and the black anger that fuels itcontrary to the blamesociety-for-social problems official story of contemporary liberalismis
the product of racialist hype and race-baiting practiced by the civil rights
establishment. Liberal black politicians (as well as white liberals), selfappointed racial spokesmen, and liberals (black and white) in media
work routinely stoke the fires of black anger and racial hostility by constantly and mechanically proclaiming their script of racism in America, and recklessly portraying American society as inveterately opposed
to black success. Despite this quasireligious commitment to racism, scholarly studies show that an overwhelming majority of white Americans
now reject racism as evil and that the racial attitudes of whites have
changed for the better over the last thirty-five years. For example, social
researchers Paul M. Sniderman and Thomas Piazza report in their book
The Scar of Race that today blacks are actually more likely than whites to
hold negative stereotypes about blacks.103
The rhetoric of rage that bathes black communities has myriad other
harmful consequences as well. The rise in the practice of jury nullification
is one of the more disturbing. Inner-city juries, largely black, have increasingly been freeing black defendantseven obviously guilty ones
out of a desire to avoid putting any more black men in prison. Of course,
this means that many guilty men have gone free, only to further terrorize
black communities, causing immeasurable harm and grief.104
Furthermore, the anger fomented in black communities by professional
race men has engendered and now sustains the powerful cult of raceconsciousness and group identification. Here the full humanity of the
person is wrapped in the suffocating embrace of self-definition by race
and ethnicity. The belief that assimilation into mainstream American life
is pointless leaves no alternative but black separatism and hyper-race
consciousness.
One obvious consequence of the liberal practice of group identification
today is the formation of what Shelby Steele has called grievance
groups, organizations that pursue their own social and political agenda

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117

by trumpeting their victimization.105 This politics hurts everybodyit

makes African Americans more angry, it discourages black youth about
their life-chances, and it alienates nonblacks from interracial cooperation.
The only people it benefits are those who make their living in the race
industry. The greater racial hostilities in this country are, the easier it is
for them to peddle inflammatory nostrums about oppression, persecution, and residual bigotry.106
Few practices in American public life today are more widespread than
race-consciousness. While once white racism was its primary manifestation, today it is found mainly in the identity politics of contemporary
liberalism. The inclination to define ones self based on ones ethnicity is
of such far-reaching cultural force that it has even reached into psychiatry. For example, San Francisco General Hospitals psychiatric treatment
program begins with the assignment of a patient to a treatment unit or
team based on their ethnicityblacks go to the black unit, Hispanics
to the Hispanic treatment unit, and so on, regardless of their specific
psychological problems.107
The influence of racial rage and the separatism it engenders are strong
enough to generate public policy innovations that are sometimes of questionable worth. The row over Ebonics (EbonyPhonics) in late 1996 and
1997 is one such instance. As with so many innovations spawned by the
values of contemporary liberalismin this case, race-consciousness and
ethnic prideEbonics will ultimately end up hurting many black youth,
not least by creating a wage gap for black workers.108 Even Eldridge
Cleaver, the former black panther who described himself in the Los Angeles Times as one of the most liberal people in the world, vehemently
protested the drive to teach Ebonics.109
One of the more tragic manifestations of the corrosive effect of group
anger and the race consciousness it leads to has been the degeneration
of civility on public school campuses, which, in urban America, are almost always multiracial. The emphasis on race and ethnicity has been
tremendously divisive on public college and high school campuses.110 It
requires of minority youth racial fidelity; that is, they must adopt the
practices of their ethnic group or face ostracism and calumny. As many
black youngsters understand it, racial loyalty obliges them to actively
oppose those of their race who sell out, that is, enter into behavioral
cooperation with the school system, the institutional embodiment of
mainstream, Caucasian America, usually referred to as them. This
amounts to, a pervasive and destructive ethic of anti-achievement. This
horrible phenomenon is chronicled in an important study by John Ogbu
and Signithia Fordham, focusing on the attitudes of students at a predominantly black high school in Washington, D.C.111 For our purposes,
the primary import of the Ogbu and Fordham study is that some black
schools perversely equate academic achievement with acting white.

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This social fiction has a tragically debilitating effect on the black community as a whole by establishing the falsehood that academic excellence
is inappropriate for black students.
An instance of this anti-achievement code is found in the chilling experience of 14-year-old Zakettha Blaylock. A top student in her Oakland
middle school, she was regularly harassed by anonymous telephone
threats assuring the bright girl, Were gonna kill you. The threats were
the work of a gang of black girls at her school who felt obliged to intimidate black students who achieved academic excellence. They think that
just because youre smart, they can go around beating you up, Zakettha
explained. By virtue of her good grades, she became the target of the
most potent weapon in her antagonists verbal arsenal: she tried to act
white.112 The consequences of such thought patterns are very real. Recently in Washington, D.C., several black students who graduated from
high school were presented with academic excellence awards, but were
fearful of coming up and receiving them at graduation because they
didnt want to be accused by their black peers of acting white.113
Racial anger also shapes American journalism. The news media, particularly the more elite venues, are notoriously beholden to racial power
brokers who have the power to call a press conference and denounce, as
racist, reporters and publications whom they feel have not been sufficiently sensitive. Such charges can be very embarrassing, intimidating,
and commercially damaging.
Hence, for example, the media were quick to emphasize reports that
Texaco executives had used racial epithets against black employees. In
fact, that charge proved questionable.114 Similarly, in the spring and summer of 1996 a rash of burnings of black churches was immediately attributed to racial hostility and as proof that old Jim Crow was alive and
well. But a review of six years of federal, state, and local data by the
Associated Press found that arsons have increased at all churches, black
and white, and that no explicit, systematically racist motivation is apparent.115 Michael Fumento argued that the notion that racist burnings
of black churches had surged was simply a myth.116 The much-reported
burning of black churches in 1996 was eventually widely discredited as
uncritical and irresponsible journalism.117
Apparently, the liberal journalistic view of racial problems unquestioningly accepts news of discrimination, as it did recently with racebased bank lending. For example, one study by Alicia Munnell of the
Federal Reserve of Bostonwidely reported in newspapers and television as conclusive proof of racist lending practiceswas shown to be
seriously flawed by economist Walter Williams. Loan applications by
blacks that had purportedly been rejected on racial grounds were found
to have been rejected for demonstrably legitimate reasons.118
But of all the social manifestations of black anger, the most ferocious

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is that directed at black dissidents, usually black conservatives. The epithets, the contempt, and the derisive attacks are unceasing and well
beyond the pale of civil dissent. Clarence Thomas, nearly a decade after
his ascent to the United States Supreme Court, is still the regular target
of verbal attacks and actual physical protests. Joseph Lowry, president
of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said Thomas was
[B]ecoming to the black community what Benedict Arnold was to the
nation he deserted; and what Judas Iscariot was to Jesus: a traitor, and
what Brutus was to Caesar: an assassin!119 Similarly, Democratic congressman Bill May stated that Justice Thomas and other black conservatives were part of a new Negro cabal, which is contemptible,
ignoble. He went on to explain, in a model of liberal tolerance, that the
goal of this group of Negro wanderers is to maim and kill other blacks
for the gratification and entertainment offor lack of a more accurately
descriptive wordultraconservative white racists.120 The civil rights establishment has on numerous occasions protested the speaking engagements of Justice Thomas, and has vigorously attempted to prevent the
obviously dangerous perception that the Supreme Court judge from Pinpoint, Georgia, is a valuable role model for black children.121 Of course,
rap stars, with their violent and promiscuous lyrics (and sometimes personal lives), are virtually never publicly rejected by black leaders as unfit
role models for black youth.
The existential predicament of the black conservative or black dissident in America is a profound one. On the one hand, when he expresses
his sincerely held views, other black people often accuse him of being a
race betrayer, a racial sellout, or an Uncle Tom. On the other hand,
some white conservatives, in their enthusiastic agreement with him, misconstrue the import of his message and manifest a certain passivity and
indifference to interracial cooperation, thus inadvertently lending a measure of credence to the claim that the black conservative critique can have
an isolating effect on black America. But, importantly, this effect is not
due to the nature of the black conservative critique; rather, it is caused
by the inappropriate response to it of some white conservatives.
As an illustration of the unfairness of many intraracial verbal assaults
on black dissenters, we might consider the case of Los Angeles radio
talkshow host and social commentator Larry Elder.122 A local group of
black liberals calling themselves The Talking Drum Community Forum labeled the charismatic and articulate Elder an outright threat to
the welfare of the black community. They claimed that his failure to
ideologically conform to the dominant politics of Los Angeles African
Americans constituted a frontal assault on black dignity and civil rights
victories.
The drive to gag Elder was loosely organized and shadowy. Its centerpiece was pressure on advertisers to withdraw their commercials from

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KABC, the radio station on which Elder appeared and still does as of
this writing. The silencing effort produced and disseminated a flier
around south-central Los Angeles shopping centers calling for Elders
ouster. The tract was unsigned, containing only a phone number at the
bottom, which ominously promises more information. The flier itself
is akin to an intraracial hate-piece, containing outright fabrications such
as Larry Elder believes: blacks are lazy; blacks are unintelligent; blacks
are uneducated; blacks are immoral; blacks are the cause of crime in
America. There were no citations, no dates when Elder allegedly said
these things, only bald assertions, which Elder vehemently denied on the
air.
This movement constituted one of the most blatant attacks on the First
Amendment that Los Angeles had seen in a long time. But because the
censurers in this case were politically influential black liberalswho
ironically exalt diversity as a social value and lay claim to the mantle of
the civil rights movementtheir activities went carefully unnoticed. Suddenly, it seemed, the media-sentinels of free speech could not be found.
Why? Because they feared being branded as racists if they defended
Elders right to speak his mind. The threat of the race card protected the
cowardly and dishonest campaign against Elder from public criticism.
One can imagine the media outcry if white conservatives deliberately
and with deceittried to force a white liberal off the air. It would become yet another demonstration of the mean spirited and intolerant
nature of the radical right.
The unprincipled attack on Elder exposes one of the troubling paradoxes of contemporary American public life. Socially renegade black
Americans are still targets for lynching, but today, instead of being
chased by a hateful white mob with a rope, they are pursued by an angry
black thought police armed with the misappropriated legacy of the civil
rights movement. As Robert Woodson said,The civil rights leadership
has very successfully imposed a gag rule on the black community: unless
you espouse the liberal Democratic ideology, youre out of step, and
well accuse you of being anything but a child of God. People have been
intimidated by that.123
Black community activist Jesse Peterson, whose group BOND (Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny) strives to inculcate principles of
responsible masculinity within young black men, concurs with Woodson,
saying:
Through their constant anger at America and hatred of dissent from their
positions by other black people, mainstream black leadership has shackled
our community. Our neighborhoods will never change for the better until
we encourage free thinking, and until we teach our children that anger and
resentment at white people is self-destructive, and that black youth cripple

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themselves by looking anywhere but within themselves for the ability to

succeed.124

Color-Coordinated Thinking
The often unspoken supposition that controls much commentary about
contemporary racial politics is that only one ideologycontemporary
liberalismis in the best interests of black Americans, and therefore all
black people who care about black progress must hold liberal social and
political views. Great pressure is exerted on black intellectuals to conform to the liberal political paradigm. For example, Jesse Jackson, the
archetypal black spokesman and an unalloyed liberal, was once a passionate pro-life dissenter from the pervasive abortion culture. He once
asked, What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of
a nation that accepts the abortion of the life of a baby without a pang of
conscience? What kind of a person, and what kind of a society, will we
have 20 years hence if life can be taken so casually?125 Of course, these
views are no more, because the Democratic party, wherein lie his ambitions, does not brook such sentiments.
So, in the grip of intellectually stifling contemporary liberalism and
the color-coded thinking it breeds, black children who violate the behavioral expectations of their black peers in ways perceived as more
befitting whites will be pilloried as acting white, and black adults who
hold conservative or libertarian political opinions will be reviled as sellouts, or self-loathing Uncle Toms.126
Of course, the cognitive virus of color-coordinated thinking is not
unique to black America. It has infected other communities as well. It is
common today to hear the womens rights establishment celebrate the
triumphs of the year of the [liberal] woman, and a host of other interest groups regularly weigh in with three cheers for their kind, as
though their character and self-constitution were dictated by the color of
their skin or their gender. But what is going unnoticed in this frenzy of
gender and ethnic cheerleading is the profoundly antidemocratic nature
of this political style.
It is a great fallacy that someone who looks like you, or shares your
gender, is going to represent you adequately as a legislator. This is because, obviously, not all women think alike, nor do all Hispanics, Asian
Americans, or African Americans. People are autonomous individuals,
and must be so understood. They have different perspectives and opinions, views that are not necessarily related to complexion or sex. Fortunately, values and opinions are much more than skin deep. To believe
otherwiseas contemporary liberalism doesis to subscribe to a
biological determinism that is shockingly dehumanizing and illiberal.
The great paradox here is that the special interest groups that advocate

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color and gender-coordinated thinkingin their unending campaign for

political power and influenceactually end up dehumanizing their
members and reducing each of them to a component of the oppressed
class, rather than as an individual, free-thinking human being, with all
the complexities that implies.
Ironically, it is liberal Democrats, the main practitioners of this constricting counterfeit of democracy, who have always featured themselves
as tolerant and open-minded. But by their embrace of collectivist
politics and color-coordinated thinking, Democratic political leaders
have strictly defined which ideas can be accepted as fair and legitimate
for any ethnicity or gender. If a woman or a minority wavers from the
prescribed orthodoxy for people who look like them, they are seen as
political freaks, apostates from liberal group solidarity. Frequently, they
are accused of selling out to the System or the Patriarchy.
But the reality is that the individuality of each person enables them to
cognitively transcend the prescriptions of color-coordinated thinking,
and makes possible the common moral project of pluralist democracy.
A denial of this transcendence is an invitation to racial balkanization that
transforms America into various enclaves of victims, and works to
move the country away from vital political debate and rational policymaking. Such a trend undermines excellence by emphasizing race and
gender above skills and merit. In short, it is a withdrawal from rigorous
analysis of policies and their consequences into a color- and gendercoordinated world, where people who look alike are expected to think
alike.
Thus, at California State University in Northridge, in suburban Los
Angeles, the leader of the black student union was opposed to the presence of someone nonblack teaching in the Pan-African Studies Department. That the offending individual was teaching remedial English
didnt matter. In the eyes of the black student union, her failure to be
black disqualified her from teaching in that department.
This row at Cal State Northridge over a Caucasian teaching in the PanAfrican Studies Department is but one example of the color-coordinated
thinking that has overrun common sense in American public life. There
are black minds and white minds, this confused reasoning goes, and the
two can never meet. This fatuous intellectual segregation has served the
interests of black studies departments all over the country, for it has
effectively installed them as the official arbiters of The Black Consciousness and The Black Experience. As the racial follies at Northridge so
plainly showed, it has intellectually impoverished our universities and
the young people in them. Any morally responsible person who would
comment on this situation must first say the obvious, something that the
custodians of political correctness everywhere will try to hush: the black
student union acted in a racist and thoughtless manner. Imagine if a

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group of white students were trying to prevent a black professor from

teaching a course in European history, simply because the professor was
black. It would become a racial cause cele`bre, indicative of Americas racial
pathology. At Northridge, the putative reason for banning the white
woman from teaching English in that department was that she lacked
the requisite cultural experience. But that amorphous suggestion is
simply a politically correct synonym for ethnic chauvinism. Individual
experience is not racially uniform, with all blacks having one set of experiences and all whites another. Our common experience as human
beings far surpasses the barriers of racial difference. Martin Luther King,
Jr., knew this, and thus insisted that all people be judged on the content
of their character, and not the color of their skin. In so doing, he presupposed our ability to understand and evaluate the social situation and
morality of everyone, however different they are from us in race, class,
or gender. Indeed, the very logic of the original civil rights movement
was that nonblacks could understand the plight of discrimination and
repression facing blacks, and move to provide appropriate redress. It
assumed that ethnic background could not restrain the strength of human insight and moral principle.
We can learn and teach about people who are racially different from
ourselves. That, of course, is the basic thesis of multiculturalism, a pedagogy that is extremely influential in American education today. But the
logic of the black students at Northridge denies this. They forgot that
through the years black scholars have abundantly shown that ethnicity
is inconsequential in learning and teaching. There are black scholars
abounding in all manner of disciplines: Stephen Carter in law, Orlando
Patterson in sociology, Glenn Loury in economics, Ben Carson and Keith
Black in medicine, Condoleeza Rice in international relations, and on and
on. Are these all African disciplines? No, and neither are they essentially
European. Like all bodies of knowledge, they are comprised of various
concepts, hypotheses, and assertions all dialectically related, all open to
universal human reflection and analysis. As W.E.B. Du Bois movingly
wrote of his love of knowledge, and classical study,
I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm
in arm with Balzac and Dumas . . . I summon Aristotle and Aurelius, and
what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the veil.127

We do not think with our skin. The very foundation of higher education in this country is the proposition that the world of ideas is wide
open to everyone, regardless of background. The only requirement for
entering into learning is an open mind and a desire to understand. Ethnicity is unimportant. To claim otherwise is incredibly dehumanizing,

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intellectually stifling, and an affront to human creativity and initiative.

How tragically ironic that today, more than forty years after the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education which desegregated American
schools, it is a black student union that seeks to bar someone from a
classroom because of her race. Such is the myopia of the groupthink
engendered by the politics of contemporary liberalism.
Public Truth
It is a fact of our national life that a rigid protocol guides social and
political discussion. Some topics are generally left untouched, since to
broach them is to court social death. For example, the hellfire of ad hominems that met the late Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray with the
publication of their book The Bell Curve was profound and certainly limited public analysis of their arguments.128 The substance of those arguments, however suspect they may or may not have been, warranted
debate, as do all research projects. But the rules of sociopolitical analysis
did not permit it. Whenever these guidelines of discussion become entrenched, they cast the dye of a public truth, an idea beyond discussion, a taken-for-granted reality that excites passions and sentiments so
intense as to make widespread, open reflection on it practically impossible. Public Truth is established and protected by the spiral of silence,
or social silence, the palpable social pressure that everyone senses and
that squelches conversation of sacrosanct or uncomfortable topics.129
The creation of Public Truth follows two main avenues, commission
and omission. When someone declares that all calls for welfare reform
and a reduction in out-of-wedlock births are cynical race-baiting, he
adds a pillara dubious oneto the edifice of Public Truth.130 Here,
Public Truth is shaped by commissionby direct allegation about social
reality. This method was practiced in a more incendiary form by the
Reverend Cecil Murray, who effectively plied the contemporary liberal
art of absolving criminals from responsibility for their crimes by asserting society made them do it:
No one goes around burning who has a job, whos been allowed to have
his family. . . . If the book is written on what starts fires, its unemployed
people who are in a depressed area, who have to take a gang as a surrogate
family, whose great grandmother has been raped, whos not been allowed
to have his own culture or history, who has been told that God is white.
Thats who starts fires. When you write the book, thats what youre gonna
write.131

The truth of Public Truth is a functional truth, not an actual, empirical

truth. In other words, the contentions that are given the imprimatur of

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Public Truth control public discourse and condition public policy as

though they actually had a sound basis in social fact and human experienceeven though they are not so grounded. They are instead the
constructions of opinion-makers and knowledge class cognoscente who,
with the arrogance historically characteristic of the political left, conveniently believe themselves to be exclusively endowed with the insight,
vision, and public benevolence that qualifies them to make policy and
do social justice, even if they have to skirt the truth to achieve their
laudable ends.
The general public seldom questions Public Truth because accepting
it is the precondition of being blessed with the mantle of the openminded, tolerant, and fair. Enforcing assent to Public Truth is the
threat of being denied these appellations of modern goodness, and instead being branded extremist, ideologue, or right-wing conservative. In the face of such revilement, many people simply keep quiet,
speak anonymously, express their opinions sotto voce, or deny their real
opinions altogether, and instead claim to believe the ideas they know
they are socially expected to hold. This phenomenon is that of preference falsification, delineated by Timur Kuran, to whom we referred
earlier.
In fact, then, the maintenance of Public Truth is nothing but a grownup version of schoolyard bullyism: Agree with what we say or we will
call you names and hurt you. Of course, as a result insufficient civic
momentumbroad-based public capitalis accumulated to bring about
positive reforms, such as practical repeals of institutionalized race and
gender-based policies and a ban on partial-birth abortions.132
This intimidation could not succeed nationally as it so evidently has
in this age of political correctness without the yeomans work of Public
Truths chief enforcerthe media. In print, on television, or in the hallowed halls of National Public Radio, the cultural inertia of Public Truth
is ensured. Whether through the maudlin portrayal of the victimized
poor, distorted economic analyses, or simply a journalistic hymn to the
liberating power of the secular city (usually done under the cloak of
commentary), the cardinal virtues of modern liberalismChoice,
Change, Opportunity, and Diversityare dutifully saluted. It is under
pain of excommunication from the community of the truly civil that one
dissents from these pseudo-values.
And pseudo-values they are, as they share in common the quality of
pure formality. Each one is itself axiologically empty, without any intrinsic moral qualities. Neither Choice, Change, Opportunity, nor Diversity is good or bad in itself, but rather all depend on the antecedently
established moral quality of their subjects for their own moral warrants.
By themselves, none of these public pseudo-virtues bears any necessary
relationship to virtue, goodness, or rationality. Hitler made his own

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choices, Stalinism was a change for Russia, Manson had various kinds
of opportunity, and the North Vietnamese employed diversity in torture.
Yet no morally careful person would approve of any of these exercises.
Hence, the uselessness of purely formal values is quite clear. Shorn of
any concrete ethical and social context, these supposed goods are amoral
shells, empty conceptual hulls, serving no purpose but rhetorical intimidation. Yet, such a purpose is perfectly suited for establishing and perpetuating Public Truth, for it provides for these alleged values both the
illusion of substance and the impression of importance, and hence their
intimidating force. Thus, the defender of Public Truth has at the ready
an arsenal of ad hominem and ad populum strategies to deal with anyone
brazen enough to suggest that these values may be flawed, as in: Only
a bigot would resist diversity for its own sake; Its tyrannical and
misogynistic to be anti-choice ; We all know a lack of opportunity is
the cause of urban unrest. Here again, awaiting the dissident from Public Truth is a public name-calling and tsk-tsk-ing that is a potent form
of coercion and a very real kind of thought-control. This manner of censorship has been socially enlisted in the service of contemporary liberalism.
There is a dialectical relationship between the media and Public Truth.
As we have indicated, the mediaespecially the media eliteplay an
indispensable role in creating and propagating the corpus of Public
Truth. But just as important to the maintenance of Public Truth, the media are constrained and controlled in their operation by the very Truths
they helped create. It is, in fact, in the very process of their being controlled that the media most emphatically announce those contentions
thatperversely, almost regardless of their evidential weighthave
been awarded the status of Public Truth. These are the opinions one must
hold if one is to be seen as tolerant, credible, and mainstream.
So Public Truth has a self-perpetuating effect. By ruling the discourse
of the public square, it controls the flow of criticism and new ideas. In
so doing it is able to delete, edit, or simply discredit those notions that
may threaten its own plausibility. Thus, Public Truth is largely its own
gatekeeper; it determines admission to the realm of the reasonable and
credible in public dialogue. To mount a challenge against a Public
Truth is very difficult, since the morality of the challenge must be established in the face of countercharges. These recriminations will substantially be based on Public Truths, since each Public Truth is a portion of
the body of interrelated ideas that partly compose contemporary liberalism, and they will claim that the challenge to a given Public Truth is
unfair, unreasonable, uncompassionate, or otherwise unacceptable. Obviously, such a challenge is a difficult task, which is one important reason
why contemporary liberalism continueslargely unopposed by tren-

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chant, vigorous, and public conservative counterargumentsits baleful

transformation of American culture.133
The Effect of Murder in Communities
One of the more horrific transformations of contemporary American
life is the frequency of murder in urban settings. While obviously this is
not the sole fault of the ethos of contemporary liberalism, inasmuch as
contemporary liberalism has altered traditional Judeo-Christian understandings of the sacredness, uniqueness, and inviolability of each human
life, it has played a part in cheapening human life and in forming the
fatherless, welfare culture in inner cities that so often provides the social
context for brutal murder.
Indeed, it is poor black communities in inner cities that disproportionately suffer from murder. Between 1976 and 1991, the murder rate among
white youth held at two to three per 100,000. But from 1976 to 1986 the
murder rate for black youth was around 10 per 100,000, and then increased to 14 per 100,000 in 1988 and 20 per 100,000 in 1991.134 Over the
past decade black males aged 14 to 24, who compose just over 1 percent
of the national population, have accounted for 9 to 17 percent of all
homicide victims and 17 to 30 percent of all homicide perpetrators.135 Of
course, as economist Glenn Loury has written, black crime is a problem
of sin, not skin.136 There is no inherently racial component to this tragedy. How might we begin rehumanizing these and other communities?
You can tell what someone values by how they act when they lose it.
Similarly, you can tell what a country values by how it responds when
what it values is threatened. Certainly, then, the sad truth is that in the
United States we do not sufficiently value innocent human life, because
as the body count from murder rises with each passing day, we continue
only to shake our heads, sigh with frustration and fear, and marvel at
the brutality surrounding us. But we can begin the process of recovering
an understanding of the priceless, irreplaceable nature of every human
person by doing something we have generally not yet done in our communities: institutionalize the memory of innocent people ripped from this
earth by murder.
One effective way to do this is to have schoolchildren study the whole
lifeand lost futureof an innocent murder victim, as well as the impact of the loss on the victims family. Students will come to truly know
that each life was full and unique, and tightly connected to a set of other
equally full and special lives. Children will no longer see murder victims
as objectsanonymous stories in the newsbut as persons just like
them, with feelings, fears, hopes, and a family who loved them deeply.
By helping young people gain a sense of the personality of the victim

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and the enduring agony suffered by the murder victims survivors, we

humanize the murdered. We return to them the individuality stolen by
both the brevity of a news account and our numbness to the horror of
the lossa numbness born of the sheer frequency and heartlessness of
the killing.
Our schools can regularly devote parts of school days to studying the
life of a murder victim. Children can learn where and when a murder
victim was born, how old she was when she first walked, and what her
first word was. Perhaps they might see her first baby picture, or a picture
of her in the school play. How did she like to decorate her bedroom at
home? What were her hobbies, and what were her special talents? Did
she like to play any sports? Who was her family, what did her parents
do for a living? What kind of music did she like, who was her favorite
singer? As schoolchildren learn these details, the personhood of the murder victim will be resurrected, and students will come to see something
of the permanence of murder, its epic unfairness, and how we have
cheapened human life. They will also gain a faint taste of the searing
agony and intense turmoil of soul endured for years and years by those
whose childor parent or spousehas been murdered. This would sensitize children to the preciousness of life.
There are other steps we as a society can take to institutionalize the
memory of innocent lives stolen. These might include, for example, public service ads on radio, television, in magazines and newspapers, presenting very brief biographies of murder victims who would otherwise
remain unknown to the public forever. Similarly, we could begin a regular moment of silence before the national anthem at sporting events, or
instead, a reading of a small biography of a murder victim. Imagine if
before the next Laker basketball game, the public address announcer
read a two-minute biography of Davey Fortson, a southern California
college basketball player who was senselessly murdered recently. Mistaken for a gang member, he was shot while standing outside a hamburger stand. The impact this memoriam might have on the minds of
those present could contribute to our re-civilization. Certainly, without
it Daveys tragic deathto the publicwill be just another component
of last years murder statistics. His priceless life and promising future
will slip through our consciousness just as so many before him have.
Who of us today contemplates, let alone remembers, the unspeakably
precious stolen lives of our murdered neighbors? In southern California
alone, the roll call of those unjustly taken and often forgotten includes
David Abraham, Alfred Clark, Ennis Cosby, Davey Fortson, Justin
Green, Angela Southall, Cheri Lynn Huss, Go Matsaura, Martin Ganz,
Robin Brandley, Bill Seiler, Lynette Murray, Corinne Novis, Wendy Osbourne, Nicole Parker, and the Ryen family.
For the sake of our own social welfare and for the dignity of the vic-

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tims, weas a cultureneed to purposely and systematically remember

murdered people. We need to hear the names of murder victims until
they permeate our public consciousness. Their names and the humanizing facts of their lives ought to become our sad and desperate mantra,
our cry forand commitment toa humane future.
How then has random murder affected communities? How does the
prevalence of murder affect our society nationally? I would like to suggest that one important consequence seldom considered is the deep, psychic uneasiness and instability it insinuates within people.
Every childhood is filled with the same primal panic: there is a monster hiding in the closet; there is something under the bed; a stranger is
looking at you through the window. But with the comforting word of
mommy or daddy, the flick of a light switch, and a deep breath, the
terror recedes, and we are lulled back to sleep by the calming assurance,
Everythings OK, everything is going to be OK.
With the maturity of adulthood, we learn to rationally understand our
fears and uncertainties, and we realize that we can exercise a measure
of psychological control over our lives. We can turn the light on, open
the closet and look under the bed, and see for ourselves that our awful
imaginations are not reality. We can trust that there is a certain order to
the world and a reliability to our experience, and that some thingsthe
terrible things lurking in the darkest corners of our mindsjust dont
happen.
It is our ultimate nightmare that this trust be disproved, that the darkness overpower the light, and that a genuine, evil monster burst into the
tranquility of our home, harming us and our family. Now, today, as the
body count rises from brutal murder, we must acknowledge that the
social equivalent of this personal horror has in fact happened in urban
America. The new bogeyman is random, senseless murder, and as daily
news accounts of violent attacks attest, he could get any of us, or anyone
we love, at any time, anywhere.
It is part of the bane of this beast that the reason for an attack is as
prosaic as it is outrageous: a robbery, a carjacking, a gang initiation, some
kids were just bored. If there were clear and consistent reasons for killings, we could respond rationally and eliminate our risk of being victimized. But the tortuous reign of this monster of murder is such that his
work can neither be anticipated nor prevented, neither expected nor
thwarted. We follow rules that convince us that we have inoculated ourselves against his sudden and deadly bite: dont go out at night, carry a
weapon, dont drive a nice-looking car, regard everyone suspiciously,
stay out of the bad neighborhoods. But the fact is that each of these
measures is no guarantee of safety, if any help at all. They are only
placebos, convincing us that we have temporarily outsmarted the beast

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and protected ourselves, something akin to pulling the bedcovers over

our heads.
As we frantically try to figure out some way to protect ourselves, we
do not realize the ways in which our lives have been altered by the now
routine assaults. Just as an individual who has been traumatized by a
horrible event can experience stress and psychological problems long
afterward, so a society can manifest similar reactions, writ large: anger,
paranoia, desensitization to violence, indifference to human suffering. In
the same way, the fiction of the bogeyman has a mesmerizing effect on
a child; thus, the chilling reality of the social bogeyman of murder has
a paralyzing consequence for communities. Liberties become constrained, suspicions and stereotypes about one another grow, and our
corporate vision of life and its possibilities dims under his regime. That
our communities display these pathologies is apparent, but the long-term
ramifications are not so clear and are impossible to foresee. Eventually,
a culture will be fatigued by fear and slip into an indifferent nihilism,
where the taking of a human life goes unnoticed and the inherent dignity
of the human person is obscured by the unnaturally strong psychological
effort exerted, from day to day, to hold the true bogeyman at bay.
How will our lives and our communities be different ten years hence,
after the bogeyman has destroyed thousands more families?137 All we
have is the cursed certainty that once the bogeyman is known to be real,
the sanctity and security of our psychological bedroom have been violated, and it will never feel truly safe or restful again.
ABORTION
The acrimony and cultural conflict over racial politics is rivaled only
by that over abortion politics, partly because, perhaps more than any
other issue, ones position on abortion is an index to ones view of so
many other values: self-responsibility, autonomy, God, authority, sexuality, family, and others.138
But in the mind of the pro-life partisan, abortion is an issue of utterly
unique significance, since abortion is a life and death issue. No one dies
in controversies over taxes, affirmative action, immigration policy, or gay
rights. But a significant segment of the American population understands
that virtually all of the 1.5 million abortions performed annually in this
country are the unjustified killing of an innocent human being. The deliberate, systematic, ultimate disenfranchisement of a class of human beings is the most profound assault on human dignity possible in any
social order. In the United States today, the unwanted unborn are our
lebensunwertes Lebenlives we decide are unworthy of life. They are outside the protection of the law and beyond the reach of general social
compassion.

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Yet, before serious progress in this most basic of human rights battlesthe right to lifecan be achieved, bombings of abortion sites and
other violent crimes must be vigorously condemned by pro-life citizens
as beyond the pale of legitimate social protest.139 The pro-life movement
is only as persuasive as its moral integrity is unassailable. Thus anything
less than aggressive, categorical denunciation of such terroristic attacks
is both hypocritical and insufficient.
The pro-life campaign, as a nonviolent movement, must be consistent
if it is to be successful. Dr. King knew this about nonviolent protest, and
so did Mahatma Gandhi.140 Unless those seeking to defend prenatal human life in this country forcefully assert this essential truth, their cause
will stall. The well-tended facade of compassion and fairness that has
hidden the moral shambles of abortion advocacy for twenty-four years
has begun to crack, with the naked horror of partial-birth abortion exposed, and prominent pro-choice figures like Naomi Wolf and Norma
McCorvey acknowledging the reality of death that defines abortion.141
Pro-life citizens who wish to further this progress should unequivocally
reject the culture of death, especially when those who claim their mantle
participate in it.
Beyond this, pro-life protest would further enhance its public standing
if it emphasized the substantial parallels between itself and the original
civil rights movement led by Dr. King. A devout Christian in religious
belief, Dr. King would have easily seen the harmony between his movement and the fight for the right to life: each cause working on behalf of
a dehumanized class of human beings; each fighting a politically and
culturally entrenched power structure; each opposing the convenience of
some citizens on behalf of the fundamental rights of others. Indeed,
much should be made of the reality that the pro-life movement affirms
human dignity with its message and interpersonal social strategy: the
equal intrinsic value of all human life, the embrace of adoption, the involvement of voluntary associations such as churches and civic groups
in helping women with crisis pregnancies, and by establishing crisis
pregnancy centersstaffed largely with volunteersto help troubled
women.142
Pro-life dissent from the spirit of our selfish and violent age should
also emphasize its continuity with the founding principles of this country: legal equality for every human being; compassion for the vulnerable
and defenseless; the inalienability of the right to live. The for-profit
slaughter of 1.5 million innocent, pre-born human beings each year is
hardly consistent with the self-understanding of a nation as the land of
the free, and the home of the brave. The profile of America with a
reformed abortion law, one more similar to the moderate contours found
in European countries, would be more recognizable as the shining city
on a hill we have always aspired to be.143

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When we look at the history of social change in this country, we are

given hope for a restoration of moderation in abortion lawa humble
initial goal that the pro-life movement should embrace. The move to
abolish slavery, the granting of womens suffrage, and the end of Jim
Crow all were preceded by a gradual awakening of the national conscience to injustice and human suffering, an awakening nurtured by consistent nonviolent protest.
Socially entrenched attitudes and norms, however inhumane, take
time to uproot. Given the moral progress of this country on other questions of basic human rights, there is clear social precedent for the confidence that one day we will rue and at least partially reverse our
profound devaluation of pre-born human life.
Almost no one in this country today believes abortion itself to be morally good. That is the great and ironic common ground in this most
intractable battle of the culture war. Pro-life Americans, armed with the
preservational wisdom of Solomon and the unwavering patience of Job,
can demonstrate the moral vision and strength of conscience that will
lead this prodigal nation back to the recognition of a truth that the civil
rights movement bore witness to, and which this country once held to
be self-evident: all people are created equal.
We will now turn to six points of analysis concerning abortion and
the sustenance provided it by contemporary liberalism. Four of these
points reflect on the cultural consequences of American abortion practice,
and two are brief critiques of common abortion arguments.
The Contradiction of the American Mind
Anyone who has ever experienced childbirth, or seen ultrasound exams of a fetus months before he is born, cannot help but be struck by
the unparalleled beauty and patent humanity of prenatal life. And yet,
the unsettling fact is that in our country prenatal life can be violently
destroyed for any reason. A bizarre doublemindedness exists in American life: we personally and institutionally cherish unborn human beingsand devote substantial resources to bring them to birthwhile at
the same time we personally and institutionally destroy them, all depending on the pregnant womans attitude toward them, an attitude
often distorted by pressure from the man in her life to abort.144
Consider these bizarre incidents, and the tortured, nonsensical rationalizations offered to help maintain the social fictionauthored and supported by contemporary liberalismthat pre-born human beings are not
really human beings, and we are morally justified in doing to them whatever we wish:
A man in Texas was convicted of manslaughter when, while driving
drunk, he hit a car in which a seven and a half month pregnant woman

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was riding. The baby was born shortly after the accident, and within two
days died from injuries she suffered as a result of the accident. In language at once Orwellian and yet chillingly honest, the last sentence of
the article about this tragedy reads, Abortion rights supporters warned
that it [the conviction] could lead to a new determination of when life
begins, and, eventually, the outlawing of abortion.145
A woman in Wisconsin was charged with attempted homicide for purposely trying to drink her nearly full-term baby to death. The womans
defense attorney argued that the woman had not committed a crime by
law, because her alcoholic assault on her unborn child took place before
the baby had been born. Absurdly, the attorney asserted, The alleged
victim was not a human being. The baby, named Meagan, was born
after the womans drinking binge, with facial abnormalities, including a
compressed nose and wide-set eyes. Her future mental abilities are not
known. The baby was placed in foster care, where her progress has been
reported as slow.146
Recently, a woman shot herself in the stomach in order to kill the twentyweek fetus inside of her. The baby survived the attack, and was born
alive, but later died after efforts to save him. The woman, 19 years of
age, was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.147 Of
course, had she aborted in an abortion clinic, killing the childat the
same stage of development and even laterwould have been perfectly
legal.
Recently a twenty-four-week old fetus received life-saving surgery while
still in utero.148 But had the mother wished to have this same fetus killed
through abortion, in every state of the nation it would have been legal
for her to do so.
In California, the state Supreme Court has held that someone who causes
the death of a fetus as early as seven weeks can be charged with fetal
murder.149 This does not apply to doctors who, with the mothers consent,
sometimes cause the death of fetuses much later in pregnancy.
The ACLU argued that a 1970 California law against fetal murder could
not be used against a pregnant woman who caused the stillbirth of her
full-term unborn baby by going on a two-day drug spree just before the
childs birth, because the law violated the womans right to privacy by
intruding on her freedom to make decisions about childbearing and
health care.150 In California, such prenatal abuses of the fetus are usually
not prosecuted, in deference to strongly influential feminist lobbies and
the powerful abortion establishment.151

Contemporary liberalism, with its apotheosis of choice and personal

freedom, its aversion to personal responsibility, its debased equation of
human dignity with self-esteem and its conceptual inability to embrace
the classical, Judeo-Christian understanding of intrinsic, inviolable human dignity, has provided the social context in which these atrocities
occur.
Yet, regardless of the prevailing perverse individual, legal, and social
attitudes toward pre-born human beings, nothing changes in the nature

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of the human fetus. The aborted are intrinsically no different from those
who survive the vagaries of choice. If allowed to be born, they would
be as beautiful and full of promise as the wanted. But as a society we
have decided that membership in the human family is determined not
by biology, but by a mothers feelings toward her offspring. We have
declared that human life does not have absolute valuesome lives are
worth more than others. This is a dangerous and slippery slope, for who
will we subjectivize next? Black Americans again? Homosexuals? The
elderly, infirm, or terminally ill? Indeed, this latter category has in many
ways already been put seriously at risk of euthanasia by the abortion
ethic.152
How ironic that each election year we agonize over the economic consequences of illegal immigration and the fairness of affirmative action.
Meanwhile, we countenance the ultimate disenfranchisement of an entire
class of human beings. The common resort to I oppose abortion, but I
support a womans right to choose does not relieve us of this hypocrisy,
since no one who holds this confession would allow the killing of people
living outside a womans womb. The logic of choice must perversely
hold that the unbornunless their mother wants themare not human
beings worth including in the human community.153 Thus, we have accepted the fundamental basis of all human rights violations in the world:
the idea that humanity is subjective and that the powerful may bestow
human standing on the vulnerable as they will.
The profound contradiction between how we treat the unborn when
they are wanted and what we do to them when they are not wanted
creates a corrosive social consciousness of might makes right and moral
relativism. The shallow mental habits cultivated by choice convince us
that our will to power is morally unproblematic and that our choices are
self-validating. Yet, some thirty-four years after the advent of abortion
on demand, can we honestly say that our national soul and moral culture
have not been coarsened and brutalized by the selfish anthem My body,
my choice?
It is an undeniable objective reality that the unborn are us, just as we
all were once them. The human fetus is a self-contained teleological system, with a clear goal in mind (birth), and it is a homeorrhetic organism,
capable of carrying out a coherent bodily process (growth), in an ordered
way over time.
Babies, after all, are not delivered by the stork. A birth is the culmination of a natural, continuous, and ordered process of growth that began at the union of sperm and egg. Indeed, the very word fetus
Latin for offspringhas primarily developmental, not ontological, significance. That is, it denotes a definite and fully established type of being at a
certain stage of its existence, not a being that is different in kind from what it
will later become. Humanity is an essence, not a property. It is not possible

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to be partly human and partly something else. Talk of partial humanness

is incoherent, for it requires a touchstone to determine full humanity,
and yet, where is such a criterion? Why is it justified? How do we know
it is reliable? What are the units in which we measure humanity? What
is the remaining ontological character of beings that are only partially
human?154
If we better harmonize our social lives with our moral sense by recognizing the inviolable dignity of each human life, we will humanize
our culture and take halting steps toward living the full meaning of our
national creed: all people are creatednot bornequal.
An Awkward Silence
Lately, the popular press has paid some attention to the horrific sexselective abortions practiced in some Asian countries, particularly China
and India. In these countries female fetuses are, as a matter of course
for statist and misogynistic reasonskilled. But the obvious and disturbing parallels to the abortion culture in this country are carefully being left undrawn.
In China and India, if a woman is pregnant with a girl, she is likely
to have an abortionat either governmental or cultural urging. But if
she is carrying a boyand she has not exceeded any state limits on
childbearingall is well, and celebrations will surely ensue. (Do feminist
champions of abortion as female empowerment see this tragic irony?
Some feminists and other women certainly do, since, despite the efforts
of groups like NOW and NARAL to give the impression that all women
are avidly pro-choice, many women, even feminists, are intensely prolife.)155 In China and India the babys worth is determined by factors
external to the baby, and whether or not it lives or dies depends on other
peoples attitudes about it.
So it is in this country, where the right of the unborn to be born is
absolutely trumpedduring the first two trimesters, and for all practical
purposes given elastic exceptions allowing abortions if a pregnancy is
claimed to be detrimental to a womans psychological health and during the third trimester as wellby the right of the woman to choose
whether or not to allow the birth. In this country, the ground of the
fetuss desirability is not her gender (usually), but the psycho-emotional
disposition of the pregnant woman.
Thus, unborn human beingsfull of life and potentialare aborted,
sometimes very late, and often for undeniably incoherent and banal reasons. This is the consequence of defining the worth of the fetus on the
basis of factors external to the fetus. Once we begin down the slippery
slope of understanding the value of pre-born human beings on the basis
of extrinsic circumstances and not their immutable intrinsic dignity, we

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can no longer speak in a consistent moral voice, since this requires explicitly arbitrating between the worth of the unborn child and the
strength of reasons for aborting. This sensible ethical task is all but verboten today. A womans desires, we are told, however transient, selfish,
or distorted by her crisis, must always hold absolute sway over the human being whose life her body naturally guards, and they cannot be
gainsaid. It is not compassionate to her otherwise.
Thus, as a society we stammer inarticulately in the face of abortion
practices in China and India, which almost everyone finds emetic. Yet if
we would refuse to believe the deterministic fiction that biology is social
destinyand therefore that pregnancy is an oppressionwe might be
able to say out loud what we silently know is true: most abortions in
this country are also utterly without any justification, and should not be
legal. In doing this, we would better harmonize our social lives with our
moral sense, humanize our culture, and lead the world in the most important of ways: standing for the dignity of all human life.
Whose interests are served by the American cultures studied ethical
myopia concerning abortion? Obviously not the unborn childs. Nor can
it truly be the womans, since she must live with the haunting and hurtful knowledge of what she has done and what might have been, of a
future that might have turned out much brighter than the dark scenarios
she imagined, and perhaps believed, possibly as a means of selfjustification and emotional self-protection.156 Rather, the extremely lucrative abortion industry is the entity truly served by this countrys general
moral complacency about abortion.
Yet, no matter how loudly the abortion industry and its acolytes in
much of American feminism proclaim that the abortion debate is over,
the public conscience of this country persists in its uneasiness about the
topic. Whether prompted by reports of the sex-selective abortions practiced in some Asian countries, or by the publicized details of our own
grisly partial-birth abortion procedurecravenly supported by selfproclaimed childrens advocates Bill and Hillary Clintonthe American
mind is slowly beginning to lose sleep over the realities of our abortion
practice. But what is strange about this rumbling public sentiment is the
moral stuttering accompanying it. No one seems able to say, for example,
why it is unfair to abort only nascent females, and no one seems able to
say why it is wrong to allow late-term abortions on healthy babies that
deliver all of a baby except her head, and then suction her brains out.
This awkward silence is the natural product of the near total disenfranchisement of the unborn human being that the abortion debate in
this country has accomplished. Arent unborn human beings objectively
worth something? Influential elements of American culture (e.g., the Democratic party and feminist and abortion lobbies) have been acting as if

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theyre not, but still, intuitively, we know they are, and we are offended
at their wholesale degradation. The womans right to choose slogan
and the politically shrewd but fatuous positing of abortion as the linchpin of female equality have induced an ethical impotence and social silence that keep us from giving voice to our common-sense moral
sentiments about the injustice and unfairness of fetal destruction and
gender-selective abortions. This then is perhaps the final paradox which
the abortion culture has insinuated within American society: we are unable to clearly explain why what we know to be wrong is in fact wrong.
Partial-Birth Abortion
Perhaps no other feature of the abortion culture in America exposes
the depths to which we have sunk than does the recent debate over the
so-called partial-birth abortion procedure. In this bloody and violent
procedure, also called the D & X (Dilation and Extraction), the doctor
pulls all of the fully developed baby except the head down into the
vagina. The doctor then takes a pair of blunt scissors and forces the
scissors into the base of the babys skull, spreading it to enlarge the
opening. Using a suction catheter, he then sucks out the brain of the
human being, killing him or her. Dr. Martin Haskell, who teaches the
procedure to other doctors at National Abortion Federation seminars,
has done this more than 700 times to unborn babies twenty to twentysix weeks developed.157
The nature of the 19961997 debate over the attempt to ban partialbirth abortions was predictably acrimonious.158 It also was fraught with
misconceptions and falsehoods, foremost among them that the partialbirth abortion procedure is performed only to save the life of the mother
or to preserve her fertility.159 Dr. Warren Hern, for example, openly acknowledged performing late-term, partial-birth abortions purely for convenience sake, and he has unhesitatingly counseled other doctors to
censor the information about this procedure and other aspects of their
work that may reach the public, lest they suffer a public backlash if the
true nature of their medical practice become widely known.160 This
gruesome procedure was emphatically shown to be commonly used on
the healthy babies of healthy mothers, without any medical necessity.
For example, at one abortion clinic in Englewood, New Jersey, doctors
acknowledged that in one year they perform over 1,500 partial birth
abortions, and only a miniscule amount [of those] are for [alleged] medical reasons.161 Two other doctors who performed this procedure admitted that many of these types of procedures they performed were
purely elective, and were not done to save the mothers life or because
the fetus was deformed.162

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But this reality was not widely known during the 1996 debate over
the issue, because throughout the media the general impression was
given that it was a genuine medical debate as to whether or not the
procedure was ever medically necessary. There is a virtual consensus
that the procedure is unnecessary. Dr. Pamela Smith, director of medical
education in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mt. Sinai
Hospital in Chicago, wrote in the American Medical Associations publication American Medical News (November 20, 1995): There are absolutely no obstetrical situations encountered in this country which require
a partially-delivered human fetus to be destroyed to preserve the health
of the mother.163 Public misrepresentations about the medical value of
this procedure became so blatant that the Physicians Ad Hoc Coalition
for Truth was founded by four doctors specifically for the purpose of
exposing the medically fraudulent and true moral nature of partial-birth
abortion.164
The partial-birth abortion debatewhich at this writing still continues
in this same fog of confusionhas featured many controversies, including the ads of 1996 congressional candidates in California and Illinois,
which showed bloodied, third-trimester fetuses killed by partial-birth
abortion. The gruesome images, which ran on television, were accompanied by the angelic singing of young children. The jarring contrast of
human innocence and human mutilation drew the ire of media critics,
feminist leaders, and pro-choice activists who thought the ads exploitative and inflammatory.
Yet, no one disgruntled with the commercials offered a defense of the
partial-birth abortion practice, the results of which are accurately presented in the photographs that comprised the ad. The brute fact, plainly
stated by George F. Will, is that partial-birth abortion is murder itself.165
Apparently, those individuals troubled by the ads did not want to draw
the common-sense inference that if the images are so revolting that we
cannot bear to view them, then perhaps the practice causing those images is so revolting that it should not be permitted. But, fortunately, most
citizens were open-minded enough to reach this obvious conclusion
about partial-birth abortions, and as a consequence, many abortion opponents are starting to recognize that the future of their movement lies
in the visual rather than the verbal. The tragic, grisly empirical proof of
a life slaughtered will have a much stronger impact on the conscience of
the nation than will more slogans and speeches.
Those humanitarians who make their living committing abortions believe this too, and so seek to control the images seen by the public.
Hence, as mentioned earlier, abortion doctor Warren Hern has recommended to his colleagues that in dealing with the media, they should
provide as much factual information as possible, but the information

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should be appropriate for public consumption.166 In other words, make

sure nothing too graphic is seen or described.
Yet, if it were recommended that pictures of women battered by their
husbands be tamed for the newspaper or television news, feminists
would raise cries of censorship and coverup. We quite rightly insist that
the public behold the work of injustice, so its disturbing visage will serve
as a motivation for redress and change. This is a rich tradition in American public life, from Sheriff Bull Connors dogs snapping at peaceful
civil rights protestors to the famous napalm-scalded Vietnamese girl running terrified down a road to the haunting, emaciated bodies of African
famine victims. The gory remains of a near fully developed and totally
innocent pre-born baby who died in agonizing pain at the hands of a
for-profit abortionist is a case-in-point of an offensive picture exposing
an offensive act.
But, as is often the case in our culture, the obscenities of abortion and
abortion practice are given a special dispensation of tolerance. Predictably, partial-birth abortions never became much of an actual campaign
issue in the 1996 presidential race. Bill Clinton carefully avoided it, and
the Dole organization lacked the moral courage and strategic insight to
pursue it. (Polls showed that about 75 percent of the public disapproved
of Clintons veto of a bill that would have outlawed the procedure.) Had
the Dole campaign addressed the topic, they would have easily established that, as the Physicians Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth has declared,
No partial birth abortion is ever medically indicated. . . . [T]here is no
obstetrical situation that requires the willful destruction of a partially
delivered baby to protect the life, health or future fertility of a
woman.167 The procedure is simply an innovation in the trade, one that
enables physicians like Hern and Haskell to perform more abortions
and therefore make more money.
If anyone is to be called to task for exploiting the corpses of aborted,
viable fetuses, it should not be those bold enough to hold before us the
consequences of our abortion culture. Rather, we should direct our contempt at contemporary liberalism and the social devolution it is authoring that has brought us to the point where, in the name of womens
rights, we cannot even extend compassion to an utterly innocent baby
whose body has been born, but whose head is held in the birth canal
while she is sadistically killed so her death can qualify as an abortion.
Of what more shameful act can human societiesand the philosophies
that sustain thembe guilty?
Choice and Fatherlessness
Unsurprisingly, the institutionalization of abortion on demand in
American life has had extremely damaging social consequences. Perhaps

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foremost among these bitter fruits is a social pathology that is not often
directly associated with abortion on demand: fatherlessness.
Despite long-term liberal denial, it is now nearly a truism that there
is a crisis of fatherlessness in this country.168 This is apparent by the
simple fact that each night about forty percent of American children go
to sleep in a home where their fathers do not live.169 Whether deadbeat
dads, absent dads, or men who have never accepted paternity for their
children, many American men have unilaterally decided that their acts
of sexual intercourse do not in any way obligate them morally to the
offspring that may result. Of late, a spate of detailed sociological studies
have been published documenting the personal and social destructiveness of this trend. Few, however, have broached the obvious but politically incorrect possibility that the withering of American fatherhood is
significantly related to the liberal social ethos erected during the past
three decades in order to support the culture of choice. If we consider
the psychological effects on men of our cultural saturation with the principle of choice, its not hard to understand why men are becoming
pro-choice about fatherhood.
The ethical imperative of my body, my choice has meant that
women can decide whether or not to give birth once they become pregnant. But this principlethat personal, bodily acts (like sexual intercourse) only require ones moral commitments if one wants them to
has not remained confined to the narrow preserve of abortion rights.
Through prominent repetition over the years, it has become installed in
the general public consciousness as an all-purposebut very lowgradeethical touchstone for determining what ones moral duties are.
So, women choose whether to become mothers, or more accurately,
whether to give birth to the children they conceive. They choose whether
or not to become mothers in the social sense. But men do not choose to
become fathers. In fact, womenby electing either to obtain or not to
obtain an abortionchoose for men whether men will become fathers
(in the social sense), and whether men will be legally obligated to pay,
over the course of nearly two decades, a substantial amount of money
in child support.
The one-sidedness of this decision power is patent.170 Mens objections
to itwhich are rare because of the de rigueur assent to choice and the
intimidating feminist scorn that awaits any objectionare met with the
retort, Dont have intercourse if youre not ready to accept the duties
of a father. But the same logic, Dont have intercourse if youre not
ready to accept the duties of a mother, does not apply to women. They
are allowed to choose whether or not to be a parent. Since men know
that the woman theyve impregnated could just as easily obtain an abortion as give birth to the child, they reason that if she foregoes the abor-

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tionand they do not wish to assume the varied and sustained

obligations of fatherhoodthen the woman should have sole responsibility for the child. Why should I be responsible, he thinks, when she
could have had an abortion? If she wants to choose to be a mother, thats
fine for her, but she should not be able to influence my social and economic future by choosing for me whether I am to be a father.171 My body,
my choice. So fatherhood and the obligations attendant to it are optional,
just as motherhood and the obligations attendant to it are optional. Men
have learned from the culture of choice that childrens interests can
permissibly be subjugated to their own personal desires, should the two
conflict. Thus, our cultural enthroning of choice communicates to fathers, as it does to mothers, that children need not really be our top
priority.
But beyond fomenting fatherlessness, choice has also worked to disengage men from their offspring, since their offspring dont socially become their offspring unless the woman wants them to. Hence, some men
are psychologically ill-prepared to participate in raising their children
once they are born, because they have suspended the development of a
parental sense within themselves, obviously not wanting to experience
the pain of having emotionally embraced their child only to lose the child
to abortion. The sustained uncertainty that the possibility of abortion
presents can even subtly turn a mans offspring into a menace in his own
eyes, for its potential demise becomes the source of considerable anxiety.
This uncertainty, plus the powerful cultural ascendancy of a womans
right to choose, demotivates men from seeking to encourage the formation within themselves of emotional and psychological ties to their
children. A man is understandably hesitant to embark down the existentially profound road of fatherhood if he is unsureand utterly powerless
to establishthat his child will actually be born.
Im reminded of the neo-Marxist/eco-feminist man I knew in graduate
school who informed me with genuine elation and humble joy that his
fiance was pregnant. When I saw him a week later, his ashen face and
seething rage underlined the anguish he said he felt at learning that his
fiance had just aborted their pre-born child. He, like so many men today,
learned that the law of choice is a great wall separating him from his
nascent children. Of course, had he not wished to be a father, this wall
would have become a passageway to the abandonment of his most profound purpose as a man. How tragic it is that what is thought to be the
empowerment of womenchoiceat the same time discourages men
from entering into fatherhood and so contributes to the profound social
corrosion wrought by fatherlessness. It is a chimera indeed to believe
that American society can restore a culture of responsible fatherhood
while still abiding the facile rhetoric of my body, my choice.

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Abortion Myths
The approximately one-half billion dollar per year abortion industry
is shielded by deeply entrenched and culturally accepted public truths.
These ideas, encapsulated in slogans and sayings, are repeated consistently by supporters of choice, and they have now become part of the
American consciousness. Very gradually, however, these ideas are starting to lose their public cogency and are beginning to be seen as the
propagandistic shibboleths they are. These politically correct imperatives
include the following myths.172
Myth #1: Abortion is between a woman and her doctor.
Both government reports and Planned Parenthood statistics consistently show that the overwhelming majority of abortions occur in highvolume abortion clinics, not in the office of a womans personal
physician.173 The woman often does not meet the unfamiliar doctor until
she is already gowned and in stirrups, prepped for the abortion. And,
of course, clinic doctors are not available for postabortion counseling.
Women who are troubled must find counseling on their own, as did
Nancyjo Mann, founder of Women Exploited by Abortion. Abortion was
hardly an empowering experience for her; she wrote, For two hours I
could feel her struggling inside me. But then, as suddenly as it began,
she stopped. Even today, I remember her very last kick on my left side.
She had no strength left. She gave up and died. Despite my grief and
guilt, I was relieved that her pain was finally over. But I was never the
same again. The abortion killed not only my daughter, it killed a part of
me.174 Abortion is not between a woman and her doctor, but rather a
woman, a pre-born child, and a for-profit abortionist.
Myth # 2: A woman has a right to control her own body.
This is a literally true statement, but in the context of abortion, it is
deceptive, because it assumes that abortion is an act of simple selfcontrol. In fact, abortion is just the opposite. Having an abortion most
definitely is not an example of controlling ones body. To abort is to surrender control of ones body in a most complete way. It is to acknowledge that ones lack of self-control has created an intolerable situation
and that one must now submit to a thoroughly unnatural procedure to
remedy this situation. Significantly, substantially more than one-third of
women who have aborted report they did so in capitulation to pressure
from someone else, usually a man.175 This hardly presents abortion as
the act of womens self-assertion that advocates of choice describe.
Abortion liberates men, not women; it frees men from sexual responsibility and restraint.176
Every woman naturally has reproductive freedom, which is one reason
why rape is a crime. But when a womanor manwillingly engages
in sexual intercourse, the one action possible between a man and a

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woman which could result in a new human being, those individuals

incur basic moral duties toward that new human being. At this human
beings prenatal stage, these duties consist primarily of not harming him.
This primary obligation is a corollary of the natural, nonderogable right
to life possessed by that new human being.
Myth # 3: No one knows when human life begins.
Of course we do. The unborn human being has a unique and permanent genetic identity (since conception); a beating heart (since three and
a half weeks); detectable brain activity (since six weeks); fully formed
fingers, toes, and all internal organs (since eight weeks).177 By three
months, this human being is forming fists, bending arms, curling toes,
and rapidly growing. This is not a potential life; it is an actual life, with
potential. This reality is so compelling that even leading pro-choice feminists like Naomi Wolf have acknowledged it and have called for their
comrades to frankly admit that every abortion kills a human life.178
Nevertheless, in language worthy of George Orwell, professional advocates of legal abortion persist in feigning wonderment at whether or
not the fetus is a living human being. The logic against them could not
be more elementary. First, the unborn entity is an actual being, it is alive.
If this were not so, there would be no need for an abortion. The very
purpose of the abortion is to kill that which is alive. Second, this being
is human. What else could it be? feline? canine? bovine? As Congressman
Henry Hyde (R-Il) once quipped, No woman has ever given birth to a
Golden Retriever. Human beings give birth to human beings. It is disingenuous to claim that a fetus is not a definite, living human being.
Those who have seen ultrasound images of pre-born babies have eyewitness, empirical evidence of the unborns living humanity.
Myth #4: The abortion decision is always made with great difficulty
and regret.
While this is true in many instances, it strikes me as cause to restrict
legality, not promote it. Besides, the simple fact that each year more than
40 percent of the 1.5 million abortions performed are obtained by women
who have already had at least one legal abortion shows that abortion is
often used as contraception after the fact. Thus, the destruction of unborn
human beings is simply not a matter of deep concern to a great many
people.
Myth #5: Doctors never suggest abortion unless it is necessary to save
the life of the mother.
Since there is legal precedent for litigation against doctors based on
wrongful birththe infant through his agent (usually a parent) brings
suit, claiming it would be better not to have been born than to have been
born with a disability or deformitydoctors can be quick to raise the
possibility of abortion, even though it may not be strictly medically indicated (it virtually never is). There is incentive for them to do this,

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because there is no balancing legal concept of wrongful abortion. Some

women have received self-interested recommendations from doctors to
abort and then proceeded to do so simply on the basis of the doctors
authority, when it was medically unnecessary. Since the fetus can be
aborted for any reason, in a complicated pregnancy the doctorto protect his financial and professional statusmay be quick to suggest, if not
clearly recommend (in convincing clinical language), the alternative of
abortion. In this way, the abortion license can corrupt sound medical
practice.179
Choice
Strutting as a legitimate term of civic debate, choice is in fact a
vacant conceptual hull, entirely dependent on its subject for moral meaning. By design, the abortion culture has imbued this otherwise purely
formal idea with major symbolic significance. The declaration of a
womans right to choose, without even specifying what it is she is entitled to choose, is widely understood to compel respect and to foreclose
on public, rigorous debate.
Without question, choice is the byword of what passes for public
debate today. It has become entrenched as the monosyllabic representation of the puerile and absolutistic moral antinomianism that is the
pro-choice side of the abortion debate. It is commonly used in now
ritualized exchanges as a kind of conceptual trump card, the idea
thought to be so argumentatively compelling that it should obviate any
further discussion.
Given the prominence of this word and the importance many ascribe
to it, it is odd that the concept of choice has not been the object of closer
scrutiny. This is because such examination reveals the fundamentally
amoral nature of this concept, and thus its inability to function autonomously as an ethically justifying consideration. This ethical impotence is
only heightened when the subject is as morally significant a topic as
abortion.
Contrary to the implications of its popular usage, choice is not a moral
value. It is merely a faculty of the will, a formal category. Choice itself
is an axiologically empty process, without any intrinsic moral qualities.
It is neither good nor bad in itself, but rather depends on the antecedently established moral quality of its subject for its own moral warrant.
Choice alone, shorn of any ethical and social context, is simply a mechanical mental operation, much like adding two and two. By itself,
choice bears absolutely no relationship to virtue, goodness, or rationality.
It is nothing but the naked exercise of ones will. So to say I am for
choice is to say nothing more ethically significant and morally meaningful than I am for the mental process of making decisions.

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But does the simple fact that a decision has been made automatically
render that decision morally justified? Obviously not. The worth of our
decisions or choices is not independent of the courses decided or the
ends chosen. Indeed, the moral quality of our choices is wholly determined by what it is we have chosen to do and why we have chosen it.
Both as individuals and as a public, we routinely approve or disapprove of individual and social choices based on the content and substance of those choices. The recent national regret over interning
Japanese Americans during World War II and the current cultural vigilance regarding racism and hate crimes all attest to our felt need to morally evaluate the substance of choices. Clearly, on matters of deep moral
significance, like abortion, to be in favor of making a choice is not ethically responsible. One cannot avoid moral culpability for bad choices by
hiding behind ones freedom to choose, as if the perceived need for some
decision was itself enough to justify any decision made. If we are to
ensure that freedom does not degenerate into mere license, then we must
recognize that freedom carries with it the imperatives of conscientious
consideration of alternatives and personal moral accountability for decisions once made.
In the abortion debate, the rhetoric of choice obscures, indeed ignores, the primary moral question at hand: Under what circumstances,
if any, is the value of prenatal human life outweighed by certain personal
considerations of the pregnant woman? This flight by abortion advocates
from the central moral question of abortion policy is intentional, for it
allows them to persist in using the womb as an asylum from moral
responsibility.
If the abortion controversy is ever to move toward a sane resolution,
then those in favor of abortion on demand will have to think beyond
absolutistic and emotive arguments about the imperative of choice,
and attempt to articulate an authentically moral view of the relative value
of personal desire to human fetal life. This they most certainly have not
done.
Nor are they interested in engaging the moral dimension of abortion
policy, for their choice argument is much better suited to the propaganda game. The inveterate selfishness of human beings disposes them
to embrace any argument that accords them a license for complete selfconcern and self-centeredness. The simplistic and rigid My body, my
choice formula of the abortion lobby does exactly this, and this is a
major reason for its success in the public square. No need to fuss over
questions of fetal value and personal responsibility: its my body, and I
can do with it whatever I want.
The main premise used by the pro-abortionistsevery woman must
be able to completely control her own bodyyields an airtight abortion on demand conclusion if it is accepted. But, of course, the magnitude

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of its absurdity is so great that it cannot be granted. It is not controlling

ones own body to have an abortion. To do that is to cede control of
your body in a most profound and complete way. This is the reality that
the pro-choice lobby refuses to accept. When others of us insist that a
pregnancy results in another life, another body, a separate human being
with a different genetic code from his mother, a different appearance
from her, and possibly a different blood type from her, we alter the
nature of the syllogism that then must follow, just as certainly as we do
when we are talking about the relations between two mature adults.
Civilized societies do not permit someone to do what she will with someone else, simply because the doing so requires her only to exercise the
force of her own body. Such an understanding is nothing other than
might makes right barbarism.
In a very real sense, the womans physical womb is equivalent to the
psychological womb in which we all exist in relation to one another.180
Since each of us can assert a certain proprietary claim over our own
psyche, we might then extend the abortion argument to say: Whatever
comes within the reach of my psychological womb ought to be completely subject to my will. Hence, if the existence of another person disturbs me in some way, and I wish to be free of that disturbanceI wish
to remove that person from my psychological wombno one should
object to my doing so, because its my womb. But we immediately reject
the acceptability of eliminating those whose presence we do not desire.
Yet, the dominance of the quintessentially modern liberal idea of
choice is so strong in American culture that many people, especially
liberal elites, are unwilling to breathe a word against it. This is the reign
of intellectual tyranny presiding over the American public square, mediated to us by the values of contemporary liberalism.

NOTES
1. The most notable exception is the civil rights movement, which even conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan recognized as liberalisms finest
hour. Buchanan remarked, The liberals paid a heavy price for having championed civil rights in the 50s and early 60s, for preaching and advancing the
ideal of equality and justice under the law. If they have stumbled and blundered
terribly since, they knew what they were doing then, and what they were doing
was right. Patrick Buchanan, Right from the Beginning (Boston, Little, Brown and
Co., 1988), p. 306. For valuable discussion on the civil rights movement and its
struggles, see Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America During the King Years
195463, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988). See also Christopher Laschs
social history, The True and Only Heaven (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), pp.
386407.
2. In my view Robert Bork has provided the best single-volume explanation.

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See his Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline (New
York: HarperCollins, 1996), Part I.
3. For description of this normative vision, see William Watkins, The New
Absolutes (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1997). The statist habits of contemporary
liberalism have produced something of a public backlash as manifested in surging support for libertarian reformsor eliminationof governmental activity.
The recent publication of three popular books vigorously advocating libertarian
politics bears this out. See David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer (New York: The
Free Press, 1997); David Boaz, ed., The Libertarian Reader (New York: The Free
Press, 1997); and Charles Murray, What It Means to Be a Libertarian: A Personal
Interpretation (New York: Broadway Books, 1997). On the utopianism of contemporary liberalism generally, see John OSullivan, After Reaganism, National
Review, April 21, 1997, pp. 5662, 80.
4. See generally Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York:
Vintage Books, 1945).
5. For discussion of Mrs. Clinton and the politics of meaning, a phrase
coined by Michael Lerner, see Michael Kelly, Saint Hillary, New York Times
Magazine, May 23, 1993.
6. For example, one family physician has written of how she has seen encroaching government and taxation force mothers to work who would have preferred to stay home, and place their children in daycare. See Katherine Dowling,
The Devalued Family, Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1996, p. B9. The contemporary liberal imperative to make government work, the ultimate source of this
encroachment, is actually counter to central features of the U. S. constitutional
system, such as: the system of checks and balances that makes the formation of
a majority coalition difficult; the fact that such coalitions by nature require clear
and apparent practical benefits from policies; the reality that sweeping governmental policies must nonetheless be implemented at the state level, which makes
federal imposition difficult. For elaboration of this argument, and the value of
the gridlock so despised by utopians, see James Q. Wilson, Dont Bemoan
GridlockThe Constitution Likes It, Los Angeles Times, November 20, 1994, p.
M1. For discusssion of current cultural trends and their impact on family life,
see Dana Mack, The Assault on Parenthood: How Our Culture Undermines the Family
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997).
7. For the classic contemporary exposition of this principle, see Peter L. Berger and Richard John Neuhaus, To Empower People: From State to Civil Society,
2nd. ed. (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1996).
8. See Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions (New York: William Morrow,
1987), Chapter 2.
9. For trenchant criticism of sixties values, and particularly their harmful
impact on minorities, see Myron Magnet, The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties
Legacy to the Underclass (New York: William Morrow, 1993).
10. How the Nations Capital Has Crumbled, Los Angeles Times, June 26,
1996, p. A1.
11. On this overall idea, see George F. Will, Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983).
12. George F. Will, The Cultural Contradictions of Conservatism, The Public
Interest, no. 123, Spring 1996, p. 44.

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13. For discussion of this critical dichotomy, see Robert Merton, Social Theory
and Social Structure, 2nd ed. (New York: The Free Press, 1968), pp. 7491.
14. Richard John Neuhaus, The Naked Public Square (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
William B. Eerdmans, 1984). For an excellent discussion of the antireligious work
of the ACLU, an organization perhaps most accurately representative of the biases of contemporary liberalism, see the works by William A. Donohue, Twilight
of Liberty: The Legacy of the ACLU (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers,
1994) and The Politics of the American Civil Liberties Union (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction Publishers, 1985).
15. Two Methodist professors captured the strong consonance of the religious
left with contemporary liberalism by writing, [I]t seems inconceivable that any
agency of any mainline, Protestant denomination should espouse some social
position unlike that of the most liberal Democrats. The church is the dull exponent of conventional secular political ideas with a vaguely religious tint. Thomas C. Reeves, The Empty Church (New York: The Free Press, 1996), p. 14. Indeed,
sometimes liberal religionists outdo their secular compatriots in radicalism. For
example, one attendee at a recent American Academy of Religion meetinga
lesbian who was a doctoral student at Chicago Theological Seminarypresented
a paper in which she explained her new name for God: She who queers. Similarly, at a theater performance for the Lesbian-Feminist Issues in Religion
Group at this AAR conference, one woman applied the Hail Mary prayer to
an exclamation of ecstasy in a lesbian sex scene. Examples of such hyper-liberal
politicized presentations at professional academic meetingsthinly masked as
scholarly workcould be multiplied many times. For discussion of the AAR
meeting just mentioned, see Look Whos Furnishing Our Colleges with Professors! Human Events, March 7, 1997, pp. 1617. See also, generally, Paul Mankowski, What I Saw at the American Academy of Religion, First Things, no.
21, March 1992, pp. 3641. For a thorough discussion of the religious left and its
coherence with the general liberal project of todayand its consequential decline
in membership and vitalitysee Reevess book. For a defense of liberal religion,
Christianity in particular, see Donald E. Miller, The Case for Liberal Christianity
(San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981). For an important discussion on the acculturation of religious bodies, see H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New
York: Harper and Row, 1951), Chapter 3.
One consequence of widespread religious acculturation is the cultural disparaging of behavioral limits and traditional norms, especially with regard to sexual
life. This is simply because the moral demands of traditional Judeo-Christian
religion tend to impinge most acutely on human sexuality.
So then what happens to a culture when all limits on individual behavior,
particularly sexual, are removed? Todays liberalism says people become more
free and uninhibited, and therefore happier. Critics of contemporary liberalism
argue that personal liberty, in any context, disconnected from moral absolutes
and transcendent values actually degrades the scope and quality of human freedom, and ultimately hurts our society by debasing human dignity. Almost always such critics are dismissed by liberal politicians and media mavens as
intolerant bigots or right wing extremists. But what would our public life
be like if truly all boundaries on personal conduct were erased?
On May 3rd, 1997, courtesy of the wise city leaders of San Franciscothe

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proud capital of contemporary liberalismwe received a glimpse of this liberal

utopia, and it was not pretty. This preview was possible because friends of Jack
Davis, a powerful San Francisco political consultant, threw him a fiftieth birthday
celebration attended by the liberal political elite of the city, including Mayor
Willie Brown, city supervisors and many other municipal officials.
But at this San Francisco birthday party they did not play Twister. No, there
were both male and female strippers dancing at this gathering, as well as live
and simulated sex acts openly performed on a stage throughout the night. The
bacchanalia concluded with a dominatrix beating a man in front of the crowd,
urinating on him in full view of the audience, and carving a satanic symbola
pentagraminto the mans bare back with a knife. Finally, the man was publicly
sodomized with a whiskey bottle. Reportedly, some in attendance walked out in
disgust, many did not.
One of those who fled in shock was Barbara Kaufman, President of the San
Francisco Board of Supervisors, who was seen leaving during the mutilation of
the man, moaning gross . . . gross (Davis Big Birthday Bash Turns Heads
(And Some Stomachs), The San Francisco Chronicle, May 5, 1997, p. A13). Some
other city leaders remained, watching uncomfortably. San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey was among them. He said, It was like walking into a Mapplethorpe exhibit. It was so disgusting, I thought it was funded by the NEA
(National Endowment for the Arts) (Davis Big Birthday Bash Turns Heads
(And Some Stomachs), The San Francisco Chronicle, May 5, 1997, p.A13).
The man in whose back the pentagram was carved is Steven Johnson Leyba,
an ordained priest in the San Francisco-based Church of Satan. He also leads
a performance group called The United Satanic Apache Front, which Leyba
who is one-quarter Apachesays has performed this same bizarre act at the San
Francisco Art Institute and the University of New Mexico. The ritual, which
Leyba calls the Apache Whiskey Rite, is intended, he says, to be a literal
metaphor for how alcohol was forced on my [Apache] people (Davis Party
Performer Says Hes Satanic Priest, The San Francisco Chronicle, May 8, 1997,
p.A19).
Mayor Brown himself, whose 1995 mayoral campaign was managed by Jack
Davis, left before the bloodletting of Leyba to attend another commitment. But
the Mayor was not critical of Davis, later telling reporters, I dont know who
he owes an apology to (49ers Bring Campaign to Chinatown, The San Francisco Chronicle, May 10, 1997, p. A17). Brown himself received a similar free pass
from the San Francisco press for his association with the lurid event. Imagine
how differently Clarence Thomas or Ward Connerly would have been treated
by journalists had they been present at such an obscene party.
In the wake of the city fathers night of debauchery, local newspapers and talk
shows were abuzz with the angry voices of citizens deriding arrogant cityinsiders who flout what, outside of San Francisco, are considered common norms
of behavior and who think they can get away with anything. Local restaurant
owner Ed Moose expressed the frustration of some city residents, saying Weve
come a long way in showing San Francisco as a sane, exciting place to live and
raise a family. Now, once again, the country and really the whole world will say
this place appears to be so far out of the mainstream. The people of this city

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deserve better, and thats why Im so angry (Party Talk Wont Die Down,
The San Francisco Chronicle, May 9, 1997, p. A19).
All of this outrage was much ado about nothing as far as the liberal leaders
of San Francisco were concerned. To them, the nights events were little more
than a faux pas; actions that were impolitic in a public setting but certainly not
wrong in and of themselves. After all, people should be able to do whatever they
want, right?
It is this patent indifference to the moral quality and consequences of human
behavior that is one of the most socially corrosive elements of modern liberalism,
and the reason why, outside the elite corridors of liberal social and political
power, citizens are in revolt against the libertine and hyper-permissive personal
ethic of the Left. They know that there are some lines of conduct that should not
be crossed, and that absolute freedom inevitably devours itself, binding people
with the cords of their own vices.
Significantly, in the wake of his now infamous party, Jack Davis has experienced a spiritual crisis of sorts, attending church for the first time in 25 years,
and resolving to quit his contentious political consulting career and the wild
streets of San Francisco, moving to Sedona, Arizona. See A Political Bad Boys
Lament, Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1997, p. A1. For a full recounting of Daviss
party and its political context, see Brad Stetson, The Limits of Tolerance, World,
June 14/21, 1997, p. 19.
16. A 1994 CNN/USA Today Gallup Poll found that 70 percent of Americans
belonged to a church or synagogue, and 66 percent said they attended religious
services once a month. Overall, there has been a significant growth in national
religious involvement since World War II. See Reeves, The Empty Church, pp. 51
54, 125127. Also see Dean Kellys classic study of the rapid growth of fundamentalist and evangelical Christian churches featuringin contradistinction to
their liberal counterpartsliteralistic belief systems and high demands of personal commitment from their members. See Dean Kelly, Why Conservative
Churches Are Growing: A Study in the Sociology of Religion (New York: Harper and
Row, 1972).
17. See William R. Mattox, Jr., Sleep with Your Spouse, Live Longer, The
Orange County Register, January 23, 1997, p. Metro 9. Studies are also being conducted on the putative practical benefits of prayer.
18. For recent, comprehensive discussion, see David T. Courtwright, Violent
Land: Single Men and Social Disorder from the Frontier to the Inner City (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996).
19. The Confessions of St. Augustine, trans. by F. J. Sheed, Books I-X (Kansas
City, Kans.: Sheed, Andrews and McMeel, 1970), p. 51.
20. An abbreviated version of this vignette appears as What Miles Taught,
in World, October 12, 1996, p. 26.
21. Marvin Olasky, a conservative Christian journalist, is a notable exception
to this trend. His The Tragedy of American Compassion (Washington, D.C.: Regnery
Publishing , 1992) became very influential in deliberations about the reformation
of welfare alternatives. Newt Gingrichs mention of Olaskys book in his inaugural speech to Congress as Speaker of the House of Representatives contributed
significantly to that notoriety.
22. Media bias and the leftward predilections of media elites is well docu-

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mented. For good reason, as seen in the profoundly liberal inclination of journalists revealed in the 1992 presidential election: 89 percent of them voted for
Bill Clinton (Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, p. 339). Of course, media workers
are clearly inclined to support feminist causes, too; see John Leo, Things that
go bump in the home, U.S. News and World Report, May 13, 1996, p. 25. On
media bias and religion specifically, see Fred Barnes, Faithful Bigots, Forbes
Media Critic, 1, no. 2, 1994. See also Los Angeles Times reporter David Shaws
seminal study of pro-choice media bias, Abortion Bias Sweeps into News, Los
Angeles Times, July 1, 1990, p. 10f. On the liberal inclinations of major media
generally, see L. Brent Bozell and Brent H. Baker, eds., And Thats the Way It
Is(nt): A Reference Guide to Media Bias (Alexandria, Va.: Media Research Center,
1990), and Michael Medved, Hollywood Vs. America: Popular Culture and the War
on Traditional Values (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).
23. Brad Stetson, interview with Patrick Robertson and CityTeam program
participants, September 6, 1995. CityTeams address is 2302 Zanker Road, San
Jose, CA 951311137.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid. Steven is a pseudonym.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid. Ray is a pseudonym.
29. Ibid. Hakim is a pseudonym.
30. Brad Stetson, interview with San Jose Housing Department official, September 6, 1995.
31. Stetson, interview with Patrick Robertson, September 6, 1995.
32. Brad Stetson, interview with Patrick Robertson, February 5, 1997.
33. Ibid.
34. On the value of prophetic religious critique of society and social structures, see Stephen Mott, Biblical Ethics and Social Change (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), Part II; Os Guiness, The American Hour (New York: The Free
Press, 1993); Lynn Buzzard and Paula Campbell, Holy Disobedience (Ann Arbor,
Mich.: Servant Books, 1984); and, classically, Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and
Immoral Society (London: SCM Press edition, 1963) and An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (New York: Meridian Books edition, 1956).
35. See Dallas Willard, Language, Being, God and the Three Stages of Theistic Evidence, in J. P. Moreland and Kai Nielsen, eds., Does God Exist?: The
Great Debate (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990), pp. 197221 for
an unusual and careful statement of the logical case for theism.
36. For a general description of Promise Keepers, see The Power of a Promise Keeper, Good News, September/October 1995, pp. 1217; Joe Maxwell,
Promise Keepers Parachurch Paradigm, World, March 2, 1996. For a critical,
but well-balanced, discussion of the movement, see Donna Minkowitz, In the
Name of the Father, Ms. November/December 1995, pp. 6471. Reporter Minkowitz lied to Promise Keepers administrators about her gender and dressed up
as a man to gain admission to a Promise Keepers event, as the conferences are
by design male-only. In the course of the two-day event, she needed to use the
bathroom. As even the womens restrooms were being used by the men, she
went ahead and used one of those, hurrying into a stall. Apparently, the mens

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right to privacyan absolute and inviolable value for feminists like Ms. Minkowitzwas not important enough to be observed by her.
37. See Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, pp. 293294, 336.
38. On gender differentiation, see the academic work of sociologist Stephen
Goldberg, Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance (La Salle, Ill.: Open Court,
1993) and the popular work of John Gray, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from
Venus (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).
Perhaps reflection on the recent controversy over the admission of women into
The Citadel and Virginia Military Institute would help clarify the case for understanding men and women differentlya position accorded prima facie reasonableness before feminisms utopian fantasies and goal of radical social
transformation became institutionalized in contemporary American society.
I maintain that Ms. Faulkners wealthy feminist sponsorswho ecstatically
cheered her when she spoke at a National Organization for Womens rally just
a few weeks before her entry into The Citadelbased their argument for her
admission on a remarkably shallow understanding of men, women, and human
society. Foremost among their confusions was the unreflective claim that gender
segregation is morally equivalent to racial segregation. But unlike different racial
groups, men and women have genuine intrinsic differences in aptitudes (men
tend toward the technical, women tend toward the expressive) and psychology
(men tend to emphasize rules and fairness, women tend to emphasize relationships and empathy). These qualitative differences have implications for the structure of collegiate education, and so gender segregation in such a context is
morally justified and a reasonable option to preserve. The state of South Carolina
recognizes as much and so provides public funds for The Citadelas well as for
the two all-female colleges in that state, Columbia and Converse. But those who
used Ms. Faulkner as a stalking horse in their war against tradition conveniently
omitted mention of this equitable funding. The political point of womens oppression was too important to be contradicted by the facts.
Indeed, while the anticipated demise of The Citadels 152-year practice of single-gender education was being hailed by feminists as an exhilarating breakthrough in gender equality, they gave little thought to the possibility that an
all-male college like The Citadel is a valuable educational alternative for American society, and one very much worth preserving.
Today there are just four all-male collegesif one counts VMI and The Citadelleft in this country, compared with eighty-three all-female institutions. This
massive disparity in educational options for young males is surely ill-advised at
a time when adult men are abandoning responsible masculinity. This abandonment is in significant part attributable to a pervasive, cultural lack of clarity
concerning what authentic masculinity means and how real men ought to
behave. While the amelioration of such massive social pathologies must be broad
based, strong subcultures of masculinitysuch as that found at a place like The
Citadelwhich emphasize the simple values of self-responsibility, intellectual
diligence, integrity, and sexual restraint can, in part, compensate for the socialization into sound masculinity that is so lacking in contemporary American life.
Social anthropologists have long recognized that no society can survive unless it
successfully socializes males away from violence and sexual predation. When
families, the locus of socialization, fail at this task (as so many fragmented fam-

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ilies today do), the practical and symbolic role of schools such as The Citadel
looms large.
This is because institutions like The Citadel form male character in a unique
and socially beneficial way. Women, because of their common experience of the
body, have a modicum of a natural camaraderie and empathy among themselves that men usually lack. The sometimes profound psychological and somatic
tribulations of menstruation and pregnancy give women a base of commonality
that familiarizes them with one another. I remember noticing a subtle but unmistakable sense of connectedness in the maternity ward at the hospital where
my wife gave birth to our daughter. The women there, although they did not
know each other, comfortably interacted under an easy canopy of familiarity. For
men, however, camaraderieand the resulting affectionis more synthetic and
is primarily a product of their experience together, in the context of a cooperative
effort such as sports or work wherein they earn one anothers respect. This camaraderie has a civilizing effect on men. It allows them to form bonds that temper their drive to dominate and to derive through their experience in a male
culture a critically important self-confidence in their own masculinity. This selfconfidence reduces the likelihood that a man will try to prove his virility through
violenceparticularly against womenor through sexual promiscuity. Tragically, such a misguided pseudomasculinity, and the suffocatingly brutal culture
that it engenders, is the norm today, particularly in our inner cities, which is
why from Los Angeles to Milwaukee to New York community leaders are working to establish all-male private schools for their youth.
Unfortunately for the American commonweal, the politically powerful feminist
supporters of Shannon Faulkner are blind to the social usefulness of models of
genuine masculinity. They reflexively pursue the feminizing of any all-male institution or culture without considering the consequences to the larger society.
During this age of social engineering and relentless interest group politics, it has
been forgotten that in our radically pluralistic society everyones interests are
perforce united. It is not possible to separate what is good for women from what
is good for menand what is in the best long-term interests of the nation as a
whole. For an extended discussion on the topic of integrating women into allmale military colleges such as The Citadel and VMI, see Geoffrey Norman,
Crashing VMIs Line, The American Spectator, December 1996, pp. 3441; and
John McGinnis, Harassment at VMI, The Wall Street Journal, December 19, 1996,
p. A18. For discussion of the little reported reality that females in the military
also commit sexual harassmentsuggesting the behavior is a function of simply
men and women being around each other, rather than the male ethic of misogyny
at worksee Bomber Pilot Charged with Sexual Misconduct, Human Events,
March 7, 1997, p. 5.
39. Richard Louv, What Do Mothers Really Want? Parents, May 1996, pp.
3842.
40. Quoted in Olivia Vlahos, The Herstory of Warfare, The Womens Quarterly, no. 5, Autumn 1995.
41. David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America (New York: Basic Books, 1995),
p. 1.
42. William J. Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators (New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1994), p. 46.

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43. Ibid., p. 30.

44. Camille Paglia, Sex, Art and American Culture (New York: Random House,
1992), p. 82.
45. On feelings of crisis and chaos among baby boomers, and survey data on
the church attendance patterns of baby boomers and youth, see Reeves, The
Empty Church, pp. 170171.
46. This can be verified by the California Angels Baseball Club business office
in Anaheim, California.
47. On this point, see generally, Kelly, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing;
Reeves, The Empty Church; James Davison Hunter, American Evangelicalism (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983); and George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).
48. Most importantly, Kelly, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing.
49. A notable exception to this rightward lean are evangelical liberals, typified by Ronald Sider. See his Completely Pro-Life: Building a Consistent Stance
(Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1987) for representative discussion.
50. For discussion on this, see Dennis Prager, Black Candidates and White
Voters, The Prager Perspective, December 15, 1996, p. 4.
51. Yet, obviously the swelling opposition to affirmative action is implausibly
accounted for by such claims. Unquestionably, with the decision of the regents
of the University of California to end affirmative action in university admissions
and hiring, and with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals striking down affirmative
action admissions practices at the University of Texas Law School, affirmative
actionas currently practicedis straining the patience of a wide spectrum of
fair-minded Americans. On the decline of general public support for present
policies of affirmative action, see Thomas Sowell, The Twilight of Affirmative
Action, The Orange County Register, April 5, 1996, p. Metro 7; Terry Eastland,
Endgame for Affirmative Action, The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 1996. For
two comprehensive recent critiques of affirmative action, see Terry Eastland, Ending Affirmative Action: The Case for Colorblind Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1996);
and Paul Craig Roberts and Lawrence M. Stratton, The New Color Line: How
Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing,
1995).
52. Dick Morris, Behind the Oval Office (New York: Random House, 1997),
p. 268.
53. For development of this idea, see, generally, Thomas Sowell, The Vision
of the Anointed (New York: Basic Books, 1995).
54. For example, Reinhold Niebuhrs influential understanding would not be
countenanced by the contemporary liberal commitment to hyper-individualism
and the proliferation of personal rights: From the perspective of society the
highest moral ideal is justice. From the perspective of the individual the highest
ideal is unselfishness. Society must strive for justice even if it is forced to use
means, such as self-assertion [and] coercion . . . which cannot gain the sanction
of the most sensitive moral spirit (Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society, p.
257). For classically insightful discussions of the relationship of justice and mercy,
see Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society, Chapter 10.
55. When Kids Do the Unspeakable, Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1996, p.
B8. Emphasis added.

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56. The American Spectator, July 1996, p. 85.

57. Dennis Prager, The Credos of Our Faiths, The Prager Perspective, July
15, 1996, p. 4.
58. Ibid.
59. On the nature of homosexuality as volitional, see, for example, Charles
Socarides et al., Dont Forsake Homosexuals Who Want Help, The Wall Street
Journal, January 9, 1997, p. A10.
60. This paradox is often overlooked by liberalsfor example, those who
seek to defend black racism on the grounds that blacks, as disempowered, cannot
be racist. For discussion of this question, see John Blake, Can a Black Person Be
a Racist?, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, February 20, 1994, p. P1. For
general discussion of black racism, which is probably the most underreported
story in America, see David Horowitz, Identifying Black Racism: The Last
Taboo, The Orange County Register, December 10, 1995, p. Commentary 3; Racial Strife Permeates School Scrap, Los Angeles Times, February 18, 1997, p. A5;
Dinesh DSouza, Bigotry in Black and White: Can African Americans Be Racist? in his book The End of Racism (New York: The Free Press, 1995), pp. 387
429); and Jared Taylor, Paved with Good Intentions (New York: Carrol and Graf,
1992), pp. 6473, 233240, 256260.
61. I say minority communities in particular because the out-of-wedlock
birthrate for all minorities at the turn of the century is expected to be 80 percent,
compared to 40 percent nationally (Bennett, DiIulio, and Walter, Body Count, p.
196). For black Americans nationally, the out-of-wedlock birthrate is currently
more than 70 percent (Body Count, p. 196). The social destruction wrought by
out-of-wedlock birthsand the single-parent families they createis so well documented that it is almost unnecessary to remark about it. Barbara Whiteheads
article in The Atlantic Monthly, April 1993, Dan Quayle Was Right, is a standard
general source. As Whitehead remarks at the outset of her article, Children in
single-parent families are six times as likely to be poor. They are also likely to
stay poor longer. . . . [They] are two to three times as likely as children in twoparent families to have emotional and behavioral problems. They are also more
likely to drop out of high school, to get pregnant as teenagers, to abuse drugs,
and to be in trouble with the law. Compared with children in intact families,
children from disrupted families are at a much higher risk for physical or sexual
abuse. Also see Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Chapter 9; Blankenhorn, Fatherless America, esp. pp. 4548; Charles Murray, The Coming White Underclass, The Wall Street Journal, April 21, 1995, p. A14. On reasons for the rise in
out-of-wedlock births, see John J. Dilulio, Jr., Bring Back Shotgun Weddings,
The Weekly Standard, October 21, 1996.
62. See Jean Lloyd, Sacrificing Kids on the Altar of Equality, The Wall Street
Journal, August 7, 1996.
63. See Teens Arrested in Torture of Classmate, Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1996, p. A23.
64. See the article by Sarah Luck Pearson illustrating these trends: Hollywood High Confidential, in L.A. Weekly, May 3May 9, 1996. According to William J. Bennett, 20 percent of high school students in the country now carry a
firearm, knife, razor, or other weapon to school with them regularly. See Bennett,
Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, p. 30.

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65. Bennett, Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, p. 30.

66. See John J. DiIulios remark, cited in ibid., p. 37. DiIulio includes conservative as well as liberal elites in this indictment. That is true enough, but clearly
it is the modern liberal injunction to be tolerant, compassionate, and understanding of social forces driving individual behavior which is the primary
source of the reluctance to punish crime, especially juvenile crime.
67. See Richard J. Gelles, The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost
Childrens Lives (New York: Basic Books, 1996); Kathleen Schormann, The Anniversary of a Death Foretold, Los Angeles Times, April 6, 1996, p. B11. For an
excellent and powerful argument against the practice of emphasizing biological
over nonbiological relationships, see Dennis Prager, Blood Versus Love, Ultimate Issues 11, no. 2 (1995). See also The Ongoing Destruction of a Boy Named
Danny, The Prager Perspective, February 1, 1997, p. 3.
68. This discussion of tolerance as a concept is based on a similar discussion
in Brad Stetson, Pluralism and Particularity in Religious Belief (Westport, Conn.:
Praeger Publishers, 1994), pp. 7376.
69. Maurice Cranston,Toleration, in Paul Johnson, ed., The Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Vol. 8 (New York: Macmillan, 1967), p. 143.
70. See J. Budziszewski, True Tolerance: Liberalism and the Necessity of Judgment
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1992), Part One and Part Two, for helpful
discussion of the meaning of authentic tolerance and exposition of prevalent
contemporary misunderstandings of tolerance.
71. See the seminal study of Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1985).
72. For a clear, popular analysis of the practical and philosophical problems
entailed in elevating freedom to an absolute, supreme value, see Richard John
Neuhauss explanation of Veritatis Splendor, in The Wall Street Journal, October 8,
1993, p. A12.
A consequence of this ethical impotenceas well as of the current advocacy
of diversity and multiculturalismis the pervasive and enduring acceptance of cultural relativism. But plainly, cultural practices are not wholly value
neutral or sui generis. For a classic practical example of cultural arbitration, see
the account of the British decision to outlaw the Hindu practice of suttee, in
Stephen Neill, A History of Christianity in India, 17071858 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 157158. For a comprehensive critical analysis
of multiculturalism as an ideology, see Alvin Schmidt, The Menace of Multiculturalism: Trojan Horse in America (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1997).
73. Frederick R. Lynch, The Diversity Machine (New York: The Free Press,
1997), p. 117.
74. Archbishop Challenges S. F. Domestic Partners Law, Los Angeles Times,
February 4, 1997, p. A3.
75. See the story of Ron Greers plight in Roy Maynard, Zero Tolerance,
World, March 22, 1997, pp. 1316. On the very real rise in persecution of Christians internationally, see Nina Shea, Oppression of Christians Is Ignored, Los
Angeles Times, March 17, 1997, p. B9. On the Clinton administrations deliberate
inattention to the international persecution of Christians, see Tom Bethell, Saving Faith at State, The American Spectator, April 1997, pp. 2021. See also Nina

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Sheas important book, In the Lions Den (Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman and Holman, 1997).
76. Dennis Prager, Judaism, Gay Rabbis and the Difficulty of Dialogue, The
Prager Perspective, November 15, 1996. This issue contains Pragers original essay
published in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, the critical rabbis letter,
and Pragers response to the rabbis letter.
77. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, p. 200.
78. S. D. Gaede, When Tolerance Is No Virtue (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity
Press, 1993), p. 22.
79. Dinesh DSouza, Illiberal Education (New York: Vintage Books edition,
1992), p. 170.
80. See Nat Hentoff, Pro-Choice Bigots, The New Republic, November 30,
1992. Reprinted in The Human Life Review 19, no.1 (Winter 1993): 21. For a catalog
of the regular snubs and stony silence accorded pro-life Democrats by their
partys powerful, see Fred Barnes, Pro-Life Democrats, The Weekly Standard,
September 9, 1996, p. 15.
81. Quoted in Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, p. 204.
82. Schmidt, The Menace of Multiculturalism, p. 94.
83. For interesting reflections on trends in conservative thought, see the symposium, On the Future of Conservatism, Commentary, February 1997.
84. Richard John Neuhaus, Second Thoughts, in Peter Collier and David
Horowitz, eds., Second Thoughts: Former Radicals Look Back at the Sixties (Lanham,
Md.: Madison Books, 1989), p. 9. Quoted in Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah,
p. 336.
85. See Timur Kuran, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of
Preference Falsification (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995).
86. For a comprehensive analysis of the managing diversity movement, see
Lynch, The Diversity Machine.
87. Ironically, despite high sensitivity to racial oppression in this country, the
well-documented slavery of blacks within Africa has not attracted the concern
of civil rights organizations here. See Joseph R. Gregory, African Slavery 1996,
First Things, May 1996, pp. 3739; Jeff Jacoby, Civil Rights Groups Yawn at
African Slavery, The Orange County Register, April 4, 1996, p. Metro 9; Thomas
Sowell, Some Hidden Truths in Black History Month, The Orange County Register, February 18, 1997, p. Metro 9, and Sowell, Where Is Outrage about Blackon-Black Slavery? Human Events, March 7, 1997, p. 14; David Aikman, Slavery
in Our Time, The American Spectator, February 1997, pp. 5253. On the genocidal
destruction of African life by Africans and the lukewarm response of American
civil rights groups, see Keith B. Richburg, Out of America: A Black Man Confronts
Africa (New York: Basic Books, 1997). For a discussion of black anger and the
major medias role in fomenting that anger, see the insightful discussion by Dennis Prager, The Media Distorted the Racial Divide over the Simpson Verdicts,
in The Prager Perspective, February 15, 1997. On black rage and black racism generally, see Peter Collier and David Horowitz, eds., The Race Card (Rocklin, Calif.:
Prima Publishing, 1977).
88. DSouza, The End of Racism, p. 5.
89. Ibid.

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

90. Jackson Sees Clinton Flaw in Rapper Attack, Los Angeles Times, June
19, 1992.
91. DSouza, The End of Racism, p. 5
92. Lynch, The Diversity Machine, p. 117.
93. DSouza, The End of Racism, p. 404. On February 10, 1997, a federal jury
found Lemrick Nelson guilty of violating Yankel Rosenbaums civil rights for
the killing. For that offense he faces six to twenty years in prison under sentencing guidelines. See Black Guilty in Civil-Rights Trial over Jewish Scholar
Slain in Riot, The Orange County Register, February 11, 1997, p. News 20.
94. A. S. Doc Young, Negatives and Positives, Los Angeles Sentinel, November 14, 1991.
95. Official: Williams Firing a Lynching, The Orange County Register,
March 13, 1997, p. News 4.
96. Reggie White Says Police, Conspiracies Pose Problem, Los Angeles
Times, March 16, 1997, p. C2.
97. See the comprehensive survey in The New Yorker, April 29 and May 6,
1996, double issue.
98. Prager, Black Candidates and White Voters, p. 4.
99. Quoted in DSouza, The End of Racism, p. 6. See Ellis Cose, The Rage of a
Privileged Class (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).
100. Quoted in Joseph G. Conti and Brad Stetson, Challenging the Civil Rights
Establishment: Profiles of a New Black Vanguard (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1993), p. 43. See also Walter Williams, We Hold Black Rioters to a Lesser
Standard, Orange Country Register, May 20, 1992.
101. The Lure of Excuses, Newsweek, July 29, 1991, p. 27.
102. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, p. 229. And, of course, the fantastic
police conspiracy to frame O. J. Simpson for the murders of Nicole Brown and
Ronald Goldman was widely believed in black America. For conclusive debunking of the possibility, see the comprehensive discussions of the case by Vincent
Bugliosi, Outrage (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996) and Jeffrey Toobin, The Run
of His Life (New York: Random House, 1996).
103. See Paul M. Sniderman and Thomas Piazza, The Scar of Race (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 45.
104. On jury nullification, and one law professors advocacy of it, see the important article Race Seems to Play an Increasing Role in Many Jury Verdicts,
The Wall Street Journal, October 4, 1995, p. A1. See also Deroy Murdock, Are
Americas Juries Race Obsessed? in Stan Faryna, Brad Stetson, and Joseph G.
Conti, eds., Black and Right: The Bold New Voice of Black Conservatives in America
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1997). The extent to which crime has ravaged black communities is seldom discussed out of fear of being called racist
if the discussant is white or Uncle Tom if he is black. For statistical information
on crime in black communities, see Bennett, DiIulio, and Walters, Body Count,
pp. 2223, 45, 67, 78. Obviously, high crime rates bring myriad terrible consequences for the long-term quality of life for blacks, including community isolation from the larger society. One recent study concluded that 14 percent of black
men are currently or permanently barred from voting either because they are in
prison or because they have been convicted of a felony. See Study Says 14% of

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Black Men are Disenfranchised, The Orange County Register, January 31, 1997,
p. Metro 18.
105. See Shelby Steele, The New Sovereignty, Harpers, July 1992, pp. 4754.
106. This is not to imply there is no residual anti-black bigotry; rather, race
merchants exaggerate its prevalence and power. Indeed, race-based crimes
against black Americans persist. For one example, see Song on Race Murder
Played in Soldiers Trial, The Orange County Register, February 13, 1997, p. News
31.
107. See the account of Sally Satel, Psychiatric Apartheid, The Wall Street
Journal, May 8, 1986, p. A14.
108. Wage Gap May Be Part of the Cost of Ebonics, The Orange County
Register, January 26, 1997, p. News 18.
109. See Eldridge Cleavers op-ed essay, We Need to Rescue Kids from Ebonics, Los Angeles Times, January 31, 1997.
110. Regarding higher education, see DSouzas many accounts in Illiberal Education; and Nat Hentoff, Campus Diversity Too Often Fosters Separatism, The
Orange County Register, April 28, 1996, p. Commentary 3. Concerning the corrosive effect of celebrations of ethnic pride on high school campuses, see Do
School Ethnic Clubs Unify or Divide? Los Angeles Times, May 12, 1996, p. A1;
and More Students Question Need to State Race, The Orange County Register,
May 5, 1996, p. News 14.
111. John Ogbu and Signithia Fordham, Black Students School Success: Coping with the Burden of Acting White, The Urban Review 18, no. 3, 176206.
112. The Hidden Hurdle, Time, March 16, 1992, p. 44.
113. Conti and Stetson, Challenging the Civil Rights Establishment, p. 159. Portions of the foregoing discussion of the Ogbu and Fordham study were drawn
from Conti and Stetson, Challenging the Civil Rights Establishment.
114. See the discussion by Dennis Prager, Texaco Doesnt Celebrate ChanukahSo What? in The Prager Perspective, January 15, 1997, p. 3. See also the
analysis of Walter Olson, Framing Texaco, The American Spectator, February
1997, pp. 4951.
115. Few Church Fires Linked to Racism, The Orange County Register, July
5, 1996, p. News 22.
116. Michael Fumento, A Church Arson Epidemic? Its Smoke and Mirrors,
The Wall Street Journal, July 8, 1996.
117. See John Leo, A Great Story Never Told, U. S. News and World Report,
December 2, 1996. On the political advantage gained by several liberal interest
groups and politicians because of reporting on this issue, see Michael Fumento,
Whos Fanning the Flames of Racism? The Wall Street Journal, June 16, 1997, p.
A12.
118. See Walter Williams, Mortgage Racism Study Is Proved a Fraud, The
Orange County Register, June 12, 1996, p. Metro 7. See Jared Taylor, Paved with
Good Intentions (New York: Carrol and Graf, 1992), pp. 5758, and, more importantly, DSouza, The End of Racism, pp. 279282.
119. A Lesson in Civility from Jesse Jackson and Friends, Human Events,
February 21, 1997, p. 3.
120. Ibid.

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121. For discussion, see Black Leaders Try to Deny Thomas Status as Role
Model, The Wall Street Journal, January 31, 1997, p. A20.
122. For details on Mr. Elders background, which includes a law degree and
legal practice, see the interview with him in Reason, April 1996, pp. 4450.
123. Quoted in Conti and Stetson, Challenging the Civil Rights Establishment, p.
182.
124. Brad Stetson, interview with Jesse Peterson, February 15, 1997. Mr. Petersons organization, BOND, can be reached at P. O. Box 86253 Los Angeles,
Calif. 900860253.
125. Quoted in Patrick Buchanan, Christians, Nazis and Jesse Jackson, Los
Angeles Times, December 13, 1994, p. B7.
126. Still, in the face of such calumny, there are a growing number of black
dissidents, with journals of opinion devoted to allowing them a forum to speak,
something all but denied in the mainstream black press. Publications produced
by black dissidents include The Lincoln Review, Destiny, Urban Family, Issues and
Views, and Headway. On this phenomenon, see Jason L. Riley, Black Conservatives Take to the Presses, The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 1995.
127. W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1993, reprinted), p. 89. Quoted in Schmidt, The Menace of Multiculturalism, p. 27.
Of course, the life of one-time slave turned man of letters and profound erudition, Frederick Douglass, is a classic example of the freedom and color-blindness
of the mind. For a fine mini-biography of Douglass, and an analysis of his
political and economic thought, see Jim Powell, Frederick DouglassHeroic
Orator for Liberty, The Freeman, February 1997, pp. 98108.
128. Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve (New York: The
Free Press, 1994). For critical discussion, see Russel Jacoby and Naomi Glauberman, The Bell Curve Debate (New York, Times Books, 1995).
129. Social silence is distinct from Timur Kurans aforementioned preference
falsification in that it inhibits discussion, whereas preference falsification leads
people to misrepresent their views.
As with preference falsification, however, the force of social silence effectively
directs people to those attitudes that are laudable and deemed popularly reasonable. In this way, social silence conditions public sentiment, since the publicly
accepted norms of opinion in a given social context significantly affect the opinions people choose to hold. For full explanations of the psychological and sociological dynamics of this effect, which Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann calls the spiral
of silence, see her article The Spiral of Silence: A Theory of Public Opinion,
Journal of Communication 24 (Spring 1974): 4351 and her book, The Spiral of Silence
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). For representative discussion of this
phenomenon at work in public considerations of other controversial issues, such
as affirmative action and racial politics, see Frederick R. Lynch, Invisible Victims:
White Males and Crisis of Affirmative Action (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1991)
and Conti and Stetson, Challenging the Civil Rights Establishment.
130. Indeed, the link between illegitimacy and welfare is indisputable and potent, as is the immense social destructiveness of these two realities. See, for example, the symposium Illegitimacy and Welfare, in Social Science and Modern
Society, July/August 1996. I am indebted to Joseph G. Conti for his assistance
with this discussion of Public Truth.

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131. Cecil Murray, quoted in Nina J. Easton, Rev. Murrays Gospel of Action, Los Angeles Times Magazine, August 16, 1992.
132. While some states, like California, have had a measure of success attacking governmental race- and gender-based policies through ballot initiatives, this
success has not translated into broad practical change, and the vast universe of
nongovernmental race- and gender-based policies remains untouched, both in
California and elsewhere. Reform on such a wider scale awaits much greater
reservoirs of public capital. Regarding partial-birth abortion, at this writing President Clinton is, for the second time, considering a proposed congressional ban
on partial-birth abortions. As with the first such congressional ban, which Clinton
vetoed, the Senate lacks the votes needed to override Clintons expected repeat
veto.
133. On the lack of vigorous conservative opposition to the liberal transformation of American society, see Tom Bethell, Losing the War, The American
Spectator, February 1997, pp. 2021.
134. Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, p. 27.
135. See Bennett, DiIulio, and Walters, Body Count, p. 22.
136. Glenn Loury, The Impossible Dilemma, The New Republic, January 1,
1996, quoted in Bennett, DiIulio, and Walters, Body Count, p. 22.
137. For a personal account of the trauma to a family caused by the murder
of a loved one, see His Name Is Ron by the family of Ronald Goldman (New
York: William Morrow, 1997).
138. See Kristen Luker, Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984) for discussion on this point.
139. See Richard John Neuhaus, Bloody-Minded Compassion, First Things,
no. 40, February 1994, pp. 4850 for a discussion of the parameters of legitimate
pro-life protest.
140. See Lynn Buzzard and Paula Campbell, Holy Disobedience (Ann Arbor,
Mich.: Servant Books, 1984) for an exposition of their respective ideas on nonviolent protest.
141. On Naomi Wolf, see her article, Our Bodies, Our Souls, The New Republic, October 16, 1995, and Naomi Wolf et al., Our Bodies, Our Souls: A Symposium, the Human Life Review (Winter 1996). See also A Decision Between a
Woman and God, Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1996, p. E1. On Norma McCorvey,
see Jane Roe Joins Operation Rescue, August 11, 1995, p. News 3.
142. See Marvin Olasky, Anti-abortion Movements Future, The Wall Street
Journal, December 13, 1995, p. A14. For further discussion on the pro-life movements future, see Richard Samuelson, How the Party of Lincoln Can Win on
Abortion, The Wall Street Journal, July 26, 1996, p. A10.
143. See Mary Ann Glendon, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987) for an explanation of the development
and permissiveness of American abortion law, especially with regard to the positions of other Western democracies on this subject.
144. On reasons commonly given for the decision to abort, see appendices B
though G to Frederica Mathewes-Green, Real Choices: Offering Practical, LifeAffirming Alternatives to Abortion (Sisters, Oreg.: Questar Publishing, 1994).
145. Driver Sentenced to 16 Years in Death of Premature Baby, The Orange
County Register, October 22, 1996, p. News 17.

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146. Attempted Homicide Alleged in Fetal Intoxication Case, USA Today,

September 6, 1996, p. 8A.
147. Woman Who Shot Herself Is Charged in Fetus Death, Los Angeles
Times, September 10, 1994, p. A34.
148. Fetus to Get Surgery for Birth Defect, Santa Barbara News Press, September 9, 1993, p. A1.
149. Susan Carpenter McMillan, . . . While in California, a Court Affirms the
Humanity of a Fetus, Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1994, p. B11.
150. Murder Charge Is Rejected in Drug-Related Stillbirth, Los Angeles Times,
August 22, 1992, p. A13.
151. See Pregnancy Negligence Not Prosecuted, The Orange County Register,
August 11, 1996, p. Metro 7. For an excellent examination of the current configuration of legal protections for the unborn and fetal homicide laws, see the cover
story, Rights of the Unborn, USA Today, December 12, 1996.
152. For general discussion of euthanasia, see Ezekiel J. Emanuel, The Painful
Truth about Euthanasia, The Wall Street Journal, January 7, 1997, p. A18; David
C. Thomasma, Euthanasia as Power and Empowerment, in Robert H. Blank
and Andrea L. Bonnicksen, eds., Medicine Unbound: The Human Body and the Limits
of Medical Intervention (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994); Nigel M. de
S. Cameron, The New Medicine (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1991), pp. 129
144; Carlos Gomez, Regulating Death: Euthanasia and the Case of the Netherlands
(New York: The Free Press, 1991); and Beth Spring and Ed Larson, Euthanasia:
Spiritual, Medical and Legal Issues in Terminal Health Care (Portland, Oreg.: Multnomah Press, 1988).
153. The intellectual and rhetorical means by which this understanding has
become a reality was concisely described in a very prescient editorial in the
journal California Medicine (September 1970): Since the old ethic [respecting human life] has not yet been fully displaced it has been necessary to separate the
idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent.
The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really
knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or
extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are
required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be
ludicrous if they were not put forth under socially impeccable auspices. Emphasis added.
154. Many more such questions could be asked. For discussion of the human
being as a substance and not as a property-thing, and for discussion on the
personhood of the unborn, see John A. Mitchell and Scott B. Rae, The Moral
Status of Fetuses and Embryos, in Brad Stetson, ed., The Silent Subject: Reflections
on the Unborn in American Culture (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1996)
and Scott B. Rae, Brave New Families (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1996),
pp. 90108.
155. On the activities of pro-life feminists, see Feminists for Life Keys on
Prevention, Not Abortion, Los Angeles Times, January 21, 1996, p. A5.
156. For detailed statements from women who have aborted, and for an analysis of the psycho-emotional sequelae they often experience, see David Reardon,
Aborted Women: Silent No More (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1987).

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157. Nat Hentoff, No Limit on Choice? Heres the Ugly Result, Los Angeles
Times, July 26, 1993.
158. See Kate OBeirnes description in National Review, May 6, 1996, p. 24. See
also the editorial Partial Birth Politics in The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 1996,
p. A18; On Partial Birth Abortion, The Weekly Standard, April 29, 1996, p. 9;
and Helen Alvare, The Eternity WithinSigned Away by a Pro-Abortion
Veto, Los Angeles Times, April 12, 1996, p. B9.
159. Inaccurate and less than vigorous reporting on this issue was abetted by
the American presss commitment to abortion rights. (It is widely acknowledged
that abortion coverage by the press is skewed leftward. The Los Angeles Times
David Shaw documented this bias in a series of articles published in 1990. See
David Shaw, Abortion Bias Sweeps into News, Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1990,
p. 10f. See also John Leo, All the News That Fits Our Biases, U.S. News and
World Report, June 10, 1996, p. 26; L. Brent Bozell III, News Prejudice Against
Pro-Lifers Is Order of the Day, Human Events, February 28, 1997, p. 11; and
Marvin Olasky, The Press and Abortion: 18381988 (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1988).
The alleged rarity of partial-birth abortion was the party line of the abortion
establishment until Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition
of Abortion Providers, confessed that in a November 1995 edition of Nightlinein a statement that never even airedhe lied through his teeth about
the rarity of partial-birth abortion and the reasons for its performance. In fact,
he acknowledged, he knew all along that thousands of these hideous killing
procedures occur each year and that the vast majority of them are done on the
healthy babies of healthy women. Fitzsimmons lie, which he had been peddling
to his clients and pro-choice advocates, was effective though, as many politicians and public figures supportive of abortion used it as cover for their support
of President Clintons veto of a congressional ban on partial-birth abortions. For
a list of liberals parroting Fitzsimmons admitted lie, and the exact words they
useda list featuring names such as Ted Kennedy, Patricia Schroeder, Donna
Shalala, Reverend Robert Drinan, Carol Moseley-Braun, Tom Daschle, Barbara
Kennelly, and Barbara Boxersee They Lied Through Their Teeth, Human
Events, March 14, 1997, p. 3. For news accounts and analysis of Fitzsimmons mea
culpa, obviously the result of a tormented soul, or, perhaps, the last gasps of a
seared conscience, see Abortion-Rights Backer Reveals Lie, Los Angeles Times,
February 27, 1997, p. A18; Abortionists Lie, Human Events, March 7, 1997, p.
4; Mona Charen, Telling Lies about Partial-Birth Abortions, The Orange County
Register, March 4, 1997, p. Metro 9; The Fitzsimmons Revelation, The Weekly
Standard, March 17, 1997, p. 9; and William Powers, Partial Truths, The New
Republic, March 24, 1997, pp. 1920.
160. See Dave Shiflett, Dr. Hern and Mr. Clinton, The Weekly Standard, November 11, 1996, pp. 1415.
161. Michael Greenburg, Your Ad Watch on Abortion Was Misleading,
Letter to the editor, Orange County Register, November 11, 1996.
162. See Charles T. Canady, Absolute Right to Abort? The Wall Street Journal,
November 1, 1996, p. A14.
163. Quoted in Who is Right About the Partial-Birth Abortion Procedure,
letters to the editor, Orange County Register, May 27, 1996, p. Metro 7.

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164. For the full debunking of partial-birth abortion as a sound medical practice, see Nancy Romer, Pamela Smith, Curtis R. Cook, and Joseph L. DeCook,
Partial Birth Abortion is Bad Medicine, The Wall Street Journal, September 19,
1996, p. A20. See also the letter to the editor by the same four doctors in the
October 14, 1996 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
165. See George F. Will, Where the Logic of Pro-Choice Falls Apart, Los
Angeles Times, November 24, 1996, p. M5.
166. Shiflett, Dr. Hern and Mr. Clinton, p. 15.
167. Nancy G. Romer, M.D., Curtis R. Cook, M.D., Pamela E. Smith, M.D., and
Joseph L. DeCook, M.D., Abortions of Healthy Babies, Letters to the Editor, of
The Wall Street Journal, October 14, 1996.
168. For comprehensive analysis of this disastrous social trend, see David
Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem (New
York: Basic Books, 1995) and David Popenoe, Life Without Father (New York:
Martin Kessler Books, 1996).
169. Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem, p. 1.
170. See the discussion on this general point by Warren Farrell, The Myth of
Male Power (New York: Berkley Books, 1993), p. 13.
171. James Q. Wilson traces a similar thought pattern in his The Moral Sense
(New York: The Free Press, 1993), p. 175.
172. Of course, much could be said about each of these slogans. I only briefly
mention them here to draw attention to their susceptibility to comprehensive
critique.
173. For examples, see Abortion SurveillanceUnited States, 1991, Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC Surveillance Summaries, May 5, 1995,
MMWR 1995; 44 (No. SS-2) and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, Facts in Brief,
March 15, 1993. See also Alan Guttmacher Institute, Abortion Factbook, 1992 Edition: Readings, Trends, and State and Local Data to 1988 (New York: Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1992).
174. Nancyjo Mann, Foreword to Reardon, Aborted Women: Silent No More, p.
xvi.
175. This is a conservative estimate. See the survey data in Reardon, Aborted
Women: Silent No More, p. 333 and Mathewes-Green, Real Choices, appendices B-G.
176. For elaboration, see George Weigel, Women Reap the Rewards of Roe
in Abuse, Los Angeles Times, November 29, 1992, p. M5.
177. These developmental markers are noted in standard texts, including F.
Beck, D. B Moffat, and D. P. Davies, Human Embryology, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1985); Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1977); Andre E. Hellegers, Fetal
Development, in Thomas A. Mappes and Jane S. Zembaty, eds., Biomedical Ethics
(New York: Macmillan 1981), pp. 405409; and Landrum Shettles and David
Rorvik, Rites of Life: The Scientific Evidence of Life Before Birth (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Zondervan Publishing, 1983).
178. Wolf, Our Bodies, Our Souls.
179. See the commentary on this theme by Thomas Murphy Goodwin, M.D.,
The Medicalizing of Abortion Decisions, in Stetson, The Silent Subject.
180. I am indebted to William B. Allen for this point.

4
CONCLUDING REMARKS:
HUMAN DIGNITY IN THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
The disaster in the midst of which we are living is a disaster in the
character of men.
Walter Lippmann

It is perhaps the most basic shortcoming of contemporary liberalism that

despite the horrors of this century, and despite the stunning display of
mans inhumanity to man even in the midst of the most impressive technological innovations in human history, it persists in its unalloyed anthropological optimism. The modern liberal mind continues to embrace
the naive Enlightenment equation of technological, chronological, and
moral progress. Greater technological accomplishments and the passage
of time indicate that we must now morally know better than our forbears and further, that our moral compass is today better equipped to
navigate the capricious social forces of human civilization.
This notion is quite mistaken. The twentieth centurywith two world
wars, genocides, ethnic cleansing, and massive intertribal warfare in Africais easily the most violent and murderous in human history. A new
millennium and Internet access no more promise a morally virtuous and
tolerably just society than do a longer average lifespan or more cable
channels on television. The liberal hubris that effectively holds otherwise
has led to an insufficient caution on the part of liberal academic and
political leaders toward the dehumanizing possibilities of high technology.1
This is not to endorse a Luddite retreat from technology, but rather to
highlight the inevitable slippery slope that accompanies landings on new
technological, medical, and political shores. As the twenty-first century
unfolds, such excursions will multiply tremendously, and in the absence

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

of a solid and stable understanding of the sui generis and inviolable value
of every human being (in utero and ex utero, young and old, female and
male, handicapped and strong)an understanding we presently lack
abuses of human life are very likely.
Lest this assessment be deemed alarmist, we should recall that already
in the space of a generation, we have moved from the institutionalization
of abortion on demand (which now consumes the lives of 1.5 million
pre-born human beings each year) to talk of active euthanasia and a
burgeoning right to die movement, to de facto infanticide (in the form
of partial-birth abortion), to biomedical research on human embryos
and fetal tissue transplantation. And now, as human cloning looms as
the next frontier for technological conquest, we mechanically lurch toward it, caught in the grip of a scientific manifest destiny permitted
by our corrupted understanding of human dignity.2 Steered by the anthropological assumptions of modern liberalism, we mistakenly believe
that we should do whatever we are capable of doing. Yet, obviously,
raw technological ability does not make for genuine moral justification.
As the new millennium progresses, utilitarian challenges to the intrinsic worthiness of every human being will mount, and the pressure to
allow the ends to justify the means will tempt us to further objectify and
instrumentalize human persons vulnerable to manipulation (the preborn, the infirm, the aged, etc.). All the while liberal experts will be
at the ready to hold our coats as we stone the dignity intrinsic to us,
assured by them of all the benefits our degradation of the weak will
bring to others.
Surely only by resisting the consequentialist tides of todays ascendant
liberal mind will we be able to affirm the inherent worth and worthiness
of every human being. Indeed, the ultimate overthrow of the main counsels of contemporary liberalismmoral egalitarianism and atomistic individualismis the grand prescription for a return to civil society. But
that is a long-term project of cultural renewal, and certainly one far beyond the present ability of the conservative counter-establishment to effect.3 Yet concerned citizens of goodwill can advocate specific ideas that
could set into motion social macro-changes able to catalyze a cultural
renascence, a civic paradigm shift that can restore and preserve a sound
conception of human dignity and public life.
CHARACTER
Achieving such a re-civilization requires an assault on the contemporary liberal cult of rights and rights talk, and the concomitant aversion
to personal responsibility infecting the body politic. To develop an ethos
of duty rather than entitlement, and to maintain a renewed civic culture
once achieved, explicit cultural conversation about the significance of

Concluding Remarks

167

character is critical. A widely diffused public contemplation on the importance of good character, and indeed, on the very possibility of good
character itself, would do much to rehumanize our increasingly brutal
culture.
Such moral seriousness is unknown in mass American culture today.
But given what seems to be the generally accepted proposition that all
people possess a character, and the growing weariness with the American decline felt by common citizens, as well as the general recognition
that the exceptionally virtuous do exist among us, character and the
sense of duty it implies represents an idea that could be widely contemplated. It has the potential to coalesce opposition to the dominant, selfish
rights and entitlement mentality.
Character is the complex of thoughts and attitudes that directly shape
our actions and reactions. It is, in the deepest sense, what one is; the
substance of ones person. The definition of character is a larger articulation of not just what is the right thing to do, but what is the right way
to be, the sorts of moral attitudes and dispositions I should embrace and
cultivate within myself. Discussions about character do not typically revolve around the question, What ethical principles should be observed? Rather, they center on the logically prior question, What kind
of person observes ethical principles?
This latter questions subject of inquiry is the human person and the
components of personality and self-understanding that constitute the
good man or woman. Such a question is integral to the desire of conservatives for social renewal as well as to the desire of liberals for what
they understand as fairness and equality to predominate in society.
(For without peoples observance of the principles of fairness and equalityas liberals see themthese values will not prevail. Hence, despite
their official commitment to value neutrality, liberals can be engaged in
primary moral and characterological questions such as What kind of
person observes ethical principles?)
But since modern liberalism sees value selection as a radically private
processthat is, the values one recognizes, respects, or retains are purely
the products of personal feelings and choicemany people unreflectively believe that ones own values are absolutely exempt from normative, right-wrong judgments. In the popular mind, since ones values
are the product of ones self-validating opinions, they are immune from
any objective evaluation. They are simply my personal thoughts, which
I am entitled to hold unmolested by government, tyrants, or conservative
moralizers. Lacking any overarching understanding of virtuous character, this modern liberal sensibility fosters moral debate tinged with arbitrariness and fortuity, as well as public impotence concerning the
articulation and defense of human virtue, and thereby, human dignity.
It fails to see that in mundane matters like pizza toppings or favorite

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

colors, subjective taste rightly reigns. But with reference to moral values
and ethical ideas there is a normative imperative, a need to arbitrate
between conflicting claims and decide the ethically appropriate course.
The very presence of public moral debate attests to our actual awareness
of this reality. Yet our present social and cultural hesitancy to explicitly
and consciously outline the primary features of the virtuous person impairs our ability to discern the moral character of ethical problems and
modestly move toward a more humane civitas.
The modern liberal commandment to be tolerant and not to impose
the majoritys (traditional) values on the minority has brought us to ethical gridlock: we are unwilling to publicly declare and recommend the
basics of human decency which we all know to be true and which most
of us live by daily, and which we in fact consider normative. These
foundations include, among others: telling the truth, keeping ones promises, respecting other people and their property, giving people what they
deserve, evaluating people based on their behavior rather than their appearance, and working diligently at a job or school.
The articulation of a public, nonsectarian conception of rudimentary
human goodnessand the protection it offers for human dignityis
ultimately attainable. The liberal relativist reluctance to attempt such a
description can be overcome. Indeed, for most of this countrys history,
a morally substantive public conception of basic civility prevailed. If such
an understanding were beyond our reach today, we would find it impossible to maintain the general public approval of many still widely
observed laws, ranging from prohibitions on rape, tax evasion, and hate
crimes to laws protecting the environment, endangered species, and basic free speech.
We must admit that we are naturally morally informed. Moral concern
is hardwired, as it were, into the human individual. Indeed, if I did not
morally know some values without any proof or explanation given to
me about their nature, I could not know any values by means of proof
or explanation. My moral analysis could never begin, and yet, as individuals and as a society we conduct moral analyses constantly, whether
in determining to return a phone call or in writing tax codes. After all,
who of us today could honestly say they are unprepared to judge the
character and lifestyle of Adolf Hitler, Mother Teresa, Gandhi, John
Wayne Gacy, or Jesus Christ?
The conduct of our daily lives presupposes a rather extensive moral
knowledge on our part. Yet, our modern liberal social ethos seeks to herd
us as a culture into a cave of moral agnosticism and ignorance, so that
its protected vices (abortion, reverse racism, reverse sexism, homosexual
practices, insufficiently punishing criminals et al.) will not be openly decried, and the hypocrisies of contemporary liberalism vigorously and
comprehensively exposed. But the enduring fact is that we do know

Concluding Remarks

169

some practices are right and some practices are wrong, and that the
social hegemony of contemporary liberalism cannot permanently suppress this knowledge.
Human character and behavior matter deeply, and not every political
paradigm adequately recognizes this reality. Neither do all political philosophies offer equal protection to the intrinsic dignity of every human
person. Unless and until we are again willing to begin incorporating our
foundational moral knowledge into an explicit, public expression of the
first principles of virtuous human character, the moral controversies of
today will persist in yielding little but deep division and abiding frustration. The full reality of human dignity will continue to be obscured,
even while we speak so loudly of freedom and rights.

NOTES
1. See Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in Cyberspace (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker
Books, 1997) for a discussion of the inability of technology alone to provide
protection and fulfillment for human beings. While appreciative of the benefits
of high technology and its valuable applications for commercial and informational purposes, Groothuis wisely cautions against exalting the machine above
the person. He reminds us that information management is not wisdom and that
the human soul craves a much deeper communion with other people and their
Maker than the Digitopia of cyberspace can provide. Indeed, contrary to the
increasingly sterile silicon culture of technologized American life, human beings
are more than data clusters. There are some ideasthe eternal truths that bless
our lives with fulfillmentwhich we will never see clearly in a shimmering
computer screen.
While the lure of high technology has tempted some to forget this basic truth,
others, even some involved in high technology itself remain aware of it. Indeed,
they even pursue these truths in radically unconventional and dangerously gnostic ways, the most notable recent example being the Heavens Gate cult, which
committed mass suicide just before Easter 1997. (For details, see the many stories
about Heavens Gate in the Los Angeles Times, March 28, 1997.) While the explanations for these peoples self-destruction are no doubt many and complex,
clearly their low view of human life here and nowand the utter misapprehension of intrinsic human dignity that view entailedwas central to their pathological yearning to be free of what they termed their earthly containers. Their
tragic suicides, committed in the belief that they were going to meet with aliens
traveling in a spaceship hidden in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet, reminds us
of G. K. Chestertons wise remark to the effect that When people stop believing
in God, they will believe in anything.
2. The literature on human cloning is already vast and rapidly accumulating.
On moral aspects of cloning and biomedical manipulation generally, see Donald
Demarco, Biotechnology and the Assault on Parenthood (San Francisco: Ignatius
Press, 1991); Andrew Kimbrell, The Human Body Shop (New York: HarperCollins,
1993); Philip Elmer-Dewitt, Cloning: Where Do We Draw the Line? Time, No-

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Human Dignity and Contemporary Liberalism

vember 8, 1993, pp. 6570; and John A. Robertson, The Question of Human
Cloning, Hastings Center Report, 24, March/April 1994, pp. 614. For a discussion of the 1997 cloning controversy, ignited by the cloning of Dolly the sheep,
see Sharon Begley, Little Lamb Who Made Thee? Newsweek, March 10, 1997,
pp. 5359; Kenneth L. Woodward, Today the Sheep . . . , Newsweek, March 10,
1997, p. 60; Thinking Twice about Cloning, New York Times, February 27, 1997,
p. A12; Ronald Dworkin et al., Cloning: How Do We Morally Navigate the
Uncharted Future? Los Angeles Times, March 5, 1997, p. B9; The World After
Cloning, U.S. News and World Report, March 10, 1997, pp. 5962; and Stanton
Peele, Send in the Clones, The Wall Street Journal, March 3, 1997, p. A18. Embodying the ethos of rights-based contemporary liberalism, and illustrating why
it is unable to shield human dignity from technological innovations, is biomedical
ethicist Ruth Macklin, who has already discovered a right to clone. She writes
that Infertile couples are . . . likely to seek out cloning. That such couples have
other options (in vitro fertilization or adoption) is not an argument for denying
them the right to clone. Ruth Macklin, Human Cloning? Dont Just Say No,
U.S. News and World Report, March 10, 1997, p. 64. Emphasis added.
3. See Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah (New York: HarperCollins,
1996), Chapter 17, for his recommendations for American cultural recovery.

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An Integrative Approach. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1993.
Mott, Stephen Charles. Biblical Ethics and Social Change. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Mulhall, Stephen, and Adam Swift. Liberals and Communitarians. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1992.
Murray, Charles. Losing Ground. New York, Basic Books, 1984.
. In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government. ICS Press edition. San Francisco: ICS Press, 1994.
Myer, Michael J., and William Parent, eds. The Constitution of Rights: Human Dignity and American Values. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992.
Narveson, Jan. The Libertarian Idea. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988.
Nathanson, Bernard. Aborting America. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979.
. The Abortion Papers: Inside the Abortion Mentality. New York: Frederick
Fell, 1983.
. The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who
Changed His Mind. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1996.
Neuhaus, Richard John. The Naked Public Square. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William
B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1984.
. America Against Itself. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press,
1992.
, ed. Reinhold Niebuhr Today. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1989.
Newman, Jay. Foundations of Religious Tolerance. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1982.
Nilsson, Lennart. A Child Is Born. New York: Dell Publishing, 1977.
Novak, Michael. Free Persons and the Common Good. Lanham, Md.: Madison
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. The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1993.
Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974.
Olasky, Marvin. The Press and Abortion: 18381988. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1988.
. Abortion Rights. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1992.
. The Tragedy of American Compassion. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1992.
Packer, J. I., and Thomas Howard. Christianity: The True Humanism. Waco, Tex.:
Word, 1985.
Patterson, Orlando. Ethnic Chauvinism. New York: Stein and Day, 1977.
Popenoe, David. Life Without Father. New York: Martin Kessler Books, 1996.
Prager, Dennis. Think a Second Time. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

Selected Bibliography

177

Raffel, Stanley. Habermas, Lyotard and the Concept of Justice. London: Macmillan
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Raphael, D. D. Problems of Political Philosophy. 2nd ed. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.:
Humanities Press, 1990.
Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1971.
. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Raz, Joseph. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Reeves, Thomas C. The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity. New York:
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Reichmann, James B. Philosophy of the Human Person. Chicago: Loyola University
Press, 1985.
Richburg, Keith. Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa. New York: Basic
Books, 1997.
Roberts, Paul Craig, and Lawrence M. Stratton. The New Color Line: How Quotas
and Privilege Destroy Democracy. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing,
1995.
Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg, ed. The Identities of Persons. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1976.
Rosenblum, Nancy L., ed. Liberalism and the Moral Life. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989.
Roth, Byron. Prescription of Failure: Race Relations in the Age of Social Science. New
Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1994.
Rothman, Stanley, and S. Robert Lichter. Roots of Radicalism: Jews, Christians, and
the New Left. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Sandel, Michael. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
. Democracys Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.
, ed. Liberalism and Its Critics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984.
Schaeffer, Francis A., and C. Everett Koop. Whatever Happened to the Human Race?
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Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural
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Schmidt, Alvin J. The Menace of Multiculturalism: Trojan Horse in America. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1997.
Scruton, Roger. The Meaning of Conservatism. London: Macmillan, 1980.
. Modern Philosophy. New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
Seifert, Josef. Back to Things in Themselves. New York: Routledge and Kegan
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Sen, Amartya, and Bernard Williams, eds. Utilitarianism and Beyond. Cambridge:
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Sleeper, Jim. The Closest of Strangers. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990.
Smith, F. LaGard. When Choice Becomes God. Eugene, Oreg.: Harvest House, 1990.
Smith, James, and Finis Welch. Closing the Gap: Forty Years of Economic Progress
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Sniderman, Paul M., and Thomas Piazza. The Scar of Race. Cambridge, Mass.:
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178

Selected Bibliography

Sobel, Lester A. Quotas and Affirmative Action. New York: Facts on File, 1980.
Sowell, Thomas. Race and Economics. New York: Longman, Publishers, 1975.
. Knowledge and Decisions. New York: Basic Books, 1981.
. The Economics and Politics of Race. New York: William Morrow, 1983.
. Compassion Versus Guilt. New York: William Morrow, 1987.
. A Conflict of Visions. New York: William Morrow, 1987.
. Preferential Policies. New York: William Morrow, 1990.
. Inside American Education. New York: The Free Press, 1992.
. Race and Culture: A Worldview. New York: Basic Books, 1994.
. The Vision of the Annointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.
New York: Basic Books, 1995.
Sproul, R. C. In Search of Dignity. Ventura, Calif.: Regal Books, 1983.
Steele, Shelby. The Content of Our Character. New York: St. Martins Press, 1990.
. The End of Oppression. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.
Stetson, Brad. Pluralism and Particularity in Religious Belief. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1994.
, ed. The Silent Subject: Reflections on the Unborn in American Culture. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 1996.
Stout, Jeffrey. Ethics after Babel. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.
Sullivan, William M. Reconstructing Public Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Sykes, Charles L. A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character. New
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Taylor, Charles. Sources of the Self. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
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Taylor, Jared. Paved with Good Intentions. New York: Carrol and Graf, 1992.
Tinder, Glenn E. Against Fate: An Essay on Personal Dignity. Notre Dame, Ind.:
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Tocqueville, Alexis A. de. Democracy in America. (1835). Translated by Henry
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Walzer, Michael. Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books, 1983.
. Interpretation and Social Criticism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
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Webster, Yehudi O. The Racialization of America. New York: William Morrow,
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West, Cornel. Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America. New York: Routledge,
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. Race Matters. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.
Wildavsky, Aaron. The Rise of Radical Egalitarianism. Washington, D.C.: American
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Wilson, James Q. The Moral Sense. New York: The Free Press, 1993.
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179

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Wolff, Robert Paul. Understanding Rawls. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1977.

INDEX
Abortion, xixii, 7, 11, 40 n.61, 112,
13046, 162 n.153; myths, 14244;
partial-birth abortion, 125, 131, 136
39, 161 n.132, 163 n.159, 166; social
corrosion wrought by, 13537,
14041, 146
Abraham, David, 128
Accomplishment (philosophy of), 69
73
Ackerman, Bruce, 47
Affirmative action, xi, 7, 130, 134, 154
n.51, 161 n.132
African Americans. See Black Americans
Allen, William B., 164 n.180
America, cultural condition of, 5, 10,
1819, 26 n.5, 6970, 112, 120, 130,
13235, 140, 144, 166; political
situation in, xi, 67, 126, 130, 134;
quality of civic life in, xi, 18, 113,
12730, 139, 148 n.15; solutions to
social turmoil of, xii, 42 n.69, 112,
132, 135, 141, 166, 169
American Medical News, 138
Amnesty International, 16
Animal rights, 16, 34 n.45
Arnold, Benedict, 119
Aspinall, John, 35 n.45
Auschwitz, 3, 19

Baudrillard, Jean, 19
Behaviorism, 16
Bell, Daniel, 58, 63
The Bell Curve (Herrnstein and
Murray), 124
Bellah, Robert, 26 n.8, 28 n.11
Bennett, William J., 155 n.64
Berger, Peter, 28 n.11, 34 n.44,
45
Black, Keith, 123
Black Americans, 80 n.64, 127,
134, 158 n.104, 160 n.26; anger
of, 11321, 123; anti-achievement
ethic, 11718; predicament of
black conservatives, 11820;
suspicions held by, 116
Blankenhorn, David, 87, 102
Blaylock, Zakettha, 118
Bloom, Alan, 87
Bork, Robert H., 5, 28 n.12,
40 n.61, 87, 146 n.2
Boxer, Barbara, 163 n.159
Brandley, Robin, 128
Breindel, Eric, 114
Brown, Nicole, 158 n.102
Brown, Willie, 149 n.15
Brown v. Board of Education,
124
Buchanan, Patrick, 146 n.1

182

Index

California State University, Northridge, 12223

Callahan, Patrick, 34 n.44
Canavan, Francis, 1213, 78 n.36
Carson, Ben, 123
Carter, Stephen, 123
Carville, James, 7
Casey, Robert, 112
Character, 11, 1617, 5860, 66, 72, 91,
16669
Chesterton, G. , 169 n.1
China, 13536
Choice, 22, 24, 13334, 137, 13942,
14446
Christianity, 15, 33 n.43, 38 n.53, 93
94, 98, 156 n.75
Churchill, Larry, 46
The Citadel, 152 n.38
CityTeam Ministries, 9699
Civic republicanism, 28 n.11
Civil rights movement, 95
Clark, Alfred, 128
Classical liberalism, xiv, 5, 28 n.12, 32
n.38
Cleaver, Eldridge, 117
Clinton, Bill, 37 n.50, 8990, 104, 114,
136, 139, 151 n.22, 156 n.75, 161
n.132, 163 n.159
Clinton, Hillary Rodham, 14, 89, 136,
147 n.5
Cloning, 166
Collectivism (economic), xiv, 67, 71
Commentary, 27 n.9
Communitarianism, 28 n.11, 4851,
169 n.1
Connerly, Ward, 149 n.15
Connor, Bull, 139
Conscience, 51, 77 n.29
Conservatism, 91, 95, 100, 1034, 112,
11920; concerns of, 5, 69, 101;
types of, 27 n.11
Contemporary liberalism, xiixiv, 23,
28 nn.1112, 43, 67, 70, 101, 103,
149 n.15; adherents devotion to, 26
n.9, 69; conception of human beings, xii, 79, 11, 14; confidence in
government, 14, 68, 8790; consonance with postmodernism, 2123;

contrasted with classical liberalism,

5, 7, 12, 28 n.12, 32 n.38; harmfulness of, xii, 9, 14, 16, 2223, 25, 37
n.50, 41 n.67, 105, 107, 115, 124,
127, 132, 13537, 139, 146, 147
n.6, 167; intentions of, 10, 99; intolerance of, 10712, 121, 126; irreligiosity of, 9192, 95; moral
particularity of, 69, 72, 78 n.36, 90;
nature of, xii, 56, 9, 1214, 16, 18
19, 2223, 25, 26 n.8, 44, 51, 5455,
60, 67, 68, 70, 91, 1056, 109, 115
16, 121, 12526, 133, 144, 166, 168;
permissiveness of, 9, 149 n.15; political style of, 47, 10, 22, 44, 6870,
72, 8990, 92, 1045, 117, 122, 124
25, 144, 146; public hostility toward,
9, 44, 6768, 9091; relativism in,
12, 14, 2223; self-righteousness of,
67, 6869, 1047; self-understanding of, 14; sympathy of, 9699,
1067, 156 n.66; utopianism of, 68,
8791, 165; view of human dignity,
1011, 22, 25, 64; view of human
self, 46, 5764, 66. See also Egalitarianism; Interest groups
Conti, Joseph G., 160 n.130
Cosby, Ennis, 128
Cose, Ellis, 115
Cranston, Maurice, 108
Crime, 36 n.48, 4445, 71, 73 n.4, 105,
107, 127, 158 n.104
Crowley, Brian, 4950, 63, 79 n.54
Dachau, 3, 19
Dahmer, Jeffrey, 110
Daschle, Tom, 163 n.159
Davis, Jack, 14950 n.15
de Beauvoir, Simone, 112
Deconstruction, 2021, 39 n.55. See
also Postmodernism
de Man, Paul, 20, 39 n.55
de Tocqueville, Alexis, 88
Derrida, Jacques, 19
Desert, xii, 4345, 5573, 80 n.64
Digitopia, 169 n.1
Dignity. See Human dignity
DiIulio, John J., Jr., 107, 156 n.66

Index

183

Doctors, 14344
Dole, Bob, 104, 139
Donahue, Phil, 14
Douglass, Frederick, 160 n.127
Dred Scott, 23
Drinan, Robert, 163 n.159
DSouza, Dinesh, 87
Du Bois, W.E.B., 123
Dukakis, Michael, 9
Dworkin, Ronald, 47

Glendon, Mary Ann, 4, 26 n.5, 47

Goldman, Ronald, 158 n.102
Goldsmith, Teddy, 35 n.45
Good, 5355, 101. See also Human
identity, ends of
Gray, John, 67
Green, Justin, 128
Greer, Ron, 111
Groothuis, Douglas, 169 n.1
Guadalupe Creek, 9899

Ebonics, 117
Egalitarianism, 5, 16, 18, 21, 23, 66,
68, 72, 106, 166
Egoism, 2425, 41 n.67. See also Selfishness
Elder, Larry, 11920, 160 n.122
Etzioni, Amitai, 48
Euthanasia, 134

Hallowell, John, 32 n.38

Hammer, Susan, 96
Harvest Crusades, 1024
Haskell, Martin, 137, 139
Hauerwas, Stanley, 13, 48
Hayek, F. A., 67, 79 n.54
Heavens Gate, 169 n.1
Hennessey, Michael, 149 n.15
Henry, William A., III, 68, 72, 87
Hern, Warren, 13739
Herrnstein, Richard, 124
Hills, Carla, 111
Hitler, Adolf, 18, 36 n.49, 41 n.67, 110,
125, 168
Hobbes, Thomas, 5, 41 n.67
Holden, Nate, 114
Homelessness. See CityTeam Ministries
Homosexuality, 7, 11, 69, 106, 10912,
130, 134
Horkheimer, Max, 39 n.54
Horton, Willie, 9
Howard, Phillip K., 87
Human dignity, xi, xiii, 9, 12, 1418,
23, 25, 33 n.43, 34 n.44, 5051, 64,
7172, 128, 133, 166, 169; bases of,
14, 33 n.43, 47, 5051; implications
of, 12, 135; intrinsic vs. extrinsic, 14
18; as political tool, 3, 1011, 14;
protection of, 25; recognized, 34
n.44, 135; as self-esteem, 1011, 18,
133. See also Contemporary liberalism, view of human dignity; Human rights; Rights
Human identity, 4751, 6162, 13435,
143; ends of, 54, 101; and ownership of immaterial assets, 5664. See

Fatherlessness, 102, 14041

Faulkner, Shannon, 15253 n.38
Feder, Don, 82 n.83
Feinberg, Joel, 34
Feminism, 40 n.60, 82 n.85, 1012,
112, 122, 13537, 140, 151 n.36
Ferguson, Colin, 11314
Fitzsimmons, Ron, 163 n.159
Ford, Gerald, 111
Fordham, Signithia, 117
Fortson, Davey, 128
Foucault, Michel, 19, 40 n.59
Fox, Robin, 30 n.22
Frankel, Charles, 58
Frankena, William, 41 n.63
Freedom. See Liberty; Rights
Frey, R. G., 26 n.3
Friedan, Betty, 112
Friedman, Milton, 67
Fumento, Michael, 118
Gacy, John Wayne, 110, 168
Gallardo, Carlos Granados, 74 n.4
Gandhi, Mahatma, 131, 168
Ganz, Martin, 128
Gender politics, 7, 1012, 112, 122,
14044, 152 n.38
Gingrich, Newt, 37 n.50, 69, 150 n.21

184

Index

Human identity (continued )

also Contemporary liberalism, view
of human self
Human life, 36 n.48, 12728, 13046,
162 n.153, 166
Human nature, xixii, 78, 11, 1416,
25, 52, 71, 8889, 165, 169 n.1; constrained or traditional view of, 89,
11, 30 n.22; distinctiveness of, 1517;
moral sense of, xi, 34 n.44, 4345,
5051, 65, 71, 73, 77 n.30, 100101,
145, 168; unconstrained vision of, 8
9, 14, 9091, 165. See also Personhood
Human rights, 34, 131. See also Rights
Huss, Cheri Lynn, 128
Hussein, Saddam, 18
Hyde, Henry, 143
Ice Cube, 114
Immigration, xi, 7, 94, 97
Imperial, Julian, 77 n.29
India, 13536
Individualism, 5, 14, 154 n.54, 166
Interest groups, 4, 11, 11617, 135
Iscariot, Judas, 119
Jackson, Jesse, 104, 114, 121
Jesus Christ, 9394, 168
Jim Crow, 118, 132
John Paul II (Pope), 31 n.35
Judeo-Christian moral tradition, 78,
12, 15, 23, 9192, 100, 102, 112, 127,
133
Justice, 5664, 73, 80 n.64. See also
Desert; Good; Rawls, John
Kant, Immanuel, 5, 5152, 56, 6061,
63
Kaufman, Barbara, 149 n.15
Kelly, Dean, 150 n.16
Kennedy, John F., 29 n.12
Kennedy, Robert, 29 n.12
Kennedy, Ted, 163 n.159
Kennelly, Barbara, 163 n.159
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 29 n.12, 123,
131
King, Rodney, 112

Kirkpatrick, Jeanne, 111

Kulturkampf, xi, 103
Kuran, Timur, 113, 125, 160 n.129
Kymlicka, Will, 47, 75 n.14, 78 n.34
Lasch, Christopher, 28 n.11
Lerner, Michael, 89, 147 n.5
Levada, William, 110
Leyba, Steven Johnson, 149 n.15
Liberalism, xiii, 1213, 28 n.12, 32
n.38, 42 n.68, 112. See also Classical
liberalism; Contemporary liberalism
Liberty, 13, 67, 6971, 106, 110, 130;
ordered to higher end, 13, 15, 88
89. See also Rights
Limbaugh, Rush, 37 n.50
Lippmann, Walter, xiv, 3, 43, 87, 165
Locke, John, 5, 56, 62, 79 n.42
Los Angeles Times, 105
Loury, Glenn, 123, 127
Lowry, Joseph, 119
Lyles, James Lee, 74 n.4
Machan, Tibor, 81 n.71
MacIntyre, Alisdair, xi, 4748, 54, 62,
80 n.64
Macklin, Ruth, 170 n.2
Madison, James, 8
Magnet, Myron, 87
Malcolm X, 114
Malveaux, Julianne, 114
Mann, Nancyjo, 142
Marxism, 66, 68, 106, 141
Matsaura, Go, 128
May, Bill, 119
McCarthy, Joseph, 111
McCorvey, Norma, 131
McGrath, Alistair, 38 n.52
McKinney, Cynthia, 115
Mead, Lawrence, 71
Meritocracy, 57, 6667, 7073. See also
Desert; Rawls, on redistribution
Mill, John Stuart, 5
Minkowitz, Donna, 151 n.36
The Mirage of Social Justice (Hayek), 67
Montgomery, John W., 75 n.9
Moore, G. E., 24
Moose, Ed, 149 n.15

Index
Moral relativism. See Contemporary
liberalism, relativism in
Morris, Dick, 104
Mosley-Braun, Carol, 163 n.159
Mother Teresa, 168
Mulhall, Stephen, 54
Multiculturalism, 123, 156 n.72. See
also Pluralism
Munnell, Alicia, 118
Murder, 73 n.4, 12730
Murray, Cecil, 124
Murray, Charles, 1011, 31 n.28, 124
Murray, Lynette, 128
Nathanson, Bernard, 82 n.85
Nelson, Lemrick, 114, 158 n.93
Neuhaus, Richard John, 28 n.11, 38
n.50, 46, 91, 112
New Deal, xiv, 910
The New Republic, 13
Niebuhr, Reinhold, 154 n.54
1960s (decade of), xiv, 5, 13, 16, 37,
45, 87, 90
Nisbet, Robert, 28 n.11
Novak, Michael, 28 n.11, 48, 75 n.15,
79 n.42
Novis, Corinne, 128
Nozick, Robert, 56, 6064, 75 n.15, 79
n.42, 80 n.64
Ogbu, John, 117
Olasky, Marvin, 150 n.21
Orwell, George, 143
Osbourne, Wendy, 128
Outka, Gene, 32 n.40
Out-of-wedlock births, 106, 155 n.61
Paglia, Camille, 102
Parker, Nicole, 128
Patterson, Orlando, 123
Personhood, 16, 32 n.41, 33 n.42, 35
n.45, 77 n.25, 128, 13435. See also
Human identity; Human nature
Peterson, Jesse, 120
Physicians Ad Hoc Coalition for
Truth, 13839
Piazza, Thomas, 116
Pluralism, 6, 75 n.15, 100

185

Podhoretz, Norman, 27 n.9

Political correctness, 6, 18, 22, 68, 122,
125, 140
Postmodernism, 1924, 39 n.55, 40
n.59
Prager, Dennis, 69, 82 n.84, 1067,
111, 115, 157 n.76
Preference falsification, 29 n.13, 125
Pro-life movement, 16, 121, 13032,
142
Promise Keepers, 1012, 104, 151 n.36
Public truth, 12427
Racial discrimination, 23, 100, 116,
118
Racial politics, xixii, 7, 11327; colorcoordinated thinking of, 12124
Ramirez, Richard, 72
Raphael, Sally Jesse, 93
Rawls, John, 4567, 75 n.14, 75 n.15,
78 n.34, 78 n.36, 79 n.54, 81 nn.70
71; anthropology of, 4850, 5965;
commonalitites with Nozick, 56;
difference principle of, 46, 5759;
original position of, 46, 5253; on
redistribution, 5564; on right vs.
good, 5155
Reagan, Ronald, 111
Religious belief, 6, 38 n.53, 91104,
148 n.15, 150 n.16; personal value
of, 9295; social value of, 95102
Rice, Condoleeza, 123
Rights, 34, 13, 23, 66; proliferation
of, 4, 18, 154 n.54, 170 n.2; Rights
talk, 45, 10, 12, 2425, 26 n.3, 170
n.2. See also Liberty
Robertson, Patrick, 9699
Roe v. Wade, 23, 40 n.61
Rorty, Richard, 47
Rosenbaum, Yankel, 114, 158 n.93
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 5, 7
Ryen family, 128
Salk, Jonas, 7273
Sandel, Michael, 27 n.10, 28 n.11, 47
48, 53, 58, 75 n.14, 75 n.15, 78 n.36
Schroeder, Patricia, 163 n.159
Seiler, Bill, 128

186

Index

Self. See Contemporary liberalism,

view of human self; Human identity
Self-esteem, 1011, 18, 31 n.28, 106,
133
Self-expression, 10910
Selfishness, 2425. See also Egoism
Shalala, Donna, 163 n.159
Simpson, O. J., 114, 158 n.102
Skinner, B. F., 16, 35 n.45
Slouching Towards Gomorrah (Bork), 5
Smith, Adam, 5
Smith, Pamela, 138
Smith, Susan, 37 n.50
Sniderman, Paul M., 116
Social silence, 12426, 138, 160 n.129.
See also Public truth
Sommers, Christina Hoff, 82 n.85, 87
Souljah, Sistah, 114
Southall, Angela, 128
Soviet Union, 6
Sowell, Thomas, 8, 31 n.24, 90
Sproul, R. C., 33 n.43
Stalin, Josef, 110
Steele, Shelby, 116
Stein, Mary R., 77 n.29
Steinem, Gloria, 102
Suicide, 36 n.50, 9394, 169 n.1
Sullivan, William, 25, 47
Swift, Adam, 54

Taylor, Charles, 47, 5455

Texaco, 118
A Theory of Justice (Rawls), 45
Thomas, Clarence, 115, 118, 149 n.15
Tolerance, 22; contemporary understanding of, 6, 10712, 125
Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (1948), 16
Voltaire, 5, 7
Volunteerism, 96
Walzer, Michael, 28 n.11, 82 n.74
War on Poverty, 9
Washington, D.C., 90, 118
Welfare reform, xi, 95
White, Reggie, 114
Whitehead, Barbara, 155 n.61
Will, George, 9, 30 n.22, 91, 138
Williams, Walter, 118
Williams, Willie, 114
Wilson, James Q., 30 n.22
Wolf, Naomi, 131, 143
Women, 7, 135, 14044, 153 n.38. See
also Feminism; Gender politics
Women Exploited by Abortion, 142
Woodson, Robert, 120
World War I, 28 n.12
World War II, xiv, 28 n.12, 37, 145

About the Author

BRAD STETSON is Director of Studies at the David Institute. He has
previously published four books with Praeger, including Pluralism and
Particularity in Religious Belief (1994) and The Silent Subject: Reflections on
the Unborn in American Culture (1996).