Word: moynihan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Examine how Moynihan argued his apocalyptic hypothesis. For one, he carefully ignored the substance of the counter-culture's ideal, in part by focussing snidely on the left's most visible and fickle wing, the "children of the rich." The academic-turned-politician also evasively classified the critique of the discontent within a broad framework of Western development, comparing the present to the late 1930s and 40s, periods in which, he claimed, intellectuals in the West were disaffected with "'bourgeois' values such as liberty and democracy." Thus the left's critique of the United States can remain merely a negative...
...Moynihan made no exploration of the future that the left envisions, a world in which men and women are not channeled to perform certain narrow, stereotypical roles, a world in which the natural environment is treated with respect, a world in which resources are allocated according to the principles of equality and justice. These may be naive dreams, but many people are quietly shaping their lives around them, disdaining standard goals to concentrate on changing their own values and those of individuals around them. But Moynihan can see only the scion of an upper-class family screaming through a bullhorn...
...Moynihan's pseudo-scholarly attack on the left on Commencement day grew radically more offensive as he offered contemporary society the couch and set into some armchair analysis. A few excerpts illustrate the profound insight of Moynihan's thinking: "I would suggest that a liberal culture does indeed succeed in breeding aggression out of its privileged class...I do not believe that the young elites of this moment who will explain away any act, howsoever monstrous, of Arab terrorists or New World dictatorships do so out of admiration. I believe they do so out of fear. And with this fear...
...challenge to dissect such a theory rationally; I can hardly find grounds for discourse. Moynihan's words strike me as the thoughts of a man unable to understand a radically different philosophy who is scurrying about, cooking up an outwardly sophisticated theory that resolves any self-doubts the criticism generated. Think back to the causes of the critical "young elite" (itself a phrase intended to put the left into the heirarchical world Moynihan feels comfortable in): Did they fear the "overwhelming power" of the Vietcong (who, Moynihan incorrectly says, were a "totalitarian regime...not many years back."). Or did they...
...Indeed, Moynihan's cure for American society confirms this suspicion. He longingly quoted Harvard's 1876 class day orator, who spoke with "self assurance and resolve." Moynihan quoted the orator calling on the members of the educated class "to set themselves against the prevailing vulgarity that has become characteristic of American life: It is for them to endeavor to elevate the standard of public taste...to promote and foster...that true inward refinement which alone makes possible the higher social enjoyments that distinguish civilization from barbarism dressed...