Back in the early 60’s Bob Mosher came to dinner at my parents’ invitation. He worked with my father at BBDO in New York for years but had subsequently moved to California where he created the hit show, Leave It to Beaver.
He brought with him autographed studio head shots of both Wally and the “Beav” for my 3 siblings and me. We were thrilled. (Naturally, we all lost them over the span of years!)
Parenthetically, Bob went on to create The Munsters, where in one episode he cast comedian Harvey Korman to play a crazy, unhinged German psychiatrist, Dr. Sigmund Leinbach, as a joke on my father.
As a follow-up companion piece to my last post, I’d like to discuss yet another article by R.R. Reno addressing the changing cultural and political landscape here in the West. It’s entitled, “Goodbye, Heraclitus,” and discusses in detail the failing postwar consensus of “deconsolidation.”
Before and immediately after the war, he says, there existed great uniformity and cultural “consolidation” in American society.
Roosevelt’s New Deal had forged a new alliance between big labor, big business, and government planners. Later, the Cold War had encouraged patriotism, as did the Korean conflict, based on national security concerns. This consolidation could also be seen in pop culture, as evidenced by the “narrow range of hit songs and TV shows” dominating the postwar period. Thus the Leave It to Beaver reference.
Influential writers and cultural observers, however, had become increasingly alarmed by what many viewed as a “soul-sapping conformity,” particularly after the totalitarianism earlier in the century. Books such as The Lonely Crowd and The Organizational Man raised concerns. Thus began in earnest what Reno calls “the emerging consensus for deconsolidation.”
The effort picked up steam after the war as the injustice of racial discrimination rose to the fore. In many respects this concern dominated the era. Political priorities began to shift within America’s leadership class.
This anti-discrimination movement sought to “break down barriers, remove impediments, and create a more open society,” both legal and social. Eventually this led to greater and greater cultural “deregulation” as issues such as women’s rights and LGBT rose to prominence, each attempting to “break down the stereotypes and presuppositions that structure our interactions” within society.
This “imperative of greater fluidity” has now become dogma. In fact, today, he says, the slightest heterodoxy brings severe condemnation. Perhaps surprisingly, this cultural consensus toward greater openness is shared by the entire leadership class, both left and right alike!
“Over the last generation,” he says, “most center-right and center-left leaders have agreed that we need to break down barriers [and] expand choice…” While liberals, that is, seek greater cultural deregulation (see the above picture of a politically correct UCC coloring book), conservatives emphasize economic deregulation.
“As the last century ended, this consensus hardened into dogma. Just as ‘diversity’ became the buzzword for describing the kind of culture we want, ‘innovation’ became a buzzword for the economy. Both terms,” he notes, “connote fluidity, openness, and beneficial change.”
Today “both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reflect the globalist outlook, one in which the formerly closed and consolidated nations of the world evolve toward fluidity and inclusivity.”
This well-intended and, in many respects, successful consensus has run into problems, however. In the economic sphere, globalism has created a huge divide between the well-educated urban worker and a now struggling, though once-confident, middle class.
While we’ve seen dramatic increases in wealth for the 1% or 2%, millions are falling further and further behind, leading to diminished life-expectancy, suicide, and increased incidences of opioid and other substance addiction. Dysfunctional communities are on the rise. The common good has suffered.
Though Reno emphasizes that the main elements of this postwar consensus were not wrongheaded and achieved much good, we no longer live in 1965 or 1980. As the old saying goes, “New occasions teach new duties.” Times have changed.
Today, Reno cautions, “our problems almost all flow from too much flux and too little fixity.” It’s a new problem and for many of us, including our cultural leaders, a matter of denial.
Reno names the postwar consensus after Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher who once said, “All is flux.” Yet what this new conformity has produced is profound uncertainty and loss of security. Indeed, the current call for “trigger warnings and safe spaces, as well as denunciations of culture appropriation, express a desire for security, repose, and an inheritance that cannot be taken away from us.”
Our main problems, in other words, “are not rigidity, over-consolidation, and a lack of openness…” To the contrary, “we are afflicted by insecurity, fears of homelessness, and the suspicion that we have nothing honorable to pass on to our children.”
Reno thus calls for a reconsideration of another Greek philosopher, Parmenides, who insisted that it is permanence and changelessness that undergird reality. This and other such calls, however, have not been met with universal acclaim, to put it mildly, perhaps especially in our churches where, in true Heraclitean fashion, we have seen an erosion of “biblical authority and doctrinal stability.”
What we’re seeing today is the old Heraclitian consensus breaking down, despite great denial and resistance. Much of the hysteria we see daily is, according to Reno, the impotent flailing of an entrenched leadership class desperately attempting to reassert its now wholly outdated perspective on society’s needs.
As Reno says in conclusion: “The postwar consensus was formed to address real problems – yesterday’s problems. Now we must shore up what remains of lasting loyalty, trustworthy solidarity, and things that are solid and enduring. At the end of the age of Heraclitus, we need to recover the wisdom of Parmenides.”