Notes on Social Declension
Nelson, Jeffrey M.
LTERNA TI The Counterculture's Periphery Notes on Social Declension J e f f r e y M. Nelson D ECLENSION IS NOT a recent phenomenon. In almost every society the soothsayers and the...
...younger members of the intelligentsia continue to subject our conventional value structure to their rhetoric of obsolescence...
...Where the counterculture threatens to extend beyond its borders, as in the case of drugs, society intervenes...
...Now, is that a frightening piece of knowledge or merely what you had suspected all along...
...final product yielded is none other than that which we are now hearing described as the counterculture...
...This is all the more difficult with' the interweaving of good and bad, such that one can not easily have one without the other...
...But natural law and the church notwithstanding, history does seem to question certain facets of the modern nuclear family...
...Yet, many argue, the actual military policies being pursued make it impossible to implement...
...Yes, reflections, not inquiries...
...Red Chinese aid to Laos, North Vietnam and Cambodia is large...
...If we lack that perception, we shall fall in any case, and, as befits a wasteland, our fall will lack resonance and probably will not even be accompanied by a whisper...
...But by closing our minds, by burying our heads in the sand when our absolutes have been questioned, look what a situation has been created...
...Professor Lucian W. Pye of the Center for International Studies at M.I.T...
...The fruits of their rebellion are amalgamated, as both liberal sympathy and peer approbation act as contingencies of reinforcement, and the...
...He is also a tricky, power hungry politician...
...the disease had not yet struck home...
...To paraphrase what surely must be Leo Strauss' most eloquent eipgram: we must regain our Neronian consciousness, that we may at least know that Rome is burning, and perhaps we shall even perceive that we are fiddling...
...Fortunately there is nothing here over which to get excited...
...In South Korea, 20,000 American troops suddenly have orders to return home by midyear...
...This line of reasoning should not be dismissed as a perverse notion of Women's Liberation or as the fantasies of social revolutionaries...
...In November, 1969 the Seventh Fleet terminated its two-destroyer patrol off the coast of China and in July 1971 the United States stated that it would not transfer nuclear weapons now on Okinawa to Taiwan and also ended air reconnaissance missions over the mainland leaving from Taiwan...
...America has, for many years, prided itself upon being a reliable ally...
...Inside the enclave, a university town for example, are thousands of people who are among but not part of the counterculture...
...In a word, we have spoiled our chiMren...
...The eighteenth century was a period in which the perspective broadened, and decline became the object of historical and comparative analysis...
...In fact, we have liked to contrast our own willingness to stand by our stated word with our adversaries' unwillingness...
...The earlier writers looked out upon an object of their interest...
...All that is left to do, we are told, is reflect: leave posterity a record of the phenomenon, that the world may someday understand the process of declension...
...Our early history, that of New England a t least, is but one long Jeremiah attempting to forestall what Perry Miller described as "the declension of a Bible Commonwealth...
...Perhaps, but at the risk of further damnation (if that is possible), I doubt it...
...The general has become the particular, and it is too late to make inquiries into causes...
...Consider these facts: Over the past two and one half years soine SO0,000 United States troops have been brought home from Asia...
...rather, the discussion inevitably begins with a consideration of the history of the family within the context of broad social change...
...It carefully constructed a system of alliances, in Europe and in Asia, based upon a mutual interest in stopping the forces of aggression...
...states clearly that during the past year "Asian economic progress was offset by political anxieties over the emerging realities of the Nixon doctrine...
...Our modern doomsday critics have exaggerated beyond reasonable lengths...
...Since a sizable number of United States forces on Taiwan are there in support of the Vietnam effort, it is considered reasonable to assume that numbers will taper off as the war continues to wind down...
...In saying this we risk the temporal damnation of many conservatives and, if they are correct, eternal damnation as well...
...Mechanisms of enforcement can only give sanction to traditional values where such values remain operative...
...This, however, is only the beginning...
...She noted that "America has been the best frieud of China traditionally...
...There are others, of course, so affected, not the least of which are the normally conservative university officials and professors who find an alien life-style surrounding them, a life-style which cannot be avoided...
...Nixon's entourage might not he a proper match for them...
...They cannot understand why President Nixon embarked upon his trip to Communist China without first consulting them, as partners in an alliance are allegedly supposed to do...
...For it is to the weakest of man's points of vulnerability that the counterculture directs the enticement which brings under its spell.many of our best friends...
...We learned our lesson about Communism the hard way...
...Boston has never been so bad...
...By aligning the nouveau, the rebellious, and the intellectually fashionable, with the promiscuous, the liberated, and the implicitly and explicitly sexual, the counterculture can attract any one of us...
...Younger businessmen soon begin to believe their own sales-pitch - - a simple matter of resolving cognitive dissonance...
...But, if you will excuse the punning reference, the germ is spread in the most contagious of ways: social disease...
...Nixon's visit to Peking cannot repair the weakpoints in his Asian policy...
...Then of course there was the longtime obsession with that sickest of Europe's sickmen, Poland, which is discussed by almost our entire generation of founding fathers--and mothers (see Mercy Otis Warren's History ol the...Revolution, II, 182ff...
...He stated, "The United States is a country honoring treaty commitments...
...the rejection was received as an invitation to intellectual and social rebellion...
...We are more philosophical...
...What concerns our Asian allies is not only the fact that America's word no longer seems dependable but also the fact that America says one thing and seems to do another...
...As an example of this phenomenon, the incredible amount of attention given to the rumor concerning the cause of Daniel Ellsberg's political conversion is wortl~y of attention...
...Watching you in international affairs we feel is like watching a child, full of energy, but too emotional...
...No, here on the periphery our fate is not so simple, and if we have the depth left to perceive it, our fall will have an element of tragedy h~ it...
...Now, whether right or wrong, our mores would survive and in the end triumph if they had the force of social sanction behind them...
...All of which brings us to the point of the present exercise, that is, a few reflections of our own...
...If the demand in the marketplace is for the perverse, capitalism follows...
...In pursuit of this end, we sponsored the Marshall .Plan for the economic recovery of Europe after World V/ar IL we risked the Berlin Airlift, we lauded Marines in Lebanon and fought long and costly wars in Korea and in Vietnam...
...Viscount Molesworth surveyed the unfortunate plight of the Danes in his Account ol Denmark...
...Working people find their children are acquiring the habits and characteristics of university students who surround them, and, in an effort to reach middle ground with their children...
...From now on, as a consequence, American influence in Northeast Asia, Central-South Asia and South Asia will be greatly diminished...
...But let us attempt to transcend our limitations and approach this with an open mind...
...Professor Chen Tzu-sheih stated that "Nixon is a pragmatist...
...However, is this impetus enough to account for what appears to he a wholesale denial of the validity of familial morality...
...Perhaps those who have fled to middle-America know some~ing of which we are here concerned...
...And those of us there on the periphery slowly take on the attributes of that which we have so long denounced, as we give in to man's strongest emotions, his basest passions...
...Certainly we have been guilty of what Hume and so many others have warned us against: elevating our particular experiences to the level of absolutes...
...While official circles refrain from any real Criticism of American policy, it is not difficult, when speaking to influential citizens outside of the government, to guage their real feelings...
...But then I can only ask, why do they continue to frequent such movies if they know they are going to walk out...
...Communism today has changed fTom the Communism of the past...
...No, beneath the facade of pleasures which we presently enjoy is the outline of significant social change--decay might be a better word--and it cannot he ignored...
...This innovation is within the family and is not the family itself...
...Twenty-two foreign affairs experts discussed me recent changes in American Chinese policy at the Institute of International Relations in Musa, a suburb of Taipei...
...In all of these cases, the United States has shown itself to be a trustworthy ~iend...
...No place was this concern more evident than in Taiwan...
...these parents must begin to accept a changed moral standard...
...Johnson would have noted, they all go to Hell...
...Although reflection, as we noted in -the beginning, should not consider remedies of any kind, it is most difficult to preside over one's own sentencing without having a pang of regret...
...We have given those who have doubted, our rebellious young citizens, young and old alike, a sense of rejection, unwarranted to your mind perhaps, but sufficient in theirs to create just cause for suspicion if not rebellion...
...in which the counterculture becomes dominant and traditional values cease to be operative, there exists no viable means of reversing the flow of change...
...their questioning was rejected without answers...
...Their doubts led to questioning...
...South Vietnam is hardly the only country witnessing a massive withdrawal of American forces...
...But which ones...
...This, we have argued, made America different...
...In any type of subculture - - class, community, occupation, etc...
...Mrs...
...where it appears to be self-sufficient, this world apart is left alone to flourish...
...If this life-style were merely political or a political variant of sorts, we would be in less danger of infection here on the periphery...
...One would think that only the lowest of the low are corrupted by temptation illuminated in neon and on the screen...
...When President Nixon was asked January 2, by C.B.S...
...They continue to burn the candle at both ends, tasting of the fruits of a tree the seed of which they condemn...
...The opinions expressed reveal the depth of concern which may be heard not only in Taiwan but also in South Korea, Thatland, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan and throughout Asia...
...Up to the present it has been the custom to note only that segment of this population which backlashes from within and swings to the right...
...These include 9,000 from Thailand, 6,000 from the Philippines, 5,060 from Okinawa, 12,000 from Japan, and smaller reductions in Taiwan...
...Those who are aware know the risks they take, the edge of Hell upon which 6 The Alternative May 1972 they are situated...
...If you think that you can reform the Communists you are bound to fail...
...Today, there are many reasons for the people and the government of the Republic of China on Taiwan to be concerned about American policy...
...Of course not, but it is the beginning of a partial explanation...
...For one thing, there is, as in most claims, an ounce of truth among the falsehoods...
...If we avoid it at all, it will be because ubiquity and saturation can-lead to boredom...
...This country does have something in the way of a consensus of values...
...This means that discussion with one Communist country in order to promote peace might be looked upon as dangerous by another Communist regime...
...The ship which is sinking (or sunk) is our own, and we are the rats...
...And with that brief statement we enter the company of our pessimistic contemporaries But tl~is sl~ould not be taken to imply that pessimism necessitates engaging in the masochistic pleasure which pervades contemporary social criticism...
...The fact that the United States has a long standing treaty commitment to protect the island seems less and less important a part of the political equation as the American government appears to be embracing a policy of withdrawal from the world...
...Montesquieu gave his thoughts to Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur des romains et de leur decadence...
...Americans are young and vibrant, but have less experience and patience than those in Asia...
...The litterateurs reflect upon sinking ships, and a political scientist ponders The End ol the American Era But in one sense the style of the inquiry has been modified...
...If anything, we are guilty of...
...Par excmple: the counterculture has thriving enclaves within our borders, and, in' keeping with' (nil" tradition as a voluntaristic society, we have accepted the precepts of laissez-faire...
...having invented adolescence and thus prolonging childhood...
...Just as Thomas Szasz and Erving Goffman have remarked on the tendency to be driven insane from confinement in a mental institution, or to become criminally oriented after time in a penal institution, so too there is a strong tendency to go to the Devil while living in Hell...
...It is very possible that in objection to this assertion of total vulnerability it may be stated that all ye of good faith and strong moral conviction will not abandon principle in the face of temptation...
...Tsai Wei-Ping, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs...
...Mter all, you really cannot tell if it is good or bad unless you taste it and we all do have appetites...
...Here every road is paved with good intentions, and, as...
...correspondent Dan Rather, whether the United States The Alternative May 1972' 7...
...Whatever one may think of Kate Millett or Norman Mailer, from their polarized angles of vision they have focused on a fundamental aspect of what confronts us...
...Professor Lin Chih-lieh, for example, said that "the Nixon visit to Peking clearly manifests the fact that the policy of containment in Asia has been completely destroyed...
...Even if I were not Chinese, watching President Nixon's plans for his trip to Peking, I would say it was like watching a child playing with fire...
...Nor has the inquiry ended...
...Adequate proof of this assertion is offered by the existence of Soviet made weaponry and supplies in the war raging in the Iudochina peninsula...
...it spreads throughout the community...
...More than 30,000 Americans in other Far East nations will also pull back...
...Nixon's announcement of his intention to visit the Chinese Communists has prompted the Soviets to enter Asia...
...YuHuang stated that "the Communists are very shrewd," diplomatically implying that Mr...
...nay, it will soon take the lead with advertising...
...And what is the result...
...What began as a doubt regarding minor historical aspects of familial morality ends in a rebellion against and total denial of traditional socio-sexual mores...
...And, following the Renaissance model, so often identified with Machiavelli's Discoursi, the writers of the period sought the means by which corruption might be forestalled and virtue retained...
...Therefore, peace, the slogan of the Nixon visit, cannot emerge as the result of talks with Peiping...
...But the matter does not end there, much as we would like it to...
...Travels With Richard Taiwan: America's Moral Dilemma Allan C. Brownfeld T HE SINGLE IMPRESSION which" this writer could not escape during a recent tour of the Far East is that our Asian allies are nervous...
...Who needs children, marriage, or monogamous love...
...The prospect became clear that the essence of Vietnamization was an American acceptance of considerable Asian instability and uncertainty...
...For rebellion, as Camus noted, is deeply rooted in our own nature...
...But they do not constitute the whole...
...We might just grow tired of it all and ignore it, as did some Romans and those latter-day epicureans who walk out of Swedish movies...
...By this I mean that there are certain blocks and countries advocating a certain type of Communism...
...Thus, on tt~e boraer of the counterculture grows a most unique subculture, inhabited by those who are in some sense dependent - - socially, economically, intellectually - - upon the institutions at the center...
...What is ~ml~rtant here is not whether it is true, but rather that such occurrences are common enough to warrant belief...
...In almost every society the soothsayers and the Cassandras have foretold the doom to come if no "renewal of morals, no regeneration, occurs...
...Another Chinese with strong feelings is Nancy Yu-Huang, the American educated publisher of the English language newspaper, the China Post...
...What the new policies may produce is not a "generation of peace," but a generation of instability which can lead only to testing and probing by those Communist countries which maintain their aggressive policies...
...Perhaps the family as our fathers and mothers knew it is not an eternal verity enjoined by natural law...
...but does it have the necessary (and non-coercive) means of enforcing those values...
...Surely, to the individual, the admonition based on moral strictures is .appropriate, but only the rare soul will be able to surmount the pressure of countercultural environment...
...While the President argues that our commitment to our allies in Asia is firm, American troops are rapidly leaving Asia...
...But unlike the drug addict who yearns in his agony to be saved or to die quickly, those here on the periphery of the counterculture do not seek an exit...
...No, these were serious attempts, in the best style of contemporary political science, to answer a universal dilemma: why is it that nations fall from greatness...
...Buried beneath the usual allusion to Aries ~ L'enlant et la vie lamgiale sous t'ancien regime, is the assumption that the concepts of familial life which we accept as transhistorical, transcultural principles, are relatively recent innovations, and as such, are quite as capable of being outmoded by recent social developments as they were created by former social exigencies...
...Asians cannot view the President's initiative to Peking as anything but a sign of weakness since it comes at the very moment of American withdrawal as well as at the time when Soviet strategic weapons seem to be moving ahead of those of the United States, a fact of which they are very much aware...
...Outside of the government, however, more concern and some bitterness is felt...
...Social sanction requires two resources: a basic consensus of values and a means of enforcing all secondary values derivative of the consensus...
...But in all these eighteenth century instances the object of inquiry was not merely to locate the source of another nation's internal collapse...
...But this is not an overly simple task in and of itself, for it takes some thought to consider critically what it is that ails us...
...The rebellion is infectious...
...What we hav.e here is not a critique of the moral and ethical basis of traditional monogamous familial culture...
...An example of such official reaction came in a conversation with H.E...
...Videlicet: our verities are questioned: The Alternative May 1972 5 the family, marriage, monogamy...
...It has given up no allies this way...
...In a recent article Professor Donald Zoll noted that it takes a peculiar type of intellectual conservative to thrive in New York City while most others are forced to emigrate to the heartland...
...They also find it difficult to explain why the American President appears to have gone to Peking out of weakness, rather than out of strength...
...Business must meet demands to maintain increased Profit...
...Speaking as if to convince himself of the truth of his words, the minister stated that "Taiwan is important to the defense of many countries in the Pacific area...
...increased sales, increased volume...
...One of the commonplaces of current cant--cant of the self-proclaimed, urbane, intellectual variety--is that the nuclear family and its concomitant morality is dissolving, and despite the efforts of many senior psychologists to defend its utility (and its validity...
...It could also be avoided by buying a house outside the city, as have so many who sincerely preach to us of their good faith and strong moral convictions...
...No President would recognize Red China and de-recognize Taiwan in one stroke...
...But I suspect the denizens of the eastern metropolis are equally aware...
...But today the image is shattered...
...The beast with red cheeks, Aristotle called man, for the species feels shame;, red reflects pride and passion as well, and today it is those attributes which combine to drag him down once more...
...and both of these must operate at all levels and in all segments of society...
...Jeffrey M. Nelson is a graduate student at Harvard...
...For we - - the people on the periphery of the counterculture, the self-proclaimed critics and dispassionate observers, the detached analysts - - will be dragged down by our own vanity, noting with pleasure as we go, the sights of our name in print, our voices on the radio, and our visages on the television, as some insipid commentator asks us for one last insightful observation...
...Contemporary writings no longer seek causes for a universal problem...
...They are living off the flames as Rome burns, and as the city burns they fiddle quite knowingly: And they are taking the calculated risk that they will not die in the flames or burn for their own sins...
...Pessimism, far from being the sole property of forebears or of that human doomsday machine, Henry Adams, is still with us...
...While the Nixon Doctrine is l~ss than they would want, it nevertheless appears reasonable in principle...
...Now, our failure to heed such a warning may be due to nothing more than an intrinsic flaw in our nature, for, ironically enough, it often appears that the only universal trait of human nature is the tendency to absolutize...
...Even those gloomy Englishmen of right and left, Bolingbroke and Burgh, held out hopes for a better day and never accepted Albion's plight as one of inevitable disintegration...
...Requiescat in pace, Cotton Mather...
...The businessmen of the community are similarly affected...
Vol. 5 • May 1972 • No. 8
