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why he left
Oct. 14th, 2006 07:30 pm.
Part 1:
"My political views, I found, had profoundly stunted my personal and social growth for many years...
"But most of all I believed in the evil of what I called the "counterculture," or "the legacy of the '60s." What did I mean by this? It was not always clear, because like most other young people, I had adopted a large part of this legacy. I believed in gender equality and assumed that when I married, my wife would have a career. I believed there were times when it was valid for children to question their parents, or students to question teachers (the Review was obviously a legacy of this). I did not see premarital sex as immoral per se, though I condemned "promiscuity" in the mass media and in popular music -- my greatest regret, honestly, was that I did not have enough opportunity to practice it. I was not particularly religious and thought very little about the fact that I did not attend services regularly. I listened to contemporary rock and some music from the '60s, not considering this incongruous with my political views -- indeed, some of my recent favorites were such "politically correct" bands as Black 47 and 10,000 Maniacs, a contradiction I noted but never explained. I dressed in a manner that would have been considered inappropriately casual before the '60s (remember, as late as the early '70s students were being sent home from public schools in New York for wearing blue jeans).
"I knew all this -- and yet I still sincerely believed not only that the 1960s were an evil force that had turned American society into an angst-ridden wasteland, but that these changes were enforced by some type of intellectual fiat promulgated by the mass media and popular culture, absent which America would revert to its happy, bucolic identity of the 1950s."
Part 2:
"I too was guilty of this willful denial of unpleasant facts...
"So, you may ask, what was I thinking? When one knowingly holds two contradictory ideas and accepts them both -- as I did, by hating "the 60s" while accepting almost every value they had engendered -- one can legitimately be considered neurotic. I would go further and suggest that for me and many others, contemporary conservatism is a pathology, an intellectual cover for certain mentally unhealthy defense mechanisms and rationalizations. Exhibited by many mainstream conservative figures and mimicked by their followers, some of these behaviors are characteristic of "true believers" of any persuasion (they were certainly features of Marxism at the time it held intellectual sway, and helped lead to its demise)..."
Postscript:
Once I got married, I didn't see much of Adam any more. We spoke on the phone a few times, but he was off to find what he truly believed. Years passed. I hadn't heard from him, so I looked him up online. And there was a long, introspective piece by Adam in, of all places, Mother Jones. I read it twice, just to make sure this was the same Adam Lieberman I once knew. But it was him, and his ruminations appeared genuine. This inspired me to look him up, but I soon discovered that Adam died right after the MoJo piece appeared. He couldn't have been more than 30, and like that, he was gone."
via This Modern World.
.
Part 1:
"My political views, I found, had profoundly stunted my personal and social growth for many years...
"But most of all I believed in the evil of what I called the "counterculture," or "the legacy of the '60s." What did I mean by this? It was not always clear, because like most other young people, I had adopted a large part of this legacy. I believed in gender equality and assumed that when I married, my wife would have a career. I believed there were times when it was valid for children to question their parents, or students to question teachers (the Review was obviously a legacy of this). I did not see premarital sex as immoral per se, though I condemned "promiscuity" in the mass media and in popular music -- my greatest regret, honestly, was that I did not have enough opportunity to practice it. I was not particularly religious and thought very little about the fact that I did not attend services regularly. I listened to contemporary rock and some music from the '60s, not considering this incongruous with my political views -- indeed, some of my recent favorites were such "politically correct" bands as Black 47 and 10,000 Maniacs, a contradiction I noted but never explained. I dressed in a manner that would have been considered inappropriately casual before the '60s (remember, as late as the early '70s students were being sent home from public schools in New York for wearing blue jeans).
"I knew all this -- and yet I still sincerely believed not only that the 1960s were an evil force that had turned American society into an angst-ridden wasteland, but that these changes were enforced by some type of intellectual fiat promulgated by the mass media and popular culture, absent which America would revert to its happy, bucolic identity of the 1950s."
Part 2:
"I too was guilty of this willful denial of unpleasant facts...
"So, you may ask, what was I thinking? When one knowingly holds two contradictory ideas and accepts them both -- as I did, by hating "the 60s" while accepting almost every value they had engendered -- one can legitimately be considered neurotic. I would go further and suggest that for me and many others, contemporary conservatism is a pathology, an intellectual cover for certain mentally unhealthy defense mechanisms and rationalizations. Exhibited by many mainstream conservative figures and mimicked by their followers, some of these behaviors are characteristic of "true believers" of any persuasion (they were certainly features of Marxism at the time it held intellectual sway, and helped lead to its demise)..."
Postscript:
Once I got married, I didn't see much of Adam any more. We spoke on the phone a few times, but he was off to find what he truly believed. Years passed. I hadn't heard from him, so I looked him up online. And there was a long, introspective piece by Adam in, of all places, Mother Jones. I read it twice, just to make sure this was the same Adam Lieberman I once knew. But it was him, and his ruminations appeared genuine. This inspired me to look him up, but I soon discovered that Adam died right after the MoJo piece appeared. He couldn't have been more than 30, and like that, he was gone."
via This Modern World.
.
