RE WHY DEMOCRACY IS IN TROUBLE--ANOTHER INTERPRETATION VIII

Here is another account of why democracy is in trouble.....

This is an old passage, from DK, highlighting why democracy is in trouble. The malady he describes, in academia, was not caused by the Vietnam War, but rather by other various causes including the Vietnam War as one small component.

He sees that regarding all authority, in economic terms, as oppressive and corrupt, is a big problem, but he lauds the transition from economic analysis to race gender and sexual orientation, where he notes big gains for gays women and negroes.

"Sunday, January 02, 2011

A changing civilization?

...The second development, an intellectual one, is even more interesting: a loss of interest in history as it was understood from the eighteenth century until the last third of the twentieth. This began in the academy, in the midst of the Vietnam War, which taught a whole generation of young academics--my own--to regard authority as inevitably oppressive and corrupt, and to look for virtue and inspiration among the oppressed. Initially in the 1970s the oppressed were defined in economic terms, but in the next two decades race and gender became far more important categories. And interestingly enough, the academic focus on race, gender and sexuality as, it would seem, had important political consequences. Black and female Americans have gained enormously in power, and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, signals at long last the end of formal legal discrimination against gays in America. These are important achievements--but they have come at a gigantic price. The interest in those issues has led to a nearly total eclipse--really--of interest in the kind of great political struggles that I learned about, and wrote about, in college and graduate school. Virtually no one makes a career in history or political science any more by doing detailed research into politics and government...." DK