Doubting culture wars

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DOUBTING CULTURE WARS Jonathan B. Imber m o n g intellectuals, journalists, and politicians, the t h e m e of"culture wars" has b e c o m e symbolic of titanic struggles within and a m o n g major institutions. W h e n James Davison Hunter published his widely cited book, Culture Wars: The Struggle to D e f i n e A m e r i c a a decade ago, it was hardly difficult to identify the p r o b l e m of the excluded middle in his provocative thesis about the struggle b e t w e e n the "progressives" and the "orthodox" over then many politically volatile issues. Yet the major incentive for pursuing further empirical research about this volatility was due to his c o n c e p t u a l boldness and the originality of his thesis, w h i c h Rhys H.Williams and his collaborators examined in Culture Wars i n A m e r i c a n Politics: Critical R e v i e w s o f a P o p u l a r M y t h in 1997. Hunter's important work was, in the spirit of open inquiry, criticized, and as Williams n o t e d in his introduction to Culture Wars in A m e r i c a n Politics, the range of response to Hunter's general thesis had already resulted in various attempts to explain these struggles in o t h e r terms. For example, traditionalists were said to be at odds with "new class" knowledge workers; egotism was said to be d r o w n i n g out all expressions of altruism, indicating the underlying impetus for such works as B o w l i n g A l o n e by Robert Putnam; and identity politics, particularly sexual and racial, were fragmenting the older and presumably more united left-wing coalitions. Hunter's thesis, deriving in large part from his earlier and innovative work on religion in American life, was criticized for giving t o o m u c h cred e n c e to m e d i a a t t e n t i o n of elites a n d n o t e n o u g h to the larger s o u r c e s of c o n s e n s u s already e s t a b l i s h e d in the m o d e r n welfare state a m o n g the mass of citizens. The o n c e highly charged debate over abortion illustrates the elite k u l t u r k a m p f , while public opinion has remained

largely o p p o s e d to it but also largely o p e n to exceptions. And it is important to recognize that murdering physicians w h o perform abortions cannot be debated with disinterest. That is to say, whatever the motivation or rationale for such vigilantism may be, arguments against abortion may not, w i t h o u t losing their moral force a m o n g a broader public, appeal to any means possible for stopping it. Still, o p p o s i t i o n to and s u p p o r t for abortion rights can be civil. The slander against abortion o p p o n e n t s by calling t h e m complicit in the m u r d e r of physicians is no more persuasive than trading on the Holocaust to c o n d e m n abortion itself. Indeed, the willingness to disagree civilly while seeking ways to persuade, short of violence, is part of what the present consensus about abortion means. The pursuit of consensus in the social sciences is important to revisit regularly in what appears n o w to be a w a n i n g of the larger and more publicized cultural struggles that Hunter and others identified. Even the u r g e n c y about "political correctness" has dissipated, but it should not be assumed that with a decline in s y m p t o m s that certain underlying problems do not exist related to cultural struggle. W h e t h e r we bowl alone or just get along better because w e bowl alone only provides a surface description of personal and public b o u n d a r i e s a b o u t o u r lives together. Our present optimists of ameliorative practices of"live and let live" may have to consider a modified version of Ambrose Bierce's definition of p e a c e : " I n international affairs, a period of cheating b e t w e e n two periods of fighting." In a time of r e d u c e d cultural struggle, conflicting worldviews appear like ships passing in the night, but only because we say so. I will lay out a brief argument about two ways to think about culture sociologically in an effort

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to define the enduring nature of cultural struggle b e y o n d the present optimism about moral pluralism. The first way is taken from my long-standing i.nterest in t h e w r i t i n g s o f Philip Rieff w h o s e d e v e l o p m e n t and analysis of the idea of c u l t u r e has d e e p l y e n r i c h e d s u b s e q u e n t debates a b o u t the idea of c u l t u r e c o n f l i c t . In 1968, Rieff p u b l i s h e d an essay e n t i t l e d " C o o l e y and Culture," using the o c c a s i o n of c e l e b r a t i n g the life and w o r k of Charles H o r t o n C o o l e y to f o r m u l a t e a r u d i m e n t a r y distinction in a t h e o r y o f culture. He wrote,"Every culture system organizes the tension of t w o types of thought-worlds, one type technological and the o t h e r religious. There are two ways to m e n d a canoe, to k e e p it afloat, r e n d e r i n g e x i s t e n c e on the w a t e r b o t h p o s s i b l e a n d o r d i n a r y ; all this is a p a r t o f technology. There must also be ways to ' m e n d ' w h a t is directly n o t yet m e n d a b l e - - d e a t h , for e x a m p l e . To do so is o b v i o u s l y the task of religion." Rieff p r o p o s e d to call e v e r y t h i n g that tails within some technological t h o u g h t - w o r l d , " m i n i mal culture" and e v e r y t h i n g that falls w i t h i n s o m e r e l i g i o u s t h o u g h t - w o r l d " m a x i m a l culture". He a t t r i b u t e d to the ideas of Auguste C o m t e and H e r b e r t Spencer, a m o n g o t h e r s , the a d v o c a c y of an i n c r e a s i n g l y p o w e r f u l and influential minimal c u l t u r e , leading to his observ a t i o n that "Our civilization is rapidly p r o d u c i n g w h a t is in e f f e c t a c u l t u r a l l u m p e n p r o l e t a r i a t of u n s o p h i s t i c a t e d t h e r a p e u t i c types, intensely d e m a n d i n g beneficiaries of the s h e e r p l e n i t u d e , material and otherwise, promised by the folklore, the popular thought-world of technology." At the same time, t h e s e same t h e o r i s t s a c k n o w l e d g e d w h a t Emile D u r k h e i m and o t h e r s r e g a r d e d as the social f u n c t i o n s of religion, w h i c h c o u l d be identified and a p p l i e d strategically to the m a i n t e n a n c e of social order. Rieff r e m a r k e d , "Maximal c u l t u r e has finally b e c o m e w h a t s o m e s o c i o l o g i c a l t h e o r i s t s in the n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y c o n c e i v e d it to be: a means for the maintenance of social order, not the level from w h i c h that order can be judged and reordered." And he concluded, in 1968, with the following observation on the fate of maximal culture: "In the c u l t u r e of the t h e r a p e u t i c , inherited criteria of g o o d and bad, right and wrong, are dissolved into the n e w criteria of well and ill, i n t e r e s t i n g and u n i n t e r e s t i n g ; t h e r e is psyc h o l o g y w h e r e t h e r e used to be religion, morality, and custom."

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The Cognitive Right and Left The distinction b e t w e e n minimal and maximal culture holds to the present m o m e n t , p e r h a p s more so than in 1968, before all politics b e c a m e local and before utopian ambition defined by existential choice became personal ambition defined by career path. Within the realm of minimal culture, the explanatory p o w e r s of h o w things work grind on, turning the human genome, for example, into a fantastic and ongoing press release, unrelenting in its reshaping of e x p e c t a t i o n s a b o u t h u m a n destiny. Such insights make little use of unwieldy claims from maximal culture about such destiny, there being no "meaning to it all" necessary to understand genetic fate. Culture, in the maximal sense, is thus e p i p h e n o m e n a l to explanations of h u m a n motivation, action, and, finally, social order. At the other end of the c o n t i n u u m are those w h o c o n s i d e r a functional, maximal culture the reigning explanatory model in all that is human. The aims of minimal and maximal culture are informed by explanatory p o w e r s that I will call the cognitive right and the cognitive left. I mean to use these terms heuristically, as a way of discovering more about culture conflict, and my aim is to delineate two broad tendencies in h o w those politically inclined to the left or the right think about general causation on many matters, though, certainly not all the same way on all matters. The cognitive right examines a p r e s u m e d range of controls on h u m a n action that are d e t e r m i n e d by biological and thus evolutionary features that are said to be c o m m o n in some ways to all living things. In Rieff's terms, the cognitive right, insofar as it directs the p o p u l a r understanding of human action, represents the triumph of minimal culture. At the same time, broader explanations of h u m a n behavior (e.g., g r o u p behavior) that move f r o m " h o w " to"why"illuminate a functional, maximal culture. For many reasons, some like to refer to evolutionary explanations as having little or nothing to do with h u m a n culture at all, but the hostility, as w e will see, is largely to certain types of religious explanation, that is, a maximal culture, of the critical as distinct from functional kind. On the o t h e r hand, the cognitive left upholds what Durkheim t e r m e d the ineffable suigeneris, that is, that aspect of the social w h i c h acts u p o n the social and w h i c h is said to be greater than the sum of its parts. For many reasons, some like to refer to this as having much, if not everything,

to d o w i t h c u l t u r e , a n d t h e y m e a n it in b o t h t h e functional and critical, maximal senses. Minimal c u l t u r e , f r o m t h e c o g n i t i v e left, is w h a t c a p i t a l ism is c o n c e i v e d to b e , t h a t is t h e m i n d l e s s p u r suit o f m o r e w i t h o u t m a x i m a l r e a s o n s for w h y m o r e is b e t t e r , e x c e p t for t h o s e w h o h a v e m o r e . T h e c o g n i t i v e left d r a w s its e n e r g y f r o m a p o w e r ful e n v y t h a t it w o u l d e l i m i n a t e , w h i l e t h e c o g n i tive r i g h t s e e s t h a t e n v y as c o n s t i t u t i v e o f a n d c o n s t r u c t i v e to s o c i a l o r d e r itself. It is n o w a w e l l - w o r n fact o f o u r a c a d e m i c silliness that the staid, demographic categories of class, race, a n d s e x s e r v e as i d e o l o g i c a l h a m m e r s a n d nails in t h e p e r i o d i c c r u c i f i x i o n s o f d i s s e n t e r s f r o m t h e p i e t i e s o f t h e a l l e g e d l y h o r r i b l e realities o f class i n e q u a l i t y , r a c i s m , a n d s e x i s m . I n e e d n o t d e n y t h e e x i s t e n c e o f s u c h r e a l i t i e s to r e m a i n at least s k e p t i c a l a b o u t w h a t c a n b e gene r a l i z e d f r o m t h e i r e m p i r i c a l r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s . An exemplary, paranoid generalization that admits n o t h i n g in t h e w a y o f e m p i r i c a l s k e p t i c i s m c a n b e f o u n d in D o n a l d M. L o w e ' s The Body in LateCapitalist USA, p u b l i s h e d b y t h e m o s t a d v a n c e d c o g n i t i v e left p u b l i s h e r in t h e w o r l d , l ) u k e Univ e r s i t y Press: " R a c i s m is n o t a s i n g l e , d i s c r e t e , i s o l a t a b l e i t e m , n o r is it t h e r e s u l t o f a c o n s p i r a c y . It is a l w a y s , a l r e a d y p r e s e n t e v e r y w h e r e in t h e Social." ( 1 9 9 5 : 1 1 1 ) . T h e s t y l i s t s o f s u c h p r o n o u n c e m e n t s a d d t h e f u r t h e r s i g h t - g a g o f capit a l i z i n g t h e "s" in social, so as to g i v e it t h a t sui generis ineffability already mentioned. The p h r a s e , "always, a l r e a d y p r e s e n t e v e r y w h e r e , " is also a p i e t y o f a n t i - p o s i t i v i s m . T h e e f f a c e m e n t o f t h e p a r t i c u l a r p r e c l u d e s any c o n s e n s u s a b o u t w h a t c o u n t s as e v i d e n c e , m u c h less w h a t tk)llows f r o m it. T h e r e is c o n s i d e r a b l e s e e p a g e o f this k i n d of piety into the kangaroo courts that have been h e l d in m a n y c o l l e g e s a n d u n i v e r s i t i e s o v e r t h e last t w o d e c a d e s . T h i s wits i l l u s t r a t e d in R i c h a r d B e r n s t e i n ' s i m p o r t a n t 1994 b o o k , Dictatorship o f

Virtue." M u l t i c u l t u r a l i s m a n d the Battle f o r America's Future. T h e s o c i o l o g i s t J o a n M o o r e w r o t e in 1990 t h a t "Any a c a d e m i c w h o is n o t w h i t e , male, a n d m i d d l e a g e d k n o w s t h a t t h e m o m e n t h e o r s h e s t a n d s in f r o n t o f a class, a p o r t i o n o f t h e class e x p e c t s s o m e t h i n g t h a t will i l l u m i n a t e t h e i r p l a c e in t h e s o c i a l s t r u c t u r e . This is a c o n s t i t u e n c y . It is n o t a p u b l i c . T h e w o m a n o r m i n o r i t y s o c i o l o g i s t feels i n s t a n t p r e s s u r e to act as a s o c i a l c r i t i c .... I cann o t say this s t r o n g l y e n o u g h . It is n o t p o s s i b l e fbr a w o m a n o r m i n o r i t y s o c i o l o g i s t to w a l k i n t o it c l a s s r o o m in m o d e r n A m e r i c a a n d n o t face in-

stantly and squarely the twin issues of equality and poverty, which I submit, cover many of the issues t h a t p u b l i c i n t e l l e c t u a l s p u r p o r t to a d d r e s s " (229). S u c h p h r a s e s as " i n s t a n t p r e s s u r e " "face i n s t a n t l y a n d s q u a r e l y " s p e a k to a d e c i d e d loss o f d i s i n t e r e s t in t h e p u r p o s e s o f t e a c h i n g a n d learning. Yet, t h e r e is s o m e t h i n g p o i g n a n t a b o u t this, a b o u t t h e sui generis r e a l i t y o f o n e ' s racial, ethnic, o r s e x u a l s t a t u s in r e l a t i o n to o n e ' s m o t i v e s and actions and others' expectations about them. T h e s e t w o e x a m p l e s m a y b e t a k e n as s i m p l e illustrations of the vagaries of political correctness. T h e p r o b l e m w i t h p o l i t i c a l c o r r e c t n e s s its an a n a l y t i c a l i d e a is t h a t t h o s e w h o c o n d e m n it use it m o r e for a c c u s a t o r y a n d a d v e r s a r i a l purp o s e s r a t h e r t h a n to c l a r i f y w h a t is g o i n g on. Social s c i e n t i s t s s h o u l d b e t h i n k i n g m o r e a b o u t a n d e x a m i n i n g t h e o r e t i c a l l y a n d e m p i r i c a l l y w h a t is g o i n g on. L o w e a n d M o o r e a r e p o s t e r p e o p l e o f t h e c o g n i t i v e left. T h e y lay s p e c i a l c l a i m o n t h e essential nature of their own cultural determinations. T h e c o g n i t i v e - l e f t a n a l y s i s s t i p u l a t e s t h e a s c r i b e d s t a t u s o f s u c h t h i n g s as r a c e a n d sex, b u t t h e s e are n o t b i o l o g i c a l c a t e g o r i e s in t h e o l d e r s o c i o l o g i c a l r e n d e r i n g s o f a s c r i b e d status. T h e y are i n s t e a d first and f o r e m o s t e x p e r i e n t i a l c a t e g o ries o f identity. W h a t is m o r e , if y o u h a v e n o t h a d t h e e x p e r i e n c e t h a t M o o r e d e s c r i b e s , y o u are n o t y e t fully a w a k e . In this way, t h e i d e a o f false cons c i o u s n c s s r e t u r n s n o t as an i n s t r u m e n t to chall e n g e t h e " w h i t e , m a l e a n d m i d d l e - a g e d " self-conc e p t (that, a p p a r e n t l y , is a h o p e l e s s e n d e a w ) r ) b u t r a t h e r to r e - e d u c a t e , at b e s t , t h o s e w h o s e s t a t u s is d e s i g n a t e d as o p p r e s s e d . Marx c o n t e n d e d t h a t t h e p r o l e t a r i a t w a s a l r e a d y c o n v e r t e d to b e rew)l u t i o n a r y b y v i r t u e o f its s t a t i o n a n d that t h e b o u r g e o i s i e c o u l d n o t b e b e c a u s e class c o n s c i o u s n e s s d e f i n e d i d e n t i t y as w e l l as a c t i o n . M a r x ' s a l l e g e d d e t e r m i n i s m d i d p r o v i d e t h e g e n e r a t i o n a l trapdoor that would allow the children of the hourg e o i s i e to b e c o m e r e w ) l u t i o n a r y in s o m e m a n n e r . Yet c o g n i t i v e - l e f t s e n t i m e n t a l i s t s o f c u l t u r a l essentialism d o n o t t a k e it for g r a n t e d t h a t t h o s e w h o b e l o n g in t h e i r t h o u g h t - w o r l d , b y a s c r i b e d status, have been converted. Cultural essentialism imposes on each particular self a g r o u p c o n s c i o u s n e s s t h a t is always, alr e a d y p r e s e n t e v e r y w h e r e . It is a fi)rm o f d e t e r m i n i s m so p o w e r f u l t o d a y t h a t it s e e m s l i k e l y w e will h a v e to w a i t for s o m e t i m e b e f o r e its l o g i c a l inconsistencies are recognized and popularized. T h e p r i n c i p a l i n c o n s i s t e n c y is free will, s o m e t h i n g t h a t e v e n M a r x a l l o w e d in his l i m i t e d c h o i c e o f

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types of consciousness. Social orders in w h i c h free will has been deeply suppressed are not unk n o w n , but we have been a c c u s t o m e d since the rise of totalitarianism to assume that these suppressions are political and that they require a police state to maintain. What would it mean to say they are also cultural, as Orwell u n d e r s t o o d w h e n he n o t e d the political effectiveness of manipulating the meaning of words? The political totalitarian had all the means of power, including violence, at his disposal. The cultural totalitarian operates from the experience of frustration at the status quo, taking the struggle directly to the schools and the media. The p r o d u c e r s of p o p u l a r culture rail against the regulators of culture, with the First A m e n d m e n t serving as the fig leaf to an o t h e r w i s e n a k e d a m b i t i o n to smash w h a t are taken to be the false idols of maximal culture: religion, morality, and custom. The problem with smashing idols is that they must be replaced with some way of explaining w h y the world is the way it is. It is this replacement w h i c h is struggling to be born. That is to say, the process by w h i c h cultural authority establishes itself is n e v e r set once and for all, but the shifting contents or directives that define what is or is not permitted are c o m m u n i c a t e d effectively or not. The reason so m u c h attention has been paid to all forms of public media and popular culture is that it is there w h e r e the debate about effective communication is most controversial and perhaps irresolvable. One of the virtues of the cognitive left is its wholesale e n d o r s e m e n t of strategies and programs that inevitably keep the wheels of c o m m e r c e t u r n i n g - - t h e r e are literally h u n d r e d s of associations, professional and therapeutic, w h o s e raison d'etre is to tinker with nearly everything but c o m m o n sense. Often those w h o act out most capriciously or least attract i v e l y - w h o claim to be leaders --find themselves more often than not hanging out on various limbs, casting blame at everything and everyone for their failure of being noticed and rewarded. Imagining themselves as charismatic, they are in fact paranoid, as Philip Rieff defined the pathological side of charisma. This p a t h o l o g y advanced by illiterate and politically naive leaders in higher education and the media has reaped what it has sown, so m u c h so that students and media audiences have b e g u n to catch on to the scam, leading protest after protest about their littlest problems and testifying endlessly about h o w they have been cheated, abused, and generally u n a p p r e c i a t e d .

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Cognitive-left thinking, w h i c h forbids the blaming of the victim, opens u p o n a landscape of frenetic positioning for position, each according to his need. At the o t h e r end of the continuum, the cognitive right occupies a much smaller, but much more controversial, place in academic and public life. Evolutionary psychology, formerly sociobiology, has developed a larger public reputation, partly off-setting the m o m e n t u m of endless grievance that has c o m e to define so much of the cognitive left. Blaming the victim is cleverly avoided by attributing the cause of currently defined "problems" not to cultural or historical circumstances, usually no more than a few generations in duration, but to the longer frame of"species-time." A particularly controversial example of this kind of thinking, arose with the publication last year of A

Natural History of Rape: Biological Bases of Sexual Coercion by Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer. Reviewed in The New Republic, the b o o k was strongly criticized for the absence of any mention of culture in the kinds of generalization that c o n c l u d e that w o m e n ' s post-rape trauma is an adaptive function that enables them to c o p e with their loss of control of their o w n evolved ability to c h o o s e the best mate or to retain the trust of their present mate, or that rape increases reproduction, giving the most aggressive males the chance to continue their line. The reviewer, JerryA. Coyne, w h o teaches in the D e p a r t m e n t of Ecology and Evolution at the University Chicago, a r g u e d against the c o h e r e n c e of such claims rather than appealing to audience sensitivity. On culture, Coyne predicted:"Flies and ducks do not create, and live in, a culture, as humans do; and human culture guarantees that there will be many meaningless parallels b e t w e e n the behavior of humans and of other species" (p. 30,April 3, 2000). What Coyne apparently w a n t e d to establish was that the parallels drawn b e t w e e n the way animals and humans behave can be of only limited use in understanding the pervasive nature of h u m a n culture itself. There is something to be said for this insofar as it is a statement about causality, w h e t h e r we generalize from saccharin in mice or genes in ducks. But it is possible that Coyne shares much in c o m m o n with his renegade colleagues over this idea about the function of culture, seeing h o w m u c h it represents a kind of repository of infinite meanings, some linked to biological understanding but most not. To have to deny that flies and ducks do not create and

live in a culture as h u m a n s do could be taken as evidence that biologists, and n o w their counterparts in e v o l u t i o n a r y psychology, assume that h u m a n culture is mostly meaningless so far as scientific generalization goes. Whereas the cognitive left has made subjectivity an abyss, the cognitive right does everything it can to eliminate w h a t in effect is the bias of consciousness and its creations, those aspects of h u m a n existence that are often remarked as most unique to it. Some call this reductionism. It is also a fundamental attribute of the cognitive right. Reductionism is a way of defining the origins of more d e t e r m i n a t i v e f o r c e s in w h a t m o t i v a t e s and thereby guides h u m a n beings. The old instinct theorists along with Freud should all be assigned to the cognitive right. From this end of the continuum, culture may be present, but it is not omnipresent and certainly not sui generis. The ant h r o p o l o g y of Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict, w h i c h b r o u g h t the recognition of cultural differences to several generations of social science, stood tenuously on the borderline b e t w e e n the cognitive left and right. The clearer e m e r g e n c e of w h a t came to be called "cultural relativism" acquired political uses far b e y o n d the distinctive a n t h r o p o l o g i c a l insights a b o u t the "relatively" a u t o n o m o u s and indigenous dynamics of societies that had yet to be transformed by contact. "Contact" n o w remains only a p p r o p r i a t e with h u m a n s meeting aliens, that is, literally off-earth life forms that possess intelligence, gentle or destructive, d e p e n d i n g on w h e t h e r one enjoys the upside of the end of scarcity or the d o w n s i d e of our b e c o m i n g the staple of s o m e o n e else's diet. The fate of cultural relativism is something akin to fission, where, finally, each individual is culturally relative to every o t h e r individual, forbidding biological explanations for personality disorder at precisely the same time that medication for depression is most endemic. "The Darwinization of Everything" The cognitive right maintains a certain and useful indifference to individual o u t c o m e . But lately the entire reasoning behind group o u t c o m e has also c o m e u n d e r intense scrutiny. The admixture of identity politics and individual grievance has p r o d u c e d two versions of response to h o w and w h y p e o p l e end up w h e r e they do. From the cognitive left, a strong alliance of identity with the group has inspired all egalitarian demands about future o u t c o m e , while from the cognitive

right, an equally strong alliance of identity with the group has been used to justify present conditions. It is no coincidence, in this regard, that it is n o w nearly impossible to talk about h u m a n nature on the cognitive left, a subject of considerable social-scientific investigation historically, because it tends to p r o d u c e status quo assessments of conflict (e.g., the inevitability of war) and c o o p e r a t i o n (e.g., rational choice). At the same time, the psychometricians, with their battery of comparative assessments, conceal a deep admiration for the status quo while disclaiming pretensions to influence public policy. On the cognitive right, a principal formulator of evolutionary p s y c h o l o g y and sociobiology, E.O. Wilson, has felt the full gale of reactions to such ideas over the years. Jerry Coyne in the previously referred to review in The N e w Republic claims that the larger goal of such works on rape is "the engulfment of social science and social policy by the great whale of evolutionary psychology." He goes on,"This attempted takeover is not new. It was first suggested in 1978 in E.O.Wilson's On H u m a n Nature, and m o r e r e c e n t l y in his Consilience, Wilson e x t e n d e d the p r o g r a m to nearly every area of h u m a n thought, including aesthetics and ethics. We are witnessing a new campaign for the Darwinization of Everything" (p. 33). The D a r w i n i z a t i o n of Everything r e s o n a t e s with "Racism is always, already p r e s e n t everyw h e r e in the Social." The progress of original sin may very well be its bifurcation into two m o d e s of explanation at a time w h e n maximal culture exclusively achieves functional, if not critical, purposes. In criticizing E.O. Wilson's effort to resolve this bifurcation in explanatory powers, Coyne directs us to c o n s i d e r Wilson's strategy more specifically. The w o r d consilience was coined in 1840 by the English natural philosopher, William Whewell, (1794-1866). Whewell was a c o n t e m p o r a r y of far b e t t e r r e m e m b e r e d figures today, such as T.H. Huxley, John Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, and Michael Farraday. Consilience is defined a s " c o n c u r r e n c e or a c c o r d a n c e in inferential results." In o t h e r words, generalizations from different disciplines and fields are found to be related from widely differing inductions. All particulars lead to the same whole. There is a long philosophical tradition that has examined this, from Aristotle, to Francis Bacon, to John Stuart Mill. What is important to keep in mind is that Wilson is a consummate inductivist.

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In 1867, Edward Livingston Youmans edited a book, The Culture D e m a n d e d by Modern Life, in w h i c h WhewelI, along with his c o n t e m p o r a r i e s just m e n t i o n e d c o n t r i b u t e d essays. W h e w e l l ' s p o s t h u m o u s contribution, entitled "On the Influence of the History of Science u p o n Intellectual Education," in title alone, acknowledged that there were then, as remains the case today, two types of education: one from b e l o w and the other from above. The one from below, the school of hard knocks, is not u n k n o w n to Wilson w h o s e many biographical s o u n d bites, include mention of his fabulous climb up the intellectual and status ladders of American life, toward inclusion in that rarest and most publicly self-conscious of pantheons of highest education, Harvard University. But w h e n it c o m e s to academic success, the survival of the fittest does not entirely explain w h e r e we hungry souls end up in life. Other forces that have been personified along with nature, such as good and bad luck, agreeable and disagreeable character, helpful and unhelpful mentors, go some distance in providing answers of sorts, too. In Wilson's a c c o u n t of his Southern Baptist upbringing in Alabama, "laid backward under the w a t e r on the sturdy arm of a pastor," the religious impulse itself is recreated in the image of Science, w h i c h b e c o m e s for the evolutionist "religion liberated and writ large" (p. 6). Like Freud and Durkheim,Wilson has found a "purpose" for religion, w h i c h is not the same as finding a p u r p o s e in life and measuring oneself against it. Unlike Freud,Wilson preaches a kinder and gentler end to h u m a n uncertainty and anxiety, something that the sociologist Howard Kaye has remarked u p o n in decisive ways over the past fifteen years. Wilson leaves the old fundamentalists, those inheritors of critical, maximal culture, standing more or less helplessly all along their watchtowers. In their place, from his ivory tower, he appears to find alliances with the post-religious fundamentalists w h o are environmentalists, postmodernists, feminists, and others w h o inhabit a disproportionate quantity of guilt-tripping space in higher education today. (Wilson's efforts to c u r r y favor a m o n g the avant garde of intellectual trendiness are w o r t h comparing to a similar effort made more than a decade ago by StephenToulmin in his work

Cosmopolis. ) Education from above n o w dictates the virtues of"spirituality" over and against"religiosity"in the elite academy, and for good reason: no inspired religious leadership has led the most prestigious

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schools for several generations, but the adolescent biological reality of w h o regularly inhabits the schools in the greatest numbers has remained virtually u n c h a n g e d for two thousand years. Like Wilson's epiphany about evolution, w h i c h arrived during adolescence, so the epiphanies of legions of student generations have been about doubting everything and about revolting against nearly everything, but only up to a point. Because he takes evolution as his guide, Wilson joins forces with all those w h o enjoy the excitement of change. The only p r o b l e m with his particular excitement is that as a relative naff w h o exploded u p o n the world with his (then) incendiary accounts of sociobiology, he was traumatized (I do not think this is too strong a term) by the reaction, especially among some of the more politically hostile social scientists, w h o interpreted his efforts only politically. They did not want to argue with him,they wanted to shut his thought-world down, and still w o u l d if they could. And to this extent, they are not alone on their side, seeing h o w recent accounts about evolutionary psychology in conservative periodicals such as Commentary and The Weekly Standard have voiced strong reservations about this worldview as well. The broaching of sociobiology in the 1970s b e c a m e a p u b l i c relations disaster, leading to Wilson's ostracism in certain circles. He joined the National Association of Scholars. Everything about the b o o k Consilience (including the title itself w h i c h probably denotes"conciliation" in the minds of many w h o will not look it up in an unabridged dictionary) speaks to his u n c o n s c i o u s h o p e to be r e d e e m e d precisely in the minds of those w h o s e cognitive-left suspicions cast doubts about his ultimate "intentions". He is t o u g h on postmodernism, but it is the cliche version of that idea. If it were only a matter of intentions, one could state them, like an oath, and be done with the suspicions. But suspicions run more deeply than that, because what we d o u b t in others is as m u c h a matter of w h a t they think as with w h o m they associate. The sociologist, for example, w h o takes up the subject of sociobiology, is a pariah a m o n g the vast majority of his colleagues. The biologist w h o takes up the same subject is doing her job, although, making behavioral observations that are s u p p o s e d to substitute f o r sociology is still mostly b e y o n d the pale. Yet the cognitive right is on its way to establishing more than a b e a c h h e a d in the battle with cultural essentialists. It is altogether a different

k i n d o f c u l t u r e war, n o t o n e t h a t e n g a g e s t h e religious against the post-religious, and not one that is d e a d e n e d b y t h e legal d o p i n g o f m i l l i o n s o f people whose therapeutic thought-world controls all b u t t h e i r s u i c i d a l t e n d e n c i e s . R a t h e r t h e cult u r e w a r in a c a d e m i c p r e c i n c t s e s p e c i a l l y c o n c e r n s t h e fate o f g e n e r a l i z a t i o n a b o u t t h e m e a n ing o f c u l t u r e itself. If w e a d o p t t h e t h o u g h t - w o r l d o f t h e c o g n i t i v e left, w e give u p a g r e a t d e a l in o u r effort to u n d e r s t a n d t h e failure o f social p o l i c y w h i c h has b e e n g u i d e d b y i d e o l o g i c a l i l l u s i o n s o f e q u a l i t y t h a t n o a d v a n c e in p r o s p e r i t y will e v e r a c h i e v e . O n t h e o t h e r h a n d , if w e a d o p t t h e t h o u g h t - w o r l d o f t h e c o g n i t i v e right, w e a d m i t c e r t a i n i n e v i t a b i l i t i e s t h a t m a k e us m o s t l y c o n c e r n e d w i t h t h e i n c i d e n c e o f s u c h failure r a t h e r t h a n w i t h w h a t it m e a n s to live largely indiffere n t to s o m e a c c e p t a b l e a n d e x p e c t e d level o f it. The cognitive right attracts the specialists witho u t s p i r i t a n d t h e c o g n i t i v e left a t t r a c t s t h e sensualists w i t h o u t h e a r t . M a x i m a l c u l t u r e , w h i c h is s u p p o s e d to a t t e n d to t h a t w h i c h c a n n o t b e f i x e d b y h u m a n i n t e r v e n t i o n a l o n e - - d e a t h , f o r e x a m p l e - - c o n t a i n s ele m e n t s o f b o t h t h e c o g n i t i v e left a n d c o g n i t i v e right. O n t h e left are u t o p i a n s t r a t e g i e s , o n t h e r i g h t a d a p t i v e o n e s . T h o s e w h o live for t h e l o n g t e r m b e h a v e d i f f e r e n t l y t h a n t h o s e w h o d o not, o r so w e are t o l d b y t h e l e g i o n s o f p u b l i c h e a l t h e x p e r t s w h o d e r i v e s u c h w i s d o m f r o m w h a t has rapidly become a medicalized view of right and w r o n g . T h e c o g n i t i v e left has a p p r o p r i a t e d m u c h of the vernacular of a functional, maximal culture, d i c t a t i n g c o n t i n u o u s m e m o r a n d a o n t h e rightful a n d w r o n g f u l w a y s o f living a l o n g , if n o t w h a t u s e d to b e c a l l e d a g o o d , life. T h e g a p b e t w e e n g e n e a n d b e h a v i o r is n o longer a theoretical imponderable, only a technical c h a l l e n g e to t h o s e w h o s u b s c r i b e to t h e ascendancy of ambition of the cognitive right. The

c o g n i t i v e r i g h t ' s v e r s i o n o f r e v e l a t i o n , r e a d scientifically as " b r e a k t h r o u g h , " h e r a l d s t h e t r i u m p h o f a minimal culture with only a functional, maximal c u l t u r a l m o d e o f e x p l a n a t i o n u p o n w h i c h to rely. T h e g r a d u a l a n d f a t e f u l d i s a p p e a r a n c e o f w h a t Rieff d e s c r i b e d as a m a x i m a l c u l t u r e " f r o m which order can be judged and reordered" rather t h a n m a i n t a i n e d , m a n i p u l a t e d , a n d m a n a g e d , is difficult to p i n p o i n t b e c a u s e j u d g m e n t is w h a t w e n o w s e e k for o u r g r i e v a n c e s r a t h e r t h a n for o u r o w n g o o d . T h e c o g n i t i v e left o n c e d e f e n d e d t h e c u g e n i c s o f p o l i t i c a l m u r d e r in t h e e r a o f political t o t a l i t a r i a n i s m . In o u r era o f c o m p e t i n g , cultural, totalistic t h o u g h t - w o r l d s , t h e c o n s e n s u s may very well b e that p r e s s u r e f r o m b o t h sides o f t h e c o g n i t i v e d i v i d e will r e m a i n w i t h us as t h e c o s t o f e n l i g h t e n m e n t in a w o r l d w h e r e moral j u d g m e n t is at b e s t e x p e d i e n t and at w o r s t absent. D o u b t i n g c u l t u r e wars, e v e n as t h e y m a y r e c e d e from m e d i a attention, will o n l y lessen t h e s c r u t i n y o f t h e w a y s in w h i c h moral sensibility c o n t i n u e s to change.

SUGGESTED FURTHER READINGS Kaye, Howard L., The Social Meaning ,).[Modern Biology. New Brunswick, NJ:Transaction Publishers, 1996. Moorc,Joan,"Social Criticism and Sociological Elitism," in Sociology in America. Ed. Herbert J. Gans. N e w b u r y Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1990, pp. 227-230. Rieff, Philip, The Feeling Intellect.'Selected Writings of Philip Rieff Edited w i t h an I n t r o d u c t i o n by Jonathan B. Imber. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Jonathan B. briber is editor-in-chief of Society and Class of 1949 professor in ethics and professor of sociology at Wellesley College.

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