ern ideology: the Party. There can be noncompromise, and anyone who does notntoe the radical feminist line is the Enemy;nsuch “so-called feminism… cannot combatnantifeminism because it has incorporatednit.” Like Marx, Dworkin is not clearnabout what comes after the revolution,nwhich will apparently be brought aboutnby such conventional means as the EqualnRights T^mendment, changes in marriagenlaw, and enforcement of equal-pay laws.nThough women will be treated as beingnidentical to men, Dworkin gives no indicationnof how the male nature mightnchange. In the feminist Utopia men mustnremain rapists, the only difference beingnthat women will have political power andnlegal redress. It is a Hobbesian nightmarenworld, the war of all against all.nFeminism takes its toll on language.nDworkin persistently attempts to escapenthe reality of abortion by cloudingnthe issue with obfuscating language: shendoesn’t even speak of a “fetus,” only an”fertilized egg.” Yet within days of conceptionnsuch a term becomes meaningless.nMarriage is “rape” (because it “inevitably”ninvolves “forced sex”), and intercoursenis a “f [—].” The aggressionnsimmering beneath Dworkin’s prosenemerges even in the banal and pettynspelling of “Amerika,” the German {readnnazi) spelling held over from the 1960’s.nThe plight of women in the 20th centurynhas been hard. With the industrialnsociety came the nuclear family, and withnthe men away at work there came thenhousewife. Much of the modern crisis ofnsexual identity stems from the breakdownnof the distinction between thenpublic and the private, for in the extendednfemUy the private realm was packed withnmeaning. Modern women have callednthe empty home “hell,” only to find thenworking world “hell,” something theirnhusbands had been telling them aboutnall along. Ehvorkin resents the exclusionnof women from “history,” which involvesnpolitics, wars, books, committees. Butnhow much of what is true and good cannbe found in “history”? Conservatives likenBurke and Johnson have stressed thatnthe important things in life take placen*>’>inChronicles of Culturenbetween the front and back doors.nDworkin and other feminists writenwith a shudder about the violent sexualnaggression of men. Yet they would benhypocrites if they did not admit thatnmany women welcomed the shuckingnof sexual morality and the bonds of marriagenas readUy as did many men. Thenprime tenet of feminism, as Dworkinnnotes, is that everyone ought to “own”nhimself (except an unborn child); this isnmerely an extension of the modem cultnof the self, which denies any moral or socialnobligations from without. Feministsnwant to abandon morality and at the samentime be immune from evil, fronically,nthis “seliism” locks men and women intonan eternal struggle: men’s selves wantingnsex, and women’s selves not wantingnto be “possessed.” If Dworkin and herncomrades had real courage, they mightnsuspect that the answers to thefr predicamentnlie in the direction of the “discredited”nmorality and the battered institutionnof marriage to which the men andnwomen they so haughtily patronize stillncling.n1 he Left Academy is a collection ofnessays by Marxist scholars in the socialnsciences. Though the essays are intendednto be straightforward surveys of AmericannMarxist thought in each discipline,nthe volume has a distinctly celebratoryntone. According to the editors there arennow over 400 university courses onnnnMarxist philosophy and four Marxistinspirednpolitical science textbooks; beforen1970 there were none. Another indicationnof pervasive Marxist influencenis that two recent presidents of the Organizationnof American Historians—nWilliam A. Williams and EugenenGenovese—were Marxists. The scholarlynjournals, newsletters, caucuses, andnstudy groups are legion.nThe appeal of Marxism for intellectualsnstems from many sources, not all of whichnare unhealthy. The inroads made by positivismnand empiricism on modernnscholarship have led to the notion thatnknowledge should be “value-free,” ankind of pure “objectivity” that containsnno assumptions about God, man, and societynother than the strictly “scientific.”nBut the very idea of “value-free” sciencenpresupposes certain assumptions aboutnman’s capacity to know which are opposednto the classical and Christian philosophicalnsynthesis. The traditional educationalntheory which emphasized pietyntoward inherited wisdom and institutionsnwas replaced by a pseudo-objectivitynwhich many students have found drynand lifeless. Marxism offers a scholarlynapproach rooted in certain values—^albeitnwarped and irrational ones—^to whichnstudents can commit themselves. Marxismnbecomes an ethical imperativentainted by a will to power. “What isnneeded first,” say the contributors onnpsychology, “is not so much a better un-nLiterature in AmericanAn ad created by Simon & Schuster, mainstream publishers, andnprinted in tlic !’ew York Times Book Review announces a new worknby a degenerate and cynical hack (who, when he fills out forms, probablynputs writer in the space marked “Occupation”). The promo tellsnus tliat, among other things, the book includes:n… tlie crucifixion of a lilack de;if-mute boy; a beheaded priest; anothernpriest horribly mulilated in a District hospital.nIhe novel, we are informed, is a “Literary Guild Main Selection.”nLitcTiiry? In medieval Europe they at least had decency enough to callnit the Butchers’ Guild. Dn