Ectitor^s CommeiitnOn the threshold of the 1980’s, we wish to make it clearnthat:n—the deepest sources of discord in America are not politicalnor economic, but ideological and cultural;n—the two main political parties are ideologically undefinable;ntheir differences are in sociopolitical postulates;n—the authentic and meaningful disagreement is betweennthose who call themselves conservatives and those whoncall themselves liberals.nX he conservative and liberal Weltanschauungs are timehonored,nrich and deeply embedded in cognitive and ethicalntraditions. The historical worth of their principles, the complexitynof their moral impulses, the wealth of their ideasnand the amplitude of their intellectual perspectives allow fornthe infinity of individual endeavors. They constitute primaryncomponents of the American civilization, its social realitynand political landscape.nWhat brings these disparate worldviews together is thenconstitutional republic engendered by our founding fathers,nwho were motivated by both conservative and liberal instincts.nThis republic became the home of a sturdy democracynand—for the next two centuries—an arena for conservativeliberalncontention.nEssentially, what distinguishes a conservative from a liberalnin today’s America is their respective notions of moralnand intellectual values, as well as the relation of those valuesnto existential change and the vision of a society. Consequently,nthe centrality of freedom, and its interaction with the conceptsnof progress, equality and justice, constitutes the substancenof mutual distrust.nWhatever liberalism meant in other times and places, itsnmodern American brand derives most of its epistemologynfrom Rousseau, a good deal of its social ethics from Marxiannphilosophy, and its personal morality from post-Freudiannpsychology. Such ideological inspirations loom—from a conservativenviewpoint—as a threat to America’s civilizationalnheritage and destiny. Even the deistic thinkers and secularnrationalists who stood at America’s cradle would have hadndifficulty recognizing their philosophical premises in thenliberal America of the 1960’s. hi that acme of Americannliberalism’s triumph and sway, student mobs which werenalready free to express whatever they wished demanded freedomnin the freest country and least coercive polity on earth.nIn the most successful capitalistic society in history, anticapitalismnbecame the biggest business and the easiest schemenfor acquiring inordinate riches. The American civilization,nwhich was founded on reason, has been debilitated in the verynsites of higher learning. A half-century of liberal indoctrina­nChronicles of Culturennntion of the intellectual elites and opinion-making industriesnhas borne a fruit whose poisonousness is obvious to anynunprejudiced mind. A respectable ideology has generatednan all-pervading cultural climate in which a far-from-respectablenculture flourishes.nBy a multitude of means and for a variety of reasons, liberalsnhave assumed a distinct hegemony over the Americannculture. For over 50 years they have dominated the popularnculture, the media, education on all levels. Whether it wasna conscious effort or a confluence of sociohistorical factorsnthat brought them to ascendancy is a subject of ongoingninquiry. The fact remains that the liberal governance of culturenhas been blatantly autocratic in its methods. Conservativenintellectual efforts, although alive and vigorous, arenunreflected in the mirror of the media. Conservative scholarshipnis unreported. Nonliberal thinkers and theorists arenunlisted in encyclopedias. Books with conservative or nonliberalnmessages are rejected by publishers. When publishednby provincial houses, these books pass unreviewed by thenpress. Unabashed tokenism has replaced cultural fairness.nThe once-liberal virtue of tolerant consideration has beennsupplanted by the strategy of extirpating the conservativenpresence from American intellectual life.nXet the conservative presence in culture is crucial tonthe fate of conservatism in America. Such presence is contingentnon an ideological offensive more than any other sociopoliticalneffort. American conservatism originates in thencommitment to the tenets of democracy, pluralism and thensocial contract which begot America, Thus, any attempt toninstill the proper perception of conservatism in Americannpublic opinion must begin with proclaiming the conservativendefense of:n—human dignity against the onslaught of valuelessnessnand false values;n—the idea of progress against utopianism;n—the common man’s ethos and the legitimacy of hisnspiritual and material aspirations;n—the man-woman balance of powers, the source of everyncivilization on this planet;n—the human soul against the assault of fashionable scientisticnsorceries;n—the fabric of life’s normalcy, without which the pursuitnof happiness is but an empty slogan;n—the middle-class way of life, often called the bourgeoisn