Permissive Muddle & Egalitarian MuggingnPhilip Green: The Pursuit of Inequality;nPantheon Books; NewnYork.nMaxine Schnall: Limits: A Searchnfor New Values; Clarkson N. Potter;nNew York.nby John C. CaiazzanJ. he West no less than China underwentna cultural revolution in the 60’s,nonly ours took place not at the commandnof a central authority but as the resultnof the interaction of social forces andnindividual changes of attitude. Thenchanges in the West were generational,nthe younger people who grew up in then60’s and 70’s taking over from thosenwho had grown up in the post-WorldnWar II decade. The cultural revolutionntook place across a broad range of areasn—politics, law, religion, sexual moresnand the status of women—but the threadnthat ran through all the changes wasna demand that the world be made overninstantly into a Utopia where all inequitiesnwould be smoothed out and allnconstraints on the individual would benremoved. What was demanded, it is importantnto note, was not freedom to gonour own way independently of the lawnand social mores, but rather the activenconnivance of these agencies to makenour lives full and everybody’s statusnequal.nNow that that infantile rage hasnpassed, it is time to assess the damagenit left behind. In some cases, it is clear,nthe clock will be set back, in other casesnit is not clear whether the clock can benset back, though it might be desirable;nonly in some limited areas is it apparentnthat the revolution brought improvenment in people’s lives. Maxine Schnallnthinks that the changes in sexual moresnwrought by the revolution were longnDr. Caiazza is an administrator for thenUniversity of Massachusetts at Boston.noverdue but are now overdone, and shenhas written an overlong but occasionallyntrenchant critique of the new moralitynas it directly affects people’s lives.nShe is in favor of our placing limits onnourselves, but unfortunately she doesnnot say where these limits will comenfrom. Philip Green thinks that the politicalnaims of the revolution were goodnand has written a bad-tempered polemicnagains its critics, particularly thosenwho saw fit to attack affirmative ac­ntion and income redistribution. Likenthe Bourbons, he has forgotten nothingnand learned nothing.nWomen, supposedly the prime beneficiariesnof the new sexual freedom,nhave instead become the prime victimsnof the cultural revolution. Whatevernthe advantages of a career may be,nmarried women with careers now findnthat they must run their homes as wellnas do their jobs—which presents excessivendemands on their time, their energiesnand often their marriages. Singlenwomen with careers find themselvesnvacillating between a swinging singlesnlifestyle that doesn’t satisfy and is overglamorizednand an incompletely repressedndesire to settle down with onennnman and raise children. Most cruelly,nthe number of women with children andnno husbands to support them has grownnenormously. The new sexual freedom,nsupposedly of immeasurable benefit tonlegions of hitherto sexually repressednwomen, amounts simply to the exportationnof the Playboy philosophy fromnthe male to the female mode, whichnonly makes it easier for men who wantnsex without responsibility to find it.nThis makes stable relationships betweennthe sexes harder to establish, and thenconsequent damage to the psyches ofnwomen and men and children and tonfamily life in general is now so wellnknown that it has become undeniable.nSt. Therese of Lisieux once remarkednthat there were more women in heavennthan men. The women’s movement, innthis as in so many areas, I fear, isnequalizing matters, not by raising thenbrothers up to a higher standard, butnby bringing the sisters down.nM axine Schnall’s life is typical ofnthe times. She, as an unfulfilled housewifenwith both the desire and the evidentntalent to be a writer, broke awaynfrom her lifestyle (and eventually hernmarriage) to start a counseling centernfor housewives like herself and to writenabout the problems of contemporarynwomen. Thus, her contact with thenwomen’s movement has been not onlynwith its ideology but with its effects onnreal men and real women. She writesnabout her contacts and her conclusionsnin a book that is really a pastiche ofnfictionalized case studies, discussionsnof recent books and movies (e.g. Lookingnfor Mister Goodbar and Manhattan),npersonal reminiscences and a schemanthat purports to show the changes innvalues as they have progressed accordingnto decades (e.g. “The RevolutionarynSixties” and “The Selfish Seventies”).nAll these parts are joined by a prosenthat ranges unexpectedly from women’smagnemetic to near-Pascalian gnomic.n11nIVovember/December 1981n