nearly 20 years in schools, with the result that most of themrncannot read and write and express themselves adequately.rnThis has something to do with the propaganda about the InformationrnExplosion. (“Explosion,” with its destructive connotation,rnis the mot juste.) There is a breakdown of communication,rnpart and parcel of the breakdown of civilization, anrninformation “culture” that has nothing to do with in-formation,rnfor that requires listening. Since entire generations nornlonger know how to listen, wc have this widening breakdown ofrncommunication (and, thus, of civility) between parents andrnchildren, husbands and wives, lovers, teachers and students, andrnso on. When “culture” can (as it already does) degeneraterninto mere entertainment, “civilization,” too, can degeneraterninto mere telephoning.rn/ O hould governmentrnI promote ‘culture’ atrnC _ > / all? That is at leastrnarguable. What is not arguable isrnthat government must protectrncivilization. When it fails to do so,rngovernment, as we know it, dissolves,rnwith first anarchy and then barbaricrntyranny succeeding it.rnCivilization includes paying attention to others. Rare that isrnnow, particularly in the world of scholarship—or, as the clicherngoes, in “the community of scholars.” There is no such community.rnThere is the old saw about the specialist who knowsrnmore and more about less and less. There was nothing veryrnwrong with that. What we now have are academic bloviatorsrnwho know less and less about more and more, while the majorityrnof their colleagues read less and less and write (or, rather,rnprocess words) more and more. If that is culture, then the hellrnwith it. Meanwhile, a professor who says something criticalrnabout a Mexican or a Chinese or a homosexual may be punished,rnhaving bucked multiculturalism. Another professorrnwho engages in carnal commerce with his students has donernnothing wrong. Such judgments are products of a progressivelyrnbroadening “culture.” They are also the products of advancingrnbarbarism, not of civilization, as in sex education, which, too,rnhas nothing to do with the advance of civilization. It is publicrninstruction for mechanical and antiseptic, safe and sinless carnality,rnat a time when one of the marks of a broken-down civilizationrnis the decay of privacy—and of a sense of sin (thatrnsense of sin without which sex tastes like egg without salt).rnClothes do not make the man, or woman, but they do illustraternmany things. In the past young people looked forward tornthe day when they could acquire and wear the clothes (togetherrnwith other rights and privileges) of adults. Now the morern”progressive” the professor the more he apes the clothes, habits,rnwords, and sounds of the young. Young men no longer emulaternmature men; but since it is in the nature of youth to emulate,rnthey emulate the customs and the clothes of the barbariansrnthey see, often through their determined cult ofrnugliness. In sum, there is a culture of juvenility, while there isrnno such thing as a juvenile civilization. There cannot be.rnCivilization calls for maturity, and our culture now is largelyrnpuerile—consider only that the majority of movies and recordsrnare made for teenage consumers. This kind of cultural rot hasrnpervaded the national economy—the so-called material basisrnof our society. As reported in the New York Times last year, fourrnof the five most successful stocks of the previous six years werernCoca-Cola, Pepsico, Motorola, and Disney, producers and promotersrnof juvenile slurping and of puerile entertainment, i.e..rnFizz, i.e., the Youth Culture. Three of the principal “losers”rnwere IBM, Westinghouse, and Ford. This tells us somethingrnabout where not only American culture but American industryrnis going, or not going. (Eight months later I read a columnrnin the Times by William Safire, who, a proponent of “free enterprise,”rnattacked those who object to turning the Virginia battlefieldsrnof the Civil War into a great Disney theme park andrnentertainment center. Safire is a Republican, a “conservative,”rnand a self-proclaimed “Man of the Right.”) Civilizationrnmeans the restriction of many a “freedom.” When will ourrnnewfangled—and many of the not-so-newfangled—”conservatives”rnand “libertarians” ever learn?rnThe main problem of the coming century will be people’srnrelationship to the land. But the pollution of land, indeed,rnof all matter, is preceded and produced by the pollution ofrnminds. Here wc face a particular American problem, misreadrnby Thoreau, who was a good writer but a poor thinker. He wasrna Rousseauite, believer in the myth of the Noble Savage, convincedrnthat man is the enemy of nature—which is also the doctrinernof some of our extreme environmentalists. Their worshiprnof nature goes hand-in-hand with their denigration of humanity.rnThat may be a cult, but it is the very opposite of civilization.rnEver since the Greeks, civilization has had a long historicalrnconnection not only with urbanity but also with nature andrnthe land; it aims at an aesthetic and fructiferous harmony betweenrnman and nature, protecting both; it desires the preservationrnof land but also the formation of landscapes that are neitherrnoverrun by nor vacant of humanity, since without anyrnhuman presence a landscape does not exist.rnIt is the—often masochistic—contempt of civilized manrnthat marks much of “modern” culture in the 20th century. Irnwill not go so far as to say that Picasso or Klee or Le Corbusierrn—and, yes, Frank Lloyd Wright—were neobarbariansrn(though the case can and will one day be made), even precedingrnJohn Cage or Jackson Pollock or the ghoulish Warhol andrnthat example of an oxymoron, the Museum of Primitive Art;rnthey were surely opponents not of culture but of civilization. (Irnread that Woody Allen is a “cultural icon.” Perhaps, but is hernan emblem of civilization?)rnWe live in a society where the term “middle class” has lostrnall of its meaning, since nearly everybody is “middle-class” inrnone way or another, including criminals, who are no longer arnrecognizable or definable stratum of the population. Therncrime rate rises rapidly, yet the proportion of professional criminals,rnprofessional burglars, professional robbers, professionalrnprostitutes actually decreases. Because of the breakdown of civilization,rnthat once grey area, or no-man’s-land, between thern18/CHRONICLESrnrnrn