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October 13, 2005

Our Selfish Times

I've started reading Coming Apart by William O'Neill, a reissue of a book written in 1971 analyzing the '60s. The author wrote a revised introduction for this edition that seems to hit our current zeitgeist on the mark:

My remarks at the end of this book about the liberal failure of nerve have proven more prescient than I imagined they would be. New Deal-Great Society liberalism never recovered from Lyndon Johnson's failures and the success of Richard Nixon, Watergate notwithstanding. President Gerald Ford vetoed almost every significant Democratic bill. President Jimmy Carter, hardly a flaming liberal in any event, spent much of his term performing damage control. President Ronald Reagan made conservatism popular, and his policies continued under President George H. W Bush. Bill Clinton won his two terms by appropriating Republican issues, such as welfare reform, being tough on crime, producing budget surpluses, and the like. These benefited him but not the Democratic party, which lost both the House and Senate during his presidency. As I write, President George W. Bush is pushing an agenda even more radically right wing than that of Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile, Democrats are divided over racial and other issues that weaken the party and strengthen conservatives.

I wanted to call this book Good Riddance, and the galley proofs bore that title. But Ivan Dee and I finally agreed that it was a bit too dismal. In time we came to regret our decision. The greatest accomplishments of the decade, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare and Medicaid, continue to bear fruit. But the pleasure principle, epitomized in the sixties by the odious mantra "Do your own thing," has flourished beyond belief, raising divorce and illegitimacy rates, lowering marriage rates, as also standards of taste and behavior. In polls the public claims to want more money spent on health, education, the environment, and other good things. But it votes for tax cuts and to hell with public services, most of which have deteriorated since the 1970s. In this respect selfishness is the principal bequest of the sixties.

Posted by timothompson at October 13, 2005 02:28 PM