The Liberal Death Throes

Several Years ago I wrote a book called Post-Liberalism: The Death of a Dream.  In it I explained why liberalism was dying.  Contrary to the neo-Marxist scenario, progressives are on the wrong side of history.  Collectivism cannot contend with the demands of modernism.

Because liberalism was still riding high, I used a metaphor to elucidate what I believed was occurring.  This comparison was based on an incident that took place at my home.  One day, while reading a book in my living room, I heard a thump at the front window.  I immediately got up to investigate.

There, in the center of the windowpane, was a smudge.  When I looked down toward the driveway, I could see a small bird.  Upon going descending the front stairs, it was obvious that this creature was in distress. For a moment, I did not know what to do.

Although I wanted to help, how?  Soon events took this decision out of my hands.  The tiny bird began to thrash around.  Evidently it was experiencing significant pain.  But perhaps it was recovering its strength.  Perhaps this thrashing was its effort to again take wing.

Then, after a few seconds of wildly beating its wings, it suddenly went inert.  The flailing had been its death throes.  In fighting against its expiration, it used its last ounce of energy to cling to life. Wasn’t this what liberals were also doing?

In retrospect, I got the timing wrong.  Liberalism was sliding toward death, but had not yet arrived at its doorstep.  Today it is much closer to its demise.  With each passing day, we learn that its faith in big government was misplaced.  The evidence of incompetence and corruption is unmistakable.

Liberals are increasingly aware of this.  They cannot help but notice that their archenemy, Donald Trump, has been able to accomplish feats they could not manage.  A flourishing economy is surely at the top of this list.

As a result, they have tumbled into the thrashing mode.  Several years ago, they anticipated their downfall by vigorously denying their failures.  They still do, but nowadays are also behaving fanatically.  There is an irrational wildness to their current behavior that does not accord with designs to regain political dominance.

Consider the Brett Kavanaugh dustup.  No one doubts the right of the president to nominate a Supreme Court Justice. No one doubts the right of the Senate to confirm this nominee.  Nonetheless, we have entered a twilight zone of where hypocrisy reigns.

By nearly every measure, Kavanaugh is qualified for the position. His record on the bench has been sterling.  His only disqualification is that he believes in interpreting the constitution as it was written.  This is anathema to liberals who argue that it is a living document they can decipher as they desire.

Hence all of the objections to Kavanaugh.  Hence the demands for unprecedented levels of documentation. What makes this farce truly absurd is that those screaming loudest for these materials have already proclaimed they will not vote for him.

To add to the incongruity, these obstructionists will not even speak to Kavanaugh.  Indeed, they announced that they were against him before they knew who he would be.  This is not democracy.  This is not advice and consent, but animus and ignorance.

This thrashing about is a betrayal of America’s heritage.  Its goal is to stop whatever Trump wants.  Democracy, however, depends up honoring elections. The party that loses is obliged to step back and allow the winners to govern.  Not so this time around.  There is not even a pretense of proposing legislative alternatives.

Another indicator of liberal flailing is the abolish ICE movement. Although ICE had nothing to do with separating mothers and babies at the border, its agents are maligned as “thugs.” Then, when asked how they would replace ICE, we are vacuously told the agency needs to be “reimagined.”

Serious people do not behave this way.  People with good ideas do not make a perpetual show of petulance.  They do more than call names.  They do more than demand that a president they hate be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors they cannot document.

This is what thrashing looks like.  This is how death throes play out.  The vicious anger coming from the left is evidence that these folks know their dream is dying.  What little energy remains them they dedicate to mucking up what their dogmas could not fix. How sad.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Three Righteous Liberals: Noel Martlock

Liberalism has changed a great deal over the last half century. Whereas it was once optimistic and genuinely compassionate, it has become cranky and mean-spirited.  Almost every day, we hear about what liberals hate. Although they talk about love, they seldom demonstrate it.

How different this is from the liberalism of my younger days.  This is why I decided to honor three righteous liberals I have known.  I began with my uncle Milton and continue with a former coworker: Noel Martlock. Both were men of high ideals and kindhearted follow through.

Noel and I worked together in Rochester, New York for the state’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation.  We served as counselors at the same psychiatric facility.  While I dealt with the mentally ill, his caseload was primarily the physically disabled.

Noel was an excellent counselor.  His clients loved him because he was competent and concerned.  He always listened to people and was plugged into the services suited to their needs.  A no nonsense kind of guy, just as with my uncle, there was usually a smile on his face.

What made this special is that Noel was disabled.  He suffered from congenital osteoarthritis.  This meant that he was hunched over and stood barely four and a half feet high.  His hands were so badly gnarled that he could hold a pencil with difficulty; yet hold it he did.

Despite his handicap, Noel believed in doing for himself.  He never played the cripple card.  Oftentimes we had to assist him with doors, but when he could do for himself, he would.  All of this was very natural, without an appeal to guilt or sympathy.

Noel, as I say, was a liberal.  By then, I was a committed conservative.  We were aware of these differences; nevertheless rarely spoke of them.  Our political leanings had nothing to do with our jobs or personal relationship.

In any event, Noel’s health gradually deteriorated.  He knew his life would be brief, but intended to make the most of it.  Unfortunately he began falling asleep at his desk.  When he started doing this when dealing with clients, he knew it was time to retire.

The doctors’ initial assessment was that he was suffering from narcolepsy.  This was deemed incurable.  About a year later, however, it became apparent that a settling of his bones caused his breathing difficulties.  This suggested a tracheotomy as a cure.  

The procedure was a success.  Noel was soon back to his joyful self.  This prompted him to ask for his old job.  For reasons I never understood, the request was denied.  But that was not the end of the story.  Noel was not about to quit.

He went on to law school, where he obtained a degree.  After this, he volunteered to help the poor with their legal problems.  This took all of the energy he could muster; yet it never occurred to him to sit home feeling sorry for himself.

Noel passed away shortly thereafter.  He was in his early forties, which was nearly a decade longer than he was expected to survive.  His was a worthwhile life.  Whenever I feel depressed, he example cheers me up.  From him, I learned that we humans can do more than we imagine. 

As for his liberalism, Noel was constantly realistic.  He did not believe in pie in the sky solutions.  His compassion was practical, not theoretical. If what he was doing did not help people, he altered his approach.  He understood that results matter.

For too many contemporary liberals all that counts are good intentions. If their programs are tearing families apart, they rationalize the debris as laudable diversity.  If crime goes up on their watch, they blame the police rather than the criminals.

What most characterizes modern liberalism is bellyaching.  It adherents cry about everything and take responsibility for nothing.  Whatever goes wrong is someone else’s fault and hence has nothing to do with the limitations of their philosophy.

Noel was not like that.  He knew first hand that life’s difficulties were not academic.  They had little to do with theoretical models of social justice. The help he rendered was person to person.  This meant that if it did not help, it had to be modified.

Compare this with how stubborn liberals have become.  If a healthcare program does not do well, they double down and demand more.  If race relations deteriorate, whites are evidently more bigoted than ever.  Is this what liberal kindliness has come to?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

The Hair on Fire Syndrome

Most Americans know that the Jewish religion requires its adherents to eat kosher.  They also know that this forbids consuming pork.  They might likewise have learned that shellfish are prohibited.  What many may not realize, however, is that there is a bar against eating meat and dairy dishes together.  In other words, no lasagna.

My grandmother tried to drive this home by warning of the consequences of a violation.  She told me that if I ate meat and milk at the same time, they would blow up in my stomach.  As I later told my KSU students, this is how I distinguish Jews from gentiles.  The gentiles are the ones with the exploded stomachs.

We are now experiencing one of the most contentious periods in all of American history.  Civil dialogue between partisans on the left and right has all but ceased.  Moreover, scarcely a day goes by without liberals accusing Donald Trump a heinous crime.  He has been called a traitor, an idiot, and a mass murderer.

So extreme have the accusations become that I believe it is fair to say many leftists suffer from a “hair on fire”syndrome.  Their apocalyptic visions are so radical that they seem to fear our immediate demise. It is as if their hair actually is on fire and they need to public to extinguish it.

That's why I now believe I can definitively distinguish liberals from conservatives.  Those whose hair has been scorched off are plainly progressives.  However many tresses they once had, by constantly setting it alight, they render themselves nearly bald.

I am also reminded of the story of the boy who cried wolf.  The villagers initially believed him when he proclaimed that their sheep were in danger.  It was only after a series of false alarms that they realized he had ulterior motives.  I hope moderate Americans are reaching a similar conclusion about Democratic protests.

My sister, who lives in northern New Jersey, tells me that her liberal friends are growing weary of their animosity.  Their anger about the alleged crimes of our president has been difficult to sustain.  Constantly mobilization for a fight or flight response has drained them of their energy. They literally shake from rage.

Not so the media and the Democratic politicians.  They realize that unless they win their battle with Trump, their prospects are dim.  In short, they understand that if he wins and they lose, they will loose big.  Their chances of resuming power might vanish for over a decade.

And so they go by the old maxim that if you decide to kill the king, you had better succeed or he will kill you.  Clearly Democrats are convinced that they should have driven their enemy from office long ago.  That they have not suggests he might be growing stronger with each passing day.

As a consequence, they are frantic. Thus any time they see the slightest opening they pounce.  Whether Trump misspeaks at a news conference, or children are separated from their parents at the border, or a qualified conservative is nominated to the Supreme Court, they ramp up the language.

  Consider how far they go.  This is a holocaust; that is a concentration camp; the other is total capitulation to a detestable foe.  My question is where do they go from here?  When you have burned your hair off, there is nothing more dramatic to do—except self-immolation.

But liberals don’t want to die.  They want Trump to die.  As a result, many have decided that calling for the dismemberment of I.C.E. is a non-starter.  They also fear that too baldly calling for Trump’s impeachment might arouse the same resistance as occurred with Bill Clinton.

So again I ask, where do they go?  There is something self-defeating about hysteria.  Political leaders are supposed to be measured and self-controlled. If not, we worry that they will make bad decisions under pressure.  Wasn’t this the concern before Trump got elected?

Didn’t Democrats say that Trump lacked the temperament to be president? By this didn’t they mean that he sometimes went off half-cocked and said intemperate things?  So how is it supposed to help them if they go crazier than he?

Burning hair is not invisible.  It throws an unflattering light on the distorted face of its instigator. It also smells terrible.  Doing this to oneself is therefore not astute. It advertises for all the world to see that one has become unhinged.  Perhaps it is time the left changed its strategy.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Three Righteous Liberals: My Uncle Milton

In recent times, I have not been kind to liberals.  Over the last several years, I have written many columns excoriating their lack of honesty and common sense.  As often as not, this malice has been retuned in equal measure.  I have thus been accused of stupidity and an absence of compassion.

Believe it or not, I was once a deeply committed liberal.  As a young man, I fought vociferously for the rights of the downtrodden.  Indeed, it took more than a decade for me to make the transition to the dark side. All the while, I feared that I was betraying my family heritage.

Nonetheless, my initial confrontations with my former allies were friendly.  Liberalism a half century ago was more tolerant than today.  The kindness of those on the left was genuine.  When we disagreed, they did not try to destroy me. They lived by the code of decency they believed inherent in their philosophy.

As I reflected back on those gentler times, I felt a need to honor several of the people with whom I contested political issues.  They were good folks.  They were righteous in a way many contemporary partisans are not. Three, in particular, command my respect.

One was my uncle Milton Tarriff; another was my counseling colleague Noel Martlock; the third was my fellow professor at Kennesaw State University, Vasilli Economopoulos.  Each of them was an exemplary human being.

Let me begin with Milton in this column.  (The others will follow.)  He was my mother’s younger brother and the supposed dummy of the family. Few expected him to have a brilliant career.  Moreover, as a teenager growing up during the Great Depression, he was attracted to leftist causes.  This included attending meetings of the communist party.

Shortly thereafter, he went to war.  In this capacity, he served as an artilleryman under General George Patton. Although exposed to enemy shelling, he emerged from this trial unscathed.

Once back home there was the problem of getting a job.  He explored the possibility of entering the needle trades, but found this uncongenial.  Instead he applied to be a bus driver.  Because this was at the height of the McCarthy era, he feared that he would be blackballed because of his flirtation with communism.

Happily he got and retained the job.  This enabled him to support a family, first by living in public housing, but ultimately by buying his own home.  Always the faithful husband and doting father, he was deeply loved.  His kindness was not an affectation.  It shone forth in his every action.

But now to politics.  Milton believed in big government.  He was convinced that this was required to defend the weak and provide for their well-being.  Always suspicious of businesspeople, he was certain that selfishness required constraint. The Depression had proved this to him.

Eventually he was in for a shock.  His younger son, my cousin Michael, became a conservative.  This led to endless discussions about the competing virtues of the right and left.  Ours was a Jewish family, so you can be sure these debates were contentious.

By this time I too was a conservative, so I joined the festivities. At no point, however, were they mean-spirited.  For the most part, we smiled and laughed as we sought to undermine each other’s arguments.  Milton, in fact, set the tone.  Never—not once—did he get angry when contradicted.

Then, after our disputes wound down, Milton would signal their conclusion the same way.  He would look toward the heavens, lift his arms skyward and give out a hearty chuckle. “Where,” he would say, “did I go wrong?” How could a son and a nephew he intensely loved have deserted the path of truth and justice?

You see, even though Milton knew we disagreed, he continued to respect our motives.  We were not bad people because differed with him.  We were not lacking in compassion or intelligence.  While he hoped to persuade us of the error of our ways, he never intended to tear us down.

How different the tenor of our national dialogue has become.  Nowadays, there is little empathy for those who oppose us.  Milton would not have understood.  He could separate political dispositions from human benevolence.  His kindness was person-to-person, not theory-to-theory.

Am I misguided when I look back longingly on those days?  Can a society be genuinely benevolent if individuals are not personally benevolent?  What do you think?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Toxic Masculinity, Feminist Priviilege

Not long ago, I was watching a television talk show.  The featured guest was a professor who was teaching a college course on “toxic masculinity.”  This subject made it onto a national program because classes of this sort have been popping up like mushrooms.

In any event, the host asked her to define toxic masculinity.  She responded with an example.  If a man, she said, enters a bar alone, he will be taken more seriously than a woman.  He will be able to throw his weight around because he is a man.  This, she further elaborated, is evidence of “male privilege.”

As should be evident, the professor identified herself as a feminist. She believed she was defending all of womankind against the unequal treatment accorded them by men who are not entitled to regard themselves as special.  These bullies are too assertive for anyone’s good.

What struck me is that radical feminists have been trying to demonstrate that there are no biological differences between men and women for the better part of a century.  During this period, one disparity that never washed out is that men—on average—are more aggressive than women. 

And because men are more aggressive, there are many situations in which they receive greater attention.  This may not be fair, but there are numerous differences that provide individuals with social advantages.  For instance, taller people, if all that is known about them is their height, are generally regarded as smarter than short people. (Incidentally, I am short.)

Of course this is unfair.  But so is that fact that some people really are smarter, or stronger, or more attractive.  All of these inherited characteristics furnish benefits others do not share.  These may be described as unearned privileges, but, then again, as president Jimmy Carter noted, life is not always fair.

There also earned privileges.  If you successfully navigate medical school, you will be able to prescribe medications that laypersons can’t.  Or if you obtain a pilot’s license, you can apply for a job at an airline that would not be open to most folks.

What’s more, many of these advantages, or, if you will, privileges, are socially useful.  Don’t we need qualified doctors and pilots?  Meanwhile, male aggressiveness can also be beneficial.  When it results in high male crime rates it is not, whereas when it protects our nation from external aggression it is essential.

Then I got to thinking about the feminist and her situation.  There she sat with her Ph.D.  Wasn’t that a privilege?  Not everyone has one.  She was also teaching a course at a university.  Wasn’t that likewise a privilege?  Didn’t provide her with a platform to her spread ideas?

Ironically, her invitation to be on television was also a privilege. How many people get to communicate their beliefs to millions in this way?  Should she have declined to come on the grounds that this proffered an advantage others do not have?

The notion that complete equality in everything—including our abilities, motivations, and social connections—would make society better is absurd.  Human communities are patchwork quilts of interlocking characteristics that are largely synergistic.  The fact that we are different, but cooperate on joint ventures, helps us all.

I am sure that the feminist guest is proud of her achievements.  I also have no doubt that she believes she is contributing to the good of society by broadcasting her beliefs.  As it happens, I disagree.  I am convinced that in using her feminist privilege she is causing untold injuries.

To dismiss assertive masculinity as a kind of social poison undermines interpersonal solidarity.  It makes families unstable and the workplace untenable.  In fact, strong men make for strong husbands and fathers.  Strong men also make for effective bosses and innovative thinkers.

A world inhabited solely by male wimps and female viragos would not only be unpleasant; it could not last.  The glue that holds societies together stems from coordination derived, in part, from our assertiveness.  To implicitly equate such forcefulness with uninhibited violence does a disservice to everyone—including strong women.

If evidence of this truth is needed, just look around.  There never has been a viable society of the sort feminists demand.  The equality they crave is merely a figment of their envious imaginations.  Heaven help us if this is an aspiration we collectively pursue.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Roe v. Wade, Further Considerations

Many of my fellow conservatives are not happy with my position about abortion.  They object to my conclusion that this procedure should be legal, but rare.  As far as they are concerned, taking any human life is a moral abomination that should entirely cease.

I have been told more than once that life is sacred; that, every person, including a fetus has a right to life.  While I agree that there is a right to life, I also believe there is a right to a quality life.  If circumstances make this impossible, then preventing years of misery makes sense to me.

My critics say that many unwanted children, who have been brought to term, lead happy and productive lives.  Ending their lifecycles before they begin is therefore characterized as a tragedy.  I am sure they are correct in this assertion.  Much good has come from individuals who might never have been.

Nonetheless, there is another side to the coin.  I doubt that many of my detractors have witnessed the depth of despair I encountered during my career.  Having worked as a caseworker for the New York City Welfare Department, as a counselor at a methadone maintenance program, and as a clinician at a psychiatric hospital, it is difficult to convey the personal agonies I encountered.

Thus I have interacted with unloved teenage girls whose accidental babies were treated like ragdolls.  These infants were expected to provide the affection their mothers missed and hence were subjected to ongoing demands they could not meet.  In other words, they too acquired a heartbreaking love deficit.

I also dealt with a stepfather who became so annoyed with his girlfriend’s crying baby, he threw it against the wall to its death.  This, of course, occurred after he spent months stamping out lit cigarettes on the infant’s skin.

Then there were the schizophrenic patients whose babies acquired genes that condemned them to the same agonizing fate of their parents.  Or what about the twenty-something who was so terrified of becoming a father that he shot off his pregnant girlfriend’s head before he did the same to his own.

But let me share another story I found more distressing.  This concerned a young man whose mother was a white prostitute.  As I wrote in my book The Limits of Idealism, she abandoned him when he was days old.  This left him to be raised by his black street hustler father.

By the age of five, however, his father too abandoned him.  This left him in the care of an apathetic uncle.  Essentially he had to raise himself in a world where he was rejected by whites as too black and by blacks as too white.

When I knew him he was a drug addict who regularly overdosed to the point of near death.  At the time, I regarded these incidents as pleas for help that I was determined to answer. My dedication would demonstrate someone in this world cared about him.

Even so, this was not sufficient to prevent his downward slide. What followed were several failed suicide attempts.  Eventually he managed to insult a drug dealer so relentlessly that this man stabbed him to death in a urine soaked hallway.  For years, my client had wanted to die and finally found a way to accomplish it.

This is not an isolated case.  Many millions of Americans, mostly living in inner city or rural poverty, endure pain they cannot tolerate.  Why do you think we are experiencing a drug epidemic in this country?  Why has the number of fatal overdoes hit a record high?

Many of my readers imagine that if the appropriate services are made available, this trend can be reversed.  Most have probably never attempted to provide such assistance.  If they had, they would learn how difficult it is to undo the horrors of abusive childhoods.

Help is possible, but it is less attainable than in our romantic musings. Most people working in the helping professions will tell you that it is usually impossible to assist people who are not committed to helping themselves.  Guess what?  This includes a huge proportion of those who have endured disastrous childhoods.

Why then is it impossible to conceive of short-circuiting this suffering? Why not abortion in the first trimester before a fetus is fully human?  Is preventing desperation really destroying human life?

This is a complicated world in which there are not always good answers. Absolutes have a way of colliding with harsh realities.  Sometimes we must make the best out of bad situations.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Am I Smart Enough for College?

When I was a teenager, well more than half a century ago, I wondered whether I was smart enough for college.  My parents expected me to get a higher education, but I was unsure of my ability to cope with extremely demanding studies.

In fact, during my freshman year, when I took courses in calculus and mechanics, I did not do well.  I still remember, with trepidation, the nine books I was assigned to read for a course in political science.  Where was I going to find the time to complete so many tomes?

Nowadays, of course, few professors would dare require this sort of workload. They know that if they did, few of their students would peruse these books.  Actually, in a growing number of instances, learners don’t deign to buy them. They expect to get by with what they hear in the classes they attend.

The fact is that a college education is currently regarded as an entitlement.  Prospective students don’t ask if they are smart enough for college; they assume everyone is.  To even contemplate excluding them is regarded as a violation of social justice.  (And, oh by the way, they want their education to be free.)

Nonetheless, the only way to accommodate everyone in our universities is to dumb down the curriculum.  Standards must be lowered if less gifted scholars are to to pass required courses. The tendency is therefore toward mediocrity.  Fewer books are obligatory, most course papers are shortened, and challenging materials are eliminated.

Just how far the dumbing down process has proceeded is on display at Kennesaw State University.  It now boasts what is called an Academy of Inclusive Learning and Social Growth.  The idea is to stretch the boundaries of advanced learning as far as possible.

Believe it or not, this includes people with IQ’s significantly lower than normal.  Obviously, demanding good high school grades or high scores on college entrance exams would not achieve this.  These barriers would keep far too many people out.

The Academy of Inclusiveness therefore asks that applicants have a third grade reading level.  It doesn’t require this but describes it as “preferred.”  In other words, individuals with less than borderline IQ’s can qualify for admission.

There is a caveat however.  Should these students succeed in their studies, they will not obtain a Bachelor’s degree.  They will only be awarded a “certificate” attesting to the successful completion of a limited curriculum.  Still, they can boast of having a college credential.

Where this gets tricky is in the classroom.  You see, the aim is not merely to provide a program that suits the intellectually disabled, but to incorporate them into classes where they sit side by side with smarter students.  To do anything other than this is considered stigmatizing.  It would underline that they are not as talented as their peers.

So here is the rub—which I learned from a colleague who teaches these non-traditional pupils.  These folks don’t absorb materials at the same rate as others.  They are slower and thus require more time for detailed explanations.  Even so, what is taught must be abridged.

Where, accordingly, does this leave the higher functioning students? They are perforce provided an inferior education.  Not only must their professors reduce the quality of what is taught, but the classroom is likely to be a more boring place.  How could it be otherwise when simplifications abound?

The reality is that we have gone beyond another tipping point.  Instead of aspiring to mediocrity, we are aiming at something lower.  The objective is merely to get by.  As long as enough students graduate with what purports to be college degree, the target of our new morality will have been achieved.

Is this where we want to go?  Does “social justice,” where everyone is totally equal, entail society-wide incompetence?  If we keep on inventing programs that discourage challenging studies, will we be left with insufficient numbers of technical experts?

I submit that in a mass techno-commercial society, such as our own, this would prove fatal.  Doctors would not know how to provide quality care, engineers could not design safe bridges, and police officers could not distinguish lawful from unlawful arrests.

Worse yet, our democracy would crumble.  With hundreds of millions of voters too dim to select their leaders wisely, demagoguery would follow.  Come to think of it, we have already moved a long way in this direction.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University