United Stales v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc. (2000), 347—48, 349
United States v. Virginia, 108
universities, 22—23, 333, 342
captured by liberalism, 85
and decline of intellect, 250, 252, 255—66
discrimination against white males in, 231, 234, 235
ethnic separatism in, 300
federal grants to, 327
feminism in, 195—96, 203, 209—18
hostility to America in, 89
minority students in, 229, 239—48
multiculturalism in, 305, 309—11, 313
“political correctness” in, 54
and popular culture. 129
post-World War II expansion of, 22
radical egalitarian ism in, 77—78
sacking of, 13, 36—51, 155
University Center for Rational Alternatives, 216
unwed mothers, see illegitimacy utopian movements, 27, 28
Values Matter Most (Wattenberg), 164
V chip, 145
victim status, 82, 254
Vidal, Gore, 86
videos
music, 128
pornographic, 136—37, 150
Vietcong, 20, 44
Vietnamese immigrants, 301
Vietnam War, 17—21, 44—47, 51
violence, 11—12, 340
domestic, 206, 207, 284
ethnic, 313
in popular culture, 125, 126, 131, 134—35, 140, 142—44, 150—52, 157
speech advocating, 101—2, 113
of student radicals, 26, 30, 39—46, 49—50
of underclass, 323
see also crime
Virginia, University of. School of Medicine, 189
Virginia Military Institute (VMI), 108, 359
Vonnegut, Kurt, 75
voting rights, 77—78
for women, 195
Voting Rights Act (1965), 227, 302
wage, minimum, 270—71, 279
Wallace, George, 243
Waller, Fats, 124
Wallop. Malcolm. 333
Wall Street Journal, The, 246
Warner Bros. Records, 131
Warren, Earl, 101, 105, 109—10
Washington, George, 255
Washington, University of, 214
Washington Post, 123, 207, 247, 339
Watergate scandal, 255
Wattenberg, Ben, 133, 164, 165
wealth, distribution of, 67—74, 81
Weathermen, 30, 32, 42
Weber, Max, 84—86, 88
Webster, Daniel, 255
Weisman, Deborah, 102
welfare, 55, 155, 156, 158—64, 170—71, 230, 282, 342
Wellesley College, 86, 87, 217, 244
Wendel, Antoinette van, 191—92
Wendel, Cees van, 191—92
“West as America, The: Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820—1920” (exhibition), 90
Westmoreland, Gen. William, 20
West Point, 221
white males, heterosexual, 299
discrimination against, 78, 107—8, 214, 231, 233—35, 241—42, 247
feminist harassment of, 209—11
multiculturalism and, 304, 307—9, 311
post-modernism and, 268
religious attacks on, 284
scapegoating of, 248
and victim status, 82
Whitewater, 341
Will, George, 52, 108, 144, 147, 212—13
Williams, Montel, 128
Wilson, James Q., 72—73, 94—95, 158—59, 176, 199, 273—76, 340
Winchester, Simon, 135, 136
Winter, Ralph, 42
wisdom, equality of, 75
witchcraft, 287
Wolf, Naomi, 179—80
Wolfenden Report, 354—65
women
affirmative action for, 233
crime perpetrated by, 165, 168
and Equal Rights Amendment, 324
multiculturalism and, 304, 309, 311
popular culture attacks on, 125
radical egalitarianism and, 106, 108
religion and, 272
technology and, 195
see also feminism
Women in Mission and Ministry, 284
women’s studies programs, 208, 211, 214, 217—18, 244, 267
Wood, Gordon, 66, 81
Woodstock festival, 50
World Council of Churches (WCC), 282—84
World War 1, 8, 76, 77, 88
World War 11, 8, 18, 20, 22, 76, 77, 88, 94, 336
Wright brothers, 255
Wuthering Heights (Bronte), 212
Yale University, 36—43, 47, 48, 51—52, 129, 173, 241, 282
Law School, 1, 33, 36—39, 75, 258—59, 334
Yugoslavia, 23, 229
Acknowledgments
My first debt is to the late Erwin Glikes, my editor and publisher at The Free Press when I wrote, with his sympathetic guidance, my previous book. We agreed that the next book should deal with American culture. He did not live to see the project underway. His death at the age of 56 was both a great personal and an intellectual loss.
Judith Regan, the publisher of ReganBooks at HarperCollins, has my gratitude for offering me a new home after Erwin’s death. She has proved an extraordinarily patient editor-publisher, with just the right amount of impatience to bring what could have been an endless labor to an end.
Midge Decter, the editor of my first book, on antitrust policy, consented to edit this book as well. She proved exceptionally helpful and supportive, not only on questions of tone and approach, but upon details of the argument. I am deeply indebted and grateful to her.
Daniel E. Troy, who was my clerk when I was a judge, took time out from a busy private practice to read the manuscript more than once and make any number of highly intelligent and useful suggestions.
John Dilulio, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Princeton University, and Director, Center for Public Management, Brookings Institution, read and greatly improved chapter 9. Charles Krauthammer, columnist and former practitioner of medicine, read and made very useful comments on chapter 10. Irving Kristol read the book and offered some general and well-taken criticisms that I tried to meet. Dianne Irving, Professor of Philosophy, DeSales School of Theology and a research biochemist, educated me about the beginnings of life and abortion. (See, for example, her “Scientific and Philosophical Expertise: An Evaluation of the Arguments on ‘Personhood,’” Linacre Quarterly, February, 1993, p. 18.) My wife, Mary Ellen, made many suggestions and provided moral support on bleak days.
Jennifer Boeke Caterini conducted research, gave advice, and supervised the interns who assisted with research and the organization of materials. My secretary, Laura Hardy, did everything: typing, copying, dealing with callers and correspondents, finding books, and handling innumerable details of life so that I was free to write.
In the early stages, research assistance was provided by Gregory Maggs, now an Associate Professor of Law at George Washington University, and Joshua Abramowitz.
Robert Barnett, lawyer and literary agent, has now twice led me through the labyrinths of the publishing world and again drafted a contract that pleased everyone involved.
The New Criterion has authorized me to include passages from my article in their series “The Survival of Culture”: “Adversary Jurisprudence,” Vol. 20, No. 9 (May 2002), p.4.
Chapter 16 is a substantial revision of a chapter of the same name in Aspects of American Liberty: Philosophical, Material, and Political (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1977), p. 174.
I am grateful to the American Enterprise Institute, which has supported me in this enterprise, and to the John M. Olin Foundation, whose grant makes that support possible. My personal thanks go to Christopher C. DeMuth, the President of AEI, and to William Simon and James Piereson, President and Executive Director, respectively, of the Olin Foundation.
The views expressed in this book are my own and
are not necessarily shared by any of the people or organizations I have thanked.
About the Author
ROBERT H. BORK has served as Solicitor General and Acting Attorney General of the United States, and as a United States Court of Appeals judge. A former professor of law at Yale Law School, he is currently a professor at Ave Maria School of Law, a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the Tad and Dianne Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Also the author of the bestselling The Tempting of America, he lives with his wife in McLean, Virginia.
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Praise for Slouching Towards Gomorrah
“Bork makes some astute points about the politicization (not to mention Balkanization) of American culture and the diminished role that reason and rationality have come to play in our intellectual discourse.”
—New York Times
“A superb new book.”
—Richard Grenier, Washington Times
“America will ignore Robert Bork’s call for courage and repentance at its own peril.”
—Ernest Lefever, Books & Culture
“Judge Bork pulls no punches in describing the past and challenging us to fight for our children’s future.”
—Dan Quayle,
Forty-fourth Vice President of the United States
“Here is a certain trumpet in the midst of the cacophony of crap flooding and penetrating our ears, eyes, and senses. Read and heed!”
—Alan K. Simpson, former Senator from Wyoming
“Slouching Towards Gomorrah is for Americans who are concerned about the hedonistic drift of our nation.”
—Alexander M. Haig
“The ideological triumph of liberalism among American elites—far from bringing the individual and social enlightenment it promised—has produced unprecedented moral decay. The principal victims of this decay are the poorest and most vulnerable among us—those most in need of the support of a healthy culture. Bork courageously and boldly states these truths. A judge as wise as Solomon has become a prophet as powerful as Isaiah.”
—Robert P. George,
Department of Politics, Princeton University
“A thesis that cannot be ignored. Mr. Bork, one of Americas clearest thinkers, uses a variety of current issues of debate to argue that America is on the decline.”
—John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York
“A tour de force. A must-read for anyone concerned about the state of American society at the close of the twentieth century.”
—Ralph Reed, Executive Director, Christian Coalition
“A brilliant blend of passionate conviction and sustained argument. May be the most important book of the ’90s.”
—Michael Novak, George Frederick Jewett Scholar in
Religion and Public Policy, American Enterprise Institute
“With his inimitable combination of outrage and wit, Judge Bork has written the definitive account of an America on the eve of the millennium. Ranging through every aspect of our culture and society—sex and race, crime and welfare, religion and the courts—his book is not only a comprehensive description of our condition; it is a profound analysis of its ideological and historical roots.”
—Gertrude Himmelfarb, Professor Emeritus of History,
City University of New York
“A must-read for anyone who cares about the future of American society. Presents a provocative, critical, and convincing picture of a culture careening out of control, a culture that must change its ways or face destruction.”
—Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself
The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law
Copyright
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Simon & Schuster for permission to reprint in the U.S. “The Second Coming” from The Poems of W.B. Yeats: A New Edition, edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright © 1924 by Macmillan Publishing Company; © renewed 1952 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. Reprinted in the U.K. with the permission of A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael Yeats.
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1996 by ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, and a paperback edition appeared in 1997.
SLOUCHING TOWARDS GOMORRAH. Copyright © 1996, 2003 by Robert H. Bork.
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EPub Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-03091-7
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The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Bork, Robert H.
Slouching towards Gomorrah: modern liberalism and American decline / Robert H. Bork.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-06-039163-4
1. United States—Social conditions—1980-. 2. Liberalism—United States. 3. Social values—United States. I. Title.
HN59.2.B68 1996
306’ 0973—dc20 96-31277
ISBN 0-06-057311-2 (pbk.)
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Endnotes
Introduction
1. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Defining Deviancy Down,” The American Scholar, Winter 1993, p. 17.
2. Ibid., pp. 17–20.
3. Ibid., p. 19.
4. Charles Krauthammer, “Defining Deviancy Up,” The New Republic, November 22, 1993, p. 20.
5. Ibid.
6. Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy (New York: W.W. Norton, 1995), pp. 233–4.
7. Lionel Trilling, Sincerity andAuthenticity: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1969–1970 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), p. 1.
8. Ibid.
Chapter 1
1. James Miller, “Democracy Is in the Streets”: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 305.
2. Philip Gourevitch, “Vietnam: The Bitter Truth,” New York Review of Books, December 22, 1994, p. 55, reviewing Jade Ngoc Quang Huynh, South Wind Changing (St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1994):
3. Interview of Bui Tin conducted by Stephen Young, “How North Vietnam Won the War,” Wall Street Journal, August 3, 1995, p. A8.
4. Christopher Jencks quoted by Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (New York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 271.
<
br /> 5. José Ortega y Gasset, The Revolt of the Masses (New York: W.W. Norton, 1957), p. 50.
6. Ibid., p. 51.
7. Ibid., p. 53.
8. Seymour Martin Lipset, Rebellion in the University (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1993), pp. xxxix-xl.
9. Gitlin, p. 104.
10. Peter L. Berger and Richard John Neuhaus, Movement and Revolution (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), p. 60.
11. Gitlin, pp. 40–1.
12. The Sixties, ed. Gerald Howard (New York: Washington Square Press, 1982), p. 18.
13. Gitlin, p. 34.
14. Midge Decter, Liberal Parents, Radical Children (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1975).
15. James Q. Wilson, The Moral Sense (New York: The Free Press, 1993), p. 109.
16. Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter, Roots of Radicalism: Jews, Christians, and the New Left (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 389.
17. Cited in Robert Lerner, Althea K. Nagai, and Stanley Rothman, American Elites (New Haven: Yale University Press, in press), chapter 8.
18. Helmut Schoeck, Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1987).
19. Ibid., pp. 337–8.
20. Peter Collier and David Horowitz, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties (New York: Touchstone, 1990).
21. Quoted in Gitlin, pp. 109–10.
22. Reprinted in James Miller’s “Democracy Is in the the Streets”: From Port Huron to the Siege of Chicago, pp. 329–74.
23. Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), p. 255.
24. Ibid., p. 263.
25. Ibid., p. 305.
26. Robert Nisbet, Conservatism: Dream and Reality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), p. 105.
27. Lionel Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 93–4.
28. Collier and Horowitz, p. 96.
29. Terry H. Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties: Protest in America from Greensboro to Wounded Knee (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 65.
30. William L. O’Neill, Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960s (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), pp. 295–6.
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