The reaction to this article kind of says it all for me. Right leaning readers seem to accept the claims, although anonymous, because they have experience on the ground that would make them believe such claims. Left leaning readers refuse to accept the claims because they are anonymous and could easily be made up.
It's confirmation bias all the way down. I personally tend to lean more on the right here because I went to an "elite" institution and saw firsthand, plenty of times, the same kind of totalitarian ideological bullying and groupthink that the article describes.
I do think that the reaction to this article, and the many other articles like it, are a harbinger of the near-future breakup of the United States. There is simply no possible way this country can survive when the value systems are so opposed to each other.
The flaw in this line of thinking is that it's unreasonable to suggest this story is 'made up' or 'propaganda'.
It's more like: if this is just the experience of a tiny handful of people, well then it's a perspective but it's not important. If it's commonplace, then it's an issue.
There were major divisions in the nation in the past - remember that so many rejected desegregation in the 1960's. I think many progressives will think that we are now re-living those kinds of divisions, i.e. it's their turn to 'fight'.
The thing is, it's quite different this time. I don't believe that any movement here has history on their side.
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
This statement is no longer progressive, in fact, it's the hallmark of many social conservatives i.e. 'I don't see race' or 'I judge on the basis of character'.
It's the woke/intersectional progressive crowd who want to re-initiate racial awareness using the logic that 'people's racial experiences matter', which while I think has some merit, is also going to be deeply divisive.
MLK won. All the way from 1960 to even now, racial disparities have been shrinking (mostly). The vast, vast majority of Americans agree with MLK's statement, and consider it a virtue.
The 'New Progressive Radicals' may have a point to make, but the inherent divisiveness of the ideal, and the focus on race/gender above character etc. leads to a pop culture civil war, amplified by social media, it plays into our worst impulses including racism. I don't think history is going to favour this movement outright.
If you want to find it, you will see racism in America is alive and well. This is what the black lives matter is all about. People may say they agree with MLK, but this is because they know what should be said in public. The actions of society highlight how far we still have to go to fight racism.
I know social conservatives who think they aren't racist but don't care about issues like how many more black people end up in jail than white people. They don't demand justice when police forces overreact to black protests, and don't care when police forces almost don't react (and take selfies
instead) to white protests.
After all this, not being able to see how serious racism is in America is one of the better signs you are racist.
So not caring is now a form of racism? Trying to tune out the news and live my life means I am racist?
I think 1. you need to get a grip on reality, 2. you need to look up some violent crime statistics, and 3. you need to look up the homicide rates between the BLM protests and the capitol riots. Calling everyone who doesn't "demand justice" a racist is pretty stupid and a great recipe for further polarization.
> I personally tend to lean more on the right here because I went to an "elite" institution and saw firsthand, plenty of times, the same kind of totalitarian ideological bullying and groupthink that the article describes.
I hear this kind of claims many times, and it always confuses me because I've had quite the opposite experience.
I've just received an AB from an "elite" institution (the one pictured in the Substack version of this article), and despite me being quite the textbook example of a Right Leaning White Male™ (except maybe that I'm not rich), I never witnessed the "kind of totalitarian ideological bullying and groupthink that the article describes."
Now, was I surrounded by mostly left-leaning peers? Absolutely. Did I ever feel coerced into keeping my opinions to myself? Never. As a matter of fact, I was given platforms to express my opinions in speaking and writing, and while the average reaction to them was forceful disagreement, it never felt disrespectful to me.
I've expressed my oppositions to a bunch of things happening at school (SGSO reform, unionization to name a couple) and I found the resulting conversations to be constructive in most cases. Sure, I arguably never changed anyone's mind, but that never was my goal. I've talked at length about issues like "progressive language" like Latinx/womxn terminology and personal pronouns, and I've never felt attacked in return.
What probably puzzles me the most, however, is that some of the forms of oppression that Bari Weiss talks about are so foreign to me that I really wonder whether I've been living in the same educational system as the one she describes. For example, in one article [1] she describes how some "feminists who believe there are biological differences between men and women . . . fear the illiberal left." In my four years of college, I've never once come across someone who suggested that there are no such biological differences--let alone witnessing oppression in the name of this idea. Sure, there are probably niche circles in which the idea has been discussed, perhaps even entertained; but the same can be said e.g. of Mormonism, yet I don't see anyone claiming that U.S. education is falling into the hands of Mormons.
Sometimes I wonder what makes my experience so seemingly different from that of many other folks on the conservative side. Maybe it's the fact that I'm international, which might make American interlocutors more accommodating of my different viewpoint. Or it could be that forceful disagreements (often garnished with insults and seasoned with various allegations of *isms) are the norm in the country I grew up in, so much so that I've grown to recognize them as inevitable--if regrettable--aspects of conversations about sensitive topics.
One thing that I did notice, however, is how many of my conservative friends were experiencing real anxiety around these topics, and stayed away from bringing them up as a result of the anxiety itself. As a matter of fact, I never joined any explicitly conservative social group, one reason being that most of the conversations going on in those circles were way too angsty and whiny for my tastes.
All in all, while I appreciate this kind of reporting for the light it sheds on a relatively unknown part of society, I really dislike how fear-based it is. I feel like it does more harm than good, by making conservative defensive and afraid before they've even had a real discussion with people they disagree with. Case in point:
>There is simply no possible way this country can survive when the value systems are so opposed to each other.
Nah, many countries (including the US) have been through far greater ideological clashes and got through them, if not unchanged.
That's not to say everything is rosy--if you ask me, problems abound; but exceptions are exceptions, no matter how alarming. Let's not stoop to crying wolf while there's time.
> What probably puzzles me the most, however, is that some of the forms of oppression that Bari Weiss talks about are so foreign to me that I really wonder whether I've been living in the same educational system as the one she describes.
> I've never once come across someone who suggested that there are no such biological differences
It is the difference between equality and equivalence: not everybody is equal in quality, but everybody is equal in value. When this difference is not made, saying that female managers have, on average, different (some negative, some positive) qualities than male managers, then translates to saying: female managers are of lesser value than male managers. So talking of different (biological) qualities often leads to confrontation with the illiberal left, even if closely on their side with regards to equal value for all.
Suggesting there even are biological differences between genders which have causal effects -- "females, on average, have higher emotional intelligence and empathy, and thus prefer to work with people and children, and so are overrepresented in nursing and kindergarden teaching, this is not dominantly the result of male oppression or gender discrimination or lack of chances" -- already got multiple tenured professors fired. In industry, Damoore's facts on biological differences, in context of gender representation in job roles, was cause for firing: the difference between equality and equivalence was not made, and so "Damoore had made female colleagues feel like lesser value, and this is unacceptable".
> One thing that I did notice, however, is how many of my conservative friends were experiencing real anxiety around these topics, and stayed away from bringing them up as a result of the anxiety itself.
All study surveys confirm this. Left progressive socialist viewpoints are not speaking truth to power, this is already the ruling power. By field of study, in the humanities and education, many right-leaning people, especially if not from a minority/victimized group, rationally keep their mouth shut. Not underbelly anxiety, but legit fear of reprisal or spoiling the work place a la Damoore, until forced to speak up, because silence is violence, and two sides of the coin is a racism apology or denial.
> Let's not stoop to crying wolf while there's time.
Many are only just now realizing this is even a problem, and that the anti-racist or social equality movement can be very discriminatory on skin color or in favor of inequality (promoting employees to fill an ideal skin color quota, as if that is any merit). My conferences are now putting in place code of conducts, where "participants made uncomfortable or insulted by your scientific work or presentation warrants an investigation" or "anything you say on social media as a participants can be monitored and acted upon if it goes against the stated goals (diversity & inclusion) of the organization". People from American companies which take military funding are checking computer vision colleagues' work for ethical mentions of adverse use against Uyghurs. Part of my work as engineer is now being aware that whites benefit from a systemic racist society and can't be discriminated against, because they are in a position of power. It is here. No time to lose.
> Nevertheless, freedom of speech is under continuous threat at many of America’s campuses, pushed aside in favor of politics, comfort, or simply a desire to avoid controversy. As a result, speech codes dictating what may or may not be said, “free speech zones” confining free speech to tiny areas of campus, and administrative attempts to punish or repress speech on a case-by-case basis are common today in academia. FIRE, as a free speech nonprofit organization, fights against this sort of censorship in academia.
> Liberty cannot exist when people are forced to conform their thoughts and expression to an official viewpoint. Differences of opinion are the natural byproducts of a vibrant, free society. At many of our nation’s colleges and universities, however, students are expected to share a single viewpoint on hotly debated matters like the meaning and significance of diversity, the definition of social justice, and the impermissibility of “hate speech.” Mandatory “diversity training,” in which students are instructed in an officially-approved ideology, is common. Some institutions have enacted policies that require students to speak and even share approved attitudes on these matters or face disciplinary charges.
>There is simply no possible way this country can survive when the value systems are so opposed to each other.
That strikes me as a rather hyperbolic take. It's rather like the Jordan Peterson vision of reality in which certain ideological shifts in the educational realm are portrayed as being a wholesale reworking of society in general rather than what they actually are -- namely, just some aspects of the life of schools, which don't actually do that much to change or affect anything in the power structures that overwhelmingly dominate the rest of life.
I dunno, dude - I think to the rational folk on HN it does indeed seem hyperbolic, but there are a lot of really pissed off people who are a little beyond the point of rationality.
Combine this with the increasing demands of the new ideology, the massive inequality of the modern age, the future automation job losses, and tons of pressure from foreign nations who would love to see a weaker US - I think in 10 years there could easily be some crisis.
Edit: Forgot to mention that I don't think this is constrained to the educational realm. I can certainly tell you that in Big Tech Company Inc, we get emails every day about ending white supremacy, anti racism, yada yada.
Well I agree that there are some bigger societal shifts going on that are indeed pretty destabilizing. I was just commenting that nuances of the curriculum of high schools, or even undergrad education, around questions of race/gender/capitalism (or whatever woke themes) is not really quite as consequential as I think some folks, including the author of the article that is the subject of the post, make it out to be. All these elite schools, no matter what their political posturing, are still basically just manufacturing future elites who will be perfectly content to perpetuate the status quo in whatever way is advantageous to them. If that involves more racial equity, or different pronouns, or whatever, nobody actually gives a shit as long as their own economic ox is not gored.
Even during times of black chattel slavery, when native Americans were forcibly removed from their lands, and Asians and Middle Easterners were suing in court to be recognized as white, so they could enjoy the benefits of first class citizenship?
You mean the time when slavery was common throughout the world, and that literally every spot on planet earth was fundamentally ethnocentric?
So yes, if we want to talk about racial issues during the foundation of America and world history, then sure, but it has not so much to do with America and also, it has little to with White Supremacy and more to do with Ethnocentrism.
Literally today in 2021, in almost every single nation outside the New World or the West, a White person would always be considered an outsider by virtue of their race.
That fact is completely ignored by the woke crowd who want to somehow decontextualise all of this to make it a 'white problem', when it's not. Frankly, I suggest there are a lot of racist impulses behind a lot of the woke smokescreen.
You mentioned "any time in history", and for most of its history, the US was explicitly a white supremacist state. Legal segregation only ended in the 1960s.
Yes, other places in the world were like this, but that's irrelevant, isn't it?
I think the exchange got off on the wrong foot. I think the point to be made is that American history being seen as simply a history of racism and white supremacy is a new thing, and a sad thing. Because, as you know, other things happened here.
> Parents say that it is a school where giving more gets you more. Big donors get invitations to special dinners, and, most importantly, time and attention from the people in charge. Meantime, their children are taught radical-chic politics, which, of course, do not involve anything actually substantively radical, like redistributing the endowment.
This is the most hilarious part of all to me. This ideology is being pushed by the richest, most elite elements of left-wing society but they have substituted actual reform (i.e. redistributing their wealth and social prestige) with absurdist speech codes and manners that the middle and lower classes don't bother learning (because it's fucking stupid and they don't have the time). It's a way of preventing non-insiders from becoming public figures and rising up, because the moment anyone says anything publicly they can be brought down for violating some bizarre -ism rule.
I think the core group that actually believes this nonsense is pretty small, although some are using it tactically to destroy superiors and rise quickly. There is definitely an element of self-sorting going on where the woke-est people get eliminated from groups (social and business) because they are insufferable and exhausting to deal with.
The price of four or five kids could easily cover the pay of a private teacher/tutor. It seems like the ideal learning environment. I'm probably missing the point of going there in the first place.
It seems to me that a lot of the problem is that there is currently no conservative position on social justice to counterbalance progressive positions. So when people rightly see problems with inequality in America their only option is the progressive position; not matter how radical.
> It seems to me that a lot of the problem is that there is currently no conservative position on social justice to counterbalance progressive positions.
On the contrary, the conservative position on actual social justice is the mainstream view of social justice. The very notion of it ultimately comes from conservative (namely catholic) social thought.
The fake ideology of Woke so-called "Social Justice(tm)" is about something entirely different, that ultimately doesn't stand up to even the most casual intellectual scrutiny.
You answered the question posed above you with your opinion, your post is devoid of facts.
You failed to answer the question - what is the conservative opinion on social justice, but rather claimed that it's the mainstream view. There is nothing in your post to back it up, let alone provide proof that a mainstream view even exists.
The same is true of harimaru777's post. Why single out zozbot234's post to get all debate-standards-of-technicalities huffy about? It makes you look like you have a one-sided axe to grind.
And, if we're really going to get technical, nobody asked a question. Both harimaru777 and zozbot234 gave opinions, but nobody posed a question to be answered.
I'm not sure what you mean. Republicans don't have a platform for addressing issues such as inequality, racism, criminal justice reform, gerrymandering, global warming, etc. They either deny that the problems exist or advocate the same policies that they have for decades.
Republicans have been playing a leading role on criminal justice reform, actually. Some of the earliest voices pushing for it were conservative ones, well before there even was such a thing as a BLM movement. The fact that Dems and progressives more generally will never acknowledge this suggests that their commitment to genuine social justice is rather shallow. Biden and Harris were both known as proponents of failing "tough on crime" policies until very recently, when they basically flip-flopped on the issue with zero explanation or public self-criticism of their previous stances. Riding the BLM bandwagon, nothing more than that.
Republicans definitely deserve credit for the work they have done on criminal justice reform. The law he signed is about the only thing that I think Trump did right.
These are just a few examples. Besides that, there is all the work that Catholic, Christian and other religious organizations due in charity work and providing the only functioning schools in a community.
There is also a more libertarian-leaning (i.e., people who don't like being called "conservative") approach that points out (1) capitalism has done more to lift people from poverty than any other human invention, and (2) too often, government regulations actually get in the way of social justice (see, e.g., housing regulations).
It strikes me as stunningly ignorant that someone can believe that there is no "conservative position on social justice."
What's most concerning in the article is that people fear for their livelihoods, family, friendship and education if they even /question/ the curriculum and whether it's helping or not.
Parents and pupils are AFRAID to be labeled CAPITALISTS? That's nuts. What are they supposed to ID with, Cuba, Venezuela?
I cannot find any other comparison more apt than the cultural revolution. The received doctrine was right and any question was counterrevolutionary and deserving of punishment in the harshest terms.
I agree with you that it is wrong for people to fear retribution for their political beliefs. However a couple of things to consider:
How is fearing to be labeled a capitalist different than fearing to be labeled a socialist or communist?
I don't think it's fair to imply that the only alternative to being a capitalist is identifying with Cuba or Venezuela.
McCarthyism or, until recently, being labeled LGBTQ seem like apt comparisons. My point being that the right engages in the same sort of behavior when given the chance.
The irony is that is a capitalist institution attended by relatively wealthy people.
It’s like Communists going to indoctrination camp not wanting to be labeled communists themselves. Or lgbt being ashamed of being lgbt. Hence my Cuba reference. If they are ashamed of our economic system does that mean they want a socialist economy like VZ? Note Denmark is capitalist and not socialist.
Also although what mr McCarthy did was akin to today’s cancel culture (mere accusation can lead to job loss) he wasn’t completely wrong in that quite a few of his subjects were communists who wanted sovietism in the USA.
I don't think that you can necessarily say that someone who operates in a capitalist system is a capitalist. In many cases people do not have a choice what system they live in and they may be actively advocating for a change to a different system.
Quibbling about what economic system Venezuela and Denmark have is playing semantics. The fact is, what mainstream leftists are advocating for is something more like Denmark than Venezuela. Saying that they want America to become the next Venezuela is a straw man.
Denmark has no minimum wage law. The welfare system has been reformed and is not as generous as in the 80s. It’s a very homogenous country.
On the other hand they are big on labor unions, so there is that.
Most importantly it’s a capitalist country. It’s not socialist. Or as the locals call it it’s the Nordic model.
If mainstream leftists want the Nordic model which is capitalist, they would not be ashamed of capitalism and need to hide it and be hush hush about the whole thing. Why the induced stigma?
> Denmark has seen a steady increase in immigration over the past 30 years, with the majority of new immigrants originating from non-Western countries. As of 2014, more than 8 percent of the population of Denmark consists of immigrants. The population of immigrants is approximately 476,059, excluding Danish born descendants of immigrants to Denmark. This recent shift in demographics has posed challenges to the nation as it attempts to address religious and cultural difference, employment gaps, education of both immigrants and their descendants, spatial segregation, crime rates and language abilities.
If the capitalist rightists only admitted that it likes to import cheap non-unionized labor to get factory rich. Instead it flirts with xenophobia (imported labour problems unequally damages low-middle class blue-collar jobs so these vote right), and the left becomes pro-immigration by opposition and because it is progressive, unwilling to even name the problems. Why is that? Too many levels above my understanding.
Meh. Child indoctrination has always been the price of entry into the elite. And of course sometimes it'll be uncomfortable - cultural imperialism doesn't work without some kind of force behind it. But how else can you ensure one common enlightened culture? (Count yourself lucky they're not going to Istanbul for the levy, and move on.)
I've encountered this sort of ideology before in education. My plan is to send my children to Chinese public schools in Shanghai. They will live with relatives.
They will obtain a better education, better peers, with none of this article's indoctrination at a cheaper cost.
I will not risk my (white) children believing they are inferior to anyone else in academics.
I do not trust the American education system to bring them up. I have seen my (white) relatives learn they are inferior to their (asian) peers in the American system. I have seen my (white) relatives either buy into the American education system's ideology and also I've seen them reject it in its entirety.
I think in general China could easily play a winning hand here by refusing to give into this nonsense. Not just in education, but in a corporate setting, too.
Honestly, it probably won't be such a bad thing for the world to have SOME country moving the ball forward on science and technology. Seems like the US is being increasingly enveloped by the ideology - see the recent "math is racist" campaigns.
Side note - it is hilarious to me that Dr. Seuss is apparently too harmful to be read by kids now, but it's totally fine for them to be exposed to explicit rappers like Travis Scott and Lil Yachty in their McMeals and cereals. Because "green eggs and ham" is more dangerous than "poppin pills is all we know" apparently...
Except that China is actually brutally racist, and openly so.
I loathe woke thinking, but I wouldn't deny that racism is a problem in the US. Paradoxically, I think you could safely say that China is a Han Supremacist state.
Those that are not Han, are a threat to Han Supremacy and are literally thrown in prison or directly suppressed.
I think continental Europe might be a good place to get educated. There is some self-awareness, but it's not overrun with ideologues either.
This sounds really odd. You are going to send your white children to Shanghai so they can learn not to feel inferior to Chinese children? Why would being a minority in a authoritarian communist society make your children feel more secure?
I am not sending my children to Shanghai so they can learn to not feel inferior to Chinese children. Your question is loaded.
I went to high school in the US. I've seen too many of my (white) friends claim they are inferior to my (asian) friends in mathematics. No race is naturally better at any race at anything. I consider their capitulation a byproduct of the US educational system that fails to teach its domestic students mathematics to-par with their international peers. I had to fight my mathematics teachers and counselors for further mathematics education in high school. The US system is completely unacceptable. That is why I plan on sending my children to a Chinese public school and to be cared for by my relatives.
>Why would being a minority in a authoritarian communist society make your children feel more secure?
This is besides the point. US citizens can securely raise children in China. Some Chinese minorities can securely raise their children, like Manchus and Mongols. Other Chinese minorities cannot, like Uighurs.
edit: I read through your previous comments and I see you have made previous disparaging comments about conservatives in the US. I am far more suspicious of your comment now.
This kind of crap doesn't fly in Asian educational systems. Go to class, do your homework, get an "A" in science and math. Everything else doesn't matter.
Are you saying that, if what was reported is true, you would find it disturbing? Or are you saying, the source itself is suspect, so you can't believe it?
Because I know for a fact this ideology is being pushed hard right now, as ridiculous as it is.
The problem is that the core argument that the article is making isn't whether or not a particular ideology is being taught. Instead it's saying that the ideology is being taught specifically in an exceedingly over the top manner, that the slightest disagreement carries the threat of life altering punishment, and that the situation is characteristic of elite education.
Without some sort of verifiable information it is difficult to determine if those arguments are valid. However, as the saying goes "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
>> I know for a fact this ideology is being pushed hard right now
And yet you have ironically failed to furnish evidence. OP rightly observes that the article is riddled with anonymous hearsay, and published by a tax exempt lobbying group. For those who choose to read comments first, here's a taste of what you have to look forward to in the article:
"says one of the fathers(...)'What he has a problem with is a movement that tells his children that America is a bad country and that they bear collective racial guilt. They are making my son feel like a racist because of the pigmentation of his skin' one mother says."
> OP rightly observes that the article is riddled with anonymous hearsay, and published by a tax exempt lobbying group
Is the ideology of the Manhattan Institute your problem? Because there are endless left-wing tax exempt "lobbying" groups (aka any nonprofit in America that tries to advocate for policy change), so I'm not sure what groups you can possibly trust given your criteria.
"America is a bad country" Who said this? Why can't the author quote them directly? Why should I believe this even happened?
Edit: Not that I have a dog in this fight, but while we're at it, can you point me in the direction of a reactionary/militant leftist 501(c)3? I have always assumed that all sorts of rich zealots were using these as as anonymous lobbying slush funds, or at least would be soon enough, but I have genuinely never seen a general leftist-interest one, and I'm intellectually curious. :)
This article was written by bari weiss who in no way a conservative or a propagandist. She is a pretty well respected and moderately well known journalist.
Yeah. The thing that makes me believe this most of all is the fact that I have had very similar experiences in my education, and I too would be terrified to attach my real name to some of the experiences I have had. Sad times - I thought Biden would calm some of these people down but it seems to have emboldened them.
> Fluency in woke is an effective class marker and key for these princelings to retain status in university and beyond.
While i have heard people issue the sentiment of this article, its hard to take anyone seriously when they use the term "woke". The word is only ever used in a derogatory manner, which is a give-away that the author has clear bias and agenda (as opposed to reporting on the parents and opinions themselves).
Not that it matters to anyone here, but "woke" is def not a class-marker.
Your comment is illustrative of the issue in the article. No matter what term is adopted here, people like you will use it against them ex-communicate them from the in-group.
If "woke" is verboten, please suggest an alternate word for this groupthink phenomena which is aping all the worst aspects of Catholicism (catechisms, original sin, inquisitions, etc.)?
> people like you will use it against them ex-communicate them from the in-group
I have no will to ex-communicate anyone. But this article, and many similar ones, use "woke" as a straw-man argument against "leftist" ideas. Proof is in your description of the word:
> If "woke" is verboten, please suggest an alternate word for this groupthink phenomena which is aping all the worst aspects of Catholicism (catechisms, original sin, inquisitions, etc.)?
This request is for a word meant to describe a perceived wrong. Woke is the correct word for what you're asking to define because only people with this agenda would use it, esp like that and thats what you want it for. As a more in-group word, try just describing your issue when a situation comes up, instead of grokking a word that carries aggressive culture-war baggage. Eg. try saying what you think, without making it a whole culture war group-think argument (because maybe life is actually more nuanced).
Maybe you're right though. Maybe my in-group knowledge is what allows me to say this. I roll my eyes at this word like when someone old asks a kid if they "tweeted on their face-gram" or someone who doesn't watch sports says "scored a homerun at their hockeyfoot game" but maybe people genuinely make good-faith assumptions that a homerun is a hockey-foot term because all sports are a single concept.
I think that the problem is that Republicans tend to use the terms as bogeymen and catch all straw men to attack the other side (e.g. Antifa, woke, social justice warrior). That creates a situation where, even if the term still could be useful for describing an ideology, it becomes associated with bad faith arguments. If Republicans argued more in good faith then I don't think we would see this phenomena as much.
It's confirmation bias all the way down. I personally tend to lean more on the right here because I went to an "elite" institution and saw firsthand, plenty of times, the same kind of totalitarian ideological bullying and groupthink that the article describes.
I do think that the reaction to this article, and the many other articles like it, are a harbinger of the near-future breakup of the United States. There is simply no possible way this country can survive when the value systems are so opposed to each other.