Modern Age - Summer 2016 - 87

POSTMODERN DEMENTIA

young people that self-belief, although pleasant, does not actually lead to superior performance," which is more likely to result
from self-control and perseverance (132). One might ask, "Who
can disagree," except that most contemporary progressive liberals do?

T

he most contrarian essay in the Bauerlein-Bellow collection is
the last, "The New Antinomian Attitude," by R. R. Reno, who,
like many of the other authors, is revisiting a notion that he has
often discussed before, "the empire of desire." By this he refers to
the way contemporary society and politics are organized to serve
the pursuit of self-fulfillment no matter where it may lead: "Life is
better, more humane, and more just to the degree that we succeed in relaxing the grip of traditional morality over our interior
lives so that our desires can be more freely satisfied, so that Charlie
can become Charlene" (227). And Reno is not hopeful: "There is no
revolt building against this regime" (229).
He thus directly contradicts the conclusion of the editors in
their afterword, who "await with eagerness the next Federalist
Papers and Leaves of Grass, another Trust Buster and New Deal,
'A Time for Choosing' speech and an eloquent martyr in a Birmingham jail " (242). No wonder Reno is pessimistic. However one
rates Leaves of Grass as poetry, it is unquestionably a celebration
of the empire of desire, of individualistic narcissism (its first and
most famous poem is "Song of Myself"); and its vision of America
is not merely different from but opposed to that of the Federalist
Papers. The sigh is almost audible in Reno's prose:
The best one can hope for, I suppose, is to detail the havoc that
desire's metaphysical priority produces-broken families, broken
moder nagejour nal .com

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Modern Age - Summer 2016

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