Russell Jacoby - The end of utopia (1999)

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Once upon a time leftists and radicals talked of liberation or the abolition of work. Now the talk is about full employment.

Russell Jacoby
The disdain for culture expressed by Johst and Fanon is not identical, however. Both despise the deceit of culture, but for opposite reasons. For Johst, culture is in itself a fraud, the cheap talk of weaklings; for Fanon, culture deceives by reneging on its promises. Johst and the Nazis hated culture itself; Fanon hated its hypocrisy, a very different notion.

Russell Jacoby
The left once dismissed the market as exploitative; it now honors the market as rational and humane. The left once disdained mass culture as exploitative; now it celebrates it as rebellious. The left once honored independent intellectuals as courageous; now it sneers at them as elitist.

Russell Jacoby
Though the ancient world understood that work was a curse, modern industrial society spreads its gospel. The working class, Lafargue hopelessly hoped, must reject the work fetish.

Russell Jacoby
David Bromwich has wondered whether intellectuals today would oppose an economic slavery if it lacked any racial or cultural dimension.

Russell Jacoby
No group is able, and few are willing, to stand up to the potent homogenizing forces of advanced industrial society. All Americans, from African Americans to Greek Americans, buy the same goods, look at the same movies and television, pursue the same activities and have—more or less—the same desires for success.

Russell Jacoby
Multiculturalism is not the opposite of assimilation, but its product.

Russell Jacoby
Multiculturalism relies on an intellectual rout, the refusal or inability to address what makes up a culture.

Russell Jacoby
Endless discussions of multiculturalism proceed from the unsubstantiated assumption that numerous distinct cultures constitute American society. Only a few historians or observers even consider the possibility that the opposite may be true: that the world and the United States are relentlessly becoming more culturally uniform, not diverse.

Russell Jacoby