Never minding, for the moment, the Frankfurt School & its alleged Marxian nihilism (at least as far as Buchanan's core values are concerned), were they wrong? Were women wrong to seek equal pay, access to fertility control (recalling even birth control was regulated by the states in the early 60s), were civil rights activists wrong to protest to continual theft of wealth & opportunity (e.g. how black veterans were robbed of GI Bill benefits); gays & lesbians having their establishments raided by police simply because they existed, etc?
I'm not going to argue the Frankfurt School pro or con here as Mr. Hancock seems far more knowledgeable. But from a far assessment of circumstances at the time I see their influence, if any, as redundant. The US, for example, was engaged in a war of attrition that obviously could not be won using the strategies available, while continuing to pour mostly disadvantaged youth into the meat-grinder. Civil rights activists who simply didn't want to sit in the back of the bus anymore were shot, hosed, attacked by dogs, & so on.
Did any of them need a Marcuse or Adorno to know that much was wrong?
As for Mr. Buchanan's overarching thesis, the alleged death of the west, I'm reminded of a passage in Herman Wouk's superb War & Remembrance where a character declares that Christianity, at least in Europe, will never survive the awful crimes perpetrated by a Christian people. When I read conservatives complain about the growing influence of Islam in western Europe I wonder if his words weren't truly prophetic. But this was, after all, a self-inflicted injury.
Critical race theory, as I understand it, might at times put the cart before the horse inasmuch as racist systems might not have been put into place intentionally, but I do believe they're there. Let us ask ourselves, why has this been so difficult, after a century-and-a-half, for black people to enjoy equity in the American Dream? Why do black families have less wealth, own fewer homes, matriculate into good colleges & universities? It can't all be welfare & rap music.
