a movie so abominably gory thatneven Wcame to the conclusionnthat it may be time for somenalteration of its own nihilisticnmessage:nMy own view, however, isnthat the book, the movie,nthe genre, have all outlivednany social or artistic purpose.n. . . Now in the ’80s it is thensociopath who sells newspapersnand movie tickets. . , .nAnyone who breaks thensocial contract by willfullynkilling another human beingnis no longer entitled to libeity—ever.n… It can benargued more reasonably thatntwo decades of a steadynscreen diet of kill, kill, slash,nslash, have corrupted thencollective psyche.nWe have been called fascists fornsaying, for years now, whatnVillage Voice is announcing asnnews, discovery, new-found obligation.nFK seems not to feel atnall guilty for its role in bringingnabout the amorphous culturalnlicense which has resulted in thenacceptance of the likes of thenPaladin Press and the box-officensuccess of movies like The Fan.nThey appear to see no ideologicalninterconnection whatsoever.nBut we read the philosophy ofnculture a little differently.nFor two decades observers ofnculmre have been repeating: if ancinema is created which is devoidnof social responsibility and bentnon perverting both the wotd andnthe concept of freedom, we willnall pay for it, either by succumbingnto fascism (which invokesn”purity of instincts”) or by seeingneveryday life become a freaknshow. Hitchcock and Bunuel didnnot objectivize or teify evil. Thisncinema does exactly that. InnPsycho, we felt the killing as theninflicting of pain. In thisncinema, we feel the slashing as ancuiiosity. Which annuls thenentire concept of a civilizationnbased on the realization thatnothers also feel pain. It’s anstrange inversion—this cinemantries to tell us that the humansnon screen do not feel pain whennthey are brutally butcherednbecause it’s all fake thrill, just fornamusement, merely the pinchingnof jaded nerves. Its socialnconsequences are horrendous.nVivat Academia!nVivant Professotes!nThe news that the workers ofnPoland have tolled the deathnknell of Marxism has yet to reachnAmerica’s universities, wherenMarxism thrives, unshaken bynevents out in the real world. Accordingnto an article in thenJanuary 25, 1982 issue of U.S.nNews & World Report, Marxistnprofessors have established theirnown httle satrapies in those iviednhails, especially in departmentsnof history and political science.nA radical leftist now reigns asnvice president of the AmericannPolitical Science Association,nand in recent years radicals haventwice held the presidency of thenprestigious Organization ofnAmerican Historians. In Americannacademe not only has Marxismnnot died—it has beenngranted tenure.nLudicrous as it seems, wellpaid,ncomfortably secure andnpresumably intelUgent distributorsnof knowledge have becomenthe vanguard of a dreatB visionnof a proletariat that does not existnempirically. Lewis Carroll’snWhite Queen coined the perfectnmotto for America’s professorialnignorance: “Why, sometimesnI’ve believed as many as six impossiblenthings before breakfast.”nThe White Queen didnnot, of course, have a classroomnof postadolescents listening innrapt attention to her nonsense.nThe academy’s idiots savantsnbatten on the intellectualnnaivete and ignorance of a captivenaudience—but then “captivenaudience” is a term not unfamiliarnin the annals of practicalnMarxism. DnEditor’s Commentncontinued from page 5nnnpredominantly the mobile urban liberal intelligentsia of thenlast generation—are very likely to have sustained psychologicalnand biological damages whose dimensions are still unmeasurable.nWe are looking at the slogan “buy now, pay later” transplantedninto the realm of delicate moral and emotional membranes.nWe’ve all heard about hippie communes which reactivatednvenereal diseases believed to have been extinct forncenturies. A woman, contrary-to feminist allegations, is morenvulnerable to license mstimtionalized by fashion than a man is,nboth physiologically and mentally, and she more easily fallsnprey to situational ethics and the void of criteria. The 1980’snwill bring an incipient awareness of the later payments whichnwill be due from the women who bought the stereotypes of then”revolution” in the 70’s—the facts of life and their renditionsnin literature will tell us what happened to the women who purchasednthe pristine shamelessness and the “wholesome”natrophy of standards. We are already beginning to hear aboutnthe gnawing feelings of emptiness that are inherent in any existencendivorced from life’s basic and inescapable tmths. Thenmain culprit, of course, is the liberal communication complexnwhich, over two decades, merely “reported what was takingnplace” and “what people wanted”—according to the words ofna New York Times editor. The testimony to the press’s grimnrole probably will never sink into the America public’s consciousness,nand the media’s mendacity will triumph once againnwith the homily, “we do not create social climates or culturalnmoods—we reflect them,” which, of course, is the century’snmost ghastly lie. Beginning with the Times, this benign promotionnof sexual nihilism trickles down to every local paper innthe country, democratizing the ancient rot of moneyed classesninto the shabby, cheap licentiousness of the provincia.n-L hus, the “revolution” has proved to be little more thannsoiling the nation’s cultural fabric. Since the commercial exploitationnof sex and the political rip-off syndrome are inseparable,nthe brutalization of sexual sentiments will ultimatelynproduce inferior and shoddier Americans of bothngenders—and there are sinister forces both within our societynand abroad which are profoundly interested in exactly that consequence.nThe perverted First Amendment is perhaps the mostnpainhil casualty in this development: it’s doubtful that Jeffersonnintended it to protect Hust/er mzga.zine. And who knowsnhow many of us will pay dearly for the collusion of corruptedn”sexologists” with mthless media entrepreneurs who, in thenname of liberal progress, have dismantled some of man’s andnwoman’s most reliable supports for their forming of mankindntogether?n—Leopold TyrmandnMay/June 1982n