In a recent book entitled Dark Age Ahead, Jane Jacobs argues that Western Civilization in general and the United States in particular stand on the verge of cultural collapse. As the cause of this collapse she focuses on the decline of five essential mainstays of society: the family and the community; colleges and universities; the productive use of sc i ence; the government and its taxing power; and the self-regulation of the learned pro fessions. She ends her book with a final prognosis of our culture: Ironically, societies (including our own) that were great cultural winners in the past are in special peril of failing to adapt successfully in the face of new realities. This is because nothing succeeds like success, and it follows that nothing hangs on past its prime like past success.
Formerly vigorous cultures typically fall prey to arrogant self-deception for which the Greeks had a word, hubris, which we still use. Because a culture is all of a piece, tolerance of commercial false accounting for gaining profit has military equivalents in inflated reports or enemy casualties, along with wishful intelligence about disaffection in enemy ranks.
The falsities merely feed hubris; the enemy is a "public" that knows quickly whether wartime false accounting and wishful intelligence are empty bragging. The Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba and false body counts in the Vietnam War demonstrated an American proclivity for deception. Worse, the incentives for deception-success at sycophancy and pursuit of specious careerism-imply civilian cultural expectations that are shameful whether or not they infect military capability.
Self-Evident Questions
1. When Attorney General Gonzales in the Oregon case argues that the government cannot be involved in supporting physicians who prescribe lethal drugs for terminally ill patients, is he "failing to successfully adapt in the face of new realities"? Explain.
2. When the Supreme Court supported the right to die in the Cruzan case was it exhibiting the type of self-deceptive hubris, of which Jacobs writes in Dark Age Ahead? Why or why not?
3. Some people have argued that the Supreme Court justices used a "tec h nicality" to avoid the real issue in Oregon and in doing so managed to support governmentally approved suicide without actually "sticking their necks out" in the Gonzales case. Is this action by the justices on the Supreme Court an example of the "American proclivity for self-deception"? Explain.
4. Are the rulings in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey two examples adapting successfully to changing circumstances or another case of self-deception? Explain.
5. Both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey use a standard for personhood based on science's ability to push viability closer and closer to conception. Is this faith in science not an excellent example of h u bris? Explain.