The Multiculturalist-Bacchic Conspiracy

David French in the National Review decides hedonism is almost as bad as liberalism

AUTHOR: David French, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund

WHERE: National Review

LENGTH: 990 words

THESIS: College students are rejecting "leftist thought control" only to turn to alcohol and sex.

MAIN QUESTION: "Between the leftists and the hedonists, is there any room on campus for ordered liberty?"

THE ENEMIES: Feminists, "'tolerance,'" beer, "thought-reform programs," Girls Gone Wild DVDs, Tucker Max, "political activism and passion," professors, "expansive 'nondiscrimination' policies."

THE GOAL: "Traditional virtues" and "student apathy."

NUMBER OF REFERENCES TO LIBERAL SOCIAL ENGINEERING: 12

CONNECTION BETWEEN 'CIVILITY' AND 'TOTALITARIANISM': Liberal "speech codes."

THE LAST WORD:

Millions of college students have answered political correctness with hedonism, defying feminist and multiculturalist scolds with hoisted beer glasses and libraries full of Girls Gone Wild DVDs. If this is the current state of student rebellion (and it is), then it’s terrible news for our culture and a disaster for conservatism. It is the rejection of one form of vice (leftist thought control) for other, equally destructive vices that will have enduring, negative effects on our civil society ...

The answer to both totalitarianism and hedonism is, of course, ordered liberty--the connection of freedom to moral responsibility and a sense of duty. Ordered liberty rejects the de jure limits to freedom so favored by the campus Left. No speech codes. No compelled speech. No mandatory thought reform. But ordered liberty also rejects hedonism.