AS CONFLICT IN AMERICAN CULTURE increases and the idea of revolution is no longer dismissed as some absurd anarchist dream but increasingly entertained by men of more moderate per suasion, more and more voices can be heard echoing a common warning. The warning is this: The new left must either temper its attacks on the military, corporate, and educational establishment in this country, or we will all suffer the wrath of a fascist nightmare. Put in these terms, the new left is made responsible for the coming American fascism. The usual analysis proceeds with the notion that the attack on the liberal center from both the right and left weak ens and eventually destroys democratic institutions. The process begins with the left questioning the mythologies that sustain bourgeois society thus threatening the security of those in power and ends with a repressive fascist order. In this sense, the more the left agitates, the more the fascist right can be expected to grow. There are few political and social analysts in this country who seri ously doubt the possibility that given an open confrontation the fascist would win. Virtually every observer seems to predict that a socialism of the right not the left would emerge. It is interesting that in times of severe crisis, most liberals can be relied upon to move to the right rather than to the left of the political spectrum. There are, of course, a number of problems with the above anal ysis. It is clear that this analysis is created by liberals who see them selves as the guardian of a kind of middle-class democracy who ab hor conflict and violence and who take pride in endorsing reasoned intelligent change. Espousing the moderate humanitarian virtues
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