Blue State Bluenoses

Julian Sanchez | January 25, 2005

The latest in a long line of victory-through-capitulation suggestions for besieged Democrats comes from David Callahan, author of the execrable The Cheating Culture. If liberals really wanted to steal the right's culture war thunder, says Callahan, they would "complain about market capitalism run amok, about the public interest subverted, and about moral decline. They would understand that it is time for liberals to go after Hollywood." That means ramping up Liebermanesque rhetoric about the "toxic" values of the entertainment industry, from violence and sexism to the "Darwinian" competitiveness of reality shows.

Of course, Callahan has the highest regard for free speech: "Steering clear of anything that smacks of censorship," he writes, "[Democrats] should demand more aggressive voluntary steps by Hollywood to clean up its act." But as the incongruous combination of "demand" and "voluntary" suggests, it's hard to imagine acquiescence with such "demands" being driven by anything but fear of legislation. And Callahan soon thereafter urges that we begin " a revival of the regulatory vision behind the founding of the Federal Communications Commission in 1934--namely, that broadcasters must serve the public interest in exchange for access to the airwaves." Hey, David? You're smacking.

When he calls for "alternatives to market-controlled culture," Callahan is expressing a desire for some other values—his, naturally—to control culture. Of course, the market is a way of allowing values, as expressed through billions of dispersed consumption decisions, to control culture, even if the values people profess publicly sometimes differ from those they reveal at the box office or with their remote controls. And you can smile and brandish your ACLU card as much as you like in an effort to "get past the issue of free speech," but if you want to displace their values with your values, to create "alternatives" to the production of culture that's responsive to consumer demand, you're going to end up relying on either regulation or the threat of it.