The Modernist Stance

Denial and counterattack is the natural posture of the modernist, as we define that perspective in our article. ² Ever a modernist, Professor Martin Redish stands alone at one extreme of the spectrum of responses. It is important to understand, however, that the vast majority of our readers­­ lawyers and scholars who are steeped in the liberal legal tradition­­are likely to hold the same view initially. They, too, may reject the classicist "notion that an agent of the government . . . may usurp the individual's right to decide what speech is valuable."' ³ They, too, may consider it "misguided"' to inquire whether first­amendment theory should turn on "judgments concerning the quality of the speech to be regulated."' ⁴ And, like Redish, they may remain silent on the central question that we pose: whether the Huxleyan lure of television's commercial entertainment culture collapses first­amendment liberty into first­amendment triviality. Theirs is a somewhat elusive posture: at the same time that they categorically refute an argument, they remain mute about its central thesis.

Yet, this stance is predictable. The strength of the modernist position depends upon a crucial move: ⁵ confining the terms of the discourse to the Orwellian perspective. The modernist evaluates our argument by the very first premises that we call into question. Specifically, we question whether the Orwellian threat of government tyranny is any longer the most serious threat to freedom of expression; we ask whether the commercial mass­ communications culture fundamentally promotes any state of mind other than self­amusement. But, by removing these questions from the discourse, the modernist de facto dismisses the Huxleyan argument.

The modernist's counterattack and silence are entirely understandable; any other response could concede that the self­realization principle is, or is becoming, one of self­gratification. Characteristically, the modernist agrees with Redish that "'the constitutional guarantee of free speech ultimately serves only one true value, . . . "individual self­realization." ' " ⁶ Can the modernist's "individual self­realization" be interpreted to refer to "individual self­gratification"? Will modernists be willing to abase their elevated theory of first­amendment value to correspond with the realities of a commercial amusement culture? ⁷ If so, there is no dispute among us that a once­respectable first­amendment theory may champion first­ amendment triviality.

Now, we see the modernist's first amendment in bold relief. To give rhetorical currency to first­amendment theory, the modernist has long had to cloak the self­gratification principle in the garb of something more ennobling. There can never be a divide between self­realization and self­gratification, for the simple reason that the modernist cannot tolerate any value judgments necessary to drive a wedge between the two. Precisely because of this predicament, the classicist, echoing the words of Professor Max Lerner, protests that there is a considerable difference between the two and "find[s] fault with first­amendment doctrines if they indulge the immediate impulses to self­expression at the expense of values that are more integral to personhood and the culture as a whole."' ⁸