The "Failure" of Liberalism: A Reassessment of Ideology from a New Feminine-Masculine Perspective

In the wake of the rightist resurgence there is increasing talk of the failure of liberalism. This is a report of afive-year ideological reassessment examining cross-cultural findings, modern and ancient history, archeology, social philosophy, psychological studies (including a new look at the authoritarian personality), and futurist studies from a new systems-analytic perspective. A basic finding is of an underlying ideological conflict with far more ancient roots, comprehensive effects on contemporary behavior, and profound implications for the human future than the liberalism-conservatism conflict as it has been generally perceived. On one side is an ideology which cross-historically and cross-culturally is characterized by a highly correlated configuration of male dominance, a generally hierarchic social organization, and a high degree of institutionalized social violence. On the other side is a much more ancient ideology -from which modern liberalism in part derives- characterized by an emphasis on human linking (rather than ranking), creativity, and peacefulness. The great ideological problem of our time is found to be rooted in the conflict of a manifest ideology based on a paradigm of linking and a persistent latent ideology in which one half of humanity, men, are still ranked by religion and science over the other half, women. While the rightist resurgence is powered by ideological consistency on both the manifest and latent levels, the failure of liberalism is found to derive ultimately from these irreconcilable ideological inconsistencies, which both psychologically and sociologically vitiate its forward drive.