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Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline, by Robert H. Bork (Regan Books/Harper Collins, 1996, 382 pp.; $25). Reviewed by Ernest W. Lefever, senior fellow, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, D.C.

On receiving the Medal of Freedom in Washington in May, Billy Graham said that "the greatest nation in history stands on the brink of self-destruction." In his new book, Robert H. Bork, the eminent constitutional scholar, pronounces a similar judgment. After marshaling evidence of America's cultural and political decline, Bork concludes we are well on the road to nihilism and spiritual chaos, if not on the cusp of a new Dark Age.

In Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Judge Bork lays much of the blame on "modern liberalism"—a pernicious world-view rooted in the Enlightenment's emphasis on unaided reason and the French Revolution's demand for "radical egalitarianism." Modern liberalism, he says, has "a very different mood and agenda" from traditional liberalism, which advanced the quest for ordered liberty and democracy.

Like other conservatives, Bork asserts that America's liberal elite—politically correct academics, clergy, journalists, entertainers, and foundation staffs—have captured the culture and are polluting it with permissiveness, sloth, illegitimacy, smut, and crime. And with the aid of modern technology, the rot symbolized by rap music, Madonna, and MTV is bound to increase, short of a miracle.

Many who agree with Bork's dismay with the "profane manifestations of popular culture" will question his call for censorship. In the climate of freedom and limited government embraced by the Constitution, Americans have long exercised self-censorship flowing from the norms set by religion and morality as expressed in families and communities. But these essential social restraints have been eroded by a "rampant individualism" that makes everyone his own judge of right and wrong.

Thus, Bork argues, nonpatronage, boycotts, and V-chips are not enough to stop the flow of filth. Though he is vague on details—in which the Devil always resides—he suggests that Congress, not the Supreme Court, could somehow establish guidelines to help curb the mad rush to "a disorderly, hedonistic, and dangerous society," adding, "The government ought not try to impose virtue, but it can deter incitements to vice."

But censorship, even if desirable, is not the ultimate answer. What is needed, Bork holds, is a genuine religious revival and a vigorous reaffirmation of our Judeo-Christian moral heritage. "Perhaps the most promising development of our time," he suggests, "is the rise of an energetic, optimistic, and politically sophisticated religious conservatism," because its objectives are "cultural and moral" as well as political. This emphasis will come as a surprise to those who think of Bork, who has no formal religious affiliation, as an agnostic. Actually, he recently called himself a "generic Protestant." He attended a Presbyterian Sunday school until he was 12 and lately has been reading C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot.

In an intriguing passage, Bork discusses which came first, religion or morality. He acknowledges the solid bond between faith and ethics, but says it is possible for some individuals to possess virtue without professing a religious faith. Like T. S. Eliot, he believes there is a secular ethic that lives off the moral capital provided by religion. But since that moral capital has been dangerously eroded in recent decades, a "Western society in which Christianity has been dominant—cannot retain its virtue when religion has lapsed." Keep tuned.

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November 11 1996, Vol. 40, No. 13