454 - The Decline of the Wasp & The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics

The Decline of the Wasp
By Peter Schrag
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1972. 255 pp. $6.95.

The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics
By Michael Novak
New York, Macmillan, 1972. 321 pp. $7.95.

We frequently hear it said that there has been a resurgence of ethnicity in American society. One may doubt that anything has really resurged. It is much more likely that those of us who live in Boston, New York, and Washington (or perhaps one should say Cambridge, Tarrytown, and Chevy Chase) have simply discovered there is another world beyond our cozy ethnic enclaves. Places such as South Boston, Queens, the Bronx, Hamtramck, Milwaukee Avenue, and Beverly Hills (Chicago variety) do in fact exist in the real world, not just in the minds of novelists. With this rediscovery, a wide variety of writers-Bill Moyers, Willie Morris, Robert Coles, Lowell Streiker, and Gerald S. Strober, and the countless columnists who have tried to explain the 1972 election (to themselves if to no one else)-have ventured forth into the heartland to try to figure out, with little success, what makes the "ethnics" tick.

Michael Novak is a Slovak Catholic philosopher and theologian. Peter Schrag is a German Jewish journalist and social commentator. They have written two of the best and most controversial commentaries on middle America. Professor Novak does not bother to hide his anger at the "Wasp" and Jewish domination of American cultural life, and Mr. Schrag points to the rapid decline of that dominance. While neither writer is a social scientist and both efforts lack the "hard" data (which really means "medium soft") which so delights the sociologist, they have made valuable contributions towards understanding components of American culture and society that have been ignored entirely too long. Neither writer would claim that his book was the last word on American cultural and social diversity, but each, I think, has every right to claim that he has spoken important first words.

I must make two criticisms of their efforts. Note that they are made within a context of respect for the importance of their work and happiness that they have joined the ranks of those who are aware that there is a world beyond the Allegheny Mountains.

I am afraid, however, that both Mr. Novak and Mr. Schrag are inclined to caricaturize and scapegoat the Anglo-Saxon Protestant more than that poor, battered creature deserves. I do not believe

456 - The Decline of the Wasp & The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics

that a new theory of cultural diversity in America will be developed around a search for a new enemy. Surely we have had enough of searching out scapegoats to blame for our problems in the last decade. Even if the Wasp were elected to be everyone's scapegoat, it would hardly seem fair to blame him. For after all, despite his limitations, it was the Anglo-Saxon Protestant who created the political system that permitted the rest of us to come. He may not have been all that happy to see us, and at one point he was successful in keeping many of us out; but just the same, he invented the idea of cultural pluralism, and he developed a society and culture which said the immigrants could come in and be Americans while they remained Jewish, Irish, Polish, Slovak, Armenian, Greek, and whatever else they may have been. The Anglo-Saxon may have regretted his generosity on occasion, but by and large he has stuck with the pluralistic system he invented.

Furthermore, there really is no such thing as the Anglo-Saxon Protestant. One cannot subsume under one social category Massachusetts Yankees, Carolina Crackers, Mississippi sharecroppers, Texas cattle ranchers, and California surfers. It does not seem unreasonable to assume that there may well be as much diversity within Anglo-Saxon Protestantism as there is between it and other groups which constitute American society. If the Christian Century is ready to announce that we are all ethnics, surely Anglo-Saxons must be permitted their place not only as the largest ethnic group but also as that one which is still the cultural core of American society. Incidentally, I must dissent from Mr. Novak's refusal to concede the Irish the status of an ethnic group. Despite all their vigorous efforts to the contrary, the Irish never quite have been able to assimilate.

My second problem is that I don't really believe that either author is able to describe from the inside what the ethnic world views look like. Born in Germany and educated at Amherst, Mr. Schrag was probably never part of a neighborhood. Mr. Novak undoubtedly was, but he has come a long, long way, and it may take him a while to go back, if he ever can. Slovak coal miners in Pennsylvania are quite unaware of the existence of the New York Jewish literary establishment. Whats more, if they did know about it, I am sure they couldn't care less-which on the whole is probably a healthy attitude.

I would suspect that we will begin to understand the ethnic communities from the inside when young men and women who grew up in neighborhoods and have never had to make the decisive break with them that scholars of Mr. Novak's and my generation had to suffer begin to make their contributions to American culture, politics, and life.

457 - The Decline of the Wasp & The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics

The important, indeed indispensable, contribution that Novak and Schrag have made is to facilitate the coming of the day when the ethnic, who is neither apologetic nor alienated, can speak with sympathy and warmth as well as with critical insight and sophisticated judgment about what it means to be Polish or Slovak, Lithuanian, Armenian, Italian or Irish in the United States.

Andrew M. Greeley
Center for the Study of American Pluralism
Chicago, Ill.