Lerner on Status Quo

As a Jew who consistently votes Democrat, I was interested to find a Lerner article on the Op-Ed Page. After all, Lerner professes to speak for a large portion of the liberal Jewish population. However, after reading his sweeping critique of everything from capitalism to dieting, I would find it hard to believe that he speaks for more than just a few people.

Lerner attempted an impossible task by trying to spell out his world view in the short space of a newspaper column. He compensated for the lack of space by leaving many of his key terms undefined, and simplistically splitting the world into two groups. In Lerner’s world, there are only conservatives and liberals. Conservatives apparently are Adam Smith-loving, narcissistic folks who spend their time talking about child care in technocratic terms. They can be Republicans or Democrats. Then there are a few “spiritual” liberals. He never explains who these people are.

I get the feeling that Lerner would define a spiritual liberal with a democratic ideology as someone who does exactly what Lerner would do in any given situation.

GREG ZIPES

Los Angeles