The Horizontal Society

Friedman argues that today's mass culture of television, movies, pop music and mass communications spreads an ideology of choice, consumption, individualism and mobility and is basically modern and global, rather than specifically Western. Likewise, he believes the drive for human rights, freedoms and individual dignity unfolding around the world is a struggle for universal rather than intrinsically Western values. These trends, he maintains in a humane study that is by turns workmanlike and provocative, have been unleashed by the shift away from the traditional, ""vertical,"" top-down authority systems of parents, bosses, heads of state and priests toward a ""horizontal"" society organized around relationships with peers or with like-minded individuals. Through the prism of this horizontal vs. vertical framework, Friedman, a Stanford law professor, offers some fresh insights into marriage, nationalist and ethnic strife, class and debates over affirmative action and language. Friedman contends that the U.S. has evolved from a culture of assimilation toward the ideal of ""plural equality"" or diversity within a multicultural society--a goal he generally endorses, even if it has the side effect of political correctness. He closes with a sobering look at the downside of global mass culture--shallow consumerism, rootlessness, worship of empty success, atomization of millions of isolated individuals. (Apr.)