From the National Review Online (HT: Anamaria Scaperlanda-Ruiz)
The Story of a Well-Lived Life
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, R.I.P.
By Robert P. George
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese was a scholar as notable for her bravery as for her
brilliance. After what she described as her "long apprenticeship" in the
world of secular liberal intellectuals, it was careful reflection on the
central moral questions of our time that led her first to doubt and then to
abandon both liberalism and secularism. Needless to say, this did not endear
her to her former allies.
At the heart of her doubts about secular liberalism (and what she described
as "radical, upscale feminism") was its embrace of abortion and its
(continuing) dalliance with euthanasia. At first, she went along with
abortion, albeit reluctantly, believing that women's rights to develop their
talents and control their destinies required its legal permission
availability. But Betsey (as she was known by her friends) was not one who
could avert her eyes from inconvenient facts. The central fact about
abortion is that it is the deliberate killing of a developing child in the
womb. For Betsey, euphemisms such as "products of conception," "termination
of pregnancy," "privacy," and "choice" ultimately could not hide that fact.
She came to see that to countenance abortion is not to respect women's
"privacy" or liberty; it is to suppose that some people have the right to
decide whether others will live or die. In a statement that she knew would
enflame many on the Left and even cost her valued friendships, she declared
that "no amount of past oppression can justify women's oppression of the
most vulnerable among us."
Betsey knew that public pro-life advocacy would be regarded by many in the
intellectual establishment as intolerable apostasy - especially from one of
the founding mothers of "women's studies." She could have been forgiven for
keeping mum on the issue and carrying on with her professional work on the
history of the American south. But keeping mum about fundamental matters of
right and wrong was not in her character. And though she valued her standing
in the intellectual world, she cared for truth and justice more. And so she
spoke out ever more passionately in defense of the unborn.
And the more she thought and wrote about abortion and other life issues, the
more persuaded she became that the entire secular liberal project was
misguided. Secular liberals were not deviating from their principles in
endorsing killing whether by abortion or euthanasia in the name of
individual "choice"; they were following them to their logical conclusions.
But this revealed a profound contradiction at the heart of secular liberal
ideology, for the right of some individuals to kill others undermines any
ground of principle on which an idea of individual rights or dignity could
be founded.
Even in her early life as a secular liberal, she was never among those who
disdained religious believers or held them in contempt. As an historian and
social critic, she admired the cultural and moral achievements of Judaism
and Christianity. As her doubts about secularism grew, she began to consider
seriously whether religious claims might actually be true. Reason led her to
the door of faith, and prayer enabled her to walk through it. As she herself
described her conversion from secularism to Catholicism, it had a large
intellectual component; yet it was, in the end, less her choice than God's
grace.
Betsey continued her scholarly labors, especially in collaboration with her
husband Eugene Genovese, our nation's most distinguished historian of
American slavery. Not long ago, Cambridge University Press published their
masterwork, The
<http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0521615623> Mind of the
Master Class. Soon after Betsey's own religious conversion, Gene (who had
long been an avowed Marxist, but who had gradually moved in the direction of
cultural and political conservatism) returned to the Catholic faith of his
boyhood under the influence of his beloved wife.
As if she had not already antagonized the intellectual establishment enough,
Betsey soon began speaking out in defense of marriage and sexual morality.
Her root-and-branch rejection of the ideology of the sexual revolution - an
ideology that now enjoys the status of infallible dogma among many secular
liberal intellectuals - was based on a profound appreciation of the
centrality of marriage to the fulfillment of men and women as sexually
complementary spouses; to the well-being of children for whom the love of
mother and father for each other and for them is literally indispensable;
and to society as a whole which depends on the marriage-based family for the
rearing of responsible and upright citizens. If her pro-life advocacy
angered many liberal intellectuals, her outspoken defense of marriage and
traditional norms of sexual morality made them apoplectic.
Betsey's marriage to Gene was one of the great love stories of our time.
They were two very different personalities, perfectly united. He was the
head of the family; she was in charge of everything. Their affection for
each other created a kind of force field into which friends were drawn in
love for both of them. Although unable to have children of their own, they
lavished parental care and concern on their students and younger colleagues,
who in turn worshipped them.
Betsey leaves us many fine works of historical scholarship and social
criticism - works admired by honest scholars across the political spectrum.
Even more importantly, her life provides an unsurpassed example of
intellectual integrity and moral courage. Her fervent witness to the
sanctity of human life and the dignity of marriage and the family will
continue to inspire. May the living God who drew her to Himself comfort her
bereaved husband and grant her a full share in His divine life.
