No, value in its systemic forms is pulsing with power, possessing capacities for concealment, beguilement and the like, achieving a kind of spiritual
hegemony over institutions and persons.
The smog generated by the debate
over «religion and politics» obscured the fundamental anxiety that lay beneath all the sniping, posturing and manipulating: anxiety
over patriarchal power's waning influence in our national life, whether as U.S.
hegemony abroad, or as family «headship» and male entitlement in our domestic
institutions.