373 lines
26 KiB
Plaintext
373 lines
26 KiB
Plaintext
Left2Right – a critical appraisal
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<p>I’ve been reading a new blog called<br />
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<a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/'>Left2Right</a>, founded in<br />
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mid-November 2004 as an attempt by a group of left-wing intellectuals to reach<br />
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out to intelligent people on the right of the American political spectrum.<br />
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It is indeed a thought-provoking read, but the thoughts they are provoking<br />
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are not necessarily of the sort they intend.</p>
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<p>This response is intended for the Left2Right authors, so I’ll<br />
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rehearse what will be obvious to regular <cite>Armed and<br />
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Dangerous</cite> readers; I’m not a conservative or right-winger<br />
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myself, but a radical libertarian who finds both ends of the<br />
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conventional spectrum <a href='http://www.ibiblio.org/esrblog/index.php?m=200409#153'>about<br />
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equally repugnant</a>. My tradition is the free-market classical liberalism of Locke and<br />
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Hayek. I utterly reject both the Marxist program and the reactionary<br />
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cultural conservatism of Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and (today) the<br />
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Religious Right. Conservatism is defined by a desire to preserve<br />
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society’s existing power relationships; given a choice, I prefer<br />
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subverting them to preserving them.</p>
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<p>One advantage my libertarianism gives me is that while I disagree<br />
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violently with a lot of right-wing thinking, I understand it much<br />
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better than most leftists do. The reverse is not quite as true; while<br />
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I do believe I understand left-wing thinking pretty well, most<br />
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right-wing intellectuals are not so ignorant of leftism that I have an<br />
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unusual advantage there. They can’t be, not after having passed<br />
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through the PC indoctrination camps that most American universities<br />
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have become.</p>
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<p>A right-winger, noting the concentration of philosophy and<br />
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humanities professors in the Left2Right bios and the number of them<br />
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who list topics like “race and gender issues” as interest areas, would<br />
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say that the contributors are typical members of the elite that runs<br />
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those camps. But one of the things that Left2Right suggests to this<br />
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libertarian is that even these people are prisoners, locked in by<br />
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their own group-think. The toughest challenge they face in reaching<br />
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out to right-wingers is not a problem with right-wingers — it is the<br />
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unexamined premises and lacunae in their own reasoning.</p>
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<p>The <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/12/liberators.html'>post</a><br />
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that is at the top of the blog as I write is a subtle but perfect<br />
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illustration of this point. J. David Velleman, writing on Bush<br />
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administration strategy about the liberation of Iraq, argues that they<br />
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fell victim to a philosophical error, believing that giving the Iraqi<br />
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people freedom would be sufficient to pacify the country. He writes<br />
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“These decisionmakers seem not to have considered the possibility that<br />
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freedom alone may not induce people to do wonderful things if they<br />
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lack a shared sense of confidence in the legitimacy of the social<br />
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order”.</p>
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<p>This is a refreshing change from the dimmer sort of left-wing<br />
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narrative, in which Bush and Cheney head a sinister cabal who dream<br />
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of an American empire that enslaves the Iraqis and steals their oil<br />
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for Halliburton. It’s an intelligent criticism; possibly even a<br />
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correct one.</p>
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<p>But…and this is a large ‘but’…the when Velleman goes on to<br />
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imply that “shared confidence in the legitimacy of the social order”<br />
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is one of the “values of the left” without which the “values of the<br />
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Right are simply not viable”, he reveals himself to be inhabiting some<br />
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sort of ahistorical cloud-Cuckoo land. He is making an archetypally<br />
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right-wing sort of argument here, one which would sound far more<br />
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likely from Russell Kirk or an eighteenth-century clericalist than from<br />
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anyone who purports to be part of the tradition of Karl Marx or<br />
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Mikhael Bakunin or Emma Goldman.</p>
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<p>Velleman’s blythe unawareness of the reactionary tenor of his own<br />
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argument suggests more than just a ignorance of right-wing political<br />
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thinking that is crippling for anyone engaged in Left2Right’s project;<br />
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it suggests that Left thought has become so empty of any content of<br />
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its own, so stuck in reflexive oppositionalism, that all that remains<br />
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to it is to grab at any concept that can be used to oppose George W.<br />
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Bush.</p>
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<p>In fact, this model of a Left stuck in reflexive oppositionalism is<br />
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exactly what conservative intellectuals believe about it. Their<br />
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narrative goes like this: once upon a time, Left thought was a genuine<br />
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world-system, a coherent if tragically mistaken competitor to<br />
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classical liberalism and capitalism. The Soviet Union used this<br />
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theory for evil purposes, to seduce the intelligentsia of the West and<br />
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foment among them anti-American, anti-capitalist hatred. When the<br />
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Soviet Union collapsed, the Left’s world-system collapsed with it.<br />
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All that remained was a catalogue of resentments clothed in the<br />
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tattered remnants of Marxist theory, but the Left intelligentsia never<br />
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let go of this. As the theory crumbled, the resentments<br />
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<em>became</em> the theory. So we are left with a Left that is more<br />
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hysterically anti-American than ever, and willing to suck up to<br />
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monstrous dictators like Saddam Hussein, precisely because it no<br />
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longer knows what to be <em>for</em>.</p>
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<p>Now: reread the above paragraph, then ask yourself what Velleman’s<br />
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rhetoric will inevitably sound like to a conservative intellectual. You<br />
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will know you have gotten it when your hair stands on end.</p>
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<p>We continue with a <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/12/supporting_our_.html'>post</a><br />
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by Jeff McMahan on “Support our Troops” bumper stickers. McMahan<br />
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appears to mean well, but when writes as though he thinks that the<br />
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owners of SUVs and vans who bear these stickers are performing some<br />
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kind of Machiavellian calculation about oil-shock risks he is merely<br />
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proving that he is laughably out of touch with the thinking of<br />
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ordinary Americans.</p>
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<p>A gentle hint for Mr. McMahan: People who own vans and SUVs<br />
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<em>live in the suburbs</em>. People who live in the suburbs<br />
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predominantly <em>vote Republican</em>; this is a cold demographic<br />
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fact known to almost everybody whose horizons are wider than those of<br />
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an average NPR radio-show host. The fact that you don’t know this, and<br />
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instead chase after paranoid all-about-the-oil theories, makes you the<br />
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sort of person conservatives laugh about and and point out as a<br />
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paradigmatic example of left-liberal cluelessness.</p>
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<p>The ahistorical J. David Velleman speaks some good sense in<br />
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<a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/12/debunking_a_dea.html#more'><br />
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debunking a dead horse</a>. He may be dead-ignorant of right-wing thought<br />
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but he clearly isn’t stupid. Like all the contributors he radiates a<br />
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sense that he is honestly trying.</p>
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<p>David Estlund’s <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/12/the_first_data_.html'>The<br />
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First Data Point on Anti-Terrorism</a> starts as fairly standard-issue<br />
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Bush-bashing; he ignores the fact that, if the Bush administration was<br />
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culpable, the Clinton administration was even more culpable on the<br />
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same “knew or should have known” sort of argument. The intelligence<br />
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estimates that made al-Qaeda out to be imminently dangerous long<br />
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predate the 2000 elections.</p>
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<p>The more interesting part of his post is his repetition of the meme<br />
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that Republicans won’t listen to arguments or evidence from<br />
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intellectuals like him. He is so full of self-congratulation about<br />
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the Bushies’ alleged inability to let the evidence lead them where it<br />
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will (and by implication, his own superior ability to do so) that he<br />
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completely misses the real reason conservative policy makers tune his<br />
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kind out.</p>
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<p>Mr. Estlund, how can I break this to you gently…the Bushies ignore<br />
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advice from left-wing academics because they believe the source is poisoned.<br />
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<em>They believe you hate America and want to destroy it.</em> Given<br />
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that belief, it would be their duty to listen to your advice only with<br />
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the determination to do the exact opposite of anything you recommend.</p>
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<p>Now, mind you, in pointing this out, I am not alleging that you<br />
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actually <em>do</em> hate America and want to destroy it. My claim is<br />
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that from the point of view of most conservatives, that is the only<br />
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model that plausibly explains your speech and behavior. They do not<br />
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merely pretend to believe your kind is evil as a matter of rhetoric or<br />
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tactical positioning, they actually <em>do</em> believe it. With the<br />
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best will in the world to listen to critics and weigh evidence, they<br />
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still wouldn’t take policy advice from you any more readily than you<br />
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would accept it from a Nazi.</p>
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<p>(Allow me to contrast this with the position I think more typical of<br />
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libertarians, which is that left-wing academics are not evil per se<br />
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but have been so canalized by Marxist-derived ideology that on most<br />
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politico-economic issues they should be ignored on grounds of<br />
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irremediable incompetence.)</p>
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<p>So, if you want to be listened to in Washington, your problem (one<br />
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which is general to left-wing intellectuals) is how to falsify<br />
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conservatives’ belief that you hate America and want to destroy it.<br />
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This is not going to be possible at all as long as you express<br />
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contempt for the values and reasoning ability of the majority of<br />
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Americans that voted for George Bush.</p>
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<p>But your problem runs deeper than that. To be listened to, you<br />
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will need to demonstrate that you share what present-day American<br />
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conservatives think of as their core beliefs, including but not limited<br />
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to:</p>
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<ul>
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<li>The practical <em>and moral</em> superiority of free-market capitalism<br />
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over socialism and all other competing visions of political economics.</li>
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<li>American exceptionalism — the belief that the U.S. is uniquely<br />
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qualified by history and values to bring liberty to the oppressed of<br />
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the world.</li>
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<li>Islamic terrorism is an unqualified evil which cannot be explained<br />
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or excused either by “root cause” analysis; further, that laying it<br />
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to past failures in U.S. policy is a form of blaming the victim.</li>
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</ul>
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<p>(Note that I am not endorsing these beliefs, simply pointing out that<br />
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<em>conservatives</em> generally hold them.)</p>
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<p>As long as conservatives believe that you do not share these core<br />
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beliefs with them, they will conclude that your policy “help” on Iraq<br />
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or the War on Terror would be an active detriment. And — here’s<br />
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the hard part — they will be <em>justified</em> in that belief<br />
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(which, as you doubtless know, is not the same as the assertion that<br />
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the belief is confirmably true).</p>
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<p>But you have yet another problem, which is not about the beliefs of<br />
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conservative intellectuals or policymaking elites. It is that in<br />
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rejecting the core beliefs I have pointed at, you are not merely<br />
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defining yourself out of the policy conversation conservatives are<br />
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ready to have, you are also out of step with the majority of the<br />
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American people. The voters. As long as that continues to be the<br />
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case, the Left will continue to lose elections.</p>
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<p>Estlund’s posting responds to the previous one, in which Gerald Dworkin<br />
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says intelligent things about the Bush administration’s apparent success<br />
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at preventing major terrorist acts in the U.S., and the electoral ramifications<br />
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thereof. Excellent; if the Left is prepared to face reality this squarely,<br />
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there is hope for them yet.</p>
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<p>J. David Velleman has more sensible things to say about the<br />
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politics of homosexuality. His distinction between the respect that<br />
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we owe “gay rights” and the problematic status of “gay pride” is<br />
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astute. I think leftists also need to understand that many<br />
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conservatives (and libertarians like myself) feel a deep and<br />
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principled revulsion not just against “gay pride” but against all<br />
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forms of manipulative identity politics, and are heartily fed up with<br />
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having leftists construe that revulsion as bigotry.</p>
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<p>Stephen Darwall’s <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/school_resegreg.html'>School<br />
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Resegregation and the Exurbs</a>, on the other hand, feels like an<br />
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attempt to force new wine into old wineskins. The Left’s tendency to<br />
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turn every policy argument into a diatribe about racism (too often,<br />
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racism that existed nowhere but in the Left’s imagination) was always<br />
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one of its least attractive traits. We could do without a<br />
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revival.</p>
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<p>Again, I am not just discussing elite opinion here. If you go to<br />
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the voters with the argument that wanting to live in exurbs is<br />
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evidence of racism, they will stiff-arm you. Actually, I think it is<br />
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only the hothouse atmosphere of the academy that has kept racism alive<br />
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as a topic in American thought for the last fifteen years or so.</p>
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<p>In <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/being_forthrigh.html'>Being<br />
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Forthright</a>, Seanna Shiffrin says nothing at all that has any<br />
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chance of increasing understanding between Left and Right, and does so<br />
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at some length. Her screed reads, to any conservative (and even to a<br />
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libertarian like me) as extended self-congratulation about how Left<br />
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convictions are so obviously correct that if leftists trumpet them<br />
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loudly enough the people will come.</p>
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<p>This is a perfect example of the wages of groupthink. In fact, if the<br />
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six election cycles since 1980 demonstrate anything, it is that being<br />
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more “forthright” about left-wing positions is a recipe for electoral<br />
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disaster.</p>
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<p>Kwame Appiah <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/less_contempt.html'>takes<br />
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the opposite tack</a>: “In these circumstances I think it would be<br />
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better to show up first with an offer to listen than with an offer to<br />
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talk.” A commenter correctly observes that this may be the most<br />
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useful thing we have heard a Democrat say since the elections.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, the rest of the posting is yet another narrative about<br />
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left-wing superiority, though Mr. Appiah gives it the novel twist of<br />
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ascribing this belief to right-wingers! For this he is quite properly<br />
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taken to the woodshed buy some conservative commenters.</p>
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<p>Speaking as an observer who is (once again) <em>not</em> a<br />
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conservative, I salute the commenter who said “I think you go<br />
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profoundly astray in this understanding of why conservatives rail<br />
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against the liberal media. It isn’t about being liked. It is about<br />
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believing that the liberal media distorts the truth and manipulates<br />
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beliefs by using such distortions. They rail against the political and<br />
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social power which they believe is being corruptly used.</p>
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<p>I’ll go further than that. I resent the way that the Left uses its<br />
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effective control of the mainstream media to manipulate belief even<br />
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when the manipulation advances causes I <em>agree</em> with —<br />
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for example, abortion rights. I don’t like “pro-lifers” and I don’t<br />
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agree with them — but that doesn’t stop me from noticing that<br />
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they get stigmatized as all being yahoos and routinely associated with<br />
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clinic-bombers by the same media that is very painstaking in<br />
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separating the Left’s violent crazies from allegedly more<br />
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“respectable” organizations like Greenpeace or PETA.</p>
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<p>It is wise of Joshua Cohen to have <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/the_moral_value.html'>noticed</a><br />
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that gay-marriage initiatives probably actually hurt Bush rather than<br />
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winning him the election. If the Left continues to comfort itself by<br />
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believing its only real problem is with Christian evangelicals, it will<br />
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slide further into denial and irrelevancy.</p>
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<p>The American rejection of what Cohen calls “progressive values” is<br />
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much, much broader based than that. As an agnostic Wiccan who thinks<br />
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the War on Drugs was a huge toxic blunder, I am not personally<br />
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thrilled about this development, but I recognize it as fact<br />
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nevertheless. Mr. Cohen is to be commended for urging this unwelcome<br />
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news on the Left.</p>
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<p>On the other hand, J. David Velleman’s <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/the_academic_re.html'>post</a><br />
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on the Academic Bill of Rights does not go nearly far enough. His is<br />
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a more sophisticated form of defensive crouch than the outright denial<br />
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we usually see, but merely admitting that “large regions of the<br />
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humanities and social sciences have become increasingly ideological,” doesn’t<br />
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even come close to addressing the actual magnitude of the problem.</p>
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<p>I am, in an important sense, an applied humanist/sociologist. My<br />
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<a href='http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/'>analysis</a><br />
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of the anthropology and sociology of open-source software development<br />
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has a significant reputation in academia; it has been cited with the<br />
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coveted adjective “seminal” and spawned quite a number of master’s and<br />
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doctoral theses. My work has required that I enter the conceptual<br />
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world of modern “humanities and social sciences” — not merely to<br />
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theorize about these disciplines, but to <em>use</em> them in ways<br />
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that have helped trigger transformative changes in the software<br />
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industry.</p>
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<p>I have immodestly set forth these qualifications here because my<br />
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experience requires an even stronger indictment than David Horowitz’s,<br />
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let alone the mild one that Mr. Velleman will admit. I have<br />
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encountered entire academic fields that have been effectively<br />
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<em>destroyed</em> by Left politics, in the sense that they can no<br />
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longer talk about anything other than power relations. Postmodern<br />
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literary criticism is only the most obvious example; for that matter,<br />
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postmodernist <em>anything</em> is reliably a nihilist swamp obsessed<br />
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with ‘agendas’ and ‘power relations’ to the exclusion of its<br />
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ostensible subject matter.</p>
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<p>Here’s one that affects me particularly: the damage done to<br />
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cultural anthropology has been horrific, with the perverse effect of<br />
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making my amateur and tentative essays in it look far stronger than<br />
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they would have if the field were actually healthy.</p>
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<p>I don’t have a fix for this problem. But I do know that more than any<br />
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mere housecleaning is needed. Some of these dwellings are so rotted out<br />
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that they will have to be razed and rebuilt before they are habitable<br />
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by anything but political animals.</p>
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<p>Don Herzog is right to ask, in <a hreg='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/religion_and_po.html'><br />
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Religion and politics</a>, exactly what conservatives want when they say<br />
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Americans should agree that we a “Christian nation”. This is exactly the<br />
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sort of question that the Left, if its continued existence is to mean<br />
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anything useful, <em>should</em> be pushing.</p>
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<p>J. David Velleman makes the surprising <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/let_roe_go.html'>concession</a><br />
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that Roe V. Wade was bad politics and bad law. As a pro-choicer who<br />
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nevertheless agrees with conservatives on this point (and largely for<br />
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the reasons Velleman states), I have been wondering when the Left<br />
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would begin to wake up on this point.</p>
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<p>Groupthink shows up again in Gerald Dworkin’s <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/less_contempt_m.html'>Less<br />
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contempt; more mutual ground</a>. I’m thinking in particular of his claim<br />
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that “Both those who advocate gun-control and those who oppose it can<br />
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agree that trigger-locks and other safety devices are desirable.”</p>
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<p>It is evident here that Mr. Dworkin has no idea what pro-firearms<br />
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activists like myself actually believe. It seems likely he has never<br />
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actually spoken with one; otherwise he would know that we regard<br />
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trigger locks as bad things, because they reduce the utility of<br />
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firearms for one of their principal purposes — self-defense. If<br />
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your friendly neighborhood junkie breaks into your home and menaces<br />
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your family with a knife (or, as in one recent case, a branding iron)<br />
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you need to be able to get the weapon into play <em>fast</em>.<br />
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Trigger locks and soi-disant “safety devices” primarily benefit<br />
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criminals by reducing their risks.</p>
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<p>In fact, we regard the push for trigger locks as an underhanded<br />
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attempt to make self-defense impractical so that popular support for<br />
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firearms rights will lose a major prop. If Mr. Dworkin had ever discussed<br />
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this issue outside a UC Davis faculty meeting, he would probably know<br />
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this.</p>
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<p>In <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/not_too_bright.html'>Not<br />
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Too Bright</a>, J. David Velleman misses a central point about<br />
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American hostility to the “intelligentsia” because he falls back into<br />
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the comforting Left groupthink about the Christian evangelicals and<br />
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“moral values”.</p>
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<p>I’m an intellectual myself, not a Christian, not a conservative.<br />
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Yet I understand the emotion Mr. Dworkin reads as<br />
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“anti-intellectualism”; I even sympathize with it to some extent. It<br />
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is a folk reaction to what Julian Benda called <a href='http://www.ibiblio.org/esrblog/index.php?m=200211'>le trahison<br />
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des clercs</a>. The West’s intelligentsia — not all of it, but<br />
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enough of it to tar all of us — was a willing accomplice in the<br />
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terrible totalitarian crimes of the 20th century. Today, the same<br />
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segments of the intelligentsia that cooperated with Stalinism are<br />
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issuing apologetics for al-Qaeda. (This is not just metaphorically but<br />
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<em>literally</em> the case, as the pedigree of A.N.S.W.E.R. and the<br />
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“Not In Our Name” organizers shows.)</p>
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<p>Until the academic Left faces up to the evil at the center of its<br />
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own history, it will completely fail to understand why<br />
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“anti-intellectualism” is common even anong people who find Christian<br />
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“moral values” argument as off-putting as I do.</p>
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<p>We could ask for no better illustration of the blindness induced by<br />
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comforting groupthink than Elizabeth Anderson’s <a href='http://left2right.typepad.com/main/2004/11/what_hume_can_t.html'><br />
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What Hume can teach us about our partisan divisions</a>.</p>
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<p>She writes “If interests were all that divided us, the Democratic<br />
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Party (what there is of the Left that has institutional power) would<br />
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enjoy an overwhelming majority, since it represents the interests of<br />
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the bulk of the population, while Republican policies favor mainly the<br />
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rich. Most people understand this, and the Left can offer sound<br />
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arguments and evidence to persuade those who disagree.”</p>
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<p>I am not a Republican. I have never been a Republican. But claims<br />
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like this, presented as though they are unassailable fact, utterly<br />
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infuriate me. And if they infuriate <em>me</em>, imagine how they<br />
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would affect an actual conservative!</p>
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<p>As a matter of political economics, I believe that the high-tax,<br />
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high-spending policies of the Democrats benefit <em>nobody</em> except<br />
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a small class of elite parasites and a slightly larger one of welfare<br />
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clients; the “bulk of the population” gets shafted, forced to pay the<br />
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bill for redistributive programs that wind up doing net damage to<br />
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society. Nor is there any reason, given that the Democrats now rely<br />
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more on wealthy contributors than the Republicans, to credit the<br />
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worn-out canard that Republicans are tools of the rich.</p>
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<p>It is not, however, the factual falsity of Ms. Anderson’s claim<br />
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that is most infuriating, but its smugness, its blind arrogance,<br />
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its casual assumption that no reasonable person could possibly<br />
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disagree with the premises. Anyone who decides to reject Julian<br />
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Benda’s analysis need look no further for an explanation of<br />
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American anti-intellectualism than this. After reading it, I’m<br />
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almost ready to torch the nearest ivory tower myself.</p>
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<p>It is a good thing that the skein finishes (actually, begins) with<br />
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David J. Velleman’s honest puzzlement about conservative notions of “absolute<br />
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evil”; otherwise, with the taste of Ms, Anderson’s purblind parochialism<br />
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in my mouth, I might have to conclude that Left2Right’s project is<br />
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unsalvageable.</p>
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<p>What can we conclude from Left2Right’s first three weeks of<br />
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postings? My own evaluation begins with praise: comparing with what I<br />
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read elsewhere, I think these writers truly do represent the best of<br />
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the modern Left. I see more willingness than I might have expected<br />
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to honestly question some of the Left’s sacred cows.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, the news is far from all good. Too many smug<br />
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shibboleths are also being repeated here. There is too much talk and<br />
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not enough listening – not enough attempt to engage the Right’s<br />
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beliefs (as opposed to a comforting left-wing parody of those beliefs).</p>
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<p>Kwame Appiah is right. If you really want to build a healthy<br />
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dialogue with the right-wing majority in America, you need to approach<br />
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them not to teach but to <em>learn</em>.</p></p>
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