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The collapse of reason
Boston Globe ^

Posted on 05/30/2006 2:47:08 PM PDT by jexus

The collapse of reason By Cathy Young  |  May 29, 2006 AT A TIME when conservatives dominate all three branches of government and hold an increasingly large share of the Fourth Estate, the academy remains the last liberal stronghold. You would think, then, that liberal intellectuals would offer some thoughtful and productive critiques of conservative policies. But instead, argues one leading liberal intellectual, the academic left is making itself irrelevant by embracing ideological extremism and trying to purge its ranks of those who are not politically correct.

(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: academia; enlightenment; highereducation; intellectualism; intellegentdesign; leftismoncampus; postmodernism; reason
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Be very kind.
1 posted on 05/30/2006 2:47:10 PM PDT by jexus
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To: jexus

I think reason has collapsed on top of poor Cathy's head......

WOW! talk about slanted.....amazing.....


2 posted on 05/30/2006 2:49:06 PM PDT by eeevil conservative (I am your worst nightmare. I am not a racist, terrorist, or nativist. I am an AMERICAN, & I Vote!)
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To: jexus

Be very kind of what?

We do not have conservatives dominating all three branches of the government. We have a conservative toehold in the house, and the rest are mushy moderates.


3 posted on 05/30/2006 2:49:21 PM PDT by 308MBR ( Somebody sold the GOP to the socialists, and the GOP wasn't theirs to sell.)
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To: jexus
Be very kind.

LOL! Her first sentence was probably written in a drug-induced haze.

4 posted on 05/30/2006 2:50:30 PM PDT by SIDENET (I like liberals...they taste like CHICKEN.)
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To: jexus

Link doesn't work, but that's probably a mercy. :)


5 posted on 05/30/2006 2:51:51 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: jexus

Your link is broken.


6 posted on 05/30/2006 2:52:52 PM PDT by rogue yam
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To: rogue yam
Try This
7 posted on 05/30/2006 2:54:54 PM PDT by MarkeyD (Make Love, Not Cartoons. I really, really loathe liberals.)
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To: jexus
The only good thing about this article is it mentions the book "Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science," by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt. If you haven't read it, and you are interested in anything scientific, I strongly recommend you read it.

After that, if you're still interested, read about the Sokal hoax. WARNING: Sokal is a lefty, but what he did is very amusing.
8 posted on 05/30/2006 2:59:31 PM PDT by TheWasteLand
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To: MarkeyD

The collapse of reason
By Cathy Young | May 29, 2006

AT A TIME when conservatives dominate all three branches of government and hold an increasingly large share of the Fourth Estate, the academy remains the last liberal stronghold. You would think, then, that liberal intellectuals would offer some thoughtful and productive critiques of conservative policies. But instead, argues one leading liberal intellectual, the academic left is making itself irrelevant by embracing ideological extremism and trying to purge its ranks of those who are not politically correct.

This claim is made by Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University , in a recent issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. As an example of the self-destruction of the academic left, Gitlin cites two recent books, ``The Disappearing Liberal Intellectual" by Eric Lott and ``Wars of Position: The Cultural Politics of Left and Right" by Timothy Brennan, in both of which he himself is attacked as a heretic -- among other things, for supporting Israel's right to exist.

Gitlin cites some choice nuggets from the nutty professors. For instance, Brennan, who teaches comparative literature and English at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, asserts that while ``the crimes committed in the name of communism are real," they are ``certainly no match for the atrocities launched by liberal capitalism, which, far from being officially acknowledged, are completely disavowed or excused."

Gitlin laments that, at a time when many leaders of the party in power embrace attitudes hostile to individual freedom, science, reason, and free inquiry -- the legacy of the 18th-century philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment -- liberal intellectuals offer no meaningful alternative. He concludes that ``the academic left is nowhere today " and matters mainly to right-wing liberal-bashers who inflate its importance.

I don't agree with all of Gitlin's indictment of conservatism and conservative policies, and I am far from a fan of some ideas that he wants liberal intellectuals to promote . Yet he has a point about the rise of reactionary attitudes on the right -- attitudes that a principled liberalism should be in a position to counter. Instead, the intellectuals of the left make it all too easy for people like Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly to mock academics as ``pinheads" who spend most of their time in what O'Reilly likes to call ``la-la land." How can anyone, for example, take academic feminists seriously when they are discussing whether Newton's physics is a metaphor for rape or whether logic is inherently biased against women?

Indeed, long before the current wave of conservative attacks on the legacy and values of the Enlightenment, many left-wing academics were deriding reason, freedom, and tolerance as bourgeois prejudices and scholarly objectivity as a smokescreen for the white, male point of view. Instead of championing individual rights, the academic left began to promote the ``identity politics" of defining people by race, gender and sexual orientation. Some feminist professors are so afraid of appearing to champion Western values that they will balk at ``culturally insensitive" criticism of the oppression of women in much Islamic culture today.

But there is a parallel problem on the right. In the 1990s, many conservatives defended both science and Enlightenment values against attacks from the academic left. The 1994 book, ``Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science," by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt, which championed traditional science against assaults from radical feminism, radical environmentalism, Afrocentrism, and other far-left ideologies, received positive responses from National Review and Commentary.

Yet, in a preface to the 1998 softcover edition , Gross and Levitt noted the reemergence of creationism and stated that if they were writing the book at that point, ``the `academic right' would have to join the academic left in its subtitle, and there would have to be a chapter on ` Intelligent Design Theory' " as one of the pseudo-scientific ideologies threatening science.

Today, assaults on evolution frequently find a platform in respectable conservative publications. So do attacks on secularism and the separation of church and state. As Gitlin notes, many conservatives assert that the American Republic was founded not on the principles of the Enlightenment but as a ``Christian nation."

On the right or the left, reason-based and reality-based politics are increasingly hard to find.

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine. Her column appears regularly in the Globe.


9 posted on 05/30/2006 2:59:54 PM PDT by Candor7
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To: TheWasteLand
Cathy puts all of her eggs in one basket and then drops it. Yuck!

Result? Little understanding of waht neoconservatism is all about, a movement which is based on the traditional values of our founding fathers, which she somehow equates with evolutionism against christian fundamental ist thought on creation.

If she ever ordered drinks, she would order a tequella maragarita, a white russian , a Tom Collins and a Mud Slide, mix them all together and then swear she couldn't understand anyone who likes cocktails.

She would like getting drunk though!

Typical liberal moonbat!

10 posted on 05/30/2006 3:05:01 PM PDT by Candor7
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To: Candor7
"On the right or the left, reason-based and reality-based politics are increasingly hard to find."

The author compares Creationism to postmodernism and concludes that the Right is as nutty as the Left.

Why Creationism? Why not compare the recent intellectual offerings of conservatism to the intellectual offerings on the Left? After all, Leo Strauss was a rationalist of the highest order. So was Allan Bloom. And both men have been wildly successful on the Right.

11 posted on 05/30/2006 3:05:10 PM PDT by Reactionary (The Barking of the Native Moonbat is the Sound of Moral Nitwittery)
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To: jexus
"How can anyone, for example, take academic feminists seriously when they are discussing whether Newton's physics is a metaphor for rape or whether logic is inherently biased against women?"

Nooooooooo way! We take it VERY seriously!

"Indeed, long before the current wave of conservative attacks on the legacy and values of the Enlightenment, many left-wing academics were deriding reason, freedom, and tolerance as bourgeois prejudices and scholarly objectivity as a smokescreen for the white, male point of view. Instead of championing individual rights, the academic left began to promote the ``identity politics" of defining people by race, gender and sexual orientation."

NOOOOOOOO!!! She is uncovering truths IMPOSSIBLE to comprehend!

The world is not ready for this... we NEED our LIES - DON'T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM US!!!!

12 posted on 05/30/2006 3:05:14 PM PDT by SteveMcKing
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To: 308MBR
Yea, what you said...

I don’t see many true conservatives out there anymore, at least not what I consider to be conservatives.

For the most part, the GOP has no b@lls. Although I think GW is a good man at heart, he seems to have no leadership skills of late. His shining moment was in the days right after 9/11 and even he has now apologized for being a “cowboy”. I don’t recall President Regan doing that, although he and GW do have a disastrous policy on amnesty for illegal aliens in common.

She (Cathy) is right about the “the academic left is making itself irrelevant by embracing ideological extremism and trying to purge its ranks of those who are not politically correct” .

They (the far left liberals in academia and in office) really appeal to all but the very few Birkenstock, patchouli oil (although I like patchouli oil) wearing, tree hugging, Gore luv’in leftists and the conservatives are loosing their base as well by not differentiating themselves much and not appealing to their core or to the spaces left between.
13 posted on 05/30/2006 3:12:04 PM PDT by Caramelgal (I don't have a tag line.... I am a tag line. So tag, you are it.)
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To: jexus
You would think, then, that liberal intellectuals would offer some thoughtful and productive critiques of conservative policies.

Why would anyone think that?

14 posted on 05/30/2006 3:26:12 PM PDT by papertyger (Our Constitution isn't perfect, but it's better than what we have right now.)
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To: jexus

Oh I get it! This is the cartoon Cathy right?


15 posted on 05/30/2006 3:28:02 PM PDT by ladyinred
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To: Candor7
Typical liberal moonbat!

You said MOONBAT


16 posted on 05/30/2006 3:29:06 PM PDT by Cobra64 (All we get are lame ideas from Republicans and lame criticism from dems about those lame ideas.)
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To: jexus

 

If you look closely, you'll see evidence of Cathy farting out of her right ear.

17 posted on 05/30/2006 3:31:11 PM PDT by Fintan (One day we'll look back on this and plow into a parked car.)
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To: jexus

She seems to have the word "conservative" confused for the word "Republican". I find myself in a position somewhat reminiscent of one Ronald Reagan once found himself in.

I did not leave the Republican party. the Republican party left me.


18 posted on 05/30/2006 3:31:18 PM PDT by RobRoy
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To: jexus

Conservatives where? I don't see to many up there. Just being a Republican does not make you a Conservative. This article is way off on that. As a true Conservative I am tired of being blammed for the liberal politics of most Republicans these days.


19 posted on 05/30/2006 3:41:21 PM PDT by Revel
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To: 308MBR

"...and the rest are mushy moderates."

Or just plain liberals.


20 posted on 05/30/2006 3:42:22 PM PDT by Revel
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