Ann Coulter and the Problem of Pluralism: From Values to Politics (Academia's study of our Annie)

Borderlands ^ | 7/2008 | Samuel A. Chambers & Alan Finlayson

[Titan Magroyne]

Dang.

SOMEbody in this thread is being paid by the word! :-D

[glorgau]

Another writer that doesn’t have an editor and had teachers that “grade by weight”, not cogency of argument.

[Desron13]

You can boil all of this social zig zagging down to the simplistic and fallacious liberal concept that government can insure equality of outcome for its citizens. This of course invariably leads to societal disaster. It is at the core of the Liberal mental disorder. The inability to observe simple causal relationships and come to the correct conclusions as to future repetitions of the same.

[areukiddingme1]

My God, only a liberal would have to put together something this long winded to say; boys, we are getting butts kicked, it might be time to change our strategy we are running out of enough crazies to keep getting elected.

I still say; “Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.”

[samadams2000]

Xacly. When is the last time thoses two metrosexuals went to the range for some target practice?

[Skywalk]

In fairness, while it is guilty of modern academia’s obfuscation-by-verbosity-and-jargon, the article IS giving SOME credit to Coulter and stating pretty clearly (from my meager skimmings) that Coulter and movement conservatism infuriate liberals PRECISELY because she/it do not conform to liberal prejudices and that movement conservatism has some legitimate critiques of liberalism.

Now, of course, they present it in an unappealing manner but it’s not pure invective against Coulter or movement conservatism.

[NoGrayZone]

I love my Ann!!

[airforceF4]

Ref. to AF: it’s been done. Read the rhetorical research—trying to invent the wheel, again, is boring. Start with Aristotle. Then go to Socrates/Plato—one can apply his observations to what AC does in an entertainment medium. She has a better mind that that...I wish she would use it.

[OldMissileer]

I plowed through the whole thing and now have a headache.

Do these pseudo-educated Poly Sci types know that you are not smart just by throwing together dozens of paragraphs with huge words and convoluted sentences?

It may make them feel superior but if they had just earned a real degree they may have gone on to real jobs and performed a real service to their community and society.

In paragraph 10 they start by writing they have analyzed ‘Coulterism’. Not only did they not analyze anything in the previous paragraphs they basically use ad homonym attacks on Ann and then blow her off while writing that they did not.

They later cover some of her more outrageous statements and then say that not only is she on the right wing fringe of politics but that the center of our Nation's politics has moved right because of the embrace of Ann.

What garbage.

The entire premise of this sludge-as-intellectual-discourse is that all the leftist thinking is completely correct and that the left must fight Coulter on her terms to defeat her and the right.

If the left ever does they will be shown for the intellectually vacuous, power hungry, communists they really are.

[NativeNewYorker]

Contemporary liberal political theory has reached its own internal limit – and that limit is politics.

I couldn't get past that.

[Bob]

Fortunately, for me, they tossed in this little clue as to what all this garbage was going to be about:

...that Coulter and her ilk...

The instant that someone describes you (or someone you agree with) as having an 'ilk', you might as well turn 'em off. They've already indicated that they have nothing worthwhile to say.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Thus, we undertake a critical consideration of the way in which contemporary liberal political theory regards values as the only meaningful level of pluralism, construes this putative fact as giving rise to a host of problems, and then, in response, imposes its presupposed solutions. In response, we call for a radical, multi-dimensional pluralism; we choose the pluralisation of democracy over the liberal project to protect democracy through normative principles.

...

And when even your “summary” contains such meaningless tripe, the paper actually contain .... what?

(I cannot even tell what “Coultorism” IS, much less whether this writer thinks it is a good thong (er, thing) or a bad thong.)

[alloysteel]

There was a kernel of unintended revelation in there, in that there are attempts to establish some basis for consensus between the ‘decent peoples’ of the world.

The basic erroneous assumption, is that there are ‘decent people’ ANYWHERE in the world. Most people are first and foremost, very selfish and greedy individuals at heart no matter what indoctrination they may have undergone. Trying to redefine human nature, by words and reason alone, is doomed to failure, because of the underlying limbic nervous system we share with crocodiles and sharks. Crocodiles and sharks do not have ‘consensus’, the presence of two or more at any one time is either an alliance so they may both eat a third creature forced into a defense which fails, or one succeeds in making a meal out of the other.

Human beings are hardly more refined. If some alliance of humans has determined that another human being has ‘too much’, they make it their purpose to reduce that excess of accumulated (money, possessions, adulation from the opposite sex, whatever), to some ‘fair’ level. Conversely, if the individual who has accumulated a great excess of (money, possessions, adulation from the opposite sex, whatever), recognizes he (or she) may be subject to siege, he (or she) will take steps to stave off those assaults.

But there is no basic ‘decency’ involved here. That is something entirely different, and may only be indulged in by people who have a great deal of excess (money, possessions, adulation from the opposite sex, whatever), and who are sufficiently confident that the mob will not take away everything he (or she) possesses. This is done by distracting the mob, and turning the reservoir of wrath to somebody else.

Cynical, to be sure. But a much more accurate assessment of psychology at all levels than all the long wordy explanations in the world.

Nice guys finish last. So ‘nice’ is not to be considered to be a survival characteristic.

John F. Kennedy was quoted as saying, “My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it till now.” JFK always gave as good as he got, so there was no excess of mercy there either.

[Tzimisce]

For later...

[Oldpuppymax]

It just never changes. If leftists didn’t represent such a danger to the well being of the US and the rights of the American people, they would just be jokes. Here are two guys who impress themselves with their intellects (ha) all to come to the conclusion that Ann fights dirty and maybe leftists should too. The next time the left displays anything approaching honor will be the first. Yet they think they’re just too nice. Get nasty like Ann, and the rabble in flyover country will suddenly become America hating leftists too. Unbelievable.

[arthurus]

People with Grand Designs for the human race and who believe those designs can be implemented believe Humanity to be God and themselves to be God’s brain. Stalin had a political theory. So did Hitler and Pol Pot and Mao. Such theories combined with political power must lead to Auschwitz and the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Those that will not respond properly to the new order must eventually be killed. Human nature does not change so cleaning out the bad seed of one generation does not end it. The killing cannot stop and must continually expand.

[driftless2]

"gobbledygook"

What you said. I couldn't make hide nor hair out of it.

[Cacique]

btt

[Liberty 275]

To be more specific, Coulter uses the “rules” set up by liberal thought against liberalism. In that way, she is far too “liberal” for liberalism and therefore must be shunned.

On the other hand, She’s just right for libertarianism even though she holds many non-libertarian views. :->

[Liberty 275]

It’s probably a thesis paper.

And it didn’t really come from a conventional leftwing point of view. I thought it was fairly well written, if a but too wordy. Definitely not morons.