The Intellectuals Keep Flying

City Journal ^ | 10/21/10 | Sol Stern

[TigerLikesRooster]

The Intellectuals Keep Flying

The New York Review of Books seeks to discredit Paul Berman.

21 October 2010

In almost half a century at the helm of The New York Review of Books, Robert Silvers has crafted the essential journal for America’s liberal intellectual elite. Silvers is celebrated by his distinguished writers as a scrupulous, old-fashioned editor who fusses over their every word. The British historian Timothy Garton Ash tells of receiving a transatlantic phone call from Silvers just as his family was sitting down to Christmas dinner: the editor wanted to discuss a dangling participle he had spotted in the galley of Garton Ash’s next article. Silvers subjects manuscripts to “pitiless” scrutiny, says New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus. So the last thing you would expect to see in The New York Review is a factually challenged hit job on a serious contemporary writer—and a writer of the left and former New York Review contributor, at that. Yet that’s exactly what appeared in the Review’s August 19 issue in the guise of a review of, among other books, Paul Berman’s The Flight of the Intellectuals.

[loveliberty2]

Thank you for posting. Good background for understanding the attitudes of the current administration.

[VaFarmer]

Wow!!

The incredibly obsessive concerns of intellectuals (of which I am obviously one since I read the entire linked piece) with the “intellectual roots” of everything can be really outrageous sometimes. What a hoot this piece is. I guess the books are a hoot as well.

What about every-day ingroup/outgroup rivalry and the personal struggle for validation and status?

We see groups all across the globe railing against the “other guy”, and then occasionally following that up with rioting, killing and war. Surely we don’t want to analyze very many of these by looking one leader’s mentor’s uncle’s college teacher’s favorite author’s intellectual background.

The notion that any portion of the Middle East cesspit can be best explained by the affinities of long-dead politicians and exhibits in a Holocaust museum is truly fantastic.

I remember Roxboro High and Chapel Hill High having an intense, rock-throwing fan rivalry when I was in high school. We should get these professors to discuss the intellectual roots of that.

[Red Dog #1]

In deed sometimes there is no reason to parse from anthers actions...

"Because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn."

Alred Pennyworth/Dark Knight