[shrinkermd]

"All this nonetheless conceals an essentially ad hominem approach in which the author either adopts a supercilious attitude to his opponents, as if debating them openly would be beneath his dignity, or censures them in essentially moral terms. Partly through the success Geertz has had in his field, this technique is now widely emulated and defines the style of many of today’s postmodernist intellectuals. Let me illustrate this with two examples."

To make a diagnosis of a liberal or a "RAT", look for the personal attack. If found this to be a profound and well written essay on a very difficult subject.

At a conference to mark the International Year to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination in 1971, UNESCO invited Claude Lévi-Strauss to give the opening address. Lévi-Strauss

[B.Bumbleberry]

Good post. Compare the thinking of the multiculturists with that of Hayek and Adam Smith. Hayek elucidates the never ending human search for the "best" ideas. With the relativists, there is no "best", which seems rather ludicrous in the wake of the "cultural" wars of the past century.

[Neologic]

In college, I took a class that assigned Geertz's book 'Local Knowlege'. I remember one passage where Geertz quoted from the diary of a Dutch sailor in the 19th century who expressed dismay at the Balinese custom of burning a man's wife when her husband died. Geertz was critical of this man for not trying to 'understand and empathize with a foreign culture'! The whole book was filled with crap like that.

If you are interested in this sort of stuff, here is a link about a fake paper that a physics professor got printed in a postmodern cultural studies journal: http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/
It's a good example of the intellectual standards of the Left.


Also, the postmodern essay generator is good for some laughs: http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/

[LaBelleDameSansMerci]

Interesting document in the "ongoing autopsy" file.

However, as the author tip-toes respectfully through the morgue, he accidentally trips over a body-part left lying on the floor:

The multiculturalist outlook was originally developed to serve the interests of many of the subjects of anthropological investigation, especially the indigenous people, peasants, and the landless of the underdeveloped world. It was intended to change damaging attitudes towards them and their beliefs about themselves. It would generate respect, combat racism, and foster cultural understanding and harmony. It would also lessen Western arrogance by revealing to the West the ethnocentric nature of its own assumptions. It hoped that the accomplishment of these objectives would be fostered by the kind of interpretive anthropology that Geertz and his colleagues practiced, by drawing large conclusions from small, densely textured facts and supporting broad interpretations about the role of culture in the construction of everyday life.

Actually, no it wasn't. But that's in another archive in another building in what is becoming the Homeland Autopsy Center for Advanced Reactionary Studies in What the H**l Happened and Why.

Until we can finally admit to ourselves that it was not benevolence that drove them to do what they did, we'll just have to stay hunched over here in the autopsy room busily adding documents to the file....