On Thu, 24 Feb 1999 12:02:08 -0800 Sam Pawlett <epawlett at uniserve.com> writes:
>But a lot of people who attack Butler and like minded theorists do so
>because it is bad philosophy not because they are reactionaries.
Butler's gig is in the sphere of cultural (and I suppose literary) criticism. Knocking her for not being a rigorous philosopher is like charging Marx with being a shoddy Physicist. Apples and Oranges, see?
>The truth should never be sacrificed in the name of politics.
No, but in the current reactionary political environment, I think people of the Left should close ranks to a certain extent. I'm not nostalgic for Stalinism or the Popular Front, but it's high time to cut the internecine warfare and start fighting back. It doesn't help matters when professed "left business observers" quote approvingly from reactionary sources like the NAS. I'm sure the Right laughs its collective ass of at all the petty, incestuous fighting on the Left. While the Milton Friedmans and Jerry Falwells put aside their differences in order to seize power, we're rehashing Sokal/Social Text ad nauseum.
>Guilt by association is a (poor) propaganda technique.
Yeah, but there's a difference between sharing certain beliefs with certain personalities on the Right and actually quoting approvingly from right-wing sources in order to attack fellow leftists. Jay Gould once said that he could hire one half of the working class to kill the other half. These days, one half of the intellectual Left attacks the other half.
Contra Paul Weyrich, I don't think the 'culture wars' are over, and I must say I disagree with the Baffler folks that the culture wars are entirely a sham fight. True, blowhards like Aronowitz and Ross like to overrate their own importance in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn't mean the threat of William Bennett forcing Universities to adopt the curriculum at St. Johns isn't real.
What's next, Leftists supporting the attacks on Rigoberta Menchu?
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