It was me who posted the comment about the right on the higfh intellectual ground. And I stand by it. They moved from the Stupid Party to the party bristling with vigorous ideas, all the way from high justificatory theory (Buchanan, Becker, Posner, Epstein, Nozick, etc.) to middle-range policy proposals of the sort cranked out by think tanks, to low brow pundits. The right is not talking about a crisis of ideology, bemonaing its ability to put its program into effect, or beating its breast. It has taken over both political parties; it has enlisted a good chunk of what is left of the left in support of the less awful of the two, and it is savagely looting the natoion and the world with the other political party in command of all three branches of government, happy as a pig in clover, and feeling quite justified and intelligent. So what's to laugh at? --jks
>
>>From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>>
>>Justin writes:
>>
>>>I just love American left anti-intellectualism. Who needs a buncha
>>>pointy heads sayin things good plain folk cain't unnerstan, anyway?
>>
>>It makes sense *for the Right* to put out anti-intellectual
>>propaganda ...
>
>Why? Somebody just the other day posted to the list a comment indicating
>that the right now commands the high grounds of intellectual effort, what
>with conservatives' ample funding of bulging-brain think tanks, etc. I
>think the comment is absurd, since conservative "thinking" is never more
>than sophistry, served up by cartoonish figures like, say, Myron Magnet.
>(If you want a good laugh, see:
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29108-2001Apr2.html)
>
>As for supposed lefist "anti-intellectualism," we have to maintain the
>always -- throughout the ages -- critical distinction between true
>intellectual achievement and idle pedantry. E.g., Pope: "the bookful
>blockhead ignorantly read, with loads of learned lumber in his head,"
>"words
>are like leaves, and where they most abound, much fruit of sense beneath is
>rarely found," and so on.
>
>Carl
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