Alterman & Lilla lovefest

[Gordon Fitch]

Mark Lilla:
> >The intellectuals of our time I have most admired as models of
> >probity and good sense were Raymond Aron and Isaiah Berlin. Aron,
> >because he punctured the myth of the intellectual as moral critic
> >"speaking truth to power." He understood that thinking responsibly in
> >modern democratic society means mastering the complexities of that
> >society and putting oneself in the shoes of those who must make
> >decisions

Justin Schwartz:
> This is an extraordinarily revealing comment. We are not, it seems, to speak 
> truth to power. We are instead supposed to figure out how to exercise it for 
> ends that are taken as given. How utterly vile and contemptible. If 
> Washington and Jefferson had taken that line, we'd still be singing "God 
> Save the Queen," and if William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher Stowe had 
> done so, we'd be thing about how to ameliorate the lot of the slaves. jks

I wonder if Mark Lilla would characterize any of those four
as "intellectuals" in the sense he's using the word above.
I wouldn't.  Maybe he thinks intellectuals are impossibly
tainted by their roles, and somebody else should do the job
of speaking truth to power.  (Indeed, the notion of having a
thinking _class_ suggests authority, discipline and obedience.)
Anyway, someone should ask him who, in his view, _should_ do
the speaking-truth thing, and let him waffle it out.

-- Gordon