>
>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
>
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