Alterman & Lilla lovefest

[Peter Kosenko]

One of the problems with this is indeed its
onesided elevation of "decision makers" above
"intellectuals." That kind of bifurcation of
thought is bound to lead to trouble, since it is
by no means clear that decision makers (especially
the cereal box prize that corporate America gave
us in George W. Bush) have a clear understanding
of the "complexities" or the "morality."  Neither
do "intellectuals," necessarily.  For that matter,
many "intellectuals" (from the Chicago School,
say) become toadies to power.  What conservatives
tend to mean by "intellectuals" are intellectuals
who don't have positions of power or influence in
conservative administrations.

Aron's other friends at the New Criterion:

http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/19/may01/opium.htm

But I haven't read the book, to tell the truth.

Peter Kosenko

Justin Schwartz wrote:
> 
> Mirk Lilla od the Chicago Committee on Social Thought says in his interview
> with ALterman:
> 
> >
> >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
> 
> 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
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
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-- 
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Peter Kosenko
Email: mailto:kosenko at netwood.net
URL: http://www.netwood.net/~kosenko
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"Man is a rational animal.  He can think up a
reason for anything he wants to
believe."--Benjamin Franklin