----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 9:00 AM Subject: Re: Starship Troopers & left infantilism (Re: Carmen Electra with the troops
Nathan Newman wrote:
>There is a strain of intellectual contempt on the Left that acts as if
>intellectual engagement with rightwing ideas is beneath them-- only parody,
>cartoon, ridicule are acceptable modes of engagement. Now while I am all for
>the latter in specific propaganda and public relation actions, it seems a bit
>too pervasive. And when original rightwing source material is so completely
>distorted by a movie maker, as Verhoven did in Starship Troopers, it does
>reflect an intellectual infantilism.
Yup, you're right about that. I'm glad for my (thankfully brief) experience as a rightwinger - I know how they think, and it helps in arguing with them.
Speaking of dumbshit stuff coming from rightwingers, though, how about that Posner book on public intellectuals? Sounds like a real piece of stupidity - and Justin keeps telling us how smart the guy is. I loved this bit from a NYT piece on the book this past Saturday <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/19/arts/19POSN.html>:
>Some of the numbers require further study. How can it be that the
>economist Gary Becker generates a mere 494 media mentions, but 5,329
>Web hits? Similarly, James Baldwin shows up 2,019 times in the media
>but 22,592 times on the Web. How is it possible that Rachel Carson
>generates twice the number of Web hits as Jacques Derrida? And what
>can account for the phenomenal staying power of Albert Camus, a
>titan with 32,370 Web appearances? I think I know why André Malraux
>and Ivan Illich fare so poorly. In the book, their names are spelled
>Malreaux and Ilych.
Ooops.
Doug
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Now we know what Posner's been up to when he's up there on the bench looking very distracted; he's googling! :-)
Ian