[lbo-talk] Marc Cooper's flipping out over Churchill

[philion at stolaf.edu]

I'll be kicked off of Marc Cooper's comments board again soon, which as
Yoshie reminds me is a most desirable event. It pains Cooper to be
reminded of the contradictions in his occasional vitriolic fits of anger
he takes at those on the left who disagree with him.  In his latest
outburst, instead of something more useful, like say a homage to Ossie
Davis?, he joins the O'Reilly gang in the attacks on Churchill, declaring,
with the usual hyperbole, Churchill to be 'hateful', calling for
'collective punishment', etc. and thus rendering any serious critique of
Churchill's arguments pointless.

I reminded his audience of right leaning paranoiacs--with an admixture of
a few reasonable liberals and middle of the roader types--that Marc
Cooper's own hero Herbert Marcuse was known to make statements not that
much different from Churchill's.  So what gives? Churchill evil--Marcuse
Snow white pure?


>From a summary of Marcuse's orientation:
""In Marcuse’s view, the Third Reich was a technocracy, meaning that
technical rationality and the demands of efficiency, along with the
primacy of a “matter-of-factness” mentality generated nonhuman values that
superseded those pertaining to the welfare of the people. Marcuse's
description and analysis of “matter-of-fact” thinking, which he develops
further in a later essay in this volume called “The New German Mentality,”
argues that the technological attitude mediates human thought and
relationships such that human individuality is weakened."

That's Herber Marcuse, the Ward Churchill of the 1960's, Marc Cooper's New
Left hero.

http://www.ualberta.ca/~cjscopy/reviews/marcuse1.html

It is odd that none of this vitriol Cooper can direct at the left gets
directed at his good buddy Horowitz, who is responsible for conducting a
movement to censor professors who dissent from the Party line of empire.
Simply a feat of intellectual gymnastics the likes of which few are
capable...