Sometimes they are just correct about something, as Hayek was, I believe, more or less, about markets, or Madison about politics (again, speaking broadly).
Even there they are wrong we can never have any justified confidence in our own ideas without testing them against the sharpest criticisms -- and in our case, those come from the right. I think I learned more about Marx from a rightwing book by N. Scott Arnold, an acquaintance, Karl Marx's Radical Critique of Capitalist Society, than from many shelves of self-styled marxist screeds. Popper on Marx isn't bad either, btw. This is Mill's main epistemological point in On Liberty -- a book some might think is right wing too! (Despite Mill being a market socialist.)
--- Charles Brown <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> wrote:
> So Carl, we only trash Hitchens when he moves right?
>
>
> ^^^^
> CB: Of course ! rightwing is ultimately dumb for us.
> No matter how fancy the
> thoughts leading to being rightwing, they are at
> bottom , poor use of the
> intellect.
Dead wrong, unless you want to stop thinking.
Good writing form does not save bad
> content of ideas. Evil
> literary geniuses get no vote.
Marx disagreed. He was a \great fan of the Royalist Balzac, intended to write a book of literary criticism on Balzac.
>
>
> Our definition of public intellectual depends on
> what side of the angels he
> sits? In truth, Hitchens has either been a scumbag
> since the days we aligned
> with him, or he's no scumbag now. Take your pick,
> but don't create an
> ideological litmus test for quality writing. As for
> trashing him now, trash
> away. I do. But it's politics that are repugnant.
>
These days, his writing and thinking are also very sloppy. Unlike Carrol, I used to think well of him -- he wasn't a brilliant original thinker like Edward Said, but he was a smart guy and very knowledgeable, I learned a lot from him. Of course at any time putting him on the same level with Chomsky, Rorty, Habermas, Sen, etc. would be absurd. Those are giants.
jks
jks
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