If somebody wants to call me a cold-war liberal, that's illiterate, but I won't be surprised. I've never understood why any intelligent person could think Isaiah Berlin is an important thinker. Then again, I've never understood how either liberals or Marxists could ignore Rosa Luxemberg on freedom of conscience, or Marx himself on freedom of the press. And yet those things happen, quite a lot. That may have something to do with the fact that the labels in question don't mean as much to me as they once did.
................
I don't know who implied or flat-out said they considered Scott to be a "cold-war liberal". Postel was the actual focus of people's ire; Scott was brought into the discussion only because of his apparent acceptance (at least within the confines of the Inside Higher Ed interview) of broad sweeps of Postel's assertions. A counter-argument (to Postel) was made and McLemee's opinion, as a presumably interested party, solicited.
Don't see any "cold-war liberal" accusations in any of that.
I admit that this bit confused me:
"I've never understood why any intelligent person could think Isaiah Berlin is an important thinker."
[...]
I didn't recall Sean or Lenin or Yoshie saying anything about Berlin. Took a look in the archives and brought this up:
Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo, during an interview with Danny Postel, said:
RJ:
I know Negri from the time I was living in Paris. We are now close friends and I have been reading his writings with great interest, especially his work on Spinoza. I think there is nothing strange in appreciating Isaiah Berlin and Negri at the same time. This maybe has to do with the fact that I consider myself a politically moderate and nonviolent person, but a philosophically radical-minded person. I think philosophy is not only having a true sense of reality (as Hegel says: "Philosophy is its own time raised to the level of thought") but also knowing how to resist it. Philosophy is the daily practice of dissent at the level of thought. Being a true radical is having the courage to think and to judge independently.
[...]
full -
<http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_5.2/jahanbegloo_interview.htm>
Ironically, none of the -- what was it..."illiterate"? -- posters around these parts summoned Berlin. It was one of the very Iranian thinkers Postel (correctly) would like us to pay more attention to. A minor point but worth mentioning because it seems McLemee brought it up to illustrate how allegedly out-of-touch or perhaps, misled, thread participants are.
.d.