> He conspired with Voeglin and others to block the
> appointment of Karl Popper to the Univ. of Chicago, for example. Isn't
> that nice? Isn't that collegial? He was prick, James, a real life
> asshole.
>
> (For people who don't know, Popper wrote The Open Society and Its
> Enemies. It was a highly influencial work in US academia, It made the
> case for US style liberalism in contrast to fascism and communism.)
"Karl Popper was eulogised as the champion of liberal democracy, the 'open society' the inspiration for the largesse of the great benefactor of Eastern Europe, George Soros. When I was Assistant Editor of the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science it became time to choose a new editor. I and my fellow assistant editor were too junior to be candidates. The committee made its choice, a decent, reliable scholar of no particular doctrinal persuasion. He received a phonecall from a minion of Karl Popper saying that if he did not stand down Popper would cease to use his influence to get this man's elderly mother a visa to emigrate to Britain from a country with a particularly nasty regime. The man stood down, and a Popperian became editor." <http://www.human-nature.com/science-as-culture/paper15h.html>
Ted