In this article, Applebaum, a formidable intellectual and cultural warrior in Russia, lauds McCain, but critiques Palin and the anti-Intellectualism that unfortunately pervades, in this case, the GOP: strangely, it comes from the Evangelical Wing, what Mencken called the Bible Belt (it was originally a perjorative), from the folks who often say, "The only book worth reading is the Bible" without, mind you, ever even reading it[!]; the folks who believe that Agnosticism = Nihilism, not because they hang out with Agnostics or Atheists, but rather, they "know" this because their pastors and preists tell them. I'm not saying Believer = Intellectual Laziness. What I am saying is that if I'm going to have a conversation with someone who is willing to base their lives around, say, a Bible, then shouldn't they have command of that, and every great treatise or essay written about it, from St. Augustine up through Aquinas up through Luther's Table Talks and even the crazed John Calvin and, in the New World, to the idealistic-religious John Winthrop?
If intellectual laziness is tolerated in one's own party, how can America expect to continue on a Benjamin Franklin Path when that said party is elected?
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
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5 comments:
Hey, MFT, why do I get lumped with JJ and AA when it comes to being a sycophantic supporter of Palin? Maybe from up there in the tundras of the Dakotas, anyone down East or South sounds the same. But I thought there were some nuances here, which evidently have gotten lost in the shuffle. Ask JJ for details, maybe he can clarify things.
You're right, AI, and my mischaracterization was partly intended to get someone's attention. The Tundra of Dakota is brisk, certainly exhilarating. One needs to jab into the remaining 48 continuous sometimes, if not just for a bit of fun. We only have so many Canada jokes to go around.
MFT, the point is-- obviously-- that a Vice Presidential pick is chosen for effectiveness in getting the Presidential pick elected, and not for being the meister of the House of Learning in which the political Chautauqua can take place. So support for Palin as a VP pick no more reflects on our estimation of the issue --of the intellectual barreness of the current crop of Politicos --than support for Bush [to go with Reagan] reflected on our estimation of the intellectual verve of Reagan's branch of Yankee rightwing thought.
Palin was the best choice of the current lot for VP. Which is well a better measure of the current lot than of her intrinisic quality. She is no Socrates, but then few are. She has much "Right Opinion", as Plato had his Socrates describe it, and that is probably the best we could expect from a VP choice at this late moment into Fall of Darkness. To proclaim that she is the problem, or symbolizes the problem, or is herself "anti-intellectual" is, pardon the Frogginess, horsewhacky.
The problem lies with that very "Elite" [self proclaimed Elite] which has been "guiding" the various currents of American thought, whether of the Right, or Conservative, or Libertarian, or the Left, or Revolutionary, or Statist. It has been an "Elite" which has hollowed out our universities, replaced the fierce search for true things, and even Truth, into a Versaillean stew of pomo and politically propagandistic merde. The Poseur and the Ironiste made Flesh, and Ben Franklin exiled out of his University and to some lost place east of Eden where his thought could no longer corrupt the Elite and the scions of the Elite.
The cultural sea change in this nation, endlessly driven by this "Elite", decade after decade, as done its work. Has made this a Planet fit only for a Pepe. Is it any wonder, then, that the large swaths of American society, which were at a remove from where all this took place, feel deeply betrayed by this "Elite"?? Are angry that their ground of thought, one in which a Lincoln would have been most comfortable walking on, is treated with utter contempt by those who claim to be their intellectual standard bearers?
Of course, MFT, you are right that to know more is to have the opportunity to know better, the opportunity to move from "Right Opinion" [should you have been lucky enough to land there] to Knowledge. If The Cross wants to twitter as to the Bible, then it should be deeply informed as to the rich intervening 2,000 year intellectual history-- of those who adhered to the Cross-- from darkness falling at Golgotha to the darkness falling upon the West. But to claim that this is what is wrong with Palin, or those who support Palin, when it is in truth what is wrong with our "Elite", is to kick the bitch yapping in the yard when the Grizzly is drooling behind you.
In short, Applebaum is full of hooey. Those of who support a choice such as Palin do NOT do so because we are against Mind and Reason, because we are "anti-intellectual". We do so because we are anti-Elite. This overbearing "Elite" we have today, in this country, I claim would make Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, et al., sick to their stomachs. If they had the chance to dance over Time, and see the totalitarian thrust of what passes for the "Life of the Mind" in our universities, and the Mandarin like "dirigism" which is the mainstream of our Government, they would join Benedict Arnold and Count Rumford in downing gallon mugs of Guinness or Stout and do a crazy jig for good ol' Mad King Georgie Trey.
One may need to jab into the remaining contiuous 48 states, but surely there's never an end of Canada jokes?
The Poseur and the Ironiste made Flesh, and Ben Franklin exiled out of his University and to some lost place east of Eden where his thought could no longer corrupt the Elite and the scions of the Elite.
Yes, now that you say it, I recall the good Dr. Franklin, upon me mentioning him in a pub, getting verbally doused by an undergraduate English major at the U of Minnesota — I'm almost certain she's finished her Sorbonne doctorate by now (you know, saying the Right things and all). Alas, that last statement was too jaded. Much too jaded. In truth, though, she said Franklin was such a self-serving asshole, and all that. I responded with, "He was one of the few Enlightenment folk who could thunder against slavery on the one hand, bring 13 whackos together under the same banner, and see through Crazed Religious Talk, whether Tory, Whig, or New World Protestant... What is self-serving about that? And in truth, aren't we all self-serving, no matter what we say?" Well, in saying what I said, I simply articulated what would later be my undergraduate Ivy downfall.
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