I've just read David Horowitz's review of Lind's book _Up From
Conservatism_ and my first reaction is that these guys have way too
much time on their hands. Professors have to suffer remarks
concerning "summers off," "lack of rigor" & etc., but who could
possibly be more culturally pampered than this gang of think-tank
intellectuals? They all seem to have gone to Yale, Harvard &
Princeton & seem to spend most of their time writing articles
attacking each other for apostasy. And they have better health plans
than professors, I bet, all the while writing learned policy
discussions explaining why the free market should be allowed to
deprive the poor of any health care at all. But don't get me
started.
I've never agreed with Horowitz before, but there was one sentence
of his I will endorse in the current context: “The illogic of Lind's
argument is breathtaking.” Actually, I'm not nearly as optimistic as
Kent that any real discussion will develop if Lind accepts the
invitation to have a conversation with us. I suspect, given Lind's
avowedly polemical intention, that he/we will generate more heat
than light. I usually prefer to take a sauna in the winter, but what
the hell. But if a loathsome little man like David Horowitz finds
Lind loathsome, I'm not sure whether that mitigates Lind's
loathsomeness, or compounds it.
I am a philosophical pluralist & I have a genuine interest in the
intellectual history of form in Anglo-Am poetics. The question is,
does Lind? I doubt it.
jd
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Joseph Duemer
School of Liberal Arts, box 5750
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699
315.268.3967
[log in to unmask]
http://web.northnet.org/duemer
http://www.grammarbitch.com/ppp/index.html
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