Did anyone read Neal Ascherson's review of Timothy Garton Ash's new
book (History of the Present) last weekend? It encapsulates the
theory/praxis argument very interestingly.
<Should intellectuals be political actors? At the heart of this book
is a disagreement betwee Timothy Garton Ash and his friend President
Vaclav Havel. Havel argues that if intellectuals claim to be people
`with a heightened sense of responsibility and heightened
understanding', then they undermine that claim if they refuse `to take
upon themselves the burden of public offices on the grounds that it
would mean dirtying their hands. Those who say politics is
disreputable in fact help make it so'. This was a retort to Ash who
had declared (in a famous public dispute with Vaclav Klaus, then Czech
Prime Minister) that the intellectual's job was to seek truth and the
politican's job to `work in half-truth'. Garton Ash still maintains
that he is right. A healthy democracy, he writes, requires strict
separation between the roles of thse two creatures. The intellectual
should be a mirror-holder -- not an office-holder.>
(The Observer Review, 20 June 1999, pg. 13)
Is he right? What are the consequences if he is not?
cheers
rhys
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