3 Comments

A. M.
May 29th, 2009 | 6:25 pm

Well, umm, not really. Not at all actually. The piece is vitriolic too be sure– though no more vitriolic than phrases like, say, “the mainstream liberal Jihad mentality.” The piece makes several cogent points– that Kass appeals to intuitions the universality of which is suspect without explaining why we should trust those intuitions, that Kass’s “repugnance” is shamelessly politically partisan, and that Kass has a cartoon picture of what goes on in the humanities. Why Professor Reno thinks that the references to Kass’s association with and silence regarding an administration that tortured are unjustified is beyond me. This post reminds me why I’ve been replacing my internet reading with more novels and academic philosophy.

Kevin Walker
May 30th, 2009 | 2:37 pm

It’s a minor point, but I’m intrigued with his off-hand mention of Herodotus. Yes, the ancient historian was intensely aware of how radically diverse customs could be, and how they were so easily disgusted with each other. “Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best,” he wrote.

But Herodotus didn’t say this to emphasize today’s very Western theory of cultural relativism, or how only “science” is truly objective. It was far more important to show a sense of honor and respect for what each civilization esteems in its own custom. “[I]t is unlikely that anyone but a madman would mock at such things,” he wrote (Histories, III. 38). Far more than disgust was the importance of shame. That’s the lesson of the parable of Gyges in Book I: examining some else’s customs is like looking at someone else’s wife — in the nude. It is not arbitrary, un-scientific norms, but a sense of honor that prevents us from doing such things — and that is something that we certainly DO find across cultures. Nice try, Mr. McLemme, but Herodotus is not your guy on this point.

SMatthewStolte
May 30th, 2009 | 4:37 pm

I think a better conclusion for us to draw from Mr McLemee’s article is that (we?) conservatives don’t always do a good job articulating precisely what it is that we find troubling about the present day academy.

Mr McLemee seems to think that the criticism so often waged against humanities does not, in fact, apply to a wide swath of them. McLemee says that “the center of gravity for argumentation has shifted quite a lot over the past 25 years.” And the question is, then, is this shift something conservatives consider significant, or does it seem, from their perspective, like so much hairsplitting? If it is significant, but conservatives find this new center of argumentation no less troubling that the old center, how can we best identify what is so troubling about it.

Now, you may think the case has been made, and that the McLemee’s of the world just refuse to pay attention to it. But I am sure that it would be far more productive to try to point out where McLemee has gone wrong in his assessment. The comment about the Khmer Rouge was far from the central element of McLemee’s point. It was a rhetorical point. Yes, it may be that he has fallen victim to some BushHatred social disease, where one must denounce our former president as a way of showing one’s bona fides. But surely the point that Kass and others like him are trying to make when they advocate reading great works is that we should focus on the best that has been thought if we wish to better ourselves. We should strengthen our opponents argument before criticizing it, pointing out errors only in the spirit of friendship.