A refreshingly candid and interesting piece. Here are a few segments I found insightful: -More or less consciously, they [intellectual conservatives] tend to assess either thought or imagination from the point of view of whether it advances or undermines the political cause that they assume to be incontestable. Does the book, lecture, play, movie, or song help or hinder the cause? Although such works may enlighten or entertain, they do not strike these individuals as having intrinsic and independent authority. Works of thought and imagination are for them not intriguing and potentially unsettling forces that might trigger painful self-examination and unpredictably reconstitute one’s own accustomed views; making sense of them is not so much a matter of soul searching as of locating them on the political spectrum. -The ideological mind-set, formed as it is at bottom by a desire to dominate rather than illuminate, is an intruder in philosophy and the arts. It is closed in upon itself and resentful of competition. Instead of cultivating the openness to new influences that marks real philosophy and art and letting itself be exposed to the possible intellectual turmoil of fresh insight, ideology shunts inconvenient thought and imagination aside. Ideologues produce propaganda, although sometimes propaganda of a sophisticated kind. When such individuals set the tone, the intellectual and artistic life suffers. -Ideology is now rampant in the universities. Since virtually all of it is of the left, it might seem beneficial to have it balanced in some small measure by ideology of the right. Yet for political correctness of one kind to compete with political correctness of another kind may be a marginal intellectual advantage for the longer run. Together, the weeds in the garden suffocate and crowd out the flowers. The ideological mind-set, formed as it is at bottom by a desire to dominate rather than illuminate, is an intruder in philosophy and the arts. It is closed in upon itself and resentful of competition. Instead of cultivating the openness to new influences that marks real philosophy and art and letting itself be exposed to the possible intellectual turmoil of fresh insight, ideology shunts inconvenient thought and imagination aside. Ideologues produce propaganda, although sometimes propaganda of a sophisticated kind. When such individuals set the tone, the intellectual and artistic life suffers. -Because the conservative discussions of public policy and adjoining issues have not been inspired or informed by the kind of advanced intellectual and artistic culture that once seemed in the making, those discussions have been more prone to ideological reductionism and lack of imagination than need have been the case. -Does it need to be said that the views about culture, truth, and morality that are put forth by intellectuals who live and breathe political strategy and tactics are no real alternative to the thinking now dominant in academia and beyond? An authentic revitalization of will, imagination and reason would deepen and enrich human existence as an end in itself, not serve a particular political agenda. A characteristic of a creative civilization is that you cannot fully predict where it might lead in thought, art, ethics, and politics. Many purported conservative intellectuals currently concerned about “the culture” seem to know exactly what will be the political-ideological consequences of “improving” it: more “capitalism,” “democracy,” and “equality.” Perhaps in some future Washington administration there will be appointed a “culture czar.” A more appropriate title might be “commissar.” Rather than submit to a reign of conservative political correctness, a cultural and intellectual movement worthy of the name would take its chances with poets, artists, philosophers, and men and women of conscience.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 12:43:31 +0000