We have a new conservative magazine. National Affairs, which published its maiden issue the first of this month. It is being trumpeted as the intellectual successor to Irving Kristol’s Public Affairs magazine. That rag ceased publication in 2005 following Kristol’s retirement as the last of the original editors. Kristol died just a few days ago, and long since departed were former editors and contributors to the publication, Nathan Glazer, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Daniel Bell and William F. Buckley.
The loss of Public Affairs was an ominous sign, but with the advent of National Affairs, the original, true conservative movement has some hope for a return to fundamentals, based not in the anti-intellectualism championed by the “value voters” of today’s Republican party, but the former highbrow intellectualism of the early movement.
The right is in sad need right now of a little intellectualism. We can hope… and we will wait and see.
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"The right is in sad need right now of a little intellectualism. We can hope… and we will wait and see."
Good point. I miss William F. Buckley myself.
Of course, there are those on the right who would tell you that many arguments of the leftists are based on emotion, not intellect.
And they have a point, too.
Although non sequitur, you are to some degree correct. I'm sure you see both cause and the effect in the back of your ambulance every night. Ignorance and simple stupidity abound. Attempting to justify the sins of one philosophy with those of the other (dicto simpliciter) fails to achieve any progress. In fact, it diminishes your argument and retards the entire debate.
That the left also suffers from a dearth of intellectuals does not excuse the popularity of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Malkin, Beck, etc... neither does it explain how babbling idiots like Michelle Bachmann and Joe Barton manage reelection time and again... nor how forgiveness can be found for one right wing philanderer after another while reviling Ted Kennedy for Chapiquidic 40 years later even as his body is lowered into the grave.
Anti-intellectualism is inexcusable regardless of politics. 50 years ago those pointing fingers and shouting down the "intellectual elites" were, to an overwhelming degree, on the left. Today they are on the right and the party of Abe Lincoln and Bill Buckley has sunk to the sewer.
Sorry. but you cannot justify the right by pointing to the sins of the left.
"Sorry. but you cannot justify the right by pointing to the sins of the left."
Wasn't attempting to do that at all, just pointing out that there's a dearth of intellectual honesty on both ends of the political spectrum.
... which is what I also said.
The problem has been the right gaining popularity and power by being actively anti-intellectual. That which passes as conservative today bears no resemblance to the dream of the early conservatives, yet it is sold to the great unwashed as the gold standard.
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