In the comments to yesterday’s Provocateurism, 5 thread, nishi writes: […] this thread is also about the [R]epublican war on science. [Liberal Fascism] contains a labored attempt to smear the left and science as propagators and promotors of “eugenicsâ€Â. Like I told Manzi, it seems the right is fighting […] a doomed rearguard action against the combined forces of technological advances, academe, and cultural evolution. Like Aldo said, judeo-xian ethics
Provocateurism
Posts in the provocateurism series.
June 11, 2008
Provocateurism, 5 [Updated]
Given the many glancing mentions of Margaret Sanger (whom Goldberg asserts “is today considered a liberal saint, a founder of modern feminism, and one of the leading lights of the progressive pantheon”) in the comments to my previous posts in this series, and given the budding debate her mention has generated on just where legalized abortion is located on the political spectrum (progressive? libertarian? both?), it seems now would be
June 9, 2008
Provocateurism, 4
This ought to cause a fuss. Following up on an examination the progressive bona fides of prominent “raceologist” E.A. Ross, a “quintessential reform Darwinist” whose convictions about the innate differences among the races were widely defended by progressive elites (and mainstream publications like the NYT), and whose subsequent work at the University of Nebraska, along with Roscoe Pound, on “sociological jurisprudence” anchors modern liberalism’s “living constitution,” Goldberg transitions into a
June 8, 2008
Provocateurism, 3
Certain snarling dismissals aside, the practice of quoting at length some bits from Liberal Fascism and opening up a thread for argument has, to my way of thinking, proven rather fruitful — though I remain confused at how certain commenters insist on imputing to me conclusions that are, in fact, Goldberg’s. Whether or not I agree or disagree with certain arguments Jonah makes based upon the history he outlines is
June 7, 2008
Provocateurism, 2
Longtime readers of this site will recall that I’ve often tied progressivism (specifically by way of its philosophical assumptions) to totalitarianism, arguing that the resurgence of progressivism as a viable political force is, at least in part, tied to the linguistic turn — a rethinking of where “meaning” is grounded that gave us the kind of structural-linguistic arguments (incoherent and pernicious as they are) that came to undergird our very
June 6, 2008
Provocateurism
Because what follows is, to a certain extent, the kind of argument criticized by nishi (though in a way that I believe caricatures the actual argument as it is presented in its totality), I think it might prove interesting to use this passage from Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism as the jumping off point for a discussion of modern conservatism as it stands against modern liberalism (which, I’ve argued, has been