The Scandal of the Liberal Mind

[Valin]

Power Line

Steven Hayward

July 16 2017

 

Some years ago the evangelical scholar Mark Noll wrote an influential book titled The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. It was a critique of the lack of intellectual seriousness and depth among his fellow evangelicals, and a clarion call to for evangelical thinkers to step up their game. Christianity Today named it the “Book of the Year” in 1994, and it provoked far-reaching and long-lasting discussion among evangelicals.

I wonder if it isn’t long past time for someone of broad gauge to write The Scandal of the Liberal Mind. To be sure, there are a couple of fragmentary efforts at something like this, such as Peter Beinart’s 2006 book The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. I have a hunch Beinart regrets the last part of that subtitle (heh), and in any case he implicitly repudiated much of this book in his next book, The Icarus Syndrome. (You can find my review of that book here.) Paul Berman and Michael Walzer deserve honorable mention for their public chiding of thoughtless liberalism in recent years.

 

(Snip)

 

The current example of this is Duke University historian Nancy MacLean’s new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. This book has rapidly become the largest academic publishing scandal since Michael Bellesiles’s fraudulent 2000 book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. That prize-winning book eventually had to be withdrawn from the market (and the prizes revoked) when Bellesiles’s massive fabrications were discovered.

MacLean’s book does not suffer from fabrications (though there appear to be a few) as much as an intellectual shoddiness so obvious that it is astounding that the book was published at all. I’ve been meaning to comment on this unfolding scandal for weeks now, but the story keeps developing so fast that it’s been hard to keep up. David Bernstein offers an apt summary of what it’s all about:

 

(Snip)

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Don't know is I should    ...or

[Draggingtree]

11 hours ago, Valin said:

Power Line

Steven Hayward

July 16 2017

 

Some years ago the evangelical scholar Mark Noll wrote an influential book titled The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. It was a critique of the lack of intellectual seriousness and depth among his fellow evangelicals, and a clarion call to for evangelical thinkers to step up their game. Christianity Today named it the “Book of the Year” in 1994, and it provoked far-reaching and long-lasting discussion among evangelicals.

I wonder if it isn’t long past time for someone of broad gauge to write The Scandal of the Liberal Mind. To be sure, there are a couple of fragmentary efforts at something like this, such as Peter Beinart’s 2006 book The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again. I have a hunch Beinart regrets the last part of that subtitle (heh), and in any case he implicitly repudiated much of this book in his next book, The Icarus Syndrome. (You can find my review of that book here.) Paul Berman and Michael Walzer deserve honorable mention for their public chiding of thoughtless liberalism in recent years.

 

(Snip)

 

The current example of this is Duke University historian Nancy MacLean’s new book, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America. This book has rapidly become the largest academic publishing scandal since Michael Bellesiles’s fraudulent 2000 book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. That prize-winning book eventually had to be withdrawn from the market (and the prizes revoked) when Bellesiles’s massive fabrications were discovered.

MacLean’s book does not suffer from fabrications (though there appear to be a few) as much as an intellectual shoddiness so obvious that it is astounding that the book was published at all. I’ve been meaning to comment on this unfolding scandal for weeks now, but the story keeps developing so fast that it’s been hard to keep up. David Bernstein offers an apt summary of what it’s all about:

 

(Snip)

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Don't know is I should    ...or

'both'

[Valin]

Draggingtree

 

Ok right from the start I understand I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree, but Good God Almighty, this woman is dumber than dirt. Assuming she really believes this crap.

[Valin]

DU