8.27.2006
A review of a review of a review of a review
One of the hallmarks of academic liberalism is vigorous defense of any "intellectual" (read: left-liberal professor at prominent university such as Harvard) who calls a non-left-wing intellectual a racist. This takes various forms, and I wasn't around for the original "Bell Curve" debate of the early 1990s, but last year Slate publishes a terrible piece of tripe masquerading as genuine journalism, criticizing Charles Murray and Andrew Sullivan (two bete-noires of the left-liberal media/intelligentsia for years now).
The article - The Bell Curve revisited. By Stephen Metcalf - Slate Magazine - is a thinly veiled ad hominem attack on Murray, with sprouts of an assault on Sullivan for portraying himself as the intellectual minority in modern America. Sullivan plainly is in the minority - he is a gay punidt of the stripe of an conservative-libertarian admixture, and the people who agree with him can be counted on a stick. That is not likely to be the result of clever positioning on his part, as Stephen Metcalf alleges, since I've repeatedly watched Sullivan give the wrong, non-headline grabbing response to current events, when he could have gone for gold. But Metcalf snarkily implies Sullivan is simply that - a headline-grabber and not intellectually honest. Typical liberal-left punditry, I'm sorry to say.
I'm not necessarily a Sullivan fan, and I disagree with him on a number of things, maybe everything, who knows? I also like reading Slate, and tend to agree with moderate left-liberals more than moderate right-conservatives (whatever the latter means). I don't think I'm biased in saying that Metcalf's lack of intelligent criticism plus chutzpah makes his commentary almost worthless. But it gets worse when Metcalf starts attacking Murray as a racist, and "innocently" starts citing left-liberal academics to buttress his implications that Murray fudged data to present the black American as inherently inferior. His sheepish, shit-eating-grin (think of Tom Cruise) style "critique" of Murray is worth reading to see how easy it is for a liberal reader such as myself to just let myself be lulled into nodding along with a complete idiot. Murray isn't racist, and Metcalf cites zero proof that he is. But he implies it constantly, just barely dodging a good defamation lawsuit as only a snarky left-liberal pundit can. What a weak-ass performance. For shame, Slate.
The article - The Bell Curve revisited. By Stephen Metcalf - Slate Magazine - is a thinly veiled ad hominem attack on Murray, with sprouts of an assault on Sullivan for portraying himself as the intellectual minority in modern America. Sullivan plainly is in the minority - he is a gay punidt of the stripe of an conservative-libertarian admixture, and the people who agree with him can be counted on a stick. That is not likely to be the result of clever positioning on his part, as Stephen Metcalf alleges, since I've repeatedly watched Sullivan give the wrong, non-headline grabbing response to current events, when he could have gone for gold. But Metcalf snarkily implies Sullivan is simply that - a headline-grabber and not intellectually honest. Typical liberal-left punditry, I'm sorry to say.
I'm not necessarily a Sullivan fan, and I disagree with him on a number of things, maybe everything, who knows? I also like reading Slate, and tend to agree with moderate left-liberals more than moderate right-conservatives (whatever the latter means). I don't think I'm biased in saying that Metcalf's lack of intelligent criticism plus chutzpah makes his commentary almost worthless. But it gets worse when Metcalf starts attacking Murray as a racist, and "innocently" starts citing left-liberal academics to buttress his implications that Murray fudged data to present the black American as inherently inferior. His sheepish, shit-eating-grin (think of Tom Cruise) style "critique" of Murray is worth reading to see how easy it is for a liberal reader such as myself to just let myself be lulled into nodding along with a complete idiot. Murray isn't racist, and Metcalf cites zero proof that he is. But he implies it constantly, just barely dodging a good defamation lawsuit as only a snarky left-liberal pundit can. What a weak-ass performance. For shame, Slate.
# posted by Vanity @ 14:51 
