Woolcott: Opiate of the Dummies (Conservative cat fight on ID)

[BurtWorm]

:popcorn:

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/12/intelligent_des.php


Intelligent Design: Opiate of the Dummies
Posted by James Wolcott

Wielding a sword of truth and a surgical scalpel of reason (he's quite ambidextrous), NRO's John Derbyshire pierces the fatty deposits of bad faith in the postures of religious piety by certain conservative eggheads.

His takeoff point is a recent essay-review by Gertrude Himmelfarb of Darwin in The New Republic, about which he has incisive things to say, particularly regarding her scientific illiteracy. But the chief item of interest is the attitude toward religion by Himmelfarb's husband and the co-godfather of neoconservatism (coequal with Norman Podhoretz), Irving Kristol.

Citing and quoting from an excellent article by Ronald Bailey on the neocon campaign to discredit Darwinish (I remember being puzzled when such pieces began popping up in Commentary amid the usual battle cries and attacks of gout), Derbyshire writes:

"BOOB BAIT FOR THE BUBBAS
A colleague referred me to this piece in Reason magazine as background to Gertrude Himmelfarb's position. It is... enlightening.

"We seem to be in Straussian 'noble lie' territory here. Sample:

"'Kristol agrees with this view. "There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people," he says in an interview. "There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work."'

"Translation: 'We cognitive elites know religion is a crock, but it helps keep the bubbas in line, so we must pretend to be in sympathy with it.'

"This line of thinking seems to me to be unspeakably horrible and inhuman, though, yes, I am aware that it has a long pedigree. If that's conservatism, I want out.
Posted at 07:41 PM"

[BurtWorm]

1. The money quote

<Derbyshire quotes Bailey then comments:>

"'A year ago, I asked Kristol after a lecture whether he believed in God or not. He got a twinkle in his eye and responded, "I don't believe in God, I have faith in God." Well, faith, as it says in Hebrews 11:1, "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." But at the recent AEI lecture, journalist Ben Wattenberg asked him the same thing. Kristol responded that "that is a stupid question," and crisply restated his belief that religion is essential for maintaining social discipline. A much younger (and perhaps less circumspect) Kristol asserted in a 1949 essay that in order to prevent the social disarray that would occur if ordinary people lost their religious faith, "it would indeed become the duty of the wise publicly to defend and support religion."'

"Here we have a guy who plainly doesn't believe in God, but who thinks that well-padded intellectual elitists like himself ought to evade the issue in public for fear of demoralizing the proles and perhaps jeopardizing some padding thereby. I can't think of anything nice to say about that; and in fact, the only things I CAN think of to say would not be suitable for a family website...

"These are the people who are pushing 'intelligent design' in the conservative movement. Not only am I glad and proud to have spoken out against this preposterous hoax, I wish I had done so more forthrightly. These are people filled up to their meritocratic nose-holes with contempt for ordinary people. That's conservatism? Ptui, I spit."

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. Help me out here, where do Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard fit in?

I thought they backed McCain (who made his contempt for fundamentalists public) over Bush in 2000. Cynical power play? So who are the neocons anyway -- simple fascists? Conservatives who happen to be atheists? Ex-memberts of the hard left who never abandoned their belief in some kind of agnostic intellectual vanguard destined to rule over the masses?

[BurtWorm]

4. Some of the earliest neocons were once socialists.

I'm not totally up on the early history, but there was a coterie somehow connected to City College in the 1930s and 1940s who were originally Stalinists or Trotskyists and who eventually became disillusioned with the USSR over its policy toward Israel and Soviet Jews. Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz were somehow connected with this group. Originally Commentary and Dissent were socialist rags, but after the 7-day war in 1967 they took a turn to the right. Anti-Soviet politics made for strange bedfellows, and these reformed Marxist Jewish intellectuals from New York City suddenly found themselves allied with rabid right-wing Christian no-nothing nativists from the Bible belt. I imagine some of them on both sides have been biting their tongues for the last 25 years.

[BurtWorm]

8. Here's a very interesting article about the Kristols and ID by a fellow

traveler on the right. It seems Irving and Gertrude are science-phobes and their anti-evolutionism stems from their loathing of Marxist materialism:

http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/12/a_critique_of_h.html

[DanCa]

3. Can I please see a curriculum or syllabus on a ID course?.

If anyone has a link of one please pm me. Thanks Danny

[No Exit]

5. This right here is THE expression of what wingnuts accuse liberals of:

"'Kristol agrees with this view. "There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people," he says in an interview. "There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work."'

And... looky there! It's coming from one of their own!

Little Billy clearly considers himself above other people. For that alone, he should be ostracized by ALL.

[BurtWorm]

6. I wonder if he views his fellow wingers as children, students or

educated adults. :eyes:

[No Exit]

7. I believe he views them as Stücke, as he views all people.

Reference: the Hitler-era German soldiers were taught to refer to the camp inmates to be killed as "Stücke", rather than persons. This depersonalized the victims, making it easier for the soldiers to kill them.