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Have Conservatives Gone Mad?; article from The Atlantic
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Topic Started: Apr 23 2010, 11:51 PM (456 Views)
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Axtremus
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Apr 23 2010, 11:51 PM
Post #1
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Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/04/have-conservatives-gone-mad/39417/
- Marc Ambiner
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Have Conservatives Gone Mad?
Serious thinkers on the right have finally gotten around to a full and open debate on the epistemic closure problem that's plaguing the conservative movement. The issue, to put it in terms that even I can understand, because I didn't study philosophy much in college: has the conservative base gone mad?
This matters to journalists, because I really do want to take Republicans seriously. Mainstream conservative voices are embracing theories that are, to use Julian Sanchez's phrase, "untethered" to the real world.
Can anyone deny that the most trenchant and effective criticism of President Obama today comes not from the right but from the left? Rachel Maddow's grilling of administration economic officials. Keith Olbermann's hectoring of Democratic leaders on the public option. Glenn Greenwald's criticisms of Elena Kagan. Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn's keepin'-them-honest perspectives on health care. The civil libertarian left on detainees and Gitmo. The Huffington Post on derivatives.
I want to find Republicans to take seriously, but it is hard. Not because they don't exist -- serious Republicans -- but because, as Sanchez and others seem to recognize, they are marginalized, even self-marginalizing, and the base itself seems to have developed a notion that bromides are equivalent to policy-thinking, and that therapy is a substitute for thinking.
It is absolutely a condition of the age of the triumph of conservative personality politics, where entertainers shouting slogans are taken seriously as political actors, and where the incentive structures exist to stomp on dissent and nuance, causing experimental voices to retrench and allowing a lot of people to pretend that the world around them is not changing. The obsession with ACORN, Climategate, death panels, the militarization of rhetoric, Saul Alinsky, Chicago-style politics, that TAXPAYERS will fund the bailout of banks -- these aren't meaningful or interesting or even relevant things to focus on. (The banks will fund their own bailouts.)
Conor Friedersdorf thinks the problem lies with the conservative movement's major spokespeople -- its radio/net news nexus -- and the "overwhelming evidence that their very existence as popular entertainers hinges on an ability to persuade listeners that they are "'worth taking seriously as political and intellectual actors.'" That is why the constant failures of these men to live up to their billing is so offensive, destructive, and ruinous to conservatives. There are plenty of women, too, is all I'll say.
I think this sensibility is pervasive throughout the smart media -- old and new. I think it's one reason why, say, Jake Tapper and other good reporters are very keen about direct fact-challenging -- why the media is reasserting itself as gatekeepers. (CNN might want to think about branding themselves here, even at the risk (well, the reality) of calling out Republicans more.) I think it's because there's so much misinformation out there -- most of it spread by the conservative echo-chamber. With the advent of Fox News and the power of that echo-chamber, complaints about liberal media bias are quite irrelevant -- the reaction to it being like lupus's reaction to the body, as Jon Stewart correctly noted.
Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/04/have-conservatives-gone-mad/39417/
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ivorythumper
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Apr 24 2010, 12:09 AM
Post #2
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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The dogma lives loudly within me.
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kenny
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Apr 24 2010, 12:09 AM
Post #3
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So liberals are mentally ill and conservatives are mad.
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Klaus
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Apr 24 2010, 01:54 AM
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It is hard to take this article seriously. It contains virtually no arguments, just bashing.
Why did you post it, Ax?
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Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Mikhailoh
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Apr 24 2010, 02:44 AM
Post #5
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
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Did it ever occur to him that a lot of conservatives firmly believe that policies ARE the problem? That our federal government is making policy on a whole lot of things they should not be involved in in the first place? This guy is either quite dense or he doesn't want to get it.
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Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Mark
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Apr 24 2010, 02:45 AM
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Seriously.
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___.___ (_]===* o 0 When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
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JBryan
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Apr 24 2010, 05:14 AM
Post #7
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If hear "epistemic closure" one more time I am going to scream.
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne
There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".
Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.
Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.
From The Lion in Winter.
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John D'Oh
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Apr 24 2010, 05:21 AM
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Epistemic closure.
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What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Klaus
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Apr 24 2010, 06:04 AM
Post #9
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Epistemic closure.
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Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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apple
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Apr 24 2010, 06:12 AM
Post #10
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what does that mean?
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it behooves me to behold
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Improviso
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Apr 24 2010, 06:30 AM
Post #11
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- apple
- Apr 24 2010, 06:12 AM
what does that mean? I believe it refers to the suturing of one's anus so that one can no longer stick one's head up one's a$$.
But I'm skeptical...
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Identifying narcissists isn't difficult. Just look for the person who is constantly fishing for compliments and admiration while breaking down over even the slightest bit of criticism. We have the freedom to choose our actions, but we do not get to choose our consequences.
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Dewey
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Apr 24 2010, 06:37 AM
Post #12
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Seems to me that Mr. Ambiner is yodeling into an echo chamber of his own.
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.
"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous
"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011
I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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schindler
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Apr 24 2010, 06:45 AM
Post #13
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We're all mad here!
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John Galt
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Apr 24 2010, 06:46 AM
Post #14
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Let us begin anew, remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness.
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Big John
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Apr 24 2010, 06:56 AM
Post #15
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- JBryan
- Apr 24 2010, 05:14 AM
If hear "epistemic closure" one more time I am going to scream. I think that's his way of saying "Eschew Obfuscation."
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John D'Oh
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Apr 24 2010, 08:14 AM
Post #16
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- apple
- Apr 24 2010, 06:12 AM
what does that mean? It means closing one's epistemical obsidgiary. One frequently uses a scarfian granuloma to perform this operation.
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What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Jeff
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Apr 24 2010, 08:34 AM
Post #17
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- Axtremus
- Apr 23 2010, 11:51 PM
Keith Olbermann's hectoring of Democratic leaders Anyone who thinks Olberman is anything other than a circus clown has some epistemic closure and lack of contact with reality problems of his own.
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RosemaryTwo
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Apr 24 2010, 01:22 PM
Post #18
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Yes. They are mad. Looney even.
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"Perhaps the thing to do is just to let stupid run its course." Aqua
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Free Rider
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Apr 24 2010, 01:27 PM
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- JBryan
- Apr 24 2010, 05:14 AM
If hear "epistemic closure" one more time I am going to scream. beep....
epistemic closure
beep.....
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Axtremus
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Apr 27 2010, 05:54 PM
Post #20
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I didn't understand JBryan's reaction until I read the following article (h/t Quirt):
Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/books/28conserv.html
- Quote:
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‘Epistemic Closure’? Those Are Fighting Words By PATRICIA COHEN
It is hard to believe that a phrase as dry as “epistemic closure” could get anyone excited, but the term has sparked a heated argument among conservatives in recent weeks about their movement’s intellectual health.
The phrase is being used as shorthand by some prominent conservatives for a kind of closed-mindedness in the movement, a development they see as debasing modern conservatism’s proud intellectual history. First used in this context by Julian Sanchez of the libertarian Cato Institute, the phrase “epistemic closure” has been richocheting among conservative publications and blogs as a high-toned abbreviation for ideological intolerance and misinformation.
Conservative media, Mr. Sanchez wrote at juliansanchez.com — referring to outlets like Fox News and National Review and to talk-show stars like Rush Limbaugh, Mark R. Levin and Glenn Beck — have “become worryingly untethered from reality as the impetus to satisfy the demand for red meat overtakes any motivation to report accurately.” (Mr. Sanchez said he probably fished “epistemic closure” out of his subconscious from an undergraduate course in philosophy, where it has a technical meaning in the realm of logic.)
As a result, he complained, many conservatives have developed a distorted sense of priorities and a tendency to engage in fantasy, like the belief that President Obama was not born in the United States or that the health care bill proposed establishing “death panels.”
Soon conservatives across the board jumped into the debate. Jim Manzi, a contributing editor at National Review, wrote that Mr. Levin’s best seller, “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto” (Threshold Editions) was “awful,” and called the section on global warming a case for “willful ignorance,” and “an almost perfect example of epistemic closure.” Megan McArdle, an editor at The Atlantic, conceded that “conservatives are often voluntarily putting themselves in the same cocoon.”
Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush’s administrations, wrote that in the last few years, “epistemic closure” had become much worse among “the intelligentsia of the conservative movement.” He later added that the cream of the conservative research institutes, including the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation, had gone from presenting informed policy analyses to pumping out propaganda.
Conservative defenders dismissed the complaints. At National Review, Mr. Levin replied that “Manzi is guilty of ‘epistemic one-sidededness’,” if not “lunacy” and “wingnuttery.” Many of Mr. Manzi’s colleagues attacked him for his takedown of Mr. Levin.
Jonah Goldberg, the author of “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning” (Doubleday), responded online that liberals had many more intellectual taboos:
“For more than a generation, liberalism craved and ruthlessly enforced epistemic closure.” Richard Lowry, the editor of National Review, called the “kerfluffle” “precious and overwrought,” adding that its very existence proved the vigor of intellectual engagement.
To some degree, the debate over “epistemic closure” reflects the kind of discomfort intellectuals always have with popularizers, but after Mr. Manzi’s public flogging, the phrase turned into fighting words.
David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, argued at frumforum.com on Friday that the problem was not media celebrities, but rather conservative intellectuals.
“They’re the ones who are supposed to uphold intellectual standards, to sift actual facts from what you call ‘pretend information,’ ” he wrote, quoting a friend. “Rush Limbaugh isn’t any worse than he was 20 years ago. But 20 years ago, conservatism offered something more than Rush Limbaugh. Since then, the conservative elite has collapsed. Blame them, not talk radio.”
As the contretemps heated up, liberals and commentators outside the conservative circle chimed in. Over the weekend Mr. Levin and others took a couple of additional swipes at Mr. Frum and Mr. Manzi.
Last month Mr. Frum himself provoked an uproar when he wrote in a column titled “Waterloo,” after Congress passed the health care bill, “We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.” To conservative and Republican loyalists, Mr. Frum is a Neville Chamberlain-type appeaser who is willing to accept a kind of liberalism lite. After his column appeared, Mr. Frum said, he was fired by the American Enterprise Institute.
Ever since Richard M. Weaver wrote his bracing conservative manifesto in 1948, “Ideas Have Consequences,” the title phrase has been a guiding maxim for the movement. But conservatives like Mr. Frum worry that the type of ideas Weaver was referring to are in short supply these days.
At the moment, the people leading the way on the right are disparate grass-roots Tea Party activists who are operating without a leader or shared ideology.
“Conservative intellectuals are in eclipse at the moment,” Steven F. Hayward, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said during a telephone interview.
Mr. Bartlett, who lost his job at the Heritage Foundation after accusing George W. Bush of betraying the Reagan legacy, said in an interview: “Every intellectual movement needs to constantly question itself; otherwise it becomes stale. But conservatives have sort of reached a position of intellectual closure. They don’t think there are any new ideas of particular interest to them. Their philosophy is fully formed. The only question is how best to implement conservative ideas in the political debate.”
He mentioned the Foundation’s creation last month of Heritage Action for America, a political lobbying arm unconstrained by the limits imposed on nonprofits, as part of the shift from analysis to lobbying.
In his blog Mr. Sanchez pointed to a comment at redstate.com about the Manzi-Levin hullabaloo that epitomizes the attitude: “I DON’T CARE,” if every fact and figure is correct, the poster wrote; “more importantly, the principles were timeless and correct.”
George H. Nash, a conservative historian and most recently the author of “Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of American Conservatism” (ISI Books), described the first generation of modern conservatives as the “era of the intellectual,” led by people like William F. Buckley and Russell Kirk, who laid down the movement’s theoretical and historical foundations.
The second, which began in the late 1970s and continued through George W. Bush’s administration, was the era of “applied conservatism,” he said. This was when conservatives started to build a large infrastructure of research organizations for scholars and experts who created policy initiatives.
A third generation of modern conservatives is now taking shape, he added, although its defining characteristics are still unclear.
In trying to explain possible reasons for “epistemic closure” among fellow conservatives, Noah Millman, who blogs at theamericanscene.com, suggested that generational differences might be at the root of the problem. Unlike earlier movement members who honed their arguments while out of power, he said, “Young conservatives in the late 1980s and early 1990s saw their movement go from strength to strength — and learned that conservatism was always right and that people who didn’t see that were fools.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/books/28conserv.html
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