Turner >> In this light it seems rather amazing that, as I and others have begun to notice, so many people are coming out of the closet and daring to ask why the emperor is wearing no clothes. <<
The emperor's no clothes, a brilliant parable to begin with, has become such a cliche that I instinctively distrust anyone who uses it. The hypocrisy alarm invariably goes off, like a car alarm after a nearby lightning strike. But combining it, as Turner does here, with the near-to-our-hearts "coming out of the closet" cliche, is just too deliciously pat and mixed-metaphorish to be passed by without recording one's appreciation. Consider the encounter between someone who daringly comes out of the closet and a naked emperor. It could be a whole movie.
What I really love about the essay, though, is the suggestion that George W. is, in the great scheme of things, to be classified as a "liberator." I can just see, ten years hence, Iraqi coins with George's smirking face & the inscription (in Latin, not English): "Liberator."
And the whole business of political correctness in academia -- somehow, to me, it's not about that but about the remoteness of academia from reality.
Personally, I don't know, for example, if the war against Iraq was a good thing or not. It might well prove to have been a good thing, but I don't have any ideological hook on which to hang that opinion permanently and self-satisfiedly. Turner strikes me as an ideological idiot, a "conservative" idiot locked into opposition to the nearest "liberal" idiot. Ideological consciousness is a lower form of consciousness than what the situation really demands. It's like reptilian consciousness trying to function in a mammalian world.
>> Over the years all the real arguments for the left-liberal position, involving evidence and rational deliberation, have been exploded one by one. <<
Says you, without support of evidence or rational deliberation! It's so easy to express an opinion! (I'm doing it myself, of course.) Please bring evidence and rational deliberation, for which we all hunger.
Curtis >> I'm not saying that liberals are always rational; but I'd be damned for lying if I said that all conservatives act from a primarily rational motive. <<
Invincably astute observation.
I say, all "card-carrying liberals" and "dues-paying conservatives" should be scrupuluosly segregated from us human beings -- allowed to live out their lives in carefully guarded, separate corrals in the Western deserts. The corrals should be close enough to each other that the inhabitants can hear each others' insults, taunts, and epithets -- providing all concerned with sufficient reason to live -- but too far apart to allow infliction of harm. Let them pummel one another with words, but not with stones, knives, or hand-grenades. Less collatoral damage that way.
Admittedly, tough to implement, but a worthwhile aim.
Anyway, I thought Turner's essay was a bit tendentious.
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