"Rufo’s book is built around intellectual biographies of four activist-scholars: Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Paulo Freire, and Derrick Bell"
It would be difficult to imagine four more irrelevant people to the current state of academia. Let alone the state of the world. Unserious people can always drum up baddies, and impute to them pow…
"Rufo’s book is built around intellectual biographies of four activist-scholars: Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Paulo Freire, and Derrick Bell"
It would be difficult to imagine four more irrelevant people to the current state of academia. Let alone the state of the world. Unserious people can always drum up baddies, and impute to them power that they never had. But why would anyone take such a thing seriously?
"during the Cold War, some of the leading lights of modern academia were openly in favor of distant regimes that were engaging in mass killings in the name of equality." Notice the language: "openly in favor of"! Wow. Not "supported financially." Not "caused to happen." Nothing like that. So, Mr. Hanania, let me ask you: have you yourself ever "been openly in favor of a distant regime engaged in mass killings"? Russia, say? Oh, you will insist: I don't "openly support" Russia! Or, I only supported them BEFORE they engaged in mass killings. Or something. But let's be serious. This is the weakest sauce ever.
I'll come out and say it. I have, at one time or another, also been openly in favor of regimes that carried out mass killings. Not *because* they carried out mass killings, but *despite* it. I am, among other things, in favor of the United States. (Please deny that we've ever carried out any mass killings.)
It'd be as if I wrote a book explaining that the United States is in a crisis, and we must act NOW NOW NOW because ... well, let's find four random Republicans who openly support four different murderous states. Jared Kushner supports the Saudis, whose murderous history is legion. Donald Trump supports China, which has exterminated Uyghurs. Tucker Carlson supports Russia, which is massacring Ukrainian children. OK that's only 3 off the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with one more.
"Yet Rufo also reminds us that it was Marcuse’s third wife Erica Sherover-Marcuse who designed courses that became the prototypes for DEI trainings across institutions." Come on, man. That has to be a troll sentence. Marcuse's 3rd wife designed courses that became prototypes!? That's supposed to be impressive? Scary? If it turned out that ... let's pick someone as obscure as Marcuse ... Dinesh D'Souza's 3rd wife designed courses that became prototypes for homeschoolers promoting Christian nationalism ... and therefore there's this deep connection and so we must all support radical new polices ... you would laugh in my face. And rightly so.
"In his conclusion, Rufo gives some thoughts on what a healthier society would look like. The common citizen will have the space for inhabiting and passing down his own virtues, sentiments, and beliefs, free from the imposition of values from above."
Yeah, that's what they're up to in Ron DeSantis' Florida. Making sure there's no imposition of values from above. For DeSantis, the only values that matter are Republican values. Rufo is clearly on board with that. Are you?
I had surmised that Chris Rufo was a joke. This review seems to confirm it. But I had thought you were intelligent and insightful. I still do, actually. This piece is just a misfire. Right?
Mass killings are not necessarily mass murders. You may recall the US military in WW2.
Your evasion of long-term, intellectually dominant Leftism on US culture is bizarre. America's original, Enlightenment culture of rational individualism has been largely buried under Leftist emotionalism and Rightist faith.
What America Is: The Moral Logic Of The American Revolution-C. Bradley Thompson
I don't think I "evade" the long-term intellectually dominant Leftism on US culture. I think I straight up deny it. It's just not a thing outside the fever dreams of some conservatives.
Now, sometimes I think I'm wrong about this, and a couple of things that Mr. Hanania has written in the past make me take that possibility seriously. In particular, the civil rights law stuff is going to be interesting, and I look forward to reading his book.
But from everything I've read about Rufo, he's barking up all the wrong trees. This review does nothing to change that opinion ... the reverse, in fact. "Oh noez the leftists are in charge of everything - here's proof, just look at these 4 irrelevant people!"
My belief in Mr. Hanania's ability to reason well about these issues took a serious hit today. I have hopes that this is a temporary setback.
I think it's more that they represent strands of an intellectual movement that took over the universities and media and entertainment industry (movies and TV shows affect culture, don't fool yourself) in the past 70 years, and people like stories about people. It's easier to get people to read a book about people than it is to read a book about long-term social trends and the political leanings of university faculty. Do people remember the sociopolitical structure of the Galactic Empire, or Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader?
I think he might have been inspired by Helen Andrews' Boomers (which went after Steve Jobs, Aaron Sorkin, Camille Pagllia, Jeffrey Sachs, Al Sharpton, and Sonia Sotomayor), itself inspired by Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians (a 1918 book that attacked four prominent Victorians).
We've reached a place where both sides think the other side is dominant. Just spitballing here, but should we consider the possibility that nobody is dominant. People believe what they believe, they take ideas from various sources, they agree with things - sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes not. Nobody's in charge, but if you have strong ideological commitments, it looks like the people on the other side are more in charge than your side is. But there are actually dozens of "sides." White Christian social conservatives vs. Black Christian social conservatives vs. Muslim social conservatives vs. Tech bros with a libertarian bent vs. Libertarians with a tech bro bent vs. Liberals with a tech bro bent vs. Liberals with an environmental bent vs. Environmentalists who can't stand wokeism, and on and on. None of us feel like we're in charge, because we're not. But that doesn't mean someone else is.
I promise you, there is no feeling more ludicrous than having actually read Herbert Marcuse and Paolo Freire and seeing these two men, of all people, being held up as exemplars of dominant culture power. Nobody reads Marcuse. Nobody reads Freire. Even in the academy! And the accusation that these two men are all powerful is ... coming from Chris Rufo!? A guy who is intentionally remaking an actually existing university, right now, in his own ideological image! No sir. I say no. This is bullshit. There is no way that Chris Rufo himself takes this argument seriously, and it says bad things about Mr. Hanania if he does.
Leftism is dominant in schools, media, art, and the humanities. In govt, Leftists have used altruism to shame conservatives into supporting bigger govt for 100+ years. Conservatives have recently adopted some anti-business, anti-capitalist values. Where is conservatism dominant? The culture is changing and conservatism will eventually be dominant. But not today.
Intellectual influence is mostly indirect, a march thru the institutions and thru layers of prior intellectuals. The philosophers are in charge, tho most are so incompetent that they dont know it. They just keep teaching nihilism and wondering why everything is falling apart.
I think the left owns the universities, the media, and the entertainment industry and the state and local government in a lot of blue states, and the right controls the state and local government in a lot of red states. The right has the Supreme Court right now, but that could change with a few elections. The executive and legislative branches are contested territory. So it's possible for everyone to point at something and say the other side has all the power.
It's kind of like MRAs pointing at men being most prisoners, war casualties, etc. and feminists pointing at men being most CEOs, government officials, etc. They're both right!
Re: mass killings vs. mass murders: I think you want to complain to Messrs. Rufo and Hanania, as they are the ones claiming that it's prima facie a bad thing to be a person who has ever been in favor of any country that carries out mass killings.
Defensive killings against literal terrorists like Ho Chi-Minh and whatever goons the ISI uses to tyrranise the Afghans aren't remotely comparable to offensive killings for the sake of mad, anti-human ideological impositions.
For that matter, they worked! We just left millions of innocent people in the lurch anyway, both Democrats and Republicans, for shallow political reasons, and did so long after American troops were actually doing any of the fighting.
I don't know what Rufo and Hanania's own views on Vietnam nor Afghanistan are, but I would not hesitate to tell them to their faces they were wrong if they told me themselves they opposed either or both conflicts.
And for that matter, you yourself are wrong if you oppose either conflict, too. The hippie peace movement of the '60s and the '00s were no better than the Nazi appeasement movement far-leftists supported between '39 and '41. The difference is for Vietnam and Afghanistan, the Nazis won.
"Rufo’s book is built around intellectual biographies of four activist-scholars: Herbert Marcuse, Angela Davis, Paulo Freire, and Derrick Bell"
It would be difficult to imagine four more irrelevant people to the current state of academia. Let alone the state of the world. Unserious people can always drum up baddies, and impute to them power that they never had. But why would anyone take such a thing seriously?
"during the Cold War, some of the leading lights of modern academia were openly in favor of distant regimes that were engaging in mass killings in the name of equality." Notice the language: "openly in favor of"! Wow. Not "supported financially." Not "caused to happen." Nothing like that. So, Mr. Hanania, let me ask you: have you yourself ever "been openly in favor of a distant regime engaged in mass killings"? Russia, say? Oh, you will insist: I don't "openly support" Russia! Or, I only supported them BEFORE they engaged in mass killings. Or something. But let's be serious. This is the weakest sauce ever.
I'll come out and say it. I have, at one time or another, also been openly in favor of regimes that carried out mass killings. Not *because* they carried out mass killings, but *despite* it. I am, among other things, in favor of the United States. (Please deny that we've ever carried out any mass killings.)
It'd be as if I wrote a book explaining that the United States is in a crisis, and we must act NOW NOW NOW because ... well, let's find four random Republicans who openly support four different murderous states. Jared Kushner supports the Saudis, whose murderous history is legion. Donald Trump supports China, which has exterminated Uyghurs. Tucker Carlson supports Russia, which is massacring Ukrainian children. OK that's only 3 off the top of my head, I'm sure you can come up with one more.
"Yet Rufo also reminds us that it was Marcuse’s third wife Erica Sherover-Marcuse who designed courses that became the prototypes for DEI trainings across institutions." Come on, man. That has to be a troll sentence. Marcuse's 3rd wife designed courses that became prototypes!? That's supposed to be impressive? Scary? If it turned out that ... let's pick someone as obscure as Marcuse ... Dinesh D'Souza's 3rd wife designed courses that became prototypes for homeschoolers promoting Christian nationalism ... and therefore there's this deep connection and so we must all support radical new polices ... you would laugh in my face. And rightly so.
"In his conclusion, Rufo gives some thoughts on what a healthier society would look like. The common citizen will have the space for inhabiting and passing down his own virtues, sentiments, and beliefs, free from the imposition of values from above."
Yeah, that's what they're up to in Ron DeSantis' Florida. Making sure there's no imposition of values from above. For DeSantis, the only values that matter are Republican values. Rufo is clearly on board with that. Are you?
I had surmised that Chris Rufo was a joke. This review seems to confirm it. But I had thought you were intelligent and insightful. I still do, actually. This piece is just a misfire. Right?
Mass killings are not necessarily mass murders. You may recall the US military in WW2.
Your evasion of long-term, intellectually dominant Leftism on US culture is bizarre. America's original, Enlightenment culture of rational individualism has been largely buried under Leftist emotionalism and Rightist faith.
What America Is: The Moral Logic Of The American Revolution-C. Bradley Thompson
I don't think I "evade" the long-term intellectually dominant Leftism on US culture. I think I straight up deny it. It's just not a thing outside the fever dreams of some conservatives.
Now, sometimes I think I'm wrong about this, and a couple of things that Mr. Hanania has written in the past make me take that possibility seriously. In particular, the civil rights law stuff is going to be interesting, and I look forward to reading his book.
But from everything I've read about Rufo, he's barking up all the wrong trees. This review does nothing to change that opinion ... the reverse, in fact. "Oh noez the leftists are in charge of everything - here's proof, just look at these 4 irrelevant people!"
My belief in Mr. Hanania's ability to reason well about these issues took a serious hit today. I have hopes that this is a temporary setback.
I think it's more that they represent strands of an intellectual movement that took over the universities and media and entertainment industry (movies and TV shows affect culture, don't fool yourself) in the past 70 years, and people like stories about people. It's easier to get people to read a book about people than it is to read a book about long-term social trends and the political leanings of university faculty. Do people remember the sociopolitical structure of the Galactic Empire, or Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader?
I think he might have been inspired by Helen Andrews' Boomers (which went after Steve Jobs, Aaron Sorkin, Camille Pagllia, Jeffrey Sachs, Al Sharpton, and Sonia Sotomayor), itself inspired by Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians (a 1918 book that attacked four prominent Victorians).
> It's [culturally dominant US Leftism) just not a thing outside the fever dreams of some conservatives.
Leftists are dominant but conservatives are also very influential.
We've reached a place where both sides think the other side is dominant. Just spitballing here, but should we consider the possibility that nobody is dominant. People believe what they believe, they take ideas from various sources, they agree with things - sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes not. Nobody's in charge, but if you have strong ideological commitments, it looks like the people on the other side are more in charge than your side is. But there are actually dozens of "sides." White Christian social conservatives vs. Black Christian social conservatives vs. Muslim social conservatives vs. Tech bros with a libertarian bent vs. Libertarians with a tech bro bent vs. Liberals with a tech bro bent vs. Liberals with an environmental bent vs. Environmentalists who can't stand wokeism, and on and on. None of us feel like we're in charge, because we're not. But that doesn't mean someone else is.
I promise you, there is no feeling more ludicrous than having actually read Herbert Marcuse and Paolo Freire and seeing these two men, of all people, being held up as exemplars of dominant culture power. Nobody reads Marcuse. Nobody reads Freire. Even in the academy! And the accusation that these two men are all powerful is ... coming from Chris Rufo!? A guy who is intentionally remaking an actually existing university, right now, in his own ideological image! No sir. I say no. This is bullshit. There is no way that Chris Rufo himself takes this argument seriously, and it says bad things about Mr. Hanania if he does.
Leftism is dominant in schools, media, art, and the humanities. In govt, Leftists have used altruism to shame conservatives into supporting bigger govt for 100+ years. Conservatives have recently adopted some anti-business, anti-capitalist values. Where is conservatism dominant? The culture is changing and conservatism will eventually be dominant. But not today.
Intellectual influence is mostly indirect, a march thru the institutions and thru layers of prior intellectuals. The philosophers are in charge, tho most are so incompetent that they dont know it. They just keep teaching nihilism and wondering why everything is falling apart.
I think the left owns the universities, the media, and the entertainment industry and the state and local government in a lot of blue states, and the right controls the state and local government in a lot of red states. The right has the Supreme Court right now, but that could change with a few elections. The executive and legislative branches are contested territory. So it's possible for everyone to point at something and say the other side has all the power.
It's kind of like MRAs pointing at men being most prisoners, war casualties, etc. and feminists pointing at men being most CEOs, government officials, etc. They're both right!
Re: mass killings vs. mass murders: I think you want to complain to Messrs. Rufo and Hanania, as they are the ones claiming that it's prima facie a bad thing to be a person who has ever been in favor of any country that carries out mass killings.
Defensive killings against literal terrorists like Ho Chi-Minh and whatever goons the ISI uses to tyrranise the Afghans aren't remotely comparable to offensive killings for the sake of mad, anti-human ideological impositions.
For that matter, they worked! We just left millions of innocent people in the lurch anyway, both Democrats and Republicans, for shallow political reasons, and did so long after American troops were actually doing any of the fighting.
Are you arguing with Rufo and Hanania or me?
I don't know what Rufo and Hanania's own views on Vietnam nor Afghanistan are, but I would not hesitate to tell them to their faces they were wrong if they told me themselves they opposed either or both conflicts.
And for that matter, you yourself are wrong if you oppose either conflict, too. The hippie peace movement of the '60s and the '00s were no better than the Nazi appeasement movement far-leftists supported between '39 and '41. The difference is for Vietnam and Afghanistan, the Nazis won.
Hell to the yeah on all of this.
I don't think it would be that difficult, going by citation count.