People for whom the left is little more than a cultural sensibility, whose idea of social justice doesn't go beyond disparities between ascriptively reified groups, sometimes irritate me on a deeper level than libertarian conservative intellectuals. Why? Probably because I am fed up with the weaselish hypocrisy, the racial bad faith, the ease with which they rationalize the substantially inhumane for the sake of the symbolically satisfying. Few things are more emblematic of modern political dishonesty than a transparently narrow-minded person screaming that the only way to truly be openminded is to agree with them.
I once knew an asshole in college who would treat the dining hall staff like dogshit and insisted that true "oppression" was the absence of halal food from the dining hall. I have far more contempt for him than I do for Milton Friedman.
Between someone who is honestly wrong, and someone who is dishonestly half-right, I'm not so sure that the latter is always preferable.
At least the honestly wrong can —some of the time — have honest discussions, and may be open to new information.
The dishonestly half-right are on a steady diet of bromides.
I once knew an asshole in college who would treat the dining hall staff like dogshit and insisted that true "oppression" was the absence of halal food from the dining hall. I have far more contempt for him than I do for Milton Friedman.
Between someone who is honestly wrong, and someone who is dishonestly half-right, I'm not so sure that the latter is always preferable.
At least the honestly wrong can —some of the time — have honest discussions, and may be open to new information.
The dishonestly half-right are on a steady diet of bromides.
No comments:
Post a Comment