Via David Thompson’s Greatest Hits: ‘A discussion on the state of the left with Ophelia Benson, editor of the rationalist website Butterflies & Wheels and co-author of Why Truth Matters.’

‘Our criticism of [Judith] Butler was quite independent of the merits or lack thereof of Derrida – but perhaps a criticism of his defender amounts to a criticism of him and is therefore not allowed. At any rate, Butler’s open letter to the Times is a classic example of precisely this evasive non-substantive suggestion of impropriety that you mention. It’s basically an argument from celebrity. ‘How dare you publish such a snide obituary, Derrida was hugely influential, he was celebrated, he was a big deal.’

Hmmm….Martha Nussbaum on Judith Butler: ‘The Professor Of Parody‘

‘These developments owe much to the recent prominence of French postmodernist thought. Many young feminists, whatever their concrete affiliations with this or that French thinker, have been influenced by the extremely French idea that the intellectual does politics by speaking seditiously, and that this is a significant type of political action. Many have also derived from the writings of Michel Foucault (rightly or wrongly) the fatalistic idea that we are prisoners of an all-enveloping structure of power, and that real-life reform movements usually end up serving power in new and insidious ways. Such feminists therefore find comfort in the idea that the subversive use of words is still available to feminist intellectuals. Deprived of the hope of larger or more lasting changes, we can still perform our resistance by the reworking of verbal categories, and thus, at the margins, of the selves who are constituted by them.’

Strolling along, Avital Ronell, professor of German and Comparative Literature at NYU, invites you for a walk in the park, for whom 10 minutes of profound explication can never be enough:

I’m guessing that in the past, and maybe still in the present, some Nimrods find both the Catholic Church and/or the Priesthood of Impenetrable Jargon attractive life options.

‘In September 2017, New York University launched a Title IX investigation into Avital Ronell, an internationally acclaimed professor who had been accused of sexual harassment by her former graduate student, Nimrod Reitman.’

Roger Scruton suggests that the co-opting of university philosophy and literature departments by similar postmodern schools of thought (post-ish Marxist) does a disservice to young people interested in both philosophy and literature:

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On that note, it doesn’t matter so much if ideas are true, or falsifiable, but rather if they can be held with conviction, made into policy, and acted upon in the world. People are going to do politics, whether you like it or not. 

I’d argue that the decline of religion along with the intellectual currents in many academies have conspired to produce enough space for the following in our politics: Morally righteous people interested in how you should live your life. People who are deeply anti-religious and narrowly ideological.

From my point-of-view, If we conceptualize a blob of unchallenged moral sentiment anchored in religious teaching, and we imagine this sentiment to have been a primary reservoir for action in the world in and the laws (forming the personal habits and thoughts of many), we can imagine the blob being slowly drained.  

In part through the pursuit of the (S)elf to the exclusion of much else, and often on the backs of many claims of personal/individual freedom and market viability, we’re presumed to be moving ever towards more liberty.  This forms the backbone of a lot of liberal idealism. Many men on the street these days, following the example of many artists and intellectuals of the past few generations, are asked to put such moral sentiment and hope into the ideals, ‘-Isms’ and political causes (feminism/environmentalism/activism…moving relatively closer to the authoritarian/totalitarian Leftism of Marx).   This also makes more elements of our personal lives, and the freedom of thought and speech to question the knowledge/truth claims of true-believers, fall under the shadow of the new moral orthodoxies.

It turns out we don’t emerge from the womb as fully formed individuals. It turns out leaving the public square and the academy to radicals has consequences. It turns out some ideals scale, and many don’t.

Human nature and reality await.

and: