A compassionate heart is no good unless it is accompanied by a corrupted mind, though. As liberalism gets more and more advanced the number of people capable of ignoring the things they don’t want to see will grow smaller. Only a wickedly shrewd person with a tremendous capacity for denial will be capable of joining the liberal elite. That is why politicians actually do become intellectually more perverse and morally more corrupt as liberalism advances. Who else can properly fill the roles?

Reminds me of the incident that made me realize that Nina Totenberg is incapable of logical reasoning (which is of course why she specializes in Court reporting): It was many years ago, before I stopped watching Washington Week in Review. The topic had to do with race differences. Totenberg emitted a long and impassioned denunciation of the idea that such things could exist. Her proof was that the black nurses who were taking care of Totenberg’s then-gravely ill husband were the nicest, gentlest, most-caring people she’d ever met and she was forever grateful to them. QED.

How is Totenberg’s comment on the nurses any less logical then what the presumably more logical Decter and Podhoretz say about the essential sameness of everyone in the world?

It is not. Because Totenberg is an identified liberal at the NYT, non-liberals roll their eyes at her effusions. Decter and Podhoretz have succeeded in appropriating the conservative label, so when they effuse in similar fashion, most non-liberals think that willful blindness to human differences is now a conservative article of faith.

It is an example of how liberals who fly a conservative banner are ultimately more harmful. Ordinary Americans are skeptical about anything obvious liberals say - they see what limousine liberals have done to their country. But because they are not well-versed in political philosophy (neither am I), a lot of liberal nonsense can be slipped past them if it comes branded “conservative.”

Constitutional federalism and where it came from are subjects not taught. Does anyone else remember the poll that drew a frighteningly high percentage of Americans - not all liberals, one assumes - who identified the phrase “from each according to his means; to each according to his needs” as from the U.S. Constitution? HRS

Totenberg, Decter and Podhoretz are all hypocrites in that they know perfectly well that such human differences exist. Indeed, in private conversation with people they trust, they probably say so. HRS

Correction: Totenberg is, of course, with NPR, not the NYT. I should apologize to the NYT for accusing them of giving Totenberg a forum, but they give Greenhouse, who is just as bad, a forum. So I won’t. HRS

“How is Totenberg’s comment on the nurses any less logical than what the presumably more logical Decter and Podhoretz say about the essential sameness of everyone in the world?”

I see a difference. The proponents of the essential-sameness proposition are enunciating a conscious philosophy: that overlying universal, basic human nature are cultural influences which account for all the important differences. It’s a way of acknowledging undeniable differences while paying obeisance to the mandatory egalitarianism that is the admission ticket to public dialogue among the respectables. It’s what’s behind the claim that education will eventually close the achievement gap between white and black students. Totenberg’s comment, by contrast, is a mere tic; it shows that she really can’t distinguish between niceness and intelligence. She is incapable of having a philosophy, even one that’s a rationalization of an ideological imperative.

That’s a good answer by Frieda. I admit there’s a difference of degree between Totenberg’s irrationality (denying intellectual differences between races on the basis of equal niceness) and that of the Podhoretzes (denying political differences between races on the basis of everyone wanting good things for their children and not wanting to be brutalized by tyrants). But still, having granted the difference in logical faculty between the respective parties, aren’t they just at somewhat different points along the same irrational, egalitarian spectrum?

“But still, having granted the difference in logical faculty between the respective parties, aren’t they just at somewhat different points along the same irrational, egalitarian spectrum?”

Of course. The difference entails different tactics in opposition. One can’t argue with a feeling disguised as a theory. But one can argue
with a genuine philosophy (and no, I don’t consider people to my left as ipso facto hypocrites, and I say this not just because I have liberal friends but also because I once was a perfectly sincere far-leftist).

I think that conflating these differing states of mind is counterproductive. Although the intelligent reasoner may be more dangerous because he’s ingenious enough to get around inconvenient facts, he can also be an interlocutor in public forums that not only enable traditionalists to argue our case but also force us to sharpen our own thinking.