Totten interviews Berman
This interview, in which Michael Totten interviews author Paul Berman about his new book, The Flight of the Intellectuals, is well worth reading.
Here’s an excerpt from the description of the book at Amazon:
Twenty years ago, Ayatollah Khomeini called for the assassination of Salman Rushdie””and writers around the world instinctively rallied to Rushdie’s defense. Today, according to writer Paul Berman, “Rushdie has metastasized into an entire social class”””an ever-growing group of sharp-tongued critics of Islamist extremism, especially critics from Muslim backgrounds, who survive only because of pseudonyms and police protection. And yet, instead of being applauded, the Rushdies of today (people like Ayan Hirsi Ali and Ibn Warraq) often find themselves dismissed as “strident” or as no better than fundamentalist themselves, and contrasted unfavorably with representatives of the Islamist movement who falsely claim to be “moderates.”
How did this happen? In THE FLIGHT OF THE INTELLECTUALS, Berman””“one of America’s leading public intellectuals” (Foreign Affairs)””conducts a searing examination into the intellectual atmosphere of the moment and shows how some of the West’s best thinkers and journalists have fumbled badly in their efforts to grapple with Islamist ideas and violence.
[NOTE: And here’s an old post of mine that’s relevant to one of the issues that came up during Totten and Berman’s wide-ranging discussion.]
[ADDENDUM: I was just remembering that, when the fatwa was first issued against Rushdie, it seemed so shocking and almost unbelievable. Now it’s like, “so, what else is new?” We have become quite accustomed to the mindset behind that sort of thinking.]
No wonder, really. If these intellectuals had the courage to accept the truth, they will be compelled to recognize also unplesant perspective of necessity in some not so distant future to kill Muslims by hundreds thousands, may be, by dozen millions. It would mean to ask too much from these gutless folks.
There is two side of this
Firstly looks some “intellectuals ” if we can call them used their subject to get fame and recognised around the world in case of Ayan Hirsi she well know that she lie about here status in her adapted country cause to strip off her citizenship and out the parliament as MP, as for Rushdie’s his only book and nothing major after that.. So these two examples of incompetent “intellectuals”
Secondly the call of lunatic Khomeini and thereafter Mullah regime in Iran it’s not far from their mouth they are more crimes to their nation than Rushdie in fact that give very boost to him to be well recognised by most in western world, without that call no one will care who is Rushdie.
That was a great interview. I think that when Berman’s ideas are supplemented by Sowell’s, you get a prety broad picture of why most intellectuals have gone to the other side. Sowell points out that they use their expertise in one narrow area as a springboard to comment in areas where they are as ignorant as the man in the street (Jaywalker level). I think when they reach a certain status, they stop learning and just spout. Of course, that status can’t be endangered by going against other members of their elite. Tariq Ramadan knows perfectly how to play these people.
Western intellectuals have morphed into toxic appeasers. Otherwise their doctrine of multiculturalism being workable without regard to a culture’s sense of morality gets exposed for the fraud that it is.
These “best thinkers”-who says they’re the best?People who share their views?
Good work product stands the test of time.
Neo and other readers: There’s a followup to that that’s pretty well scary:
A Distrubing Moment of Clarity
Quote:
“”I am a Jew,” he said. “The head of Hezbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn’t have to hunt us down globally. For or against it?”
“For it,” she said
No sooner was the video of this exchange posted when one of the student’s teachers rushed to defend her.
“This girl is actually my student,” A. Casavantes wrote in the comments’ section of Horowitz’s NewsReal blog. “I know her to be an intelligent, moral young woman who believes in peace. I do not support any organization that advocates violence against any specific group, nor do I believe that my student would do so. As a peace loving, Catholic teacher, I’m saddened that this speaker — her elder — manipulated the conversation in this fashion to make her look like someone she isn’t, out of an egotistical desire to prove his own point, rather than engaging in a constructive dialogue.””
Intelligent young woman who believes in peace? The instructor doesn’t believe she’d advocate for violence? In the face of the student doing exactly that??
There are times I’m simply disappointed in people. Just plain disappointed. Excuse making like that is the seed of enablement. And what grows from that seed would be horrid to the one making the excuse, but for some odd reason, the excuse maker does it anyway.
Ack… the link didn’t take right. Sorry. Here it is:
http://www.michaeltotten.com/2010/05/a-most-disturbing-moment-of-clarity.php#comments