Richard Landes on Romney’s “culture” remarks
Richard Landes, blogger at the Augean Stables and creator of the site Second Draft, has written a very fine opinion piece at the WSJ, criticizing the criticism of Romney’s “culture” remarks in Israel.
Landes is uniquely positioned to make the argument. He’s a writer and historian, yes. But he also happens to be the son of the author of one of the books Romney cited in his speech, Harvard professor David Landes, who wrote Wealth and Poverty of Nations.
It’s ironic that Romney’s remarks have been treated as a gaffe when they are nothing of the sort. PC thought has triumphed over truth, logic, and knowledge. That’s not a good sign.
[NOTE: I might also add that Richard Landes is a brilliant man as well as a friend of mine.]
Remarkably, it looks like Ricard Cohen at the WaPo agrees:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-for-israelis-and-palestinians-a-difference-beyond-question/2012/08/06/86a374ae-dfe5-11e1-8fc5-a7dcf1fc161d_story.html
Willl wonders never cease?
PC is progressive corruption. It is an obfuscation of the issues to create leverage, which is then wielded by individuals, cooperatives, and governments to advance their political, economic, and social ambitions.
Richard Landes is a giant killer, a fearless intellect who defined global jihad as a millennial movement (thus, comparable to fascism and communism) and defined the term “Pallywood.” These two definitions have had enormous influence and stand in opposition to Western cowardice against Islam. We have much to thank Dr. Landes for.
This is what I mean by giant killer where Dr. Landes destroys the presumptive “scholarship” of Edward Said:
“This, for those who have not savored it recently, is vintage Saé¯d. Sneering summaries of another man’s thoughts, presented to an audience of bien-pensants who know how much nonsense this all is. Anyone with the temerity to suggest that either Glidden’s observations, while perhaps expressed too categorically, may have some grains of truth… or even that Glidden’s work may express these observations with considerably more subtlety, sympathy, and empirical base than Saé¯d’s dismissive asides [which I have cut] might suggest, can only belong to the bigoted, the racist, the imperialistic Western voice whose discourse inscribes and controls subaltern culture with its authorial voice. Who would dare try and stand up to the hue and cry of the critical audience, whose progressive sensibilities had been offended by the mere suggestion that “they” are not like “us,” and worse still, that they are less evolved, less morally developed than we are.”
Isn’t that beautiful?
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2007/10/28/edward-said-and-the-culture-of-honor-and-shame/
Have not read “Wealth and Poverty of Nations.” It’s now a must read for me. So many books I have read and my own personal observations in my travels have confirmed that culture does matter. It seems so obvious to me. But Post Modernism just cannot abide that cultures, societies, or ethnic groups can be different or…..gasp…..unequal. It is to weep.
Thomas Sowell nailed down the importance of the differences in cultures in his writings.
Unfortunately, the PC crowd now proclaims that Australian aborigines squatting in the desert is the equivalent of Shakespeare.
Look at Africa – great areas of prime land for agriculture, yet the natives starve.
There really is a difference between a toilet and squatting in the dirt to defecate, but our modern liberals refuse to recognize it.
>>>> PC thought has triumphed over truth, logic, and knowledge. That’s not a good sign.
Consider Larry Summers’ Harvard experience.
It’s far less common than it has any business being.
One unfortunate side-effect of modern civilization is that it protects fools from their own damnfoolishness, thereby expanding the pool of fools able to chime in as though they were rational, thinking adults.
Put more simply:
Too much tiger food
Not enough tigers.
WE NEED MORE TIGERS!