Revisiting Elshtain’s writing, I was reminded of how bitter and angry her tone is. Even though this is supposed to be academic writing, as she herself, explains, I feel that it has too much personal anger and bias to be taken very seriously. This is ironic because she is arguing the fact that usual academic writing is too leftist, the exact opposite of her own.
I think she makes an interesting point with stating that to be an intellectual or an academic you must side with the dissenters of the overall public view. This got me thinking of my political science classes and the tendency or characteristics of certain individuals and their political ideology. More often than not, further education tends to make people more liberal in their ideology. This is a fact I’ve learned since my government classes in high school. This in a way supports the idea that if you are an academic you tend to be more liberal.
For Elshtain, as an academic who sides with the right she feels out of the ordinary. However she uses the same tactics that she condemns her leftist intellectuals for using. She is very general in the way she explains that the Afghani people want Americans there. It would have made her article much more credible had she used direct quotes or numerical survey figures. She dated the article in her writing in 2002. I wonder if her tone or argument has changed ten years later? I bet should would not be as vindictive and come to a more middle level ground, using both logical and emotional appeals.
Nice little bit of immanent criticism in this post.
ReplyDeleteI tend to disagree with Elshtain's idea that all intellectuals dissent to the overall public view. To make such a statement undermines the term "intellectual" in itself. An intellectual is a person who can make informed decisions about any topic based on facts and the appropriate amount of evidence. Therefore, in my opinion, Elshtain's view is a contradiction. A true intellectual would never simply dissent to something just because it is the popular thing to do. After reading this claim, I lost a lot of respect for Elshtain. To make such an unjustifiable and general statement about her colleagues makes her seem pompous. Although that opinion is a personal one, it still affects my view of her writing.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering what she would say to someone from the other side, who might claim that people like Elshtain only assent to public opinions because it is the unpopular thing to do.
Bethany and John, you both note that her rhetoric is provocative; it is intentionally so, partly because she's confronting those of us who may be blinkered by our optimism.
ReplyDeleteBethany, one thing that may not be quite visible is how the American academy does indeed have a kind of reflexive, sometimes not-entirely-interrogated leftism about it. Which has its positives and negatives. So I think that she's trying to throw a rhetorical bomb into the room where some unexamined pieties may be coddled. If I can use some weird metaphors. But yes, her rhetoric annoyed me quite a bit, simply because it detracted from the important critique that she offered.
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