Immanent criticism is a technique of philosophical analysis
that can help us talk across intellectual divides of various sorts. The basic idea behind immanent
criticism is that one enters sympathetically into the worldview of others. One adopts the assumptions,
presuppositions, etc. of those with whom one disagrees and then asks if the
reasoning actually leads to the conclusions that are being advanced. This is a technique for asking about
consistency. For example, Elshtain
is highly critical of left-leaning academics and intellectuals. Since I am a left-leaning academic, I’m
not particularly inclined to the conclusions she offers. Nevertheless, I can accept her modes of
reasoning and ask whether her conclusions are well supported given the
standards that she herself sets out.
To illustrate further: Elshtain claims that critics of the Bush
administration distorted or ignored facts. One example she cites is the critics’ claim that there was a
rush to war. She dismisses this
charge as baseless, but there is a lot of evidence that the Bush administration
started planning a war with Iraq immediately after 9/11, specifically on
9/12. Below is a 60 Minutes
interview with Richard Clarke in which he makes that claim. This video was aired after Elshtain
wrote her book, but there was evidence at the time of her writing that
supported the criticism of the left.
The conclusion? Even on her
own terms, Elshtain is wrong.
If we approached “Somebody Blew Up America” using immanent
criticism as a technique, what conclusions would we reach?
I am not entirely sure the video and the immanent criticism thing about Elshtain really connect in the way the paragraph implies (I do browse political forums on the internet and, honestly I would consider skipping a post worded this way with the flimsy "Elshtain is wrong" bit at the end because there is no explicit explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_Internet). BUT, taking the video as the context as opposed to immanent criticism, is wrong.
ReplyDeleteThough Stephen Hadley's 60 Minutes interview seems to be edited in a biased way, it's very short compared to Dick Clark's sections and there's a lot lost in summery. But there are key hints that suggest that it's not all editing, take for example that he offers no dates, even generally, to when he's claimed things to happened which is something that Clark does.