“Because hunny, you can always win by just calling your opponent’s argument an attack!”
The extent to which the left holds itself up as the model of intellectualism is never ceasing source of amusement. Aside from the fact that good scholarship should be able to stand on its own and survive scrutiny, this self-regard often results in the acceptance of poor logic, and outright falsehoods, in favor of ideological adherence and group think.
Recent case in point: Christina Hoff Sommers’ article on the myths bandied about by feminist scholars in higher education. Sommers’ piece begins with an email exchange between her and Berkley law professor Nancy K.D. Lemon over errors contained in the textbook Domestic Violence Law, which Lemon helped to edit. Sommers quotes Lemon’s indignation at public criticism of the textbook:
“I would expect a colleague who is genuinely concerned about such matters to contact me directly and give me a chance to respond before launching a public attack on me…”
Sommers then goes on to note her shock at receiving such a reaction from Lemon, given that public criticism is part of the scholarly process in which “Disagreement is aired, error corrected, truth affirmed.” Sommers points out the fact that Lemon’s Domestic Violence Law contains selections with fantastical historical accounts and patently false statistics. Ultimately, the quarrel is used as a soundboard for discussing the way that feminist academia perpetuates error by shielding itself from reasoned criticism.
Liberal reaction to Sommers’ account of the falsehoods contained in some feminist textbooks has typically gone something like, “Oh look, another conservative who wants to keep the gals down!”A favorite reaction to Sommers op-ed comes from John Podesta’s stepchild organization, Campus Progress. Here, public criticisms of the factual inaccuracies contained in chick scholarship are blanketed as “attacks.” How creative.
All of this would be really funny if it were not for the fact that universities and colleges continue to sponsor this pseudo-intellectualism as if it warranted actual academic inquiry…
