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Author Topic: The politics of good intentions
rasmus
malcontent
Babbler # 621

posted 26 February 2006 02:34 AM      Profile for rasmus   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
THE POLITICS OF GOOD INTENTIONS
History, fear and hypocrisy in the New World Order
224pp. Princeton University Press.

The philosopher enters town, mean-faced, gun at the ready. He walks down Main Street and blazes away at all he sees. Corpses are soon piling up in the dust. Blowing the smoke from his barrel the great thinker walks away. Did he kill the right guys?

Yes, he did. David Runciman’s virtuoso essay, The Politics of Good Intentions: History, fear and hypocrisy in the New World Order, tackles the world’s present discontents head-on. The politics of risk, the war on terror, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, al-Qaeda, neoconservatism, George Bush, Tony Blair – everywhere Runciman sees hypocrisy, cant, sloppy thinking and sloppier speaking. But the anger is controlled, informed by history and philosophy, never a rant.



Paradox and paranoia in the war on terror


From: Fortune favours the bold | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214

posted 26 February 2006 07:36 AM      Profile for Tommy_Paine     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
At such times the philosopher rightly demands that we refine our arguments and guard our language. If we abuse reason, how can we expect others not to do so too? There may be a touch of utopia to Runciman’s rational democracy, but guarding democracy is, after all, what this great conflict is supposedly about.


And, in all the tribes that inhabit "the left" are there any brave enough to purge thier own tautologies, thier dogmas? In discussion, can they drop the ad-hominem attack? The straw man arguement? The arguements from authority?

I have confidence that our ideas, in the main, are correct, and while I may not be the greatest practitioner of reason, I don't fear it.

I think, however, that on the left I am in a very small tribe in this regard.


From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
skeptikool
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11389

posted 26 February 2006 09:29 PM      Profile for skeptikool        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
rasmus raven,

An excellent 2-page article. I lost myself in the link's side-trips. I'd like to think the review, if not the book, would be read by all politicians and the other movers and shakers who so determine our lives.


From: Delta BC | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged

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