Wednesday, July 28, 2004
(7:04 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Aesthetics and the Praxis of Cultural Criticism
This post from à Gauche, along with this one, brings to mind a certain kind of laziness that I've developed: I just don't bother with conservative commentators, period. The reason isn't so much because their arguments are always weaker or they aren't intelligent or they don't shed fresh light on the situation -- to claim that would be the worst kind of snobbery -- but simply because I don't like the "conservative style" (often referred to as "attitude" -- just "attitude," with no qualifiers, as if it's the only possible attitude one could have). I think we're all familiar with it, and I don't need to go into detail.The irony, of course, is that I would be the first to jump on someone for what à Gauche calls the "penchant (common among conservatives) for denouncing supposed European obscurantism" -- yet I am also the first to dismiss an argument that has certain stylistic tics that I find annoying (and yes, one could justifiably find the "French style" of doing philosophy annoying).
I'm a hypocrite, I admit it, and now you never have to listen to anything I ever say in the future.
And be forwarned: your gynecologist doesn't have a test for the post I'm pregnant with. It's going to be so good that I don't even have to tell you the topic -- you'll just know when you read it that it's the one I was referring to.
