Reader Aravind Ayyar writes:
Another day, another tedious tirade from the pompous Leon Wieseltier. This one is a long take-down of Paul Ryan and his idolatry of Ayn Rand. Such high-minded seriousness! I am reminded of Dick Cheney, attired in military fatigues, hunting quail with his assault weapons.
What caught my eye amid all the fulmination and folk wisdom--there are few arguments or supporting evidence of any kind to be found--is how Wieseltier casually pronounces Atlas Shrugged and Also Sprach Zarathustra to be in the same category of adolescent sins and chides Rand and Marx for advancing economic theories towards moral ends, albeit antithetical ones.
This is embarrassing even by Wieseltier's low standards. Granted a lot of adolescents are excited by Nietzsche when they encounter him (even if for all the wrong reasons), and the inscrutable Zarathustra is plainly not his best work (or perhaps the clearest exposition of his views). But to draw any kind of equivalence between the works of these 2 thinkers (if you can charitably call Rand one) is so buffoonish that one is left wondering who the adolescent in this discussion is.
And did it ever occur to Wieseltier that other than her childish notions of self-interest Rand, unlike Marx, has no economic theory to offer? Or that Adam Smith, whom he favorably quotes, actually did see the market as a means to a moral end, namely, equality? I suppose it would be news to Wieseltier that every serious economist from Smith to Sen has sought to justify his or her theories in relation to some larger moral purpose, whether it be the betterment of most or all, the advancement of liberty and/or equality, the promotion of peace and stability, or, more typically, some combination of each. This is pretty elementary stuff.
You really do wonder how this guy gets so many influential scholars to contribute to his magazine, or worse, how he edits their submissions. Maybe we can use one of Marx's theories for an explanation after all.
I recently came across this interview that Bill Moyers did with Chomsky back when the latter's Manufacturing Consent came out sometime in the late '80s. Chomsky is simply in awe-inspiring form here, articulating one brilliant argument after another regarding the role of propaganda in curbing free thought and expression in a democracy. I bring this up because Chomsky's shrewd observation that the media in a corporate oligarchy is necessarily staffed with know-nothings and toadies remains perhaps the most potent elucidation of how someone like Leon Wieseltier can pass for a public intellectual in a society like ours.
Recent Comments