Tuesday, February 03, 2009

RIP, Diggins

The late John Patrick Diggins:

Contemporary neoconservatives complain that the sixties generation has "corrupted" higher education by, among other treacheries, denying the possibility of teaching truth. The great American historian Henry Adams, who called himself a "Conservative, Christian, Anarchist," concluded that truth could not thrive in American politics, where corruption was a sign of good manners. If academics cannot seem to find truth in the pursuit of knowledge, politicians cannot seem to remember it in the pursuit of power. But the burden today's academic radical faces is greater since the Left has historically looked to knowledge as emancipatory. How can one deny the possibility of knowing truth and at the same time deal with the deception of power? [From The Rise and Fall of the American Left.]