Fairy Tales & Fertilizer

KELLY OF CHICAGO
REASONED THUS WITH HIMSELF
and judged it to be for the interest of the present and future
generations that they should be made acquainted
with his thoughts

There are those who have cause to declare that the 2003 sleeper hit Elf is not only the worst Christmas movie on the market, but deserving of permanent interment as one of the worst movies – of any genre or classification – ever made. However, the more important (and controversial) point is that such a declaration is not a matter of mere opinion. It can be scientifically and irrefutably verified. To be perfectly clear: subjectivity in the humanities is dead. Unfortunately, most people chose to remain blissfully ignorant of this fact. The social sciences as well have sunken into vast metaphysical quagmires; willfully surrendering the prerogatives of scientific reasoning to the psycho-babbling lunacy of the postmodernists. This pattern of abnegation extends throughout our national character and touches (rather fatally) even those on the far side of the world. To ignore the connections between the micro & macro examples of the slow death of science is to extend an open invitation to shamanism and knuckle-dragging, bones-in-the-dust relativism that can only result in the ignoble erosion of humankind's potential.

To explain what I mean, let's look to our national policy (on terrorism, domestic issues, the economy, environment, etc.). The consensus, as reflected in the November election, is that we should pursue a policy based on political idealism and grounded in a traditional understanding of spiritual ethics. The missing link? Science. A well-reasoned analysis of scientific facts is anathema to the current administration because it is anathema to our culture as a whole. We absorb the woefully myopic jingoism of television pundits, the brutally stupid aesthetic judgments of the marketplace, and the catastrophic religiosity of our politicians. Is it any wonder that we are strangling secular education? Jeopardizing our future? Believing lies?

Our national policy – whatever its manifestation – is an article of faith; not a reflection of known quantities. Just so with our judgment of artistic merit. If you can find happiness while living in darkness and feeding on excrement, I feel nothing for you but the greenest of envy. Being lost in dreams is an appealing prospect when you feel more like a mushroom than a man. As Jean Genet once wrote, however, "In order to act with grandeur, one must dream a long time. And dreaming is nursed in darkness." All that is left is to wake up.

[Related tidbits: one & two.]

AFTERTHOUGHT (Courtesy of Yglesias):

Jonathan Chait writes that the reason you find so few Republican academics isn't discrimination, it's that the GOP has become so self-consciously anti-intellectual. The argument involves making the important point that even in the hard sciences one finds few Republicans, and, in light of the present administration's endless assault on science, one hardly expects that to change in the future. The flipside is that American liberalism has increasingly ceased to be a strongly ideological movement and has instead adopted an ethic of technocratic managerialism underpinned by a vague consequentialism.