Re: [FRA:] Forwarded: Mail by Andrew Loewen

[Catherine Liu <liu@xxxxxxx>]

>Academia breeds servility, and critical theory does not seem to be
>very critical of this or very intellectually independent these
>days.


I agree...

>The current fascination with religion, like postmodernism, is
>all about the deference and capitulation to power.

Mmm..let's say an inability to think about either eclecticism OR 
religiousity seems to characterize "theory."

>   That can be seen
>in this group as well.  Now critical theory is itself being taken to
>be religious, its borrowings from the philosophical right (read
>anti-positivism) cemented into a conservative framework for critical
>theory itself.

Once again, I would have to agree with Ralph on this.

>Andrew must be a first class jackass to fancy the
>center of "contemporary debate" as anything of any significance
>whatever.

This, unfortunately is a symptom on the "insider/outsider" nature of 
professionalized thinking.

>  I wonder if he's an Obama supporter. Or perhaps a Telos subscriber?


call me a liberal, but I support Obama and I do think that Telos at 
times -- not always -- has offered a challenge to Left-wing 
conformism...

>
>Just look at the silliness of the titles of these conference papers,
>as well as the peculiar wording of the theme.  I don't know what
>Balibar is up to these days, but what does it mean to re-think
>secularism, if not to capitulate to the irrationalist culture of the present?
>
>Actually, the sum total of contemporary rationalism and irrationalism
>is a good barometer of a civilization on the brink of
>catastrophe.

Ummm...the catastrophe is everyday life....

Catherine

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