• About Kathy Shaidle
  • Kathy Shaidle: Donate
  • Kathy Shaidle: Privacy policy

5 Feet of Fury

Kathy Shaidle's blog. Est. 2000

As I keep saying: ‘debates’ and ‘dialogue’ are a waste of time

June 16, 2009 By admin

Christopher Caldwell reviews the new book Going to Extremes.

(I guess it takes a Harvard professor to state the obvious and get paid for it — that is: people like to be around people who are like themselves and share their values. And if these values are sincerely and deeply held, they will resist being around people who don’t share them, too. Oddly enough!)

Sunstein is torn. The central insight of this book is that deliberation, far from bringing people together, can drive them to extremes. Bien-pensant campaigns of public information and “dialogue” therefore risk doing more harm than good. (…)

Sunstein refers to bad extremists as having a “crippled epistemology”: They know less than they think they do, and what they know is biased. But, really, the same might be said of Martin Luther King or Mother Theresa. 

More from my site

  • The Great Re-Sorting: Charles Murray editionThe Great Re-Sorting: Charles Murray edition
  • ‘…an engrossing French spy movie in which Ronald Reagan is one of the heroes…’‘…an engrossing French spy movie in which Ronald Reagan is one of the heroes…’
  • You mean this wasn’t already against Italian law?You mean this wasn’t already against Italian law?
  • CNN… are they still on…?CNN… are they still on…?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: :entry:fivefeet-2009-06-16-0002

« Another day, another Muslim bully extorts cash from weak infidel suckers
Dear Christians: people will stop stereotyping you as ‘the town elders from Footloose’… »
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Archives

Copyright © 2022 · Magazine Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in