Note how often their “arguments” consist of immediately raising an infamous incident that happened twenty or fifty years ago as proof of… well, something or other; frankly, sometimes it isn’t even clear if they approve or disapprove of said archaic outrage, they’re so eager to show off their often loose grasp of LIFE magazine-level history.
Just yesterday, someone at SDA “cleverly” reminded us that it wasn’t uncommon, forty years ago, to see “LADIES ENTRANCE” signs on lower class drinking establishments. So, er, does that mean seeing them now on Muslim restaurants is ok? Not ok?
Anyway, Ron Radosh brings our attention to a groundbreaking new essay exploring this bizarre tendancy towards “reactionary progressivism” that is (yay!!) destroying the Left as we’ve known it for the last century:
Mead writes that the problems go beyond the erosion of our cultural model, the problem of the deficit, and the problems of international competition, all of which he thinks can be dealt with. The problem is nothing less than the Weltanschauung of the American intellectual class.As Mead writes so powerfully, “if our society is going to develop we have to move beyond the ideas and institutions of twentieth century progressivism.” Its promises have dissolved, and its “premises no longer hold.” This goes against the grains of many of our best intellectuals, Mead claims, an observation justified by reading many of TNR’s own writers and editors when they write about domestic issues.