First, I think it is wonderful that linked blog and frequent commenter Democracy Lover has returned to posting on his blog. While we agree to disagree on a variety of issues, especially religion, I am grateful for his presence, because he keeps me on my toes. I have respect for anyone who refuses to back down because he or she recognizes that intellectual debate is more than just a sparring of words but tied into life. We are agreed on one point, and I think it overcomes the differences between us, differences I think might have created a great rift at another time - we are under the rule of a criminal Administration, unconstrained by law or any sense of duty towards the commonweal and health of the society it supposedly governs. Alberto Gonzalez' appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee today is a case study in their obstinate refusal to (a) live or govern by the rule of law; or (b) accept responsibility or admit their failings.
With DL's return, and because of my admiration for him (or her, I have never figured out which), I want to address the whole issue of intellectual debate. Of course, while I have been mulling this particular issue, Atrios, Matthew Yglesias, DKos, and other big-name bloggers have addressed it as well, but I insist that I am not following them (I refuse to link to them because I am not following them; if you want to read their views, follow the links on this site) although my own conclusion to the internal debate in my head echoes many of their concerns. I have come to my conclusions as a result of my own experiences, including preparing to get a doctorate in philosophy (can't get more egregiously intellectual than that, I suppose). As I was finishing up my course work, I discovered that my studies were guided not only by my intellectual interests, but my existential interest as well. Philosophy of science as a sub-generalization is good practice for a larger understanding of the ways in which we come to understand our world. It branches out, through Wittgenstein and Kuhn, to the pragmatism of Richard Rorty and from there to the radical Christian socialism of Cornel West (if you follow any argument far enough, you wind up at the beginning again, having discovered you have walked in a big circle!). In other words, I wasn't studying Karl Popper, Rudolf Carnap, and Thomas Kuhn because I found them intellectually stimulating but because I was trying to figure out, for myself, how and why we think the way we do, and how to be honest about what I believe in as thorough a manner as possible. The detachment I found among my fellow students I found disheartening; they studied what they did because it might find them a good position at some university somewhere. There was no commitment there, no sense that intellectual debate was tied to the great substantive issues of our time and of our lives.
When I engage any other blogger on an intellectual level, I am not just throwing around bullshit for the sake of showing how smart or educated I am (although that occasionally creeps in, and when it does, I would hope others would call me on it). What I have learned, my teachers once removed as it were, is part and parcel of my identity. I am who I am partly because this great cloud of witnesses to whom I return time and again have given me the tools to figure out my world, to understand it, and to move and think and live within it with as much integrity as anyone.
Intellectual debate for its own sake I find not just hollow and shallow, but horrific in its dishonesty. Anyone can take up a position and argue it regardless of their personal commitments; lawyers do this all the time. The times we live in, however, are much too perilous, and the stakes far too high, to think that we can or should play games. Not only do we have to get our facts right, we have to get our thinking about these facts right as well. I have no illusions about how consistenly this will happen or my own role in this process, but I still think it is necessary, and that is why I continue to blog even when I recognize, as I did a couple days ago, that we are on the cusp of a serious constitutional crisis, one in which blogging may be re-arranging the deck chairs on the ship of the American state. The only choice I have, is to do what I can with the tools I have. All I am saying here, in as round about a fashion as possible, is that intellectual debate is not worthless, or nonsensical bullshitting, but the role I find not only most comfortable for myself, but pushes the limits both of my abilities and my time and energy.
