Reality Bites...

The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'

Ron Suskind, "Without a Doubt", New York Times Magazine

The above quote at long last distills down a linkage that has been lurking and hinted at but rarely directly revealed -- the philosophy behind the so-called neo-conservative leadership of the Republican party and its followers.  Suskind calls it "faith-based," but it runs somewhat deeper than this.  It appears to be a wholesale rejection of the enlightenment principles of cause and effect, the empirical basis of knowledge, and eventually logic and reason.  This triumph of will over physical reality is a fusion of post-modernism with traditional religion.

Those of us who are proud to belong in the "reality-based" community have an obligation to fight back.  Not only against the unjust and immoral actions of a small cabal of power-hungry politicians, but against the direct assault on reason and rationality itself.  For the assault comes not only from the religious right but also from within academia and the New Age.  Normally considered bastions of the left, these also conspire to undermine reason for their specific ends.

The Case for Reason can be difficult to make, especially since detractors deny that any argument is possible, but once understood the case is inexorable and irrefutable.  All it takes is a hard-nosed approach to the realities of life, and a willingness to confront our fears.  Despite our deepest wishes, not all things are possible.  On the other hand, those that are, are pretty great.

-jack*

Comments

[cerebrocrat]

I'm interested to know where you see the threats to reason coming from within the academy.

Just found the site, btw, and quite like it - one of my new regular stops.