I’ve got nothing to say

Over the last couple of days several readers have sent me quotes from John Derbyshire’s article, entitled “A Blood Libel on Our Civilization,” in which he attacks Ben Stein’s Expelled in particular and the intelligent design movement in general. The article, which I have now read, contains numerous statements—including low ad hominem attacks against all people who believe in God and who don’t accept Darwinism, people whom Derbyshire gathers under the label “creationists”—that are so ignorant, biased, contradictory, and extreme that I have no desire to comment on them beyond what I’ve said in this sentence. Certain things are so appalling that they are simply beneath and beyond comment, and Derbyshire’s article belongs to that category. One sees Derbyshire, and with him the supposedly conservative magazine National Review, spiraling downward, with nothing to check him or it, and one’s instinct is to let them both go to hell, to which they are doing a good job of delivering themselves without any assistance from us. This is not to say that everyone who writes at that magazine and everything said at that magazine is unworthy, not at all. But, as I wrote last week, and as is underscored by its publication of Derbyshire’s egregious article, the magazine, under its present editorship and in its present overall character, does not deserve to exist.

* * *

On the question of intelligent design, as I’ve explained before, particularly here, I am not enthusiastic about the intelligent design movement. Not because I think its core assertion that life evinces intelligent design is untrue, but because I think its approach to the evolution controversy is counterproductive.

But as for the Derbyshire article, the fact that I think it is is beneath any level deserving of discussion doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t discuss it here if they want to.

- end of initial entry -

Gintas writes:

Meticulously detailing the death of National Review. From Derbshire’s article on Expelled:

So what’s going on here with this stupid Expelled movie? No, I haven’t seen the dang thing. I’ve been reading about it steadily for weeks now though, both pro (including the pieces by David Klinghoffer and Dave Berg on National Review Online) and con, and I can’t believe it would yield up many surprises on an actual viewing. It’s pretty plain that the thing is creationist porn, propaganda for ignorance and obscurantism. How could a guy like this [Ben Stein] do a thing like that?

William Dembski writes:

Back last year I reported on this blog that (go here) that John Derbyshire, despite repeatedly weighing in against intelligent design online and in print, gave no evidence of understanding the topic (to say nothing of doing any first-hand reading in it). Below he weighs in against Ben Stein’s EXPELLED, reviewing the movie despite refusing to see it. Derbyshire’s education, it appears, consists mainly in learning to sneer while striking an erudite pose.

Gintas writes:

In that article of Derbyshire’s I sent earlier, read the last few paragraphs. He sees himself as a stalwart defender of Western Civilization! (Bold added for emphasis.) If you don’t buy into Darwinism, you are either a liar or a fool (or both).

And now here is Ben Stein, sneering and scoffing at Darwin, a man who spent decades observing and pondering the natural world—that world Stein glimpses through the window of his automobile now and then, when he’s not chattering into his cell phone. Stein claims to be doing it in the name of an alternative theory of the origin of species: Yet no such alternative theory has ever been presented, nor is one presented in the movie, nor even hinted at. There is only a gaggle of fools and fraudsters, gaping and pointing like Apaches on seeing their first locomotive: “Look! It moves! There must be a ghost inside making it move!”

The “intelligent design” hoax is not merely non-science, nor even merely anti-science; it is anti-civilization. It is an appeal to barbarism, to the sensibilities of those Apaches, made by people who lack the imaginative power to know the horrors of true barbarism. (A thing that cannot be said of Darwin. See Chapter X of Voyage of the Beagle.)

And yes: When our greatest achievements are blamed for our greatest moral failures, that is a blood libel against Western civilization itself. What next, Ben? Johann Sebastian Bach ran a slave-trading enterprise on the side? Kepler started the Thirty Years War? Tolstoy instigated the Kishinev Pogrom? Dante was a bag-man for the Golden Horde? Why not go smash a few windows in Chartres Cathedral, Ben? Break wind in a chamber-music concert? Splash some red paint around in the Uffizi? Which other of our civilizational achievements would you like to sneer at? What else from what Waugh called “the work of centuries” would you like to “abandon … for sentimental qualms”? You call yourself a conservative? Feugh!

For shame, Ben Stein, for shame. Stand up for your civilization, man! and all its glories. The barbarians are at the gate, as they always have been. Come man the defenses with us, leaving the liars and fools to their lies and folly.

Steven Warshawsky writes:

I too have serious disagreements with John Derbyshire’s article responding to Ben Stein’s new movie “Expelled” (which Derb admits he hasn’t seen) Yes, the article is full of “extreme” statements. But isn’t it likewise an extreme statement to argue that National Review “does not deserve to exist”? Frankly, I don’t know what to make of that comment, which sounds much more like the views of a leftist totalitarian than an American traditionalist. What standard are you using to cast judgment, not on the quality or value of the writing at NR, but on whether NR should live or die?

LA replies:

The basis of my statement is the numerous criticisms I’ve been making of NR for years, regarding the intellectual unseriousness and immaturity of its editors and many of its regular contributors, and its lack of conservative principle. In sum, its failure to live up to what it claims to be: a conservative magazine.

As I wrote last week:

As for National Review, clearly it has lost its vocation. It has been here too long for any good it has been doing. It is time for it to go.

Now, I’m not living in a fantasy world and I don’t think that NR is about to disappear. In all likelihood, it will continue to be around for some time, and it will also continue to have articles from time to time that are worthwhile and worth commenting on. But I say about NR something roughly analogous to what I say about the government of the United States in my Traditionalist’s Credo: that it is no longer a constitutional and moral form of government, and that I will deal with it as it exists (as well as obey its laws, defend it from enemies, etc.), but that “I will never accept it. I aim at a restoration of constitutional and moral order.”

Similarly, NR exists, and it would be silly and impractical to act as if it doesn’t exist. But as it is now, it doesn’t deserve to exist.

Unless we state the way things ought to be, we can never move away from the way things are. NR as it now exists is unacceptable. The more people who say this, the more chance there will be either that NR will change, or that a new magazine will appear replacing it.

Ben W. writes:

Just finished reading the Derb’s anti-creationism/anti-id rant at NR. Astonishingly, the marvels of Western civilization that he glorifies are mainly Christian in origin (including science).

What an ignorant man!

Steven Warshawsky replies:

To say that NR does not “deserve to exist” suggests that NR’s existence should be predicated on its meeting certain external criteria of, well, it’s not clear. Apparently some criteria of correct “conservative” thinking. Do these criteria apply to other magazines? Other newspapers? Other books? If so, how is this not totalitarianism, and deeply antithetical to the American tradition of free inquiry, free speech, and freedom of the press? If not, why not? Why single out NR? Your argument does not appear to be simply that NR is not worth reading, and therefore people should stop reading it (you haven’t) and it should go out of business. Yours is not a “marketplace of ideas” argument. You appear to be arguing that in your vision of “the way things ought to be,” there is no room for thinkers and writers who do not share your philosophy. You appear to be demanding ideological purity (or conformity) as a condition of existence. As for the idea that “a new magazine will appear replacing it,” all I can say is that no amount of complaining about NR will make this happen. This will only happen when people with money, ability, and ambition actually do the hard work needed to bring such a vision to fruition.

LA replies:

I must say that the accusation of totalitarianism is overwrought. People make determinations all the time that such and such institution or practice is no good and doesn’t deserve to exist. Where shall we begin? The American colonists in 1776 determined that British rule over America had ceased to be legitimate and didn’t deserve to exist. The British parliament in the early 19th century declared that the slave trade didn’t deserve to exist.

Basically all laws are acts of official discrimination by which the state says that certain things ought to (deserve to) exist, and certain things ought not (don’t deserve) to exist. To pass a law prohibiting employers from employing illegal aliens is to say that employment of illegal aliens is wrong and should not exist.

Laws with the power to make things cease to exist don’t only relate to big moral issues like slavery or illegal immigration or child labor. The No Child Left Behind Act says that if certain schools fail to improve student performance after a certain number of years, those school will be closed down, i.e., they don’t deserve to exist. I and many other people think the NCLB Act is bad and represents a new and unwelcome level of intrusion of the federal government into local education. Yet I’ve never heard anyone call it totalitarian.

Getting away from the realm of laws and coercive state power to the voluntary realm of civil society, people say all the time that some company or product performs in a way so contrary to its stated purpose that it doesn’t deserve to exist. For example, I think the network news programs are so terrible they don’t deserve to exist. That doesn’t mean I’m seeking to use state power to shut those programs down. It means that I believe that in a well ordered society, things would not be like that.

By the same token, a magazine presenting itself as a conservative magazine that publishes a vile article like Derbyshire’s (as the culmination of many other offenses by that writer and that magazine) is so hollowed out of any moral character, is so in violation not only of its own stated reason for being but of minimal standards of opinion journalism, that it doesn’t deserve to exist. I’m not seeking to close that magazine down through force or coercion. I’m stating a moral judgment about the way things ought to be.

Spencer Warren writes:

How could Derbyshire attack a movie he hasn’t seen? On that ground alone it should not have been published! How lazy and arrogant.

Chris L. writes:

Didn’t Derbyshire make a similar comment with regards to Islam about how he has not taken the time to study it? It seems to be a common thread with him. He will make sweeping statements about a subject without ever taking the time to learn any facts or information. Only his prejudices inform his statements.

Yes, the barbarians are in the city of the West. The fact that Derbyshire is allowed to spout in a major “conservative” magazine is a sign of that.

LA replies:

Yes, and barbarians should not be in the city. Q.E.D.

Sage McLaughlin writes:

I wonder whether you’ve followed Derbyshire’s recent string of comments on creationists, ID, Darwinism, etc. That man is on a mouth-frothing warpath, and it is forever to NR’s discredit that they have opened their space to his scattershot, angry, irrational ranting.

Steven Warshawsky. continues from our previous exchange:

It’s the terminology I object to. For example, I would not consider it part of the American tradition to say that The Nation magazine does not deserve to exist, however strongly I might disagree with what it says. The Nation magazine “deserves to exist” by virtue of our natural and constitutional rights to freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc. It requires no further sanction to exist. No freedom is absolute, of course; but it requires a very grave offense indeed to forfeit one’s right to existence (life). Yet totalitarians (the Nazis, the Soviets, the Maoists, the Khmer Rouge, etc.) consider it part of their political program to eradicate from society those people, classes, organizations, ideas, etc., that do not conform to their vision of how things ought to be. Totalitarians believe that one’s right to existence (life) is not a self-evident truth, but is a privilege that is contingent on conformity with their program. For a totalitarian, dissent justifies death. To my mind, the phrase “does not deserve to exist” sounds too much like this kind of thinking. Perhaps I am making too much of this.

LA replies:

I see what you’re saying. You’re making a reasonable point.

James P. writes (May 3):

Did you see this post of Derbyshire’s on NRO?

It’s absurdly crazed and hysterical. If Jews oppose “science”, and if Ben Stein makes a movie critical of Darwinism, then we are one step closer to concentration camps and gas chambers.

Incidentally, I thought Warshawsky’s claim that if you say National Review “doesn’t deserve to exist” then you are somehow totalitarian was completely overwrought. When you said, “the magazine, under its present editorship and in its present overall character, does not deserve to exist,” I took that to mean you believe that conservatives should not support it or subscribe to it. The “natural and constitutional rights” to which Warshawsky alludes are necessary for a magazine to “deserve to exist”, but not sufficient. What is also required is support from subscribers. If there are not enough subscribers for the magazine to be viable, then we have ample proof that the publication does not deserve to exist. I stopped subscribing over ten years ago, because I thought it didn’t deserve to exist and thus didn’t deserve my financial support.

LA replies:

Yes, Derbyshire repeats his position that Stein’s movie and intelligent design are a threat to the scientific enterprise as such and thus a threat to civilization. Basically Derbyshire, who in his previous articles on his conversion from watery Anglicanism to materialist reductionism has admitted that he’s an intellectual second-hander whose understanding of existence has been formed by such great minds as … Steve Sailer and Gregory Cochran (!!), has bought into the Darwinian propaganda line (aimed at suppressing all dissent) that Darwinism is not just true, but the basis of all biological science and indeed of science itself. Therefore if people question or attack the Darwinian theory of the origin of species by random mutations and natural selection, they are attacking science itself, and since science is virtually co-extensive with our civilization, they are attacking our civilization itself.

Note further the difference between Derbyshire’s treatment of Islam and his treatment of intelligent design. He has repeatedly rejected the idea that Islam has an identifiable ontological (or doctrinal) essence that makes Islam as such dangerous to our civilization. Instead, Islam is simply a collection of individuals, a disproportionate number of whom happen to unusually angry and violent at the present time. He has said that writers who believe that Islam as such is dangerous are neurotic and confused people, “Islamophobes,” who require an enemy for their psychological needs. Yet while he sees Islam nominalistically, as a mere collection of individuals sharing the same name, not as an essence, he sees intelligent design as an essence, and a mortally dangerous one. He has no fear of the religion of Muhammad. He greatly fears the movie of Ben Stein.

For more on Derbyshire’s treatment of Islam, see:

Derbyshire’s rejection of conceptual thought, cont.
Derbyshire, reviewing Spencer, says any resistance to Islam is futile
Derbyshire endorses Separationism, while attacking Separationists

As for my discussion with Mr. Warshawsky, James P.’s thought is similar to my own. However, in my previous comment, I saw the reasonableness of Mr. W.’s point that the phrase “doesn’t deserve to exist” could be seen as dictatorial and menacing. I said his criticism was a reasonable one, not that I necessarily accepted it.

LA continues:

What is the common element of Derbyshire’s intense fear of intelligent design, and his contemptuous dismissal of fears about Islam? The common element can’t be hostility to religion, since Islam is a religion, and Derbyshire has no beef with Islam. No, what drives Derbyshire in both instances is his hostility to Christianity.

Jake J. writes:

You say: “What is the common element of Derbyshire’s intense fear of intelligent design, and his contemptuous dismissal of fears about Islam? The common element can’t be hostility to religion, since Islam is a religion, and Derbyshire has no beef with Islam. No, what drives Derbyshire in both instances is his hostility to Christianity.”

And this is true but I think it doesn’t go far enough. It is not merely Derb’s hostility to religion at work here but—and this dovetails nicely with the point of the movie Expelled—that Derb has made Darwinism his religion and he will suffer no disrespect to the object of his veneration.

If the pro-Darwinians interviewed in the movie men were true scientists it would make no difference to them one way or the other if Christianity were true or false. But they are not scientists, they are acolytes at the altar of the religion of science, a very different thing.

LA replies:

I think your comment is good as far as Derb’s hostility to ID is concerned. But my question was, what is the common element in, on one hand, his mocking disbelief that Islam is a threat, and, on the other hand, his passionate conviction that anti-Darwinism is a threat? And anti-Christianity is the answer. Genuine Christians fear Islam, so he puts down fear of Islam as a neurosis. Genuine Christians disbelieve Darwinism, so he attacks disbelief in Darwinism as a monstrous betrayal of all that is good.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 01, 2008 08:55 AM | Send