Things Noted Here and There
On the centenary of his birth, Geoffrey Wheatcroft,"From Trotsky to Midcult: In Search of Dwight Macdonald," New York Observor, n.d., takes another look at one of mid-20th century America's most important public intellectuals -- as close an answer to George Orwell as the United States had to offer. It's a terrific essay. Here's an excerpt about Macdonald on the"very argumentative and very ambitious" young William Buckley,
whose book defending Joseph McCarthy was"written in an elegantly pedantic style, replete with nice discriminations and pedantic hair-splittings, giving the general effect of a brief by Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft on behalf of a pickpocket arrested in a subway men's room." (Mr. Buckley's first critics, by the way, included Peter Viereck, McGeorge Bundy and August Heckscher, whom Macdonald called"three leading spokesmen for the neoconservative tendency that has arisen among the younger intellectuals." Does any language maven know an earlier sighting of that potent word than 1952?)
Good question, as Andrew Sullivan says, but any earlier usage would have an even more tenuous relationship to its current reference.
Update: Sullivan cites a use of"neoconservative" in Henry Dunckley,"The Conservative Dilemma," Contemporary Review, 1883.
Scott Jaschik,"War of Words over Paper on Israel," Inside Higher Ed, 27 March, surveys reactions to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt,"The Israel Lobby," London Review of Books, 23 March.
Edward Tenner,"Searching for Dummies," NYT, 26 March, is a provocative op-ed about teaching students how to conduct successful on-line searches for information. It's not at all obvious.
Higher education is fighting back. Librarians are teaching"information literacy" and establishing alternative Web indexes. Graduate students, in the front lines as teaching assistants, are starting to discuss joining Wikipedia rather than fighting it, as many instructors still, quixotically, do.
Can better information in the classroom produce the literate, numerate society the Web once promised? There are two ways to proceed. More owners of free high-quality content should learn the tradecraft of tweaking their sites to improve search engine rankings. And Google can do more to educate users about the power — and frequent advisability — of its advanced search options. It would be a shame if brilliant technology were to end up threatening the kind of intellect that produced it.
The WikiProject History of Science is an exciting example of graduate students leading the fight back. Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tip.