Caviar and Mountain Oysters

by Cliopatria

“What is it about Bush,” the always reliable Victor Davis Hanson asks, “that evokes such furor?” You’ll never guess what he comes up with for an answer:

”Let's start with the hard left, whether in Hollywood or the blogosphere, or among the academic elite. They hate George Bush. To them, his tax cuts, alliance with the religious right, opposition to abortion and gay marriage, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq foster the image of an illiberal imperial America. His strut and mangling of words are more salt in their wounds.”

Ahh, the academic elite who hate the war.

It gets a little funnier every day, watching people who think they’re sticking it to the academic elites by offering their unwavering support for a surge designed by Frederick Kagan (PhD, Yale) and executed by David Petraeus (PhD, Princeton) to the loud cheers of William Kristol (PhD, Harvard). All, natch, as part of a war run at various points by Robert Gates (PhD, Georgetown), Eric Edelman (PhD, Yale), Stephen Cambone (PhD, Claremont), Condoleezza Rice (PhD, Denver), and the Georgetown professor Douglas Feith, who as simple folk – aw, shucks! – just got himself a plain ol’ juris doctorate.

It is true, of course, that the guys at the top of the organization are extra-plain, super down-to-earth folks. As Hanson puts it: “Sophisticated Europeans don't like the idea that the world's most powerful military is run by a Texan with a twang and a Bible who's full of missionary zeal about changing the status quo.”

That Texan with a twang would be the Yalie and Bonesman George Bush (MBA, Harvard), recently seen visiting his family’s longtime vacation home on the coast of Maine.

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Chris Bray - 9/6/2007

I do think, though, that Hanson's use of the phrase "academic elites" has a very particular rhetorical function that has a larger context. Granted that other things are going on in that sentence, but here's a way to resolve what he means: You could ask the co-author of The Bonfire of the Humanities what percentage of "academic elites" he regards as leftists.

Still, again, I think you've made a fair point, and I get what you're saying.

Michael Burger - 9/6/2007

To both Ralph and Chris: sorry about the mistake! I suspect I was simply scrolling down from Ralph's post to Chris's too quickly.

I confess I'm still not sure I'm convinced. Chris basically refers to a broader discourse--Hannity et al., in which Hanson has taken part. That larger discourse then is used to import into Hanson's text the meaning Chris assigned to it in the first place. The question is: when does one know whether one should read a text in that way as opposed to the plain meaning of the text (if such expressions are still permissible in these po-mo times)? I confess, I'm afraid of making Hanson say something he doesn't mean, and perhaps does not even want to say, by reference to the broader discussions to which Chris refers. That said, I certainly think Chris is up to something when he notes academically based elites asserting they're just plain folks, in contrast to the elites. It's an old game. (Perhaps somewhat off-topic, but someone--Ronald Syme?--once said that all regimes are oligarchies. Off the cuff, I suspect that speaks to both our current regime and the likely alternatives.)

Chris Bray - 9/6/2007

Michael,

Fair point, and I probably could have set up the argument a bit more clearly. I think Hanson's use of "academic elite" -- one recent iteration among many, and one which Hanson usually uses to depict an academic monoculture -- is a very familiar rhetorical move among a set of willfully obtuse dead-enders. It's also represented nicely by Karl Rove's very recent statement on the Rush Limbaugh show that "elite, effete snobs" hate Bush because they resent his deep connection to Middle America, which recognizes his down-to-earth Texas cowboy whatever.

It's the familiar ordinary folks vs. out-of-touch elitists maneuver, undertaken in support of a guy who was in Skull and Bones and whose grandfather was a senator.

On the left-wing academic monoculture and its panting desire to see America lose, see also David Horowitz, Sean Hannity, etc. They're defending the neocon agenda and the neocon actors -- birthed in academia -- with a faked-up premise that it's all just the simple common sense of plain volk, who are opposed by the silver spooners in their ivory towers. The reality is found in the Kagans and the Kristols, second generation ivory tower types.

Ralph E. Luker - 9/6/2007

Michael, I welcome your mistake, but this smart post was by Chris Bray -- not by me.

Michael Burger - 9/6/2007

I realize that Hanson's positions can be arguable--I don't follow him closely on developments after the fifth century BC--but is he so clearly wrong here? I haven't read his piece, but Ralph (if I may) quotes him thus: "Let's start with the hard left, whether in Hollywood or the blogosphere, or among the academic elite. . . ." So presumably Hanson is talking about the _hard left_ in academe, not the (admittedly comparatively minuscule) hard right in the academy. Thus, listing the academic types who have supported the war--a very illuminating exercise, by the way--doesn't contradict him, unless one wants to argue that Rice et al. are members of the academic left too. Perhaps Hanson's piece is getting lumped with other neocon pieces, perhaps some of them Hanson's own?
cheers,
Michael

Scott Eric Kaufman - 9/6/2007

I'm not quite sure what to say ... except that I wish I'd written this myself. Great work, Chris. It's amazing how so many people, on both sides of the aisle, fail to see such telegraphed punches.