There is sophistication and then there is sophistication.

In this age of terror fueled by the ideology of Islamic extremism, some old insights of the liberal historiography of the roots and nature of Nazism remain relevant. In works published in the 1960s and 1970s, two of Nazism’s preeminent historians…made a similar point about the political significance of ideological fanaticism…This underestimation, the refusal or inability to understand that Hitler meant what he said was thought to be a mark of political sophistication in the 1930s…The great classic of the postwar years which did take Nazi ideology seriously, Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, took specific issue with this liberal and left-wing reductionism. Arendt…redefined the meaning of political sophistication so

Did you read this? I put it in News a few days ago. It’s Danny Postel’s openDemocracy comment on Hossein Derakhshan’s article, also in openDemocracy, about Ramin Jahanbegloo’s release from prison. It’s interesting. I thought Derakhshan’s article was quite worrying and depressing and discouraging, and Postel says that and a good deal more.

Derakhshan asserts that Jahanbegloo’s “confession” was authentic – Indeed even “the possibility of it being imposed on him by his interrogators” is, according to his logic, “rule[d] out”. The most obvious and immediate question involved is: how in the world could Derakhshan lay claim to such knowledge, let alone rule out the very possibility that Jahanbegloo’s “confession” was coerced or imposed?

Well, yes. One does … Read the rest

I’m reading Michael Bérubé’s What’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts. John Holbo at the Valve sent it because they’re doing one of those Valve events on it in a few weeks. It is, to put it succinctly, very good. (That Alan Wolfe review is all the more irritating once one actually reads the book. It’s irritating independently of the quality of the book reviewed, because of certain qualities intrinsic to the review, but it’s also even more irritating because of the quality of the book.)

I thought I would share a bit with you, because it strikes me as being right on the money, and well worth saying. Pages 120-1. He’s been describing political affiliations among students – liberal, … Read the rest

Dammit! Damn, damn, damn.

A leading Afghan official working on women’s rights has been shot dead in the southern province of Kandahar…She had served as head of women’s affairs in Kandahar’s provincial government since the Taleban government was toppled by US-led forces in 2001. An eloquent public speaker, Safia Amajan was fierce in her criticism of what she saw as the Taleban’s repression of women. After the US-led invasion in 2001, the former teacher took charge of women’s affairs in Kandahar’s provincial government. In a conservative region where most families keep wives and daughters cloistered indoors, she was able to attract hundreds of women to schools and vocational courses. Her requests for secure official transport and personal bodyguards had not