-- more on -- Ann Coulter's skewed view of patriotism

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 06:50:21 -0700
> From: Vaughan Pratt <pratt () CS Stanford EDU>
> Subject: Re: Ann Coulter's skewed view of patriotism
> To: dave () farber net
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> Dave,
>
> I'm sorry, but Cliff Schecter's clearly well-intentioned effort at
> dissecting Coulter has all the benefits of spectranalyzing mud -- useful
> if something good ever shows up in the spectrum but otherwise a pointless
> academic exercise.
>
> That the particular composition of the mud Coulter slings has a pH of 2
> going on 1 is beside the point of its being basically just mud.  I recently
> bought her 2002 book "Slander" hoping for some constructive insights into
> failings of the left.  Instead I found a very pure kind of hatred directed
> to the left that one imagines the Martians in H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds"
> must have felt for earthlings.
>
> The benefit of reading Coulter is insight not into the faults of the left but
> rather into a stereotype of the alien thought processes driving conservative
> thinking today.
>
> A more productive exercise would be to dissect not Coulter but her
> readership.  A better understanding of why her work sells at all might
> for example help NSF make its case for more funding more effectively in
> the present heavily conservative climate on Capitol Hill.
>
> Two months ago I chaired a subcommittee as part of a committee reviewing
> an NSF division.  The basic conclusion of my subcommittee, and a sentiment
> also voiced by other subcommittees, was that NSF was doing the best job it
> could dividing up too little money among too many promising researchers.
> And that's in computer science --- pity the impoverished historians!
>
> The anti-intellectual climate that goes with the conservative territory served
> by Coulter is eroding America's ability to think straight.  This is neither
> a new nor a permanent phenomenon, but rather comes in waves.  Each time the
> tide of anti-intellectualism rolls in, instead of railing at it like King
> Canute, those of us seeking the harmony of the universe should be asking
> how it works, how to live with it, and even how to extract benefit from it
> until it rolls back out again, which it will do in due course with all the
> reliability of the moon in its orbit.
>
> Until then, we need to understand Coulter's audience, not Coulter.
>
> Vaughan Pratt

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