Roger’s Rules » Sausages, enlightenment, and “critical thinking”
We all of us inhabit a world irretrievably shaped by science; we know that the sun does not really move from east to west, just as we know that the stars are not really hung like lamps from the sky. And yet, and yet: we recognize the legitimacy of that reality—our reality—every time we wake and find that the sun, once again, has risen. Enlightenment is a grand idea. But Bismarck was right about laws and sausages.
I suppose this demonstrates the depths to which so-called intellectual discourse has sunk these days.
Roger Kimball vomits several thousand words of philosophical maypole dancing to arrive at this sorry end: That science “shapes” the world (instead of revealing it) and that rationalism is okay, as long as you don’t, you know, actually get too rational.
So risible - and so, so pathetic. (via Glenn Reynolds).
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An excess of rationality causes many social ills, such as questioning the experts who warn of Anthropogenic Global Warming, the dangers of Kiddie Porn and Gambling if Big Brother can’t monitor all of your financial transactions and internet activity, and so on (ad infinitum).