Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Robby George's Beef with Pete Singer:

What might surprise you about this article is not that George and Singer have their differences, but that, until now, the two were cordially fond of one another. Though, Singer may have done something to sour their personal relationship. I think George, as much of a nice fellow he seems to be in person, is a bit of a religious fanatic...well, more than bit (though he dresses his religiosity up in the neutral-universalistic language of the Thomistic natural law). But at the same time, I find Pete Singer and Cornell West (two other of Princeton's public intellectuals), just as extreme on the other side of various issues. Princeton needs more Robby George's to balance out the extreme leftyism that dominates colleges and universities.

What's interesting, as the article notes, is the way that George tries to get involved in team-teaching with these leftists with whom he disagrees. George has initiated the idea of team teaching with both Singer and West. (And has team taught with other lesser well known leftist public intellectuals.)

As a libertarian I don't particularly like right-wing religiously or Thomistically conservative dogma being thrown in my face (did NOT have much of that in college and grad. school). But I also don't like having neo-Marxist radical lefty dogma being thrown in my face either (had lots of that in higher education).

If I were President of these Universities, I'd make all of these lefties team teach with a Robby George for balance.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Robert, "Robbie-to-you" George, the Thomistic anachronism that heralds natural law crap, is no less a joke than Cornell West. Princeton's "gain" had Harvard's Summers rejoicing. No more of that nitwit. Something about "two wrongs don't make a right."

Peter Singer, on the other hand, is a very abled moral philosopher. Like most academics, he's a bit extreme, "different in degree, not in kind," but his inclusion of evolutionary theory in moral biology makes him enormously relevant, while West and George are tokens of a byegone, irrelevant era that have long past away.

Did I say "tokens?" How terribly un-PC. At least Princeton doesn't think so. The joke, of course, is on Princeton.