I am definitely skeptical of this initiative. It may be an effort to define “conservatism” by using this position as a scapegoat or straw man to attack TRUE conservatives.
My diploma = fancy toilet paper.
CU-Boulder has no need of conservatives — what they really ought to do is lure the brilliant Judith Butler (referenced in article at link) with a pot of money and complete freedom to produce more of the great works for which she is already so renowned: /s
http://www.campusreportonline.net/main/articles.php?id=2142
“On the subject of lesbianism, Butler later writes that Insofar as the phallus is an idealization of morphology, it produces a necessary effect of inadequation, one which, in the cultural context of lesbian relations, can be quickly assimilated to the sense of an inadequate derivation from the supposedly real thing, and, hence, a source of shame. Professor Butler currently teaches in the Rhetoric Department at the University of California at Berkeley.”
“Professor Birkenstein-Graff openly admitted that Butlers writings have been repeatedly criticized by public figures as obtuse, if not bad writing. In 1999, Butler received the Bad Writing Award from Philosophy and Literature. The journals editor, Denis Dutton, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the desperate incantations of the journals contest winners hope to persuade their readers not by argument but by obscurity that they too are the great minds of the age. [Butlers winning] sentence beats readers into submission and instructs them that they are in the presence of a great and deep mind. Actual communication has nothing to do with it, wrote Dutton.”
As “conservative” as the backpage of Newsweek. George Will and Condi Rice are NOT conservatives. But George and Condi do like to be held aloft by the academic and media establishment and both have no qualms playing the niche bit part the establishment has carved for them.
I am definitely skeptical of this initiative. It may be an effort to define conservatism by using this position as a scapegoat or straw man to attack TRUE conservatives
That depends on who they hire and the scope of the group they create. Planted in any university, any avowedly conservative scholar will need to come complete with a well oiled logistical supply system so he can keep firing back. Any conservative group will be outnumbered and they will have to be prepared to deal with that. Personally, I’d make sure they have a brain trust of 2-3 conservative philosophers who can keep the attackers off balance. They’d be well-educated generalists skilled in handling big ideas and big picture issues. They’d be perfect.
They would also be good at deciphering the tortured language of liberal icons like Rawls and Sarte, getting at the core ideas hidden in all the garbage.