It might look very much like a "parody of intellectualism," js1138. But the fact of the matter is there really are people who fit the bill of the modernist disinterested spectator (e.g., Hegel and his ideological epigones) and of postmodernism's deconstructed self (e.g., Jacques Derrida). These folks have been incredibly influential in transforming Western society by promulgating and reinforcing the intellectual habit of sheer irrationality. Personally, I find this a matter of great concern. For thanks to these folks, rational discourse is becoming increasingly impossible.
If you don't worry about this, then just take a pass on this essay.
So do I. And the fallout of these disruptors you name is an attitude at large against words. Our self-respect overwhelms the courtesy of others. Instead of recognizing others, we claim a special right to dispense with history and substitute just any word we like. This is an unbelief of language to be meaningful.
It seems that a resistance to these distractions from civil respect is an attempt to first learn from the best teachers what those who have gone before have really said. This learning would itself be subject to correction from others. Graduation might then consist in assuming the postponed freedom to finally choose one's position.
Some have thought that it is not possible to step in someone else's shoes. This again is the unbelief of language to be meaningful.
If the dignity of the human person includes the freedom to choose, is not the knowledge of that choice a prerequisite? Of course, children grow up accepting the presuppositions uncritically, but that is not our understanding of human nature. We recognize there are qualities which make the human person mature.
It would seem that a test of that knowledge would be the faithful exposition of the motives and understanding of those we are free to disagree with. This is a tall order, but I think the necessary for the resistance to error.
Dismissal of one's opponent is part of debate. But a typical sham dismissal is the assumption that one knows the opponent's position merely on the basis of a conviction that one's own position is right. I think that is dangerous, especially in a democratic age where every Joe Schmoe thinks they can be president.
Sorry if this steps back a bit from the issue at hand: dualism. Analysis allows us to isolate the difficulties in dualistic thinking, however it does not allow us to exempt ourselves from the other difficulties that we participate in as historical and social beings.
"Irrelevant."
It's very concerning, true. But as for the philosophers such as Hegel, and Derrida whom you cite (and the vast number of philosophers) how much do they drive culture compared to reporting it by its rationale? They may mean to cause, but are they more effect?
Who is driving our culture lately? The brunt of it seems to be the practitioners, the Hugh Hefners, John Lennons, Martin Scorseses etc., who lean an elbow on the rationale of their philosophy of choice.