Larvatus Prodeo

In the spheres and circles in which Planet Janet moves, it’s “defend the Enlightenment” week. At first, I thought this was just the latest volley in the denialist wars, but now that we know that Ayaan Hirsi Ali is in town, and her usual fanbois are overcome with their customary posture of uncritical worship, I suppose that explains part of it, even if “We are at war with terrorism!” no longer packs so much political punch as a slogan. Indeed, there might be a bit of an exercise in parsing exactly why – in “an enlightened spirit of inquiry” – Planet’s proclamation that -

There is no doubt the West is suffering from a dangerous moral disorientation. It is not clear that we value the very idea of the West any more.

- is such an incoherent notion. In part that would be because the bricks she’s used to construct her discourse (her word, not mine) now no longer fit together anywhere so neatly as they once did, because the mortar of her political obsessions has grown old and cracked. But I’m not particularly interested in doing that, so I’ll use her as a segue to a consideration of the latest shot in the “higher education wars” – an article today by Gavin Kitching entitled “Paralysed by Postmodernism”. Continue reading ‘The Enlightenment is in danger! (from its false friends)’