November 03, 2004
The World’s Most Muddleheaded Idiot
The World’s Most Muddleheaded Idiot
The September/October number of Foreign Policy, dear reader, features a section entitled “The World’s Most Dangerous Ideas.” The editorial staff of Foreign Policy, it seems, asked eight famous intellectuals to discuss what they considered the most toxic notions currently floating around what R. Buckminster Fuller once labeled Spaceship Earth. This way, we suppose, readers can collect all eight of the world’s most pernicious conceptions, and trade them with their friends.A few of the articles offered little more than public intellectual boilerplate: Paul Davies informs us about the dangers of denying free will, and Martha Nussbaum offers another in her never-ending series of articles dedicated to proving that Martha Nussbaum is morally superior to you.
Yet one contribution to “The World’s Most Dangerous Ideas” struck us, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” as particularly inane. And that, dear reader, was the brief piece penned by Eric J. Hobsbawn, entitled “Spreading Democracy.”
For those of you blissfully unaware of the oeuvre of Mr. Hobsbawm, let us inform you that he is to this day an unrepentant Communist. That’s right, dear reader: This impressive emeritus professor of economic and social history at the University of London feels little in the way of remorse, it seems, for the good old days of Stalinist purges.
It seems to us, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” that anything Mr. Hobsbawn excoriates should be practiced by all sane people. By virtue of his love affair with one of the most murderous ideologies the world has ever known, he should certainly be excluded from the realm of moral seriousness.
After all, would you take music advice from an unrepentant booster of Michael Bolton? Of course not. Then why, dear reader, would you take political advice from a popinjay who looks back with affection at Soviet pogroms? Even Kenny G is superior to the gulag—though just barely.
As a result, dear reader, knowing that Mr. Hobsbawn was firmly opposed to “Spreading Democracy,” we decided that we earnestly support it. Our instincts were only further strengthened after reading Mr. Hobsbawn’s piece—a sloppy piece of anti-neoconservatism composed by a man with a striking hostility to democracy. Indeed, Mr. Hobsbawn appears to be one of the many lefty intellectuals who loves “the people,” but loathes people. For people, it appears, have the pesky predisposition not to be killed. The bastards.
All of this made us, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” pause for reflection. How could the editors of Foreign Policy ask this moral cretin what he considered the “world’s most dangerous idea”? Was David Duke not answering his ‘phone, and thus they were compelled to pick Hobsbawm’s name from their Rolodex?
We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” believe that if one is going to ask Eric Hobsbawn what the “world’s most dangerous idea” is, one might as well go all out and offer a series of articles such as:
“The World’s Most Dangerous Ideas and People” as Presented by Various Nutters, Ideological Stooges, and Kindred Chuckleheads
Featuring:
Pat Buchanan, “Jews”
Houston Baker, “Whitey”
Ann Coulter, “Those Treasonous Bastards Known as Democrats”
Judith Butler, “(Re)contextualization(s) of Queering the Boundries: Why I (H)ate Men”
Cornel West, “The Jews”
bell hooks, “People Who Capitalize Their Names”
