Intellectual hypocrisy

Jonah Goldberg defines it a bit differently than I would have.

I would use the term “intellectual hypocrisy” to describe applying a laxer standard of intellectual rigor to one’s own data and argument than one does to one’s opponents.

Nonetheless, Goldberg has identified a real enough problem:

Moral hypocrisy is still worth exposing, I guess. But we are living in a moment when revealing intellectual hypocrisy should take precedence. A J. P. Morgan chart reprinted on the “Enterprise Blog” shows that less than 10 percent of President Obama’s cabinet has private-sector experience, the least of any cabinet in a century. From the stimulus to health-care reform and cap-and-trade, Washington is now run by people who think they know how to run everything, when in reality they can barely run anything.

I just don’t think “hypocrisy” is the right word for it. “Arrogance” is more like it.

I should add that I normally quite enjoy Goldberg’s writings. I think Liberal Fascism was dismissed much too breezily by most of the Left and too many on the Right. And I loved the Hitler mustache on the smiley face, even if it may have encouraged that dismissal by making the book look much less serious than it actually was.

Some years back, I took a job in a field in which I had not had much previous experience with the offhanded comment that “A Sith Lord should be able to pick up pretty much any skills he needs pretty quickly.” I wish that were so. A year and a half later I was back to my old job; my old cronies were surprised, not that I had come back, but that I had lasted that long.

Even a Sith Lord needs some lessons in humility. Fortunately, I have His Majesty for that.