& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

books

An Iconoclast’s War

By Gary Rosen
IN the history of philosophy there is perhaps no more powerful image than the "cave’’ described by Socrates in Plato's ’Republic." This deep, dark hole, we are told, is inhabited by "prisoners” bound in such a way that all they can see is the play of shadows on an interior wall, fleeting shapes that they mistake for reality. Far above these hapless souls, outside their underground dwelling. Is the dazzling light of the sun - a sight reached only after an arduous Journey upward.
In his latest book. Stanley Fish does not invoke this venerable image of Ignorance and enlightenment, but It is a useful starting point for understanding why the very mention of Mr. Fish’s name causes eyes to roll among tradition-minded scholars. An English professor by training, Mr. Fish has turned In recent years to law and political thought, becoming a whole sale purveyor of a fashionable French import called post-structuralism."
According to this theory, eve y-thing we supposedly know is Just a reflection of the particular society In which we live - that is, ol the “cave" whose political, economic and cultural forces determine the character of our every opinion. Where Mr. Fish gleefully parts company with the Pla-
tonic view is In denying the possibility that we can rise above this limited horizon and discover ultimate truths about the human condition. As he sees it. the search for "knowledge" is never more than a glorified spelunking expedition.
In The Trouble With Principle," Mr. Fish deploys his bad-boy polemics against those present-day ideologies that most noisily declare their transcendence of our cave-bound existence. He has no patience, for example, with what he calls "boutique" multiculturalism. which claims to welcome other cultures but balks when they assert their most distinctive values - by. say. Issuing a death senlence against a "blasphemous" writer like Salman Rushdie. In such circumstances. Mr. Fish observes, those who celebrate ethnic diversity quickly become "uni-culturalists."
Indeed, his objection to multiculturalism is but a part of his assault on the hypocrisy of contemporary liberalism as a whole, especially as formulated by theorists like Ronald Dworkin and John Rawis. Posing as disinterested philosophers, these liberal eminences insist that their own deepest political and personal Ideal -"autonomous decision-making" - Is
somehow "neutral" among points of view and ways of life. But this Is nonsense. Mr. Fish argues, since liberals invariably work to exclude from the public square anyone who rejects their hyper-individualistic orthodoxy.
The liberal rhetoric of Impartiality is at its incoherent worst, Mr. Fish charges, when it comes to the question of religion. Liberalism tolerates believers only insofar as they are willing to play by liberal rules and treat divine revelation like any other contested opinion. But "a person of religious conviction should not want to enter the marketplace of ideas," Mr. Fish writes.. He should want "to shut it down."
Lest he be misunderstood (or lose his reputation for being. In his own words, "characteristically perverse"), Mr. Fish makes clear that he actually likes most liberal policies. He Just thinks that it is pointless and self defeating for liberalism to present itself as the embodiment of abstract truths when in fact it is nothing more than one of the many worldviews that people happen to hold. Liberals should stop their empty philosophizing, he urges, and simply get out there and fight their enemies.
Now, there is no denying the fun to be had in accompanying Mr. Fish on
his scorched-earth campaign against the leading spokesmen of complacent highbrow liberalism. But in the end, he is very much like then. For one thing, his portrait of the religious sensibility is little more than a caricature, with every believer emerging as a fanatical theocrat-in-waiting. Conventional liberal that he is, Mr. Fish cannot digest the notion that certain things might be rendered unto God and others unto Caesar, and that the devout might be content with this arrangement.
At the same time, Mr. Fish too readily equates liberalism with the relatively recent idea that the state’s chief purpose is to guarantee an everwidening sphere of personal autonomy. There is, however, an older, less grandiose form of liberalism. Best seen in the thought of Locke and the American founders, it relies on limited. constitutional government to secure such mundane goods as order and prosperity. What's more, it frankly acknowledges that achieving these ends sometimes requires placing bounds on the pursuits of Individuals.
Gary Rosen, is associate editor of Commentary and the author of American Compact: James Madison and the Problem of Founding.