Post #16624 by kahukini on Tue, Dec 17, 2002 4:08 PM

Horowitz proves the term "conservative intellectual" is oxymoronic. There are so few "rigorous" conservative academics you can count them on one hand. It has to do with the fact that the tenets of conservatism directly contradict with open inquiry.
Here are my book recommendations:
Political Liberalism by John Rawls, perhaps the greatest political philosopher of the 20th century: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0231052499/qid=1040166097/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-5040940-0721554?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

The Needs of Strangers by Michael Ignatieff. One of the most moving nonfiction works ever written:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312281803/qid=1040166212/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-5040940-0721554?v=glance&s=books

Acheiving Our Country: Leftist Thought in 20th Century America by Richard Rorty (Horowitz' arch nemesis)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0674003128/qid=1040165841/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-5040940-0721554?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Leftist intellectuals, unlike their conservative wannabies, are the first to admit the astounding failures of leftism in the 20th century. But that's what differentiates real academics from seminary school - the intellectual grit to take it when your wrong and come out of it the better for it, in other words, to practice science.