Comments on: A Word for the Experts https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2011/05/11/a-word-for-the-experts/ Culture, Politics, Academia and Other Shiny Objects Fri, 13 May 2011 12:08:50 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.15 By: Doug https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2011/05/11/a-word-for-the-experts/comment-page-1/#comment-7674 Fri, 13 May 2011 12:08:50 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=1582#comment-7674 Don’t know how regularly you read Ta-Nehisi Coates, but he’s just taken up this topic as well.

“I think there are a lot of people who don’t so much love history, as they love the notion of revealed truth, of conspiracy and shadows. They love The Politically Incorrect Guide To The Civil War, because it will presumably tell you all those secrets which the liberals at Princeton have been conspiring to keep from you.”

]]> By: Robert Zimmerman https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/blog/2011/05/11/a-word-for-the-experts/comment-page-1/#comment-7671 Thu, 12 May 2011 04:28:00 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=1582#comment-7671 All this stuff about inquiry is good and on target. But I have a feeling that it’s pretty much in one ear and out the other unless the mind in between is genuinely curious. I don’t know what besides curiosity would motivate someone to spend the time and sort through all the complication, ambiguity, and contradiction that real inquiry digs up, as you’ve outlined for inquiry into the Founding Fathers.

If knowledge isn’t its own reward, why bother with all that? Better to go through the motions but skim off the material that’s useful and unchallenging. What you end up with is agenda-driven inquiry, and most people seem to be satisfied with that.

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