p. 10 The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby
[T]here are ways of trying to strangle ideas that do not involve straightforward attempts at censorship or intimidation. The suggestion that there is something sinister, even un-American, about intense devotion to ideas, reason, logic, evidence, and precise language is one of them. Just before the 2004 presidential election, the journalist Ron Suskind reported a chilling conversation with a senior Bush aide, who told Suskind that members of the press were part of what the Bush administration considers "the reality-based community"--those who "believe that solutions emerge from judicious study of discernible reality." But, the aide emphasized, "that's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously, as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too...We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." The explicit distinction between those who are fit only to study and those who are history's actors not only expresses concept for intellectuals but also denigrates anyone who requires evidence, rather than power and emotion, as justification for public policy.".
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