Evan Sayet at Heritage

By Smitty

Evan Sayet spoke Tuesday at The Heritage Foundation, talking about the themes from his new book, How the Modern Liberal Winds Up on the Wrong Side of Every Issue.

Sayet reprised and updated a talk given two years previously, Regurgitating the Apple: How Modern Liberals "Think". (YouTube version)

Among the key influences on both talks were Allan Bloom, author of The Closing of the American Mind, and Thomas Sowell., author of The Vision of the Anointed.

In today's outing, Evan built upon a three point thesis about "modern liberals":

1. They are raised to believe that the sole virtue is not making discriminate judgments, e.g. promiscuity is bad, chastity is good. Since discriminating between good and bad is the new taboo, coming out in favor of the good and successful choice is to be avoided. This leaves the unsuccessful and bad choice as the way to go.
2. Evidence of success, e.g. the pre-eminent position occupied by the US, cannot be predicated upon any inherent superiority of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. That would violate the first two premises. Therefore, the modern liberal must conclude that the US is a brutal, imperialist country, and consistently side with her enemies.

Thank heaven for Evan.

UPDATE (by Stacy): Thanks to long-time commenter Smitty for his first post. Click here to download Sayet's lecture in MP3 format. I arrived late. Among my notes of the lecture, Sayet said that "stupidity is a luxury," and that in academia, "liberals cannot survive in the fields where truth is truth." He got a big laugh mocking Rosie O'Donnell's "9-11 truther" claim that "fire can't melt steel." Sayet said O'Donnell must know better: "I know she's watched 'Flashdance' -- over and over and over."