The War Against the Intellect

Library Journal

These essays argue that emotion has tri umphed over reason, threatening Ameri can academic life with control by enemies of the intellect and resulting in proposals for ``lower-level instruction determined according to race, ethnicity, class, and presumably gender.'' He thereby adopts a narrower strategy than Alan Bloom The Closing of the American Mind, LJ 5/15/ 87, for while Bloom attacked many lines of American thought, Shaw blames the ``dark age of the humanities'' solely on the power of sympathy for apparent un derdogs to subvert reason. Basing his ar guments on the opposition of reason to emotions, Shaw fails to address those phi losophers e.g., Ronald de Sousa, The Ra tionality of Emotion, LJ 1/88 who say emotions are not simple feelings but com plexes in which reason plays a part. Is it not reasonable to be sad at a friend's fu neral or happy on one's wedding day?-- Leslie Armour, Univ. of Ottawa correction: In LJ 4/15, an incorrect price was given for I Become Part of It: Sacred Dimensions in Native American Life. Parab ola Books informs us that the correct price is $14.95.

Booknews

A collection of essays (previously published) in which the author develops his assertion that since the 1960s the accepted rules of proof, reason, and logic have come increasingly under attack, with consequences for western history, culture, government, and insitutions. Cloth ed. $22.50. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)