Everybody is talking, and rightly so, about the big Al Gore piece in Rolling Stone on science, reason, and the climate crisis. And it is, indeed, quite a tour de force. Gore is not only a charismatic leader (now that he's not running for president), he's a great writer. Nevertheless, I'm afraid to say that Gore is operating, big time, in liberal Enlightenment mode--precisely what I critiqued in The American Prospect. Let's give some examples of Gore's Enlightenment rhetoric:
Admittedly, the contest over global warming is a challenge for the referee because it's a tag-team match, a real free-for-all. In one corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner: Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues.
And:
We haven't gone nuts — but the "conversation of democracy" has become so deeply dysfunctional that our ability to make intelligent collective decisions has been seriously impaired. Throughout American history, we ...
