Monday, August 23, 2010

Another Cri de Coeur from Stephen Walt

Stephen Walt's "Lessons from the Weimar Republic" is another post occasioned by the debate over Park51 ("the mosque at Ground Zero"), this time noting the extremism in politics that seems to be increasing with little or no resistance from political leaders, politicians and intellectuals, who should be championing religious toleration and reasoned debate. Walt reports that he made the choice for political science over a career in law when he heard Gordon Craig speak on the failure of intellectuals on in the Weimar Republic and how that contributed to its failure. He now discerns a similar problem here. Interesting.