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This New Criterion piece opposing the construction of an Islamic community center on sacred Burlington Coat Factory ground is, if nothing else, a piece of reactionary pseudo-intellectualism of the kind I've rarely encountered since the days of The American Spectator. That is, it uses words like "tenebrosity" and "turbid" to dress up an argument that could be found on any fourth-rate wingnut blog. But it does accomplish one thing: It provides a handy one-stop guide for a variety of terrible arguments opposing the Park51 project:
- "Poetic justice as fairness": People who have no objection to Park51, the nameless editorialist allows, cite their support for treating people equally. But wait a minute -- some of these people also support affirmative action, a supposed contradiction.
Let’s say you are an eighteen-year-old white male Protestant applying to Yale. Are you treated equally -- i.e., the same, i.e., with no regard to your race or sex or religion -- by the admissions office?
The response to this argument is obvious. Wanting to put people on equal footing would require that admissions officers look at an applicant from a privileged background differently; most people recognize that it is more difficult to excel when one comes from circumstances that constrain opportunities, so succeeding despite obstacles is its own mark of merit. But by false analogy, the New Criterion assumes that if someone supports recognizing accomplishment in the face of adversity, they must also treat religions differently. But at heart, it's not as if they are really interested in this. And if there really is a contradiction, it cuts both ways: Does the New Criterion now have no objection to affirmative action?
