“It is admirable that Higgins touches upon issues of scholarship with a certain amount of prior knowledge, but his invocation of “technocracy” is the sort of neoliberal posturing, simultaneously absolving individual responsibility and reasserting the need for “better leadership” (of what?), that seeks to historicise itself (à la Gingrich’s campaign speeches, currently, in the U.S.) whilst maintaining its position firmly on the fence. As a cultural history lesson, it’s spotty, and as a “statement of intent”, it’s suitably vague and platitudinous to satisfy the lotus-eating youth who voted for him whilst not upsetting their parents.
Perhaps it’s not appropriate to criticise Higgins’ track-record with regard to towing the party line while a TD, but Edward Saïd being the only theorist he quotes from the last thirty years suggests his decline into neoliberalism was simultaneously a political and an intellectual one.”
comment by pinocheo on the previous post
“lotus-eating youths”? really?
I get enough anti-Labour leftist rhetoric from the comments on the CLR (and in a way I’m glad to see them getting back what they gave to the Green Party over the last few years), but it’s more galling to see this level of condescension, whatever about tendentious critique, towards what is a highly unusual and unorthodox political statement in Irish public society.
The guy in the highest office in the land - ceremonial or no - has just launched an intellectual critique of market economics, and not just in the ‘oh, we need fairness’ way, and your response is that it’s fence-sitting? Have you seen where the fence is lately? Whatever about parents and platitudes, I find this a good deal more energising than the politics of protest.
also, it’s toeing the line and he quotes Habermas from the past 12 months.
