Really Bummed About George Will

Here’s a quick discussion on my piece Even the Elites Can’t Escape the Global Community, Living As It Does on One Small Planet, in which I made reference to my disappointment in my fellow college alum George Will as follows:

That’s what’s so frustrating about talking to people like George Will, whom I see every time I’m back for our college reunion (he was in the class of ’62, I came along 15 years later).  At each event, he gives a talk that could be called, “Here’s what’s good for rich, white Americans.”  But, as I’ve pointed out to him, he systematically ignores the fact, that, even if one is so greedy, selfish and racist that one limits his concerns to the elites, those few lucky people do not live on an island; whether they like it or not, they’re part of a global community where their welfare is connected to that of everyone else….Most obviously: We all breathe the same air and drink the same water.  Oppressive conditions anywhere create hostilities that threaten the safety of all of us everywhere.  I know there are people tragically born with a conscience, but even those who don’t care about others need to see that their own self-interests are at stake.

A university professor in Arizona writes:  Nice Craig, and while you’re at it, read his despicable article praising Michael Chrichton’s climate change denial. The man is a fraud. 

I respond:  I know.  I’m so disappointed I can’t tell you.  I would define these two words as follows:

Crackpot:  One who holds an opinion on a subject that sits clearly within the purview of science that runs counter to the vast majority of the scientific community that has devoted its life to that specialty

Fraud:  One who takes a crackpot opinion (see above) and uses his extra-ordinary communication skills to further his career via promotion of that opinion

You nailed it.  Thanks very much for clarifying this in my mind.

The professor wrote back just now: Craig, I love when one Republican claimed that “reality has a known liberal bias.” This new Republican  party is anti-truth, anti-science and doomed for a generation, I hope.

Sorry, Mom.  He said it, not me.  🙂