Recently we saw the consequences of a politics of intelligence and individualism put in stark relief, as the profession’s most public faces repeatedly embarrassed themselves at the moment FedSoc’s project culminated in a supermajority of reactionaries on the Supreme Court. From professors Noah Feldman, Akhil Amar, and Amy Chua, to practitioners Lisa Blatt and Neal Katyal, prominent liberals cheered the appointments of each FedSoc Supreme Court nominee—while for the most part claiming to disagree very seriously with FedSoc’s politics. Professor Feldman told us: “I disagree with [Barrett] on almost everything. But I still think she’s brilliant.” Katyal applauded Gorsuch’s “independence.” Blatt put it most succinctly, saying of Kavanaugh: “Sometimes a superstar is just a superstar.”
An ideology whose north star is the independent exercise of personal brilliance will never be capable of fighting the reactionary right. The fetishization of intellect displaces moral and political values, leading liberals to act as if both left and right are always legitimate–as long as each position is argued with pizazz and wit. To them, it does not matter whether left is universal healthcare, civil rights, or police abolition and whether right is transphobia, melting the planet, or child slavery.
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