1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996588070703316

Autore

Roberts Ronald Suresh

Titolo

Clarence Thomas and the tough love crowd : counterfeit heroes and unhappy truths / / Ronald Suresh Roberts

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, NY : , : New York University Press, , [1994]

©1994

ISBN

0-8147-6946-2

0-585-32494-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (238 p.)

Disciplina

320.5/2/08996073

Soggetti

African American intellectuals - Attitudes

Conservatism - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-214) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Preface: The Tough Love Crowd: Disciplined Heroes -- 1. Reality: The Opium of Progressives -- 2. Julien Benda's Constitution -- 3. Tough Love Literati -- 4. Tough Love Economist -- 5. Tough Love Lawyers -- 6. Is Law Like a Friar's Roast? -- 7. Can We Judge Judges? -- 8. Justice Thomas's Sins -- 9. Sir Vidia Naipaul's Revolutionary Truth -- Conclusion: What's So Scary about Partisanship? -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In recent years, black neoconservatism has captured the national imagination. Clarence Thomas sits on the Supreme Court. Stephen Carter's opinions on topics ranging from religion to the confirmation process are widely "ed. The New Republic has written that black neoconservative Thomas Sowell was having a greater influence on the discussion of matters of race and ethnicity than any other writer of the past ten years. In this compelling and vividly argued book, Ronald Roberts reveals how this attention has turned an eccentricity into a movement. Black neoconservatives, Roberts believes, have no real constituency but, as was the case with Clarence Thomas, are held up—and proclaim themselves—as simply and ruthlessly honest, as above mere self-interest and crude political loyalties. They profess a concern for those they criticize, claiming to possess an objective truth which



sets them apart from their critics in the establishment Left. They claim to be outsiders even while sustained by the culture's most powerful institutions. As they level attacks at the activist organizations they perceive as moribund, every significant argument they advance rests on fervent mantras of harsh truths and simple realities. Enlisting the ideal of impartiality as a partisan weapon, this Tough Love Crowd has elevated the familiar wisdom of Spare the rod and spoil the child to the arena of national politics. Turning to their own writings and proclamations, Roberts here serves up a devastating critique of such figures as Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele, Stephen Carter, and V. S. Naipaul (Tough Love International). Clarence Thomas and the Tough Love Crowd marks the emergence of a provocative and powerful voice on our cultural and political landscape, a voice which holds those who subscribe to this polemically powerful ideology accountable for their opinions and actions.