Title: Academic professionalism
Product review: At first sight the book seems so insightful - and it clearly stems from a sincere wish to understand other cultures and others holding different views than one's own within one's own culture. But then comes page 20. Gutmann writes that the task is to rescue us from a world of entrenched battlefields and point the way to "mutually respectful communities of substantial, sometimes even fundamental, INTELLECTUAL disagreement" (my emphasis). What such a viewpoint does is to limit the discussion to rational discourse. One can agree on a base-line of open discussion with those you may be in diasagreement with but only when the 'crazies' have been left outside, those who preach hatred, or even those who choose to opt out. This is all what Richard Rorty called 'wet liberalism'. Terribly disappointing. After Gutmann's intellectualist and ultimately elitist point of view dawns, the other essays fall within the same light.
Would you say this review depicts the product in a flattering or unflattering light?
