J. Hari, being a good liberal, has cited a few critical responses to his article, including mine – to which he adds this rider:
‘Watch out for the 'you-don't-accept-our-view-so-you-are-intellectually-illiterate' mentalty [sic] there. This is a guy who thinks Antonio Negri can be intellectually engaged with.’
A couple of rather obvious points. If Hari didn’t think Negri worth engaging with then why on earth ‘engage’ him in an interview? Secondly, I was articulating my view not ‘our view’ – this rhetorical sleight of hand sneakily implies that I am speaking on behalf of some collective position, some pre-existing consensus, from which Hari is boldly dissenting. This is empty posturing. The ‘mentality’ he alludes to is non existent, glued together by a string of hyphens and little else. It is perfectly obvious that I disagree with lots of people, Derrida included, without thinking them ‘intellectually illiterate’. It is not the mere fact of non-agreement that renders something intellectually illiterate, it is what is being said. This is worth drawing attention to only because of a familiar rhetorical ploy: pretending that your interlocutor is objecting to dissent as such rather than the content of what you said, and thereby insinuating his irrationality and intolerance.
Anyway, I see that Hari has been scrabbling around for a few crumbs of logic, a few guarantors to lean on in support of is piece, even resorting to embracing his ‘mortal enemy’ Noam Chomsky, and citing Terry Eagleton, for whom Hari is undoubtedly one of the bone-heads casually dismissed in his Guardian article. Jonathan Derbyshire has a some relevant comments.