The man who is emerging as the leading public intellectual of our time is giving credit to other public intellectuals. My first requirement of a genuine thinker is that he or she give full credit to others whenever possible.
David Brooks, in his Saturday 25th and in today’s NYTimes column has given his Hookie awards to writers of important 2004 articles. I have previously noted several of these important articles for my readers. I recommend most of the others that Brooks lists.
You also know, from reading this blog, what the prevailing discussions of our times are about. The Hookies are about good contributions to this Great Debate.
What I now want to point out is the importance of Brooks naming his award after Sidney Hook.
I read several essays by Hook when I first went to college (U. of Chicago) in the mid-1950s. The essays were not in the curriculum since Chicago was not much on pragmatism in its formal courses.
Sidney Hook immunized me to the evils of communism. I didn’t finally reject communism and Leftism, as well, until I had read Orwell’s Animal Farm and lived it on a kibbutz a few years later.
Hook raised, in my mind, the question of whether the Communist Party should be allowed to exist in the U.S. since the CP had a goal of eliminating democracy. Hook said the answer was no.
Hook’s powerful logic has always entranced me. Reality didn’t come to bear on the matter until the late 1980s when Daniel Ortega, in Nicaragua, eliminated future elections and the National Islamic Party, in Algeria, banned future elections.
What Sidney Hook’s brilliant mind worried about became a reality.
A party with the goal of eliminating democracy can not be allowed to participate in a democracy. Period.