Epistemic Closure Poseur Epidemic

Ragnarok comes to Clown College.

From the New York Times:

‘Epistemic Closure’? Those Are Fighting Words
By PATRICIA COHEN

It is hard to believe that a phrase as dry as “epistemic closure” could get anyone excited, but the term has sparked a heated argument among conservatives in recent weeks about their movement’s intellectual health.

The phrase is being used as shorthand by some prominent conservatives for a kind of closed-mindedness in the movement, a development they see as debasing modern conservatism’s proud intellectual history. First used in this context by Julian Sanchez of the libertarian Cato Institute, the phrase “epistemic closure” has been richocheting among conservative publications and blogs as a high-toned abbreviation for ideological intolerance and misinformation.

Conservative media, Mr. Sanchez wrote at juliansanchez.com — referring to outlets like Fox News and National Review and to talk-show stars like Rush Limbaugh, Mark R. Levin and Glenn Beck — have “become worryingly untethered from reality as the impetus to satisfy the demand for red meat overtakes any motivation to report accurately.” (Mr. Sanchez said he probably fished “epistemic closure” out of his subconscious from an undergraduate course in philosophy, where it has a technical meaning in the realm of logic.)

As a result, he complained, many conservatives have developed a distorted sense of priorities and a tendency to engage in fantasy, like the belief that President Obama was not born in the United States or that the health care bill proposed establishing “death panels.”
...

Or that George W, Bush was the greatest President in the history of the Universe?

Or that activist judges are a greater danger to Murrica than a few, bearded terrorists?

Or that gays and the ACLU were responsible for 9/11?

Or that senior citizens hated the military (but loved Teh Gay)

just because they objected to the Bush Administration handing Social Security over to Wall Street.

Or that the "Ozone Man" wanted to frivolously destroy American jobs to save a few hoot owls?

Or that Bill Clinton was a rapist, drug-dealing assassin?

And Hillary was his murdering, lesbian moll?

Would you like ten more? Or a hundred? Or a thousand?

Bwahahaha!

There is so much less here than meets the eye, it is hardly worth the candle, but basically what the tattered remnants of the Respected Conservative Public Intellectuals are praying like hell for is that they be allowed to continue to pretend that this all just...somehow...happened -- and all very recently -- and that certainly no one could have ever predicted it or warned against it.

Except of course that's just one more lie the Conservatives tell themselves: Liberals have been desperately warning for decades that the Right's premeditated decision to climb into bed with the scum of America for partisan, electoral gain and then spend 30 years pandering, encouraging and cultivating their imbecile rage and paranoia would end in tears.

And now that the Devil has come for His due, this is what the End of Days looks like at the wingnut hobo camp; a mad scramble as the higher-end waterheads over on the Shiraz side of the tracks fight it out over the last tin of stale Reagan Jelly Beans.

"Epistemic Closure" is just the latest another feverishly pseudointellectual masturbatory attempt by what remains of the Respected Conservative Public Intellectuals to reconcile four irreconcilable and hideously embarrassing facts:

1. It turns out that they have been wrong about almost everything for most of their adult lives.

2. Even worse, it turns out that the Evil Liberals on whom they declared total, no-defeat/no-surrender war decades ago have been right for most of their adult lives.

3. Realizing that three decades of playing drum major for the shoutycracker brigade has left them with no marketable skills, these staunch champions of rugged individualism and ruthless meritocracy really, really, really want to hang onto their cushy sinecures as Respected Conservative Public Intellectuals despite the fact that facts 1 and 2 prove them to be almost uniquely incompetent to hold those positions. Their situation takes on an extra patina of panicky urgency when you consider the utter shambles that the Conservative Great Recession has made of the job market.

Ironic, no?

4. They obviously lied on their Respected Conservative Public Intellectuals resume, answering "yes" to the question about whether they had seen and comprehended "Fantasia", when obviously they had not.

Epistemic Closure: The Musical