Henry, William. In Defense of Elitism . New York: Anchor, 1994: 92
One of the most troublesome aspects of reaction against "Eurocentrism" is the surprisingly prevalent view that reason and science are not absolute goods but mere cultural choices, no better or worse than other, more intuitive ways of "knowing." Reason and science are indeed hallmarks of Western civilization. They are the two biggest reasons for its superiority and worldwide dispersion. Probably some readers are wondering whether my antirationalist target is a chimera, a phantasm conjured by a fevered brain. Let me quote, without prefatory comment, an all too typical example from a TLS review of Christopher Jencks's liberal and compassionate book Rethinking Social Policy: Race, Poverty and the Underclass : "Jencks moves, armed with facts, with values which he takes care to expound, and a great trust in Enlightenment rationality. Rethinking Social Policy is an important book for these reasons. It is also for these reasons that critics will find limitations in it-by invoking other values, other facts and other, nonrationalistic forms of knowledge. While invoking such alternatives may always have been possible, it is particularly possible today, when a multiplicity of critical voices and forms of knowledge are increasingly gaining at least a minimum of recognition." What kind of world do we live in when "nonrationalistic" assertions can be considered a plausible response? When racial self-assertion and invective a la Jeffries can be part of a "multiplicity of critical voices" to be heeded? When it is viewed as progress that the irrational has more of a place at the table of serious debate? This salute to unreason is the reductio ad absurdum of multiculturalism, which in its elemental state is recognizable to anyone who ever spent time around a schoolyard ball game: If one can't win, then one changes the rules.