But, in the 1980s, when conservatism was at its most politically and intellectually vibrant, the dominant voices in the movement celebrated Lincoln, the Progressive Era and even the New Deal.
Nora's conception of memory has transformed the way the French see themselves, and has also provided the bedrock for a conservative form of neo-republicanism, which has become intellectually and culturally dominant in France since the late 20th century.
It was Beauvoir who rejected marriage, not Sartre, who felt lucky to have her on any terms; and it was Beauvoir who was the dominant partner intellectually, not, as she always publicly insisted, the other way around.
Aside from Debord's being the dominant and dominating member of the SI often Debord expelled members for what he perceived as their political infidelity to the group—his La Société du spectacle (1967; The Society of the Spectacle) remains one of the most intellectually powerful and theoretically rigorous critiques of a capitalist society.
Water Drops on Burning Rocks may find its voice in this discursive current: it is a film in which the search for conquest and sexual pleasure is utterly dominant, and yet perpetually found to be emotionally and intellectually negligible.
Thus its relevance in this context; a book like this one by Mr. Higbee reminds us, in case we've forgotten, that the old industrial technocratic drive to mold the entire planet and all its population into one great globalized termitorium, while intellectually dead, is still and threat ens to be for some time to come the dominant force in lives.
Kennedy also suggested that "accusation and outrage, rather than analysis and understanding, are this book's dominant motifs, and although outrage is a morally necessary response to Nanjing, it is an intellectually insufficient one".
Intellectually compatible?
Intellectually voracious.
