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Article: Massive retaliation. (Unabomber victim David Gelernter)(Brief Article)(Column)
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- October 13, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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You will remember the Unabomber, whose day at trial is coming soon. One of his letter bombs arrived, in the spring of 1993, at the office of Professor David Gelernter, who teaches computer science at Yale. The bomb ruined one eye, destroyed his right hand, and consigned him to surgery for days, weeks, and months. There comes from this experience the most salvific firehose of contempt for and resentment of fashionable liberal cliche-thought since Randall Jarrells Pictures at an Institution.
In his little book Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber, Gelernter begins his learned and refreshing diatribe by asking why it is that we are not supposed to be "judgmental. Why ...