Summitry, Irony, Polarity: Responses to Chester Finn

To the Editor:

I see that Chester E. Finn Jr. has returned to his ideological playpen, where he delights in transforming complex, systemic realities into simple-minded polarizations ("On Governors and Ostriches," Commentary, Feb. 14, 1996). Then one pole, always what he calls the "left," becomes the foolish enemy which he attacks.

Mr. Finn says that the "bad guys," meaning most educators throughout the nation, hold "at their center ... that what you know is not as important as how you feel, indeed that what you know is not very important all." He goes on to list his usual polarized litany: Educators oppose competition and support cooperation, ignore spelling and mechanics and believe in self-expression, ignore phonics and believe in stories, ignore multiplication and division and believe in calculators, and on...