Clerical Fascism & Totalitarianism

Charles Jannuzi jannuzi at edu00.f-edu.fukui-u.ac.jp
Wed Oct 17 19:17:27 PDT 2001


In his own defense, Chip B writes:
>OK Kelley, explain to me the point of having a serious >discussion with
>someone who claims the terms you use have no meaning, >refuses to allow you
>to define the terms, or consider other definitions, and then >provides a
tiny
>snippet of a quote and challenges you to rise above your >sophomoric" level
>and state categorically (in 400 words or less) whether or >not the person
>being quoted is representative of the term. Its absurd and >insulting. It
is
>not a serious discussion. And in both cases, nonetheless, I >attempted to
>give an answer.

A use of the 'facts' that any propagandist would love.

First, I never quoted you in whole or snippet form at the start of the latest exchange. I provided two entire articles, one an interview with Ben Bella and the other an article that clearly incorporated an interview of VS Naipaul in which he was probably relating his work 'Beyond Belief' with current events. Why you thought they referred to you or that you owned the whole thread reveals quite a bit about your personality, though.

Second, I'm not saying the terms you use have no meaning. I'm questioning whether or not your use of them has anything but taxonomic function at conferences about clerical fascism--sure, that's rather ungenerous, but look at what you yourself have just written. Classify o.k. But then use them in sufficient context and use them to explain the phenomena they describe (more on this at another time). That was the whole point of what I wrote about not using the strategy, 'define your terms' (I wasn't going to use it on you, I wasn't going to make you run in circles defining your terms). I was deferring to your background and your special use of the terms.

Third, you certainly responded sophomorically (hint, turn off the quote machine, read it, and then resond; advice I will try to follow myself).

Fourth, how 'intellectual' is it to blow off Naipual in one sentence (at least I didn't recount how many books by Naipaul I've read).

Finally, I'm not an anti-intellectual and am glad I can ply a trade and still be an independent scholar. I've published over 50 articles in my areas of speciality (language education, linguistics), but that hardly means I'm going to overwhelm you with sources about them unless you ask.

Charles Jannuzi



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list