Luke Weiger:
> I've read through the Course and the Cassandra once or twice. Yawn. I
> don't consider Hitch to be an unimpeachable source in any incarnation. I
> actually prefer this undergrad's thesis: http://jim.com/canon.htm
I wonder why. www.jim.com is James Donald's site, a fellow who regularly attacks me on Usenet as being a Stalinist and a Nazi among other things (often in the same breath), and states that I wish to use truncheons and hot irons on his body to enforce political conformity to my totalitarian ideals.
Since you're a fan, you might be amused by the exchange which occurred in 1997 when he was pushing Sophal Ear on some of the Usenet newsgroups. You will see a fragment of his insistence that all leftists belong to a single coherent political body -- the "official left orthodoxy". However, I'm mainly interested in greeting the reapparance of Sophal Ear's essay with my observations on it, since I went to the trouble of reading its many dozens of pages and surely lbo-talk should be the beneficiary.
gcf at panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > Part of this set-up requires a cult of personality around
| > Chomsky, in which some of his fans regrettably participate,
| > along with the mass media. That is, he is portrayed as
| > _the_ leftist, as if no one else in the country had the
| > sort of ideas he puts forward. Thus, if he can be portrayed
| > as "supporting Pol Pot" _every_ leftist must be doing the
| > same. It's _ad_hominem_ on a truly grand scale.
jamesd at echeque.com (James A. Donald):
| See Sophal Ear's undergraduate honors thesis "The Khmer Rouge Canon
| 1975-1979:
| "http://www-mcnair.berkeley.edu/uga/osl/mcnair/Sophal_Ear_canon.html
|
| Chomsky and Herman's position on the Khmer Rouge was not one man's
| regrettable momentary lapse of judgement. It was the consistent
| official left orthodoxy, from which no deviation was tolerated, until
| 1979
I found this an extremely interesting document, and I'm
trying to write a review of it -- it's a good start in
tracing the genealogy of certain ideas.
Ear does indeed have a theory of a sort of totalitarian
academic cabal, but doesn't demonstrate its totality or its
orthodoxy, merely its academicity. In fact the term
"official left orthodoxy" is hard to decode; what is the
official left? Not the liberal left, surely; George
McGovern condemned Pol Pot and suggested an intervention
against his regime in the mid-70s. You can't mean the tame
Left of academia; it's not official. That would seem to
leave all the tiny radical-Left fringe groups, excepting of
course pacifists, anarchists, Quakers, and the like. Are
they what you're talking about? The Spartacists, say, and
the PCP? And in what sense was "no deviation tolerated"?
Did they have firing squads? You'll have to tell us; Ear
isn't interested in these people, just some (then) dewy-
eyed breathless studenty types hot for socialism, and old
fox Chomsky.
James, I have to say I think you've blown it on this one.
You can no more prove that every leftist supported the Khmer
Rouge prior to 1979, than you can fly to the moon by
flapping your arms. In fact, the latter is a better chance,
because the former just ain't so. But don't let me stop you
from trying....
(http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=5uihrg%24995%40panix2.panix.com)
Following the thread may prove interesting for those with the requisite fortitude. I don't think my critique was refuted at the time. When it popped up later anyway, as things do on Usenet, I wrote a further little critique from my fading memory:
Unless the text has been revised since I last looked at it,
the author focuses on three or four persons. Although they
are indeed academic, the paper does not anywhere show that
their views are or were either standard or total in academia.
It would be something of a major undertaking to do so; there
are thousands of academic institutions in the United States
alone. Totality seems especially improbable, since many
academic personnel are rightists. However, politics makes
strange bedfellows, and since the United States government
supported the Khmer Rouge in the early 1980s, one might find
unusual line-ups in its academic system as well, perhaps
inspired by military, diplomatic, or intelligence contracts.
Unfortunately, the paper doesn't tell us.
(http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9ad3jp%24ug%241%40panix3.panix.com)
Anyway, Luke, are you lbo-talk's channel to the world of James Donald now?
-- Gordon