I am not fond of doing anything in particular because the rightwing will attack us more. I'm tired of worrying about what the assholes think.
That said, the constant demand not to criticize the guy b/c it plays into the hands of the rightnuts is a position that, once again, puts the rightnuts' agenda front and center. as is the recurrent claim that, if we do, then we're ignoring the way that rightwingers or mainstream scholars get lot of the hook. Oh plese! Not discussing that is simply a matter of not having familiarity with the cases, nothing more and nothing the less. the insinuation otherwise is bulldada.
It is really quite annoying to forever be told on this list that such discussions are offlimits b/c the rightwingers started the discussion in the first place and then be told that we shouldn't care what the rightwingers think.
personally, I don't, which is why I'm more than happy to discuss and criticize his work, shoddy practices, and etc. if that is what they are. I'm also far more interested in the drawbacks of his substantive claims -- that is, in the metatheoretical claims that undergird his work. I don't give a rat's what rightnuts think. they were going to think it regardless as to what I say here or elsewhere.
p.s. I think it's funny that the second article posted, the annotated one, is considered scholarly b/c it has footnotes. It wasn't a piece of scholarship. It was polemic. Which is fine, but scholarship would have meant that he'd explained Jasper's views and also made sure to put forth the views of critics of Jasper's work. He doesn't do that and just puts Jaspers up there in order to legitimate his claims.
See! jaspers, a German dude writing about Nazi Germany says this about himself and his own country. See! I'm not such a bad guy after all. See. A real philosopher said this. See! Look at that guy. You should buy what I say because a German existentialist writing about the Holocaust said it.
Never mind that there are plenty of ways to criticize Jaspers.
And in this sense, I think Timothy Burk at the blog Easily Distrated was right: the work isn't scholarship for the most part. It's polemics. Of course, we need polemics, agit prop, etc. But confusing it with scholarship? Aiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyi.
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