[lbo-talk] Academic Freedom, was Re: Ward Churchill. . . .

andie nachgeborenen andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com
Fri May 26 23:35:22 PDT 2006


A very strange view, Carrol. We should ignore a well-documented expose of a purported scholar's shoddy work, and treat that work as if the evidence of fraud, fabrication, misrepresentation, etc. did not exist, because the investigation was initially motivated --improperly, I agree -- by revulsion against the purported scholar's political views? But all knowledge is interested, driven by some agenda, that is a basic principle of Marxism. You write as if only investigations motivated by a disinterested love of truth merit our attention. I suppose there may be such a thing, but it's not very common (certainly not in history or the social sciences), and for inquiries so motivated to gain any traction they typically have to be hooked to some kind of extra-academic interest. In fact, on your principle, we can ignore Churchill to begin with, because his entire body of work is motivated by political, extra-academic interests. I don't see anything wrong with that, myself,a s long as the work is good.

Maybe you say that it's different because the initial basis for investigating WC was itself suspect, an attempt to discredit him because of his political views. Well, if his work had been really solid, if he hadn't been a liar, he wouldn't have gotten into the sort of scholarly trouble he's in because of of those views. Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein (to name two solid controversial scholars) have been pissing off people for years, but because their work is honest it is their critics who have to lie, distort, and misrepresent. Would that we could have said the same in the case of WC. Or Bellisides, for that mater.

Me, well, I'm the leftist that likes Judge Posner and Hayek, so I appreciate that real insight can come from all sorts of dubious places and questionable motivations. Sure, I agree that we ought to oppose witchhunts based on people having unpopular views. That doesn't mean that people with bad motivations and investigations with foul beginnings can't turn up real dirt, as this one did. And it maters. As Kelly says, WC lied to _us_, he damaged _our_ standing and _our_ work. He reduces smart people to saying, well, you shouldn't treat him worse than other cheats and liars, Some defense. Whatever the initial motivations of the inquiry, WC has been weighed in the scales and found wanting, and that is something we can't pretend we don't know.


> I'm utterly uninterested in the details of the case
> because, from the
> viewpoint of either academic freedom or left
> politics those details are
> irrelevant.
>
> Here is the principle that the case establishes, and
> it is a vicious
> principle:
>
> The _origin_ of an investigation, no matter how
> illegitimate, no matter
> how poisonous nd contrary to all concepts of
> academic freedom, is
> irrelevant.
>
> That is the line we have to defend. No Academic
> investigations triggered
> by outside political interference.
>
> I am somewhat ashamed of the posters on this list
> and on lbo-talk who
> have utterly ignored the poisoned roots of this
> investigation and have
> contented themselves with the details of the
> investigation itself. But
> those details should be thrown out as irrelevant by
> anyone who believes
> in academic freedom. They should be thrown out
> particularly by anyone
> who accepts the liberal emphasis on procedural
> legitimacy. The
> procedures in this case were an outrage from the
> beginning.
>
> ---

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