Does anyones opinion add anything to any discussion? Why are your panties in such a wad here? Am I required to approve of Ehrenreich's deception? No room for questions? I never made any claims about how ethical I was only that many people find the deception Ehrenreich practiced to be questionable. I can see their point and agree with it to some degree. No high-horse moralizing on my part when I point this out unless any question of the appropriateness of deception is high-horse moralizing to you. If you think the deception was great I'm very happy for you. I don't condemn her for it but I also don't praise her for it either.
Do not compare the fact that Terkel may not disclose his degree to every person he questions (it isn't relevant to every discussion) to Ehrenreich's deliberate dishonesty in how she presented herself to others. Why would you wish to smear Terkel with such an odious comparison? Bad form counselor. If you wish to defend Ehrenreich can you do it without smearing Terkel at the same time? If not you have a very weak defense of her and should let others, like bitch perhaps, carry this defense forward. I never said Terkel's approach was the only one I approved of so please don't put words in my mouth. I will say exactly what I mean and clarify my position to anyone who asks.
> If Ehrenreich were a better person by your standards,
> but a worse reporter, would we be richer or poorer in
> information and understanding? Orwell was a snitch, a
> liar in the same way that Ehrenrich was (Ehrenreich is
> not a snitch, but wasn't Gloria Steinhem? And now, it
> appears, Ryzcard Kapuzinski?), and a jerk in a way
> that she's not. Michael Moore, whom I used to work
> with/for in a minor way decades ago when he was just a
> n alternative newspaper publisher in Michigan, is an
> infamously difficult person and has come under
> partially well-deserved attack for ethical, er,
> deficiencies. In his case, some of them may weaken the
> value of his journalism. If they don't, why does it
> matter? Do you only want read things by good people?
> Who appointed you the ethical arbiter of journalism?
> (I'm not endorsing your low opinion of Ehrenreich as a
> person.)
>
I have no lower opinion of Ehrenreich than any other social scientist. Who said I did? I didn't claim any position as moral or ethical arbiter of anything except myself. I stated I was ambivalent about Ehrenreich and could understand how some have come to dislike her. I like her for the same reasons others do and dislike her for the reasons posted leaving me in a rather ambivalent position concerning her. I don't have to justify that position any more than I already have. There's nothing particularly odd about my position either. You are free to believe that the level of honesty it takes to make me feel positively, rather than ambivalently, about someone is too high but I don't foresee changing my opinion based on the screed you just posted. Why are you positioning yourself as the moral arbiter? Why is my questioning the appropriateness of her deception high-horse moralizing?
> And what, by the way, is this "personal gain" stuff?
> Apart from the fact that only a leftist of the sort
> that puts the left into disrepute expects people to
> work for free, and apart from the fact that her
> motivation, whatever it was, is irrelevant to the
> value of her work, where did you obtain this
> information about her reasons for acting in the way
> that she did? Did she say, "I only write left wing
> screeds for personal gain" in some writing of hers
> that I missed? Granted, that would be a pretty stupid
> way to make money, but maybe she's stupid as well as
> dishonest an inauthentic, although you wouldn't know
> about her stupidity from her writing. Be that as it
> may, you have no clue about her motives, which are
> entirely by the way in any event.
Since I believe part of the reason she chose to interject herself into the narrative of N&D was self-aggrandizement I am free to find that behaviour questionable as have others. It is merely my opinion and is stated as such. If you have an opinion that varies with that good for you but you no more know my criticism in invalid than I know it is valid since she in all likelihood never confided in either of us any of her motives for her actions.
John Thornton