Of course it's a smear. There are some who are uncomfortable with the deceptive practice such a EB used. Terkel has done no such thing. To make the comparison you did is to suggest that there is some similar question with regards to Terkels practices that does not exist. If making such unfounded implications isn't odious and a smear what is it? Why suggest some similar debate surrounds Terkels methods when it doesn't?
>
> I wasn't "defending" her ethics, I said they were
> irrelevant to the value of her work. Or if there is a
> defense, I'd think it would be, her ethics problems
> are, in my view, small, and the value of her work
> (including to the people E. deceived) is considerable,
> so that more than cancels any ethical problems.
>
To you perhaps it cancels any ethical problems but not necessarily to everyone. It is good to at least see that you acknowledge that the ethical problem does exist.
>
>> I have no lower opinion of Ehrenreich than any other
>> social scientist.
>>
>
> Wow, I'm glad I'm not a social scientist, if you think
> the "odious" and comparison to a social scientist is a
> "smear"!
>
The comparison you made was odious because it was based on a false premise not because it was made with regards to a social scientist. Nice try but you know exactly what I meant since it was written quite plainly. This above line is beneath you. I really do expect more from you than this. It's fine to disagree but to deliberately distort what others write is bad form. I don't do it to you and would appreciate a end to it.
John Thornton