On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, Inside Higher Ed was quoted
> <http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/25/pluto>
quoting someone who wants to suppress Joel Kovel's book Overcoming Zionism:
> Jonathan Harris, director of the Michigan chapter of Stand With Us,
> wrote about the controversy (before Wednesday's announcement) in The
> Detroit Jewish News.
>
> "The issue is not free speech. Stand With Us unqualifiedly supports
> freedom of the press, and the ideologically driven Pluto Press
> certainly has the right to publish whatever it wishes, however
> reprehensible the works may seem to others. The question is not
> Pluto's right to publish these views, but rather, whether it is right
> for UMP [University of Michigan Press] to distribute and, in effect,
> promote them," Harris wrote.
Ah yes, of course. You're free to write, just not to distribute. This is the ideal of free speech you had under the ancien regime. I guess it goes with the way we've revived lettres de cachet.
> Harris also questioned whether it was appropriate for Michigan to
> ally itself with a political publisher. "Even more disquieting is
> that UMP is violating the University of Michigan's professed
> commitment to presenting a wide range of views," he wrote. "Through
> its special agreement with Pluto, UMP is promoting one ideology: the
> leftist radicalism and toxic anti-Zionism that make up Pluto's
> inventory.
This is my favorite brain twister: you're supposed to promote a wide range of views. But somehow promoting this view negates all the other views you promote. So while on the surface, to a rational person, promoting even an (arguendo) extreme view would seem to be increasing diversity, deep down, if you really grasp the truth, you realize it's the opposite, it's negating freedom.
It's got to be deep because on the surface it makes no sense.
> Pochoda rejected the idea that university presses in the United States
> are scared to publish tough criticism of Israel. He noted, for example,
> that the University of California Press had published Norman
> Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the
> Abuse of History. (That book, of course, set off a huge controversy,
> with critics of the book accusing the press of being irresponsible and
> defenders of the press accusing the critics of trying to be censors.)
Indeed. What a terrible example to make his case. What an exception that proves the rule.
Man, I wasn't even going to buy this book, with all respects to Joel. Now I feel it's my fucking duty.
Michael