“Little Eichmanns” [Updated]
Move over, Mumia. The Left has a new cause celebre that's a guaranteed loser: Ward Churchill. The Colorado University professor and Native American activist is in a tub of hot water for the staggeringly outrageous remarks he wrote on the morrow of 9/11. Praising the "gallant sacrifices" of the "combat teams" who downed the World Trade Centers, he branded the those who perished as "little Eichmanns" i.e. technocrats who manage the Nazi-like U.S. Empire.
I saw the essay at the time and was nauseated by it. I have been tempted over the years to write something about it, but have always decided not to. Only because I consider Churchill to be an irrelevant and clearly deranged loner on the edge of the looniest left.
Now I regret not having denounced him. Too bad others on the left also didn't quickly hurry to divorce themselves from this guy.
Churchill, as you know, surfaced in the news last month when he was invited to speak at an upstate New York university and some conservatives raised a ruckus — as they damn well should. If this guy can hang on to his tenure at CU fine. But damned if student funds from somewhere else should be used to host him as some sort of guest speaker.
The watchful ghouls over at the O'Reilly show and other right-wing blast furnaces hastened to chuck Churchill, a deliciously easy target, on to the fire. And now we see that the usual sort of weak-kneed university administrators at CU have set up a month-long review of him that could lead to his firing.
Free speech and the first amendment should cover all professors, no matter how repugnant. I think it legitimate to defend Churchill's right to be a vocal asshole (heaven knows most universities are densely populated with such types on both the Right and Left).
What I'm worried about is the way that some liberal groups are hemming and hawing on what he actually said. I've seen that some Colorado peace groups are praising Churchill as some sort of font of wisdom and downgrading his remarks as merely "stupid." Other similar groups are actually supporting him"”like this statement from the Rocky Mountain Center for Peace and Justice who in lauding Churchill characterize his remarks as only "ill-chosen."
No. Not ill-chosen. They were carefully selected, hateful, unforgivable and demented, frankly. And having kept half-an-eye on Churchill since he emitted his execrable screed, I noticed that he has continued to be invited as a guest or panelist at numerous lefty events instead of being ostracized and ignored.
The American Association of University Professors is rightfully demanding protection of the principle of academic freedom. As we all should. That should not stop any of us from excoriating Churchill and his more than unfortunate views. The only defense possible in this case is one of free speech. Yet some of his most knuckleheaded supporters showed up yesterday at the convening of the CU panel looking into his case and what did they do? They shouted down the university administrators. Isn't that wonderful?
Here's an excerpt from the Rocky Mountain News coverage of the story:
In a raucous meeting where university leaders were shouted down by Churchill supporters who defied orders to be silent, the regents voted unanimously to authorize a 30- day investigation to determine whether there is cause to fire Churchill, 57.
In what may be an unprecedented action by any major university, the regents also apologized "to all Americans, especially those targeted in the 9/11 attacks and those serving in our armed forces, for the disgraceful comments of professor Churchill."
Two protesters were arrested during the meeting.
Churchill has been the subject of a firestorm of controversy since concerns were raised last week about an essay he wrote on Sept. 11, 2001, in which he compared "technocrats" working in the World Trade Center to notorious Nazi bureaucrat Adolph Eichmann and said the United States invited the terrorist attacks through a long history of violent domination of other cultures.
The left needs better heroes and better martyrs than Ward Churchill.
UPDATE: Some other good stuff I'm finding on the Churchill story. Take a look at UCLA conservative corporate law professor Stephen Bainbridge who has a similar take as mine i.e. that Churchill is an "ass" but remember what Voltaire said. Decidedly non-lefty legal eagle Eugene Volokh, for his part, invokes Justice Hugo Black, to argues that the "depraved" Churchill not be fired.
And just so there's no accusation of punching of straw men, I'm reluctantly linking to the original horrifying essay scribbled by Chruchill. You can read it here. I forced myself to re-read it just now and actually find it more offensive than when I originally saw it right after 9/11. Church's basic "argument" is one of collective guilt-- it's precisely the premise used by the Nazis in their indiscriminate murder of Jews. I must say, I would be terrified if this guy was teaching my kid.
February 4th, 2005 at 5:18 pm
I haven’t read the whole essay but the block quotes I’ve run across leave no doubt that this guy is a real asshole. Anyone who defends him on any other then free speech grounds is off his rocker. That said, to glibly assert that, “the Left has a new cause celebre,” seems a gross exageration based on the evidence you provided. I want more lefty persons/organizations who defend the content of his speeches. Either that or just say he’s a loon and STOP BLAMING THE LEFT!
February 4th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
Marc, i’ll start by saying that you’re dead wrong here, once again in an entirely pridictble fashion. You’re in such a rush to denounce and presumably distance yourself from the “loony left” that you fail to realize what the attacks on Ward Churchill are really about and how they fit into a much larger picture both on and off campus on what constitutes permissble thought in an post 9/11 era of unquestioned assumptions and never ending wars. Defending Churchill from right wing zenophobes who wish to purge universities, themsleves suppossed centers of free thought, has at all nothing to do with creating hero worship, but is essentially about resisting a very real McCarthyite campaign going on. If you don’t believe me read the works of Daniel Pipes and his pet Project Campus Watch. It explicitly seeks to get students rat out professors who views can be seen as “anti american” or critical of the isreali government. Pipes says openly that in a time of war a professors duty is to be with american foreign policy. Sorry, as a memeber of the academic world myslef, i was under the impression that an intellectuals owned no duties to dogmas of any states or governments, and that thought flourished when it was not policed and confined. All this is relevant because pipes and his ilk including the lyn cheney’s national endowment of the humanities have mounted a powerful campaign to target professors they disagree with, and set a academic stadard comforming to what they view as patriotic. The same forces that are going after Ward Churchill are the ones who for decades tried to get Edward Said fired, they’re the same miscreants who are trying to purge mesa now for years, the same intellectual brownshirts who think the cia should be inbedded in classrooms. They’re using time tested witch hunting practices and campaings of smears and distortion. But none of this matters, because it doesn’t fit into your idiotic characature of the world where you’re the sole truth teller and overseer of acceptable thought who sees through and brazely castigates the “loony left”. If you’re so blind as to not see a pattern here with whose speach is and isn’t attacked, and what is behind the campaing against Churchill, then you’re living in the wliderness buddy. Simply disgusting and awful stuff
February 4th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
On target marc. But what struck me when I read your post, aside from the lingering of residual remnants of a totally pathetic form of “leftism” that needs to just dry up and blow away, is that I’ve never heard of this guy before (and I don’t live in a bubble). But I’ve read numerous assaults on the integrity of Susan Sontag in which it was claimed she said something akin Churchill’s remarks, which of course is a lie. Why did dishonest clowns like Andrew Sullivan focus on legitimate opinion that differed from the pack mentality or the more vapid emotionalism and brand it as treasonous, when there are real loons out there. Could it be because Ward Churchill doesn’t represent squat in the arena of public opinion ?
I have a crackpot Afro-centric brother-in-law who expressed a similiar sentiment at our family Thanksgiving in 2001 and I put my white ass on the line to tell him off. It was impolitic to call the fucker out only because our heated argument ruined the day for our host, my wife’s mom who I dearly love. (Yeah, I’m like this at home.) But anyone, right or left (and there were some on the far right who used the occasion of 9/11 to spew anti-semitism) who pulls that crap deserves nothing less than a serious kick in the butt, even if only verbal. Tenure is tenure, but students should boycott his classes and make his job disappear. Reminds me of how much I hate academica….
February 4th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
Ahmed, isn’t there some distinction between defending academic freedom and excoriating assholes. I believe in academic freedom for right-wing assholes, but I’ll be damned if that doesn’t mean I can’t call them what they are. If Daniel Pipes had tenure somewhere, would it be wrong to call him out for the loon that he his ?
I was so over-the-top on a previous post, I’m bowing out on this one. I mean it. Call me a crackpot or a perv….whatever…I’ll just have to eat it. I’m assuming marc is back from his sojourn in lovely Northern California (shit…I walk to those killer Chinese restaurants on Kearny St. for lunch) and will be enforcing his new rules with a vengeance.
February 4th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
I’ll use my last legal post to correct my own spelling…that would be, uh, “academia” that I hate.
February 4th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
And if we’re going to discuss this at length, then perhaps the Rocky Montain News shouldn’t be are authoritive source. In the interest of fairness Im posting Ward Churchill’s responcse to this entire brouhaha
Churchill’s statement
January 31, 2005
The following is a statement from Ward Churchill:
In the last few days there has been widespread and grossly inaccurate media coverage concerning my analysis of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, coverage that has resulted in defamation of my character and threats against my life. What I actually said has been lost, indeed turned into the opposite of itself, and I hope the following facts will be reported at least to the same extent that the fabrications have been.
* The piece circulating on the internet was developed into a book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens. Most of the book is a detailed chronology of U.S. military interventions since 1776 and U.S. violations of international law since World War II. My point is that we cannot allow the U.S. government, acting in our name, to engage in massive violations of international law and fundamental human rights and not expect to reap the consequences
I am not a “defender”of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people “should” engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, “Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.”
I am not a “defender”of the September 11 attacks, but simply pointing out that if U.S. foreign policy results in massive death and destruction abroad, we cannot feign innocence when some of that destruction is returned. I have never said that people “should” engage in armed attacks on the United States, but that such attacks are a natural and unavoidable consequence of unlawful U.S. policy. As Martin Luther King, quoting Robert F. Kennedy, said, “Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.”
* This is not to say that I advocate violence; as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam I witnessed and participated in more violence than I ever wish to see. What I am saying is that if we want an end to violence, especially that perpetrated against civilians, we must take the responsibility for halting the slaughter perpetrated by the United States around the world
My feelings are reflected in Dr. King’s April 1967 Riverside speech, where, when asked about the wave of urban rebellions in U.S. cities, he said, “I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed . . . without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.”
* In 1996 Madeleine Albright, then Ambassador to the UN and soon to be U.S. Secretary of State, did not dispute that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of economic sanctions, but stated on national television that “we” had decided it was “worth the cost.” I mourn the victims of the September 11 attacks, just as I mourn the deaths of those Iraqi children, the more than 3 million people killed in the war in Indochina, those who died in the U.S. invasions of Grenada, Panama and elsewhere in Central America, the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, and the indigenous peoples still subjected to genocidal policies. If we respond with callous disregard to the deaths of others, we can only expect equal callousness to American deaths.
* Finally, I have never characterized all the September 11 victims as “Nazis.” What I said was that the “technocrats of empire” working in the World Trade Center were the equivalent of “little Eichmanns.” Adolf Eichmann was not charged with direct killing but with ensuring the smooth running of the infrastructure that enabled the Nazi genocide. Similarly, German industrialists were legitimately targeted by the Allies.
* It is not disputed that the Pentagon was a military target, or that a CIA office was situated in the World Trade Center. Following the logic by which U.S. Defense Department spokespersons have consistently sought to justify target selection in places like Baghdad, this placement of an element of the American “command and control infrastructure” in an ostensibly civilian facility converted the Trade Center itself into a “legitimate” target. Again following U.S. military doctrine, as announced in briefing after briefing, those who did not work for the CIA but were nonetheless killed in the attack amounted to no more than “collateral damage.” If the U.S. public is prepared to accept these “standards” when the are routinely applied to other people, they should be not be surprised when the same standards are applied to them.
* It should be emphasized that I applied the “little Eichmanns” characterization only to those described as “technicians.” Thus, it was obviously not directed to the children, janitors, food service workers, firemen and random passers-by killed in the 9-1-1 attack. According to Pentagon logic, were simply part of the collateral damage. Ugly? Yes. Hurtful? Yes. And that’s my point. It’s no less ugly, painful or dehumanizing a description when applied to Iraqis, Palestinians, or anyone else. If we ourselves do not want to be treated in this fashion, we must refuse to allow others to be similarly devalued and dehumanized in our name.
* The bottom line of my argument is that the best and perhaps only way to prevent 9-1-1-style attacks on the U.S. is for American citizens to compel their government to comply with the rule of law. The lesson of Nuremberg is that this is not only our right, but our obligation. To the extent we shirk this responsibility, we, like the “Good Germans” of the 1930s and ’40s, are complicit in its actions and have no legitimate basis for complaint when we suffer the consequences. This, of course, includes me, personally, as well as my family, no less than anyone else.
* These points are clearly stated and documented in my book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, which recently won Honorary Mention for the Gustavus Myer Human Rights Award. for best writing on human rights. Some people will, of course, disagree with my analysis, but it presents questions that must be addressed in academic and public debate if we are to find a real solution to the violence that pervades today’s world. The gross distortions of what I actually said can only be viewed as an attempt to distract the public from the real issues at hand and to further stifle freedom of speech and academic debate in this country.
Ward Churchill
Boulder, Colorado
February 4th, 2005 at 6:33 pm
FYI (w/o comment) If anybody wants to track this in detail, here’s the original essay by Churchill.
http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/s11/churchill.html
February 4th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
” If Daniel Pipes had tenure somewhere, would it be wrong to call him out for the loon that he his ?”
Yes, but it would be wrong to support a public attack and call for his resignation as a professor. I’m not sure if Marc supports that, but I would hope not.
On the other hand, it is rather odd, because if you go back and read the readings of Herbert Marcuse, one of Marc’s own political heroes, you can find statements by Marcuse that are not different in tone or content from Churchill’s statements, especially since Churchill clarified on the vapid Paula Zahn’s show [and the poor dear, trying to do a Bill Oreilly act was terribly outmatched intellectually-- I don't think she even knew who Hannah Arendt was when he referenced her! And she seemed completely confused by his use of 'tehnocratic elite'--a Marcusean term if there ever were one...] that he was referring to a ‘technocratic elite’.
Having said that, there is something else that is wrong about Marc’s comments above. People on the left *did* criticise those comments by Churchill, and Marc knows that full well, since at least one good friend of his on the left did so in his journal and even in the pages of the Nation I believe.
*And*, get this, I too was involved in public exchanges on this matter and I wasn’t defending Churchill’s Marcuse like ploy [I know that runs against the Amy Goodman-Kim SungIl paranoid fantasy some have of yours truly--my snide apologies]. So Marc knows that what he says about people on the left strongly supporting Churchill at the time is false. In fact, Churchill even got disinvited from an antiwar protest in Burlington in the runup to or early Afghanistan bombing days.
However, I agree with Marc’s good friend Henwood on this, letters should be sent to the chancellor calling for an end to FOX News determining which professors are politically correct for their tastes.
February 4th, 2005 at 6:49 pm
I see Marc doesn’t support Churchill’s being fired. That’s good. He is wrong to characterise the thoughts as ‘hateful’, they’re entirely in the spirit of Marcuse. I disagree with the argument, but that’s another matter on a number of levels.
I will say this, though, he was pretty coherent in his response to the utterly out of her league Zahn tonight.
February 4th, 2005 at 6:58 pm
Ahmed — now we come to it at last. The great sickness in the Middle East, and among Muslims in general, is anti-Semitism. JUST like people failed to speak out about Lynching, when a black man or woman a day was lynched in this country, Muslims have failed, and failed utterly, to speak out about the utter sickness of anti-Semitism and pure barbarism that inflicts their societies. Anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine, that includes the Islamic world’s barbaric treatment of women (teens not even 14 stoned to death for being raped) and religious minorities as well as basic human rights. [I am not Jewish btw]
The amount of utter double-standard, anti-Semitic trash that flowed through Ed Said’s work, and his classroom comments, is simply amazing. That an intelligent person could hold these views (calling Jenin a case of genocide, throwing rocks at Israelis, denying the legitimacy of the Israeli state, and celebrating terrorism against Israel) is simply unbelievable. Edward Said was the man who felt Yasir Arafat was too “soft” on Israel and wanted more terrorism.
That you defend this man (or Churchill) proves Marc’s point EXACTLY. The Left is sick, sick with anti-Semitism, sick with anti-Americanism, sick with pseudo-marxist-nihilist celebrations of terror, murder, and sickness. Arafat, Pinochet, the Colonels of Greece, Pol Pot, and Mbuto are all the same. They are monsters. The folks who defend them, from Churchill to Said, are nothing more than Lord Haw-Haws, or Stalin’s stooges like Duranty.
Pipes has done yeoman work exposing the sick skein of anti-Semitic, anti-American hatred running through Academia. The sort of sick, disgusting things you’d find at Berkeley or San Francisco. Groups like CAIR are angry at the rocks being lifted, and the ugly things underneath shown the daylight of the American people’s gaze. They don’t object to the celebration of murder, merely folks KNOWING about it. [Note: I don't agree with everything Pipes says, probably not most of it. Nor do I hold Israel perfect and blameless. However, I draw the line at deliberate murder of kids, and innocent civilians. I'm funny that way. I suspect most Americans are too]
Academic freedom and freedom of speech means folks like Said, Churchill, or neo-Nazis (who they share anti-Semitism with btw) are free to celebrate “a million Mogadishus” and such. Cheer for every American death, and horrible slaughter of innocents from Beslan, Maalot, and NYC. That doesn’t mean in America there won’t be a response. People turning away from anyone espousing this garbage. Prices paid in forgone speaking fees, and close scrutiny of resumes.
Churchill deserves to be fired, not because of what he said, but because he lied about being an American Indian, and being a Special Forces Combat vet. He was neither. AIM itself has disavowed him, and has engaged in legal battles against him. Indian artists have fought with him over his selling paintings as “legit” American Indian work. Churchill was only married to an Indian, his late wife. He is a liar of the first order. A base hypocrit like Mailer, a critic of US violence abroad who stabbed his own wife nearly to death, and is best known for championing convicted murderer Jack Henry Abbott’s release from prison due to his writings. Something he accomplished. Then opined his subsequent murder of a bartender was “OK” since Abbot was a good writer.
Ultimately the Left has failed. It has failed to call out Churchill, Sontag (reg she DID celebrate 9/11) …
Sontag shortly after 9/11 “Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a “cowardly†attack on “civilization†or “liberty†or “humanity†or “the free world†but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing America bombing of Iraq? And if the word “cowardly†is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue) whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s slaughter, they were not cowards.”
… and Norman Mailer (who called the wreckage more beautiful than the towers); and Stockhausen who called it the greatest work of art ever.
Failure to call these folks on their love of death, anti-Americanism, terror, murder, and not so subtle anti-Americanism makes the Left irrelevant to the national debate. The American people know these things are morally wrong, and know by the Left’s silence in the face of evil that they don’t agree with them. Thus when Bush talks of freedom, and specifically rebukes anti-Muslim hate crimes, people trust him. They distrust folks like Joe Biden who wants the Mullahs to have nukes so they’ll have better self esteem. They abhor and hate the Left, knowing full well the Left hates them, simply for being Americans.
The Left used to stand for right and wrong, but sadly they’ve been intimidated into silence, agreeing with the Ward Churchills and Ed Saids of the world. Sadly, Marc, it’s too late. The Left has made it’s bed, and so lost it’s moral legitimacy. Nothing but politics now. With the Left espousing the hate America line. It’s the work of generations to clean out that stable.
February 4th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
RE: SONTAG – “(reg she DID celebrate 9/11)”
I can’t help it…
THAT IS A FUCKING LIE! SHAME…SHAME !
February 4th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
With regard to Jim Rockford’s diatribe, the only possible response is an awe-filled silence.
February 4th, 2005 at 8:05 pm
The blanket generalizations of The Liberal/Left remind me of other nationalistic right-wingers bent on reforming the world in their own image.
–
Liberalism tore down the structures that held races and peoples together, releasing the destructive drives. The result was economic chaos that led to millions of unemployed on the one side and the senseless luxury of economic jackals on the other. Liberalism destroyed the people’s economic foundations, allowing the triumph of subhumans. They won the leading role in the political parties, the economy, the sciences, arts and press, hollowing out the nation from inside. The equality of all citizens, regardless of race, led to the mixing of Europeans with Jews, Negro, Mongols and so on, resulting in the decay and decline….We have seen firsthand where Marxism leads people, in Germany from 1919 to 1932, in Spain and above all in Russia. The people corrupted by Liberalism are not able to defend themselves against this Jewish-Marxist poison.
From:
Der Reichsführer SS/SS-Hauptamt, Rassenpolitik (Berlin, 1943)
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/rassenpo.htm
German democracy was always a particular playground of European liberalism. Its innate tendency towards excessive individualism was foreign to us, which lost it any connection to real political life after the war. It had nothing to do with the people. It represented not the totality of the nation, but turned into a perpetual war between interests that gradually destroyed the national and social foundations of our people’s existence.
From:
Goebbels Speech at the 1933 Nuremberg Rally
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb41.htm
We offer the youth the freedom to develop their nation, even in the case of smaller nations. We offer them room for creative fantasy, the opportunity to transform great thoughts to reality outside the lecture hall. We offer the realization of dreams on a world scale, a common Germanic will, a common European will. We fill the spiritual vacuum left by liberalism with the magic of a worldview that draws self-confidence and meaning to life from race and the blood of one’s ancestors.
From:
The Danger of Americanism
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/sk03.htm
Their critique of America? To liberal and urban!
February 4th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
Can’t we have a serious discussion about academic freedom? The only difference between this thing and those hypothetical moral dilemmas hashed out at high school church camp retreats (would you eat your best friend if your plane crashed and you were stucked in the Andes without food?) or the ridiculous ticking time bomb scenarios currently being hashed among allegedly serious people about the legitimacy of torture (so like dude if the nuke is set to go off at four oclock in Times Square and we catch Abdul on the Jersey Turnpike at 3:45 and he’s sweating and wearing a t-shirt that says “I just blew up Manhattan and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” do we beat the crap out of him or electrocute him and then beat the crap out of him?) is that this has the misfortune of actually being real.
Look everyone: there are loons out there. Some of them are on the left. Some of them are on the right. Quite a few of them are not meaningfully either.
But to make this a kind of test case for Academic Freedom in Our Time is just embarassing. I’m sure all those professors and administrators who had to show up for this hearing were more than than anything else embarassed that this had to happen at *their* college.
The fact of the matter is that there is now underway a systematic effort by a certain segment of the American right to undermine the academic freedom of legitimate, rational, and often quite brilliant professors (especially in mideast and Arab studies) with whom this segment of the American right happens to disagree. I realize its not quite as sexy a story as this loon’s, and while I have little faith in the SCLM to properly cover it, it – not this – is the *real* story.
February 4th, 2005 at 9:04 pm
There’s one thing wrong with Marc’s excellent post: there are few right wing loons in academia because the right wing has been almost completely excluded from a number of areas of study. Conservative history students report being counseled (by historians) to seek other fields because they will never get a PhD, much less tenure, because of their political views.
In other words, “academic freedom” means “freedom for the left to throw out the right.”
I think it would be appropriate for those universities with a “diversity” fetish to try it on ideological positions of professors. If Sandra O’Connor imagines that diversity in the student population is important enough to over-ride the equal protection clause and basic American principles, how about diversity of ideology in the professorship.
At this point, the ratio of leftist to rightist professors, as estimated from voter rools, ranges from 6:1 to 25:1 in major universities and colleges. This is defended by the assertion that conservatives are not intelligent enough to become professors or deserve tenure.
It is hardly surprising that looney leftist professors keep popping up. They sit in their ivory towers, circularly arguing themselves into crazier and crazier viewpoints, while forcing conservatives to stay in the closet with their political views – ask, but don’t tell!
Equal protection under the law would seem to apply when the ideological ratios get so out of hand, and so far from the ratios in the general populace.
This clown should never have been hired. Notice that even now, he dresses and wears his hair like a stereotyped Indian activist. His comments on America are insane – tin foil hat quality observations. He belongs in the University all right – as an exhibit in the forensic psychiatry department.
I guess I need to apologize to the Catholic Church, which invented the concept of academic freedom, when I say that it has gone too far. Too many professors are doing the equivalent of shouting Fire! in a crowded theater.
State funded schools will find themselves losing funding if they continue to represent only the radical left side of the political spectrum. That would be a shame, but it is a natural unintended consequence of the arrogant one-sided leftist professoriat. Alumni are angry and are withholding funds. Just as the left has destroyed the legitimacy of the main stream media, it is now destroying the humanities and pseudo-science departments of academia.
February 4th, 2005 at 9:14 pm
“Look everyone: there are loons out there. Some of them are on the left. Some of them are on the right. Quite a few of them are not meaningfully either.”
As far as I can tell, he’s no more a lunatic than Marcuse or Fanon or Malcolm X…Oh, that’s right, they weren’t lunatics. So, instead of the easy lazy way out, why not actually debate the substance of people’s ideas instead of lazily attributing ‘hateful’ motives, ‘mental illness’, etc. Why not just disagree with him and point out what’s wrong with his arguments? I’ve done that without having to resort to the lazy way out of “he’s a loon”.
I mean, think of it like this. He is at least a relatively consistent thinker, one with whom I’ve disagreed in the past, but still will have to give him that much. I’ve never thought much of his association with people like Russell Means for starters.
He’s a lot more coherent than people who believe in social democracy *and* simultaneously (!) fueling an already overbloated military budget to supply troops to occupy Iraq, Afghanistan, the Sudan, and God knows where else…
February 4th, 2005 at 9:15 pm
“Conservative history students report being counseled (by historians) to seek other fields because they will never get a PhD, much less tenure, because of their political views.”
ah yes, i see those right wing students just desparate to be historians instead of MBAs or power lawyers…of course, it makes sense, the historians get paid so much better.
February 4th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
“There’s one thing wrong with Marc’s excellent post: there are few right wing loons in academia because the right wing has been almost completely excluded from a number of areas of study. Conservative history students report being counseled (by historians) to seek other fields because they will never get a PhD, much less tenure, because of their political views.”
I was waiting for someone to bring up this nonsense. Conservatives are widely represented in business, engineering, law, and the sciences at America’s top colleges and universities, and well represented at colleges and univerisites generally in the humanities, as well as virtually every other discipline.
The fact of the matter is though that academia is simply not a very lucrative gig, and conservatives are less inclined than liberals and leftists to be willing to sacrifice the prospect of making money for an academic career – and that’s the best case scenario.
Fundamentally, there is a real misunderstanding about the state of academia today. To the extent that there were ever “cushy academic jobs” it simply isn’t the case for most who choose to become academics. The problem is particularly acute in the humanities, and it has nothing to do with ideology. For every 1000 English PhDs that graduate every year, there are only a few hundred positions that open up, and most of those are low-wage, few-to-no-benefit, adjunct gigs at obscure 4 year colleges and community colleges – not tenure track positions at major research universities. Under half of humanities PhDs – including many from top 10 schools – will ever land a tenure track position *anywhere*, let alone a major research school. Close to half of all professors today are adjuncts, and that number is likely to grow to 3/4 in the next decade or two.
The fact of the matter is that as with Hollywood and music and sports there are simply too many people who want to do it for a living, and to claim that conservatives are being systematically excluded is just silly.
February 4th, 2005 at 9:30 pm
It’s what ya get when ya mix victimology + conspiracy theory.
February 4th, 2005 at 9:53 pm
Hey Ahmed: When someone gets university tenure they don’t get intellectual immunity, pal. Of course the right wing is going to go after professors they dont like. The idiotic indefensible statements of someone like Ward Chruchill makes it that much easier. I have purchased and will be distributing to my friends on the elft a nice little leather collar with a chrome eyehook on it. After the firmly fit the collar around their throats they can then attach Albatross Churchill by the eyehook and try to lift off in battle against the right.
So let me be clear: Repugnant ideas are not sufficient reason to fire Churchill. They are more than sufficient to repudiate him and excoriate him. By the way.. his clarification that you post is classic backpeddling, Ahmed. Why dont u dig up the stinking carcass of his original essay and let the readers decide what he really meant. There’s not much nuance in “little Eichmanns.”
One of the most moving experiences I had took place in December 2001 at the AFL-CIO executive council meeting in Las Vegas in which they memorialized the 800 or so union members killed in the WTC (that’s right, almost a third of the victims). These were flight attendants, passengers, janitors, cooks, waiters, firefighters etc… Their crime was to show up for work that morning.
And let me pre-empt the rebuttal. That building was also full of stockbrokers and business executives. I suppose in Churchill’s twisted little world they are the “real” Eichmanns. No, in reality, tey are just human beings like teh rest of us trying to support their families. Their crime is the same as the window-washers.They showed up.
There is something really, really repugnant about a professor who has to work maybe 9 hours a week for a lifetime of comfy tenure, sucking off the tit of a public university that finances itself with all of the same sources as the rest of the “empire” and then implying that while he sits around stroking his pud he’s a pure, strident voice for the oppressed while anyone else who has a job is “complicit.” Churchill ought to be on O’Reilly’s payroll– that’s where he belongs.
I suppose if someone nuked CU tomorrow and killed off all those Pentago math researchers and conservative law enforcement sociology consultants and Churchill went up in flames with them we could write them all off as just one more set of “little eichmanns.”
February 4th, 2005 at 9:57 pm
THREE POSTINGS EACH AND THEN OUT. BE ADVISED.
February 4th, 2005 at 10:47 pm
I was in a rather jolly mood after opening up the weekly and seeing that Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard are going to play 5 shows at the Pant ages, and I am glad to see someone take a shot at good old Ward.
The guy is in asshole that should not get fired. But an asshole nonetheless. The line “densely populated with assholes” line is a true gem. Having just started part time grad school this week, I was reminded on why I hated my first University experience. Don’t forget that most graduate students are assholes as well.
The guy is a fucking University professor for god’s sake. How fucking arrogant to think that you can judge people who just might have taken “technocratic” jobs not out of desire, but out of necessity.
I spent Wednesday in Cincinnati for work. We got lost in a depressingly rundown downtown Cincinnati neighborhood. My boss (a technocrat with a house, wife, and 2 kids) commented on how unsettling it was to see how an obviously once vibrant city has been laid to waste largely by the effects of jobs moving abroad (globalization). He confessed how guilty he felt that most of my co-workers cannot afford to buy a home in Southern California and feels bad that they cannot (by economic reality) be paid enough to purchase one anytime soon. My boss is not the typical asshole entertainment executive, but a decent guy who is basically stuck in his path. He can’t quite and enter a Cultural Studies program. Nor does he live a life of indulgence. The fucking guy likes his kids and gardening. He say the reality of economic injustice in Cincinnati and vocalized even though he is not an “intellectual†nor a regular reader of the Nation. He is pretty much A political, but he is the type of person that would be perceptive to a social movement for economic justice. Yet Ward wants him dead.
Is my boss one of those ” little Eichmanns” who was worthy of death? How would he be classified? He doesn’t particularly love his job. Nor his he a technocrat in the service of empire, but rather a fucking normal person trying to survive. He is a normal human being with a real life (I am sure that the serial posters are the opposite) and is not lucky enough to have an ideal job. He does not complain much, but sucks it up and does the best he can and tries to be a decent person to people he encounters. I am sure Ward would take one look at his profession and send him off to the re-education camp.
Ward made a massive misjudgment. Massive actually cannot even describe it. His line of thought is the same as all of the great killers of the world, Mao, Hitler, etc. The fact that “activists” in the “intellectual” world would defend his politics is disgraceful.
I heard many of his lectures during my brief delusions as being a “radical” and I am sickened for it.
He is the worst kind of Lefty. He does represent a brand of Stalinism the left cannot seem to shake off. He has a Weather Underground mentality in the year 2005. Pathetic.
This after all is a guy who has a CD called “In A Pigs Eye View.” Still holding on to that 60′s bullshit.
February 4th, 2005 at 11:01 pm
I wonder if Ahmed and Steve defended Charles Murray during the Bell Curve fiasco. Murray like Ward deserved intellectual freedom. But like Ward, he is an enormous asshole and his pseudo-science was not worthy of defense. Ward’s “work” is pseudo scholarship that likewise, should not be defended.
I am sure they were on campus, working on speech codes to ensure that “hate speech” is silenced.
Maybe Ward “work” is less than worthy. If I do shitty job at work, I get fired. Why are professors exempts from reality? Just because you have a PHD and a radical pedigree, you should not be guaranteed a job. For gods sakes some of you look at “intellectuals” like a fucking aristocracy. God save the Queen! Can the Royal family do no wrong? Maybe Ward should have to be worthy of employment.
Professors like him are not real scholars. They are entertainers. They are hired because wealthy kids that go to CU (a hippy haven) like to experiment with radical politics for a few years before becoming technocrats. Like many professors these days he is a performer who’s purpose is to keep students entertained.
The Left are fucking pathetic. Calling Ward in intellectual is an insult to the word. He is proof that many lefties these days are really not for real. It is entertainment and not a social movement that is meant to succeed. For gods sake get some standards.
February 5th, 2005 at 12:40 am
reg — what part of:
“Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a “cowardly†attack on “civilization†or “liberty†or “humanity†or “the free world†but an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing America bombing of Iraq? And if the word “cowardly†is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue) whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s slaughter, they were not cowards.”
Does not sound like a celebration of 9/11 to you? Sontag said it was both courageous and JUSTIFIED. She also repeated Maher’s sentiments that the 9/11 hijackers were “braver” than bomber pilots and other such trash. She said what she said, and was what she was. An apologist for cold-blooded, fanatical, awful murder. Celebrating the slitting of flight attendants throats to draw out the pilots, calculated murder of thousands, because people with non-white skin and non-Christian religions did the awful deed. Remember, in Sontag’s and other Leftists moral views, there is no absolute right or wrong, no deed in and of itself that is wrong, just the political. context in which it takes place. Sontag despite her talent is not any different than that old Nazi Ezra Pound.
Green — “The fact of the matter is that there is now underway a systematic effort by a certain segment of the American right to undermine the academic freedom of legitimate, rational, and often quite brilliant professors (especially in mideast and Arab studies) with whom this segment of the American right happens to disagree. I realize its not quite as sexy a story as this loon’s, and while I have little faith in the SCLM to properly cover it, it – not this – is the *real* story.”
The problem with these “brilliant” Mideast and Arab Studies Professors is that they are anti-Semitic. Columbia (home of Said) is notorious for this. Columbia accepted 2.5M from the United Arab Emirates, a loathesome pithole of repression, *official* anti-Semitism, and intolerance. Joseph Massad is a Jordanian Prof at Columbia who consistently characterizes Israel as a racist state, asked a former Israeli armed services student (in Israel there is universal mandatory conscription) how many Arabs he killed and would not allow him to speak in class, another Professor Saliba told a student she could not have ties to Israel because “her eyes were green.” Massad told students that Jews in Nazi Germany were not physically abused or harassed until Kristallnacht in November 1938. He led a class discussion about Jenin and shouted ‘I will not have anyone sit through this class and deny Israeli atrocities.’ Massad, has argued in his writings that Israel is a racist state that does not have a right to exist. He claims that Israel does not represent the Jews and has called for a “one-state solution” to the Middle East conflict. Palestinians have lost international support, he wrote in 2003, because Yasser Arafat has made too many concessions to Israel and has tried to suppress the intifada. Columbia ‘s Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures Department chairman, Hamid Dabashi, advocates “dismantling the Zionist entity.”
American Nazis, KKK members, and anti-Semites all have the academic freedom to make such issues part of their course work. And the public that pays their salaries, either directly or indirectly (unless Columbia wants to pay back the Federal Funds it sucked down over the last hundred years) has a right to demand an explanation for things that are far outside the mainstream.
Green, I consider the sentiments expressed at Columbia (which is far from the worst offenders) far outside the mainstream or even respectable, intellectually or morally. They are, in and of itself, indefensible. But then, what can you expect from a region that regularly accuses Jews and Americans of stealing organs from Palestinian and Arab children, and repeats the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as fact. Repeatedly. In Newspapers, TV, and radio.
Want some real ugly hate? What I’m talking about? See this ugly link at UCI:
http://standwithus.com/UCI_incitement2005.asp
Watch him justify bombing buses. Civilians in Pizza places. THIS Leftists is the face of the folks you justify. Green here’s EXACTLY what I’m talking about. You can refuse to face it, excuse it, or justify it, but this guy is no different from Said except he’s on tape.
[Note: I used to be a Leftist. THIS is exactly why I am not.]
(Now I’m done).
February 5th, 2005 at 1:04 am
“Conservatives are widely represented in business, engineering, law, and the sciences at America’s top colleges and universities, and well represented at colleges and univerisites generally in the humanities, as well as virtually every other discipline.”
What a bunch of nonsense.
So academia is full of conservatives and no right winger would want to be a historian? ROFLMAO.
Talk about silly stereotypes. Apprently all right wingers want is big money in somebody’s world, but not in reality. There are right wing historians, but not many young ones because of the discrimination I described.
As far as there being plenty on the right in engineering, that used to be true but is not any more (obviously some schools are exceptions). My data is from articles involving surveys and other numerical research such as voter rolls.
But it also comes from my life as a faculty brat at two Universities, and student at one of those and one other (UCLA). Engineering schools now have a high democrat to republican ratio – not as high as humanities, where it is approaching a singularity (0 in the denominator of the ratio), but 5:1, 6:1, etc.
As one in the enineering gprofession (software and electronic engineering). it’s clear that conservatives are rare and social conservatives are very rare. Any read of slashdot will show that.
Then I hear that academia is not paid well. My father, as a retired distinguished professor, makes far more as a retiree than the average working PhD engineer. The benes and perks are great, too.
The difficulty of getting a professorship or tenure is real. It is a consequence of baby boomers filling the top positions and is true throughout our society (and the west). It’s a demographic trend. One reason for the high demand, by the way, is the high pay and great perks of professorship. The bottleneck just makes it that much easier to keep out the conservatives – the more applicants, the easier to throw one out.
I do question the need for many of the soft humanities professors. So much of their writing is total trash – especially in English departments. How many psychologists are teaching thoroughly discredited theories (such as Freudian and derivative psychoanalysis)? How many of the sociologists are doing valid scientific studies as opposed to the pathetic ones that are always in the paper, where adequate controls are missing, cofactors not accounted for, etc?
The left has won, so far. You will write the history, because historians are mostly leftists (especially young ones who are facing the ideological filtering). English departments are even worse, but then there is nothing obective in the field to measure ideas against. J schools and Ed schools are solidly democrat. Same for social work and psych. B schools may not be as left as engineering – heck, they might even have a conservative majority – somewhere. But that’s little solace.
References and sample data: http://www.missouri.edu/~aab2b3/dk_aw_voter.pdf
Stanford full professors: 183D/31R
Stanford assoc professors: 40/0
Stanford humanities: 72/2
Stanford hard sciences: 78/15
Stanford total faculty: 275/36 ( 7.6 : 1 )
When you have a minimum ratio of around 5 to 1, and voting is by majority, the 5ers completely control. And that is the case in every department category at Stanford including professioonal schools (53/11 – slightly below 5-1).
Other studies show similar results and many different schools.
So the conclusion is simple: every department in every university in the US, with a few exceptions, is totally dominated by the left.
Sorry, Josh. The Bell Curve is basically correct in its theory that the society is stratifying by IQ. Most of the controversy was over racial average IQ differences (just one of many chapters), which psychometricians simply accept as fact (but they don’t know why the disparities other than it is not culture or poverty). THe theory of g as a universal indicator of general intelligence is solidly proven, and now backed up by physical measurements such as evoked response potential latency.
See http://www.gnxp.com/ for a bunch of very serious experts expounding (with a comment’s section) on the subject (warning: not for the faint-of-heart PC crowd). The race disparities are very troublesome, obviously, to anyone who wants a healthy multiethnic society (which I think most Americans desire). Note: those who say there is no such thing in science as “race” need to go to gnxp and find out otherwise. It is full of research geneticists.
Marc is right to call out Ward Churchill. If the left wants to be taken seriously, it needs to condemn the idiots like Churchill that are within it.
Jim Rockford, you are correct in your last post. Well done. One could be perhaps forgiven for using the word “courage” early on in the situation, before the nature of the reward for suicide was made so clear. Beyond that, they were simply vicious mass murderers, the vanguard of the Islamofascists.
February 5th, 2005 at 1:15 am
THREE EACH and ZIP.
February 5th, 2005 at 2:18 am
Now, if disparities in intelligence can’t be attributed to culture or poverty, isn’t genetic superiority/inferiority the only thing that’s left? I mean, what else is there, religious affiliation? “I didn’t draw a swastika, I just painted the white area all around it . . .”
And isn’t a discussion of the political complexion of academia incomplete without the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute?
February 5th, 2005 at 2:27 am
i will just say that in the not so distant past i had the same type of thoughts as churchill, and i must say that i am ashamed of myself….
that is not to say that i have jumped ship from ‘the left’ and became any kind of ‘conservative’. i have just matured alot (from reading hitchens and cooper(i am not ashamed of reading, and enjoying, hitchens in the least bit))
i have simply jumped ship from ‘the left’ and relocated to something farther to the left. i guess it would be called anarchist, though i hate the label. and i have been realizing quite alot latley that i find myself irriated with people like churchill etc..who seem to be willing to ally themselves with any cause that is ‘anti-imperialist’ no matter how vile they are. so..cheers to marc for taking the piss out of churchill…
p.s. i am rather intoxicated, so forgive and misspellings or bad grammar.
February 5th, 2005 at 2:32 am
Ward Churchill is a nobody who arrives at his fifteen minutes of fame as we pause between jury selection and opening arguments in the Michael Jackson trial.
It appears we agree that:
Ward is an ass,
Ward has written and published a thought that many agree is an “execrable piece of shit” (which may be redundant but which conveys just the right amount of nastiness),
Ward had every right to say what he said,
We have every right to ignore or attack what he wrote,
Hamilton College has no obligation to let him speak at their school.
Still open to discussion: Colorado U. can associate with whomever they please, or not, and fire him if they believe that is in their best interest. This does not account for tenure rules, which I must admit don’t fully understand.
I really like how this illustrates the elegance of the First Amendment. Our buddy Ward is free to say what he wants and we are free to debate and either accept or kill his idea. It can no longer go on living in some secret pamphlet that becomes soiled and dog-eared over being passed from one accolyte to another. The idea is out there, it is debated, and, rightfully in this case, marginalized and thrown in the trash heap of history. Brilliant!
February 5th, 2005 at 3:20 am
Jim Rockford just to let you know I think your comments are far too insane, too jam packed with race baiting, false and spurious claims of anti semiticism (against great humanist like edward said, nonetheless) and utter nonsense to take seriously. So i’ll direct nothing but silence your way. As for pseudo scholarship as Bell, i thing Josh Legere is way off the mark. You can’t have academic freedom for some and not others. Calls to fire intellectual brownshirts and purveyers of pseudo scinece like Murray, were in my view way off mark and can’t be defended. They miss the point anyway. As Michael Eric Dyson said the very existence of thtat book on the shelfs of millions of Americans itself spkoe to the powerful resonance of white supremacy and a history of bedasement of people of African origin. To say fire him is just a way out, but to attempt to politically confront the deep sentiment amongst in society which gives people like Murray prominence is much harder, but nonetheless is the real task for us to take on.
As for Marc’s bait about who is and isn’t easy targets for Bill O’Reilly, I’m not biting. O’Reilly has already declared a fatwa of sorts against “unamerican professors”. That presumably includes all of those who speak unpopular truths about US foriegn policy, and beg to dissent against the national mythology that sees our history as solely on of spreading democracy. Dare to affront the police of acceptable thought and you’ll probably find yourself in this war like reactionaries crosshairs. Nonsense about who makes it easier for O’Reilly to attack us is pointless.
As for Marc Cooper, I’m not really surprised he avoided my main point. The Daniel Pipes of the world (who by the way openly avocates ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and has recently written a defence of Japanese internment and thinks it should provide a sort of model for treating Arab Americans) are not the ones being hunted down, nor they’re jobs being threatened. The attacks on Churchill are, in fact, part of a larger story in which those with power are attempting to impose a system of acceptable thought and a conformist version of patriotism, anyone who speaks outside of this is in the crosshairs. Steve makes a seemingly funny joke about Fox deciding who is and isn’t acceptable profs, but that’s what the Churchill defence is really about. The other stuff about “cause celebre” or left “hero worship” is complete and utter nonsense, surely Marc knows this
February 5th, 2005 at 3:45 am
Against my own intuition, i’ll engage Jim Rockford briefly, asking solely if he can substanciate a slur and back it up with sources and arguments. This is usually neccesarry when one makes an argument, particularly of the accusatory variety. Anyone who has bothered to read the late Edward Said will know the range of his intellectual interests are wide and his writings on politics, history and culture have been extremelly influnecial. He was also a great spokesman for the Palestinian national aspirations. His advocacy on behalf a a dispersed and belegeared people had nothing to do with “anti semitism” but rather was based on universilistic humanitarian principals and a belief in human rights for all. In a beautiful obituary Hitchens, now loved by Josh Legere types, praised Said as one of the great humanists of our time. He arguments were rooted in resistance to the desturction of a Palestinian identity, a belief in equality and coexistence not antagonism with Jews of Israel. He said this “I have always advocated resistance to Zionist occupation, I have never argued for anything but peaceful coexistence between us and the Jews of Israel once Israel’s military repression and dispossession of Palestinians has stopped.” He made a reasoned and morrally sound argument advocating justice for Palesitnians and coexistence, based on equality with Israelis. Its in this vein that i ask Rockford to produce something close to evidence for the following accusations of racism and utter nonsesne that follows.
“The amount of utter double-standard, anti-Semitic trash that flowed through Ed Said’s work, and his classroom comments, is simply amazing. That an intelligent person could hold these views (calling Jenin a case of genocide, throwing rocks at Israelis, denying the legitimacy of the Israeli state, and celebrating terrorism against Israel) is simply unbelievable. Edward Said was the man who felt Yasir Arafat was too “soft” on Israel and wanted more terrorism.”
Rockford, please substaciate these claims, particularly the part about anti semiticism with some quotes from Said and some arguments. No smears please, rather quote the source Said. If you can’t back it up then perhaps you can just shove it. cool?
February 5th, 2005 at 3:56 am
From http://www.satyamag.com/apr04/churchill.html
” Your recent works detail the documentable history of the consequences of U.S. imperialism. After reading On the Justice of Roosting Chickens and listening to your two CDs, what do you want your audience to walk away with?”
A fundamental understanding of the nature of their obligation to intervene to bring the kind of atrocities that I’ve described to a halt by whatever means are necessary.
===============================
I have gotten the impression that that is a position that many who comment on this blog could agree with.
February 5th, 2005 at 7:30 am
Wow, a food fight! I was working on an entry about Ward Churchill (http://gmroper.com) and put it in draft status looking for a copy of the photo with him in fatigues, beret and the assault weapon. When I came back to finish the work, I found that Marc had beat me to it. Not only did he beat me to it, his posting was from a superior point of view than mine was. Hats off to you Marc.
Having said that, there are a number of fallacious arguments in these comments~ John, many things can account for differences in IQ. First of which we have no idea what intelligence really is, though we can measure parts of it. In addition, there really is no such thing as a totally culture free intelligence test. Even the Ravens Progressive Matrices uses designs that may be foreign to some cultures. I use IQ tests all the time and have learned that it can only estimate intelligence and that other factors, often unknown factors, can interfere with interpretation. In one of the Wechsler tests for example is the question “Where is Chile?” If the person administering the test to a Hispanic individual not thoroughly raised in an Anglo culture, and he pronounces it “Where is Chill-E” he may hear as an answer “In a bowl, on the stove or in a can” which is a wrong answer on the Wechsler, but a correct interpretation of the information. If on the other hand, he asks an Anglo the same question but pronounces it Che-lay, the Anglo may not understand the pronunciation at all. That is just one question. So, in ending are there differences? Probably, can we tell what those differences are and can we discern whether they are of the superior/inferior (in regards to race) or are they measurements of difference only? I suspect difference only.
As to Ahmed’s rants regarding Churchill, Sontag and Said, he needs to re-read their writings with an unjuandiced eye.
Steve, you consistently remark that Marc’s friends say one thing and here Marc says something different. So? I say lot’s of things different from some of my very conservative friends. That is not an argument in and of itself. Do you ever disagree with the things YOUR friends and compadres say? I think probably you do. In addition, steve, you rant and rant often about stereotyping and here you comment; “i see those right wing students just desparate to be historians instead of MBAs or power lawyers…of course, it makes sense, the historians get paid so much better.” In fact, a very good friend of mine, a retired Marine Lt.Col. is a History Professor and a damn good one, is conservative, and gets exceptionally good evaluations from his students, and this in the Democratic Stronghold of south Texas. Does that make you a hypocrite?
Josh, good points all amigo!
Now, for my own feeble thoughts. Churchill is an utter ass. Period! However, he damn sure has the right to say anything he wants. If he is fired, the UC folk damn sure better make sure that the firing is because of lies on his application for employment (probably easy to prove – see the AIM statements) or for shoddy scholarship (maybe easy to prove) or some such reason. If they fire the creep because of WHAT he said, I will be one of the first to defend him.
Steve, other than the concept of free speech, can you think of any reason to suppress the speech of Fox News. Don’t they have the right to call out anyone they want on their ideas. If there is free speech for anyone, it must be for all. Damning the free speech of one organization in favor of another is hypocritical.
I have no problem with the free speech rights of the leftist press (NYTimes, LATimes, and WashPost etc.) though I reserve the right to call them on their stupidity. I have no problems with the free speech rights of the rightist press (WashTimes, Fox News) etc., though I reserve the right to call them on their stupidities also.
This is turning into a rant, sorry about that. One last point, anyone, left or right that would defend what Churchill has said (not his right to say it)is an idiot and an anti-intellectual. Any one who defends his right to say anything he wants but reserves the right to attack what he said is possibly an idiot and anti-intellectual, but absolutely correct in that position on this subject.
First, Second and Third comment due to the length. On the other hand, maybe I’ll hold on to the third comment.
Cheers!!
February 5th, 2005 at 8:08 am
I don’t think that Ward Churchill’s article is any more outrageous than the statements made by a bunch of leftists, including Doug Henwood, calling for war against the Taliban after 9/11, as reported in the NY Observer:
For Doug Henwood, a WBAI radio host who wrote the scathingly anti-capitalist Wall Street, one of the best-selling leftist books of the decade, and who called the Gulf War and the bombing in Kosovo “American imperial manipulations,” the question is a no-brainer. “This is an attack on us,” he said. “There is a near-certainty that something will be done again soon. Clearly, considerable use of force will have to be used to
capture these motherfuckers.”
February 5th, 2005 at 8:22 am
The problem with dismissing Churchill like this is that his is probably the majority opinion on 9/11 across the globe. I’m certain it’s impossible to regard him as more wrong or more wrongheaded than I do, or to be more contemputuous of his faux-incendiary rhetoric. Still, he is making an argument. A bad argument, but an argument that nonetheless does have its attractions for non-Americans (or for self-hating Americans).
The denunciatory strategy that Marc is adopting here is less effective, I think, than the strategy of thanking him for his contribution to the debate, refuting that contribution by calming showing where it is wrong, and moving on.
When you denounce you make it look as if the issue is personal or narrowly political. In fact, the issue is moral and intellectual: This guy is wrong, we can show that he’s wrong, and we therefore refuse to listen further till he engages our objections (which of course he never does).
February 5th, 2005 at 8:36 am
Wow, I am stunned…really…German Right-Wingers and American Right-Wingers, German Nationalist and American Nationalist view liberalism and leftist with the same lens.
And by the way, you right-wing nationalist cannot be against affirmative action and for the biggest act of “reverse racism” in the history of the West…the state of Isreal is the most radical affirmative action policy done by “Liberals”.
February 5th, 2005 at 9:15 am
> When someone gets university tenure
> they don’t get intellectual immunity,
> pal.
Bless you for saying that!
I work freelance, and have no patience with tenure… The idea that these tens (hundreds?) of thousands of college professors must be insulated from the rigors of a competitive economy in order to think their big, precious thoughts is offensive on its face. I look over the decades of my life, and it’s obvious that the taxpayers haven’t received much value in innovation, given the cost of patching the elbows of all those tweed sportscoats.
So in Colorado there’s a dickweed sharing his unpopular ideas, and he hopes to be shielded by tenure. But apparently it’s not going to work out that way, because the fundamental economics are bogus: People don’t like paying the salaries of small-minded weenie-men.
I’m OK with that! Don’t whine about what’s going to happen NEXT time some academic genius has an unpopular idea… WHERE ARE ALL THE INNOVATIVE IDEAS we’ve been paying for all these years?
Tenure is fraudulent at the root.
February 5th, 2005 at 10:35 am
Marc, Your exercise in common sense is first-grade stuff. That’s right, first-GRADE, and it’s not a criticism. On the contrary, your original instincts was right: to ignore the dufus because there are a thousand jackasses born every minute, and a lot of them have stupid opinions that we should do ourselves the favor of ignoring.
But the fact that this has stirred ANY controversy at all — not to mention 40 comments of the usual stupefyingly boring length — is an indication of the moral and intellectual depths to which some of the authors have sunk and where they are pursued by others who should know better than to waste their time. I shudder to think that these strange minds could be representative of the opposition to Bushism. If so, we will have the latter with us for a long time to come.
February 5th, 2005 at 10:55 am
Well, thanks for your two cents, Tim…here’s your change.
February 5th, 2005 at 11:34 am
“As to Ahmed’s rants regarding Churchill, Sontag and Said, he needs to re-read their writings with an unjuandiced eye”
GM Roper is it too much too ask that you actually read my posts before responding? I’ve made zero arguments here about Sontag, and although i’ve read alot of Said, my point here was to respond to a slur, not advance a particluar interpretation of him. Same goes for Churchill, since the entirety of my comments have been directed towards the discourse and context of the attacks on Ward, on not at all my take on his writing. Anyone can see that, I have no idea how you arrived at a different conclusion. And quit being such an ass, if you disagree with what I’m saying mount your own argument, don’t just say i need “an unjuandiced eye” That’s just a poor excuse not to engage someeone else in a debate over what they actually wrote. Absolutely pitiful and asinine stuff, fella. But what else would one expect out of a person who once falsely claimed to know for a fact that more then half of all Muslims believe in death for apostacy.
February 5th, 2005 at 11:37 am
> Churchill is an “ass” but remember what
> Voltaire said
But Voltaire’s words were not, “I disagree with everything you say, but will defend your right to retain tenure on the taxpayer’s dime when you say it.” As far as I can tell, Marc, no one here disputes Churchill’s right to state his beliefs on a radio station, for a newspaper interview, or in (god help us) a blog. The free speech issue is rather a red herring. On what basis should taxpayers be required to subsidize speech that almost all of them find repugnant?
The counter-argument here is, of course, “If you refuse to subsidize repugnant speech, you cause a chilling of general discourse.” The first counter-counter argument to that is this: If a taxpayer revolt against certain repugnant speech hurts the quality of a university as a whole, it creates a market for competing universities who have more open discourse. The second counter-counter argument is this: bad speech tends to drive out the good. So much energy is spent debating the extreme, repugnant points of view, it exerts a tremendous opportunity cost on debating ideas that are far more worthwhile. When extremists are allowed an equal say in a forum, people tend to withdraw from the debate altogether, leaving the ideologues on either side to thrash it out before a steadily decreasing audience.
In Internet terms, Ward Churchill is a troll. As you should know from this very blog, trolls don’t improve a conersation, they poison it. We all know that even trolls retain their First Amendment rights, but what possible argument is there for obligating taxpayers to subsidize their trolling?
February 5th, 2005 at 11:50 am
Kevin Drum gets it right:
“After reading yet another article about University of Colorado nutjob Ward Churchill in the LA Times this morning, I began to wonder. How did this story get so much play? I mean, the guy’s an obscure academic in Boulder and the paper that created all the flurry was written three years ago. What gives?
The short answer is twofold: it’s the result of both the agenda-setting power of the right wing outrage machine and the agenda-setting power of the New York Times.”
Read the whole thing:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_02/005595.php
The real story here is that there is a large, and powerful right-wing scandal cum outrage mongering machine in this country, with a small army of paid hackish minions perpetually looking to dig up the latest offense by the left – even ones that are three years old. Liberals and leftists have been apologizing profusely for their moonbats, wingnuts, fruitcakes, and losers for at least the last quarter century, and quite frankly we’ve had enough apologizing.
You reap what you sow, and what the right doesn’t understand is that the left is now catching up with them, learning their stock and trade. It was liberal bloggers who deserve most of the credit for bringing down the House of Lott. The movement spawned by the Dean campaign is still in its infancy, but at some point in the next several decade it will dominate the airwaves and the halls of power, and it will be conservatives routinely apologizing for their racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and their everlasting war on the poor.
February 5th, 2005 at 11:58 am
That’s funny, Wagner, you seem to be doing what you accuse trolls of doing, poisoning the discourse.
I hope you can federalize the rules by which we could discover who is poison in our society.
What is your Final Solution for these pests of the American Spirit and Purity?
February 5th, 2005 at 12:03 pm
Attacking all tenured Profs, because of one is typical right-wing nationalistic BS.
February 5th, 2005 at 12:04 pm
sorry, i see i went over my limit, will stop, now.
February 5th, 2005 at 12:06 pm
I’m against tenure. The unemployment lines are full of people who want to do good work and they come from all walks of life (except professors)–and, these unemployed didn’t have tenure.
If someone wants to be a jerk and express outrageous and unacceptable views as though he knows all–then, let him do it on his own time and money and not be subsidized by taxpayers. Churchill can exercise his freedom of speech on his own.
This is just another case of where American education is failing and where liberals still defend it.
February 5th, 2005 at 12:56 pm
> Attacking all tenured Profs, because of one
> is typical right-wing nationalistic BS.
I may be right-wing (though a lifelong Democrat) and may even be typical in my BS. But who you callin’ “nationalistic,” fella?
We’re not attacking the profs, we’re attacking tenure. This is fun and easy to do. This guy Churchill’s gig is very much in play this week, so apparently tenure isn’t the perfectly padded and safe playpen that he’d thought it was… Golly, he might have to grow up a little!
If you find conservative delight in this to be similarly infantile, don’t worry. We’ll stop sniggering in a week or two.
February 5th, 2005 at 1:52 pm
STEVE WRITES: “Incorrect. You were reading someone else in this thread perhaps?”
“On the other hand, it is rather odd, because if you go back and read the readings of Herbert Marcuse, one of Marc’s own political heroes, you can find statements by Marcuse that are not different in tone or content from Churchill’s statements.” THAT’S ONE.
“However, I agree with Marc’s good friend Henwood on this, letters should be sent to the chancellor calling for an end to FOX News determining which professors are politically correct for their tastes.” THAT’S TWO FROM THIS THREAD
“all i’ve ever done is present you with Jerry Lembcke’s debunking of the myth of the spat on veterans, a person by the way who has been interviewed favorably not once but twice by Marc Cooper [now, if I'm being disrespectful by supporting Lembcke on a blog comment board, Marc reached a whole lot more people than me I"m afraid giving Lembcke a platform *twice* to a much larger audience]” THAT’S THREE (FROM EARLIER THREADS)
“marc cooper’s interviews with jerry lembcke only show that even better.
ok, i’ll just laugh” THAT’S FOUR, AND NOT FROM THE SAME THREAD AS # THREE
“Maybe Marc should interview John about the terrible things that happened to the vets, to balance his two interviews with Jerry Lembcke?” THAT’S FIVE, FROM THE SAME THEREAD AS NUMBER 4
“check out the Sasha Liley program btw if you wanna see someone doing something productive on the left in radio as an answer to the problems that Marc sees as so major. Or Henwood’s program for that matter” THAT’S SIX.
Steve, I only went back a couple of weeks, so I guess I should have said “Frequently” rather than consistently.
You can argue all you want my friend, but it’s there for all to see.
February 5th, 2005 at 2:29 pm
I agree with Marc Cooper, that WC is an ass but shouldn’t be fired for it, perhaps for lying about his ethnicity, but plenty of asses have tenure so why single him out.
From what I have read he takes $96,000 per year, with all the attendant benefits, retirement, and job security for life, from the State of Colorado, a subdivision of the Great Satan. How can he pass judgment on others for being tools of the machine?
“Of course the right wing is going to go after professors they dont like.” Unfortunatley, yes, they will and they are now, just like the left has done for the past 20 years. At a recent meeting, I heard faculty at my “conservative” university openly mock the Republican chair of a department (behind his back, of course) while other faculty looked on in silence, afraid to stick up for him or show their colors. Let’s face it, universities are leftist dominated. I’ve read theses approved by the committee where the entire study is based on allegations of racism made by anonymous study participants not sourced at all: no first names, dates, nothing, out of racial “sensitivity.” This is impartial scholarship??
But this dominance of one POV is coming to an end. The right will fight back and encroach upon the high priestly ranks until they, too, take the tenured positions and the chairs and the perks to eventually abuse their own sinecure. And so it goes.
What I would like to see is true diversity of thought and a competitive marketplace meaning, of course, no tenure, and more participation by the parents and donors in developing an institution deserving of their funding.
February 5th, 2005 at 3:36 pm
Hey Marc,
Just to change the subject and to prevent me from singing my Plastic Jesus song….
I bought your book about Las Vegas and was thrilled to see that it is in memory of Neil Postman. He’s one of the reasons I came to the USA. What a great man! I guess I’ll have to “blog” about it later!
Am really looking forward to reading your Las Vegas tale.
February 5th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
This post is long due to the 3 post limit, the complexity of the subject, and the fact that I’ve had many hours to recharge my wind bag.
Re: Churchill. His thinking is disgusting. There is a logic to it, but not a balance or even sanity, in the following sense: In a democratic country, the citizens as a whole are responsible for what the country does; hence if the country does evil, the citizens are responsible. This is a mirror image of the Doctrine of Odious Debt . Where the logic breaks down is in two places:
1) Collective punishment is usually wrong. In this case, attacking a civilian target on purpose was an extreme atrocity.
2) The “harm” we inflicted to induce this “punishment” was, according to the enemy, two things:
……2A) Having troops on Saudi soil, the soil of the sacred country entrusted with Mecca and Medina.
……2B) Defiling Allah in our culture (in Christian terms, “being sinners”) – as seen mostly through our exports of media, which exaggerates the sexual characteristics of our society (a sensitivity of their sick and twisted theology) and in general how our women are perceived and to a lesser extent, our men. A
None of these is something that should bring a judgment of death on civilians in the society. If Churchill wasn’t so disgusting, we could just consider him part of the tin foil crowd and ignore him. And in fact, we should, but the media won’t be able to – witness this thread.
There is another factor of importance here, though… the result of campus PC’ism in getting someone like him in position in the first place. How did a jack-ass like this ever get tenure? What is wrong with the faculty at that school? Well, for one thing, they are very highly leftist.
- BELL CURVE —
The Bell Curve is NOT about racial differences in IQ. Only one chapter addresses the subject. However, differences are well known, and some statistics are shocking when you look far down the right hand side of the curve (the high g side). The Bell Curve addresses a perceived trend, one with positive feedback making it more powerful, in achieving a stratified (read: class oriented) society as a result of a number of processes that cause higher IQ to be associated more and more with greater economic and political success, and to pass that status on through generations. America is great partly because few families succeed in passing on their “social status” and money for more than about 3 generations. IQ stratification goes against that positive trend.
I have not yet read the IQ comments after mine, because first I want to clear up some details that I left out about the genetic contribution to IQ. It is not 100%.
PLEASE UNDERSTAND that when a group of people is discussed, it is always in the statistical sense unless obviously otherwise. E.G. you can say that people have iris pigment in general. The fact that albinos do not does not mean the generalization is wrong, it just means it is a simplified assertion for brevity (which is in short supply in this comment, sigh).
Terminology – “q” is the term used for general intelligence ( IQ is the score result intended to measure g as accurately as possible ). The existence of g as an important factor in human cognition is solidly established. The accuracy of testing for group measurements of g is also well established, even though there are many traps by which it can be done incorrectly.
g is affected as follows (fair estimates – lots of studies around this area):
40% environment
60% genetic
Environmental impacts are clearly a factor of poverty and other issues – maternal nutrition, prenatal care, child rearing techniques – stimulation, etc. The brain is plastic in at least some skill areas for a while after birth ( 2 years? ). Hence median IQ in some Indian castes is 70-80 – very low. This could result fromgenetics tied to malnutrition, disease and maybe child rearing methods.
Notice that IQ stratification can be caused by two effects: higher IQ leads to improved environment, and also higher IQ tendencies in the offspring due to genetics.
The rest of this post will address two issues: the problem of IQ stratification (i.e. it will assume this is a problem, and that higher IQ is better – which is not a given at a societal level), and responses to whatever responses I find as I read down.
But first, Nazi references are in the lowest tradition of modern debate and are great fun for some, but this is a serious topic. There are dangers in this subject almost as great as Naziism, but that doesn’t mean that asserting these facts IS equivalent to a Nazi viewpoint. Not discussing or suppressing the topic (as the PC world tries to do) increases the danger. This is a case where stereotypes, drawn from observation, can best be combatted with scientific truth.
Robert: F:There are several ways to ameliorate the potential problems of IQ stratification. Just within the US I’d list the following:
mixed marriages, which I suspect will take care of a lot of it over a long period of time;
abortion eugenics, which I would strongly oppose. Planned Parenthood was formed by a proponent of forced eugenics. Voluntary abortion eugenics for sex selection is common now in some countries (leading to a dangerous excess of horny young men – a good place to recruit terrorists or guerillas), and with advances in knowledge of the human genome, IQ predisposition selection will also be popular. This is obviously a dangerous trend.
measures to improve the environmental effects: improved maternal care, improved maternal behavior, improved nutrition.
I’m sure there are others.
Ahmed, that book actually shows East Asian, South Asian and Jewish supremacy in the g category, not white supremacy. You are way off base. Chinese and Jews in the US have the highest median IQ’s, and have corresponding life success. In India, members of the Brahmin caste have 1 SD higher IQ’s than the American mean (or is it median), while some other castes are below the American mean. Maybe you should read the book (of course, only one chapter deals with race, but you wouldn’t know that from the reaction to it) and again, http://gnxp.com/ has lots of good discussion on this subject, although much is very technical). You will also find a number (all?) of the authors describe themselves as “brown people” meaning Arab, Persian, Indian, etc.
I will happily agree with you about O’Reilly. The guy is simply a gigantic narcissist with a rude style and a, well, relatively low g. He’s an embarrassment to conservatives when we are lumped with him. He isn’t a conservative – he is an O’Reilly’ist in the sense that he has no consistent ideology. He does tend to be anti-left, but mostly he is just a blow-hard. He is a counterexample to the g correlation with success, since the guy makes huge bucks and his TV ratings have to be stroking his narcissistic needs.
As a side note, the Japanese internment type of thing (or some other “safety measure”) *will happen* if there are too many attacks and not enough self policing by Islamic Americans. It won’t matter who is president or in Congress either, when people get frightened enough. My Arab and Iranian friends are not worried about this, but I am. If there are future attacks in the US, they probably will be carried out by ethnic Europeans (which includes white Americans) rather than the Arabs, Persians, or Pakistanis, but the masterminds will most likely be middle eastern – probably Saudi or Egyptian.
Personally, I am in favor of ethnic profiling for the detection of terrorists, and I think a person who “looks like a terrorist” in his ethnicity but is an American citizen has an affirmative civic duty to make it easier for the security people to do their job. This in spite of my prediction above. It is a price some will pay as citizens. I volunteered for and went to Vietnam. Others are dying in Afghanistan or Iraq. Others (“terrorist looking people” can suffer embarrassment and delay. Others drew the long straws and don’t have an issue in this area. It is not fair and it is not equal, but it is probably necessary if megaterrorism returns to the US.
The big danger is that a major attack of certain kinds (say, suicide bombers in shopping centers all over the country, spread out randomly through a week) will cause such demands for safety by the citizenry that overly-extreme measures will be taken. This subject would itself make several good blog articles, because it is complex, counter-intuitive in that it specifically calls for unfair treatment, and controversial. I also think a related issue (National ID Cards and networked surveillance cameras of public places) is important, and you can read and reply to that here: http://snow.he.net/~ozone/BlogArchives/000141.html and here: http://snow.he.net/~ozone/BlogArchives/000797.html
Said is worse than the quote would imply, because of the so-called “Right of Return” question. Other than that, I’ll ignore that in this long post.
GMRoper – I finally get to disagree with you:-) I respect your experience and education which are superior to mine; however, there are people who trump us. Furthermore, as you know, what gets taught in this area is often censored for PC reasons. I rely on my daughter as a sanity check here, since she did study this in depth at JHU, and the studies were tied to neuroscience as opposed to pure black box observations. Importantly, the arguments apply to large numbers of people, while your anecdotes do not. That doesn’t mean they are meaningless, as they show the potential dangers, but they do not defeat some of the studies (there are lots of bad studies in the area also).
While we don’t know exactly what g is, we do know that it strongly correlates (and predicts) certain abilities and in general, life success (except for the somewhat higher than normal percentage of losers at Mensa, but that’s a small self-selected subset of those eligible). While there are no culturally neutral tests I know of (other than evoked response potential and probably future FMRI tests), there are culturally neutral results – i.e. ways to compare across cultures. Lots of folks have worked on this for many decades (for various reasons) and their primary goal (in that academic subfield) is to refine measurement of g, to make the tests as accurate as possible. While you provide ways the tests can be misapplied, they can also be done right – when you are looking at broad statistical averages and medians.
Simple logic tied to developmental neuroscience leads one to the conclusion that differences are highly probably (as you suggested). “superiority” or “inferiority” are obviously subjective definitions, but some relatively simple criteria can be agreed on by most (except, perhaps, Marxists who would probably use different measures – but then the Russian Marxist/Leninists forced the whole USSR to use Lysenkoism until it got Khruschev fired). Criteria are typically academic achievement potential (control issues to measure this are tough, of course), life success in terms of professional accomplishment, financial achievement, etc. In this sense, success does not equate to happiness or a “good life” but it helps (although the tendency for high IQ people to suffer from psychiatric disorders – especially bipolar – is a ball and chain for some).
In our society, higher IQ is generally beneficial.
HOWEVER, high IQ does not make the individual superior – a crucial issue. Is Churchill superior because he (probably) has a one or two standard deviation high IQ. Obviously having a high IQ and borderline personality disorder simply makes one a better criminal! High IQ and a racist attitude may still allow life success, but does not connote a good person. So while g is an important human characteristic, it is not a single qualifier of “goodness” or even success. It is like having good running stamina – part genetic, part development, part regular maintenance – and no indicator if you are a “superior person” or not. BTW, my comments about Mensa are meant to show that people with medium high IQ (top 2 percentile of population) or above are NOT necessarily superior or even successful. I joined because it was a way to meet some interesting people, but fewer than I had hoped. At least it is not the ego-stroking group (here in Phoenix) that so often pollute colleges.