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The Papacy: With all due respect to the strength of Pope John Paul II, one of the books I intend to read in the next few days is Garry Wills's Papal Sin: The Structures of Deceit. I'm a fan of Garry Wills from way back and I suspect that the book is all the more powerful because Wills is a devout Catholic. And the subject is all the more important because of the doctrine that the church, itself, is embodied in one man.
OAH: Somehow, Rick Shenkman's Reporter's Notebook over on HNN's mainpage helps me not regret missing this year's convention. You remember that the convention was moved from San Francisco to San Jose at the last minute because of a hotel workers strike in San Francisco. But, really, if two-thirds of those who pre-registered for the convention retained their hotel reservations in San Francisco, can we just skip the social justice posturing about not crossing picket lines? We know why you went to California this weekend and, for most of you, it didn't have much to do with either scholarship or social justice. If you expect to be re-embursed for this convention, your dean should be at the book exhibit and in those convention sessions and taking names.
Calling Rob Out: Don't wear this one out, but we now know what will get Rob MacDougall's attention. Some day, when he is teaching at the University of Western Ontario, he will recognize a smart young student who has raised his or her hand and the student will say:"Professor MacDougall, you will be hit ... by a fish!"
History Carnival: If you haven't visited History Carnival #5 over at ClioWeb, do. There are lots of goodies to be sampled. History Carnival #6 will be hosted by Jonathan Dresner at Cliopatria on 15 April.
Congratulations: To Wildhunt's Jason Pitzl-Waters, a professed pagan, who was wed to Mrs. Henry, a Roman Catholic, by a gay or lesbian Lutheran seminarian this weekend. All of this leaves me feeling slightly confused, but the blissful couple apparently is not and that's the important thing.
Finally: Mr. Sun! might not forgive me if I forgot to say,"Go, heels!"
Thanks, Anthony. Booing is bad form, in case your mother didn't teach you that. If booing is o.k., how long should you carry it on? Long enough to make sure the speaker cannot be heard by anyone at all? At whatever volume necessary? Booing is more appropriate for sports events than guest speakers.
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/4/2005
I've now pasted the questions that you did not answer that are not available in the assigned reading. I hope this proves I'm not a lazy undergraduate and that you were, indeed, not answering some questions.
"Would you object if the audience as a whole started booing the speaker so that she could no longer be heard? What if only one section of the audience started booing? If those aren't objectionable, what is the threshold below which it becomes an "assault on free speech," instead of the pie-throwing individual expressing their right to free speech through a symbolic action that -- I would assume -- does very little physical harm to the person?"
To the gentlement who said that we are being "hypocritical", come of it. Pie whomever you want! It's a damn pie for goodness sakes.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2005
Adam, Did I put it that way to please you? Yes, I did. I'm as opposed to pieing Nader and Gates as I am to pieing Coulter and Buchanan -- it's the final acknowledgement that there's nothing worth talking about. It's like a pacifist saying "Well, there's nothing to do but go to war."
Adam Kotsko -
4/4/2005
assault with cream pies
Assault -- with cream pies! Assault -- with cream pies!
I can see getting upset about something a little heavier -- say, an apple pie -- but, assault, with a cream pie, just seems like a stupid thing to get upset about.
Ralph Nader and Bill Gates and many other liberals have been pied, and I don't mind in the least. And I cannot understand why we can't treat Coulter as a special case here, a person who has basically ceded her right to be taken seriously.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2005
Mr. Nelson, When either a tenured professor or an adjunct professor has publicly referred to his or her students as "niggers," it seems to me that he or she has put his job in jeopardy. Given the legal system, it simply is easier to dispatch an adjunct professor than a tenured professor. In fact, however, the official reason adjunct professor Pluss was shown the door was because he missed six classes without an excuse or attempt to make them up. Tenure is recognized in law and it simply isn't to be dismissed as lightly as you continually do. Try to get it clear in your head that I am not a defender of either Pluss or Churchill. You seem to have trouble understanding that _fact_.
Jason Nelson -
4/4/2005
Mr. Luker,
Are you as frustrated with this hypocracy as I am? I can not believe that the left would sacrifice their principles this easily. Coulter deserves X, even though she IS and American citizen and deserves free speech rights, but any lefty should be given extra protection. This is rich.
Jason Nelson -
4/4/2005
I do not think a legal creation of academics should cause people to look at tenured professors as better than adjunct professors. There is no reason to believe that is true. In a moral sense, in a principled sense, there is NO difference between the two men. All men are created equal, right? I know there is a difference legally, I just do not believe that there should be. If you would defend a tenured professors' Nazism, than I would expect you to defend and adjunct professors' Nazism. On principle, there is no difference. Mr. Luker, perhaps you are more concerned with the law than with principle. At least this is the only excuse I can conjure that you would take such a stand.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2005
Touche'. I called you lazy, so you get to return the compliment. Am I to understand that Adam Kotsko condemns the pies in the face to Pat Buchanan and William Kristol, but thinks the one that missed Ann Coulter should have been better aimed? Or, does Adam Kotsko, like Anthony Smith, support assault with cream pies only on conservative speakers?
Adam Kotsko -
4/4/2005
That's a lazy slippery slope argument. I don't think everyone on the right is Ann Coulter by a longshot.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2005
... and, so, both sides ends up throwing pies past each other. Sounds like fun -- and no assault charges.
Adam Kotsko -
4/4/2005
Ann Coulter does not deserve an argument. She deserves a gesture that says, "Oh, come off it!" Maybe a pie in the face isn't the best way to deliver that message, but an argument, in her case, is missing the mark by a longshot, because she doesn't feel obligated to respond in kind.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2005
Which of the questions did I not answer? The pie aimed at Coulter missed its mark. Some target practice is, at least, in order. And I already provided links to the newspaper accounts about the three incidents, so I'm not sure that, having cited the sources, I'm obliged to do Anthony's or Adam's reading for them. You're behaving like undergraduates who expect the professor to summarize for them in class the reading assignment that they did not do. Seriously, pie throwing is an abdication from the hard work of countering a speaker with a well aimed argument or, as in Adam's comment here, a well aimed skeptical inquiry.
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/4/2005
Something tells me a real pie would make more of difference on dear old Ann.
Now, since Adam was far more congienial please do answer his questions.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2005
Why do I find Adam Kotsko's bemused befuddlement a more congenial form a criticism than Anthony Smith's frontal charge? Those who do these things should know that they are subject to arrest for assault and they throw themselves at the mercy of the person they assaulted to not press the charges. Ann Coulter's pie in the face should be a metaphorical one that flings her dismembered rhetoric right back in her face with a smart deconstruction.
Adam Kotsko -
4/4/2005
I'd like more info on this pie-throwing thing. Do the victims press charges? Do they ever require post-pie medical attention? Would you object if the audience as a whole started booing the speaker so that she could no longer be heard? What if only one section of the audience started booing? If those aren't objectionable, what is the threshold below which it becomes an "assault on free speech," instead of the pie-throwing individual expressing their right to free speech through a symbolic action that -- I would assume -- does very little physical harm to the person?
I can definitely see objecting to people staking out commencement ceremonies with sniper rifles, but this is not "assault." And it's not a big deal. It's not an act of aggression, but a prank aimed at deflating the person.
Ann Coulter deserves a pie in the face, and I'm glad someone gave it to her. I don't favor the formation of a government agency to administer pies in the face, however.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2005
If there is a "pie throwing movement," it's been going on since before you were a twinkle in your father's eye. You see the aim at conservative speakers as a mere coincidence, I suppose. _Who_ has a monopoly on speech? Yes, speech is a right and disrupting it disrupts a right. You have it but don't seem to value it very much.
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/4/2005
Haha.
I see you know nothing about the pie throwing movement. They hit EVERYONE! So, yes it would annoy me if a conservative tried to throw a pie at Berube or Negri, but only because they already have a monopoly on speech. You are the one who keeps dragging rights into this, I didn't say there was some right to throwing a pie, but that the act isn't a supression of people's right to speak.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2005
So, let me understand you correctly, Anthony. Hitting speakers in the face with a pie is a protected act. Right? If a right-wing student hit Berube or or McLemee or Negri in the face with a pie while one of them was giving a speech, you wouldn't think the student was trying to disrupt legitimate speech. Do I understand you correctly? I'm just trying to understand your position in such a way that it respects the rights of conservative opinion as carefully as it respects the rights of liberal or left-wing opinion. Or, are you _merely_ one more ideologue among many ideologues? Speaking up only for _your_ side. Aren't you tired of that role?
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/4/2005
I've actually taken a course in logic, but thanks. It's funny you mention it, because I was making fun of your constant "If you don't agree with me on X, you are just like vile human beings y and p" by applying your logic to the situation. If the American constitution isn't willing to protect the speech of people with whom American disagrees, then it is just like Horowitz and Coulter. I don't actually believe this, but its the same thing you are accusing me of.
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/4/2005
Yes, but Ralph is trying to make this about the supression of speech. I'd have to agree that hitting Ann Coulter in the face with a pie is not going to elevate political discourse, but her right to speech is far from being threatened.
David Silbey -
4/4/2005
"Neither of the three conservatives you mention as being "assaulted" are in any danger of having their speech supressed in a meaningful way. While our Sandanista historian is. So, who should I decide to actually defend? Not Coulter."
Is this an either/or question? Could we support the Sandinista historian while saying that hitting Ann Coulter in the face with a pie is probably not a way to elevate political discourse in this country?
Ralph E. Luker -
4/3/2005
Anthony, I humbly submit that you need to take a course in logic. That the Constitution of the United States does not protect the speech rights of people who are not citizens of the United States is _no_ grounds for concluding that it is "just as bad as Horowitz and Coulter and a bit pagan." I suppose that you'd like to see the people of the United States or their representatives presume to write a document which guarantees the rights (which ones?) of all people all over the world! Talk about imperialist pretension!
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/3/2005
A disruption is not supression of speech. I thought we were talking about protecting their right to free speech, but you seem to keep going back to something done to them (which didn't supress their speech) that you consider shameful (and I don't). We can argue about the action, but it's a bit rash to call this a free speech issue.
I concede your point about the nationality of the repressed speech of others. Of course, that means our constitution is just as bad as Horowitz and Coulter and a bit pagan, but that's cool.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/3/2005
I have no objection to your supporting the visa appeal of the Sandinista historian. In fact, I do too. I was also opposed to the visa denial of Tarik Ramadan. The situations aren't comparable, however, because they are not a citizen of the United States and, thus, have to go through a visa process. Their free speech rights are not constitutionally guaranteed. Like them or not, Buchanan, Coulter, and Kristol are citizens of the United States, beneficiaries of its constitutionally protected rights. In a civil community, no speaker or her audience should be threatened with the sort of disruption to which you are indifferent. These disruptions are assaults, whether you want to recognize them as such or not.
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/3/2005
So a Rawlsian veil of ignorance thing, eh? You don't know, while under the veil of ignorance, if you will end up a facist so you should will to protect the rights of facists just in case? I kid.
What bothers me about your position, and the way you misunderstand mine, is the way it never rises out of the level of abstraction. Neither of the three conservatives you mention as being "assaulted" are in any danger of having their speech supressed in a meaningful way. While our Sandanista historian is. So, who should I decide to actually defend? Not Coulter.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/3/2005
I do not believe that Ann Coulter's speech is an a priori good. I do believe it is an a priori good that she is free to say what she wishes to say and some people choose to hear. I am opposed to the supression of diabolical speech and nonsense. If you favor suppression of diabolical speech and nonsense, who would decide what is to be suppressed? If you condone speech suppression, it _will_ be done by forces you condemn.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/3/2005
Thanks for the approval, Jason. Ward Churchill is being treated differently than Jacques Pluss because Churchill is a tenured professor and Jacques Pluss was an adjunct. You seem to have trouble understanding those facts and that difference.
Jason Nelson -
4/3/2005
Thank you Mr. Smith for providing a striking real life example of an attitude that does exist in acedemia. Everyone has the right to your opinion. You will fight to the death over the free speech right of those with whom you agree, or sympathize with.. This is why Churchill is recieving much different treatment than the Nazi.
Mr. Luker is correct.
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/3/2005
Or just have no interest in being a part of the auto-immunization of the Left.
You operate on a lot of a priori's that seem to be above reproach. Why would anyone want to fight for the free speech of Ann Coulter? Why do you feel that such speech is a priori good?
Ralph E. Luker -
4/3/2005
Then you're no better than Coulter and Horowitz.
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/3/2005
Does it matter? I just want her to go and try to carry out her program of killing leaders and converting the people to Christianity and see what happens.
I've never understood such statements about fighting for the speech rights of those with whom I disagree. Those enough people to fight for with whom I agree.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/3/2005
I dislike Ann Coulter's stuff as much as you do. Would you ship her off to Iraq under the old regime or Iraq without a regime?
You really haven't won your liberation spurs until you fight for the rights of those with whom you disagree.
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/3/2005
Not Ann Coulter. Ship her off to Iraq to experience their freedom.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/3/2005
Anthony, You really don't believe that conservatives _should_ have the same rights to which you are entitled, do you?
Anthony Paul Smith -
4/3/2005
Ann Coulter is a vile human being, if the most that happens to her is a pie in the face she's lucky. Too bad they missed.
While you defend three conservatives from the forces of pastry anarchists the world over, you missed this article.
