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Andrew Scull,"The Fictions of Foucault's Scholarship," TLS, 21 March, reviews a new [and, now, complete] English translation of Michael Foucault's History of Madness.* Scully claims that Foucault used long out-dated sources and data-mined them. One of the book's lessons, says Scully, is"the ease with which history can be distorted, facts ignored, the claims of human reason disparaged and dismissed, by someone sufficiently cynical and shameless, and willing to trust in the ignorance and the credulity of his customers." But, see also: Richard Prouty,"Madness, History, and Foucault," One-Way Street, 23 March. Thanks to Mark Bauerlein for the tip.
*The abbreviated, 1965 English translation of Foucault's work appeared as Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason.
Umberto Eco,"Temples for the Tourists," IHT, 2 April, traces the arc from aristocratic to bourgeois to mass tourism and argues that faux-temples for the masses may be the salvation of genuine antiquities. See also: Tim Burke,"Venice in Vegas," Cliopatria, 6 January 2004; and Luker,"American Fakery ...," Cliopatria, 7 January 2004. Thanks to Nathanael Robinson for the tip.
Cliopatria's note yesterday about the contested tenure decision about Norman Finkelstein at DePaul reverberated in several directions. John K. Wilson's College Freedom, 1 April, had inaccurately reported that there were rumors that Finkelstein would be denied tenure. That's one way to get such rumors started and, sure enough, the Chronicle of Higher Education's News Blog, 2 April, picked up and passed on the rumor. The decision is in process and DePaul is grappling with diverse opinions in the matter. Spreading rumors of a negative decision could prejudice the decision, itself. That's unfair both to Finkelstein and to DePaul.
Already, however, two questions occur to me about the process. First, to what extent, if any, and how has Harvard Law's Alan Dershowitz tried to intervene in DePaul's decision-making? If you think that question is not self-evident, have a look at Dershowitz's website, where Finkelstein's name is quite prominently featured and keep in mind that Dershowitz took his fight to pressure the University of California Press not to publish Finkelstein's last book all the way to Governor Schwarzenegger's office. The other question that occurs to me is: how did Peter Kirstein come to have documents that are internal to DePaul's tenure review process? He quotes extensively from Dean Charles Sucher's negative recommendation in Finkelstein's case, but specifically claims:"I have had no contact directly or indirectly with any of the principals involved concerning this issue. No one at DePaul who has participated in this case has supplied me with any materials or documentation." For more on the subject, see: Scott Jaschik,"Furor over Norm Finkelstein," Inside Higher Ed, 3 April.
Finally, the range of my colleagues' talents amazes me. Jonathan Reynolds, for instance, has a band,"46 long", and it's just recorded a commercial for Gold Star Chili. Hold your purist complaints about serving chili with spaghetti. That's how it's done in the Ohio Valley. When mom weaned me from the milk bottle, she put a bowl of spaghetti and chili in front of me.
You're welcome to the last word, Mr. Green. You're unwillingness to abandon smears without evidence to sustain your accusations is sufficient proof that you're not worthy of my time.
Elliott Aron Green -
4/7/2007
Please recall that I said in a prior post on this thread that Hitler himself and the other Nazi leaders did not, as far as I know, explicitly urge the killing of Jews. So if NF does not call for "extermination of the Jewish people," that does not make him different from the Nazis. What the German Nazis did was to prepare public opinion for the Holocaust by smearing, degrading, demonizing Jews, and by making up libels and slanders against the Jews and by reusing old --even ancient-- anti-Jewish slanders. I say, and I am not alone, that NF has invented slanders against the Jews portraying them as inherently evil, deceitful, etc., and indeed more so than other peoples.
If we want to judge sources, you disparage S Plaut and front page, while seeming to give credence to ranting Norman, or at least seeming to approve his possibly getting tenure.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/7/2007
Mr. Green, If Finkelstein's having been a red-diaper baby discredits him, it also discredits David Horowitz. Thanks for admitting that Finkelstein is not a Holocaust-denier. Now -- unless you're finally prepared to offer evidence -- admit that his argument isn't "Nazi-like". Nowhere does he advocate the extermination of the Jewish people. The extremity of your and Mr. Cohen's arguments actually gives credibility to Finkelstein's.
Elliott Aron Green -
4/7/2007
RL, there were several different kinds of Jewish anti-Zionism:
1- traditional religious fatalistic
2- bourgeois cum Reform Jewish
3- Communist
N Finkelstein belongs to the third school. He has said that his mother was Communist. Hence, we may assume that his upbringing was within a Communist ambience. What NF has done, that was not done by Schools 1 & 2 is that he has invented Judeophobic slanders against Jews. He allows that the Holocaust did happen, while claiming that the Jews used the fact of the Holocaust to harm the poor, innocent Palestinian Arabs. Without going into this whole sinister, Nazi-like argument, it must be pointed out that the Palestinian Arabs did collaborate in the Holocaust through their leadership and in other ways. Their chief leader in the period 1920-1950 was Haj Amin el-Husseini, the British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem. Husseini was a Holocaust collaborator. Further, the Arabs in the Land of Israel traditionally treated the Jews and the Christian population as inferiors in many ways under the social system called dhimma. Arab/Muslim rule was oppressive, humiliating, predatory, and exploitative. Joseph Schumpeter, by the way, has a useful description of Arab imperialism in his book: Imperialism. Also, see my article at link:
http://www.think-israel.org/green.neverexisted.html
Ralph E. Luker -
4/7/2007
Mr. Cohen:
1) I suspect I know rather more about what MLK said about Jewish people than you do;
2) if you look at what I have said about Dershowitz and Finkelstein, you might notice that I've taken no position on whether Finkelstein should be tenured. That's DePaul's business -- not yours, or mine, or Dershowitz's;
3) your naming-calling without any evidence for your behavior makes you looks very foolish. Persist in it if you must.
4) there's a tradition of anti-Zionism in 19th and 20th century Jewish history. Finkelstein is in that tradition. You may hate it, but it has nothing to do with Nazism or anti-semitism or terrorism. You may hate it, but it's persistent. Deal with it.
sagi cohen -
4/7/2007
Gosh, he edited some of MLK's papers. What an amazing academic achievement. Did he also jiggle the handle on the johns in his campus' men's rooms? In between cheering anti-Semites and terrorists?
Nonpartisan -
4/6/2007
Shows how much you know. Dr. Luker is retired, so he couldn't possibly be denied tenure anywhere except maybe in your mind. As for his scholarly credentials, perhaps after YOU've edited two volumes of the Martin Luther King. Jr. Papers, you can criticize him.
sagi cohen -
4/6/2007
He bad mouths Horowitz, Plaut, Front Page Mag and Green. He sniffs at Frontpage Mag as a "rag" while he himself dallies in deep thinking intellectual discourse such as that at Counterpunch. Luker is a sixth rate historian teaching at a tenth rate college and has little if any serious academic credentials, yet he bad mouths those from the Ivy League. If Finkeltsein were not such an open anti-Semite and neo-nazi, Luker would have no interest in him at all. Luker only sees "scholarship" where there is Jew bashing and anti-Americanism!
sagi cohen -
4/6/2007
He bad mouths Horowitz, Plaut, Front Page Mag and Green. He sniffs at Frontpage Mag as a "rag" while he himself dallies in deep thinking intellectual discourse such as that at Counterpunch. Luker is a sixth rate historian teaching at a tenth rate college and has little if any serious academic credentials, yet he bad mouths those from the Ivy League. If Finkeltsein were not such an open anti-Semite and neo-nazi, Luker would have no interest in him at all. Luker only sees "scholarship" where there is Jew bashing and anti-Americanism!
[COPY OF COMMENT POSTED THREE TIMES]
sagi cohen -
4/6/2007
He bad mouths Horowitz, Plaut, Front Page Mag and Green. He sniffs at Frontpage Mag as a "rag" while he himself dallies in deep thinking intellectual discourse such as that at Counterpunch. Luker is a sixth rate historian teaching at a tenth rate college and has little if any serious academic credentials, yet he bad mouths those from the Ivy League. If Finkeltsein were not such an open anti-Semite and neo-nazi, Luker would have no interest in him at all. Luker only sees "scholarship" where there is Jew bashing and anti-Americanism!
[COPY OF COMMENT POSTED THREE TIMES]
Alan Allport -
4/6/2007
There are multitudinous ways in which the Internet sends and receives information.
'The Internet' sends and receives nothing. People do.
Peter N. Kirstein -
4/6/2007
"I have had no contact directly or indirectly with any of the principals involved concerning this issue. No one at DePaul who has participated in this case has supplied me with any materials or documentation."
I was quoted accurately. Thank you. I wanted to minimise any issues concerning any putative role the prinicpals might have had in disseminating materials to me. There are multitudinous ways in which the Internet sends and receives information and I will leave it at that.
Oh, my, if Steven Plaut said it and David Horowitz published it, I'd certainly want to believe it! *Not* Plaut teaches business administration, for goodness sake. He's no authority in this field. _Front Page Rag_ is a propaganda machine. What would have been surprising would be if FPR said anything positive about Finkelstein. It's revealing that you would even cite it as a source.
Elliott Aron Green -
4/5/2007
Prof Luker, here are some less than admiring comments about N Finkelstein by Prof Steven Plaut of Haifa Univ. Plaut also provides links to other critical views of NF. By the way, Plaut's parents were refugees from Nazi Germany.
See link: http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=27731
Ralph E. Luker -
4/5/2007
Your point might be relevant if Finkelstein had called himself a "Nazi". To my knowledge, he hasn't. You did. Without evidence of your claim, that's defamation and you are legally vulnerable.
Elliott Aron Green -
4/5/2007
I recall that the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], when seeking to defend the alleged civil rights [including freedom of speech] of members of the American Nazi Party [George Lincoln Rockwell's group] would describe them as "people who call themselves Nazis." As if they really were not Nazis but simply applied the Nazi label to themselves. So I suppose it's a matter of definition which, in turn, is a matter of opinion.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2007
"As far as I know ..." is exactly the point, Mr. Green. You haven't read Professor Finkelstein's work. Nor do you know much about National Socialism. You can list title after title about anti-semitism and imply that they have something to do with Finkelstein. That doesn't mean that they do! You haven't give us _any_ evidence to make the connection. And, yet, in your ignorance and foolishness, you boldly assert that Finkelstein is a Nazi. You are an idiot and I'll have nothing else to say to you.
Elliott Aron Green -
4/4/2007
Dr Luker, I am not aware that Finkelstein ever said explicitly that Jews should be killed. And I do not accuse him of saying such. That is not essential. I say that "objectively," as the Communists used to say, he is working towards that purpose, whether he is or is not consciously aware of the impact of his arguments. As far as I know, the Nazis did not openly or publicly preach the killing of Jews. Instead, they defamed and demonized Jews, which prepared the ground for the Holocaust in the German mass mind. Consider the movies Jud Suss and Der Ewige Jude. Perhaps it is time to study the history of Jews in Christian and Muslim societies, as well as the history of Judeophobia/antisemitism. I would suggest The Devil and the Jews by Joshua Trachtenberg, Ana Foa's book in Italian on the Jews in Europe from the Black Plague to the Emancipation; Carlo Panella's book on Judeophobia in the Islamic domain [in Italian: Il Complotto Ebraico], Natan Rotenstreich's book, The Recurring Pattern, on Judeophobic notions in the thought and works of Kant, Hegel, and Toynbee; the books by Leon Poliakov on the Holocaust and the history of Judeophobia. There are many other learned and instructive works in this field.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2007
Mr. Green, First, as world-historically awful as it was, advocating the killing of Jews was not the _essence_ of Nazism, so you really misunderstand the label that you are smearing Finkelstein with.
Secondly, you haven't cited a single line, not one scintilla of evidence from Finkelstein's work that he advocates the killing of Jews. If you can't do that, you are guilty of character assassination and smearing the professional reputation of a person with whose work you are entirely ignorant. You can be sued for less than that. You apparently have no sense that words have meaning and you use them very carelessly. That is both ignorant and foolish.
Elliott Aron Green -
4/4/2007
to Holman, I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing. You are insinuating that some opinions should not get a hearing, or be dignified with a university chair, in this case, Velikovsky's. I agree that there are opinions that should not be dignified with a university chair. Now, if we can only agree whose opinions are not fit. I believe that Finkelstein's claims are dishonest and serve a base cause, that Finkelstein's claims do not deserve the dignity of a university chair. But we do agree, don't you see, that some opinions or views or claims are not fit. It's a matter of determining which.
to Ralph Luker. I find Finkelstein's arguments tendentious and dishonest and believe that they serve the cause of the Nazis, that is, the cause of murdering Jews. I believe that N Finkelstein's purpose --whether he is consciously aware of it or not-- is to justify massacres of Jews, humiliate Jews, etc. I am not impressed with the possibility that his mother may have been in the Warsaw Ghetto. I believe it more significant that Finkelstein was brought up under Communist ideological influence. That's why I wrote about the Communist role in the Warsaw Ghetto in particular, and the Communist role in helping WW2 get started. I believe that Communists and Nazis have much in common, stemming from the common origins of both ideologies in German philosophy/ideology, in Kant, Hegel, Luther, and so on. Luker calls me bigoted. But he doesn't want to see N Finkelstein's bigotry. Further, I don't suggest or insinuate that NF is a "Nazi or Nazi symp," I say it forthrightly. Hence, I don't insinuate as McCarthy did. I believe that "objectively," as the Communists used to say, NF furthers the Nazi cause, whatever he may believe about himself. Now, Dr Luker, I agree with B Holman that not all views or claims or arguments deserve a hearing or the dignity of a university chair. I believe that views or arguments that further the Nazi cause, that bring closer the possibility of another Holocaust, that twist evidence and so on --as N Finkelstein has been accused of doing by others before me-- do not deserve the dignity of a university chair. I believe that what I have written is "germane to whether Professor Finkelstein should be tenured," as you put it.
Brett Holman -
4/4/2007
<em>Likewise, if an archeologist held the views of the late Immanuel Velikovsky, a friend of Prof. Netanyahu, by the way, he would not get a post in any major US university.</em>
You say that like it's a bad thing ...
Ralph E. Luker -
4/4/2007
In point of fact, your comments are neither reasonable nor do they offer any evidence that is germane to whether Professor Finkelstein should be tenured. In both instances, you mention Finkelstein, suggest or insinuate that he is a Nazi or Nazi-symp (the kind of tactic Joseph McCarthy specialized in), and then ramble on at great length about other things. Yes, indeed, Mr. Green: put up real evidence that you a) know what a Nazi is; and b) know anything about Finkelstein's work or go somewhere else where your blustering, incoherent, bigoted ramblings are allowed to go unchallenged.
Elliott Aron Green -
4/4/2007
Please read title or Subject of previous post as: Re, Should a Nazi Get Tenure?
Elliott Aron Green -
4/4/2007
Palar & Luker, are you trying to shut me up? I offered reasons why I think that Finkelstein is a Nazi or Nazi like or serves Nazi purposes. Instead of a reasoned response, I get a snide brushoff from Luker and vicious slander from Palar. I believe that if someone were to hold strong Zionist views, such as those of Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, he would have a hard time today getting a post in a major US university. So certain views are censored or excluded or foreclosed. Likewise, if an archeologist held the views of the late Immanuel Velikovsky, a friend of Prof. Netanyahu, by the way, he would not get a post in any major US university.
Prof Netanyahu did teach at Cornell, as I understand. But he had an already established reputation for his research on the Spanish Inquisition and on the history of the Jews in Spain. He was not teaching at Cornell, as far as I know, the history of Israel or of Zionism or of the modern Middle East, on which subjects he had and has [till a 120 years!] definite and well-informed views. Someone with Prof Netanyahu's views and knowledge, without his established reputation, would have no chance.
On the other hand, Walid Khalidi, the veteran Arab propagandist, has a comfy spot at Harvard.
Palar's response was especially crude and nasty. But since he was so ad hominem with me, I will go on about Finkelstein. NF says --as I recall-- that his mother was in the Warsaw Ghetto and that she was a Communist. In fact, the Communists who were shut up by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto with other Jews refused to join any anti-Nazi resistance movement with other Jewish groups until after the German attack on the USSR in 1941, almost two years after the German conquest of Warsaw. In other places too, like France, Communists used "peace" slogans to oppose any anti-Nazi effort until Hitler attacked the USSR. It is also a fact that the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 made the Nazi conquest of Warsaw possible. Further, the Communist movement was long anti-Jewish in crucial ways long before the Nazi-Soviet Pact. Further, the new Bolshevik government in the Russian Empire issued an "Appeal to the Muslim Toilers of Russia and the East" [through Stalin's Commissariat of Nationalities] a few weeks after the Bolshevik putsch. This Appeal was a frank statement of Bolshevik --Communist-- support for Muslims and the national claims of Muslim peoples against the national rights or claims of non-Muslim peoples. For instance, the Appeal hypocritically supported Turkish-Muslim claims against Armenian claims for self-determination, and this as the Ottoman genocide of Armenians was still going on.
Now, more on the USSR and Nazis. A couple of months after the Nazi-Soviet Pact [in November or, less likely, October, 1939] the official USSR newspaper Izvestya published the statement that "Nazi ideology is a matter of taste." So I don't think that I have to apologize for seeing Communists and Nazis as close, particularly on the Jewish Question. That is relevant to the moral/ideological upbringing of N Finkelstein. Palar's hysterical reaction to my post and to Luker's response to me is bizarre with a soupcon of paranoia. One wonders if he is capable of "rational discourse." At any rate, he seems woefully ignorant of relevant history.
Nic Palar -
4/4/2007
At first I thought that Mr. Green's response was just another example of kneejerk reaction to Finkelstein utilizing hyperbolic rhetoric.
However, then I got to thinking underneath the undereath. Who would benefit the most from the impression that enemies of Finkelstein were prone to hysteria and phobia of Nazis?
The only conclusion that can be reached is, of course, a certain political party that desires to be forgotten so its members can bide its time and strike once more.
I think the Nazi here, is in fact, Mr. Green HIMSELF.
ps.
if you recall the movie "Clue" if i'm not mistaken Mr. Green was a spy which obviously casts aspersion on the character of the Mr. Green here.
pps.
Dr. Luker is also clearly a Nazi for his harsh response that is targeting at closing discussion rather than rational discourse.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/3/2007
Mr. Green, Congratulations. Your question reaches to Godwin's Law, even before a discussion got started. It's pretty clear that you have no interest in reasoned discussion or reasonable consideration of Finkelstein's case for tenure. You want the well poisoned so none dare drink from it.
Elliott Aron Green -
4/3/2007
Is Finkelstein a Nazi? The implications of some of his basic claims, those made in his book about "exploitation" of the Holocaust, are Nazi-like in my view. His attacks on Jews generally on the grounds of such "exploitation" are ridiculous since anyone or any group that has suffered at the hands of others is likely to complain about this, if it feels free to do so [for example, Armenians complain about Turks; Blacks complain about Whites]. Further, the Arabs, including the leadership at the time of the Palestinian Arabs, were pro-Nazi. The chief Palestinian Arab leader, Haj Amin el-Husseini, was not only a Nazi collaborator who spent most of the war in the Nazi-fascist domain, but specifically urged Nazi satellite states [Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania] and Nazi ally Italy, to send Jews to Poland. He wrote that in Poland Jewish children would be "under active supervision." Now, on these grounds, neither Arabs in general nor Palestinian Arabs in particular have any right to claim that they were made to suffer for others' crimes [also in view of the age-old oppression of Jews in Arab lands]. By the way, Holocaust denial is common in Arab lands, including Egypt. At the same time, some Arabs have pointed to the Holocaust as proof that the West couldn't care less what happens to Jews and that therefore the Arabs can get away with doing to the Jews whatever they like.
