Sep 1, 2004
Bingo
Eugene Volokh responds to the Historians' Committee for Fairness and their statement on Michelle Malkin's work on Japanese internment, and pretty much hits a hole in one.
As a persuasive statement, it is inept--it essentially pins a target to its head and begs Malkin and whatever few defenders she might have to fire away at the giant bullseye. The ineptitude is typical, and the kind of thing that makes you want the AHA to hold a sort of boot camp to train people who might want to issue statements to the media.
As Volokh comments, all the historians really needed to do in this case was say,"This book is wildly and offensively incorrect on innumerable matters of fact" and suggest that any media outlet that wants to have Malkin on as a commentator get a qualified historian to balance out her presentation. Given that Malkin has so far tended to melt into a pile of goo when confronted with inconvenient things like"what actually happened" or"the ethical content of an argument", that seems to not only be a fair but likely efficacious request in checking the public influence of her work.
Instead, the Committee for Fairness got all bollixed up in criticizing Malkin for relying on secondary sources--something that we actually should hope writers and intellectuals will do when writing about the past--and in publishing something that wasn't peer reviewed. Do we really want to insist that everyone who wants to write or talk about history has to wait three years while august scholars check their work?
It's enough to say she's wrong--and perhaps direct people to a short but potent description of her errors compiled by scholars--and demand that anyone who wants to cover her work get a real expert in the picture to balance things out. All the rest of the appeal is not only unnecessary, but sounds like the classic caricature of the snob professioriate as domineering control freaks.
As a persuasive statement, it is inept--it essentially pins a target to its head and begs Malkin and whatever few defenders she might have to fire away at the giant bullseye. The ineptitude is typical, and the kind of thing that makes you want the AHA to hold a sort of boot camp to train people who might want to issue statements to the media.
As Volokh comments, all the historians really needed to do in this case was say,"This book is wildly and offensively incorrect on innumerable matters of fact" and suggest that any media outlet that wants to have Malkin on as a commentator get a qualified historian to balance out her presentation. Given that Malkin has so far tended to melt into a pile of goo when confronted with inconvenient things like"what actually happened" or"the ethical content of an argument", that seems to not only be a fair but likely efficacious request in checking the public influence of her work.
Instead, the Committee for Fairness got all bollixed up in criticizing Malkin for relying on secondary sources--something that we actually should hope writers and intellectuals will do when writing about the past--and in publishing something that wasn't peer reviewed. Do we really want to insist that everyone who wants to write or talk about history has to wait three years while august scholars check their work?
It's enough to say she's wrong--and perhaps direct people to a short but potent description of her errors compiled by scholars--and demand that anyone who wants to cover her work get a real expert in the picture to balance things out. All the rest of the appeal is not only unnecessary, but sounds like the classic caricature of the snob professioriate as domineering control freaks.