Re: [Marxism] Thoughts on Ward Churchill

[Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 25 May 2006 16:17:24 -0400 Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> I don't have much to add on the Ward Churchill case beyond what he
> already
> stated in his powerful rebuttal.
>
> I do want to elaborate, however, on his observation that appears
> there near
> the end:
>
> "I have published some two dozen books, 70 book chapters and scores
> of
> articles containing a combined total of approximately 12,000
> footnotes. I
> doubt that any even marginally prolific scholar's publications could
>
> withstand the type of scrutiny to which mine has been subjected."
>
> This is an important point. Generally speaking, if you don't rock
> the boat
> politically, there is little chance about losing your job for
> plagiarism or
> for faulty scholarship, as the continued presence of Doris Kearns
> Goodwin
> and Alan Dershowitz at Harvard University proves.

And alongside Larry Tribe and Charles Ogletree (I guess they
have pretty liberal policies concerning plagiarism at the
Harvard Law School).  On the other hand, Marxist historian,
David Abraham, was run out of the historical profession
because of some minor sloppiness in his book,
*The Collapse of the Weimar Republic* which detailed
the role that big business in Germany played in
Hitler's rise to power. In other words there exists
in academia a double standard. Scholars who tow
the establishment's political line can get away with
all sorts of outrages: sloppy scholarship, outright
plagiarism, even deliberate fabrications and
falsifications of facts. And celebrity scholars like
Doris Kearns Goodwin or Stephen Ambrose
are permitted things that lesser mortals would
be crucified for. On the other hand, if a leftist
scholar is caught making a mistake in a footnote
or didn't properly, cross all her t's and dot all her
i's, then she can be expected to be publicly
drawn and quartered and then kiss goodbye to her career.

BTW the methods that the rightwing (and their
liberal allies) have been using against people
like David Abraham and Ward Churchill, were
pioneered back in the McCarthy period. The
philosopher, Sidney Hook, was one such
pioneer. He went after, John Somerville, over
his book, *Soviet Philosophy*. Hook penned
a famous attack on that book in the pages of
the Nation, "Philosophy and the Police."
And as we now know, he was not content at simply
attacking Somerville's book, but made very strenuous
efforts to destroy the man's career and reputation.
Somerville's book in fact was open to serious
criticism, since after all, it would seem that
a candid account of the state of Soviet philosophy
under Stalin, should at least have made some
mention of the fact that many Soviet philosophers
disappeared during the purges. But that sort of
lapse, hardly justified the actions that Hook
took against Somerville. (Hook BTW also
went againt the logical positivist, Rudolf
Carnap, but Carnap was a much too
prestigious figure within the philosophy
profession to be bullied in that manner).



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