[PEN-L:7395] Re: J. Donald Hughes on Mayan collapse

["J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>]

Lou,
       First let me say that I think your review of
Harvey is perfectly reasonable.  I have published
a bunch of stuff on dynamics within complicated
ecological-economic and spatial hierarchies
(see button on my website for recent pubs for
those who are curious) and I agree that gettting off
into Lebinizian monadology is just a waste of time.
      However, be that as it may, that does not
justify your various criticisms of O'Connor.  I am
sorry if he "strung you along" in terms of rewriting
and then rejecting.  But the hard fact is (and I told
you this offlist) that the overwhelming majority of
papers submitted to journals are rejected.  That means
lots of perfectly good and reasonable papers get
rejected all the time.  Frankly, the remarks made by
O'Connor to you look quite mild and reasonable
compared to the idiocies and unfair drivel that lots
of people on this list have seen lots and lots of times.
This comes across on your part as just crybaby behavior.
Charging political motives for a paper rejection is the
oldest whine in the book, even though it is sometimes true.
You have way overdramatized your own situation here.
     With regard to these various journals, I would like
to reemphasize that for most professional academic
economists, they do not get lots of credit for publishing
in such outlets as S&S, RRPE, RM, or CNS.  Indeed,
from the standpoint of most academic institutions there
is little difference between any of them and MR; they are
all equally worthless and indicative of obviously subversive
tendencies.  Now, there are a number of "lower level"
institutions, lower tier state schools and some private
liberal colleges, plus a handful of radical departments,
where some or even all of these journals are "worth"
something, if not too much, as publishing outlets.  And
indeed that is where most of us "old foggies" are hanging
out.  For that matter, the Ph.D. granting radical depts. are
also much more likely to heavily reward pubs in "leading
mainstream" journals than in the likes of even S&S, which
is probably the most academically prestigious of this lot.
      BTW, I think this particular thread and discussion has
been very worthwhile.  I'll have a separate post later on some
more substantive issues, but in the meantime I would urge
Michael P. to chill out.  The personal flaming has not been
too bad so far, certainly nothing to compare with the bad old
days (where is Jerry Levy when we really need him?).  The
signal to noise ratio has been reasonably high.
     Thanks to Lou for posting his review.
Barkley Rosser
-----Original Message-----
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Friday, May 28, 1999 4:50 AM
>Subject: [PEN-L:7376] J. Donald Hughes on Mayan collapse


>Doug:
>>I'm the first to admit I don't know the literature, and you probably don't
>>either.
>
>As a matter of fact, I do know the literature on indigenous peoples much
>more than J. Donald Hughes, based on the evidence. Anybody who has a
>glancing familarity with Maya scholarship knows that the charge that Mayan
>agriculture was wasteful has been superseded. You should do the same thing
>I did, if you are interested, Doug. Take a stroll over to Labyrinth
>Bookstore and examine the latest literature on the subject. I found out
>through the Columbia Library. It's what responsible scholars do, you know.
>
>>Dated scholarship in that all these years are dates, perhaps, but in what
>>other sense except that it disagrees with your romantic visions?
>
>Dated in the sense that advances in aerial photography, soil chemistry,
>etc. has rendered them so. I made a point of looking into the latest Mayan
>scholarship for the simple reason that PEN-L was abuzz with this question
>as soon as I began posting about American Indians and ecology. That and the
>charge that American Indians drove bison off cliffs, picked up by David
>Harvey, were the two most frequently cited items to prove that indigenous
>societies were non-ecological. I have read extensively about these two
>questions, because I felt challenged by them. I thought that perhaps Hughes
>had discovered some new material, but instead I was depressed and angry to
>learn that he was merely recycling outdated and damaging ideas. I now
>understand the real reason O'Connor rejected my articles on the American
>Indian that Buhle had submitted to him. I was casting pearls before swine.
>
>
>Louis Proyect
>(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
>
>