Category: academics

Well, we now know I’m both not a “man of substance,” and that I run away from confrontation. On the plus side, I believe the jury is still out on whether or not I’m racist — though I’m …

Over at Edge of the West, where SEK’s critically flawed post on my engagement with Patterico has been subsequently removed, there remains a number of comments that I find troubling for a number of reasons. First, there is an peculiar, but obvious, attempt there to try to dismiss my intentionalist argument without addressing it at all; second, there is the desire to strengthen this dismissal by diminishing me, either by attaching to me a political label (he’s a rightwinger, therefore he can’t possibly have anything intelligent or interesting to add to our club for serious scholars) or by cartooning my position, then dismissing the cartoon as if it somehow represented my actual argument (his position is that intention governs every aspect of textual anaysis, a position so strong as to be ridiculous).

Lost in all the self-serving back and forth about how it is legitimate to dismiss me out of hand and yet still claim to be an intellectual is any discussion of my actual position, which I’ve always invited.

And what I find disturbing is that, rather than ask me to explain that position, these “scholars” have asked SEK to write something up so that they can understand it. As if SEK, by virtue of having waded into the anti-intellectual depths of Wingnuttia, is, by virtue of his being “one of them,” more capable of making my argument than I am.

Plus — bonus! — they don’t have to deal with me, who they’ve characterized as irrelevant, even as they pretend to have an interest in the argument I make. Just, you know, provided it’s not me who makes or defends it. Double bonus — Timmy in the comments, trying to pass himself off as a literary scholar!

“Virtual-stalking” indeed…

Here’s the comment I left on the site:

As a follow-up to Dan’s piece on the (ironic, surreal, and — let’s just say it, profoundly Orwellian) shouting down of a “conservative” speaker looking to address the question of hate speech, I’d like to offer a few observations: …

Bari Weiss, WSJ:It’s not every presidential election that American voters are introduced to characters like former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers or Middle East historian Rashid Khalidi — both of whom, we have learned, Barack Obama worked and socialized with …

David Harsanyi, The Denver Post:Barack Obama is going to fix the economy by “spreading the wealth around”?

Now, I’m not attempting to demonize Obama, God forbid. It’s just that, as we all know, that’s what Obama told Joe the Plumber.

Obama …

Longtime readers of this site have frequently encountered arguments in which I fasten identity politics to a form of soft, progressivist totalitarianism “PC” speech (which, we are often told with a wave of the hand and a gourmands’ sniff, …

David Thompson, on False Consciousness and the modern “peace studies” movement led by Norwegian Marxist and professor Johann Galtung: Galtung is the founder of the “peace university”, Transcend, which stresses “a new reality” in conflict resolution and …

An interesting juxtaposition on “journalistic disclosure” from today’s Rocky Mountain News, which excerpts competing views from the National Journal’s William Powers and CBSNews’ Brian Montopoli. First, here’s Powers, who, it’s fair to say, believes journalistic outlets should provide their …

From the BBC, “Iran condemns Rushdie knighthood”:His book The Satanic Verses offended Muslims worldwide and led to Iran issuing a fatwa in 1989, ordering Sir Salman’s execution.

Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said the decision to praise the …

From the AP:District Attorney Mike Nifong was disbarred Saturday for his “selfish” rape prosecution of three Duke University lacrosse players – a politically motivated act, his judges said, that he inexplicably allowed to fester for months after it was …