Europe, Thy Name Is Cowardice

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Well, I would say that Cole has an agenda, in that he's not only a professor of Middle Eastern studies, but also IIRC an influential person in a couple Middle Eastern studies associations, and so he's very much engaged in promoting a certain kind of Middle Eastern scholarship. Cole remains very upset at the way the Bush admin has marginalized the opinions of scholars in his area, and the way that many Middle Eastern studies departments have come under attack from a number of sources, especially when they are deemed too "postcolonial" or anti-Israel. A number of ME departments can be roughly divided according to their opinions of Edward Said and Bernard Lewis (roughly into Postcolonialists and Orientalists), which leads to differing views of the historical canon and methodology, and on current events. There are bitter feelings around this divide.

I can't quite buy this, as one of the strengths of democracy is the ability to dissent. There has never in the history of the US been a war or looming social issue that has not inspired dissent, nor has there been a time when public dissent on US policy hasn't been used by, say, opponents of the US. But I also think there have been many many times when dissent has driven positive changes in US policy, even if this only involves policy-makers taking negative scenarios more seriously. I think the history of the US amply proves that "resolve" doesn't have to be "singleminded."

 

Oh come on, you mean dissent endangers US security intersts when prominent questions an actual policy of the president of the U.S.?
That sort of dissent was quite all right and very much en vogue when it was deliverd by rightwing pundits and aimed at Bill Clinton.

Point is, it doesn't really matter. The current US gvt is reactionary and among the things they want to roll back is scholarship that doesn't sufficiently worship presidential policy and actually criticises and questions it's wisdom.
Bush's administration has not only sidelined and now cracked down on the realists in State department and CIA - the critical 'realist' scholarship is as well on their list on targets.

One suddenly and automatically comes to an 'agenda' when repeatedly criticising the most ideological administration the US ever had.

One only has to think about Daniel Pipes and Campuswatch and what they do - singling out dissent with official US policies and their ideological point of view, and denouncing, and bashing these people.
So Pipes and his goons, like Goldberg who also writes for Campuswatch, feel that current middle Eastern studies aren't pro-Israel enough and therefor attack Cole who dares to disagree with them, so far so good.

But that is not really public dispute - it isn't aimed on communicating or disputing or weighing arguments. They are right, and Cole is wrong, no matter what.

If one is devoutly pro-Likud and pro-neocon Cole has to be your enemy, because he questions the wisdom of such an ideological point of view - like asking for the sense or nonsense of Israeli settlements in Palestine, or the sense or nonsense of attacking Fallujah, or the morality of Israel's crackdowns on Palestine.
Cole's reason is too sceptical and might cause doubt that endangers support for the policies people like Pipes support.

I'd say the ideological part and agenda doesn't come from Cole but from those who attack him. With an organisation like Campuswatch dedicated to harass you a degree of polarisation is pre-programmed, and intended.

It also is a manifestation of the rightwing claim of an alleged 'liberal bias' in scholarship - if it wasn't there, one wouldn't have to found a group like Campuswatch, right? So Camuswatch also makes perfect sense without a 'liberal bias' in scholarship

I think Campuswatch is about domestic propaganda against a domestic political opponent.

PS: Thinking of this: Pat Buchanan is criticising Israel too, with some of the same and some different arguments - well *I* never thought of him as liberal, more like: paleo-conservative - but for folks like Pipes and Goldberg there presumably is a simple solution - there is a paleo-conservative anti-Israel bias, too

PPS: Just like Pipes daddy was busy talking Americans into that Russians are 3 metres tall, his son is busy talking Americans into believing that Middle East scholarship is unamerican and subversive and has a liberal bias against Israel. I never thought of propaganda as a family business.

[ February 14, 2005, 21:15: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Sorry, should have written more clearly. I was trying to make exactly the opposite point. A healthy democracy breeds dissenting opinions. While having dissenting opinions might make it seem like democracies are weak and lack the ability to act with singleminded purpose (a well-worn argument for totalitarianism in the first half of the 20thC), it seems to me the opposite is true: that dissent is sign of a robust government. So I don't buy at all the argument that free debate should be curtailed because it might encourage the enemy; this might be true to a limited extent in the short run, but in the long run the benefits of free dissent by far outweigh the negatives.

 

We agree then

I take it then that you share my concerns about something like Campuswatch?

 

Thanks for the link to Campuswatch. So far I like what I see. It is a good thing that finally people who don't walk the party line in acadamia have a voice defending them. Far to often those with dissenting opinions about the darling subjects of the extreme left (women's issues, racial issues, socialism, homosexuality, etc) are shouted down and ignored. I remember even my own father (a staunch Kennedy Democrat) kept telling me all through high school and college to keep my opinions to myself and give the party line. This way assuring that I wouldn't get any "vengeance" grades.

I'm going to post their mission statement for it almost brought tears to my eyes when I saw it.

If that isn't American, I don't know what is. Who was it who said something like "I disagree with you, but I'll defend your right to disagree"

I'll have to bookmark the site and check it out further when I have more time.

 

I always respect your opinion, TGS, but I'm not sure where you come off with this. I never experienced any such thing in any of the three colleges I attended. I did find that some departments were very conservative, while others very liberal; some were not political at all.

I'm sure the business college at the University of Houston is just crawling with "Homos and fems."

TGS, my friend, we are off topic here. And if you would like to argue further on the liberal bias in American colleges, I'm sure a new thead on this sub-topic would be great. This is your thread anyway, which is really supposed to be about Europe.

[ February 15, 2005, 03:22: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

@Chandos

To hijack just a little bit more. Texas is a more conservative state and the schools probably reflect that. You have to remember, I'm in the People's Republic of Massachusetts. I ran into many teachers at all levels that were more interested in indoctrination than education. I ran into professors that made things up when they didn't know the answer. These things happened at a very well respected school system and then again at an internationally known college.

I would be willing to bet (and I have no idea how to prove it) that the two coasts (very liberal parts of the country) where the majority of the population lives also make up the majority of the schools.

I agree, at Brigham Young in Utah, they probably have a problem with a conservative agenda.

My point was that I don't see anything wrong with what that group is doing. It seems to me that the only people who would have a problem with what they do are people who don't want a dissenting opinion. If as they say, their purpose to expose people who are "teaching" with opinion rather than in established "scholarly" methods, then they are to be applauded.

 

Poimt taken TGS, but then again, Pipes Campuswatch has to be read carefully. Because Pipes and his goons are "teaching" with opinion rather than in established "scholarly" methods.

For them scholarships derives from the dogma: Arabs are evil and terrorists and want to eradicate Israel - so what else can science tell us about them?

I sure exaggerate here, but that's their bottom line - how noble their mission statement however reads - it's probably a ruse.

What can be gained by denouncing middle east scholars who criticise the president and his policies? Federal money for Middle East studies being routed to politically more correct think tanks that sing the administrations's tune?

When one can accuse and discredit the 'liberal', that is: dissenting, scholarship in Middle East studies, one has a reason to fund someone else - a thing that needs some justification. That's probably part of campuswatch's mission: They accuse Middle East studies to consists of scholars who are not more than partisan liberal hacks wasting tax dollars. That also serves to discredit their work.

Campuswatch is also there to muddy the water and to distract from a useful discussion on Middle East issues - by muddying the water they can succeed in turning a constructive dispute into the sort of partisan bickering everyone is tired of, thus making people giving their attention to someone else with simpler answers - prime candidate being the president who only deals with good and evil.

They are also throwing mud at Middle East studies, hoping the profs there will probably be to busy defending their hides and getting their phonenumbers changed (Campuswatch's emergence was iirc accompanies by an significant increase in hatemail for the 'liberal' scholars singled out on its pages) to be able to do useful work.

I am highly sceptical about Campuswatch.

 

The Campuswatch thing is interesting to me, but like Ragusa, I'm quite wary of it. TGS, you're right to be proud of such desire for non-biased academia (and I think you're thinking of Voltaire with that quote), but in my experience, the people who want to hold the lefties on campus accountable are frequently as bad or worse when it comes to cutting out the opposition. The worst cases involve bureaucratic actions to undermine dissenters, although I've seen both sides do it and have nothing but contempt for those who abuse the system "because they can". And as Ragusa has said, it all too frequently ends up resembling kids in a sandpit; it just descends into partisan bickering.

Given Campuswatch's website, I would agree with his assessments; it reeks of politics. While I believe argument within the social sciences is beneficial, it needs to be kept civil. No-one can claim an upper hand or moral superiority if they simply engage in denigration or mud-slinging; you can do it by being above these things and engaging in scholarly critique.

I say this because I have had to do it myself; defending my views on the intellectual value of "victim precipitation" in understanding how criminal events happen is not synonymous with victim-blaming, but try telling three postgrads researching rape, dating violence and prostitution that. In the end, they have seen my point for what it is - something they do not engage with, but which underscores their work. More often than not, if someone feels their conceptual support is being assaulted, they will respond aggressively against the views of their "assailant" rather than defend their own basing. In the end, you will never agree, but your detractors have as much right to question you as you do them; it is upon you to defend your point of view. I do not see this in Campuswatch's site; it reads as though they are justified purely by their mission statement, which is a reprehensible basis for a critical academic organisation.

In the department I'm in at university, you almost can't hold a centrist or alternative viewpoint without coming off as a conservative or a bigot. Many are the fights I've had about scholarly interpretations in which I have stuck to a purely analytical line (the value of a particular conceptualisation or theory) while being hammered with bile and vitriol. I occasionally lose it and reply in kind (in academic terms, of course), because if I didn't care about my point of view, I wouldn't fight. It's why, when I'm teaching, I always make people justify or explain their responses and ask others if they can support or challenge them. If no-one is willing, I have to do it myself, because there's no point in rote-learning at university in a social science department. This is the danger I see in both my own department and the value in Campuswatch, although from different ends of the spectrum. Once people stop questioning an ideological line, it becomes accepted as truth. My fear about Campuswatch is that it will end up censoring and censuring as much as it accuses the "liberal academics" of doing.

 

Folks...once upon a time this thread was devoted to the noble cause of 'Europe Bashing'. It has now degenerated into a highly intellectual discussion about the various factors trying to influence the minds of America's educated youth.

damn you.

Back to topic. Bash Europe? Defend Europe? Adopt Europe? Tour Europe? Somehow we have to be taking about Europe here.

 

How about, "Ignore Europe, invade and occupy important, resource-rich locations outside of Europe, exploit same, repeat ad infinitum."?

 

No fair, Europe has a right to invade too

 

Hacken,

Darn. Next time we must do better.

/me pre-heats his flamethrower

 

Returning to topic,

An interesting one being as Europe is so incredibly divided in it's opinions that it can be lumped together, but leaving that aside.

Taking the latest little fracas, the Iraq war, into consideration I am forced to query what was the most cowardly action. To go in, hell for leather, to a country which you see as being of absolutely no threat to yourself, or to stand up to the remaining big boy on the block and tell them that they are in the wrong.
Being British, I've (obviously) never liked the Frogs but have to say, at the time the Iraq war started I thought that France's dissent was a whole lot braver that Britains "do what ever America tells us to do". I was even moved to say so in an email to an acquaintance from university who was serving aboard a Nuclear Sub at the time. Strange... thinking about it, I've haven't heard from him since.

 

Regarding - “Bush risks the fall of the dollar, huge
amounts of additional national debt, and a massive and persistent burden on the
American economy”.

Iraq being bombed back to stone-age naturally needs rebuilding, by American companies of course. And guess where the money comes from! From the Iraqi oil revenues where else! Big part of the money has also just disappeared. As far as Kosovo goes, the conflict was rather inconvenient for the US-owned AMBO-company building a trans-Balkan oil pipe, a pipe that’ll make all countries from the Caspian Sea to the Balkans politically and
economically more dependent on the USA, not to mention the enormous amounts of money it’ll produce to Exxon, Mobil, Texaco etc…and of course in the end to USA.

 

And to help put it back on track...I feel sorry for anyone who lives in Europe, near Europe, spends time in Europe...when such generalized claims are made against you.

To insinuate that you are cowards, simply because of the actions of the governments of France and Spain, is unfair and inappropriate. I apologize to you with the same feeling I have when I see Americans besmirched and marginalized.

Besides...there must certainly be an historical precedent for the policies of accommodation and retreat? Surely there must be. With all the uber-educated members of this board...there must be someone who can show me the historical success of 'compromise and adapt'?

 

I thought I was on-topic as I had taken a quote from the above story and tried to post my view on things.

Hackenslash said "Bash Europe? Defend Europe?..." I was trying to defend Europe but I guess I got a little too into it.

 

Oooh Oooh, Hack pick me, pick me.

How could you not know that the United States is the greatest example of a historical success in which compromise and adapt worked. Being a nation of immigrants (well except for the native americans) each successive wave of immigrants would give up a piece of their homeland so they could assimilate and join the great melting pot that made the U.S. the powerhouse it is. Think of the difficulty the Jews had coming over from eastern europe and being unable to speak the language. Think of the Irish that for years had to deal with "Irish need not apply" signs until they too were accepted. Think of the Italians that like the jews needed to learn a new language and customs ( I've always thought this is why Jews and Italians have a lot in common in the U.S.).

Oh wait a minute. I might have this backwards. You probably wanted an example in which the country that was being invaded compromised and adapted and it was a success. I'll have to get back to you on that.

 

America has (had) a history of avoiding war, especially when Europe was at war. This goes all the way back to the infamous John Jay Treaty, which was signed by George Washington himself. Unlike Europe, in its early days, America compromised endlessy to avoid war. Three really great presidents compromised to avoid war: Washington, Adams and Jefferson. It was not until Madison that America fought its first war (1812). In later years it just ignored wars until it was forced into them by unfolding events (Pearl Harbor). France and England tried to stop Hitler long before Americans even cared. The war frenzy that has gripped America is a fairly recent phenomenon. It goes completely against its historical tradition.

In fact, America sought to avoid the same mistakes as Europe. Many felt that the lessons of history were pretty clear. It could be the doom of America that it has forgotten those lessons.