Nadine and Bill have asked for more information about Pipes. In Nadine's case, the request is a little duplicitious, perhaps more than a little, since this is a conversation we've had many times before. I'm going to provide a bit of an introduction to that material here. I don't expect to advance any sort of an argument by doing so, just to let those new to it see some of the sources.
Pipes is a figure, in my view, of low level danger, but he represents a strategy of higher level danger. There are two steps to the Pipes' strategy. The first is to label academics, journalists, politicians, pundits, you name it, with whom he disagrees as unpatriotic, as "hating America", etc. in the name of a crabbed even chauvinistic nationalism. In this part of the strategy, he does not offer a counter argument to the positions of those he criticizes. Rather, he labels them. And considers that an argument.
The latest incarnation of that argument is in the post Frankw and I were discussing, to lament the absence of calling speech that is critical of US strategy, to lament the ability to call such speech traitorous.
The second part of the Pipes strategy is embodied in Campus Watch. In the first phase of Campus Watch, Pipes posted on the Campus Watch website, the names of seven or eight faculty members, with resumes, campus location, etc., he considered fit his unpatriotic category. At roughly the same time, he encouraged others, particularly students to add names, resumes, etc. to the list.
The result of that was harassment of faculty members and their families.
Pipes has since expressed surprise that happened. Please!!. And the request to post names has, I think, been rescinded in place of posting information on campuses. But that's deceptive as well.
Is all this McCarthyism? These are different times with a different international matrix. The parallel, however, is as follows. Pipes copies the McCarthyite strategy of labeling folk with whom he disagrees as unpatriotic and then of publishing lists. One of the consequences of this in the fifties, in the academy, was to cut down on the vigor of debate that a vibrant democracy depends on having. We should hope the same does not follow from Pipes' activities. So far it has not.
Now for some links.
campus-watch.org. The website for Campus Watch. It's now "cleaned up" from its original incarnation, including sponsoring objections to its message. And denying it does anything to endanger academic freedom.
meforum.org. A Pipes' op ed which makes the first argument about as clear as its possible to make it.
hcs.harvard.edu. An interview with something called The Harvard Salient in which Pipes offers his views that opposition to the "war on terror" is unpatriotic.
hnn.us. Some information from The History News Network on Pipes and his campaign, particularly its effect on Juan Cole.
thenation.com. An article in The Nation which outlines the strategy and its effects.
I, quite frankly, don't see and didn't see much reason to go back over this territory. Several of us, as the saying goes, have "been there and done that." And we've established that we read Pipes very differently, have very different senses of the threat he represents, etc.
But, for those who haven't been there with us, here's some of the basic text. There is much, much more, thanks to google. |
