Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (55306)	10/28/2002 10:51:37 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Well, perhaps the "dossier" aspect did step over the line, but the whole "McCarthyism!" reaction strikes me as overblown. After all, Pipes is hardly accusing anybody of hidden treachery as McCarthy did; he is criticizing (harshly, it's true) certain lines of published work, which presumably are routinely subject to public criticism. Pipe's whole argument is that the critical method has failed inside the closed circles of Middle Eastern Studies, so he wished to bring the work to public attention. Is that illegitimate? Many of those criticized on the left react as if criticism were the same as censorship (Sontag complaining of being censored from the op-ed pages of the NY Times is a classic. I should be so censored.) There is a difference between criticism, McCarthyism, and censorship.

To: JohnM who wrote (55306)	10/29/2002 7:34:38 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>>It invites violence against them and their families.<< You may well be correct, but isn't it always the case that ideas have consequences? Pipes thinks we are at war with a certain ideology, and he thinks that there are apologists for this ideology who are teaching it to students who are too young, naive and ill informed to understand what is happening. "Outing" the opposition, as you suggested, is what McCarthyism was about, but it turns out that McCarthy was right about some things. McCarthy has been made into a scary puppet to brandish at your opponents, like Hitler, or "hypocrisy" -- it's supposed to stop debate. "Outing" the opposition during times of war has a long, checkered history -- think of fifth columns and Quislings. If we have the academic equivalent of Tokyo Rose and Lord Haha taking refuge behind the tenure system, we should at least know about it. So, should they be safe to tell lies to our children? Because that's what you're arguing. No accountability. Yes, it's unpleasant to contemplate, but the alternative is also unpleasant to contemplate.