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

To: D. Long who wrote (78866)	3/1/2003 10:19:58 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I'm not saying any such thing, and I have no idea how you arrived at that from what I wrote. What I said, was that some professionals become blind to content because it doesn't obey their forms. John does it all the time on this thread. I would be happy to argue you are wrong if you gave me some illustrations of what you have in mind. If you are talking about my criticism of the Bush folk for their failure to appreciate soft power, diplomacy, etc., that's not form as opposed to content. That's form as content. Academics don't get to be "Alpha wolf" by being nonconformist. They tend to be rather hostile to anything too different and contrary to the mainstream. Not any more than any other large organization and, most likely, a great deal less. Academics are more akin, as I've argued here in the past, to institutionally based entrepeneurs, organizing their work on their own, answering to their own (disciplanary) norms, than simply creatures of an organization. So similarity-difference.

To: D. Long who wrote (78866)	3/1/2003 11:20:34 PM
From: FaultLine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I'm not saying any such thing Sorry, I thought you were. But did you say that (sometimes) the professionals are not to be trusted implying that (sometimes) the non-professionals should be given equal if not greater import? And who decides? That is absolutely belied by experience. Academics don't get to be "Alpha wolf" by being nonconformist. Most professionals are not academics. And are you saying that there are not different Foreign Affairs Houses (think tanks, and such)? Well of course there are and the conflict between theories is constant and unceasing. And academics DO get to be Alpha wolf by kicking over the other wolves' (at the other institutions) theories. Competition is intense with a capital 'I'. --fl