Day: June 10, 2007

Anything goes, he said. Let’s just talk about it.

Richard Rorty, professor of Comparative Literature emeritus at Stanford, who just died, got a medal in April saying his work

redefined knowledge ‘as a matter of conversation and of social practice, rather than as an attempt to mirror nature’ and thus redefined philosophy itself as an unending, democratically disciplined, social and cultural activity of inquiry, reflection, and exchange, rather than an activity governed and validated by the concept of objective, extramental truth. [Italics added]

I would rather it said he

* portrayed the pursuit of knowledge as conversation and social practice trying to mirror nature and

* thus further defined philosophy as an unending, democratically disciplined, social and cultural activity of inquiry, reflection, and exchange — an activity governed and validated by the concept of objective, extramental truth.

But I don’t give awards now, do I?

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Missing the point on the Finkelstein story

Sun-Times carries a bad exercise in journalism today with this piece on denial of tenure:

For a man who has just lost his job after a highly public battle, DePaul University assistant political science Professor Norman Finkelstein is calm and accepting.

That’s because Finkelstein, whose tenure bid drew widespread interest because of the Jewish professor’s blunt criticism of Jews and the state of Israel — and the attack on those views waged by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz — stands firmly on the beliefs that may have got him fired.

Let us now praise noble men who stand firmly on their beliefs, for one thing.  But let us not give an iota of attention to tenure standards.  For another, denial of tenure is not a firing, as the lede implies, though it is a year’s notice.

For yet another, let us lay it on thick as a personality piece that is blatantly complimentary to a prof who has been denied tenure elsewhere, as we read in Chi Trib.  Thick?  Consider the 3rd and 4th ‘grafs:

“There is a song by the folk singer Keith Seeger, ‘Die Gedanken sind frei,'” the controversial academic reflected in a rare interview with the Sun-Times.

“That means, ‘thoughts are free.’ No one can deny that ‘die gedanken sind frei.’ They can deny me tenure, deny me the right to teach. But they will never stop me from saying what I believe.”

Etc. etc., violin chords in the background.

In Chi Trib, on the other hand, we hear both sides, including this:

Before coming to DePaul, Finkelstein taught at several New York universities but was not granted tenure. At DePaul, his application for tenure was supported by the political science department but opposed by Dean Chuck Suchar of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, who said he found Finkelstein’s attack-style scholarship inconsistent with the university’s commitment to respect for the views of all. [Italics added]

Attack-style scholarship, eh?  So there is a bigger question here, or at least more pertinent to the story, than one man sticking to his guns, which is a generic issue?  In any case, that’s what the dean did, right?

 

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Chi Trib on Knoxville murders

Don’t miss the Howard Witt-Chi Trib “special report” on black-on-white crime with focus on the Tennessee case of kidnapping, rape, and murder:

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — What happened to Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a young Knoxville couple out on an ordinary Saturday night date, was undeniably brutal. The two were carjacked, kidnapped, raped and finally murdered during an ordeal of unimaginable terror in January.

But whether the attack was a racial hate crime worthy of national media attention is another question, one that has now ignited a fierce dispute over the definition of hate crimes and how the mainstream media choose to cover America’s most discomfiting interracial attacks.

Witt, who is based in Austin TX for the Trib, touches all bases in his account, including conservative bloggers who have made this a cause celebre — though not my Queens NY friend Nicholas Stix, who has covered the matter exhaustively.  Witt writes with admirable control and keeps the wordage down. 

He also resists the urge to pontificate and draw conclusions, as if he were producing a dissertation in which he had to prove something.  Instead, he delivers a bona fide report, in which Stix and others may find gaps but I don’t.

Yes, he buries this:

[W]hen overall cross-racial violent crimes are tabulated—including incidents not formally classified as racially motivated hate crimes—Justice Department statistics show that blacks attack whites far more often than whites attack blacks.

But not jarringly so, in view of his adequate base-touching in fewer than 1,400 words.  This is a newspaper.  You don’t expect it to do opinion-journal things, or shouldn’t.  You very much do not want it to. 

It’s also a mainstream newspaper, which I admit may temper my criticism.  Page one on Sunday splash is not bad for a story that’s been underplayed for dubious reasons at best.

Witt does not question the whole hate-crime category, which is the product of our era of compulsive classification according to academe’s top trio of things that make the world go ‘round — race, class, and gender, as a journal (or blog) might do.

Less significant than the hate-crime description is the neutral designation black-on-white crime, as used by U. Tenn. law professor Glenn Reynolds, a.k.a. Instapundit, and cited by Witt.  There’s far more of that than white-on-black crime, Witt reports, which leaves us wondering if it’s adequately reported, legal requirements or not.

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