[Via Jo Jacobs]. Keith Windschuttle has published a long article on The Journalism of War in The New Criterion. Much of his argument is taken up with attacking the objectivity of Robert Fisk and John Pilger. I don’t want to spend time defending these journalists (though I’d happily do so, particularly in Fisk’s case) but rather want to point to some contradictions in Windschuttle’s logic and his understanding of history.
As an aside, his appropriation of De Tocqueville to make this argument is surely a gross generalisation which one would not expect from someone who argues that “what actually happened” cannot ever “be deduced from some overarching political cause or social theory”:
Similarly, despite the remarkable artistic accomplishments of the Jews throughout Western history, the fact that their own societies contained no aristocrats puts them in almost the same boat as the uncouth settlers of the New World. This also accounts for much of the current European cultural and political elite’s prejudice against Israel and support for the Arabs.
This prejudice is more than political ideology and more than envy of America’s wealth and power, although that is obviously a big part of it. It is a deeply embedded cultural trait that affects the way its adherents actually perceive the world.
While disagreeing with this rather bizarre argument, I’d agree thoroughly with Windschuttle that there are indeed “deeply embedded cultural traits that [affect] the way… adherents actually perceive the world”. The problem is that he, with his disdain for theory and his oft-cited defence of the brute facts, exempts himself from this phenomenon.
He’s actually unlikely to be unaffected both by certain cultural worldviews and theoretical presuppositions, but I’ll come to that in a while.
First, Windschuttle holds journalists to this standard, after a disquisition on the benefits of freedom of expression and the critical role of the media:
That is the reason why the practices of journalists like Fisk and Pilger are more disturbing than they look. The responsibility of the journalist is the same as that of the historian: to try to stand outside his own political interests and his own cultural preferences and to tell his audience what actually happened
Windschuttle presumably feels obliged to point to an example of journalism that meets his criteria of critical distance and objectivity. Or rather the logic of his argument should oblige him to do so. But very oddly, he chooses to highlight positively the writing of Victor Davis Hanson, who is by Windschuttle’s own admission very much partisan and in fact, not a journalist at all:
. For a second nomination as one of the great pieces of journalism to come out of this war, I would like to propose a series of essays originally published online, but which have since been collected in book form under the title An Autumn of War.
The author, Victor Davis Hanson, is a classical scholar and a military historian who, on the conservative website National Review Online between September 11 and December 22, 2001, published no less than thirty-eight essays about the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington and the war in Afghanistan. In that brief time, the Taliban was defeated and a new government of reconciliation formed in Kabul. At a time when the shock of September 11 had disoriented everyone and it was very hard to think straight, Hanson’s essays rose above ordinary commentary. He told those of us in the West who we were, why we were being attacked, and why we would eventually prevail.
Hanson was not a journalistic bystander and made no pretense at being dispassionate. He supported the Bush administration’s immediate use of military force in Afghanistan. Indeed, he was an advocate of such a response and gave personal advice to that effect to Vice President Cheney.
Windschuttle poses the relevant question:
Now, the obvious question to ask is how could anyone nominate as great journalism a work that is so partisan, that takes such a strong stand, and is so strongly committed to one outcome. Isn’t it hypocritical to laud conservative political writing while at the same time condemning radical political writing? That might well be true were there not an overwhelming imbalance in the volume and the quality of the scholarship and evidence deployed by one side compared to that of the other.
Well, it is true in my submission. There’s an incommensurability between the journalistic practice of Fisk, for instance, which is informed by long experience on the ground in the Middle East, and by a sort of practical knowledge of the interactions between the West and cultures he understands well, and the pontifications of advocacy academic Hanson.
Windschuttle probably picked Hanson because the thesis that he is most associated with – that the West enjoys military superiority because of its historic cultural superiority – is one that resonates with his own arguments about the virtues of British colonialism and indeed with clash of civilisations rhetoric Huntington style and Fergusonian empire apologias. In other words, the thesis that the West is the best is one deeply attractive to Windschuttle, and arguably underpins his own writing.
Two points arise.
First, Hanson, far from fulfilling Windschuttle’s ideal of minimising cultural presuppositions and adopting a critical distance, is deeply implicated in the West’s grandest narrative – its own superiority and its civilising mission. It’s very hard to see how this could not be, in Windschuttle’s terms, an mindset not shaped by a “deeply embedded cultural trait”.
Secondly, Hanson’s own scholarship, which Windschuttle lauds, falls apart on close examination. Windscuttle presents the thesis:
Hanson’s thesis is that the principles of Western warfare were established during classical antiquity. Since the fifth century B.C., the West has had a culture of civic militarism in which people with a civic stake in their country have been prepared to fight for it. On the field of battle, this culture has produced an unmatched combination of group discipline and inventive decision-making. Western soldiers have been prepared to fight to the death in great decisive battles that have annihilated their opponents. Unlike the troops of tyrants and despots, individual soldiers in the West have known that their military service was governed by a legal regime that applied as equally to their superiors as to themselves. Coupled with a similarly long-standing tradition of the dissemination and proliferation of knowledge that culminated in the scientific and industrial revolutions, Western militarism has usually been supplied with better armaments and more innovative military technology than its opponents. Moreover, market-based economies have meant that the needs of Western armies for ordnance and supplies could be more rapidly and cheaply produced than by the command economies of any of its rivals.
American historian John A. Lynn points to any number of empirical historical errors subsumed by this ideological mishmash. Far from there being continuity between classical Greece and Rome and modern armies, in fact there was a significant break as early as the later Republic when the Roman army ceased to be a civic body in any meaningful meaning of the term. Similarly, during the Middle Ages, warfare was particularistic and as late as the 18th century, most European armies were recruited largely from foreign sources – hence we find Scots fighting in French armies, Irish in Austrian and so on. The law of war certainly didn’t apply equally to superiors and individual soldiers. And it’s simply wrong to characterise Rome and Greece as anything like “market-based economies”.
So, Windschuttle’s poster historian is empirically inaccurate and culturally and ideologically biassed. I’d take Fisk’s opinion of what’s happening in the Middle East any day over Hanson’s.
It seems that all you’re saying is you prefer Fisk’s bias to Hanson’s because it’s more consistent with your own – a position that gets no-one anywhere. Abandon objectivity, and that’s where you wind up. Why criticise Windschuttle for being ‘ideologically biassed’, when you’ve argued elsewhere that it’s impossible not to be?
It seems that all you’re saying is you prefer Fisk’s bias to Hanson’s because it’s more consistent with your own – a position that gets no-one anywhere. Abandon objectivity, and that’s where you wind up. Why criticise Windschuttle for being ‘ideologically biassed’, when you’ve argued elsewhere that it’s impossible not to be?
“..you prefer Fisk?Äôs bias to Hanson?Äôs because it?Äôs more consistent with your own – a position that gets no-one anywhere. Abandon objectivity, and that?Äôs where you wind up. ”
And your comment Rob, comes diamond pure and crystalline clear? Once you mention “objectivity” on a blog thread, everyone else will be looking up yer skirts to see if yer still a virgin.
Fuggetabout it. Yer being partisan on a partisan blog. Play yer corner with style, gusto, wit and good links, not self-righteous appeals to some spurious golden mean.
And any attempt to contradict me about this will just end up with you far more enmeshed than moi in sticky pomo tentacle brain porn.
“..you prefer Fisk?Äôs bias to Hanson?Äôs because it?Äôs more consistent with your own – a position that gets no-one anywhere. Abandon objectivity, and that?Äôs where you wind up. ”
And your comment Rob, comes diamond pure and crystalline clear? Once you mention “objectivity” on a blog thread, everyone else will be looking up yer skirts to see if yer still a virgin.
Fuggetabout it. Yer being partisan on a partisan blog. Play yer corner with style, gusto, wit and good links, not self-righteous appeals to some spurious golden mean.
And any attempt to contradict me about this will just end up with you far more enmeshed than moi in sticky pomo tentacle brain porn.
” sticky pomo tentacle brain porn. ”
Fianlly! I understand the appeal of the right wing. Thanks nabs.
” sticky pomo tentacle brain porn. ”
Fianlly! I understand the appeal of the right wing. Thanks nabs.
Presumably because Mark, unlike Keith, isn’t holding himself up as the arbiter of objectivity and “what actually happened”.
Presumably because Mark, unlike Keith, isn’t holding himself up as the arbiter of objectivity and “what actually happened”.
Dan’s right. Mark’s not criticising Windschuttle for bias, but for holding up an admittedly biased writer as an example of objectivity.
Dan’s right. Mark’s not criticising Windschuttle for bias, but for holding up an admittedly biased writer as an example of objectivity.
Naomi, I disagree. Windschuttle doesn’t abuse history. He wouldn’t know history writing from the endless semi-pornographic discount-dump books to be found at $2 shops across the country on Glorious War, presumably the source of his recent worldview. He hasn’t been near the discipline or practice of history for years.
The closest he’s come to ‘history’ lately is typing the word into Google searching for anything written about himself so he can feel more like a victim. Best-paid and most-frequently-published historical victim I’ve ever heard of. (If you’re reading this, Keith, hi.)
Naomi, I disagree. Windschuttle doesn’t abuse history. He wouldn’t know history writing from the endless semi-pornographic discount-dump books to be found at $2 shops across the country on Glorious War, presumably the source of his recent worldview. He hasn’t been near the discipline or practice of history for years.
The closest he’s come to ‘history’ lately is typing the word into Google searching for anything written about himself so he can feel more like a victim. Best-paid and most-frequently-published historical victim I’ve ever heard of. (If you’re reading this, Keith, hi.)
It’s good to see that even Fisk’s supporters have taken to using his surname as a verb.
The place of the word in the English language has been cemented, and the major contribution of this this wretched hack to history will be a word that signifies the systematic demolition of his own propaganda.
It’s good to see that even Fisk’s supporters have taken to using his surname as a verb.
The place of the word in the English language has been cemented, and the major contribution of this this wretched hack to history will be a word that signifies the systematic demolition of his own propaganda.
Whereas your contribution to the world will be to link forevermore the phrase “sperm theft” with “Evil Pundit”. Gosh, doesn’t it make you proud, lil’ puddy tat?
Whereas your contribution to the world will be to link forevermore the phrase “sperm theft” with “Evil Pundit”. Gosh, doesn’t it make you proud, lil’ puddy tat?
I really like the argument that the ‘right’ don’t have to stick to the rules he lays down, because there are less of them writing stuff, whereas the prolific left should really be playing by the rules. And yet I imagine that someone like Windschuttle is very anti positive discrimination, which is effectively what he is calling for.
I really like the argument that the ‘right’ don’t have to stick to the rules he lays down, because there are less of them writing stuff, whereas the prolific left should really be playing by the rules. And yet I imagine that someone like Windschuttle is very anti positive discrimination, which is effectively what he is calling for.
I didn’t really understand Nabakov’s comment, but I’m quite happy to appeal to a ‘golden mean’ of objectivity, if that’s what he means. Hanson’s argument, as cited, looks decidedly ropey, but bias is not the answer to the reason why it’s ropey. Fisk and Pilger may be biased, but that’s not the main reason they are open to challenge. The issues are the same in each case: is the evidence fairly marshalled and fairly presented? Do the polemical arguments proceed from a reasonable reading and interpretation of the evidence? Are there omissions of fact or divergent readings that would invalidate the interpretation? Is the writer injecting prejudice or assumption into the source material in order to vivify it politically? etc., etc.
These tests apply irrespective of whether a writer is coming at a particular issue from the left or the right. If that’s objectivity, I’m happy to be guilty of it. I would have thought these criteria are as old as the hills, and are as applicable to pomo as any other system of thought.
There are plenty of weaknesses in Windschuttle’s signature work The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, and perhaps even more patently in his The Killing of History, which these kinds of tests reveal. Ideological abuse is just pointless, indeed counter-productive – as witnessed by the fact that Windschuttle regularly, and, to some extent at least, undeservedly, walks away with scalp after adversary scalp tucked into his belt.
If you abandon objectivity, it seems to me that all you have left are squabbling biases, which does nothing for advancing the greater imperatives of measured reflection, understanding, wisdom, and, ultimately, well-formulated and well-informed public policy. Or at least public policy options, given the ultimate choice among them by government will be a political one, our adversarial political culture being what it is. But that’s OK: that’s democracy.
I didn’t really understand Nabakov’s comment, but I’m quite happy to appeal to a ‘golden mean’ of objectivity, if that’s what he means. Hanson’s argument, as cited, looks decidedly ropey, but bias is not the answer to the reason why it’s ropey. Fisk and Pilger may be biased, but that’s not the main reason they are open to challenge. The issues are the same in each case: is the evidence fairly marshalled and fairly presented? Do the polemical arguments proceed from a reasonable reading and interpretation of the evidence? Are there omissions of fact or divergent readings that would invalidate the interpretation? Is the writer injecting prejudice or assumption into the source material in order to vivify it politically? etc., etc.
These tests apply irrespective of whether a writer is coming at a particular issue from the left or the right. If that’s objectivity, I’m happy to be guilty of it. I would have thought these criteria are as old as the hills, and are as applicable to pomo as any other system of thought.
There are plenty of weaknesses in Windschuttle’s signature work The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, and perhaps even more patently in his The Killing of History, which these kinds of tests reveal. Ideological abuse is just pointless, indeed counter-productive – as witnessed by the fact that Windschuttle regularly, and, to some extent at least, undeservedly, walks away with scalp after adversary scalp tucked into his belt.
If you abandon objectivity, it seems to me that all you have left are squabbling biases, which does nothing for advancing the greater imperatives of measured reflection, understanding, wisdom, and, ultimately, well-formulated and well-informed public policy. Or at least public policy options, given the ultimate choice among them by government will be a political one, our adversarial political culture being what it is. But that’s OK: that’s democracy.
Mark, you don’t want to spend any time defending Fisk, so instead you decide to sanctify him:
“There?Äôs an incommensurability between the journalistic practice of Fisk, for instance, which is informed by long experience on the ground in the Middle East, and by a sort of practical knowledge of the interactions between the West and cultures he understands well, and the pontifications of advocacy academic Hanson.” and “I?Äôd take Fisk?Äôs opinion of what?Äôs happening in the Middle East any day over Hanson?Äôs.”
But I recall the object of most of the treatment he got that resulted in his name being genericised as a verb, was as a result of pearls of wisdom about “the Arab street” that turned laughable overnight. Not to mention his reliable inside source in Iraq, Comical Ali. So your faith looks, on the surface, a little misplaced – to be honest, Fisk NEEDS some defending. And even implying a willingness (or ability) to rationally defend the indefensible Pilger puts you even further behind from the start.
Plus, your Windschuttle extracts and comments in reply are both far too long to truly qualify as Fisking – you gotta aim for removal of context and pithy rejoinders. I mean – “Far from there being continuity between classical Greece and Rome and modern armies, in fact there was a significant break as early as the later Republic when the Roman army ceased to be a civic body in any meaningful meaning of the term.” Honestly – what were you thinking? This is yawnsville, daddio.
Mark, you don’t want to spend any time defending Fisk, so instead you decide to sanctify him:
“There?Äôs an incommensurability between the journalistic practice of Fisk, for instance, which is informed by long experience on the ground in the Middle East, and by a sort of practical knowledge of the interactions between the West and cultures he understands well, and the pontifications of advocacy academic Hanson.” and “I?Äôd take Fisk?Äôs opinion of what?Äôs happening in the Middle East any day over Hanson?Äôs.”
But I recall the object of most of the treatment he got that resulted in his name being genericised as a verb, was as a result of pearls of wisdom about “the Arab street” that turned laughable overnight. Not to mention his reliable inside source in Iraq, Comical Ali. So your faith looks, on the surface, a little misplaced – to be honest, Fisk NEEDS some defending. And even implying a willingness (or ability) to rationally defend the indefensible Pilger puts you even further behind from the start.
Plus, your Windschuttle extracts and comments in reply are both far too long to truly qualify as Fisking – you gotta aim for removal of context and pithy rejoinders. I mean – “Far from there being continuity between classical Greece and Rome and modern armies, in fact there was a significant break as early as the later Republic when the Roman army ceased to be a civic body in any meaningful meaning of the term.” Honestly – what were you thinking? This is yawnsville, daddio.
Tony, I wasn’t actually trying to “fisk” as such.
Tony, I wasn’t actually trying to “fisk” as such.
Ouch, Tony, that hurt! What you said, however.
Ouch, Tony, that hurt! What you said, however.
Um, no it didn’t Rob. I’d be less willing to defend Pilger than Fisk, but I think Fisk is eminently defensible.
As to pithy writing, I’ve probably been writing too much thesis recently and I’m pretty tired as well.
Um, no it didn’t Rob. I’d be less willing to defend Pilger than Fisk, but I think Fisk is eminently defensible.
As to pithy writing, I’ve probably been writing too much thesis recently and I’m pretty tired as well.
To fisk Rob:
Wouldn’t the point of your golden objectivity be a pursuit of ‘what actually happened’, rather than simply the scalps of academics who don’t happen to have their own Macleay Presses to distribute their books? What’s the point of historical research, Rob, if it’s aimed only at ‘leftists’?
Some of us are doing it. Haven’t seen it on many a blog, though there are notable exceptions. Windschuttle hasn’t come so close as to smell it for years.
To fisk Rob:
Wouldn’t the point of your golden objectivity be a pursuit of ‘what actually happened’, rather than simply the scalps of academics who don’t happen to have their own Macleay Presses to distribute their books? What’s the point of historical research, Rob, if it’s aimed only at ‘leftists’?
Some of us are doing it. Haven’t seen it on many a blog, though there are notable exceptions. Windschuttle hasn’t come so close as to smell it for years.
That’s a fair point, liam. Windschuttle is a polemicist. Problem is, he’s been more successful at it than his adversaries. His riposte to Robert Manne’s ‘Whitewash’ was a triumphalist article entitled ‘Whitewash confims Fabrication of Aboriginal History’. He was able to do it because his antagonists’ arguments were so weak (objectively – yes! – speaking). It’s true he has his own press, but Reynolds, Ryan, et al have not exactly been unable to find publishers of their own works.
As for the idea that the end of historical research should be to reveal ‘what really happened’, that von Rankeian assertion was thoroughly trashed long before postmodernism happened along. That’s not history at all, it’s just chronology. History is not the story of the past – it is a dialogue between the present and the past, mutable, changeable – though not infinitely so, because meanings derived from the past and perceived to have significance in the present must be constrained by the kinds of rules mentioned in my earlier comment.
Personally, I am a lot closer to Windschuttle’s opponents, at least emotionally, than I am to him, and I sympathise with what they were trying to do. But they broke too many of the rules, and he found them out. I might not like it, but I try to be (again) objective about it.
That’s a fair point, liam. Windschuttle is a polemicist. Problem is, he’s been more successful at it than his adversaries. His riposte to Robert Manne’s ‘Whitewash’ was a triumphalist article entitled ‘Whitewash confims Fabrication of Aboriginal History’. He was able to do it because his antagonists’ arguments were so weak (objectively – yes! – speaking). It’s true he has his own press, but Reynolds, Ryan, et al have not exactly been unable to find publishers of their own works.
As for the idea that the end of historical research should be to reveal ‘what really happened’, that von Rankeian assertion was thoroughly trashed long before postmodernism happened along. That’s not history at all, it’s just chronology. History is not the story of the past – it is a dialogue between the present and the past, mutable, changeable – though not infinitely so, because meanings derived from the past and perceived to have significance in the present must be constrained by the kinds of rules mentioned in my earlier comment.
Personally, I am a lot closer to Windschuttle’s opponents, at least emotionally, than I am to him, and I sympathise with what they were trying to do. But they broke too many of the rules, and he found them out. I might not like it, but I try to be (again) objective about it.
That conceptualisation of the nature of history is nicely put, Rob.
That conceptualisation of the nature of history is nicely put, Rob.
I love the New Left and social historycritiques of ‘objectivity’ as much as I suspect you do, Rob. Isn’t history just a wonderful arena for poking your sources, scraping back the ashes and interpreting your way into understanding? Hmmm.
The Macleay Press stands for a lot more than just Windschuttle’s ability to self-promote on the grounds of victimhood. There are a great many young historians furious that for the last fifteen years the whole arena of Australian history has been a battleground of contested footnotes, snide accusations, launched and relaunched coffee-table books and tedium over old peoples’ conversations. Go along to a history conference and mention anything around the topic, and watch the room empty. Old dogs and boring uncles can’t compete in the room-clearing stakes with the History Wars.
All any historian under about the age of forty wants is the freedom to historically stoush without the shadow of Windschuttle’s, Macintyre’s and Manne’s publishing machine.
I love the New Left and social historycritiques of ‘objectivity’ as much as I suspect you do, Rob. Isn’t history just a wonderful arena for poking your sources, scraping back the ashes and interpreting your way into understanding? Hmmm.
The Macleay Press stands for a lot more than just Windschuttle’s ability to self-promote on the grounds of victimhood. There are a great many young historians furious that for the last fifteen years the whole arena of Australian history has been a battleground of contested footnotes, snide accusations, launched and relaunched coffee-table books and tedium over old peoples’ conversations. Go along to a history conference and mention anything around the topic, and watch the room empty. Old dogs and boring uncles can’t compete in the room-clearing stakes with the History Wars.
All any historian under about the age of forty wants is the freedom to historically stoush without the shadow of Windschuttle’s, Macintyre’s and Manne’s publishing machine.
History is the emperor of all the disciplines. It gets used and abused (pace Nietzsche), but it endures, and it prevails. The Ozymandias of the arts (apologies to anthropology, sociology, political science, etc. – not).
Obviously time to seek my Northern Territorian bed.
History is the emperor of all the disciplines. It gets used and abused (pace Nietzsche), but it endures, and it prevails. The Ozymandias of the arts (apologies to anthropology, sociology, political science, etc. – not).
Obviously time to seek my Northern Territorian bed.
Which is why I’m writing a thesis on meaning in history! I was really annoyed when they wouldn’t let me do history honours without a double major – I did a major. Loved the 3rd year honours seminar on the philosophy of history.
Which is why I’m writing a thesis on meaning in history! I was really annoyed when they wouldn’t let me do history honours without a double major – I did a major. Loved the 3rd year honours seminar on the philosophy of history.
Yep! Specifically about Fukuyama and Hegelian resonances in current political debates. And stuff.
I got a first at Griffith, and a GPA of 7 (ie all High Distinctions), but still didn’t get an APA because of my appalling undergraduate record – damn that student politics thing! But I got a University scholarship and a Faculty top up which meant that my scholarship was 5 grand a year more than an APA. Whatever!
Yep! Specifically about Fukuyama and Hegelian resonances in current political debates. And stuff.
I got a first at Griffith, and a GPA of 7 (ie all High Distinctions), but still didn’t get an APA because of my appalling undergraduate record – damn that student politics thing! But I got a University scholarship and a Faculty top up which meant that my scholarship was 5 grand a year more than an APA. Whatever!
it?Äôs time to throw off the yoke of those oldies
Except for Dr Sheil, of course! Not that cs is an oldie!
it?Äôs time to throw off the yoke of those oldies
Except for Dr Sheil, of course! Not that cs is an oldie!
An interesting background discussion of Windschuttle and his methodology is ‘Deconstructing the 1960s: An open letter to Keith and Liz Windschuttle’, by Bob Gould on the Ozleft website .It includes significant details concerning Keith’s leftist years and associated writings.
An interesting background discussion of Windschuttle and his methodology is ‘Deconstructing the 1960s: An open letter to Keith and Liz Windschuttle’, by Bob Gould on the Ozleft website .It includes significant details concerning Keith’s leftist years and associated writings.
Resurrecting an old post I know, but in view of the discussion here about Fisk and Pilger, a big thumbs up to Tony Jones of Lateline for effortlessly exposing Fisk as a blustering blowhard in tonight’s Lateline. A long session of Fisk narcissistic posturing punctured ever so nicely by two or three well-pointed questions from Jones. Well done, ABC.
Resurrecting an old post I know, but in view of the discussion here about Fisk and Pilger, a big thumbs up to Tony Jones of Lateline for effortlessly exposing Fisk as a blustering blowhard in tonight’s Lateline. A long session of Fisk narcissistic posturing punctured ever so nicely by two or three well-pointed questions from Jones. Well done, ABC.
I thought Fisk was very much to the point and Jones seemed naive!
I thought Fisk was very much to the point and Jones seemed naive!
why the hell does it take them so long to get the transcript up – I wanna know now – o me miserum
why the hell does it take them so long to get the transcript up – I wanna know now – o me miserum
Shorter Fisk: Rice probably knows that if you have genuine democracy in the Middle East, you get Islamist governments. The largest opposition in Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood (whose earliest theorists provided the justification for Al-Qaeda style Islamism – that’s a footnote from Bahnisch). We have made the Middle East what it is today and we can’t wipe the slate of history clean. The Palestinians are still living in the world of the 1917 Balfour Declaration and its consequences today. What’s happening in Lebanon is great, but we have to recognise that it’s democratic sectarianism – you must always have a Maronite Prez, Sunni PM and Shi’ite Speaker. The West has always looked around for the strongest tribe and backed them. Uzbekistan never gets a mention when they talk democracy. There’s nothing that the Arab peoples would like more than democracy but they’re not likely to get it.
Shorter Fisk: Rice probably knows that if you have genuine democracy in the Middle East, you get Islamist governments. The largest opposition in Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood (whose earliest theorists provided the justification for Al-Qaeda style Islamism – that’s a footnote from Bahnisch). We have made the Middle East what it is today and we can’t wipe the slate of history clean. The Palestinians are still living in the world of the 1917 Balfour Declaration and its consequences today. What’s happening in Lebanon is great, but we have to recognise that it’s democratic sectarianism – you must always have a Maronite Prez, Sunni PM and Shi’ite Speaker. The West has always looked around for the strongest tribe and backed them. Uzbekistan never gets a mention when they talk democracy. There’s nothing that the Arab peoples would like more than democracy but they’re not likely to get it.
Watch the program again, Mark. You’re just parroting Fisk.
Watch the program again, Mark. You’re just parroting Fisk.
Yes, I am, Rob. I was summarising what Fisk said from memory for wbb’s benefit.
Yes, I am, Rob. I was summarising what Fisk said from memory for wbb’s benefit.
Hmmm, I think I’ve read your piece in LH Naomi. Good stuff! They’ve really livened up that journal the last few years.
Hmmm, I think I’ve read your piece in LH Naomi. Good stuff! They’ve really livened up that journal the last few years.
Well, don’t channel the guy, he’s a self-evident idiot (sorry).
Well, don’t channel the guy, he’s a self-evident idiot (sorry).
Perhaps you could explain where he’s wrong, Rob.
Perhaps you could explain where he’s wrong, Rob.
Lefty E, perhaps you meant to post that comment on Naomi’s thread?
Lefty E, perhaps you meant to post that comment on Naomi’s thread?
.. and Rob, as Mark has kindly (ta, Mark) done the honours for Fisk, I’m waiting for you to show how Jones punctured Fisk’s illusions.
“Self-evidently an idiot”
You going to have to try a bit harder than that.
.. and Rob, as Mark has kindly (ta, Mark) done the honours for Fisk, I’m waiting for you to show how Jones punctured Fisk’s illusions.
“Self-evidently an idiot”
You going to have to try a bit harder than that.
I’d like to, but it would take too long, and I’m far too tired. Try normblog on the odd occasion, Mark. There’s a whole world of right-wing blogging out there beside Tim Blair – admirable and all as he is.
People can watch the show and make up their own minds. I thought Tony did good.
I’d like to, but it would take too long, and I’m far too tired. Try normblog on the odd occasion, Mark. There’s a whole world of right-wing blogging out there beside Tim Blair – admirable and all as he is.
People can watch the show and make up their own minds. I thought Tony did good.
normblog is a Marxist!
I’m tired too, but all my reading on the history and contemporary politics of the Middle East leaves me no room for disagreement with Fisk.
normblog is a Marxist!
I’m tired too, but all my reading on the history and contemporary politics of the Middle East leaves me no room for disagreement with Fisk.
I’ll get back to you, wbb. Meanwhile, I must sleep.
I’ll get back to you, wbb. Meanwhile, I must sleep.
That is to say, Norm Geras, who writes Normblog, is a political scientist who’s also an analytical Marxist. Strange that you should call him right wing, Rob. You should look at some of his books, particularly The Contract of Mutual Indifference, which is scathing about neo-liberalism and which I like a lot. I’m not so fond of his attack on Chantal Mouffe, but there you go. He may have a heterodox position from the Left on Iraq, but that hardly makes him “right wing”. As recently as last year, he was still quite happily wearing the Marxist label, and his books are published by Tariq Ali’s publishing house.
That is to say, Norm Geras, who writes Normblog, is a political scientist who’s also an analytical Marxist. Strange that you should call him right wing, Rob. You should look at some of his books, particularly The Contract of Mutual Indifference, which is scathing about neo-liberalism and which I like a lot. I’m not so fond of his attack on Chantal Mouffe, but there you go. He may have a heterodox position from the Left on Iraq, but that hardly makes him “right wing”. As recently as last year, he was still quite happily wearing the Marxist label, and his books are published by Tariq Ali’s publishing house.
Well I never. So was I, once.
Well I never. So was I, once.
Hmmm, right thread Mark, but Ive responded 12 hours late!
See, all you PhD students: one day you’ll actually be academics, juggling 18 balls at once, and become a braindead loser, just like me!
Enjoy!
Hmmm, right thread Mark, but Ive responded 12 hours late!
See, all you PhD students: one day you’ll actually be academics, juggling 18 balls at once, and become a braindead loser, just like me!
Enjoy!
That’s why he doesn’t like postmodernism, Rob.
That’s why he doesn’t like postmodernism, Rob.
I thought Naomi might be more likely to see it if you posted on her thread, Lefty E, fascinating as this one no doubt is!
I thought Naomi might be more likely to see it if you posted on her thread, Lefty E, fascinating as this one no doubt is!
Analytical Marxism… who knew? Rational choice theorists with Che t-shirts.
Analytical Marxism… who knew? Rational choice theorists with Che t-shirts.
I don’t care if he’s right or left or a creature from the black lagoon. The guy makes sense. That’s the reason to read his stuff.
I don’t care if he’s right or left or a creature from the black lagoon. The guy makes sense. That’s the reason to read his stuff.
Like I said, I like his book on Mutual Indifference – blogged about it once. There isn’t enough time in the day to read all the blogs that are worth reading, sadly.
Like I said, I like his book on Mutual Indifference – blogged about it once. There isn’t enough time in the day to read all the blogs that are worth reading, sadly.
All my reading on the history and contemporary politics of the Middle East leaves me no room for agreement with Fisk.
All my reading on the history and contemporary politics of the Middle East leaves me no room for agreement with Fisk.
[...] 15 Jun 2005 Windschuttle on Fisk and Pilger Posted by Ian Syson under Scuttlebutt From Mark Bahnisch. [...]