← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Okiereddust
Thread ID: 3987 | Posts: 15 | Started: 2002-12-13
2002-12-13 02:57 | User Profile
[url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/gottfried/gottfried40.html]Lew Rockwell[/url]
I drafted the following defense after being passionately attacked by an outside evaluator who was supposedly assessing the department in which I teach about half of my courses. This evaluator, Shirley Anne Warshaw of Gettysburg College, spent about ten minutes out of a two-day visitation talking to me. She was apparently familiar with my writings, which we discussed in passing. The report she produced was not what our department had expected. Between four and five out of twelve pages were devoted to a highly personal attack made on me. It included extravagant, unsubstantiated charges combined with disparaging remarks about my colleague Wes McDonald, who had praised my scholarship. I have no reason to believe that either my colleagues or students were complicit in any of this. Professor Warshaw came here both knowing who I was and profoundly hating me. The only long-term professional connection I can find for her outside of her position at Gettysburg is membership in the Institute for the Study of the Presidency, an organization well disposed toward executive power.
A RESPONSE TO MY ACCUSER
In view of her extended comments about my inept teaching and redundancy as a faculty member, it may be necessary to respond to Shirley Anne Warshawââ¬â¢s Consultantââ¬â¢s Report as it bears on my activities. There are several observations Dr. Warshaw offers that are correct as far as they go, that I would do better teaching graduate students, that I have never fitted into the department of political science entirely, and that my upper-level courses have not drawn well in recent years. Indeed I should praise her for suggesting a 200-level course that I could put together for the new curriculum and that might be attractive to students.
Unfortunately, everything else the consultant says about me is both inaccurate and malicious. There is no "junior-senior seminar" that we offer. Who exactly are the "students who routinely criticize his courses for being unfocused, with often rambling discussions" for "appearing" to "walk into class unprepared or with little thought as to what he would say"? What kind of data gathering did Dr. Warshaw use to arrive at these damning conclusions? Although such criticisms were made several years ago in a freshman core course, in which the attendees did not appreciate my Socratic teaching method, I cannot imagine these comments coming from the students in my senior seminar, which is the course I routinely teach for the department. Most of those kids have elected to take my upper-level courses; and it is therefore inconceivable that any of them would now be teeing off on me. Although the consultant may have run across her accusations somewhere, I suspect that she had to dig deeply to come up with the evidence, if there is any. The remarks ascribed to our students do not even resemble the way they talk and write. They look exactly like something produced by a middle-aged academic.
As for my failure to attend professional conferences, Dr. Warshaw was not listening very closely when I mentioned the ones I do attend. At least once a month I participate in meetings of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, where I have done presentations and served as a commentator at a seminar. Of the regular members I am the only one who is not a graduate professor at the University of Pennsylvania or on the faculty of Swarthmore. I am also on the executive board of the Historical Society and attend its gatherings when I can. I doubt Dr. Warshaw can flaunt similar credentials as an attendee at professional events.
This brings me to the heart of the matter, my abrasive conversation with the evaluator that may have occasioned her apparently reckless comments regarding my professional profile. Dr. Warshaw and I have different conceptions of professionalism. Unlike her, I do not value most of the stuff I find in strictly professional journals, which is badly written, tedious, and full of unacknowledged value judgments; nor do I think that real scholarship typically appears in refereed journals. On the last point I speak en cause de connaissance, having been on the editorial board of a refereed historical journal for ten years and having never ceased to be amazed at how often someoneââ¬â¢s friend got published there as a step toward tenure or getting a reduction in teaching load. Dr. Warshaw also seemed familiar with some of my books, and I inferred from her remarks that she and I differed philosophically. I would hope that her unkind and unsubstantiated comments about my professional work did not reflect the force of these differences. Still and all, I find it hard to believe that she arrived at her conclusions from carefully sifted evidence, or that either my colleagues or poli sci students vented so much spleen on me. Quite frankly and regrettably, the attacks look personal.
December 12, 2002 Paul Gottfried [send him mail] is professor of history at Elizabethtown College and author of, most recently, the highly recommended Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt.
Copyright é 2002 LewRockwell.com
Paul Gottfried Archives
2002-12-13 05:13 | User Profile
Okiereddust,
Anyone even somewhat un-PC will be attack. Paul Gottfried must have a very hard time.
2002-12-13 08:51 | User Profile
Gottfried knows better than this. By providing no extensive quotes illustrating his thesis, he puts the reader in the position of having to take his word for it. If for some reason (legal or otherwise) he could not cite Warshow's text, he should've killed this piece until he was able to think of an effective way to make his case without them. You don't talk about someone "profoundly hating" you in a written report without providing a single quoted example.
Further: by titling this NEOCON ATTACK he misleads the reader (the title might've been Rockwell's doing, though): everything described in this essay is consistent with institutionalized campus leftism consonant with the radical wing of the Dems. If he can credibly link Warshow to a Podhoretzian mindset he hasn't let the rest of us in on it.
In the Rockwell original, he has hyperlinked to Warshow's private email address, presumably to encourage angry missives to her. Again, a thoughtless mistake: his genuine supporters have not been given a evidentiary leg sufficient to stand upon, while the neos he rightly fears (and who don't like Paul Gottfried even a little bit) are now free to flood her server with nasty mail freely littered with Nazi and racist invective while camouflaged as Gottfried students & readers.
I understand why he wrote this: he was mad. I'm usually just as mad when I post here. But I'm not dancing for a carrot called 'tenure'. And I've got the common sense to use a pseudonym.
2002-12-13 19:54 | User Profile
Good points, IR. It also seems that Gottfried has a bit of an ego.
2002-12-14 04:10 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Dec 13 2002, 08:51 Gottfried knows better than this. By providing no extensive quotes illustrating his thesis, he puts the reader in the position of having to take his word for it. If for some reason (legal or otherwise) he could not cite Warshow's text, he should've killed this piece until he was able to think of an effective way to make his case without them. You don't talk about someone "profoundly hating" you in a written report without providing a single quoted example.
I know the lack of specifics in this piece is bothersome. But I think you forget the closed nature of academia. Letters of recommendation, accreditation reports, faculty meeting transcripts, etc in most cases are considered priviledged information. You can discretely summarize their discussions, because such will be used to justify public findings. But you can't just pull things right out.
I'm afraid we'll just have to trust Paul on this.
Further: by titling this NEOCON ATTACK he misleads the reader (the title might've been Rockwell's doing, though): everything described in this essay is consistent with institutionalized campus leftism consonant with the radical wing of the Dems. If he can credibly link Warshow to a Podhoretzian mindset he hasn't let the rest of us in on it.
I think Gottried's personal history is involved here. It was fights with the neocons that drove him away from his first position, I think it was at Catholic University in D.C.
He and Rockwell (obviously it was Rockwell who put the summary up) appear to be linking these attacks with the earlier ones. They probably have fairly plausible reasons for doing so, I suspect.
In the Rockwell original, he has hyperlinked to Warshow's private email address, presumably to encourage angry missives to her. Again, a thoughtless mistake: his genuine supporters have not been given a evidentiary leg sufficient to stand upon, while the neos he rightly fears (and who don't like Paul Gottfried even a little bit) are now free to flood her server with nasty mail freely littered with Nazi and racist invective while camouflaged as Gottfried students & readers.
Maybe. But subjecting oneself to the necessity of a certain amount of politicking is really the price all visible and truly conservative figures must pay.
You don't need to go into specifics I'd think. Just a few letters reafirming "Gottfried's integrity and scholarship" really are all that's called for here. We aren't called to act like an accreditation board here, just as supporters who are watching and observing what is happening.
I understand why he wrote this: he was mad. I'm usually just as mad when I post here. But I'm not dancing for a carrot called 'tenure'. And I've got the common sense to use a pseudonym.
Beg your pardon, but Gottfied in his position has no ability in his position to use a pseudonyme. And if you are in a reasonable position to do so, writing a private letter under your own name as a Lew Rockwell reader worried about this affair hardly comprises a big threat to your anonymity or private reputation in at least most circles.
Its something we all need to do more. Anonymous boards like this have their place, but ultimately history will be made by real people, doing whatever real things they can.
If you're in a position to do so, I'm sure Gottfried, and all the other public figures on our side in visble public fights, Tom Tancredo, etc - always appreciate your help, and find it to be a real substantative value.
2002-12-14 10:16 | User Profile
Professor Warshaw came here both knowing who I was and profoundly hating me.
You can't write this for public consumption if you're not in a position to back it up. I never said Gottfried shouldn't have written this - just postpone it until he thrashed out a way to better make his case, given the constraints upon his ability to quote Warshow. But the proper approach here was for Professor G to have privately circulated this to his students and colleagues, who -after all - are in a far better position to clear his name than Lew Rockwell readers who've never set foot in Elizabethtown College.
And it so happens I did drop Gottfried a note of support (though I repeated these points as well) under my real name, which I've never shrunk from; but I think Gottfried's animating idea was for his fans to flood Warshow with angry e-mail. That's the kind of tactic you opt for when you're too furious to think clearly, and it's going to hurt Gottfried. You know that, whatever Warshow's animus towards Gottfried - now she's got a leg to stand on. (As well as some ludicrous hate mail, calling her a 'neocon'...this to a woman who probably has a bigger poster of Che in her den than Jonathan Farley!)
And given that a guy in a bar making a Bush joke just got 37 months for it...and a kid wearing an anti-Bush shirt to school found himself detained & questioned by the Secret Service this week... and another fellow found himself under arrest-without-charge for carrying a camera within a square mile of Dick Cheney's hotel.....I wouldn't be in any great hurry to advise others to shed pseudonyms. Particularly if they're getting their point across. Ultimately history will be made by people free to act, not by those languishing in gulags as guests of the state.
2002-12-15 02:03 | User Profile
Gottfied previously at Catholic U?
When not a single other word needs saying....
Anybody who takes up for him vrs. "neocons", "poddythinkers" etc., isn't getting it. They're giving it. They aren't for America or the Old South at all. They just thrive on the hate they can bring these by their stupidity.
When one word says it all -- its "Gottfried" -- good. Its the stupidity, stupids. Maybe even ol' Lew is on the take, chalice-wise, and I didn't even know it. Could that be true?
2002-12-15 02:17 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Dec 14 2002, 10:16 > Professor Warshaw came here both knowing who I was and profoundly hating me.**
You can't write this for public consumption if you're not in a position to back it up. I never said Gottfried shouldn't have written this - just postpone it until he thrashed out a way to better make his case, given the constraints upon his ability to quote Warshow.**
Well I don't know exactly how you are ever going to prove this kind of animus in a court of law, at least without some insider info, but it does seem to me fairly obvious that when a educrat who only talked with you 10 minutes writes a lengthy diatribe against you personally, without a whole lot of readily apparent provocation, it is fair to say the person bears some preconceived bias against you, especially when it appears they are targeting your ideological supporters also.
That's rather sort of a self-evident assumed rule in any sort of humanities type fight. When you get an "F" on a paper where you've previously done good work, you do look for some personality/political thing, even tough of course you can never prove it absolutely.
**But the proper approach here was for Professor G to have privately circulated this to his students and colleagues, who -after all - are in a far better position to clear his name than Lew Rockwell readers who've never set foot in Elizabethtown College. **
I don't know. I suspect has his friends and enemies, and of course is using this resource as available.
**And it so happens I did drop Gottfried a note of support (though I repeated these points as well) under my real name, which I've never shrunk from; but I think Gottfried's animating idea was for his fans to flood Warshow with angry e-mail. That's the kind of tactic you opt for when you're too furious to think clearly, and it's going to hurt Gottfried. **
I don't know. Gottfried works for VDARE, and has some experience with the type of replies he typically gets from the internet. He must have more confidence in us than you do.
Notice he really didn't characterize this women's past. He isn't making an issue of her in general, just her treatment of him. Maybe that's part of what you're talking about. She isn't a well known figure, so actually you aren't going to get a lot f people who have a preconceived animus against her, unlike Jese Jackson, Hillary, etc.
You know that, whatever Warshow's animus towards Gottfried - now she's got a leg to stand on. (As well as some ludicrous hate mail, calling her a 'neocon'...this to a woman who probably has a bigger poster of Che in her den than Jonathan Farley!)
I don't know about her politics, as you said, but this position as acceditor is a fairly significant political, and sensitive, position. I don't know what she has in her den at home, but I doubt if she carries any Che posters in her office at work.
And given that a guy in a bar making a Bush joke just got 37 months for it...and a kid wearing an anti-Bush shirt to school found himself detained & questioned by the Secret Service this week... and another fellow found himself under arrest-without-charge for carrying a camera within a square mile of Dick Cheney's hotel.....I wouldn't be in any great hurry to advise others to shed pseudonyms. Particularly if they're getting their point across. Ultimately history will be made by people free to act, not by those languishing in gulags as guests of the state.
You misunderstand me. I was encouraging people to act under their own name, but I wasn't saying they should compromise their internet pseudonym's on boards such as this. You don't have to do this. You don't have to sign your letter's
John Doe (aka il ragno at www.originaldissent.com).
Most people wil never have the slightest inkling.
2002-12-15 02:27 | User Profile
Who told you my real name's John Doe????
Seriously though ladies & germs....the court of public opinion is not a court of law, and that's the body Gottfried is appealing to here. He doesn't need to put the smoking gun in Warshow's hand...just infer it a little more substantively than he's done thus far.
You can't access them now due to the Carolina ice storms knocking out the server, but Nicholas Stix at Toogood Reports is another writer fighting long & fruitless wars against campus orthodoxy, particularly the tenure & academic-journal boondoggles, and his reports from the education front make a good contrast. Of course, he doesn't have as many career gains to protect as Gottfried (not a condemnation, just an acknowledgment of reality) so he can afford to speak more frankly. (He's also a Zionist, although this rarely if ever plays a part in his essays on academia.)
Hey, I generally love Gottfried; I just hate seeing him shoot himself in the foot.
2002-12-15 06:22 | User Profile
Some of my random tangential thoughts:
I don't know about her politics, as you said, but this position as acceditor is a fairly significant political, and sensitive, position. I don't know what she has in her den at home, but I doubt if she carries any Che posters in her office at work.
There's no way for us to be sure, but then I wouldn't be surprised if she did have such a poster. I've seen profs with posters of Mao on their office wall in the poli sci department. Does a Mao beat a Che? Or is it a tie--they're both commies and have three letter names.
You can't access them now due to the Carolina ice storms knocking out the server
Yeah, don't underestimate these. They knocked out my power from Wednesday to Sunday.
2002-12-15 20:45 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Dec 15 2002, 02:27 Who told you my real name's John Doe????
What a coincidence! We both have the same name ;) I hope the neocons don't start citing this as proof paleo's are just a bunch of inbred hillbillies :D
Seriously though ladies & germs....the court of public opinion is not a court of law, and that's the body Gottfried is appealing to here. He doesn't need to put the smoking gun in Warshow's hand...just infer it a little more substantively than he's done thus far.
No, seriously, these types of academic contests are not about demonstrating truth, I'd think anybody should know. Anybody familiar with Gottfried should now what type of material he puts out and what types of enemies he will attract. Anyone not familiar with him isn't likely going to be swayed by anything he says.
Publishing in VDARE, he is making a reasonable inference that he is appealing entirely to the first group. I admit it would be nice to know more about this, the precise details etc. But this isn't a legal brief.
We're acting like a typical group of western individualists, insisting Gottfried, no matter his reputation, demonstrate his case on his merits. Hey, we need to show a little more in-group solidarity!
Sometimes I'll swear we paleo's act like the aggie being hanged in that old joke.
**You can't access them now due to the Carolina ice storms knocking out the server, but Nicholas Stix at Toogood Reports is another writer fighting long & fruitless wars against campus orthodoxy, particularly the tenure & academic-journal boondoggles, and his reports from the education front make a good contrast. Of course, he doesn't have as many career gains to protect as Gottfried (not a condemnation, just an acknowledgment of reality) so he can afford to speak more frankly. (He's also a Zionist, although this rarely if ever plays a part in his essays on academia.)
Hey, I generally love Gottfried; I just hate seeing him shoot himself in the foot.**
Well who knows, maybe Warshaw had something to do with this too ;)
2002-12-26 17:54 | User Profile
**Hey, I generally love Gottfried; I just hate seeing him shoot himself in the foot. **
Well, it suprised me that he posted her email address, but I took advantage of it!
In a slugfest, we have the advantage of these smelly little creeps, so I don't think we need to fear massive retaliation. I thing this particular POW will be more carefull in the future.
2002-12-26 23:22 | User Profile
Originally posted by Oliver Cromwell@Dec 26 2002, 17:54 **Well, it suprised me that he posted her email address, but I took advantage of it!
In a slugfest, we have the advantage of these smelly little creeps, so I don't think we need to fear massive retaliation. I thing this particular POW will be more carefull in the future.**
Its hard to know the mindset of these people, but its always good to make a little noise - it at least makes them think.
2003-01-14 20:23 | User Profile
Originally posted by il ragno@Dec 13 2002, 02:51 ** But I'm not dancing for a carrot called 'tenure'. And I've got the common sense to use a pseudonym. **
Please, seeking tenure is not respectable? Using pseudonyms is more respectable if one has tenure-track job? I am starting to get the impression that right-wingers enjoy the idea of secrecy and the a vast left-wing conspiracy to punish any and all non-pc remarks. Yes, it is possible to offend people in academia, but there are also a lot of academics who are sick to death of both pc-ness and anti-pc paranoia.
2003-01-15 00:39 | User Profile
Originally posted by darkeddy@Jan 14 2003, 20:23 I am starting to get the impression that right-wingers enjoy the idea of secrecy and the a vast left-wing conspiracy to punish any and all non-pc remarks.
I do too. Its like some enjoy play acting as if they're already in some communist police state, and thus can do nothing more than internet posturing.