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| "Hey, what are you thinking?" |
Recently William Cronon, a historian who teaches at the University of Wisconsin, decided to weigh in on his state’s political turmoil. He started a blog, “Scholar as Citizen,” devoting his first post to the role of the shadowy American Legislative Exchange Council in pushing hard-line conservative legislation at the state level. Then he published an opinion piece in The Times, suggesting that Wisconsin’s Republican governor has turned his back on the state’s long tradition of “neighborliness, decency and mutual respect.”
So what was the G.O.P.’s response? A demand for copies of all e-mails sent to or from Mr. Cronon’s university mail account containing any of a wide range of terms, including the word “Republican” and the names of a number of Republican politicians.
If this action strikes you as no big deal, you’re missing the point. The hard right — which these days is more or less synonymous with the Republican Party — has a modus operandi when it comes to scholars expressing views it dislikes: never mind the substance, go for the smear. And that demand for copies of e-mails is obviously motivated by no more than a hope that it will provide something, anything, that can be used to subject Mr. Cronon to the usual treatment.
. . .
What’s at stake here … is whether we’re going to have an open national discourse in which scholars feel free to go wherever the evidence takes them, and to contribute to public understanding. Republicans, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, are trying to shut that kind of discourse down. It’s up to the rest of us to see that they don’t succeed.
8 comments:
Good grief. Will they stop at nothing?
Roy, er, BvT, what's the image from? It's awesome!
You mean the Planet of the Apes pic? I absolutely stole it this morning from the OC weekly:
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/heardmentality/2011/03/musics_lamest_causes.php?page=6
I just assumed it was a scene from one of the pics from that franchise. Hippie Apes, I guess, singin' "Eve of Destruction" or something. Or maybe, the "Banana Boat" song.
I'm a little confused on the headline. Cro-Magnons were the first human beings (us!) who "succeeded" the Neanderthals. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "Krugman vs. Neanderthal" (using the def of Neanderthal in DtB)?
Yeah, but, um, "Krug-man" is like "Kro-magnon," see?
I figured that the Cro-mags may have been an improvement over the Neanderthals, but they still grunted and needed shaves and baths. So it still works, see? Or not.
I think that the extremist Right Wingers should have access to his and our e-mails because they won't understand them: we and professor Krugman are articulate, use the language well, have endless nuances, employ symbols and tropes, irony and satire. The other group only responds to sarcasm.
And then there is the name "Cronon", which is vaguely similar to Cro-Magnon.... Oooh, I like all this postmodern, Derridean wordplay!
My practice is to give very little thought to titles but still to choose snappy ones. This often goes well, but it as often goes badly. I like the danger. "Kronan", "Kro-mag", "Krug"--yeah, I like it. Went with it. No regrets. "Krugman v. Neanderthals" has no zip at all.
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