The Michael Walzer Affair A Scandal at Belgrade University by Aleksandar Jokic and Milan Brdar
http://www.swans.com/library/art17/ajokic08.html But what does leftist orientation mean in the U.S.? (That it is something entirely different over there: see in Neil Jumonville, Critical Crossing, Berkeley, Univ. of California Press, 1990.) If leftist orientation in a minimalist sense demands opposition to imperialism, then Walzer is a right-winger par excellence, for he supported every war that was started by a democratic administration in the U.S. and every Israeli war. What sort of leftist is one who supports "democratic" wars (those waged by the Democratic party in the U.S.) for the sake of spreading the power of American corporations? In addition, Walzer's is an endowed professorship, one established by a global corporation, the UPS. If that fails to strike us as very leftist we should be forgiven (and we should know, we were both raised in a communist country). However, should we leave aside the above characterization as inaccurate or meaningless, the question of the criterion appears again: Why should that be important or positive from the point of view of the Belgrade University?His name is on the list of one hundred most influential world intellectuals voted for by the readers of the journalForeign Affairs and the British Prospect Magazine.Did those readers vote for this list or did they vote for the intellectuals whose name will appear on it? Sloppy formulations like this and silly praises of this kind are incompatible with a prose by responsible scholars who are serious about the task of justifying a recommendation that a foreign colleague should be recognized with a honoris causa. What is, after all, the scientific reputation of these two publications so that opinions of their readers would hold any significance for Belgrade University? Foreign Affairs is a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). This is a private club formed in New York in 1921 with the purpose of promoting "understanding of foreign policy and America's role in the world." (By deploying activist intellectuals like Walzer the promotion of CFR propaganda -- or in their terminology "understanding" -- goes quite smoothly.) Carroll Quigley, Professor of History at Georgetown University, stated, "The Council of Foreign Relations is the American Branch of a society which originated in England and believes national boundaries should be obliterated and one-world rule established." (2) CFR is one of the three most influential organizations in the West, founded and financed by David Rockefeller. Now, who are those "readers" referred to in the Recommendation and why exactly are they, the so-called CFRians, relevant for any academic institution, such as Belgrade University?As for the Prospect Magazine, it is an unserious publication when assessed from any academic standard: It is broadly centre-left and pro-European, but perhaps its strongest leaning is "contrarian" -- it devotes much space to articles debunking the "popular wisdom," on topics from economics to political terrorism. Hence, it is a publication without any recognizable academic merit in order to be of any importance whatsoever to Belgrade University.Michael Walzer was born in 1935. In 1956 he graduated from Brandeis University with a B.A. in History. He then studied at the University of Cambridge (1956-1957) and Harvard. He completed his doctoral work at Harvard, earning his Ph.D. in Government in 1961.Consequently, Walzer neither studied philosophy as an undergraduate nor was he trained in philosophy in his doctoral work; he is untutored in philosophy. The claim in the Recommendation that this is the "greatest political philosopher" is that much more surprising since Walzer, as a political scientist, is only known as a "professor of social sciences" at the Institute for Advanced Studies.
Hey NYS!
ReplyDeletejust want to stop by and say thanks for leaving the links!