Firstly, the Bellesiles case was more “interesting” than is sometimes recalled. He was tenured, thus given special status relative to the review of “Arming America”. Additionally his work was sanctioned via peer review and his preliminary work, in part due to that sanction, was published in major journals. He attracted critical and important sources of financial support. Further still, other academics and professionals, as well as prominent others still among the chattering classes, heaped rather abundant praise upon the book (in professional journals), in part because it lent the imprimatur of academe to an ideologically interested program. Further still the book was published by a prestigious publisher.

Hence the complicity was of such a thoroughgoing nature that one might be forgiven for wondering just how rigorous the peer review and more prefessional book reviews were. Or, because of the ideological interested quality of the work, was an abundance of self-assurance at work, along with a sneering contempt, in order to ward off rigor, rather than welcome it. Habits of mind have consequences often beyond their prime targets and targeted suspects.

And some of those details concerning Bellesiles’ case are recalled, but the implications that stem from those details are not typically explored very thoughtfully. Ward Chruchill’s was an even more “interesting” case, though it did fall within an even less desciplined discipline.

By contrast nothing of the sort has been proven in Horowitz’s case, and he functions as a private citizen who is pointedly persuing an activist political program, airing it all openly for public review as well. Hyperbole? Yes. Excess and generalizations at times? Yes, unquestionably. But to a large extent that is part and parcel of any activist who is having to break through

And Lysenkoism? Not remotely close, even to the contrary. As alluded to, what Horowitz is attempting to counter registers closer to Lysenkoism, Bellesiles and Churchill representing only the more grievous cases. Horowitz’s hyperbole and generalizations, while they cannot be denied, are taking place within an activist’s openly avowed program, not within academe, hence different standards of measure are applicable as well, which is not to say mutually exclusive in their entirety, but it’s a different setting entirely that he is operating in.

Is Horowitz a Lysenko, or a sloppy researcher? There is an important difference. Lysenko cooked the books and made certain that his research came out supporting the ends desired by Comrade Stalin. So there was intent to deceive. Is that somethig proved with Horowitz? I’d agree that his work is sloppy, and not of a quality that I would like to associate with research universities.

However, let’s note that many academics (Professor Berube excepted) seem to be perfectly willing to support the research fraud of Micheal Bellesiles and Ward Churchill. Bellesile and Churchill fit the comparison to Lysenko much more aptly than Horowitz.

Lastly, Hayden White is greatly over-rated, as are most of the folks who quote him approvingly.

Like I said – it takes all kinds. There are plenty of NPR liberals, plenty of wingnuts, but not nearly enough moonbats like Churchill (in the public sphere, that is). They are endangered species, need protection.

And you know, Churchill has a pretty haughty and disdainful attitude toward people like me who defend his right to speak but not the content of his remarks. So I’ll just let him look for allies elsewhere.

The Churchill and Al-Arian people! United! Will never be defeated!

Yes, but the point is to act like it. As you can see from “thoughtful commentator,” even when you respond to what little substance they have, they’ll always claim that you just “sneered” at them.
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No surprise here, he’s done it before. Good liberal, exactly, suitable for the NPR.

“Is there such a thing as collective guilt in a superpower?” That’s a legitimate research question…

“Research question” – lol.

It seems to me that if you go along with this, you do indeed play into a liberal stereotype – the liberal who is so eager to prove his reasonableness that he will engage in spirited debate on any topic, including the topic of whether he should be hung for treason. On the Internet at least, many conservatives seem to play this game where it’s accusations of treason one moment and calls for civility the next, and when it’s time for the latter they expect you to forget all about the former and pretend like it didn’t happen. In the real world, that’s not how we act towards people who cast vicious aspersions in our direction, and I don’t blame Berube for not wanting to play the game.

Why didn’t DH lead on Joan Wallach Scott, who needs more defending? Perhaps because he’s a fool. Or perhaps because he’d already painted himself into a corner by condemning a whole academic programme the content of which he’d not bothered to research, so he needed to attack White to justify himself.

DH is very fond of these broad-brush attacks, but when his critics call him on them, he’s short on examples, and forced to fall back on badly-judged insults. Or worse, he tries that “Yes, well, that’s just the sort of thing that us intellectuals have to say when we’re talking to the masses – surely you, as a fellow intellectual, understand. ” schtick, which sums up conservative elitism better than anything I can think of. Check out the end of part 15.

DH is a Trofim Lysenko for our times.

But having said all that, the ultimate sneer was Horowitz saying “Hayden White” as if this proved that he’d won the argument. In my experience (and I was raised in the heart of the British empiricist tradition of historiography), any historian who’s given historical method the first thought – even the most dyed-in-the-wool positivists – contends that Hayden White has a point, even if they cheerfully light bonfires with copies of Rethinking History. To the majority, Hayden White isn’t a joke, but a serious thinker who deserves a serious response, even if they end up disagreeing with him.