Deluge of Dershowitz

I’m looking forward to Dershowitz announcing that, in order to track down the real killers of Nicole Simpson and Sunny von Bulow, it is necessary to interrogate the leading suspects- and also their lawyers- by using intense pain- say, by pushing needles under their fingernails.

And finally, I received an email from a group called Scholars For Peace in the Middle East, urging me to oppose an academic boycott of Israel.

I received a similar email. The boycott is by the UCU union, which represents over 120,000 British academics.

Interesting that you consider something so minor as Dershowitz’ involvement to “more than cancel out” any merit there is in opposing a boycott of Israel by most of British academia.

Dershowitz should be ashamed of himself for policing thought…

He’s just another lawyer who enjoys the acrobatics of semantic language games where he usually rails against any political belief he feels is unacceptable (usually, of course, in relation to Israel) by use of

The hysterical aspect of Dershowitz sending “evidence” to DePaul Universtiy to show that Finkelstein doesn’t deserve tenure affair is all the more stupid and contradictory when one notes that there has been talk that Steven Pinker (also now at Hardvard, with tenure) and Dershowitz plan to write a book together about “taboo”.

Oh the joy, I can’t wait!

Pinker’s American Renaissance tainted
Pioneer Fund scientific “race realism” theorizing coddled with the stark anti free-thought of Dershowitz will surely made for awesomely head inducing reading!

SPAM:
http://www.gavinevans.net/?m=200704
http://hocemolinakafu.blogspot.com/2007/04/when-academics-lose-it.html

The irony of all this is the word “anti-semitism” which of course has it’s root in the racist policies of Hitler… So now we have Dershowitz policing thought, with his buddy Pinker arguing the same thing as Hitler, except from the opposite perspective (that Jews are more intelligent then everyone else…)

ps. IQ = Intelligence…

Anyone who swallows that pill is not a true intellectual.

oops, sorry for all the typos, in a rush…

That was supposed to be != (as in does not equal…)

Mugwump,

Didn’t you read that John Quiggen opposes the boycott? It’s stated explicitly in the sentence directly after the one you excerpt.

It’s the merit of the ‘Scholars for Peace’ statement that is cancelled out by its being cheer-leaded by supporter of torture, not the merit of opposing a boycott.

And finally, of course, the UCU has not called for a boycott. The resolution passed promotes a discussion of the tactic. Nor will boycott be adopted by the union, I hope and predict.

There’s obviously some, mimimal, requirement for colleagality within the department and/or university, otherwise daily work would be impossible. But there can’t be any requirement that public expression of views, particularly where those are against dominant political forces, must be polite or restrained.

I think Jon Swift had the best hatchet job on Dershowitz last year when he was in full cult of civilianity mode during the butchery in the Levant. The less said the better.

I became aware of Dershowitz’s existence as a result of this movie, which Professor Quiggin may have missed.

This whole blog discussion on Dershowitz — including John Quiggin’s initial posting — is completely disgraceful. What exactly is the point, except to galvanize hatred?

All I see is that John objects to Dershowitz’s name arising in contexts where he takes an opposing viewpoint. Fine. And so what follows from this? Should we be lynching Dershowitz? Revoking his tenure at Harvard? The only substantively interesting issue John has raised concerns his colleagues at the University of Queensland, which perhaps deserves wider attention — but the anti-Dershowitz stuff has done nothing to promote that, given the tenor of comments so far.

I disagree substantively with Dershowitz on all the points John raises. However, there is nothing wrong with Dershowitz’s campaign to deny Finkelstein tenure. However, DePaul University would be at fault — and very serious fault by my lights — if Dershowitz did manage to intimidate them.

(I raise this example, rather than the possible UK Israeli boycott, only because that’s less likely to succeed, regardless of Dershowitz’s pressure. However, if there were a union boycott and Dershowitz was agreed to have been an influence, the fault would still lie with the union, not Dershowitz.)

Here I advise ‘Put up or shut up’: OK, we all disagree with Dershowitz — what do you propose we do?

However, there is nothing wrong with Dershowitz’s campaign to deny Finkelstein tenure

Do you mean:

(a) “there is nothing wrong in principle with Alan Dershowitz or anybody else saying that another academic does not merit tenure” ; or

(b) “there is nothing wrong with the way Alan Dershowitz has conducted his cmpaign against Norman Finkelstein”?

(Or of course [c] “other” if you prefer.)

I don’t get it :- a) “there is nothing wrong with Dershowitz’s campaign to deny Finkelstein tenure”
b) “DePaul University would be at fault—and very serious fault by my lights—if Dershowitz did manage to intimidate them.”

So it’s OK for Dershowitz to intimidate, but not OK for DePaul to give in to intimidation?
But why not? The intimidation’s OK, isn’t it?
What could be wrong with “making a practical accommodation” with something that’s OK?

“Troll” is one of those terms easily thrown around to discredit an opponent, often by OP’s who are themselves masters of the art.

marc mulholland, read what Quiggin said:

As far as I am concerned, Dershowitz’s prominent involvement more than cancels out any merits this exercise might have.

As one of those merits is opposition to the boycott, I stand by my original statement:

Interesting that you consider something so minor as Dershowitz’ involvement to “more than cancel out” any merit there is in opposing a boycott of Israel by most of British academia.

And finally, if the UCU resolution does not call for boycott, why is it called

Resolution 30 Boycott of Israeli academic institutions

?

Steve Fuller has a point: people have a right to campaign and institutions have an obligation to be objective. Doesn’t always work, but in theory this is how it should be.

Yet something doesn’t quite fit there, Steve: if it’s OK for Dershowitz to campaign, why is it disgraceful when JQ does it?

Steve Fuller: “All I see is that John objects to Dershowitz’s name arising in contexts where he takes an opposing viewpoint. ”

Then you’re a fool. Dershowitz has proven to be an eager whore for quite immoral interests. The man who opposed torture flipped 180 degrees upon the announcement by the Israeli government that it tortured. The former defense attorney and champion of civil liberties turned to an advocate of torture, when it served his political interests. He condoned the deliberate killing of civilians in war, with words more worthy of a mass-murdering dictatorship than of the USA.

I believe that Finkelstein should have gotten tenure but there is nothing wrong with what Dershowitz did

Which does kind of leave open the question of why you think it’s “disgraceful” of John to list some of the errors of judgement and morality that Dershowitz has engaged in over the last few years, with much less bluster and hardly any bombast at all, culminating in a note that he personally wouldn’t sign a petition that had Dershowitz’s name on it.

I mean really, Steve, you’re setting out a bully’s charter here. Behaving like Alan Dershowitz and David Horowitz isn’t OK. It’s nasty, and even if there is a positive duty on everyone to not be moved by their attempts at intimidation, that doesn’t mean that they’re not bad for attempting it, or that there shouldn’t be some minor social sanctions imposed on them to try and dissuade them from creating social bads.

At the moment you appear to be staking out the position that nobody is entitled to be protected from having veiled and not-so-veiled threats and blackmail attempts made against them, apart from Alan Dershowitz apparently, of whom even the mildest criticism is “disgraceful”, even when he is transparently acting in bad faith and pursuing a personal feud in the guise of an academic intervention.

If I might make a personal remark (and in context I don’t think you can object to my doing so), you must presumably be aware that there are plenty of people who would like to see you run out of your job because you’ve appeared as an expert witness in “intelligent design” court cases. I’ve deleted a number of quite vituperative posts on Crooked Timber from some of them over the last 24 hours. Should I not be bothering to do this? Is it disgraceful of me to do so?

To Barry

Dershowitz has proven to be an eager whore for quite immoral interests. The man who opposed torture flipped 180 degrees upon the announcement by the Israeli government that it tortured. The former defense attorney and champion of civil liberties turned to an advocate of torture, when it served his political interests. He condoned the deliberate killing of civilians in war, with words more worthy of a mass-murdering dictatorship than of the USA.

First, I know all this. And second, I don’t pretend to have your insight into Dershowitz’s moral psychology. But given that Dershowitz is an academic and not a political leader capable of turning his will into law, I’m not sure what more you would have us do than simply disagree strenuously with him, ideally in settings as public as the ones where he makes his claims. And the best way to do that is by attacking his arguments rather than his character. For example, I don’t see many academics swayed by Dershowitz’s arguments for torture but his writings on the topic enable more reasoned disagreement on the topic — even when he contradicts his own past positions and overeggs the pudding.

But I don’t see this happening in this thread so far.

To Daniel:

Steve Fuller: no one disputes that Dershowitz had the right to do campaign against tenure, but I’m not sure that your conclusion makes any sense. If Finkelstein deserved tenure than Dershowitz’s opposition to Finkelstein’s tenure was meritless, and he should not, by implication, do what he did. I’m struggling to understand how you can have it both ways, i.e., claiming that DePaul’s administration wrongly concluded that Finkelstein did not deserve tenure but that Dershowitz correctly concluded that Finkelstein didn’t deserve tenure. If Dershowitz is wrong, and his activities led to an outcome you deem (rightly or wrongly) to be incorrect, then why doesn’t he bear some moral responsibility for the outcome?

the short response to this is that I’m not a semantic realist about tenure. In other words, there is no fact of the matter about whether Finkelstein (or anyone) deserves tenure until all the evidence is weighed and a decision taken. Under the circumstances, all sorts of evidence may be considered — including Dershowitz’s — and then it’s the responsibility of the university to take the final decision. The actions taken by Dershowitz and the university should be treated as completely independent. Do you really think Dershowitz should have soft-pedalled his opposition out of fear that he might unduly influence De Paul? Any university that would be cowed by Dershowitz simply because he’s Dershowitz isn’t worth the title.

I have actually read some of Dershowitz’s books…he is definitely a smart lawyer, but his written work leaves a lot to be desired (to put it extremely mildly). My law and philosophy colleagues actually have a running joke about his “scholarly” works (involves guessing the knowledge level of his research assistants…from his books). He is very poorly read and frequently misunderstands subtle philosophical arguments;no wonder he is successful as a lawyer.

I am unclear by what you mean by “all the evidence is weighed and a decision taken” because of the passive character of your statement. Do you mean to say that the decision taken by DePaul determines whether or not Finkelstein deserved tenure? That can’t be right, as it contravenes your own argument. Or do you mean that no one can pass judgment until after [that individual] weighs all the facts and [some agent] makes a decision? Some clarification would be useful.

If you all mean is this “I have concluded that Finkelstein probably deserved tenure, but my basis for judgment is incomplete” and “if Dershowitz concluded that Finkelstein did not deserve tenure, even in the absence of incomplete information, he should have vociferously opposed Finkelstein’s possible tenure” then I think you’re still facing significant tensions in your claim about the conditions that ought to render us competent to judge and the conditions under which Dershowitz made his decision.

Regardless of the merits of the case, I find it puzzling that you would present the issue as “cowed by Dershowitz.” You must realize that for DePaul there is potentially a great more at stake than having a single individual rail against them to no particular material effect.

steve – I’m still waiting for your response to dsquared’s query about the disconnect between your description of John Q’s criticisms of Dershowitz as ‘disgraceful’ and your claim that Dershowitz’s own efforts to get Finkelstein fired should under no circumstances be faulted. The only hypothesis that seems to me to fit the available evidence is that you’re taking the piss. Perhaps you can show me why I’m wrong.

mugwump

there is no boycott of Israel by UCU, there is no official boycott proposed by UCU. Read what they say on their website.

However, there IS a boycott currently in action against China. As I think we can all agree, the only possible motivation for this is anti-Chinaism, and I look forward to your aggressive protests against this blatant racism in action.

Steve Fuller,

So if I tried hard to get you fired, you know, approached your HOD and told lies about you, spread lies about your parents and family, and (you ignore this point) I had a huge financial and political infrastucture behind me who were also devoted to getting you (and everyone who agreed with your politics) fired….that would be ok would it? And you are actually telling me that if the University fired you (and let’s not beat around the bush here: Finkelstein has been fired because of his political beliefs, so that he can be prevented from teaching young people facts that the Israeli government does not want them to hear) you would not hold me responsible in any way shape or form for this?

Steve Fuller:

“But given that Dershowitz is an academic and not a political leader capable of turning his will into law, I’m not sure what more you would have us do than simply disagree strenuously with him, ideally in settings as public as the ones where he makes his claims.”

Steve, I don’t care what you do; I expect nothing useful from you.

‘This is why I despair when people start making claims about other people’s morality, sincerity, honesty, etc’.

What, even if these people are immoral, insincere and dishonest?

‘But does this mean we should ban bullies? I don’t think so. Where to draw the line?’

I know. If you start banning things like bullying, it’s the thin end of the wedge. Pretty soon you’ll end up banning murder and theft too, and then where will we be?

Engels – yes, I put the consequent too strongly, i.e., “meritless” should be “incorrect.” But the general thrust of the matter still holds: Dershowitz cannot be without fault in this instance if his position was wrong. One does have an obligation, all things being equal, to stand for one’s beliefs, but that same obligations does not render one immune to moral criticism or approbation

But they all sort of bothered him, and so – hey!—why not throw Dershowitz to the dogs!

What dogs? Come on here. We are all about careful use of language aren’t we? John actually said that he wasn’t going to sign Dershowitz’s petition, because Dershowitz was an advocate of the use of torture (which he is) and of detention without trial (which he is) and has attempted to intervene unfairly in someone else’s tenure hearing (which he has).

Saying that someone’s name on a petition puts you off signing it is about as mild as criticism comes.

There’s nothing controversial about Dershowitz; everybody knows where he stands on issues like torture, bombing civilians etc. The only controversy is whether he should still be regarded as a figure “of the left”, but John didn’t address that – only whether he was the sort of person who is a brand asset to a petition about Israel rather than the opposite.

As I say, you seem to be operating on a standard under which there can be no social sanctions against someone who a) behaves like Dershowitz or Horowitz or b) advocates repugnant policies. That’s a bully’s charter in the first case and ignores the reality of politics in the second. Alternatively, it makes more sense to me to say that a) there has to be a presupposition that people have to meet a minimum standard of civilised behaviour before one is going to take their arguments seriously (which includes not calling people’s mothers collaborators, trying to get people sacked etc). And b) that someone asking for your solidarity in a political cause (like opposing a boycott) does not get it if they’re most famous for advocating policies that you consider repugnant.

I think the problem here is the ambiguous distinction between Alan Dershowitz as a person and his arguments. His arguments are the proper subject of critical scrutiny, but he himself isn’t – he’s just a person who behaves unacceptably and says disgusting things.

just an addendum:

This is why I despair when people start making claims about other people’s morality, sincerity, honesty, etc

This despair is misplaced. If someone is doing politics, then their morality, sincerity and honesty are all important. Alan Dershowitz didn’t just intend his article about the “continuum of civilianity” to be considered as an interesting problem in moral philosophy along with the Newcomb Envelope Problem. He intended for it to be used as an excuse by the IDF for bombing villages in Lebanon. Similarly, his article on torture wasn’t another rehash of the “ticking time bomb” – it was a specific suggestion for reforming the law on torture to permit the sticking of needles under fingernails.

The “public intellectuals” of the world always want to try to be politicians when in attack and academics when in defence, but I don’t see a single reason why we should let them. If someone regularly makes pronouncements about public policy which are dishonest and repugnant, then this needs to be shouted from the rooftops every time he tries to make one. If there’s an underlying academic thesis in there, we can talk about that later once he’s got his face off CNN.

(and finally, like the triple posting loon I am, I’ll note a family resemblance between Steve’s argument here and those of cricketers who wanted to “take the politics out of sport” when doing so would allow them to pick up big paydays for touring South Africa. They were correctly satirised at the time for wanting to “take the politics out of politics”, and treating someone like Alan Dershowitz as if he’s a normal academic seems to me to be something of the same kind. Note that Dershowitz himself certainly doesn’t agree with the proposed standard here; there are all sorts of people that he absolutely refuses to debate with, and it is not exactly unknown for him to question their sincerity and morality).

That’s not the first time that Menetrez piece has been posted. I have to admit that while largely agreeing with it, I didn’t really like it much: it was a bit clunky, trying too hard to say “well, although I am basically of Finkelstein’s party, I tried my best to be even-handed”. Too much hemming and hawing, maybe, I don’t know.

BetsyD #53 : Just to explain, part of the academic politics is that Finkelstein unleashed a nuclear bomb of an accusation against Dershowitz with the plagiarism charge, one of the few accusations which can have an academic effect against an already-tenured professor like Dershowitz (being an apologist for torture comes under the heading of academic freedom – cribbing from someone else’s book is extremely serious). Dershowitz blasted back in a kind of payback-in-a-bitch, the metaphorical equivalent that Finkelstein should be sanctioned for filing false changes (cue obvious lawyer jokes that come to mind …). That’s how he “got a say” – and seemed to get the better of the dispute in the end.

[Disclaimer: I think the plagiarism charge was pure mud-slinging, and got traction only on the basis of being politically useful in rhetorical warfare, not on its merits]

[n.b., I’m no relation to Norman]

‘Yet, all the reports I’ve read about the case strongly hint that the university caved in, taking what it thought to be the path of least resistance. If so, it behaved in an entirely craven manner by not standing up for academic freedom, which would have protected Finkelstein, regardless of Dershowitz’s rantings’.

Steve, no one is denying that the University has also behaved appallingly.

Mugwump, From the FRONT PAGE OF THE UCU WEBSITE:

“This does not mean an academic boycott is in place, it means that individual branches will debate the pros and cons of boycott.”

Go back under your rock, you troll.

Don’t like Alan? then ignore him. The school denied tenure to Alan’s enemy? That is on them if they did it because of Alan…but they deny this. Boycott: don’t nit-pick. Focus on the cause and not the names on a list.

Simplify: do away with tenure system

Just to follow up what engels and doormat say, here is the COMPLETE text of the UCU motion, as published in precisely NONE of the newspapers that have prattled on about it. It’s sad that only the Socialist Worker’s paper (!) has correctly described it as a pro-Palestinian, and pro-Palestinian solidarity motion, NOT an anti-Israel motion (let along a boycott).

‘Congress notes that Israel’s 40-year occupation has seriously damaged the fabric of Palestinian society through annexation, illegal settlement, collective punishment and restriction of movement.

Congress deplores the denial of educational rights for Palestinians by invasions, closures, checkpoints, curfews, and shootings and arrests of teachers, lecturers and students.

Congress condemns the complicity of Israeli academia in the occupation, which has provoked a call from Palestinian trade unions for a comprehensive and consistent international boycott of all Israeli academic institutions.

Congress believes that in these circumstances passivity or neutrality is unacceptable and criticism of Israel cannot be construed as anti-semitic.

Congress instructs the NEC to

* circulate the full text of the Palestinian boycott call to all branches/LAs for information and discussion;
* encourage members to consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions;
* organise a UK-wide campus tour for Palestinian academic/educational trade unionists;
* issue guidance to members on appropriate forms of action

amendment carried

30A.3 – College of North East London

At the end, add the following last bullet point, “actively encourage and support branches to create direct links with Palestinian educational institutions and to help set up nationally sponsored programmes for teacher exchanges, sabbatical placements, and research”

carried

31 – European Union and Israel (University of Birmingham)

Congress notes:

* That since the Palestinian elections in January 2006 the Israeli government has suspended revenue payments to the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the EU and US have suspended aid, leaving public-sector salaries unpaid and earning the condemnation of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions;
* That Israel is seeking to upgrade its relations with the EU to the same level as Norway and Switzerland, permitting free passage of goods, people and capital, while denying these freedoms to Palestinians.

Congress resolves to campaign for:

* The restoration of all international aid to the PA and all revenues rightfully belonging to it;
* No upgrade of Israel’s EU status until it ends the occupation of Palestinian land and fully complies with EU Human Rights law.

carried as amended

31A.1 – University of Birmingham

Under “Congress resolves to campaign for:”, add new clause 3 at end:

“3. A moratorium on research and cultural collaborations with Israel via EU and European Science Foundation funding until Israel abides by UN resolutions.”

carried

31A.2 – University of Brighton Eastbourne

Add new clause at end:

“Congress instructs the NEC to encourage branches/associations to

* raise these campaigns in their Institutions and
* investigate the possibilities of twinning their Institution with a Palestinian University or College.”

carried.’

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=11802

Omnibus (Life is short…)

Reading through all these comments, I am still struck how easily most of you are willing to let DePaul off the hook and demonize Dershowitz instead. First, Dershowitz’s campaign against Finkelstein was already in the public sphere before he introduced it to the tenure case. There was nothing very secret about it. Second, De Paul, knowing Dershowitz might be trying to influence the tenure decision, could have kept arms’ distance from Dershowitz from the start or discount his evidence because of its tainted nature. Indeed, De Paul could have made a public statement – or at least a private one to Finkelstein – that Dershowitz was not at all a welcomed party. Why didn’t any of this happen? Maybe, as Dsquared says, Dershowitz had even more nefarious political and financial forces at his disposal that we don’t know about. In any case, De Paul still looks like the main culprit – all of this assuming Dershowitz did influence matters as much as everyone seems to assume.

Now, as for Dershowitz being ‘repugnant’, confusing academic and political utterance, I find this singularly unpersuasive. If Dershowitz were holding political office and a professorship at the same time, I would take the point more seriously. But no matter how noisy he is, Dershowitz is still only a professor. Universities say no to professors all the time (e.g. salary raises).

I’m a little surprised no one has tried to compare Dershowitz on this score with one of Finkelstein’s most vocal defenders, Noam Chomsky. Is Chomsky a PC Dershowitz? A Dershowitz without the dough? A Dershowitz who doesn’t raise his voice or insult people’s parents? OK, Chomsky doesn’t usually accuse particular individuals of indecent behaviour, only rogue states like the US and Israel. And I agree that Chomsky is better house-trained than Dershowitz, but I’m not sure you can build an entire theory of academic ethics on that.

And in any case, I’d still like to know what exactly would you people like to see done to Dershowitz.

Dsquared (number 53) rails specifically against Dershowitz’s defence and extension of current US torture practices as if this somehow oversteps the bounds of academic propriety. Why? Is it simply because he wishes to influence US law and policy – and has a good shot at it? What if he were writing to extend affirmative action legislation, or provide legal grounds a steeply progressive tax system? Would you say he’s overstepping the bounds then? My guess is that once you put some meat on your proposal about academic propriety, it’s going to sound like criteria for club membership: e.g. the political import of your academic books may be to harm the rich and powerful but not the poor and defenceless. I think part of the animus displayed here to Dershowitz ultimately boils down to the level of success he’s enjoyed in attracting publicity for his ideas and causes, albeit by hijacking other people’s careers and miseries. Not a guy I would necessarily invite to dinner or have marry my daughter but that’s as far as I would go.

“I’m a little surprised no one has tried to compare Dershowitz on this score with one of Finkelstein’s most vocal defenders, Noam Chomsky.”

Because people writing here have had enough brains not to. That level of absurdity has therefore thankfully been avoided.

Daniel/#60 – I read through the evidence Norman Finkelstein presented. Given the seriousness of the charge he was making, a few copied citations struck me as trumping-up an accusation entirely for the political value of it, rather than it having any substance. People who had a reason to hate Dershowitz were going to use it as a smear (what do the pundits care if it’s accurate or not?), and any rebuttal would just spread the mud. If Finkelstein were to say “Dershowitz was sloppy in properly researching these citations”, nobody would care, and it would look nitpicky. But to say “Dershowitz plagiarized this” – that’s explosive. And it’s not as if the material at issue was apparently especially notable or original. Dershowitz had a very rational reply in my view – if people writing on the same subject tend to talk about the same pieces of evidence, it’s not plagiarism that there’s similarity, and why should he be obligated to cite one particular secondary source which mentions it? (even if, privately, he likes that source more than is politically acceptable to admit).

It seemed to me that what Finkelstein really wanted to say was “Dershowitz is relying on Peters’ discredited arguments too much”. But that wasn’t going to go over well, since Dershowitz could just say he’s making an independent, good argument, that fixes the problem in Peters’ argument. So Finkelstein made it into a plagiarism charge as a kind of rhetorical trap. And that created an academic “blow-back” on him.

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: ‘As I have repeatedly said, I do not believe an academic boycott of Israel is the issue UCU members want the union to prioritise.

And yet, Resolution 30 Boycott of Israeli academic institutions
says:
§ circulate the full text of the Palestinian boycott call to all branches/LAs for information and discussion;
§ encourage members to consider the moral implications of existing and proposed links with Israeli academic institutions;
§ organise a UK-wide campus tour for Palestinian academic/educational trade unionists;
§ issue guidance to members on appropriate forms of action;

That’s a heck of a lot of stuff to resolve to do for an issue they are not prioritizing.

Imagine what the union does with issues its members do want prioritized. They’d be more dynamic than a Manhattan Project on crack.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then I call it a duck.

Well, Finkelstein demonstrated a little more than Dershowitz’s reliance on Peters’ arguments.

I am still struck how easily most of you are willing to let DePaul off the hook and demonize Dershowitz instead.

When arguments start to rely on false oppsitions it is a clear sign that they are struggling.

“But there’s a big difference in being slightly embarrassed for being too close to an unsholarly source, and being a plagiarist.”

Technically he was not being “too close to an unscholarly source”. He was quoting an unscholarly source without acknowledgment (of which “turnspeak” is only one example; there are other instances. These are listed in the appendix to “Beyond Chutzpah”). According to the handbook of scholarly practices provided at my University, this constitutes plagiarism. But let me reiterate that in the scheme of things, I consider this a minor issue. So yes Finkelstein might have been “using” this as a rhetorical tactic, but not illegitimately. You may question his judgment, but he was being accurate.

“I am still struck how easily most of you are willing to let DePaul off the hook and demonize Dershowitz instead.”

Down with DePaul. Down with Dershowitz.

Is that good enough for you?

It might also be a nice idea if another institution offered Finkelstein a job.

What right do Americans have telling a British group who they can, and can not, boycott?

What, you didn’t see this: Legal star will ‘ruin’ supporters of boycot?

Alan Dershowitz, one of America’s leading lawyers, has promised he will personally visit legal and financial ruin on any UK academic supporting a boycott of Israeli academe.

[…]”I guarantee that we will obtain legislation dealing with this issue, imposing sanctions that will devastate and bankrupt those who seek to impose bankruptcy on Israeli academics,” he said.

[…]He has already begun working with a leading British barrister, whom he declined to name, to find legal avenues to challenge a boycott. He said he would pressure major American financial institutions to stop doing business with UK universities.

[…]He said a boycott would “mark the end of British academics’ reputation as serious scholars”.

Thanks to John Quiggin for clarifying what he would have us do to Dershowitz. (see 82) It’s an interesting response, not at all obvious to me, and frankly had you taken a couple of more minutes in your original post to lay out some of Dershowitz’s remarks and make this course of action explicit, I wouldn’t have jumped in as I did. I may still have disagreed with you.

However, as for dsquared’s remark: Anyone, academic or otherwise, who advocates the use of torture, academically or otherwise, thereby gives up any claim to support, friendship or solidarity from anyone who doesn’t support torture, academic or otherwise.

I guess this implies you won’t be visiting the US very soon? Have you suggested a boycott of the US? Why not? The government already supports torture in matters relating to terrorism, which is why Dershowitz’s views on the matter are taken seriously. But perhaps you mean something more moderate?

Fuller:

“However, as for dsquared’s remark: ‘Anyone, academic or otherwise, who advocates the use of torture, academically or otherwise, thereby gives up any claim to support, friendship or solidarity from anyone who doesn’t support torture, academic or otherwise.’

“I guess this implies you won’t be visiting the US very soon?”

I guess you have to be “prodigiously smart” to spot these implications. I can’t see it myself for the life of me.

Googling “Steve Fuller idiot” turned up some unsurprising blog comment threads.

Personally I always enjoy these Chomsky comparisons, whoever they are wheeled in to defend: Dershowitz, Rush Limbaugh, you name it. My only request is that they be accompanied by a loud buzzing noise. Just so everyone knows that that particular point in the argument has now been reached.

The plummet continues…

Actually, also Quiggan said is that Dersh was one of OJ’s lawyers if he recalled correctly. If OJ contracted him, this statement is true, regardless of whether the Dersh went to trial.

And where did the Dersh argue that there was a Constitutional issue in the OJ case anyway? And where did Quiggan attack Dersh for arguing that constitutional principles apply to OJ?

I guess I’m just feeding the troll in the hope that maybe there is still useful life (elsewhere) in this thread.

“non-collegiality” in this case meant
that 3 of Finkelstein’s colleagues in
his department at DePaul voted against
tenure. iirc … usually only ONE
vote against is sufficent to “blackball”
a candidate.

The other objection that was raised was
that Finkelstein had published little if
any ACADEMIC papers. “Publish or Perish”
is much more than an urban legend. Books
written for the lay public simply do not
count.

Martin,

Dershowitz was OJ’s appellate lawyer. Had OJ been convicted, Dershowitz’s job was to argue in the appeal that the judge violated the law or the constitution. At least one constitutional issue is obvious: the judge allowed in evidence gathered in a warrantless search. Quiggin clearly thinks there is something wrong with Dershowitz’s role, for reasons that are beyond me.

In context, where Quiggin equates Dershowitz’s opposition to special prosecutors with defending Libby, it’s clear how to interpret the reference to OJ. I also note that two commenters (#1 and #10) respond by joking (sort of) that Dershowitz must sympathize with OJ, believe that OJ is innocent, and sympathize with genocidal killers too. They picked up on Quiggin’s Dirty Harry style legal analysis.

I notice that no one, including Quiggin, even tries to justify the claim that Dershowitz is “predictably” “defending” Libby.

As I understand Dershowitz’s views on torture, he thinks that if it were legal in some extremely limited “ticking bomb” circumstances, the amount of torture would be reduced. I don’t agree with Dershowitz on this. But neither would I join Quiggin in the smear that Dershowitz supports the use of information obtained by torture in a criminal trial.

And since when has Dershowitz advocated “detention without trial?”

As I understand Dershowitz’s views on torture, he thinks that if it were legal in some extremely limited “ticking bomb” circumstances, the amount of torture would be reduced.

No, he specifically believes that sticking sterilised needles under someone’s fingernails should not be counted as “torture”.

To dsquared (104):

What the heck? It is possible to visit and trade with the USA or any other country without thereby expressing solidarity, friendship or support of its government. This is pretty fundamental to a lot of quite important things about the world. Could I perhaps be given a little bit of this interpretative charity and moderate language that we keep talking about, or is the entire supply needed for Alan Dershowitz and David Horowitz?

I know what you mean but what are the rules of conduct on a blog, when it gets right down to it? If we were exchanging views in an academic journal, you’d be perfectly justified in complaining. But blogging appears to be a libertarian’s paradise, where you can say what you want until the webmaster stops you. And then this thread is a perfect example of what you get: People presuming various levels of tact, civility, accuracy, precision, irony, etc.

Don’t get me wrong: Some of the stuff said here is quite interesting and funny (even if at my own expense!) — and probably worth the unevenness of tone. But after reading and participating in enough of this stuff, I find it hard to tell when people (including I) have crossed the line. Maybe this is all part of the democratisation of the intellectual commons. But if you and your fellow CT bloggers have some blogging norms you’d like to see implemented, then you should make that a topic for concerted discussion because I don’t see them ’emerging’ as some Smithian miracle any time soon.

By the way, someone in passing mentioned that Finkelstein had very few academic papers. If that’s true, that could have nailed the tenure issue, as far as De Paul is concerned — and the entire feud with Dershowitz was just a sideshow. Stranger things have happened!

Is that some sort of vindication of Dershowitz? How?

Is it typical that a professor is denied tenure he/she is terminated as well? They acknowledge that “by all accounts he is an excellent teacher, popular with his students and effective in the classroom” (“by all accounts”), yet “as a result of this decision” (denial of tenure) his employment is terminated.

Is this a rule of the trade or specific to this case?

Neil,

I read a couple hostile reviews of Preemption, and I saw no claim that Dershowitz supports “Preemptively detaining people who belong to a group (race or religion) reasonably suspected of planning serious wrongdoing is justified, even when it cannot be shown that the individuals concerned planned any wrongdoing.”

So I think you’re making stuff up.

Steve, that last remark may have come out more harshly than I intended. I’m all for a civil discussion, though I reserve the right to wax parodic.

As for Finkelstein not publishing much – could well be, I have no idea, and also no position on his tenure. But that was Lord Acton, who is as dishonest a troll as exists in these parts. Like I say, maybe he’s telling the truth, but I’d try to get a different source.

To John Quiggin (110)

Actually I was asking dsquared a question about what he meant. I was assuming for the sake of argument that if you advocate something that looks like torture, then you’re advocating torture. So, I was granting that Dershowitz and the US advocate torture. If I didn’t assume that, then dsquared’s statement looks like sanctimonious blather because of course, given half a chance, Dershowitz and the US would deny they advocate ‘torture’ under that name. And dsquared’s directive would never apply to anyone. That’s my way of being charitable to dsquared – giving his original statement some strong content and seeing how far he’d push it.

I suppose another way to go about it would be ask dsquared exactly how he would operationalise ‘advocates of torture’ to see how what he proposes would change what we are already doing. Maybe that’s a bit more charitable. It would have certainly been more polite.

As for my own views on the matter, I am very much against demonising individuals and groups, by which I include all manner of boycotts and exclusions. Only under extreme circumstances I would alter my position on this. However, I am very much in favour of criticising people on specific points, ideally giving them some free advice which they can then do as they wish. And I take great pains not to make any irreversible judgments about their moral character in the process. The fact that people sometime irritate me or get the better of me is not to be confused with a profound discovery of how horrible they are as human beings.

As for the ‘trolls’, as you call them, they seem to be experts in this hornet’s nest of Dershowitziana you’ve kicked open. I’m not sure what’s your problem with them, other than that they make your life a bit difficult. No one asked you to talk about Dershowitz in the first place. A blog isn’t a one-to-one conversation but more like a shouting match where people will respond to what they can pick up at the moment, and once you entitle a blog ‘Deluge of Dershowitz’, the Dershowitz hounds come out. (The same thing happens to me whenever I get into a discussion about intelligent design. I simply answer the interesting claims and pass over the ones not worth bothering with.)

…no permanent physical damage—is that torture?

Interesting. In the beginning Dershowitz did not deny that he’s advocating torture, he directly called it ‘torture’. His original argument was that suspects are secretly tortured all the time anyway, so it’s better to do it openly with official warrants. Sounds like he, I don’t know – evolved or devolved? – from Nazi-style moral clarity to the Bush-style moral clarity.

#17, incidentally, Ron Silver (actor playing Dershowitzin the movie) has become exactly the kind of nutcase Dershowitz is. And they say there is no evidence of ‘intelligent design’…

you make it seem as though there’s some inherent virtue in people getting it right the first time

You mean there’s not?

You should work for a book distributor Steve (a bookseller writes) as they mostly operate on the principle that getting it right first time is purely optional…

To 121 (ejh)

you make it seem as though there’s some inherent virtue in people getting it right the first time

You mean there’s not?

you make it seem as though there’s some inherent virtue in people getting it right the first time

You mean there’s not?

You should work for a book distributor Steve (a bookseller writes) as they mostly operate on the principle that getting it right first time is purely optional…

No, there is instrumental value, of course, in terms of keeping arguments moving along and keeping the interlocutors happy. But what we’re doing here is not collectively writing a book — which seems to be your benchmark.

My benchmark is having them delivered rather than written.

I believe the phrase is “fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, won’t get fooled again”. Standing proxy for a slightly more sophisticated algorithm for evaluating the credibility of sources, it’s surely the only possible way in which one could go about blogging, or anything else that requires the processing of information.

I’ve said on a number of occasions that although it doesn’t have a fancy Latin name, the fallacy of “giving known bullshitters the benefit of the doubt” is a much more common source of error than argumentum ad hominem. But I like that joke so I’m going to repeat it again.

(I can even defend this point of view on sound Bayesian or decision-theoretic grounds. As long as I started out with even a small prior probability that Dershowitz was a hack and a bullshitter, his behaviour over the last five years would have rapidly moved my posterior assessment arbitrarily close to this position. Although Bayesian updating can’t ever move the weight I place on Dershowitz’s utterances to exactly zero, if we place even a small value on my time and effort in listening to him, then he’s already in a place where the optimal expenditure of that time and effort is zero, and will be for quite some time until he rehabilitates himself. Time spent arguing seriously with Dershowitz is time taken away from considering the arguments of, for example, Norman Geras, with whom I also disagree passionately, but who hasn’t got anything like AD’s history of misbehaviour. Why should Geras be forced to subsidise Dershowitz in my personal attention economy?)

“Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Dershowitz is clearly so all-powerful that you are in danger of losing your internet access if you say something he doesn’t like.”

Have you been reading the comments? Which orifice did you pull that out of. Did anyone here say that D is “all powerful”; did you read the comments about institutions and organized interests? I think we have settled on a definition of “troll”, you comment fits it very well.

If I try and influence somebody inappropriately, are only they responsible if they are influenced?

What the hell, it’s an essay question.

The responsibility is entirely with the University IF (and this is a big IF) Dershowitz’s actions were influential and if you disagree with such ultimate denial of tenure.

So imagine a possible world where controversial academic A is up for tenure and his external enemy B kicks up a fuss. And in that world B persuades wealthy donors C, D, and E to threaten to withhold their millions. So university President F knows that if they stand firm against intimidation, and give A tenure, then many people will lose their jobs. If F caves to external pressure, then is F is the only blameworthy person?

It would seem so, in DMS’s eyes. Others will take a different view.

(Of course, I’m sure that nothing resembling this scenario could possibly be relevant to the Finkelstein case, and I offer it purely as an interesting hypothetical.)

Steve, my “finely-honed” sense of “what DD means when he says certain things” is called “comprehension of language”. What this hinges on is the definition of “anyone”. “Anyone” is a common word, not a technical term from philosophy. Therefore, we should refer by default to the “common sense” of the word, not some technical sense, as there is none, nor some special sense that might be generated by an unusual context, as there is none here. While we’re on “comprehension of language” referring to the “common sense” of a word is not the same as basing philosophy on “common sense”, as I’m using a different sense of “sense” – sense as meaning, rather than sense as judgment. Since you seem to have a poor comprehension of common words, let’s go to the dictionary:

dictionary.com “any person at all; anybody: Did anyone see the accident?”

American Heritage Dictionary: “Any person”

Note that both explicitly define the term as referring to people, not nations. I was more charitable than that, as I could imagine contexts where one might, speaking a little loosely, use it to refer to nations, but it would require a context making that meaning very clear, which DD’s statement has not.

Here’s what you said, including your quote of DD:

“However, as for dsquared’s remark: Anyone, academic or otherwise, who advocates the use of torture, academically or otherwise, thereby gives up any claim to support, friendship or solidarity from anyone who doesn’t support torture, academic or otherwise.

I guess this implies you won’t be visiting the US very soon? Have you suggested a boycott of the US? Why not? The government already supports torture in matters relating to terrorism, which is why Dershowitz’s views on the matter are taken seriously. But perhaps you mean something more moderate?”

This response is only coherent if you assume that “anyone”, as used by DD, includes both nations and individuals (in this context it clearly includes individuals, and unless I am charitable enough to you to stretch the dictionary definition, it cannot refer to nations at all).

But suppose B’s “fuss” is reasonable criticism of A’s work. And suppose that C, D, and E are persuaded not by direct appeals from B but rather by B’s criticism. Is B blameworthy?

Obviously, yes. But in that instance presumably we would choose a different term.

Why Walt, you’re too kind.

Re Finkelstein: Courtesy of a commenter at Inside Higher Ed, here’s a link to a cached version of his CV. Current version is not available:
cached cv.

Disclaimer: A subsequent commenter claimed that the cached CV was “fast and loose” with the facts, and that Finkelstein did write a book after 2001. A subsequent subsequent commenter then claimed that subsequent commenter couldn’t be trusted because of his own politics. Ah, love the internets.

Disclaimer: A subsequent commenter claimed that the cached CV was “fast and loose” with the facts, and that Finkelstein did write a book after 2001.

it is hardly a controversial claim that Norman Finkelstein wrote “Beyond Chutzpah”.

ejh,

OK. But since Chris’ comment at 133 emphasized specifically blameworthiness, that, rather than neutral “responsibility” was what I was asking about.

So B has some responsibility, but is not blameworthy. So your answer really is “no?”

to 135: Martin Bento

This response is only coherent if you assume that “anyone”, as used by DD, includes both nations and individuals (in this context it clearly includes individuals, and unless I am charitable enough to you to stretch the dictionary definition, it cannot refer to nations at all).

So, is the sum total of your objection that I shouldn’t have had to ask dsquared what he meant — I should have just known this in advance, even though the topic is one where corporate agents, i.e. states acting as individuals, do pursue torture policies? Isn’t what you’re doing here the sort of thing John Quiggin would call ‘trolling’? I’m trying to get my head around the idea, but now I think I understand.

“And is anyone going to defend Quiggin’s claim that Dershowitz is a defender of Scooter Libby? Anyone at all?”

The Wall Street Journal lined to a 373 page document (I think you can search for it online)with all the letters (that the presiding judge received) for or against (though overwhelmingly for) a small jail term for Libby. Dershowitz’s letter is one of them. It is an interesting document, and a sociologist–rather a social network analyst– can have a field day with it.

Here’s the link. It is truly a rich source of info about Libby’s milieu.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/libbyletters20070605.pdf

Against this, you cite a single sentence quoted in a radio interview where Dershowitz rhetorically asks “is that torture?”

Given the voluminous written record, it’s clear that Dershowitz’s answer is “yes.”

Not necessarily. The guy advocates torture. He is a lawyer. He might have realized that Bush admin rhetoric “we don’t torture, we have professionals applying enhanced interrogation methods” is a better vehicle to achieve his objective and changed the tune. Lawyers have been known to act in this manner; opportunistically, you know.

So B has some responsibility, but is not blameworthy. So your answer really is “no?

If we accept the premise that the act was ethically admirable (or otherwise positive in nature) then yes, that would surely have to be so. The confusion lies in whether we are discussing responsibility or ethical value.

Tweb,

I can see how you might have been mislead by Quiggin’s post (especially the one on his web site) into thinking that Dershowitz wrote a character reference for Libby. However, it is not true, it’s just a smear. The letters on your link are in alphabetical order and Dershowitz did not write one.

D^2 & Abb1,

Dershowitz denies that he advocates torture. He says his proposal is intended to reduce the amount of torture used by the US, and he seems to want to restrict its use to very narrow circumstances. So it isn’t surprising that he uses strong language to describe torture (“torture warrants,” “sterile needles…”).

Abb1 is of course right that people who are really excited about torture disguise it with euphemisms and choose mild-sounding forms of torture. Dershowitz is not one of those people.

Dershowitz invented the ticking time bomb scenario? Wikipedia attributes it to a French novel from the 1960s.

I read Dershowitz as saying that he supports torture in certain very rare ticking bomb scenarios. Maybe he’s lying and I think that if torture were legal in any circumstances, pretty soon every hidden crack vial would be counted as a “ticking bomb.” But his stated position is at worst an endorsement of torture in rare cases. Dershowitz describes his position:

I pose the issue as follows. If torture is, in fact, being used and/or would, in fact, be used in an actual ticking bomb terrorist case, would it be normatively better or worse to have such torture regulated by some kind of warrant, with accountability, recordkeeping, standards and limitations?”

Re 133
So university President F knows that if they stand firm against intimidation, and give A tenure, then many people will lose their jobs. If F caves to external pressure, then is F is the only blameworthy person?

The only blameworthy person, no. C, D, & E are blameworthy and responsible, but B is only blameworthy, not responsible for C, D, E or F’s actions.

That said, I do not see how it is ethical within academia for anyone to lobby or advocate the denial of tenure unless asked by the tenuring institution for an opinion on the candidate. It may be a liberty to promote that position but that doesn’t make it correct to do so.

Chris (166) raises a point that’s been bothering me. As I understand, most tenure committees look askance at unsolicited letters evaluating a tenure candidate. I’m not sure if Universities have actual policies on whether unsolicited letters should be taken into consideration, but to the extent that such efforts violate professional norms than what are we to make of Dershowitz’s efforts… regardless of whether his dislike of Finkelstein is justified.

And I think I’d be pretty pissed if someone accused me of a career-ending offense, particularly if I believed myself to be innocent.

das (#166): I am not sure what point you’re making here. The laws of the State of Israel are quite clear – it’s signed up to all the relevant Geneva Conventions and all the ones about civilians are jus cogens anyway. Not sure what “Jewish Law” means here; there are certainly plenty of massacres of civilians mentioned favourably in the Bible, but I think it probably is borderline anti-Semitic to suggest that the modern State of Israel has an attitude to human rights law which is shaped by the Old Testament. This is (yet another) of those cases where Dershowitz’s attempts to be “pro-Israel” in the context of US politics have led him into a position that would mark him out as an extremist right wing nutcase in Israel.

…Quiggin’s post disgraceful. Quiggin criticizes Dershowitz […] for defending Scooter Libby. […] Dershowitz submitted a brief in the Libby trial arguing that special prosecutors are unconstitutional since they are unaccountable. This is hardly “defending” Libby.

The NYT:

Judge Walton was especially acid when Mr. Robbins noted that 12 law professors including Alan Dershowitz of Harvard submitted a brief arguing that Mr. Libby be kept out of prison because his grounds for appeal might be accepted by a higher court. The judge said that the brief was not even as good “as I would expect from a first-year law student,” and that the academics just wanted to put their names forward in a high-profile case.

To Chris Bertram (154)

Of course most universities would survive such pressures and are not dependent on a few donors for their very existence. But such are the margins that the withdrawal of a comparatively small number of donors might easily threaten flagship projects, turn a surplus into a deficit (requiring borrowing, thereby affecting credit rating etc). You are naive if you think that such threats don’t sometimes make a difference to decisions (including those decisions that could be given a public rationale that invoked only academic reasons).

If Dershowitz is the world-historic bully you claim him to be, then De Paul could probably have generated some positive publicity from having stood up to him. That in turn might drum up other donors who dislike Dershowitz, or whatever he is imagined to stand for. Admittedly it’s a risky strategy, but not irrational. In all your rather inexplicable hostility to Dershowitz (and me), you seem to overlook that sometimes standing your ground can be good for business.

If all you’re trying to show is that Dershowitz is not a nice man, then, sure, you’re right. But do I think he’s violated some deep ethical principle that merits his exile from all civilised company? No, sorry. And frankly, philosophers should spend their time doing something more edifying than rationalising the demonisation of particular individuals.

Steve Fuller:

_If Dershowitz is the world-historic bully you claim him to be,_

Did I make such a claim? I’ll say now that he’s a deeply unpleasant man and a bully, but “world-historic” is your invention.

_your rather inexplicable hostility to Dershowitz (and me)_

I’m sure you encounter a good deal of “inexplicable hostility” Steve.

your rather inexplicable hostility to Dershowitz (and me)

It becomes less inexplicable if you recall that Chris is (like me) an editor of this blog and a friend of John Quiggin, whose post you called “disgraceful”. This was quite irritating (particularly in context, which was that you were defending the right of Dershowitz to make essentially content-free personal attacks on people to their bosses behind their backs), and you never really either withdrew this remark or backed it up.

And since when has Dershowitz advocated “detention without trial?”

Actually, I have found some references from 1977 where Dershowitz was actually justifying this in the case of Palestinian detainees in Israel. So it is far earlier than the post-9/11 world.

Ragout said somewhere above that Finkelstein had no evidence that Dershowitz was guilty of plagiarism. He’s got an appendix in “Beyond Chutzpah” devoted to this unimportant topic and it looks like evidence to me. Depends on what you call plagiarism, I guess. Dershowitz quoted Mark Twain and other authors in exactly the same way as Joan Peters in “From Time Immemorial”, with ellipses and sentence fragments word-for-word the same. In one case two passages from Twain’s book “Innocents Abroad” which were 87 pages apart were spliced together in the Peters book to make a point. Dershowitz did exactly the same thing. And he cites the primary sources, not his obvious real source. When Peters makes a mistake in citing a source, Dershowitz makes the same mistake. Someone quoted at Wikipedia says Dershowitz wasn’t plagiarizing, since he cited the ultimate source of the words. I doubt a student would be let off the hook so easily.

To me this is like getting Al Capone for tax evasion.

That Language Log post of yours, Seth, calls Finkelstein “radical critic of Israel”, while Dershowitz is merely “known […] for his advocacy of Israel”. How’s that for a language? Why should I read any further?

Btw, “advocacy of Israel” – is it even grammatically correct, shouldn’t it be for Israel?

187 / while I don’t think “citation plagiarism” rises to the level of other forms of plagiarism, I can’t agree with the Language Log post. Failing to note “as quoted in” amounts to:

(1) claiming credit for research done by others;

(2) failing to acknowledge intellectual influence on the part of the intermediary;

(3) laziness.

The first suggests that citation plagiarism does amount to a violation of academic ethics, the second that it is at least poor form, and th third that there is no excuse for doing it. Go to the original source or add the d*mn “as quoted in”.

Most honor councils that I am aware of would consider citation plagiarism worthy of reprimand.

Well, this Language Log post (on Mark Steyn) seems to take a stricter view then the one they took in Dershowitz’ case.

Since students often remain convinced that what they did was OK, since they rearranged words a bit or paraphrased some of the material rather than quoting it, I give them a copy of the special report from The Chronicle of Higher Education, posted 12/17/2004, “What is plagiarism?” I might ask them to read these two paragraphs out loud:

Outright copying of someone else’s writing is only the most clear-cut form of plagiarism. The Modern Language Association provides a succinct but sweeping catalog of varieties of plagiarism in its MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers: “A writer who fails to give appropriate acknowledgment when repeating another’s wording or particularly apt term, paraphrasing another’s argument, or presenting another’s line of thinking is guilty of plagiarism.”

The term “plagiarism” applies to “the imitation of structure, research, and organization,” notes Laurie Stearns, a copyright lawyer in “Copy Wrong: Plagiarism, Process, Property, and the Law,” an essay appearing in the California Law Review in 1992. “Even facts or quotations can be plagiarized,” writes Ms. Stearns, “through the trick of citing to a quotation from a primary source rather than to the secondary source in which the plagiarist found it in order to conceal reliance on the secondary source.” In the sciences, “accusations of plagiarism may center on the content of discoveries or the interpretation of data rather than on specific phraseology.”

To Chris Bertram, dsquared, etc.

Speaking as someone who simply who dips in and out of the blogosphere, the expected norms of conduct here strike me as very uneven. The finicky concern about whether certain people are addressed the right way doesn’t sit well with the casualness with which open season is declared on Dershowitz. I called John Quiggin’s opening statement ‘disgraceful’ because of its half-assed nature: On the one hand, he kind of wanted to put Dershowitz on trial; on the other hand, he couldn’t be bothered to mount a proper case. Presumably, blogging – especially in a serious site like this — entails a level of intellectual responsibility that goes beyond that of casual musing. Instead we got the ‘Shoot first, ask questions later’ approach. And it was really only once the trolls came out to nickel-and-dime each other over the details of Dershowitz’s and Finkelstein’s activities that matters actually started to become clear.

Maybe this is the blogosphere’s version of rough justice. My guess is that Dershowitz was never specifically invited to respond to Quiggin’s post – or that Quiggin even countenanced such a thing when he wrote the post. (Had he done so, my guess is that he would have been slightly more careful in what he said.) Given the seriousness of the charges that have been made against Dershowitz here, I would have thought that a beacon of liberal thought as Crooked Timber should invite him to respond to aspects of this thread that he deems appropriate. Again you may have already invited him, and he declined. (It would be interesting if he offered reasons.)

I say all this partly because I very much appreciate Crooked Timber having invited me to participate in the Chris Mooney seminar. It was the first time anyone invited me to respond on a blog. Of course, by that time I had featured in many blogs over the ID business but in no case was I invited. Rather, someone would post something to the effect that I was crazy, idiotic or disingenuous (sometimes all three) to have testified as I did, and respondents immediately chimed in with all sorts of judgements, typically negative, based on what struck me as weird and, in any case, flimsy associations. (On his blog, Berube, to his credit, did not frame matters so negatively but that didn’t change what followed.) I am not sure whether any of these blogs expected or even welcomed my attempt to answer these claims and charges. But as you know, I did jump in – and for the most part I felt that my presence wasn’t welcomed. (Though Berube explicitly welcomed my presence, and he then took some flak from the respondents.) To this day, I find it very bizarre that open season can be declared on someone in a blog, and yet that person is neither invited nor even welcomed to respond. Perhaps these bloggers thought I should have been more respectful in my response. I simply took their own tone and level of care toward their representation of me as the benchmark.

So, I see Quiggin’s post very much through my own experience. I think Dershowitz is being given a raw deal, even if he would do the same, given the chance. Now a blog like this may not bother a multi-million dollar lawyer like him – in fact, you may be counting on that being true. But still I’m wondering what’s the point of excoriating him in this seat-of-the-pants manner.

I actually found very little assessment in what engels posted. Saying something “can” be true gives no guidance if it is in fact true for any particular fact-pattern.

I wonder how people would react if Dershowitz pulled out a “sweeping catalog”, said this can be that, and so the opponent has committed it.

Seth, here’s my quick opposition research:
the guy who wrote your language log post is William J Poser, of Harvard/MIT.

His website: http://www.billposer.org

His blog: http://www.billposer.org/wp/; note Alan Dershowitz in his blogroll, how many people have that?

Someone, conspicuously identified by his email and URL, posted the following on slashdot in 2003:

I think you’ve swapped Dershowitz and Said. Said’s academic claim to fame was his stupid book on Orientalism, which revealed his ignorance of the history and scholarship of the Arab world. His political claim to fame was his defense of terrorism and bigotry. Dershowitz on the other hand is a distinguished civil libertarian as well as one who has told the truth about Arab bigotry and terrorism and has defended the only free, democratic country in the Middle East.

abb1 / #199 – I fail to see where that’s conclusive. Dershowitz does not pretend he hasn’t used Peters in his own book. I’ve yet to see a good reply to what I consider the best rebuttal argument: If a primary source is common to the debate (i.e. is commonly cited), which secondary source should be cited as providing it?

abb1 / #200 – Point to you, for showing how one must check everyone’s position.

engels / #201 – The two posts can be reconciled by e.g. saying that simply copying an entire list of citations from another paper is indeed plagiarism, and that rises above the level of mere facts. But that would not be what we’re talking about here.

…Dershowitz does not pretend he hasn’t used Peters in his own book.

Ah, I see: you’re now arguing that Ms. Stearns’ “in order to conceal reliance on the secondary source” condition is not satisfied. Clever. Ms. Stearns should’ve relaxed the condition by adding “… or to conceal the extent of reliance on the secondary source”. But Ms. Stearns (whoever she is) is probably not a lawyer, so, yes, I admit – you do get off the hook on a technicality here.

Btw I’d imagine one reason Finkelstein focussed on the plagiarism charges is that it is universally agreed by academics that plagiarism is unethical. In a saner world perhaps the same thing might hold for publically advocating the re-introduction of torture, but that is not the world we live in.

Btw Seth here’s some more from the piece I linked, which seems to tell directly against your ‘rebuttal’.

After laying out the facts, I’d ask for a response, which at first is usually a denial or an excuse. One of the commonest excuses is “But that source is in my bibliography/footnotes!” In that case, I would explain how Stephen Ambrose was accused of plagiarizing Thomas Childers, despite the fact that Ambrose gives Childers “a mention in the bibliography and four footnotes” (according to Fred Barnes’ Daily Standard article of January 1, 2002, “Stephen Ambrose, Copycat” which also gives several examples of the copying involved). I’d also show them the coverage of the case where Doris Kearns Goodwin was accused of plagiarizing Lynne McTaggart, starting with what Timothy Noah wrote in a Slate article from 1/22/2002 headlined “Doris Kearns Goodwin, liar: First she plagiarized, then she lied about it”:

Did Doris Kearns Goodwin commit plagiarism? “Absolutely not,” she tells Boston Globe reporter Thomas C. Palmer Jr. “There were extensive footnotes.” Chatterbox has had it with brand-name historians who pretend that the rules allow you to steal someone else’s sentences (for examples of Goodwin’s theft, click here) provided that you supply a footnote. This is not a gray area.

Fwiw I’m not endorsing the second post. Personally, I don’t like either of them much: Poser seems way too lenient and Liberman seems a little too strict imho. But claiming as you do that the two posts are perfectly consistent doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

Any ideas what percentage of students offer this precise excuse? It ain’t, in my experience, negligible.