Organization: The American University - University Computing Center
Date: Tuesday, 7 Apr 1992 20:26:58 EDT
From: Herschel Browne <HERSCH@auvm.american.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: Textbooks and Lefty history (Was: Re: history)
Distribution: na

In article <1992Apr7.184245.18817@oz.plymouth.edu>, m_lehoul@oz.plymouth.edu
(Michael L. Le Houllier) says:
>
>This is true.  Until Mao Zedong and the Communists took over, China
>was at least a nominal democracy.

And under Mao and his successors, China is nominally a "people's
republic". Under Honnecker, East Germany was nominally a "democratic
republic". Has either of us said much about reality? The "nominal"
democracy of Chiang's China (and Taiwan) was about as meaningful
as the "nominal" democracy of the German Democratic Republic.
Or as "socialist" as the National Socialist Workers' Party that
Hitler led. "Nominally" socialist. Yeah, right.

But of course what you *mean* is that China was a "nominal" democracy
that was friendly to western capital, and those other "nominal"
democracies were not. Why don't you just say so?

>
>The dishonesty from the left in the academic world is sickening as is
>the propaganda that white males are all evil and Colombus was the
>source of all the evil in the world, which is something I frequently
>hear from leftist pigs here.

Unlike Cramer, who at least *tried* to give actual examples of the
dishonesty of the left (although he never showed that the authors
he was criticizing are leftists), you merely call names. Is this
an example of your scholarship? Is "leftist pigs" a new
analytical category? Can you show, with actual citations, that
leftists *there* or leftists anywhere frequently assert that white
males are all evil? Or that "Columbus was the source of all the evil
in the world"? And even if you can show that some people who are
demonstrably "left" frequently assert such things, can you show
that leftist academics do so? Please put your money where your
mouth is.
>>
>># #The book is full of assertions that all whites are racists.  This
>># #is both false, and intentionally inflammatory.
>>#
>># If this book is "full" of assertions that all whites are racists,
>># I wonder why you don't give even a single example.
>>
>>Tired of typing.  If it's important to you, I'll post some quotes.
>>

Yes, actually, would you?

>
>Sounds to me like you've been defending the book.  The original poster
>had some very good and accurate comments about the left wing in the
>academic world.

Some assertions that he so far has been unable or unwilling to
sustain, and which your cheering-section tactics do little to buttress.

>>#
>># The larger point about this that I would make is that if this is
>># your idea of an argument against Marxist historiography, then
>># Marxist historiography has little to fear from you. I would at
>># the least have expected you to *try* to show that the real or
>># imagined faults of this book are specifically *Marxist* faults,
>># which you do not. You don't even give any evidence that its
>># authors are Marxists at all! Their Marxism is certainly apparent
>># in none of the passages you have quoted. The only thing clear
>># from these passages is that they're bad writers.
>>
>>They managed to discuss all the evils of Western civilization,
>>without mentioning even one committed by the Soviet Union -- not
>>even one!  Yet they acknowledged that the Soviet Union was part
>>of Western civilization.  Curious, isn't it?
>
>Very interesting.  To go further, I wouldn't be surprised if they had
>good things to say about the Soviet Union and Communism.  Leftists
>have been singing thier praises.  Wasn't it the Methodist Church
>(which is rather leftist) that said that Cuba under Castro should be a
>'model' of how a society should be run.

An absence of condemnation of the Soviet Union is evidence of
Marxism? That seems rather a lot to swallow. During the Second
World War alliance between the English-speaking countries and the
Soviet Union, for example, Churchill and Roosevelt refrained from
bad-mouthing Stalin. Does that mean that they were Marxists?

Not that I think that being a Marxist involves defending Stalin,
or, indeed, anything the Soviet Union ever did. But surely, a
failure to condemn Soviet policy or actions is not prima facie
evidence of historical materialism, or other, as you might say,
Marxist sins.

And to go still further, the fact that you "wouldn't be surprised
if they had good things to say about the Soviet Union and Communism"
is evidence of precisely nothing, and worth just as much.
And I think most Methodist bishops will be shocked to learn that
they're communists.

>It's about time we did something about those in high influence in the
>academic world who use their status to spread their lies and
>propaganda.  It's sickening and a disgrace to higher education.

But again, you haven't said *anything* of any substance. It's
easy enough to get people to agree that influential people in higher
education ought not to be spreading lies and propaganda, but
who are these people, and what are the lies that they're spreading?
One of the most dishonest, misleading courses I ever took was
a history class on modern revolutions, that was largely based on
"modernization theory", which most leftists view with suspicion,
at the least. To me, that course was akin to propaganda, in that
it assumed all of capitalist ideology as given, and proposed
that a desire to enjoy all the benefits of "modern" society -- that
is, capitalist society -- was natural and universal. These are
propositions that may seem unexceptionable to you, but they read
to me rather like lies.

So please demonstrate that what you say  is so. Show that the
"lies" and "propaganda" to which you object are more clearly
false and in bad faith than the "modernization theory" to which
I object. Show that the status of "lie" is not merely determined
by your own political prejudices (which, by the way, would seem
to stamp you as narrow-minded, self-righteous, and boring, but
we'll pass over that).

> Go BLUE JAYS   1-0   at Tigers Monday (4-2), Wednesday and Thursday

It's astonishing that there is room for so many divergent types
in the world of baseball fandom. Watch out for Baltimore.

H.
Newsgroups: soc.history,rec.arts.books