I think what BitchLab has written is totally off the mark, and somewhat
contradictory. The way to further leftists in academia is to "just shut...
up and deal... with" their unfair persecution? The importance of knowledge
as a social product and the obsession over what individual wrote a
particular paper?
"In other words, he wrote the articles to support his
point and then used them in footnotes as independent corroboration of his
point."
Did he say "Hey, this other person agrees with me!" or did he just cite an
article and (reasonably) do so under the name it was published under? If
the latter, then his only crime was writing the article in the first
place. Speaking of the academic left, I have read case studies by leftist
sociologists very reasonably praising manual laborers for covering the
other guy's ass and deceiving the boss. Why shouldn't this apply to the
academy? 'Cause you're above and beyond society? Why should they focus on
individual resume pumping rather than the scholarship that is produced?
This reminds me of a funny experience. I had to hand in a term paper a
couple of weeks ago at my professor's office after the semester ended. I
walked by a different professor's office and on the door was a poster
saying "the most potent weapon in the hands of the opressor is the mind of
the opresses" with a picture of a black teenager in handcuffs. I had to
roll my eyes because there were no black students in the class I had with
him, nor would I bet that many poor and opressed minorities are going to
be reading the book he published ("The Lavender Scare" by D. Johnson) with
University of Chicago Press.
The point I'm making? Academic introversion is not a good way for leftism
to make progress. Ward Churchill was a popular writer who wrote books
people read. If his antics prevent some other person from getting hired
because of their politics, chances are its going to be a man or woman who
strikes fear in the heart of the ruling class by analyzing the subtleties
of some art gallery in New Left Review. It is beyond me why leftists would
romanticize academia (not saying you do it, but some of the things I
frequently see romanticizers do are in your post).
For full disclosure, my only experience with academia is two years of
undergraduate training, but so far what I've seen, especially from the
"left," disgusts me.
