----- Original Message ----- From: "Dan Minette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 10:51 PM Subject: Re: Michael Bellesiles Resigns from Emory Faculty
> > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "Robert Seeberger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 7:35 PM > > > Subject: Re: Michael Bellesiles Resigns from Emory Faculty > > > > Dan M. wrote > > > > I am not defending his integrity. I am musing on what drives people. > If > > he > > > was honor driven, the problem was tangling with the NRA. If he was > > > integrity driven, he wouldn't have lied in the first place. > > > > I cant see where this is a binary question. > > Because, with honor, the whole thing is how you look. A man of honor can > do what he wants and keep his honor, so long as he doesn't get caught. He > loses his honor when falsely accused, as long as other people don't know > its false. I think that on the question of honor we seem to be talking about 2 different things. I get the idea that you are talking about the appearance of honor, while I am talking about the actuality of honor. IMO Without integrity one cannot have honor. One knows when one is being dishonest usually. > > My point is that if you want to lie about something, then picking a topic > that the NRA can throw a lot of manpower and money to chase things down to > prove you wrong is really stupid. While I know that the NRA raised a ruckus, the commitee that investigated Bellesiles was completely academic and was begun after other historians questioned the veracity of Bellesiles book. I doubt the university began a formal investigation solely because the NRA was complaining. > Now, I think that lying in scholastic > research is abhorant, and it undercuts the reputation of anyone else who > does that research. So, the question of honor vs. integrety. > > He may have also been deluding himself, caught up in his beliefs to the > point where he justified making up data that he knew was there, but had > been destroyed. > > >I dont see where in this case honor or integrity would be the driving > forces. I think its likely > >to be ego driven to the point that his personal prejudices over rode his > sense of > > honor and integrity. > > That's probably true, because he picked the wrong opponent. However, if he > got away with it, his honor would be intact. His integrity would not have > been. For reasons stated above, I find this line of reasoning difficult to agree with. > > > > It does not surprise me at all that he was forced to resign. I smelled BS > > the first time I heard about him (here on Brin-L). The entire premise was > > preposterous to begin with, the stuff conspiracy theories are made of. > > Well, it was proven wrong, but other ideas that have been just as > counterintuitive have been well documented. What he has done was make the > job of anyone who wants to show something counterintuitive is historically > correct that much harder. An example of this is the arguement that the > movie cowboy had little to do with reality; or that the Civil War was > really fought over slavery. I agree. > We have the president's wife, who is not > uneducated, arguing against that view as thought it was some nasty > postmodern reconstruction of history, instead of what really happened. My contention is (as it was when this first popped up on the list a couple of years ago) that that is exactly what Bellesiles is guilty of. Revisionism. >Now, > he has given people like that more ammunition to fight against true > research. For undermining the assumption that peer reviewed research can > be truested, he does deserve to be fired. True! xponent He Is A Bad Man Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
