I have an additional point: one can't rank different people in terms of
"scholarship," since there are different kinds of scholarship for different
purposes. Someone who's trying to argue for a very specific point of
history will mobilize all sorts of primary sources. On the other hand,
someone who's trying to present a big picture might use secondary sources.
Maybe this contrasts Brenner vs. Perry Anderson or Brenner vs. Blaut.
I would much rather discuss specific points of what's wrong or right (in
terms of facts, logic, ethics, how to achieve goals, etc.) than to rank
different individuals.
I wrote:
>I thought my conclusion was obvious, so that I didn't have to say it.
>Maybe I'd choose Brenner over Blaut on one specific issue (say, the
>underdevelopment issue). But I'd never rank them in general terms. Maybe
>one is right about one issue, but the other is right about another. More
>likely, they're both wrong and both right in different ways, so that their
>perspectives need to be synthesized.
>
>One of the "modernist" habits that we should avoid is hierarchical
>thinking. That's the fallacy behind measuring IQ as a single number.
>
>At 03:31 PM 9/27/00 -0400, you wrote:
>>OK, maybe there is something wrong with the Big Name structure of
>>academia: I wouldn't dispute that. Part of my point is that Brenner is a
>>Big Name. Not all Big Names are any good: I know lots who aren't. But
>>Brenner is a Big Name who is first rate. part of the way you can tell
>>this is that he is debated as a person with views that are not merely
>>important artifacts but might be true and are deep and valuable.
>>
>>How the hell else you can determine who is any good other than by
>>reference to the views of the people who know best, I don't know. I mean,
>>you can try to do it for yourself, but if your standards deviate from the
>>experts' views, either you are a crank or you have to create new
>>standards (as Marx did) that gathers new group of experts.
>>
>>The point that people disagree about who the experts are does not vitiate
>>the standard: disagreement does not mean nobody's right, just that not
>>everybody's right. Thus if certain right wingers take racial eugenics
>>seriously, we differ because we think that they are rwong and by even
>>thinking that they expose themselves to be pseudoscientists and cranks.
>>
>>Nuff said: I'll still take Brenner over Blaut as a scholar any old day.
>>On the underdevelopment issue, I say nothing.
>
>Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
