this "dialogue" really should be off-list, so people who are uninterested should hit "delete" now. But since Rakesh makes wants to wash my dirty laundry in public...
I wrote: > >2) As for the rumor about Rajani Kanth, I did NOT let Rakesh > "in on gossip." > >Rather, I made it very clear to Rakesh that what I said was > a rumor and that > >_therefore_ I didn't put any faith in it. on pen-l Rakesh writes: > For your sake, I won't forward what you did actually write. Or maybe > I will. Let me think about it. But this is not what you said, and I > am not a liar. And you have time to retract the statement. Power > works in the academy through corridor talk of which offlist email > exchange is defacto a form. So there are good sociological reasons > for me to forward what you actually did write. with regard to rumors, what I wrote to Rakesh in an off-list communication (not on pen-l) was: QUOTE I know that there are people who label him [Kanth] "paranoid," but I didn't start reading the book with that in mind. (I try as hard as I can to ignore academic and/or leftist gossip & back-biting, especially since I can imagine what people say about _me_.) It only came back to my memory when I got to chapter three or so, when I started to regret that I'd volunteered to read & review the book... BTW, I've had pleasant e-mail discussions with him since I published the review. END QUOTE It should be pretty clear to any intelligent & honest observer that in the above I do NOT endorse the rumor. Just look at the parenthetical remark. But that doesn't say I liked his book or his politics especially. I try to avoid making political or intellectual discussions personal, though (being human) I sometimes make the mistake of mixing personal with political issues. My point to Rakesh (which is not quoted above) was that my view that Kanth's book, BREAKING WITH THE ENLIGHTENMENT, Humanities Press, 1997, was "unhinged." That means that I disagreed with it a lot, as I discuss in my review in SCIENCE & SOCIETY (Spring 2000, vol. 64 no.1, 131-3). There I say that though the book "has some brilliant insights, it is an educated rant, more critical than constructive while preaching to the converted." I haven't changed my mind on that verdict. BTW, in the above quote, it slipped my mind that I also talked to Kanth a year ago in person. He seemed like a really good guy then, too. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
