Professor Longhair
While the fires still burned on Sept. 11, a professor named Ward Churchill wrote an essay celebrating the terrorist attacks and comparing the workers in the World Trade Center to notorious Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann.
As contemptible as I find his views, count me among those who don't think he should be fired for having them. I agree with Belmont Club, that Churchill himself is a mean character, and the current fascination with him "may not be with Ward Churchill himself but with the Leftist demimonde glimpsed briefly through him." But the University of Colorado made its mistake when it hired him. To fire him now would only turn a bully into a martyr.
Evan Coyne Maloney and his organization have the right idea on what ought to be done:
Right. Jefferson said much the same thing; we are not afraid to tolerate any error, "so long as reason is left free to combat it." The point of free speech is not that certain things never get said, but that truth has enough skating room to ride them into the boards. Hard.
Churchill's "Chickens coming home to roost" explanation of 9/11 was hardly unique to him, though he may have been one of the first to rush it into print. It's hardly perceptive, either. It ignores a great deal for the sake of a tunnel-vision world where Everything is America's Fault.
It's fair to look at the attacks, the rise and appeal of Osama, in light of America's unique power position in the world. And it's even fair to let Churchill air his blunt, blind bile, the better to show it up for the mere temper tantrum puffery it is. I haven't read every scholarly paper ever published, but I don't recall too many in which this figured as a key part of the argument:
A lot of people, like me, probably will read that and easily recall how we felt on the day he wrote that, when presumably he was seeing the same images we all saw. The plane into the building, over and over, so many times that it ought to have numbed you, you prayed it would numb you, but somehow it never did. I wonder, where does that sort of reaction come from? This wasn't a dead-ender in a refugee slum in Gaza; this was a comfortable university professor in the heart of the country, watching the immolation of what, for all he knew, were his former students, or parents of his current ones.
The "self-loathing" charge that has been leveled against Noam Chomsky, on the left, and Michelle Malkin, on the right, is easy and empty. It presumes ethnicity as identity, and identity as the only basis for political thought. Some people are bigger than that.
And some are much smaller. What you learn reading very far into Ward Churchill is that he identifies the United States as a brutal, irredeemable authoritarian power, and he counts himself among the oppressed but dignified "other" that confronts it daily. He does this from his position as an American Indian.
But it turns out that even his self-identification as an American Indian is open to serious question. As "Indian Country Today" explains:
Churchill has pushed, pulled, and bullied over the years to establish himself as a member of this particular ethnic group. It isn't a casual deception; it's the core of his identity. Unless he's cloaked in the "indigenous" garb, his wrath is just some sort of personal tic. But it seems the only place he's indigenous to is the faculty lounge.
It brings to mind other cases, such as antiwar activist Micah Wright who attacked his opponents from the unimpeachable position of a veteran of intense military service, only to have to confess that he never got closer to martial heroism than gazing wistfully at the recruitment posters.
Or Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis telling his students and the media he was so repulsed by what he saw as a war-hero in Vietnam that he joined the peace movement, when in fact he never left the States.
I once dated a woman who was passionate about animal rights. And at the same time she often spoke of how she had been really bullied by her parents. It sounded like an awful childhood, especially for a sensitive person. But I also could sense her identification with, say, lab research animals, as an outgrowth of her personal struggle.
It doesn't mean lab research on animals was right or wrong, simply because she was that way. It didn't invalidate a cause she might join. There may be good and sensible and compassionate reasons for animal rights beyond her personal psychology. But in her case, those didn't seem to matter.
She didn't lie about anything. She didn't claim to have been the child of a Revlon heir who had seen things first-hand, etc. She was more honest than Churchill, Ellis, Wright, et al. Yet at the same time she didn't get the platform they claimed. Theirs was resume-padding on the grandest level. The need to be something so badly that you'd rewrite your own life story to become what you're not. Can you trust a picture of the world from someone who would Photoshop his own life?
And especially, in the case of Churchill, the need to be the underdog, the righteous afflicted one, even when you find yourself in a place of power and authority, as a modern U.S. professor certainly does. The need to maintain the fictional identification that allows your world to persist in the most simplistic terms.
It's a shame because American Indian cultures -- I'm not an expert, but I know this much -- set aside a place of reverence not for those who stayed simple and rebellious while their hair turned gray, but for those who accepted and understood the complexities of life and spoke with the wisdom of elders.
The danger of lying used to be explained as something that started in the tongue but corrupted the heart. But in many cases the heart's corruption is the root of it.
It may get you a soapbox, but once you get up on it, what comes out of your mouth will be offensive nonsense. Like Janeane Garoffalo's comparison of Americans' ink-stained fingers, a gesture of solidarity with Iraqi voters, to the Nazi salute. (The full exchange, with the context, is worth reading; it's here).
Which brings to mind another thought from Jefferson:
UPDATE: As I was writing this, I was trying to picture a right-wing version of the phenomenon. Maybe this is it. If not, it's good for a hoot, anyhow.
As contemptible as I find his views, count me among those who don't think he should be fired for having them. I agree with Belmont Club, that Churchill himself is a mean character, and the current fascination with him "may not be with Ward Churchill himself but with the Leftist demimonde glimpsed briefly through him." But the University of Colorado made its mistake when it hired him. To fire him now would only turn a bully into a martyr.
Evan Coyne Maloney and his organization have the right idea on what ought to be done:
We find these comments reprehensible. But we also believe that the best way to combat Professor Churchill is by opposing him with more speech. Creating an environment where tenured professors can be fired for controversial remarks is a dangerous precedent to set.
Right. Jefferson said much the same thing; we are not afraid to tolerate any error, "so long as reason is left free to combat it." The point of free speech is not that certain things never get said, but that truth has enough skating room to ride them into the boards. Hard.
Churchill's "Chickens coming home to roost" explanation of 9/11 was hardly unique to him, though he may have been one of the first to rush it into print. It's hardly perceptive, either. It ignores a great deal for the sake of a tunnel-vision world where Everything is America's Fault.
It's fair to look at the attacks, the rise and appeal of Osama, in light of America's unique power position in the world. And it's even fair to let Churchill air his blunt, blind bile, the better to show it up for the mere temper tantrum puffery it is. I haven't read every scholarly paper ever published, but I don't recall too many in which this figured as a key part of the argument:
"Well, really. Let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."
A lot of people, like me, probably will read that and easily recall how we felt on the day he wrote that, when presumably he was seeing the same images we all saw. The plane into the building, over and over, so many times that it ought to have numbed you, you prayed it would numb you, but somehow it never did. I wonder, where does that sort of reaction come from? This wasn't a dead-ender in a refugee slum in Gaza; this was a comfortable university professor in the heart of the country, watching the immolation of what, for all he knew, were his former students, or parents of his current ones.
The "self-loathing" charge that has been leveled against Noam Chomsky, on the left, and Michelle Malkin, on the right, is easy and empty. It presumes ethnicity as identity, and identity as the only basis for political thought. Some people are bigger than that.
And some are much smaller. What you learn reading very far into Ward Churchill is that he identifies the United States as a brutal, irredeemable authoritarian power, and he counts himself among the oppressed but dignified "other" that confronts it daily. He does this from his position as an American Indian.
But it turns out that even his self-identification as an American Indian is open to serious question. As "Indian Country Today" explains:
Churchill's Indian status is not verifiable in the usual ways of checking into tribal membership. We are expansive here from a national position on recognized and non-recognized tribes, southern nations and global indigenous people, but the question of relations and proper belonging in the tribal circles in the United States and Canada is generally verifiable for Indian observers and such appears to be completely lacking in Churchill's case. He has claimed membership in the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee, but reliable representatives from the tribe deny Churchill is or ever was, or has blood relatives on their rolls. He was granted an "associate certificate" by a former leader of the tribe (later impeached) for services supposedly rendered, not due to blood relations - but even the tribe declines to exactly identify what that means.
Discerning indigenous identity is not an exact science, but it has its rules. It would not be a primary issue relative to research and writing of producers from any quarter, except Churchill represents himself as a major spokesman for Indian people through his participation in a branch of AIM and his claim to Cherokee origins. So far, nothing whatsoever has surfaced that gives evidence to Churchill's claims to having Cherokee Indian origins. Given the intense antagonism and attention focused on Churchill, his biography in this context is likely to be further scrutinized by the University of Colorado, the media, and others who were led to understand he was an American Indian professional at the time of his hiring.
Churchill has pushed, pulled, and bullied over the years to establish himself as a member of this particular ethnic group. It isn't a casual deception; it's the core of his identity. Unless he's cloaked in the "indigenous" garb, his wrath is just some sort of personal tic. But it seems the only place he's indigenous to is the faculty lounge.
It brings to mind other cases, such as antiwar activist Micah Wright who attacked his opponents from the unimpeachable position of a veteran of intense military service, only to have to confess that he never got closer to martial heroism than gazing wistfully at the recruitment posters.
Or Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis telling his students and the media he was so repulsed by what he saw as a war-hero in Vietnam that he joined the peace movement, when in fact he never left the States.
I once dated a woman who was passionate about animal rights. And at the same time she often spoke of how she had been really bullied by her parents. It sounded like an awful childhood, especially for a sensitive person. But I also could sense her identification with, say, lab research animals, as an outgrowth of her personal struggle.
It doesn't mean lab research on animals was right or wrong, simply because she was that way. It didn't invalidate a cause she might join. There may be good and sensible and compassionate reasons for animal rights beyond her personal psychology. But in her case, those didn't seem to matter.
She didn't lie about anything. She didn't claim to have been the child of a Revlon heir who had seen things first-hand, etc. She was more honest than Churchill, Ellis, Wright, et al. Yet at the same time she didn't get the platform they claimed. Theirs was resume-padding on the grandest level. The need to be something so badly that you'd rewrite your own life story to become what you're not. Can you trust a picture of the world from someone who would Photoshop his own life?
And especially, in the case of Churchill, the need to be the underdog, the righteous afflicted one, even when you find yourself in a place of power and authority, as a modern U.S. professor certainly does. The need to maintain the fictional identification that allows your world to persist in the most simplistic terms.
It's a shame because American Indian cultures -- I'm not an expert, but I know this much -- set aside a place of reverence not for those who stayed simple and rebellious while their hair turned gray, but for those who accepted and understood the complexities of life and spoke with the wisdom of elders.
The danger of lying used to be explained as something that started in the tongue but corrupted the heart. But in many cases the heart's corruption is the root of it.
It may get you a soapbox, but once you get up on it, what comes out of your mouth will be offensive nonsense. Like Janeane Garoffalo's comparison of Americans' ink-stained fingers, a gesture of solidarity with Iraqi voters, to the Nazi salute. (The full exchange, with the context, is worth reading; it's here).
Which brings to mind another thought from Jefferson:
"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him."
UPDATE: As I was writing this, I was trying to picture a right-wing version of the phenomenon. Maybe this is it. If not, it's good for a hoot, anyhow.
Labels: Ward Churchill
