I spent some time back in the good old days doing a little freelance political consulting. So I read the piece in Perspectives with interest. What I found most compelling is the fact that there was no impact.
You say that you wisely refrained from taking the steps necessary from crossing the line separating politics from scholarship.
I'm curious, do you think there were other steps you could have taken, steps that would be consistent with maintaining scholarly integrity, but which would have had a greater impact?
For example, would it have been worth pooling funds to hire a publicist? I'm just curious.
Patrick, I read your article with interest and promptly footnoted it in this wretched MPSA monstrosity that will soon haunt and oppress Dan. Given my complicity in the part of this city swarming with partisans of various stripes there was also a personal factor involved.
Your posture makes a lot of sense. To geek out for a moment I also think it reveals that the fact/value distinction, when appropriate, is ultimately a function of the *good faith* of the scholar. Which dunks us back into the hermeneutical tank again. But this is only right, after all. Right?
There is a small groundswell in class longing to grill you on the book Monday.
James: given the proper incentives I would be willing to meet with people and defend what I wrote. "Proper incentives" in this case probably means dinner or beer 
Will: we did actually have extensive discussions in SSSFP about taking money, and at one point there was a possibility that we could get a substantial infusion of cash from a rather partisan source for the express purpose of taking out full-page ads in swing states publicizing the open letter. But that would have involved changing our tax status, registering as a PAC, and a whole variety of other things -- and that seemed to be too much compromise of our scholarly detachment. In the event we did pool personal funds to buy the domain and server space, and if we had been operating on a longer time-frame we might have collected more money from signatories to hire a publicist. But in any event we would have needed to make sure that the publicity in question was scholarly-nonpartisan.
My webmistress duties for the SSSFP site were done for wholly partisan reasons!
J/K. I myself seem to float somewhere between this position and the more Foucauldian/Feminist one in that I do not believe that knowledge is *just* a political weapon, but I also do not believe it is ever *not* a political weapon.
My scholarship seeks, among other things, to influence the ways in which "we" (whoever that is) think about certain political, humanitarian projects. This is a political project based on personal values, and not very different I think from most social scientific work.
On the other hand, I hold my work to certain standards, and avoid making certain moves, in order to situate my work in the scholarly rather than expressly political realm. As ideal types, the fact/value distinction is worthwhile, and in doing my work I try to prioritize the so-called facts.
I do appreciate that you tried to maintain some 'academic standards' in this effort. But it seems that this condemns us to political irrelevance. And it is interesting to read that Jenny cannot even define our audience. We we don't know whom we are talking to besides our students, who memorise our stuff in order to pass the exams, and then try to forget it as soon as possible, we are in trouble if we still think that we have a role to play outside the ivory tower (There is comfort in the cynical attitude that we don't and we shouldn't, of course).
One of the most influential political artefacts these days is the brilliant anti-Clinton graft of 1984. More than a million viewers, most linked YouTube video...
Can we think of making an impact in a new fashion like that? There is something old-fashioned and classroom-ish about the SSSFP manifesto. In this age of simulated politics, 'facts' as such obviously carry no meaning. Maybe we need to think of new forms of communication. And no, I have no idea yet what that would be. So thanks for making me start think about it.
"In this age of simulated politics, 'facts' as such obviously carry no meaning."
I think this overstates the (undeniable) impact of new media. Facts still matter. Note that the Bush admin eventually followed the SSSFP recommendation -- it did a "fundamental reassessment" of strategy, albeit much too late.
(p.s. what is the '84 video about?)
Sorry, should have made that clear: It's a graft of the famous Apple ad "1984".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c...h?
v=cWvHbOoG3tI
I don't really think it's possible to say that the administration finally followed the recommendations of the SSSFP. They certainly modified their strategy, but I doubt that that had something to do with the input of critical scholars.
Maybe we should all try to get onto the Daily Show...
Commenting by HaloScan.com
