Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 14:14:00 -0800
From: djones-AT-uclink.berkeley.edu (rakesh bhandari)
Subject: Re: M-I: fascism&freespeech3


I should have made my point sharper. A lot of nonsense sociobiology would
not be given representation in journals and debates on the grounds of their
scientific value. This would not be censorship but a considered refusal to
publish or fund research which had not met minimal scientific standards
(statistical analysis of racially categorized IQ scores attempting to prove
biological racial inferiority, without any consideration of the evidence
from biology itself, though it should be noted that it is extremely rare
that even psychologists who are critical of such racial studies actually do
argue that is extremely implausible that race could control for the
inheritance of intelligence, which I believe speaks to fetishism of race in
both common and academic discourse--something taken up in Lawrence
Hirschfeld's very stimulating, brilliant and questionable Race in the
Making, MIT, 1996 and to which this race fetishism Clinton will make no
small contribution in his attempt to heal "race relations", implying a
realist conception of races).

Academic and scholarly recognition of this dubious stuff becomes mandatory
however when protestors attempt to censor it; these institutions must then
protect their image of scientific integrity which had before demanded the
rejection of these ideas on various scientific grounds.  Moreover, attempts
at censorship obviously stimulate interest in the controversial material;
moreover, these arguments can take on the appearance of brave truths
suppressed by squeamish morality.  All this leads to the publication of
fascist ideas in "respectable" places which then gives these ideas, by
virtue of where they now appear, respectablity they would never have had.

For example, it is highly doubtful whether Sarich's ideas about affirmative
action or the intractability of social inequality would have appeared where
they did (lead alumni magazine and the San Francisco Examiner or Chronicle)
if these protests had not been carried out--indeed these post-protest
writings may have been the first of his ever published (or even accepted
for publication) on these topics.  This is of course an indictment of
myself and the protest I engaged in. I have lost no little sleep over the
stupidity I allowed myself to participate in, if not instigate (though I
believe we were provoked).

I encourage all anti-fascist protestors to consider these possible
consequences before moving to censor someone.

All the best,
Rakesh




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