Posted on 02/05/2005 8:21:13 PM PST by CHARLITE
Should a serious research university consider hiring a fascist? This question doesn't have an easy answer.
After all, prior to World War II Europe produced several brilliant political theorists and philosophers who could be characterized as fascists, or proto-fascists, including Joseph de Maistre, Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger.
Whether, post-Auschwitz, it's possible even in theory to advocate similar views in intellectually plausible ways is an interesting question.
It is not, however, a question that has any relevance to the case of University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, despite the obvious fascistic streak in Churchill's writings and public performances.
As a political inclination and an aesthetic style, fascism is marked by, among other things, the following characteristics:
• The worship of violence as a purifying social force. This often manifests itself as an aggressive and romanticized militarism, that produces a kind of cult of the warrior, and that advocates violent action as a mechanism for social change, and an appropriate way of crushing dissent.
• A hyper-nationalistic ideology, that casts history into a drama featuring an inevitably violent struggle between Good and Evil, and that obsesses on questions of racial and ethnic identity.
• The dehumanization and scapegoating of opponents, who are characterized by turns as demonically clever conspirators plotting to undermine the possibility of a virtuous society, and soulless automatons mindlessly carrying out the orders of a vast and evil bureaucracy. This dehumanization often leads to demands that the evil in our midst be eradicated "by any means necessary," up to and including the mass extermination of entire nations and peoples.
• The treatment of moral responsibility as a fundamentally collective matter. The supposed virtues and sins of a nation or people are ascribed to all of its individual members, so that, for example, one speaks of "the Jew" (meaning all Jews collectively and each Jewish person individually) being responsible for the decadence of modern culture.
Anyone who reads widely in the collected works of professor Churchill, and especially anyone who listens to his speeches, will, if they are not blinded by certain ideological commitments, recognize the essentially fascist tendency of his work. If a white American were to speak of any foreign people or nation in anything like the way Churchill discusses America and Americans, the fascist character of his work would be obvious to everyone.
This point is only underlined by the behavior of Churchill's supporters, who, while not actually wearing brown shirts, did a quite convincing impersonation of fascist thugs at Thursday's meeting of the University of Colorado Regents.
All this was merely par for the course for Churchill, who believes that a Columbus Day parade is an incitement to genocide, and therefore something that he and his followers have a legal right to disrupt.
But while the question of whether a brilliant scholar with a fascist streak ought to be considered for a place on a university faculty retains at least some academic interest, it has nothing to do with Churchill, whose writings and speeches feature an incoherent farrago of boundless paranoia, wildly implausible theories, obscene celebrations of murder, and atrocious prose.
The question of whether a serious research university ought to hire someone like Churchill is laughable on its face. What's not so funny is the question of exactly how someone like him got hired in the first place, and then tenured and named the head of a department.
That, in the end, is a more important question than what will or ought to happen to Churchill now. Churchill is a pathetic buffoon, but the University of Colorado is far from alone in having allowed itself to toss intellectual integrity and human decency overboard in the pursuit of worthy goals.
Speaking truth to power, giving a voice to those who have been silenced, pursuing controversial and unpopular ideas in an intellectually rigorous way - these are all things that the university in general, and this university in particular, has done and continues to do.
That through whatever combination of negligence, cowardice and complicity we have allowed Ward Churchill to besmirch those ideals by invoking them in the defense of his contemptible rantings is now our burden and our shame.
Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at
paul.campos@colorado.edu.
Spot on!
bttt
BUMP
Hey yall, I was reading the description of the fascist, and well, hmmm, I may be one. I thought he was talking about us. I love warriors, I believe that some dissent has to be crushed, and so on.
Are we fascists?
Probably not, in the literal sense.
However, there are some conservatives who can accurately be described as Jacobins.
The funny thing is, today I just laugh at these situations. These people are so delusional they provide great entertainment for the rest of us. Ward Churchill is held in high esteem in a tiny dusty corner of academia.
The students will get through it OK. It's a kind of "right of passage." They will look back at this nonsense and smile. These young people can generally take a lot of it in and later spit it out. They will play activist for a few years and then move on to real adulthood. That is, unless THEY choose to teach themselves. Than they remain warped.
Campos is an interesting guy. A Leftist who likes to stir things up. He wrote a book claiming being overweight is no big health problem. That took guts. He asks the good question here. Who hired the guy? However, he doesn't have the guts to move it to the next level. What the heck is an Ethnic Studies Dept. anyhow? It's not an academic discipline. It's a jobs program and a social engineering device for Leftists who can't exist in the real World.
...and if he is fired, he will claim 100% sue.
From Answers.com:
1. Communism
a. A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
b. The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat.
2.Fascism
a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
You know I often wondered, but never compared definitions, they are basically the same, and I think the "suppression of opposition through terror..." also fits the Commies.
It is merely the imagry that the left goes for when they refer to the right wing as fascist...there is no difference, or maybe as much as the difference between a tortoise and a sea turtle: they look an awful lot alike, but one swims while the other walks.
The good Prof is definitely a Commie.
Actually, the Jacobins sound somewhat like the Islamoterrorists.
Hey FD thanks for the History lesson! After reading post #20 I started to wonder what the difference was between the two. Thanks for doing my homework for me!
It's about time that we should be asking who at CU hired him and why? And of course who read his "academic" writings and hired him.
we agree.
so, why is this campos calling churchill a fascist?
when, clearly churchill is a communist.
the jacobin comparison is a piece of sophistry.
do you honestly believe that terrorists should be afforded the same rights as yourself?
I won't say it never happens, but it's unusual. A few exceptions; in the fine arts, the 'terminal degree' is usually a Masters in Fine Arts (MFA). And obviously physicians, dentists and law professors have doctorates in their fields, not Ph.D.s.
Agreed. I have a relative who has tenure at a upstate NY private liberal arts college, teaching French. Her husband has an MA he got in his native France, and they give him some courses to teach, but will not allow him full time, permanent status because he has no Ph.D. Despite the fact that the students adore him and he is a much better teacher of french than my tenured relative.
I read that article..full of distortions. But I can see how he arrived at his conclusions.
I don't think he is a very good commie. I think he is a self driven psychopathic anarchist. I think psychopaths don't make very good ideogogues. They just wanta do what makes them feel good. I think it is hard to be a commie , just my opinion. It requires a certain discipline and the occasional self denial. Churchhill is a two year old anarchist who is precocious.
I think I heard on the news that his background is being checked because they are not sure of his indian ancestry.
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