Isn't it amazing the way Paul Treanor gets us all going, especially as most
of us know from previous experience that the ensuing discussion is unlikely
to reach high standards of rationality or even knowledge. Still - here
goes.
This is (as everyone who has written knows) well trodden ground from Weber
through the Frankfurt school to the present with echoes in the McCarthy
period, American foreign policy, 1968, debates within marxism and so on.
There's nothing wrong in that but nothing new has so far emerged in the
discussion though I'll be delighted to be surprised.
I do find a good deal of Paul Treanor's homily a bit offensive though.
"The reason for this mail is that I had written a text advocating the
execution of Pinochet. I realise that the academic community in general
fully rejects this, but the ethics of this rejection are interesting." and
later
"Yet the most any subscriber to this list ever did about Pinochet was to
send some money to Amnesty International (so they could send him
postcards)."
I at least would be grateful if he would speak for himself. I would oppose
the execution of Pinochet because I oppose capital punishment. There is
nothing ethically wrong with that; misguided maybe but not unethical. I do
reject Pinochet; I support the action to have him extradited and I'll be
disappointed if it fails. I am appalled by Margaret Thatcher but there's
nothing novel there. I don't need to explain or defend anything I may or
may not have done about Pinochet to Paul Treanor, but I do know personally
sociologists who have done a great deal more, especially at the time of the
coup and in the years which followed, than write a "text" advocating his
execution. Wow, that really is a major act. Governments will crumble I
shouldn't wonder.
Unlike some people who have written to the list, I couldn't care a damn if
Paul Treanor writes a "text" (what is this by the way - an article in a
learned journal, a newspaper piece, a novel, a poem) nor do I care
particularly whether he writes it as a sociologist or not. In this
particular debate about the sociological role in the world of political
comment and action, you make your own choices. We are told that "Everyone
on this list knows that a sociology academic who advocated the execution of
Pinochet, would lose all academic status." I'm sorry to be so hopelessly
open-minded and wishy washy liberal but I think it depends on the context,
and the arguments used.
Baruch Kimmerling however puts it well. I'm not sure that the sociologist
who stands with arms folded at the gates of Auschwitz is any more or any
less guilty than any other human being. This is to privilege sociology in
a way that I find unconvincing - but as I say in matters of this kind you
make your own choice, with or without reading the relevant literature.
Must get back to my ivory tower. Shouldn't have said that - irony is a
mistake when arguing with some people.
Frank Bechhofer
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