 |
 |
Quite a Voltarian argument - “I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to say it” I guess it's very much WW2 politics that the famines caused by Stalin in the Ukraine etc, and the Siberian Gulags, have recieved much less attention than the mass genocide and atrocities committed by the Nazis. Then we have famines in British controlled India, and Ireland, and the genocide of the Amerindians, but what of the Chinese famine caused by Mao's Great Leap Forward. Oh dear, we're getting into some ghastly reckoning and counterbalancing of mass deaths here. Anyway, maybe arguments were more nuanced in the salons of 18 C France than our 21 C common rooms. Or maybe mankind simply hadn't plumbed the depths that we achieved in the 20 C (although the Inquisition was pretty bad, on a somewhat smaller scale, and the genocide of the South American indigenous peoples from the 16 C on). Dr Hillary J. Shaw Director and Senior Research Consultant Shaw Food Solutions Newport Shropshire TF10 8QE www.fooddeserts.org -----Original Message----- From: Willis N. Churnocht <[log in to unmask]> To: CRIT-GEOG-FORUM <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Wed, Oct 11, 2017 2:33 pm Subject: The case for colonialism: whither academia? The removal of Gilley's writing is a sad state of affairs. We must either learn to live with an opposing argument, or construct a counter-argument. To shut Gilley's argument down completely is counter-productive and symptomatic of the regressive left, which has alienated many. If we introduce a blanket ban on arguments for colonialism, why not do the same for Marxism? After all, Marxist-leaning articulations of politics were responsible for vastly more deaths across the twentieth century than any right-leaning regimes. Yet Marxism is glorified in the social sciences. The bottom line is that 'I'm so offended by this' should not provide a legitimate means for educated and critical academics to wash their hands of an argument. Whither academia's freedom, objectivity and critical foundations? Peace, WC x