Horowitz's "whack-a-mole" method of argumentation
| By ajentleson - May 15th, 2006 at 12:37 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Horowitz Watch | Campus Progress Blog |
When "Facts Count," a new report by the CP-supported Free Exchange on Campus coalition that exposes the distortions and manipulations in David Horowitz's new book The Professors, was released last week, Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education ran stories covering the release. (The Chronicle story is my favorite because it contains this typically thoughtful response: "Mr. Horowitz called the report 'stupid.'" Touche!)
Apparently not wanting to disappoint readers desirous of a lengthier (if no more compelling) response, Horowitz posted his email exchange with the Inside Higher Ed reporter, Scott Jaschik on one of his many websites last week. The exchange is a vintage example of Horowitz's whack-a-mole method of argumentation: when one argument is proven false, it suddenly disappears, and another one pops up somewhere else.
To wit, Jaschik's third question to Horowitz is, "The report says that you are unable in the book to cite a single example of a student whose grade was lowered for political views. Is this correct? Is this significant?"
In response, Horowitz abandons one of the central arguments of his book, that the professors in it indoctrinate their students with their political views--including through the use of grading. He writes, "While I consider political grading both deplorable and widespread, it is no part of the case made in this book." He goes on, "The principal issues are unprofessional conduct in the classroom, unprofessional instruction (e.g., where the professor is not academically qualified to teach the subject), unprofessional courses (i.e., courses that are ideological and not academic) and bigotry. So the lack of cases of political grading is not only insignificant; it is irrelevant."
Horowitz fails to mention that in the book's opening analysis, he scolds the professors in his book for "seek[ing] the arbitrary imposition of personal opinions and prejudices on students, enforced through the power of the grading process and the authority of the institutions they represent."(xxvii) Elsewhere, he writes that the professors in his book "use the authority of the classroom to force students to adopt their positions." (xlv) Meanwhile, article three of Horowitz's mis-named Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) explicitly addresses the issue of "political grading." It states, "Students will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis of their political or religious beliefs."
In other words, that professors use "political grading" as one means of indoctrinating their students is both a part of the case Horowitz makes in his book and a part of the case he makes generally to advance ABOR.
Why would Horowitz claim otherwise? Simple: he doesn't have any evidence to support this charge. As we point out in Facts Count, nowhere in the nearly 400 sloppily-researched pages that comprise The Professors does Horowitz provide a single example of a student who had their grade lowered based on their political views.
This is vintage Horowitz: forced to support his arguments with actual facts, he backpedals. If one argument is shown to be hollow, he serves up another one. If that one is proven false, he'll switch to another. And so it will go, ad infinitum.
To his credit, Horowitz does make one true statement in his exchange with Jaschik. He writes that we at Free Exchange are "attempting to present this as an issue of my accuracy." That's true, we are. Indeed, we think accuracy is very important--especially when you're making personal allegations about the professional behavior of 100 people, and using them as the basis for a sweeping condemnation of America's system of higher education.
He goes on, "I have been writing books and articles for 40 years and the only time my accuracy has been raised as an issue in this way has been in regard to this book." This is false. Horowitz's accuracy has been "raised as an issue" with consistency ever since his early days as a mouthpiece for the extreme left. Recently, Sanford G, Thatcher, a contemporary of Horowitz, wrote:
"I've known Horowitz since he camped out on the other end of the political spectrum. Back in 1973, when he was working for the radical leftist magazine Ramparts, Horowitz attacked Princeton University Press and me, as the social science editor, for publishing The New Left and the Origins of the Cold War by Penn State history professor Robert Maddox. This widely reviewed book was a withering critique of seven prominent New Left writers including Horowitz--author of The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War--for shoddy scholarship. Unable to defend their scholarship, Horowitz and some of the other six New Left writers instead engaged in an ad hominem counterattack. They alleged establishment figures such as George Kennan and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., were leading a 'right-wing conspiracy' behind the publication of the book, presumably to discredit the New Left politically."
More recently, serious accuracy issues were raised about another one of Horowitz's books, Hating Whitey, when it was published in 2000. The book "is littered with inaccuracies large and small," according to Scott Sherman of The Nation. "Writing about the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Horowitz says he saw Nation columnist Christopher Hitchens, who was 'showing his parents around the event.' (Hitchens's parents are deceased.) More troubling is the way Horowitz wields statistics. 'In 1994,' he writes, 'there were twenty thousand rapes of white women by black men, but only one hundred rapes of black women by white men'--a statistic he lifted from Dinesh D'Souza's book The End of Racism. D'Souza's assertion, however, is based on a gross misreading of Justice Department figures."
In his exchange with Jaschik, Horowitz also accuses Free Exchange of not engaging with the substance of his book's arguments. He writes, "there is still not a single attempt by my opponents to actually respond to the 15,000 word analysis in the introduction and final two chapters."
This too is false. Two of the three principle findings in Facts Count--that Horowitz's book condemns professors for actions that are entirely within their rights and appropriate in an atmosphere that promotes the free exchange of ideas, and that Horowitz's conclusions are based on faulty premises--deal explicitly with the substance of his arguments. The third finding deals with the fact that Horowitz's evidence is sloppy in the extreme and manipulated to fit his arguments. That his evidence is so abysmal is itself a pretty powerful commentary on the substance of his arguments.
Nor are we the only ones who have taken on the substance of Horowitz's arguments. In addition to our report, there have been other de-bunkings of Horowitz - notably by Max Blumenthal at Media Matters and Aaron Barlow at Barblog. Blumenthal demonstrates that 52 of the 100 profiles in Horowitz's book are based solely on evidence of things professors have said or written outside of the classroom--and that therefore it is preposterous for Horowitz to make claims about what goes on inside their classrooms. Barlow exposed the inanity of Horowitz's claim that he employs a legitimate historical method (called "prosopography") in The Professors.
Horowitz is not unaware of their analyses--he personally responded to both on his website, FrontPageMag.com (here and here). (True to form, Horowitz's response to Blumenthal took the form of a vicious ad hominem attack.)
In light of the Thatcher piece, Horowitz's response to Jaschik is especially revealing. The times may change and Horowitz's political affiliations may shift, but his tactics remain the same.
Apparently not wanting to disappoint readers desirous of a lengthier (if no more compelling) response, Horowitz posted his email exchange with the Inside Higher Ed reporter, Scott Jaschik on one of his many websites last week. The exchange is a vintage example of Horowitz's whack-a-mole method of argumentation: when one argument is proven false, it suddenly disappears, and another one pops up somewhere else.
To wit, Jaschik's third question to Horowitz is, "The report says that you are unable in the book to cite a single example of a student whose grade was lowered for political views. Is this correct? Is this significant?"
In response, Horowitz abandons one of the central arguments of his book, that the professors in it indoctrinate their students with their political views--including through the use of grading. He writes, "While I consider political grading both deplorable and widespread, it is no part of the case made in this book." He goes on, "The principal issues are unprofessional conduct in the classroom, unprofessional instruction (e.g., where the professor is not academically qualified to teach the subject), unprofessional courses (i.e., courses that are ideological and not academic) and bigotry. So the lack of cases of political grading is not only insignificant; it is irrelevant."
Horowitz fails to mention that in the book's opening analysis, he scolds the professors in his book for "seek[ing] the arbitrary imposition of personal opinions and prejudices on students, enforced through the power of the grading process and the authority of the institutions they represent."(xxvii) Elsewhere, he writes that the professors in his book "use the authority of the classroom to force students to adopt their positions." (xlv) Meanwhile, article three of Horowitz's mis-named Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) explicitly addresses the issue of "political grading." It states, "Students will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis of their political or religious beliefs."
In other words, that professors use "political grading" as one means of indoctrinating their students is both a part of the case Horowitz makes in his book and a part of the case he makes generally to advance ABOR.
Why would Horowitz claim otherwise? Simple: he doesn't have any evidence to support this charge. As we point out in Facts Count, nowhere in the nearly 400 sloppily-researched pages that comprise The Professors does Horowitz provide a single example of a student who had their grade lowered based on their political views.
This is vintage Horowitz: forced to support his arguments with actual facts, he backpedals. If one argument is shown to be hollow, he serves up another one. If that one is proven false, he'll switch to another. And so it will go, ad infinitum.
To his credit, Horowitz does make one true statement in his exchange with Jaschik. He writes that we at Free Exchange are "attempting to present this as an issue of my accuracy." That's true, we are. Indeed, we think accuracy is very important--especially when you're making personal allegations about the professional behavior of 100 people, and using them as the basis for a sweeping condemnation of America's system of higher education.
He goes on, "I have been writing books and articles for 40 years and the only time my accuracy has been raised as an issue in this way has been in regard to this book." This is false. Horowitz's accuracy has been "raised as an issue" with consistency ever since his early days as a mouthpiece for the extreme left. Recently, Sanford G, Thatcher, a contemporary of Horowitz, wrote:
"I've known Horowitz since he camped out on the other end of the political spectrum. Back in 1973, when he was working for the radical leftist magazine Ramparts, Horowitz attacked Princeton University Press and me, as the social science editor, for publishing The New Left and the Origins of the Cold War by Penn State history professor Robert Maddox. This widely reviewed book was a withering critique of seven prominent New Left writers including Horowitz--author of The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War--for shoddy scholarship. Unable to defend their scholarship, Horowitz and some of the other six New Left writers instead engaged in an ad hominem counterattack. They alleged establishment figures such as George Kennan and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., were leading a 'right-wing conspiracy' behind the publication of the book, presumably to discredit the New Left politically."
More recently, serious accuracy issues were raised about another one of Horowitz's books, Hating Whitey, when it was published in 2000. The book "is littered with inaccuracies large and small," according to Scott Sherman of The Nation. "Writing about the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Horowitz says he saw Nation columnist Christopher Hitchens, who was 'showing his parents around the event.' (Hitchens's parents are deceased.) More troubling is the way Horowitz wields statistics. 'In 1994,' he writes, 'there were twenty thousand rapes of white women by black men, but only one hundred rapes of black women by white men'--a statistic he lifted from Dinesh D'Souza's book The End of Racism. D'Souza's assertion, however, is based on a gross misreading of Justice Department figures."
In his exchange with Jaschik, Horowitz also accuses Free Exchange of not engaging with the substance of his book's arguments. He writes, "there is still not a single attempt by my opponents to actually respond to the 15,000 word analysis in the introduction and final two chapters."
This too is false. Two of the three principle findings in Facts Count--that Horowitz's book condemns professors for actions that are entirely within their rights and appropriate in an atmosphere that promotes the free exchange of ideas, and that Horowitz's conclusions are based on faulty premises--deal explicitly with the substance of his arguments. The third finding deals with the fact that Horowitz's evidence is sloppy in the extreme and manipulated to fit his arguments. That his evidence is so abysmal is itself a pretty powerful commentary on the substance of his arguments.
Nor are we the only ones who have taken on the substance of Horowitz's arguments. In addition to our report, there have been other de-bunkings of Horowitz - notably by Max Blumenthal at Media Matters and Aaron Barlow at Barblog. Blumenthal demonstrates that 52 of the 100 profiles in Horowitz's book are based solely on evidence of things professors have said or written outside of the classroom--and that therefore it is preposterous for Horowitz to make claims about what goes on inside their classrooms. Barlow exposed the inanity of Horowitz's claim that he employs a legitimate historical method (called "prosopography") in The Professors.
Horowitz is not unaware of their analyses--he personally responded to both on his website, FrontPageMag.com (here and here). (True to form, Horowitz's response to Blumenthal took the form of a vicious ad hominem attack.)
In light of the Thatcher piece, Horowitz's response to Jaschik is especially revealing. The times may change and Horowitz's political affiliations may shift, but his tactics remain the same.
!
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