"IPSE DIXIT" - Democratic Underground

seemslikeadream

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Wed Aug-13-08 07:50 PM
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"IPSE DIXIT"

Mr. Fund uses the unethical McCarthyite tactic of guilt by association
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2006/04/25/p7821

Not surprisingly, Mr. Fund uses the unethical McCarthyite tactic of guilt by association to fabricate an extremely flimsy case against Juan Cole. For instance, he accuses Professor Cole of using his anti-war blog to support a supposedly "anti-Semitic" Harvard study, "The Israel Lobby And U.S. Foreign Policy," by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. <3> In other words, Fund is claiming that Cole is automatically guilty of "anti-Semitism" because he has associated himself with the Harvard study's conclusions.

However, Mr. Fund's argument illustrates a classic error in logical reasoning that is known as an "ipse dixit": something asserted but not proved. The mere allegation that something is true or false, without more, does NOT make it true or false. After all, one still has to prove it: where's the evidence?

Hence, when Fund alleges that two distinguished scholars from ethnically-Hebrew backgrounds drew conclusions that are somehow "anti-Semitic," that allegation alone does NOT make it true. Where's the evidence?

AND WHAT ABOUT THE CONTRARY EVIDENCE?

Mr. Fund alleges that the Mearsheimer-Walt study is false because it conclusions are the product of "anti-Semitism," but his argument would fail if its conclusions were true. And their 81-page research paper contains probative evidence aplenty that its conclusions are, in fact, true. Additionally, so many scholars and pundits have come forth since its publication to defend the level-headed objectivity of the Harvard study that Mr. Fund's specious charge of "anti-Semitism" altogether lacks credibility. <4>

Furthermore, Mr. Fund's harshly-worded title reveals his most obvious motive for this scurrilous attack - he hopes to intimidate Yale into revoking its offer to hire Juan Cole. Although Fund alleges that Professor Cole is unqualified because his academic expertise is limited to the history of the nineteenth-century Middle East, that claim is belied by the fact that a great university like Yale: (a) offered him a faculty position: (b) is not known for extending offers to unqualified academic slouches; and (c) certainly doesn't need to consult nasty hatchet pieces from right-wing columnists to decide whom it should hire.

FUND'S STRATEGIC MOTIVE.

Finally, we can infer Mr. Fund's underlying strategic motive for this unwarranted attack, and it is even more disturbing. The USA's right-wing fanatics have successfully driven the top Middle East experts out of the State Department and replaced them with neocon ideologues, so their next goal is to drive the top Middle East experts out of academia, thereby adding academic freedom to the other freedoms - like speech and press - that they will destroy to create their neo-fascist National Security Fortress America.