G.A. Cohen, who retired last year from Oxford, died on August 5. Although he was a Marxist, he took libertarian ideas with great seriousness; and his efforts to come to grips with the self-ownership principle merit careful study. I rate him one of the best philosophers of the past fifty years. He was extraordinarily sharp in argument but, at least judged by the few times I was in touch with him, warm and generous. He was also extremely funny. I will miss Jerry Cohen.
I have tried to address Cohen’s views in my reviews of Mythologies of Marxism, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality, and Rescuing Justice and Equality, as well as in my book Resurrecting Marx.
{ 47 comments }
Why is “Resurrecting Marx” priced much higher than other mises.org books?
I only saw Jerry speak in Oxford a few times, but I agree with everything you say here (he was certainly funny). I think all libertarians would do well to read his Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality for several reasons: one being that it contains, of all the academic political philosophy since Nozick, the most challenging arguments against libertarianism; another being that the Marxist, hostile, perspective he eventually takes towards self-ownership is full of insight, even for those of us who profoundly disagree with his premises. More than any other non-libertarian he felt the force of our position, and despite his conclusions, it shows.
I hope to put something up on my blog about my thoughts on this aspect of his work in the next couple of days.
I find it ironic that although no political philosopher nowadays would ever condone slavery, they are opposed to self-ownership. Apparently, being owned by one person (especially oneself) is wrong, but being owned by many is OK. Those greedy slave owners’ real sin was apparently not that they were treating other human beings like cattle, but that they weren’t sharing the wealth!
Because Resurrecting is not published by Mises. it’s also not online
you might have guessed that
Why is “Resurrecting Marx” priced much higher than other mises.org books?
Because more labour time went into producing it.
…boom, boom!
This is really sad news. I agree that any libertarian who claims to have a philsophical case for his position and yet has not read Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality is lying. It should be obligatory reading for libertarians wishing to hone their arguments and gain a more robust view of self-ownership.
A great loss, Cohen was interesting and actually not too hard to read.
p.s. – anyone else having problems with Dr. Long’s website? It’s loading all weird for me
From Tom Palmer blog
Ally August 8, 2009 at 8:41 am
A different take
http://blog.mises.org/archives/010425.asp
Tom G. Palmer August 8, 2009 at 9:55 am
It is another take, indeed. Cohen was a remarkably dishonorable person. It feels a bit uncomfortable saying that after he has died, but it was true before, and his death doesn’t change it. His lifelong defense of the USSR, an empire based on slave labor and terror, is unforgettable and inexcusable. It is worth reading Anne Applebaum’s book Gulag: A History and then returning to Cohen’s really bizarre defense of the Soviet Union. Had he renounced his earlier active support for the Soviet Union and apologized, as many others did, I would have a different evaluation. He did neither, and he deserves to be remembered like any other comfortable advocate of mass murder. It’s also worth noting that, to enforce on humanity his odd intuitions (never offered as anything more than that) about justice, it would have required an even more brutal exercise of violence and coercion than was suffered under the USSR. That lack of consistent eradication of inequality is a foundation for his so-called critique of the Bolshevik state: it was not brutal enough and thus allowed some inequalities to persist. Of course, much of that inequality was the direct result of the imposition of socialism. Cohen’s approach to institutions was so intellectually primitive that he merely stipulated that socialism meant equality, so if a state did not produce equality, it was not socialist, with no attention at all to the institutions that would produce equality or inequality. The fact that he once read one book (actually, only one chapter of one book) that defended market exchanges, but remained utterly ignorant of all the rest, is little reason to applaud him. His knowledge of bargaining and game theory, which impressed some poorly read political theorists, was equally primitive.
Finally, his understanding of intellectual history was worse than weak: it was virtually non-existent. I told him that a passage he wrote on Locke confused “negative community†and “positive community†of resources and that Pufendorf’s work clarified the distinction. He looked quite blank. I asked if he had read Pufendorf or other works from the period in which Locke wrote and he said “I’d heard of that, but didn’t think it worth reading.†So he persisted in a misinterpretation of Locke because he didn’t think it worth his time to read anything else. What a pathetic “scholar†he was.
Cohen may have been good enough for All Souls’ College, Oxford, but evidently he does not meet the more exacting standards of the director of Cato University.
I wonder if Cohen would have been considered good enough for Oxford if he had been a life-long defender of the Third Reich instead of the Soviet Union? Or would he, no matter how accomplished or learned, have been considered a moral retard, and thus beyond the pale?
I don’t think that Dr. Palmer’s account of Cohen’s views on the Soviet Union is correct, but I prefer not to engage in a war of words on the topic.
I second David Gordon’s point about the inaccuracy of any view that G.A. Cohen held ‘lifelong’ or unconditional support for the USSR.
In respect to a person who is must rank amongst the finest political philosophers of the century, the least we can do is respect his dedication to precise reasoning and careful argumentation. You will not find the kind of blanket statements and absurd generalities attributed to him by Dr Palmer in any of his works. And that is a lesson in itself.
I don’t think that Palmer ever said that Cohen gave “unconditional support for the USSR.” I read his blog posting and that’s not in it. He wrote “lifelong,” and since Cohen wrote the passage (“The Soviet Union needed to be there as a defective model so that, with one eye on it, we could construct a better one. It created a non-capitalist mental space in which to think about socialism.”) that Palmer quoted in 1995, that sounds fair. I googled that phrase and it took me directly to the page of the book on Google Books. Palmer’s discussion seemed fair to me. Cohen’s remarks are clearly pro-Soviet, and his criticisms are that the Soviet Union was maybe not socialist enough. Enough said.
Palmer has made a reputation of being a dishonest smearer of good people–so much so that anyone he criticizes can be presumed to be a good guy. So his criticism here backfires.
Palmer is an utterly repulsive human being, no doubt. But Cohen, whatever his intellectual merits as a philosopher, was a Marxist; in what way can he be called a “good guy”?
Lord B,
I didn’t call Cohen a good guy. I said the execrable Palmer has a history of maligning good people, leading to the rebuttable presumption that when he maligns someone, they are actually to be presumed to be a good guy.
Note that Leiter Reports, the most influential of all philosophy blogs, links to Palmer as one of the “Crazies”. How pathetic.
Calling Palmer pathetic doesn’t even begin to do justice.
I wonder, though, if the Leiter Report objects to Palmer’s un-nuanced opinion
of Cohen’s attitudes toward the Soviet Union, or to the fact that Palmer regards
pro-Soviet views as repellent (as well he should).
“I wonder if Cohen would have been considered good enough for Oxford if he had been a life-long defender of the Third Reich instead of the Soviet Union? Or would he, no matter how accomplished or learned, have been considered a moral retard, and thus beyond the pale?”
Try this simple experiment- go downtown carrying
a placard with Stalin’s picture and note the reaction.
Then try it with a swastika or picture of Hitler.
People will smile at you indulgently in the first case.
People will react with revulsion in the second.
People like it better if your genocides were politially motivated instead of racially motivated.
Stephan,
Is it pathetic that Leiter Reports calls Palmer a “crazy” or are Palmer’s comments pathetic?
Or is it both?
“I rate him one of the best philosophers of the past fifty years.”
Maybe there wasn’t much competition.
It is true that Cohen (and Nozick) were both famous in academia and occasionally discussed libertarian points. But, I found Cohen’s arguments about self-ownership to be weak. He clearly had a mind unlike most others, but I’m finding the kind words written about him a little unsettling, to be honest.
While I’m not a fan of Palmer, he at least reminds people that Cohen was an enemy of freedom, and deserves to be remembered as such.
I’m sure if mises.org published Gordon’s book it would require much less labor time. We really need to use the least amount of labor so we can get the most out of our money, until money is abolished of course.
I knew Jerry Cohen fairly well, over a very long period of time, and have read most of his work (am working on the recent book “Rescuing Justice and Equality”), and reviewed two of his books. He was a very clever man, as well as having a really wonderful sense of humour. He could also be, and usually was, very personable and charming. I think his strictly philosophical work on ethics is seriously flawed, in too many ways. These all suggest, what is known to be independently true, that he was trying his best to support conclusion that he did not arrive at through a process of reasoning, but due to his home and social influences. That doesn’t excuse us from examining his arguments and showing where they are wanting, but it puts us on guard for very cleverly worded fallacies, and claims that would look absurd coming from a lesser writer – would look, I think, as absurd as they actually are. But he has undoubtedly done us all a great service in inadvertently presenting a strong case against Marxism – if even so brilliant a mind as his can’t defend it any better than that, then it is indeed, one may well think, indefensible!
David Gordon’s initial post is entirely apt. Tom Palmer has egregiously misrepresented the remark which he quotes from Cohen. I invite supporters of Palmer to read the remark in context. Cohen is not there suggesting that the existence of the Soviet Union was objectively justified because it facilitated anti-capitalist ruminations. Rather, he is simply indicating that his own temperament and upbringing through 1989 led him to be intellectually dependent on the existence of the Soviet Union. His remark is about himself — about his past outlook — rather than about the objective legitimacy or illegitimacy of the Soviet Union. To be sure, the remark makes plain that his outlook through 1989 was gravely objectionable in a major respect. The remark itself, however, is unexceptionable when it is read competently in its context.
Unlike Cohen, I have always loathed Communism in all its forms. I wish that he had shared my sense of triumphant exhilaration when the Warsaw Pact crumbled. He did not; at the time of the crumbling, he was still enough of a Marxist to feel regret rather than exultation. Pro tanto, he can rightly be criticized forcefully. Nonetheless, justified though such criticism is, it is consistent with the fact that he was a brilliant philosopher and that the people who misrepresent his remarks are not remotely in the same league.
I read the whole chapter (but not the whole book) and Palmer gives a fair account what Cohen says in his post and his quotes. Do I need more context? Cohen says in his book that he was “saddened by what I perceive to be the impending final abandonment of the Bolshevik experiment.” That really says it all. It’s pretty sick.
Ok, now I have read the Palmer article and the chapters from the Cohen book he cites. Palmer nails it. Cohen’s argument doesn’t work. It sounds like it ought to be no real surprise that if Cohen was so wedded to his socialist roots, he would be pretty unfriendly after such a refutation. Why has no one mentioned the article? It’s online and easy to find – http://tomgpalmer.com/wp-content/uploads/papers/palmer-cohen-cr-v12n3.pdf
Why not pay attention to the issue of whether Cohen’s arguments for “equality” are sound or not? I guess you guys hate Dr. Palmer. I don’t care about personality issues. But do you hate logic?
Let me repeat what I said last night. Palmer has egregiously misrepresented the remark which he quotes from Cohen. Like the statement quoted most recently by Andrew Zimbriano, the remark quoted by Palmer (and on August 10th by Zimbriano) is about Cohen’s own outlook rather than about the objective moral status of the Soviet Union. People who suggest otherwise do not deserve to be taken seriously — and so I won’t take them seriously.
Let me repeat what I said last night. Palmer has egregiously misrepresented the remark which he quotes from Cohen. Like the statement quoted most recently by Andrew Zimbriano, the remark quoted by Palmer (and on August 10th by Zimbriano) is about Cohen’s own outlook rather than about the objective moral status of the Soviet Union. People who suggest otherwise do not deserve to be taken seriously — and so I won’t take them seriously.
Totally agree with Matthew Kramer. To reinforce his point, it should be noted that the passage quoted by Palmer is taken from a footnote, which refers to a – in Cohen’s own words – “perhaps less rational motif” for his hope that things “in the Soviet Union might get substantially better” (250). In other words, Cohen is defending his personal hope, not an argument for the Soviet Union as it was perceived at the time.
What is the difference? When someone says he is saddened, isn’t he always personally saddened? Should he be “objectively” saddened for us to find his attitudes sickening? It is pretty obvious that when Cohen wrote that he was saddened at “the impending final abandonment of the Bolshevik experiment” and about how he needed “a non-capitalist mental space in which to think about socialism” he was writing about about his own thinking. Palmer did not say anything different. Obviously, his “hope” is personal, not an “objective” argument for something. He personally hoped that the Soviet Union would continue to exist, for purely selfish reasons, despite the oppression it represented and all the suffering it created.
The defenses offered here are worse than lame. Cohen personally supported the USSR and he personally wanted it to exist and he personally needed it to be able to think about socialism. How is that any different from what Palmer wrote and how is it any less immoral and sickening?
I wrote to Dr. Palmer yesterday to ask his views and he said he did not consider this a discussion worth his time. He said he wanted to set the record straight on G. A. Cohen’s life “amidst all the encomia from his friends and proteges, who loved his ready wit and his extremist politics,” but that he did not want to engage in a “hate session, which I do not consider dignified.” He wanted “the record to show that Cohen was funny and witty and smart, but not a conscientious scholar and possessing a non-functional conscience.” I am more interested in the intellectual discussion and he pointed me to some more reading on the topics. I asked if I could quote him and he said yes, but he did not want to participate further.
Palmer intentionally misrepresented a fellow scholar’s remark, and — assured of his moral self-righteousness — he appears incapable of grasping the severity of his own ethical breach. On his personal blog, Palmer describes Matthew Kramer’s response here as “pure sophistry”:
http://tomgpalmer.com/2009/08/07/g-a-cohen#comments
Jerry Cohen stopped being a Marxist while he came to teach in Oxford, in 1984, even if he was still quite radical. He stated it quite clearly in a few articles. A few years ago I wrote a short note on that: http://www.nodo50.org/cubasigloXXI/congreso04/tarrit_180404.pdf
Well he tried to endorse self-ownership instead but he finally gave it up.
Mike, if he misrepresented, you don’t know if it was intentional. He gave the footnotes and page numbers for people to check. I checked and his quotations are accurate. I read all of the articles and see no misrepresentation in Palmer’s description. I also don’t understand the point that Matthew is trying to make, which seems silly, if not sophistry. Palmer was remarking about Cohen’s “own outlook”, which is that he was sad about the collapse of the USSR. Palmer quoted Cohen on the “need” for the USSR to “be there” in order “To get a sense of what kind of man he was” That means he was talking about Cohen’s “own outlook” because it told us what kind of man he was. How is there any other way to read the statements?
Many of us don’t remember the Soviet Union, but everyone knows what it did to people. how could anyone be sad about the end of such a system? People who are sad because a tyranny comes to an end do not deserve to be treated as heroes. Cohen sounds like a very selfish person if he was sad for personal reasons because the USSR stopped existing.
In this comment — my final contribution to this thread — I will first seek to clarify my point for Andrew Zimbriano, and I will then respond to some remarks made by Tom Palmer on his blog.
The point is as follows. There are two ways of construing the remark by Cohen that was quoted by Palmer (and by Andrew in his Aug 10th comment). One way, a ridiculous way that wrenches the remark out of the context of the essay in which it appears, is to read Cohen as saying that the existence of the Soviet Union was morally justified (at least to some extent) because it facilitated the anti-capitalist musings of Marxist philosophers. So construed, the sentence makes a claim — an utterly fatuous and odious claim — about the objective moral status of the Soviet Union. Palmer tries to foist that claim upon Cohen.
A second way of construing the remark is the only credible way when the remark is read competently in its context. Construed in this second fashion, the remark is about Cohen and his erstwhile psychological or intellectual needs (and limitations), rather than about the moral status of the Soviet Union. What Cohen is asserting is that — because of his upbringing and temperament — he through the late 1980s or early 1990s needed the existence of the Soviet Union for his own intellectual development as an anti-capitalist thinker. If the Soviet Union had not existed, he could not have formed his radical ideas and pursued his radical theorizing as he did.
Construed in this second fashion (the only tenable fashion), Cohen’s remark is entirely consistent with a firm rejection of the preposterous notion that his own intellectual needs were sufficient to confer moral legitimacy upon the Soviet Union. Cohen never adhered to that preposterous notion, and the attempt by Palmer to foist it upon him is an outrageous slur.
Palmer on his blog states that Cohen “deserves to be remembered like any other comfortable advocate of mass murder.” This is another contemptible smear. On the one hand, as my original comment makes clear, Cohen’s assessment of the Soviet Union was considerably more favorable than my own. Cohen did not fully share my view that the Soviet Union was a monstrous tyranny that was fundamentally rotten from its inception. On the other hand, the suggestion that he was an advocate of mass murder is a despicable lie. As is stated in the very essay from which Palmer quoted the remark that I have been discussing, Cohen repeatedly denounced the atrocities and other human-rights abuses committed by the Soviet Union. He did not share my view that the Soviet Union was fundamentally rotten from its inception, but he did to some degree share my view that the Soviet Union was a monstrous tyranny.
According to Andrew, Palmer has said that he does not want to engage in a discussion which he “do[es] not consider dignified.” This sentiment is a bit rich, coming from someone who waits until Jerry Cohen’s death to peddle an array of unverifiable anecdotes. Let me comment on one of those anecdotes. Having discussed Hobbes and Locke with Cohen several times in the mid-1990s, I can attest that his knowledge of early modern philosophy was both broad and deep. I therefore have to draw either of two conclusions concerning Palmer’s anecdote about Cohen on Locke and Pufendorf. Either the exchange recounted in that anecdote never occurred or else Cohen was sarcastically mocking Palmer, who didn’t manage to recognize as much.
Finally, before I bow out of this thread, I want to respond to the following sentence from Palmer’s blog: “Matthew Kramer insists, in response to a student’s criticism, that he would not bother to read or consider an argument because he doesn’t ‘take seriously’ the person who wrote it; somehow, the logic is tainted by the person who utters it.” Palmer is as woefully incompetent in interpreting me as he is in interpreting Cohen. What I wrote is that anyone supporting Palmer’s misrepresentation of Cohen’s remark does not deserve to be taken seriously. I said nothing about not bothering to read or consider an argument. On the contrary, my rejection of Palmer’s misrepresentation was based precisely on my reading of that misrepresentation and my reading of Cohen’s essay.
Andrew Zimbriano: on Palmer’s smearblog, you write: “It has opened my eyes a little more to see that people such as Kinsella defend Cohen just because you criticize him. Now I understand better what makes him tick. Someday I will ask you for the roots of why they feel that way toward you, although your columns in the Fever Swamp surely played a role, by exposing some of the less presentable parts of what some of them offer. I did learn some things there, but I wish that the good things they have to offer did not come with such unlibertarian and unattractive attachments.”
I did not defend Cohen; I quoted Gordon. Why would you say this? And why would you make the insinuation that I have unlibertarian views? I think you should re-assess, and apologize.
There is a reason people have a bad taste in their mouth re Palmer. The Mises Institute is the single most heroic institution in the world today, fighting for liberty. The sniping and dishonest attacks on it are malevolent to the core. Talk to any of the hundreds of students who pass through Mises U each year–you’ll hear how great it is.
Have an open mind and beware of the spreaders of lies and hate.
David, I just remembered I had written a post on Cohen back in 2007:
G.A. Cohen, the Rothbardian-Hoppean Marxist?.
I too share skepticism about Palmer’s claims of shoddy scholarship by Cohen.
However, the claims here calling for subtlety in understanding Cohen’s views
on the Soviet Union are increasingly tortuous. Ultimately, it seems, Cohen is
akin to a supporter of Italian fascism who voices reservations about the brutality
of the German variety. That this should have no bearing on evaluating the merits
of the man’s intellectual work goes without saying. No need to rationalize it,
however.
I think it all boils down to the question of whether intellectuals should be somehow accountable for their theories as they can create great damage at virtually no cost to them as countless historical examples demonstrate.
Dr. Palmer believes that intellectuals should indeed be accountable for their often crazy theories. Accountability here does not mean any government action (God forbid) or deliberate effort to shut a person down, it means an honest discussion of what the person’s legacy is rather than a stream of generous obituaries which will be available anyway. Although Cohen might well have been a person of greatest personal qualities, that is not the point of discussion. Just as in the case of Krugman’s recent Nobel (which he might have deserved for his analysis of international trade) such universal praise of a thinker will only be used as a vindication of his other views that have nothing to do with scholarship.
Now this is not to claim that G.A. Cohen was somehow responsible for preservation of the USSR, and I think that if he had happened to live in the country that he seems to have loved and hated at the same time, he would probably have suffered endlessly for apostasy as had most of those scholars in the USSR who dared to deviate from the party line.
However, I strongly believe that Cohen should be held accountable for the ends that he advocated. His divergence from classical Marxism may have been about the means and justification of the ends but not about the ends themselves. I hope no one at this blog will argue that Cohen did not crave for a radically egalitarian society.
The question which you may want to etertain is. Would Cohen object if a bunch of people having grabbed power in some place tried to build a society based on the principles he espoused? Or would he rather hail it as another opportunity for bold experimentation?
Dr. Palmer offered his response to Matthew on his blog at http://tomgpalmer.com/2009/08/07/g-a-cohen/comment-page-1/#comment-11241
It seems more than adequate.
Mr. Kinsella, we have met, although you would not probably remember me. I have nothing to apologize for. You wrote, concerning Dr. Palmer: “anyone he criticizes can be presumed to be a good guy”. So you presumed that Cohen was a good guy because he had been criticized by Palmer. That is a defense of Cohen and it was only because he was criticized by Palmer.. As for unlibertarian and unattractive attachments, I was referring to the defenses of the Confederacy and the various other issues connected to it, to which I was subjected during my time at a Mises program. Not everyone shared the fascination, but it was clearly there. I do try to keep an open mind. I wonder about you, though.
Another thing is that if you have not read Dr. Palmer’s refutation of Cohen’s theorization of communism, you should. The chapter from his book is available at http://tomgpalmer.com/wp-content/uploads/papers/palmer-cohen-cr-v12n3.pdf
I read the Cohen chapters and Dr. Palmer’s refutation and I think that Cohen lost that debate. Dr. Palmer’s criticism shows that Cohen confused his cases and that his argument does not, in fact, refute Nozick.
I’ve written a little bit about Cohen’s work on our blog (click my name) if anyone’s interested, but I realized I actually have a lot to say, so it will be in the form of many parts!
Tom Palmer has disabled the “Leave a Comment” feature on his blog post concerning G. A. Cohen. If I agree with him on anything, for once, it is that it would probably be best if this ugly business would begin to wind down. Before he pulled the plug, though, he posted a comment which I think may shed a bit more light on the personal nature of his animus:
http://tomgpalmer.com/2009/08/07/g-a-cohen/
Zimbriano:
“I have nothing to apologize for. You wrote, concerning Dr. Palmer: “anyone he criticizes can be presumed to be a good guy”. So you presumed that Cohen was a good guy because he had been criticized by Palmer.”
Well, I wrote: “Palmer has made a reputation of being a dishonest smearer of good people–so much so that anyone he criticizes can be presumed to be a good guy. So his criticism here backfires.”
It is obviously I am making a comment on Palmer’s credibility. I’m saying that because he has little credibility, many people will dismiss his attacks and assume the contrary is true. I did not defend Cohen.
“As for unlibertarian and unattractive attachments, I was referring to the defenses of the Confederacy and the various other issues connected to it, to which I was subjected during my time at a Mises program. Not everyone shared the fascination, but it was clearly there. I do try to keep an open mind. I wonder about you, though.”
On Palmer’s blog you implied I had “unlibertarian and unattractive attachments.” Now you say you heard some defenses of the Confederacy at “a Mises program.” Even if this were some unlibertarian view (who knows), why attribute it to me? Have you ever heard me defend the Confederacy?
A goodly number of Mises Institute people are anarcho-capitalist, anti-state, and anti-war–I take it you are aware of this? As such they do not defend or support “the Confederacy,” which was just another criminal state. As anti-statists, they do condemn Lincoln and the war he waged, as do any real libertarians. If you find anti-war, anti-Lincoln and, yes, anti-Confederacy sentiment to be “unattractive” and “unlibertarian,” it is not me who needs to be “wondered about.”
I just attended part of Mises University 2010. There were probably about 200 students there; and dozens of faculty and staff. This happens every year. The students were bright, intelligent, eager to learn, and all passionate about liberty and individual rights and free-market economics. There are by now thousands of people who have attended Mises Institute programs and have nothing but good things to say about the absolutely heroic, crucial work they do for liberty. And there are tens of thousands more, at least, who benefit from the amazing wealth of free information provided at mises.org. Browse around–can any honest person say he sees a whiff of disgusting ideas that the maligners like your odious acquaintances accuse them of? No. Anyone who is really devoted to liberty, rights, individualism, integrity, and honesty ought to be ashamed for smearing this great Institution and these great people who are doing so much to try to spread the message of sounds economics and liberty–more than any other single group in the entire world, in my sincere view.
So, no, you have nothing to apologize for, other than falsely charging me with “defending” Cohen; imputing to me views I do not hold (re the Confederacy) and insinuating I hold unattractive and/or unlibertarian views, when I have devoted a good deal of my own life to fighting for liberty; and maligning the heroic, libertarian Mises Institute based on ridiculous charges. For shame.
It’s an honour for Palmer that Kramer even responded to him. It was well for Palmer that he turned the comments on his own blog off else he might have been subjected to a peer-review he’s not used to. Like, people using real arguments and stuff. Palmer calls Cohen dishonest? Palmer is the kind of person who wears an arrogant smirk even in writing. No doubt Cohen mocked him when they met. A think-tank is by definition a place with pre-set agendas, an abomination. ‘This our ideology [libertarianism]: how can we defend it? How could anyone working there call people at real universities dishonest?
This is an interesting discussion. I had the privilege to meet Dr. Palmer in France during his lectures here. He also introduced his friend Dr. Vladimir Bukovsky and spoke with emotion about how he was tortured and abused in the Soviet Union and his work to reveal the cruelty behind the fine words of the Communists. I can know how someone can react against those who provided moral support for torture. The question of the “fellow travelers” even came up in the discussions and he mentioned Gerald Cohen. Bukovsky and others (some others who also suffered from Communist states) said that the fellow travelers also had their responsibility for the crimes of the Soviet Union.
I do not think that Dr. Palmer, who teaches in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Iraq and many other places, besides the European countries, is quaking with fear about peer reviewing! It was an honor for me to meet him and to receive his autograph in his book. I look forward to reading his essay.
leni riefenstahl’s name was always covered in ignominy, despite her professional brilliance. i guess there are two standards for judging intellectuals and artists.
Comments on this entry are closed.