Wald's continuing...

[bwald]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Unfortunately, I feel compelled to respond to AMR's  ad hominem posting of
7 Feb, 1999.
I would have preferred to remain silent, but that runs the risk of some
onlookers thinking
that unrestrained emotion is an acceptable or effective substitute for
rational argument in
our field.  Behind AMR's posting, I have come to realise, was a great deal
of personal pain.  I did not foresee that my criticism of some of
Pedersen's statements would be taken by AMR as a personal insult to himself,
and a direct threat to a line of inquiry he holds dear.  So, recognising
all the sensitivities engendered in any issue remains a human problem that
we can only continue to work on without expecting that a solution is just
around the corner.

Fortunately, Dorothy intervened, though a little late, when it came to her
attention that AMR's posting was threatening to transform the list into the
moral and "intellectual" equivalent of the "Jerry Springer Show", with AMR
doing the verbal equivalent of throwing a chair at me.  She wrote to me:

>>> .... I should have
>>been more careful about vetting submitted postings and should not have
>>distributed that one from AMR. In addition, I'm trying to keep postings
>>shorter -- this is one of the reasons some things that shouldn't be posted
>>slip by me. ....Would you be willing to shorten this and reduce the
>>>level of your outrage? Then I'll post it.

In return, I sympathised with her plight, in view of the work that would
have to be done to vet the irrepressible barrage of often lengthy (and
often equally worthwhile) messages that AMR submits to the list.  I also
noted that my immediate reply to AMR's posting, which she suppressed, was
as long as it was, because I analysed the posting in considerable detail
and quoted lengthy portions of that posting as evidence for my analyses.

In any case, writing the suppressed message and the time that has passed
since has absorbed some of the emotion AMR's posting inspired in me --
which is no doubt a good thing -- so I approach the task of shortening my
reply with less -- enthusiasm and spontaenity.   And even with some
embarassment for
AMR for the way his posting exhibited a self-inflicted but undoubtedly
ephemeral distortion of his usually keener thinking and judgment.

Given that, I hope it can be clear that my following points are addressed
to AMR's TEXT, and not to the person of AMR, who most often produces texts
which earn our respect.

At an early point AMR wrote:

>>>I have received two versions, one long, the other even longer,
>>>of a diatribe from Wald accusing me of ignorance
>>>about the history of linguistics, and both Pedersen and
>>>by implication me of "institutional racism",
>>>though not (necessarily) of being racists at a persona level
>>>(something which Wald seems to say he does not care
>>>about).

I had a lot to say about that, but for present purposes my reply to the
last point was that discussion of expressions of (witting or unwitting)
institutionalised racism *in scientific discourse* is all that is relevant.
If one wants to attack the proposition that "2+2 = 4", it is irrelevant to
allege that the author of the proposition is a "racist".  Similarly, the
comparative method of reconstruction developed by the 19th c IE-ists does
not stand or fall on the religious, or nationalistic or later
nstitutionalised racist motives that may have encouraged their work
(whether or not they were aware of such forces inside or outside of
themselves).  Similarly, for Nostraticists and anyone else.  Certainly my
understanding of the historical context in which the IEists forged their
principles of reconstruction and fundamental vision of linguistic change
does not diminish in the slightest my admiration and USE of their basic
methods, without which this very list would hardly be of any interest to
any of us.

With regard to well-intentioned statements against blatant racism, the
arguments adduced by early 20th c American dialectologists against the
notion that the nature of African American English had any historical
connection with anything but English offers an interesting and complex
example.  A common position in that period was that African American
English was nothing but an accretion of non-standardisms of "Anglo-Saxon"
pedigree.  The point was used to assail the blatant racist assumption that
African American English reflected the inability of African Americans to
acquire "English" due to some congenital mental defect (an empirically
falsifiable assumption).  The motive of the dialectologists was "good", but
the details of the argument were "bad".  One was that even Southern
"whites" use the same linguistic features as African Americans (only
partially true).  This, of course, was criticised by the non-racist
argument that pointed out that there was an unexamined assumption by the
dialectologists that "whites" would not pick up linguistic features from
African Americans, the direction of influence was unsoundly assumed to go
only the other way.   And so on, e.g., for the "cafeteria" principle that
any dialect feature found somewhere in the British Isles that superficially
resembled
an African American English feature had to be evidence for the European
origin of that feature, regardless of socio-historical plausibility. (Note,
at least,
that the cafeteria principle could be aimed at diffusing the "defect"
interpretation of
whatever AAE feature was at issue).The overarching assumption was that African
cultures were such flimsy things that transport and exposure to "Western"
culture
had effectively eliminated any traces of it from African American culture
(except,
contradictorily, music and dance, which had become America's most admired
cultural import to Europe, and which the Europeans did not interpret as
"derivative" of their own cultures.)  I find Pedersen's comments on
distinguishing language and race no less well-intentioned (and, of course,
they are sound) than those of the early 20th c American dialectologists,
though list discussion has shown that he also made them with situations
closer to (his) home in mind, but that does not make his uncritical
conveyance (and thus endorsement) of a larger spurious framework of racial
classification less objectionable as a matter for scientific discourse.

Later in the posting, AMR wrote:
>>>Finally, it appears to me that it is Wald who is
>>>operating with racial categories in a way I find
>>>unscientific and immoral, because he appears to ne
>>>saying:
>>>(a) Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by
>>>members of race A (so-called Black or Negro),

I saw this as part of an ill-considered and not-entirely-serious attempt to
turn the tables on me; "reverse racism"?   I was, of course, discussing and
criticising what I see as the motivation lurking behind the racial
classification referred to by Pesersen (not that he realised it).  I cannot
discuss and criticise the motives for the racial classification without
mentioning the framework.  That does not mean I accept it (and was only
arguing about its details) -- and I don't.  It is distasteful to me to even
have to respond to such a silly argument.  If AMR's point is taken
seriously, then it leads to the conclusion that we must ignore such
constructs, rather than mention them in order to criticise them and expose
their historical motives, i.e., that what he was fundamentally saying was
"SHUT UP!"  He went on at great lengths about this, and I quoted him at
length in my
suppressed response, but I think what I have just said is sufficient.

Later, he states:

>>Wald's charges are false and contemptible.
>>His insistence on repeating them over and over,
>>and on attributing to person X the views of
>>entirely other persons, is something very
>>familiar to us but none the less dangerous for that.

I had much to say about this too, but here I will only single out the "to
US" portion.  This looks like posturing and playing to an audience, in the
hopes of engaging their sympathy and support, instead of more
straightforwardly standing on one's own in responding to an imagined
personal insult.  Evidently, as I said earlier, AMR chose to personally
identify more closely with the entire issue than I would have expected him
to.

Finally (I mean it), AMR takes advantage of my attempt at sarcastic humour
in the following exchange:

I wrote:
>>>> You can
>>>> tell the Egyptians aren't Negro, just look at the illustrations of Ancient
>>>> Egyptians in the National Geographic.

AMR  responded:
>>>I myself don't operate with racial categories at all, so I canNOT
>>>tell that....

Well, humour is a matter of taste.  We all take chances when we display it
in public, but we all do it nevertheless.  I take the response as an
example of petulant posturing, but I concede that it can be interpreted at
another level, where it is a legitimate retort.  That is, if we dismiss the
outmoded physical construct in which the term "Negro" was meaningful, and
the social construct to which it was applied as a label, we can refuse to
acknowledge my point.  Incidentally, the whole discussion of "Nubians" and
"Negroes" gives much insight into why African Americans in the 60s objected
on political grounds to the term "Negro", so that it was eventually removed
from even ordinary social discourse.  Similarly, though less completely,
the same happened with its cognates in other European languages -- except
the Romance sources, in which it simply means "black", and does not
masquerade as a "technical" term.  It was a much more significant step in
exposing and dismantling "scientific" racism and its contribution to social
racism than most people at the time (the late 60s) realised.

Interestingly, in an exchange I had with Harry Perridon, he pointed out to
me that Norwegian authorities decided to retain cognate "Neger" as a
standardised ethnic term, maybe in deliberate contrast to Swedish
authority, which adopted the same position as the ex-colonialist West
-- to replace the term; the Norwegian decision may be an indication of the
local political transformation of a broader international political issue
as symbolised
in a WORD.

In closing, I think it is appropriate to quote, with his permission, the
following passage I received from George Hinge, in an exchange I had with
him about Pedersen's original passage ""Nubierne er ikke negre":

>>>Basically, we agree - and Alexis Manaster Ramer, too. The difference lies in
>>>how to use a text, philologically or heuristically; AMR and I hold Holger
>>>Pedersen in a high veneration (and AMR nostraticsm, too), whereas you are
>>>primarily interested in showing how racist axioms can be deeply rooted in
>>>the scientific discussion. But even if the root is sick, the trunk and the
>>>branches may be healthy and strong.

George stated it better than I could.  It stands in marked contrast to
AMR's indignant comments to the effect that "how DARE I raise the issue of
"racism" in connection with criticising anything that Pedersen wrote?"
Once again, I regret the pain that the entire discussion from beginning to
end caused AMR personally; it was beyond anything I could have imagined
beforehand.  Nevertheless, in my opinion, it was a perfectly legitimate
issue to raise, and it did precipitate some interesting and scientifically
relevant responses.  I was even informed that some Nostratic theories did
or do indeed consider Nilo-Saharan as a candidate for membership
(interesting since it is not yet clear that it is a coherent family -- but
that's how that line of research works at present).  So maybe in the end,
"Nostratic" will become the Latinate substitute for "proto-WORLD".
Similarly, I felt I had to respond to AMR's unfortunate posting, at least
as a text directed ad hominem against me.  End of discussion!


---  Benji Wald