Fw: Reply to Ron Kuzar

[Ron Kuzar]

Since Paul Chilton's posting on this list was a forwarded one, allow me
now also to forward his reply as it appeared on Critics-L and DISCOURS.
Ron Kuzar
----------------------------------------
Forwarded by Ron Kuzar <kuzar at research.haifa.ac.il>
----------------------- Original Message -----------------------
 From:    Paul Chilton <P.A.Chilton at UEA.AC.UK>
 To:      DISCOURS at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
 Date:    Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:42:55 +0100
 Subject: Reply to Ron Kuzar
----

Dear Ron,

I am grateful that you the make points that you do, and precisely because
they come from someone in your position, a position which cannot be an easy
one. I will clarify some points about my own position, and respond to some
of the things you say in your email.

1	First,I regard the attacks on American peiople last Tuesday as acts of
horrifying inhumanity. Anyone who knows me would not expect me to condone
these acts, but I evidently do need to make this clear for others. Murder is
murder and mass murder is mass murder, whoever is committing it. I do not
compare or distinguish the different numbers or kinds of people killed by
different actors. I condemn anyone who commits murder, whether they kill one
person at a time or thousands. So I condemn the people who attacked the
American people on 11 September. I acknowledge that the acts committed on 11
September are probably unique in their impact on our minds, because of the
scale, the nature and the location of the action. I do not like using the
term "terrorist", because, as we all know, its meaning is highly contested.
If it helps us refer to the people who committed these depraved acts, so be
it for now, but it will not help us keep a clear head.

For the rest, a few more Notes:

2	You say: "The “Notes” is not only a  piece of critical discourse analysis
but also a clear act of intervention in politics. As such it is a text
liable to critique, and  so are its politics." I agree. That's always been
my view of discourse analysis. Let's not be too starry-eyed, though. Let's
not have any illusions that a few discourse analysts can influence either
state policymakers or those who plot attacks like those of last week.

3	The comments on the extract from Teun van Dijk makes the CDA position seem
very simplistic, which it is not. None the less, analysts probably should
consider carefully where their presupposed value judgments are coming from,
and if necessary make them explicit. Many people in CDA might reply to you
that the victim and agressor are objectively distinguishable via the power
differential--victims being the (relatively) powerless. Like you, I can see
that this cannot be the whole story. Ends do not justify the means.

4	Epistemology is an issue when you say: "But how do we know that Black and
female scholars have  the right knowledge of reality?  Or... how can we be
> sure that scholarly insights represent reality faithfully? The ease
> with which such assumptions about privileged access to reality pass in
> our discipline have to do with the sociology of our discipline: with
> few exceptions, linguists have often been active in progressive social
> projects."  You are right to be watchful for analysts making assumptions
that their access to reality is privileged, of course. But your own
assertions here do presuppose that there exists an objective reality to
start with, especially the first two questions above. Now, this is not the
time or place, but discourse analysis of most varieties has taken a
constructionist position with respect to the notions that the term "reality"
ordinarily evokes. Moreover, the majority of discoruse analysts are
extremely careful to avoid the ideology vs.objective knowledge distinction,
to avoid a claim to superior knowledge. I would rephrase your point and say
that discourse analysts must be sure that any claims they make of the kind
"individual or group X has type Y discourse/cognitive behaviours" must rest
on empirical and reasoned evidence. Similarly, for claims about power
differential. I agree with you, however, that CDA theorists probably need to
rethink the concept of power and its logical consequences.

We are in an epistemological minefield here. But I would also want to say
that I do not find acceptable the extreme relativism of some forms of
deconstructionist DA. After all, my concern in writing these notes comes
from what I know is real harm to real human bodies and minds (whether they
are Americans, Afghans, Israelis, Protestants, Catholics, Jews or
Muslims...). I say that this harm is real, and I also say that different
discourses, constructed by individuals and groups, can disguise or hide that
real harm. When it comes to it, I assert that the discourse that says this
harm happened and is morally bad is objectively true, and that a discourse
that says otherwise is both false and immoral. There is more to say about
this philosophically, but not here.

5  	Ron, you also say "Although we do not know for sure who these terrorists
are,
> it is quite clear that they also have a discourse that justifies such
> acts. Should this discourse also be subjected to critical discourse
> analysis, or should we ignore it, since it is the “perspective” of the
> “knowledgeable” victims of the wicked. " You seem to think that I believe
that the discourse of the attackers and those like them should be ignored,
and thus appeased. (I think that in political terms it is "appeasement" that
you see as my politicaltransgression?) Yet section 2.3 of my Notes is
clearly headed "Understanding the attackers' script". I said clearly,
especially in the last paragraph of 2.3,  that it is important, and now I
also say it is urgent, to analyse the discourse of indiscriminate
politically and ideologically motivated non-governmental aggressors (if
you'll pardon the circumlocution). That discourse is not easy for the
western mind to comprehend or even describe. analysis of it will include
critique of it as politics and as human action. If such discourse says that
young men should sacrifice themselves in order to destroy other individuals,
I condemn it morally. If such discourse seeks to legitimise the killing of
Israelis, Americans, Afghans I condemn it.

Well, you may say, why concentrate on the powewrful and on the US government
in particular? Because, last week and indeed now, there is a serious
probability that the US and its allies will take military actions which will
burn, crush and maim very many people who by any criterion are innocent. I
can see no political point or human morality in causing more innocent
deaths. I think, from my reading of Amrican history and policy that there
are individuals and groups within the US polity who will access scripts,
discourses, concepts that would legitimise actions that would result in more
innocent deaths. This position is not just about ethics, but about politics
(if the two are in fact different)--for it requires little historical
evidence to show that violent retaliation in this kind of a situation is
going to cause more inhumane violence against people living in states whose
governments are percived to be violent oppressors. And incidentally, for the
US to cause the risk of such retaliation is no way to protect its own
citizenry. As a matter of fact, one thing that makes me angry is that the
entire American security apparatus has singularly failed, with its
containment, deterrence, SDI and missile defence to provide physical
security for the thousands of its citizens who have just been slaughtered,
and failed to give mental security for the rest.

6	On harboring and harborers. Look--if Mr X is paying for the housing, food,
guns etc. of Mr Y and knows full well that their support will make it
possible for Mr Y to comit a murder, murders or a mass murder, then I say
arrest or if necessary kill Mr X. However, if you do kill him you won't
necessarily stop Mr Y doing his murder, and he may live to kill another day.
But what I am concerned about is that it could be thought justifiable to not
only kill Mr X but also to ("collaterally") kill totally innocent children,
women and men, thereby provoking increasing numbers of Mr Y's disciples.
Incidentally, you will observe, that I am not opposing military force per
se.

To discourse analysts it is pretty clear that the referent of "harborer" is
contestable, but that some, perhaps many people, will be content to
semantically extend it without reflection. But you really don't need to be a
discourse analyst to see this, so let us not give ourselves airs. What is
really disturbing is that what I called metonymic thought--damning people by
association-- really is taking place. Racist attacks and racist discourse in
the UK and US, fire bombs thrown at a mosque in Canada, American talk-show
callers wanting Afghanistan "nuked" because the ordinary people of that
country are deemed guilty by association...

7	Ron, your paragraphs starting "The Western world hastened to make a
connection between the two arenas, to the detriment of the Palestinians.
Everything that Chilton is afraid
> of as a potential US behavior has already been under way in the occupied
> territories."  and the report of Gush Shalom that you quote--these
paragraphs make many of my points much better than I could. Please help
scholars in the west to understand the complexities and the connection
between what you call "the two arenas".

8	Then there are your paragraphs including the sentences: " But this cannot
be said about the Palestinian Authority. The strategic decision to blur the
distinction between terrorism and a struggle for liberation (despite
occasional re-statements of this distinction)
> amounts to a governmental decision to harbor terrorism." This is the sort
of analysis we surely need more of. I mean, we need reasoned arguments and
accurate information that enable us to assess, whether particular
governments have responsibility for acts of terror. Why should I or any
discourse analyst be reluctant to do this? You and your colleagues are in a
position where you can help us to do so. My own concern about the
"harboring" rhetoric, and I am not the only person concerned, is that quite
guiltless people could get slaughtered as a result (in part) of its use.

9	 Finally, I'm baffled to hear that I use a "framework" that is
"anti-intellectual". And as I've tried to show above it is just not true
that what I am doing with discourse analysis "chooses to side with the
victims no matter what they think or do".  I fear there is a kind of binary
fallacy here, which is very familiar. I knew it well in the cold war period,
when peace activists who criticised NATO and the west were branded as
communists and soviet sympathisers. Its re-appearance is perhaps
understandable, but it bodes ill. The fallacy is to assume that because one
criticises one side, one is therefore supporting (condoning, lending succor
to, perhaps even "harboring"?) the other side. Refusing to take sides is
uncomfortable.

Let us, all of us scholars and intellectuals, work together on these things,
since it is the least we can do.

Paul


====================================
                 Dr. Ron Kuzar
Address:   Department of English Language and Literature
                 University of Haifa
                 IL-31905 Haifa, Israel
Office:       +972-4-824-9826, fax: +972-4-824-9711
Home:       +972-2-6414780, Cellular: +972-5-481-9676
Email:        kuzar at research.haifa.ac.il
Site:ý          http://research.haifa.ac.il/~kuzar
====================================