success of all Jewish subcultures in freernmarket (or even quasi-capitalist) societies.rnHe applies the Noltean model tornthe interwar period with more enthusiasmrnthan I myself was able to muster forrnan essay on the same thinker for Horowitz’srnmagazine Society. Horowitz takesrnseriously Nolte’s view of interwar Europernas divided by a great ideological struggle,rnbetween self-conscious revolutionary andrnequally self-conscious counterrevolutionaryrnforces. Part of the appeal ofrnNazism, he suggests, following Nolte’srninterpretation, is its genealogy withrnmorally legitimate, older forms of antirevolutionaryrnconservatism. Nazisrncould play effectively to those who fearedrnor despised Marxist revolution andrnhoped to return in some form to a traditionalrnGemeinschaft. No less effectivelyrncould Marxist-Leninists appeal in therncontext of interwar Europe to a revolutionaryrntradition going back to the Jacobinsrnand forward to the Bolsheviks.rnThe last section of Horowitz’s book,rnwhich is the most tightly argued, presentsrna compelling overview of the majorrndilemmas facing the social sciences andrntheir varied practitioners in the UnitedrnStates. Horowitz looks at the growingrnradicalization of academic sociologistsrnduring his own career and notes thernchasm between the ideal of scientific researchrnexpounded by Max Weber andrnthe ideological obsessions shaping today’srnsociology. Unlike Weber, who triedrnto create an iron wall of separation betweenrnscholarship and political engagement,rncontemporary social scientists presentrntheir work as revolutionary acts,rnintended to promote feminist, gay, orrnblack nationalist agendas. Horowitzrnpoints to other bizarre features of thernsocial-scientific landscape, such as Jewishrnsociologists making anti-Semitic statementsrnto please black, radical colleaguesrnand assemblies of psychologists reversingrntheir judgments on homosexuality as arnform of deviance in response to ideologicalrnpressures.rnHorowitz also notes the “war againstrnthe canon” in his own profession: the escalatingrncharges that “the academicrnworld and the ideas it promulgates arernsome kind of hustle to keep privilege intactrnand the disenfranchised out of thernsystem.” Behind these charges he rightlyrnsees the emphatic denial that canonsrnhave something to do with a quest forrnwisdom as opposed to “ascribed status”rnand “configurations of power.” He alsornobserves the reduction “of the world ofrnknowledge to a vicious nihilism,” inrnwhich power is allowed to trump all intellectualrnconsiderations. Those whornrule are supposed to impose their visionrnof truth and reality.rnHorowitz makes these charges withoutrnpontificating in any way. He is morernthan willing to concede that thernparadigms and research methods usedrnin his field should be periodically reassessed,rnand he recognizes that researchersrnare susceptible to ethnic andrnother parochialisms. What he stronglyrnopposes is the demand now heard in universities,rnand even on faculties, that traditionalrnauthorities be dropped fromrnreading lists not because they havernnothing more to teach but because theyrnare white, male, German Jews, FrenchrnCatholics, and so forth. Though he doesrnexaggerate the Weberian virtues of anrnearlier generation of sociologists (who inrnfact also diverted scholarship into ideologyrnduring the civil rights movementrnand produced dangerously false studiesrnon black self-esteem), he is correct aboutrnthe current academic dishonesty, particularlyrnin the social sciences.rnThe most useful part of this book, forrnme at least, is the last section, which discussesrnthe possibility of reconstructingrnthe social sciences by means of technologicalrnadvances in the publishing business.rnWhile Horowitz may be accusedrnhere of advancing his own interests, as arndistinguished sociologist who has createdrna publishing empire, his argumentsrnare nonetheless on the mark. Sociologicalrndebate takes place less and less withinrnacademic departments, and much ofrnthe periodical literature churned out byrnacademics is either rigidly ideological orrntoo dense to be read by anyone but arnmasochist. It is therefore academic publishersrncommitted to the discussion ofrnsocial issues who can provide the best forumsrnfor scholarly debate and who makernsure that learned positions are put intorngenerally accessible prose.rnAs a publisher bringing to bear uponrnhis vocation his own scholarly expertise,rnHorowitz has done exactly that.rnNonetheless, he may be mistaken in regardingrnhis own creative use of technologyrnpredominantly as a form of progressrnfor disseminating research: in the presentrncircumstances it is a stark necessity,rnsince universities are no longer able tornperform their traditional function inrnmany disciplines. Some of the scholarsrn(associated with elite universities) whomrnHorowitz publishes are already on thernmargin of the academic world, eagerlyrnawaiting retirement. Others have longrnbeen geriatric but continue to standrnathwart the current academic confusion.rnHorowitz, nevertheless, correctly emphasizesrnthe proliferation of scholarlyrnpresses in North America and Europernspecializing in the social sciences. Manyrnof them, like Westview, Ballinger, Sage,rnElsevier, Pergamon, and Kluwer, are stillrnnot familiar names to most educatedrnAmericans. They do keep open, however,rnthe research questions that politicallyrncorrect universities are working to pushrndown the memory hole. It may be arguedrnthat Horowitz in his newest bookrndoes the same, by reminding his fellowrnsocial scientists what they should bernabout.rnPaul Gottfried is a professor ofrnhumanities at Elizabethtown Collegernin Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.rnA Well-Spent YouthrnbyJ.O. TaternWillie’s Game: An Autobiographyrnby Willie Mosconi & Stanley GohenrnNew York: Macmillan;rn256 pp., $20.00rnEarly last October, there was an itemrnin the national news that stirredrnsome pity and some memories. “MinnesotarnFats” (Rudolph Wanderone) hadrnbeen taken into custody in Nashville afterrnbeing found wandering the streets inrna state of disorientation. A legend in hisrnown mind, “Minnesota Fats” took hisrnsobriquet from the fictional character inrnthe movie The Hustler (1961), madernfrom Walter Tevis’s novel of the samernname. Before that he had been knownrnas “New York Fats” and “Broadway Fats.”rnOld Fats had quite a gift of gab, evenrnbetter than his pool game. But whenrnFats claimed that he had beaten therngreat Willie Mosconi, he got sued forrn$450,000 and challenged to a game forrn$20,000 in private cash. Fats didn’t respond.rnThen Mosconi challenged Fatsrnto play for a hundred thousand, and waitedrnin vain for a response to a registeredrnletter. Six years later (February 14, 1978),rnMosconi got his satisfaction in a tele-rnJANUARY 1994/29rnrnrn
January 1975July 26, 2022By The Archive
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