http://www.hirhome.com/rozin00.htm
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PREFATORY NOTE, from Francisco Gil-White
Paul Rozin wrote
me
an email that I construed as a threat,
and which led me to write a letter to the psychology department chairman
explaining that I was being harassed for doing journalistic work that
exposes certain claims of the US government to have been lies. Paul
Rozin's email threat was in reply to an email that I had sent him, and
the text of this email is reproduced below. My email to Paul was
replying to en earlier email of his, and I quoted his text when making
each of my replies. To make it easier for you to follow, I have indented
Paul Rozin's text. Mine is normal.
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>At 11:31 PM 9/27/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Francisco
>I am copying this to Rick, so he knows what is going on, and can comment if he chooses to.
>My role as your mentor is to
optimize the probability that you will get tenure. In that context, I
am sure the advice I give you is correct.
Though I agree that bringing some of your Yugoslavia stuff into your
biocultural course is relevant to the subject of the course,
it is an option, and it serves to muddy the distinction between you as
an academic and as a commentator on the world scene. I am only trying
to protect you. If you want to optimize the effect your studies of
distortions in the press and popular and informed views, I would suggest
two things.
1. Contain it to the political world until you get tenure
I understand that you mean to help me, Paul, and it is not my intention to sabotage you by sabotaging myself. But it is misguided to try to help me by asking me to corrupt myself. There are certain things my principles prevent me from doing because I have to sleep in my own bed at night. One of those things I will not do is censor myself or allow those who would protect me to censor me. I am a US citizen, and the very first amendment of my constitution explicitly protects my right to political speech. If my mentors at the U. of P. keep me from raising certain political issues in my capacity as US citizen because this is detrimental to my tenure prospects at Penn, then we already live in a Police State and the university is the state's policeman, muzzling the very category of people who were supposed to be the first line of defense against attempts to curtail freedom of thought. I do not think we should have to live in such a state or be treated in such a way by our university, and I will make my stand right now and right here. I expect you to join me, and to defend me, if anybody tries to make an issue of my political beliefs, because that is the right and decent thing to do, and because you are a decent man. And since you already have tenure, I point out that defending my first and most basic right as a US citizen carries no professional risks for you. However, if you do not defend me, then I will do it by myself, because it is the right thing to do.
There was a genocide, and the victims were blamed for it, and I will be damned if I am going to keep quiet about that until the day I get tenure. Because lots of otherwise decent people kept a cowardly silence in WWII, and also helped censor those who wanted to speak, millions of Jews were murdered. The next time something like that happens, and it may well happen before I get tenure, as it happened recently in Yugoslavia, it will not be *my* fault. The world will not stand still until I get tenure so that I can make my protests in time. The lives of innocent people are on the line and I have uncovered important truths that people need to know. I really think you do understand it, since you are responsible for getting started a center whose avowed purpose is to make such misfortunes less common.
My articles for Emperor's Clothes are for Emperor's Clothes, a media company, not an academic journal, and I have already established in meetings with my chairman that this is therefore not germane to considerations of my employment at Penn. We both agreed on this. And I have expressed to him in no uncertain terms that if anybody makes an issue of this I expect him to defend me, and to go to the mat, no less. I really thought that this discussion with him had ended the matter and I am shocked and dismayed to find my own mentor raising it again. But if despite all this my journalism gets put on the table as a consideration for my employment as a professor of psychology, then *at the very least* I will expect anybody who dares do this to point out anything that I have gotten wrong in this work. It would be the height of scandal that I would lose my employment simply because I disagree with the US government, or don't you agree?
I have been very careful to separate the journalism from the academic work, and my webpage now makes clear what is what and also that my journalism has nothing to do with Penn. Doing more than that will be to censor myself and that I simply will not do.
About my course, I see no reason whatever not to talk about the Milosevic speech there. As you yourself concede, the example is perfect for my subject matter, which is to examine why certain ideas spread and others don't. The case of the speech is excellent because in this case the idea that spread is a falsehood and so it spread *in spite* of this. Moreover, I happen to be an expert in the example and that is precisely the kind of example that a pedagogue will make use of. The example is perfectly documented, so I am not misinforming my students. The only possible objection then is that I am saying something to my students that the US government would rather have me not share. That is emphatically not a reason to censor myself, especially given that people who use falsehoods about Yugoslavia as examples in other classes at Penn (and with 15 min. research I can tell you who they are) are hardly getting bullied to stop. The reason? Their falsehoods agree with the US government. Is that what you stand for?
>2. Try to soften your rhetoric. When you provide evidence that someone "lied," even if all your information is correct, it is not a great idea to brand the person a liar, which has the connation of a character defect, and one that is not limited to one or a few cases.
I have agreed so many times with this that I do not know in which other terms to express my agreement. Recent compliments about my new style and approach have been forthcoming from all quarters, so it is a bit redundant to keep rehashing, as you did in your last meeting with me (and as you do again below), that I antagonized everybody at my first talk about Yugoslavia (something I have never denied, so pointing it out can hardly be a lesson). That happened two years ago and this is now, so I will be grateful if criticisms about my style from now on can be criticisms about what I am doing now as opposed to what I did two years ago, because what I did two years ago will continue to be what it was no matter what I do now.
[ NOTE 11/06/05 Above I was bending over backward to share the responsibility for the ugliness at the talk I gave about Kosovo. I was trying to be nice. But the testimony of a third party, Professor Douglas Massey, establishes that at this event I was the victim rather than the main offender. -- FGW ]
That said, when I can produce evidence that somebody lied (certainly not impossible) I will call a spade a spade. That somebody is a liar is not impossible to demonstrate empirically. All you have to do is provide evidence that the people spreading a falsehood knew better, as I did in the case of the BBC, which (1) translated Milosevic's 1989 speech, (2) reported it accurately as a tolerant speech at the time it was given in 1989, and then (3) reported that Milosevic had said the exact opposite of what he in fact said when NATO was getting ready to bomb Yugoslavia. I do not have a signed confession from the BBC that they lied, but we would not expect this anyway. However, I do have the closest thing: a taped telephone conversation with a BBC reporter who called me up horrified, asking me to explain what was happening at his own organization. Overwhelming circumstantial evidence is usually considered sufficient proof for positive assertions and the question of somebody lying is hardly different.
I am not exactly sure what your position is on this but it seems to be one of the following. (1) One never knows whether an inaccuracy is a lie. With this I disagree vehemently. One can often show this. Or else (2) you think it is never okay to call someone a liar. Or else (3) you think that it is impolite to call someone a liar even if they are. Sorry, I don't agree. I think it is impolite to lie.
>When something has been greatly exaggerated or distorted, it doesn't mean it is a hoax, though it might be. When something bad happens, it isn't necessarily the CIA that causes it.
All of this is true. However, when I have called something a hoax, I have documented that it was a hoax. And when I have alleged CIA involvement, I have documented CIA involvement. If you did not get this impression you either did not read my articles very carefully and/or you assumed I had exaggerated without looking at my footnotes. About the Racak hoax, which is what I assume you are referring to, some of the CIA operatives involved spoke to the press (London Times) and explained their involvement. It was documented in my piece. If that is not good enough for you then please tell me why.
And by the way, saying that I rely on the mass media to make my points is in no way a disqualification, as you often suggest that it is. First, I do not rely exclusively on the mass media - on the contrary, much of my work involves seeking out other primary sources in order to show that what the mainstream media reported was false (as I did in the case of the Milosevic speech, where I produced three independent translations of the speech). Second, when I rely exclusively on the mainstream media for a certain point, I do not submit what they say simply as proof but, on the contrary, I analyze it and compare multiple sources in order to find out what is true and what isn't. I am doing science. Your position that one cannot believe what I say because it is based on media accounts is really quite incredible given that your own beliefs about Yugoslavia are based on *unanalyzed* media accounts. By your own stated principles, then, I should not have to convince you to be skeptical of the official story. And yet what I keep hearing is that you consider unanalyzed media accounts as gospel truth if they agree with NATO, but my own meticulously researched analyses are false because...why, Paul?
>Unfortunately, the tone of your statements, as your talk at Asch on Yugoslavia, puts people off. You can't easily account for why generally informed Yugoslavs, Serbs and others, who have nothing to gain by adopting the line you consider totally false, feel that you have taken much of your material out of context. I take that seriously...say for Miklos Biro. Unfortunately, the tone of your writings makes such people less likely to engage with you.
This issue deserves a comment that I perhaps have failed to make sharply enough before. To the mountain of meticulously documented articles I have produced, and which show that no matter where you scratch the case of Yugoslavia the truth is exactly the opposite of what the official story says, you incessantly respond with this: "Everybody I ask disagrees with you."
Precisely. My research has to do with things that everybody believes and which happen to be *false*. Therefore, naturally, if you ask people whether they agree with me they will tell you that they do not. Hence, asking people whether they agree with me is hardly the way to find out whether I am right. We have to examine the evidence I have produced. Or you can ask those people who disagree with me to point out anything that I got wrong, and to submit the demonstration. After two years, this has not happened even once.
You tell me that you take it seriously when somebody like Miklos Biro, Serbian, tells you that I have taken my material out of context. I point out a few things. The first is that you have never given me any specifics about the context that I supposedly left out, and I take it that this is because Biro did not tell you either. In this case, saying that I supposedly left context out is synonymous with the flat allegation that I am wrong. You hardly needed Biro to allege this, and his allegation adds nothing to your knowledge. Why you bring it up is a mystery to me.
Second, you assume that Biro is not only well-informed, but honest, and in addition you tell me that he has nothing to gain by saying that the line I took is totally false. This is quite a lot of knowledge about Biro, a man whom you never met until last summer, and with whom you have had no more than a few casual conversations. Both you and Rick, on the basis of these few casual conversations, have told me that you were very impressed with Biro, but since you both know next to nothing about Yugoslavia, the degree to which Biro impressed you is hardly the best way to gauge the quality of the man.
Your confidence in his motivations is easily shown to be baseless. Emperor's Clothes has published a myriad articles showing that the Serbs who deposed Milosevic are puppets of NATO. We do not assert it, we document it. In this post-Milosevic environment, Biro is doing very well. Hence, the first hypothesis should be that Biro indeed *does* have something to gain by denying my account given that I defend Milosevic and attack the government under which Biro thrives. I am not saying the man is dishonest, I am saying you have no way of knowing whether he is or not, and that from context your first hypothesis should hardly be that he is. Hence, I find it offensive that the vague accusation about my leaving out "context," with no specifics, let alone documentation, from a man you do not know and who plausibly has good reasons to misrepresent the truth, is something that you "take seriously" as against my meticulous demonstrations. And offensive too that I should have to hear this not once but over and over again, as if it were your ace up the sleeve. It all evidences a certain lack of seriousness in a scientist, Paul, and shows more than a little disrespect for my hard work. How would you feel if somebody dismissed all your meticulous work which explains obesity in the US, for example, on the basis that someone whom they barely know and who has ties to the food industry said that you missed the "context," without giving any further specifics? Would you be offended? Then you know how I feel.
[ NOTE 11/06/05 After making this email public I received an email from a Serbian woman explaining certain things about Miklos Biro. I was not so far off. -- FGW ]
You head the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict. Why do I have to work so hard to get the Jewish leader of a center to study ethnic conflict [to read] about the modern sponsorship of neo-fascism in Europe? You'd think that I was talking about ants, or sailboats, or something completely unrelated to the avowed purpose of this center.
>I will defend your rights to say anything you want to. But consider what will best accomplish the ends you want, e.g., the recognition of the role of the Serbs in the last decade in Yugoslavia, the Norwegians in peace processes, the PLO, etc.
I don't have a strategy, Paul. I am just telling the truth. About Norway, about Serbs, the PLO, etc. I fail to see why telling the truth should be relegated strategically to certain topics.
>Screaming is not the best policy, certainly not for academics.
Agreed. I am not asking that you defend any right of mine to scream. Please let us just table the false issue of my style, which by common agreement has not been a problem for some time.
>And the fact that few if any respond to your challenge, "show that my facts are wrong" could be because of the tone and certainty with which you present your "facts."
It could.
On the other hand, it could be because they cannot refute what I have written. Let us put your idea to the test. Two people have in fact risen to the challenge in the case of my arguments about the PLO: Lawrence Davidson, and Scott Atran, both of them supposedly experts on the Middle East conflict (Davidson's job description, in fact!!). In both cases I made mincemeat of them, and it was not exactly difficult. The debates are published on Emperor's Clothes if you ever care to read them.
So in the only two cases where anybody has risen to the bait, they did not come close to embarrassing me - all to the contrary (if you want to see for yourself, rather than take my word for it, all you have to do is read). This suggests that the second hypothesis, and not your own, may better explain why nobody tries to show that I am wrong. But in any case, your hypothesis does not even follow from what I take to be obvious human psychology. The guy whom everybody tries to shut up is the *jerk*, so if I have come across as a jerk, as you say, and people think I don't have the facts, then I would have expected them to try to shut me up with facts long ago. Instead, all I hear is about how I supposedly missed the entire "context," which is what people always say when they cannot think of a single fact to support their own case. I guess what I missed is the context of the politically correct line that I was supposed to toe in order to keep the powers that be happy.
>Remember, that most of your "facts," understandably, come from press reports from the same general sources that you generally mistrust. Let's just go to the third para from the end of your note to me. "Finally, notice what you have learned recently: the Norwegians are trying to destroy Sri lanka." Now, I didn't learn that recently. I sent you some Sri Lankan press clips that support your claim on this subject. I consider them EVIDENCE for your position, or rather for what I would take as more moderate version of it: "The effect of the Norwegian intervention may be negative in terms of ultimate peace in Sri Lanka." Your description of your position is itself inflammatory, implying that the Norwegians are trying to destroy Sri Lanka, rather than being just misguided. Norwegians are generally nice guys, and most folks have trouble believing they are malevolent.
Paul, you obviously have not read my article on Norway. And therefore, on what basis do you categorically state that my characterization of the Norwegians (which is not about the Norwegians as a people, obviously, but of the Norwegian government in its forward deployment as a NATO puppet) is inaccurate? Amazingly, on this basis: "Norwegians are generally nice guys, and most folks have trouble believing they are malevolent."
No comment.
Best,
Francisco