September 9, 2009
Pulled Cartoons Cause "Furor"
We all know I love a ridiculous cartoon brouhaha, but this one takes the cake. Not only does it involve offensive/funny cartoons, it's got impotent academics and self-important pseudo-academics. How is this not awesome?
Yale University Press has decided to publish Brandeis Professor Jytte Klausen's book, The 12 Little Drawings that Shook the World: The Danish Cartoons and the Clash of Civilization -- without the cartoons. Why? Because Yale fears violence and death threats, of course.
Jytte Klausen, threat magnet.
There are so many reasons why this situation is ridiculous. In the first place, there's the idea that an academic book is going to provoke death threats. No one reads serious academic tomes. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here. If a terrorist organization was serious about its mission, it wouldn't even bother putting out a call to arms on this one.
It gets even better. Fareed Zakaria "editor of Newsweek International, a world affairs columnist and CNN host who serves on Yale's governing board" (i.e. NOT an actual professor) was one of the chief decision makers.
Not Your Average PhD
According to his website bio, Yale alum Zakaria does have a Ph.D. from Harvard. But I note he has chosen to forgo the penniless martyrdom of academia and go for the dollars and sense of infotainment journalism. As a well-paid, well-known talking head, I'm guessing Zakaria has an inflated sense of what a Ph.D. can do for you, and I'm sure he really does think people are going to read this book. But he's really wrong.
Incidentally, if Zakaria really cared about intellectual freedom, he would have kept his mouth shut and let the Jytte Kausen publish her book in the relative obscurity for which it was destined. That way, everybody would have been happy.
Finally, Jytte Klausen herself. She "reluctantly" chose to accept Yale's decision, fearing that no other press would publish the book. At first I thought she might be a junior prof desperate to get tenure with the book. But no, she's a full professor with many publications to her name. She's in a good position to make a real fuss if she wants. If she's serious about her outrage, she should just refuse to publish the damned thing with Yale -- or better yet, take it to a popular press thus ensuring many people will read it.
She's not going to, of course. Publishing a readable book with a popular press (i.e. speaking to the huddled masses) doesn't count in the Academy. Nor are you allowed to rock the boat, ever, by making anything but the most blandly predictable statements of indignity. Hence all of the ineffectual whining about intellectual freedom.
Honestly. If she's not going to take a stand I want everyone else to shut up. Zakaria gave his opinion, Yale made its decision, and Klausen made her call. It's done, and I really don't see an "uproar" here. While the original cartoons (which did reach a lot of people) caused what might properly be called a furor, this is a tempest in a teapot.
