Anscombe Society-Response
December 19, 2007, 4:57 pm
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
Here is the Anscombe Society’s response to the situation:
http://princetontory.blogspot.com/2007/12/nava-situation-anscombes-response.html
I was thinking about culture clashes. It seems to me that the position of an Anscombe Society at a place like Princeton, which is liberal in the sense of being institutionally committed to protecting the individual choices of its students, would be rather like having a “Richard Dawkins Society” dedicated to arguing the ethical superiority of atheism, and the harmfulness of engaging in practices like going to worship services, at a religious institution of higher learning.
Here’s the take of the Nation:
I suppose a lot depends on how the Anscombe Society began.
Did students decide that they would like to meet and discuss chastity in a neo-connish sort of way? If they did, if seems like an institution committed to the individual choices of its students would protect their rights to get together for that purpose.
“From its inception, the Anscombe Society has prided itself on valuing reason over rhetoric, dialectic over polemic, and civility over belligerence.”
Sounds like Common Ground to me.
Would forbidding any unpopular organization violate academic freedom? My first reaction is, Yes, it would. Students have a right to advocate as well as teachers do. On the other hand, students are not as ompetent to profess a position (as professors are supposed to b), so a student’s right to express his/her opinion should not have the same degree of protection as a faculty member’s would have.
The question of proselytizing comes to mind, and in my mind proselytizing always includes rhetoric. Rhetorical appeals, however, should not be made in presenting both sides of a disputed matter to students. I’m sure not all would agree with this, but I think that when students are appealed to on the basis of feelings, not evidence, that their academic rights are indeed violated. If such organizations as a Dawkins committe or the Anscombe f olks used mainly rhetoric, then it seems to me there would be cause to curtail such activities. How that might be done, I haven’t the slightest idea. Sigh.
If one were to assess the two links on the basis of culture-wars rhetoric, I suggest that the “Nation” wins the battle hands down.
I certainly don’t think the Anscombe Society should be banned from Princeton or any other secular liberal campus whose paramount value is freedom of inquiry. And to its credit, Princeton, which I consider to be the best undergraduate institution in the country, has not done that.
My problem, Joe, with the Anscombe Society is not its description of itself. It’s not that they are impolite. It’s the way they frame the available options. For me, the defining mark of a culture warrior is the “either/or” mentality. Judging from the events it sponsors, an the op-eds sponsored by its leaders I’ve read, and the writings of Professor George I’ve read, the options as framed by the Anscombe Scoiety are are a) complete chastity, understood in the way Anscombe understands it in her article “Contraception and Chastity” itself or b) the hook-up, anything goes culture.
Now, I just don’t think those are the only intellectually serious options out there in terms of academic arguments on sexual ethics, or those from a religious perspective . I think the same could be said of what they bring to campus in terms of feminism. It isn’t either “husband is head” or “secular feminism.” I’d like to see more middle positions discussed or aired. Lisa Cahill, or Sydney Callahan on a religiously sympathetic feminism that isn’t papal feminism. John Noonan on Contraception–why not have him in to talk about the history of the debate over contraception in Rome? Margaret Farley has a new book out on sexual ethics that isn’t in line with traditional Catholic teaching, but isn’t anything goes either. Why not bring in both Eve Tushnet and Luke Timothy Johnson on homosexuality? Princeton isn’t a Catholic school. Why not discuss the full range of options among religious people? These are just the Catholics. I can name a number of Protestants with a range of views as well.
What worries me, to be frank, is that there seems to be a presupposition that people have to choose between two diametrically opposed options. If they reject Robby George and Elizabeth Anscombe’s views, that there is nothing but secular feel-good hedonism out there. But that’s not actually the case.
Do you think Anscombe’s article accurately frames the moral choice at stake, Joe? Are we logically committed to the view that “Contraceptive intercourse within marriage is a graver offence against chastity than is straightforward fornication or adultery.? And if we’re not–well, wouldn’t the point of a common ground meeting be to air at least some moderating positions?
Yes, Bob– the whole event is feeding into the culture wars. If the young man had actually been hurt–that would have fed into the culture wars on the side of conservatives. Now, it’s feeding into it on the side of liberals.
I haven’t read Anscombe’s article and don’t have time to read it now. Nor have I read anything about or by the club at Princeton, nor followed whom they have invited, etc. I just thought they had a lovely self-description, something they might be held to, and not a bad program on the basis of which to converse.
I’ve never liked Manicheanism, either.
The old ends justify the means game. Talk about anything goes. But this is old hat. How many “verified” bodies of Martin of Tours were there? A local Lord just declared that he had to have one. Mark Twain quipped that there is just not enough room to accomodate all those “true” relics of the Cross. As much as Hitler is rightly vilified, he has a lot of interesting company who vigourously advocate the big lie. Witness the countless memos, Rumsfeld sent out pounding out the lie that the Iraq war was directly related to 9/11.
While both are self-serving (who isn’t, it seems?) the difference between the Nation report and the Anscombe response is that the Nation gets the story and the facts right. That seems like it should matter. Moreover, you reap what you sow. The Anscombe folks and their allies wanted to make hay of this. They got tossed into the baler instead. The Culture Wars run according to the lex talionis, and we all wind up blind.
At the end of the day, what leaves me most perturbed is the point that Blumenthal makes at the end of his article, and that is how quickly the Anscombe people–despite their high opinions of their own virtues–kicked Francisco Nava to the curb.
Just as a rhetorical note, linking to The Nation was probably not a good move in the campaign of trying to blame the right for the culture wars.
I know quite well what the Nation is, Kathy.
I wasn’t trying to blame the right–that’s why I linked to the Anscombe Society’s own response.
I was trying to give a full picture of what the story looked like, and how it grew and snowballed–and how far it snowballed. I started out, remember, linking to First Things.
I don’t like culture wars, period. I suppose I have a particular dislike of religious culture war arguments, because, although I know it is naive, I still hope for so much more from religion.
Cathy,
I’ve had a lot of experience fighting against hateful rhetoric, mostly right-winged Catholic blog rhetoric.
The problem, I’ve found, is that fighting is fighting. At a certain point, fighting against a rhetorical position very subtly becomes fighting against people who hold a position. One becomes a soldier in the culture wars in the very process of critiquing them.
I’m not sure what the remedy is.
It’s a mistake to dismiss the Nation story on account of its rhetorical excesses. As David Gibson points out, it contains information absent from other accounts. One thing the Nation story doesn’t mention is that the New York Sun chose to run their Monday story on the front page, upper right. (This was before the update provided by Ryan Anderson.) Seems the editors made this call because they believed R. George’s pre-hoax-exposure version of events. Also missing from Anderson’s account (unless I missed it; the piece is long) is the Anscombe member who penned an op-ed decrying the university’s failure to act on the initial threats. This was apparently the sort of line George fed the Sun–before revising his opinion that he helped expose the truth “in seventy-two hours.” Also absent from Anderson’s long Monday-morning post: the fact that, according to the Princetonian, George and Anscombe members collaborated with him on it.
Kathy–that is a very useful caution.
I agree with Kathy’s last statement, and this is the clear risk of defining yourself or your mission by what you are against. You end up emitting a lot of negative energy.
I had a friend in college who really was attacked in this way. A drunken thug repeatedly beat his head against a brick wall. He nearly died and had only the foggiest memories of what actually happened. I spent hours alone and with the help of a detective tracking the perpetrator down, and he was finally arrested and prosecuted. And people get accused and harassed in response to false reports or staged attacks: When a white man killed his poor pregnant wife in Boston, and then shot himself, he claimed that they had been victims of black carjackers, and hundreds of innocent black men were detained and harassed.
Okay, this doesn’t have much to do with the culture wars except this: It really disturbs me to see someone so casually bend the rules of civil society for ideological gain. And it’s an example, albeit a rare and extreme example, of what disturbs me most about the culture wars — and that is how much those who aspire to restore notions of traditional values cannot seem to grasp what a monumental achievement a functioning, dynamic civil society is — that things can change without falling apart, and that there is a cohesiveness to our civil institutions that transcends religious affiliation. If that makes them feel irrelevant and powerless, well, I really don’t care.
Rick Garnett’s defense of Robby George over at MOJ.http://www.mirrorofjustice.com/mirrorofjustice/2007/12/more-about-the.html
Barbara,
Maybe the best we can hope for in the political sphere is the replacement of one hegemony with another. But as a religious person I would hope to be working for more.
Kathy, I would demur at the use of the word hegemony. This is provocative language that only feeds the fire. Nobody at Princeton is trying to convince the members of the Anscombe Society to give up their virginity, much less punish them for not doing so. The impulse to convert is from the other direction, and this whole incident is a symptom (again, rare and extreme) of how difficult it can be for some who espouse a “received truth” to be comfortable having to “shop it” in the marketplace of ideas. For one thing, of course, it is a loss of position — that received truth was relatively recently more or less publicly accepted by a clear majority, and second, it is just very difficult to reconcile ideas of absolute, universal truth with an attitude of agreeing to disagree. There is a reason that wars are fought over religious and not scientific truths.
I wouldn’t suggest that the Anscombe Society should have special privileges compared to, say, the Climate Change Forum. But I would think that there could be parity.
This probably going to sound overly simplistic, but why not imagine that one’s interlocutors, whether they be in person, on blogs, or even simply referenced in a talk or paper, are guests at your house for dinner? Now, when I have guests at my house, I am quite happy to get into arguments (much to my wife’s consternation), but I do so with a smile on my face, and a “Can I get you some more wine?” kind of attitude. Additionally, as I do most of the cooking when guests come over, my primary concern is not whether I win the argument, but whether they like the food, and perhaps would like some more, or something else.
On many occasions, as I sit down to reply to something on dotCommonweal I end up deleting what I have written (no doubt, many wish I would do so more often!). Usually, my reason for deleting is that I find the tone of my reply to be unnecessarily strong or harsh.
I also find that a sense of humor helps. I completely agree with Cathleen’s point that one is often presented with ridculously simplistic and very false dichotomies. I used to find myself going ballistic when responding to such things, but now I find myself laughing at them and looking for some humorous way to expose the false dichotomy (Grant has taken down some of my more R-rated efforts at such humor, and I certainly don’t blame him).
While both are self-serving (who isn’t, it seems?) the difference between the Nation report and the Anscombe response is that the Nation gets the story and the facts right.
What facts are wrong in the Anscombe response? I note that the Nation’s story had to be updated to correct a glaring factual error (apparently the original claimed that Robert George had clerked for Clarence Thomas).
I think the main issue is the omission of the fact that a member of the AS wrote an op-ed accusing Princeton of a double standard as a result of its failure to “do something” in response to the attack. The response makes it seem that they were skeptical from the beginning, and never tried to gain ideological advantage as a result of the attack, neither of which seems to be a wholly accurate depiction. Then again, maybe they are extrapolating from their namesake’s reasoning regarding the demands of natural law as it relates to truth telling.
Joe. . . wouldn’t it be nice if every time we all started to blog, the computer dished out a nice glass of cabernet?
But to say that the Anscombe response omitted one fact is not to demonstrate that the “Nation gets the story and the facts right.” Imagine that we were talking about a National Review hit piece on Hillary Clinton that included the correction, “Contrary to the original version of this story, Hillary Clinton did not actually spend a year in the 1970s working for Chairman Mao.”
Stuart, you’re not seriously comparing your imagined correction and the one the Nation had to run, are you? That’s absurd. Whom George clerked for is not central to the story. The Anscombe member’s self-pitying op-ed is relevant to the claim that Anscombe members took the lead in exposing the hoax.
And in addition to what Grant says, I am certainly no fan of Clarence Thomas, but I would not hold it against anyone that they clerked for him.
Well, it’s a bit of a joke, but my imagined correction is exactly parallel to Blumenthal’s hit piece: 1) claiming that George clerked for Clarence Thomas (or that Clinton worked for Mao) is a ludicrous error, one that wouldn’t be made by anyone who took ten seconds to look up the target’s bio (and indeed, an error that has never been made by any other journalist); 2) in either context, the accusation is obviously intended to discredit the target; 3) in either context, it suggests that the author, perhaps out of eagerness to smear the target, was not being careful about the facts.
My point is not that who George clerked for was “central to the story.” The point (which I didn’t spell out, to be sure) is that when an author makes such an error, it might not be a good idea to assume, without further proof, that other facts that are central to the story are accurate.
I was trying to italicize only the word “are” in that last sentence.
Joe, could I please have a Stella Artois?
Certainly, you can’t believe everything you read, Stuart, but the editors have publicly corrected two errors. It’s not unreasonable to expect that they’ll let readers know if more are found.
Of course, Blumenthal wasn’t the first to report the Anscombe member’s op-ed about Princeton’s failure to act on the threats. The Princetonian reported it on Tuesday, I believe. Strangely, it’s no longer available on their Web site.
Are you looking for this? http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/12/14/opinion/19732.shtml You’re quite right that Blumenthal wasn’t the first — that op-ed was linked in Ryan Anderson’s First Things piece, and the link still works as of 12:57 Eastern time today.
Clearly, a new level of technology is called for. We need a Star Trek like replicator to add to our blogging experience. I will get my brother, the programming wizard, to get to work on it right away. In the meantime, I have this strange desire to drink some “Earl Grey, hot.”
Strange, the link I had is not working. I wonder if they changed the story link after they added the update at the top. I didn’t notice that Anderson linked to it because I assumed it was a link to the Princetonian news article he had already linked to higher in the post. Still, Anderson identifies the linked article in a misleading way. “The Princetonian reports” makes McGinley’s opinion column sound like a news story. Obviously is isn’t. What’s significant about that op-ed isn’t how McGinley characterizes Nava’s intellectual coming out, but that he jumped the gun.
Hmm. I didn’t notice that Anderson linked to it with “the Princetonian reports,” but sure enough he does. What I saw was that he linked to that same piece further down the First Things page, with the text: “an op/ed questioning why the administration hadn’t taken the earlier threats against Nava more seriously.”
Poor Elizabeth Anscombe, who held that morality stems from a total commitment to truth, must be spinning in her grave. As I noted in the last thread, an overlooked issue here is how these people are selecting interpreting Anscombe on the basis of a single part of her thought. Does the Anscombe society hold that nuclear weapons are always immoral and that Truman was a war criminal? Does the Anscombe society support Elizabeth’s strong attack on consequentialism when she has that it is never licit to choose evil no matter how much good might come of it (pertinent in the torture debate)? This is what annoys me so much about the “culture war right”: their selective use of issues. To put it bluntly, it is that narrow set of issues that won’t offend the sensibilities of the evangelical (and now Mormon) “culture war” allies. Anscombe was a great philosopher; and he was consistent in her thought.
Stuart, like Grant, I can’t really take seriously your claims about about the Nation piece, or even of some sort of equivalency between what the Nation (and the Sun and the NYTimes and the Princetonian et al) reported about the episode and what the Anscombe folks reported.
What your comments smack of are the tried and true tactic of clouding the waters when one’s camp is caught out by proclaiming an equivalency between one’s mortal sins and the peccadillos that may arise in the reactions of one’s opponents. Then everyone says, “A pox on both their houses,” both sides are just as bad, and amid the cloud of disgust, the original offender slips away and the truth (and justice) are obscured.
(In a similar vein, an amusing recent example of the problem with the blunderbuss technology of Culture Wars weaponry was when the National Review started crowing about another screw-up by the New Republic, only to be caught with their own mini-scandal: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/us/04republic.html. Oops.)
This whole Anscombe episode is fascinating on several points. One is that the story really isn’t that big a deal, to my mind. This poor fellow has serious problems, but on a culture wars level, who cares? There is an argument to be made, I think, that it was the Anscombers (I think I’ll trademark that moniker!) whose effort to get out in front so far and so fast may have left their posteriors exposed. A tree fell in their own forest, and they yelled “Timber!!!” until everyone came running. Also, I think there are times when everyone, but especially Culture Warriors who regularly claim the high ground, should simply be honest and introspective and ask forgiveness where necessary. Yet they can’t seem to do that, and it undermines their larger mission more than any isolated case.
And speaking of Francisco Nava, I’d repeat my earlier query: Why no solicitude for the young man from his erstwhile comrades in arms?
Cathy — You need to talk to the ND tech-people. *My* computer *does* dispense wine: a good Barolo if I manage to write something that sings, and — if I’m clunky — some syrupy Aussie stuff from a bottle decorated with a brightly colored animal of some kind. =-)
Why no solicitude for the young man from his erstwhile comrades in arms?
Because he embarrassed them by fooling at least a few of them into making public statements based on his hoax, and then personally lied to them when they confronted him about a past hoax?
I think there could be a more generous response than that, especially in view of the religious and spiritual tradition that the society and its members draw on. Sure, we hate to be embarassed. But we also have to get over ourselves. The fellow seems to need help and support, not shunning.
The Anscombers reaction makes me wonder too (now you’ve got me into full journo mode) whether there weren’t more suspicions about Nava in the past. It seems odd how quickly the report of Nava’s previous fabrication came over the society’s transom when this report happened. It seems someone, or perhaps many folks, likely knew of his past history. If they were aware of that, would they not have taken greater care to counsel him in some of his public pronouncements? Or did they gin him up?
Seems a perfectly human reaction to me — to be very upset with someone who made you go out on a limb in public to defend his honor, but was lying to you the whole time.
Why is it odd that news of the past hoax arrived “quickly”? Just guessing here, but the straightforward explanation is that there are people somewhere in the world who were from Groton and who knew of Nava’s past, but until the new hoax was made public, they didn’t have any motivation to email the Anscombe Society, etc. After the new hoax came up, one or more of them thought, “Hey, Nava has done this sort of thing before,” and emailed the Anscombe Society. I don’t know if this is the right explanation, but it certainly seems less far-fetched than the notion that someone “gin[ned] him up.”
I admit to often having a certain amount of sympathy for perpetrators who do something so deeply misguided that you can’t help but feel they are very troubled individuals. It kind of pleases me to be consistent here to have such feelings for Francisco Nava, who is at the opposite end of the political spectrum from myself. I hope, however, that I don’t become like to two individuals in my favorite social worker joke.
Good story, David, in that it gets at a terrible truth! I guess I am especially sensitive to this aspect of the story given my immersion in the sexual abuse scandal. I am horrified by the abuse (and at the response of the too many in the hierarchy). Yet I suspect no amount of preambling will assuage understandable anger at my view that too many priests got sold down the river in a way that is not in the least bit charitable, or even fair. Many of them deserved it. Many deserved something different. But it seems the Church never found an adequate or just way of dealing with these men. The process was an education for me, a pilgrimage of sorts, in that I always had to remember that I was dealing with fellow members of the Body of Christ. But this is personal rambling–I don’t want to sidetrack the thread down the abuse debate dead-end.
I submit that the right has the most fire and better achievements in the culture war. The irony is a minority of the country is able to scare the rest into approving a war which is an historic calamity no matter how you slice it. And liberals have almost given the theocons a bye on that one. That group has even scared sensible conservatives away.The best proof of that is how so many conservatives would rather blog here than on right wing areas. How abortion and same sex marriage got to be the number one issues in Christianity is a tribute to right wing demagoguery.
I understand the concerns about culture war, which I share, but the theocons got away with “it does not matter if they don’t love us” mentality as long as they fear us. And preemptive war, for heavens sake!! And some people inside and outside of the Anscombe society have literally gotten away with murder which is what an unjust war is. If it were not for 9/11, being used inaccurately, many people would be serving time for war crimes for breaking American and International Law.
I certainly do not want a stupid left which prefers anarchy and lawlessness. At the same time liberals do not have the follow up to their principles the way the right wing does.
My former hero, Francis de Sales used to say one should hardly ever get angry. Yet he had no mercy when it came to our Separated Brethren. Jesus did say he did not come to bring peace but the sword because of the decisions his principles would demand.
It is very clear that a majority of Christians are against immigration and are for America right or wrong. There is a place for not starting a fight unnececessarily. I guess the inexorable was set into place when the bishops kowtowed to Constantine at Nicea. That was the time when the pursuit of heretics became more important than anything else. “Coge intrare.” At the same time it would really be preferable if the gospel issues would be front and center among the majority of Christians.
This is interesting, Bill et al, in that it gets at an issue raised by the Obama campaign, with some success. He says he can be the best candidate because he’ll end the polarization and use a “big table” strategy. Folks like Paul Krugman say balderdash, we need a warrior–and Hialry is best, most likely–who can take on a foe who will not be talked into compromise. (How can one compromise, when one is only voicing the Truth?)
It is an age-old dilemma, brought to the fore again. Justice does require forceful action, often by the minority, often unpopular. Yet the greater good often requires compromise. These are prudential judgments, and Prudence ain’t so popular these days.
Professor George asked me to post this reply, which also went to Michael Perry, who linked to Commonweal on Mirror of Justice:
Dear Michael and Cathy:
I notice that on MoJ and on the Commonweal blog you linked to Max Blumenthal’s story about the Nava case at Princeton. You also linked to the Anscombe Society’s statement.
Since Blumenthal’s story contained serious allegations against me, I’m sorry that you did not (since we are friends and can easily be in touch with each other) first ask me whether these allegations are true.
In fact, those allegations are despicable lies.
The worst of them is this:
“But before George pointed to Nava’s beating as proof of anticonservative bias on campus, he had been presented with evidence that Nava, while at the Groton boarding school, had fabricated a threat against himself and his roommate, head of the Gay-Straight Alliance, in the form of a letter containing the phrase ‘die fags.’ The letter may have raised doubts in George’s mind, but not strongly enough to deter him from attacking Princeton’s administration.”
This is utterly false—the very reverse of the truth. Fortunately, it is demonstrably false. The moment I learned about what Nava had done at Groton, I demanded that he reveal it to the campus police and then I followed up with Alvan Flanders, the detective in charge of the investigation, to make sure that Nava had given him the facts. I did not “point to Nava’s beating as proof of anti-conservative bias on campus.” Nor did I criticize (much less “attack”) the administration’s handling of the case. On the contrary, I praised it. And I praised it because it deserved to be praised. Moreover, I continued working with Detective Flanders and others to uncover the truth, and I counseled students against holding a candlelight vigil, a day of silence, or any other “solidarity event” before the investigation settled the facts. I was determined to prevent Princeton from repeating the errors made at Duke in the lacrosse case and, earlier, at Claremont-McKenna and Amherst College where enormous uproars occurred before it was discovered that what appeared to be hate crimes had been staged by the alleged victims.
If you have any doubt about my veracity, please call Detective Flanders at 609-258-1000 and Kathleen Deignan, Princeton’s Dean of Undergraduate Students (whose office took the lead in the administration’s handling of the case) at 609-258-5431.
Charles Davall, Deputy Director of Princeton’s campus security force, wrote to me thanking me and the Anscombe Society students who had been victims of the false threats. Here is what he said about our role in helping to unravel Nava’s story and reveal the truth:
“We owe a debt of gratitude to you and the rest of the students who under extreme adversity, did the right thing at many stages of this investigation. Because of their actions, and yours, we were able to quickly resolve this matter before it became an even bigger media and University event.”
I also received a message from Dean Deignan. Here are her words to me (please recall here Blumenthal’s charge that I used Nava’s claims to “attack” the Princeton administration):
“Princeton is indeed lucky to have you here. Perhaps because I spend so much of my time working with undergraduate “trouble” of one sort or another, I have a special appreciation for how difficult it can be to approach situations like this one in the careful and measured way you did. These things can sometimes take on a life of their own and it’s often difficult to provide immediate and supportive responses while at the same time refraining from drawing precipitous conclusions. I have great admiration for the guidance you provided to the students and deep gratitude for the trust you placed in the rest of us. I hope you’ll have a little rest from this ordeal in the next few weeks and that you and your family will enjoy the Christmas season as it is meant to be — peace.”
You will, I trust, find it instructive in light of Blumenthal’s claims that yet another member of the Princeton University administration has written to acknowledge and thank me for the role I played in the Nava investigation. Here is what Shirley Tilghman, President of Princeton University, wrote to me in an e-mail message this afternoon:
“Let me say that everyone has greatly appreciated the way you collaborated so effectively with public safety and the Office of the Dean of Students. They are very grateful for your caution, your good judgment and your solicitude for the students. I join them in thanking you for everything.”
If you would like additional evidence, Michael, please let me know. There is plenty more where this came from. But again, you needn’t take my word for any of it. I urge you to make the calls so that you can know with certainty whether Blumenthal is lying or I am.
Among his gross misrepresetations, Blumenthal says that I “immediately went to the neoconservative daily the New York Sun, and exclaimed, “Are there double standards and reforms that need to be made? Absolutely.” In fact, I did not go to the New York Sun or any newspaper—”immediately” or otherwise. A reporter from the Sun got in touch with me. I told her that Princeton’s administration and campus security people were handling the Nava investigation in an exemplary manner and without discrimination of any type. She then asked me if there is any unfairness towards conservative points of view at Princeton, and I said “absolutely,” and told her about ideologically biased presentations in the freshman orientation program (especially a presentation entitled “Sex on a Saturday Night” which new students are required to attend) that Anscombe Society students and others have been working with Princeton’s Vice President for Student Life Janet Dickerson to reform. Fortunately, on this point too I can provide documentary evidence. (As to the highly responsible way that the Anscombe students have conducted themselves in seeking reforms, please ask Vice President Dickerson.)
Among Blumenthal’s gross falsehoods (echoed by Grant Gallicho on Commonweal), is that I began by attacking the administration and then later changed my tune in order to claim credit for assisting the detectives in solving the case. As to whether I (and the Anscombe students) did play important roles in assisting the detectives, ask Charles Davall, Alvan Flanders, and any of the administrators at Princeton who were involved. Again, there is no need to take my word for it. As to whether I changed my tune, ask Kathleen Deignan. She will confirm that on Friday—that is, even before anyone suspected Nava was perpetrating a fraud—I was defending the administration”s handling of the matter and offering to write a letter to the student newspaper saying that the administration’s actions were exemplary. When the article in the New York Sun appeared, I wrote a letter to the reporter praising the administration’s handling of the case and criticizing her story for depicting the administration in a negative light. So, you see Blumenthal and Gallicho simply couldn’t be more wrong. They evidently published what they wanted to be true about me and the Anscombe students, but it turns out to be, once again, the very reverse of the truth.
And there is another very important point on which Commonweal bloggers and Max Blumenthal have managed to get things completely wrong. Their portrayal of the Anscombe students could not be farther from the truth. The overwhelming majority of events touching on political or moral questions on Princeton’s campus tend to promote the liberal point of view, and there are numerous student advocacy organizations on that side of the political spectrum. Surely that comes as no surprise to you. On questions of sexual morality and marriage, Anscombe students have worked to ensure that there is a hearing for a competing perspective by sponsoring lectures and discussion groups, and even offering to co-sponsor balanced intellectual events with groups that take positions opposed to theirs. They do not engage in hate speech or abusive rhetoric, nor do they rely on appeals to revelation or mere tradition (much less emotion or other subrational factors). Following the example of the late Elizabeth Anscombe, they make calm and rational arguments, and have won the respect of administrators as well as many faculty and fellow students. Time after time, I have been told by liberal students: “While I disagree with everything that the Anscombe Society stands for, I’m grateful they’re on campus because they make me think and challenge my presuppositions.” Moreover, the organization has attracted some of Princeton’s most outstanding students. It was created in 2005, and two of its officers—Christian Sahner ’07 and Sherif Girgis ’08—have won Rhodes Scholarships.
In the Nava episode (as the comments of Charles Davall and Dean Kathleen Deignan make clear), the Anscombe students conducted themselves admirably. Three in particular—Sherif Girgis, Kevin Staley-Joyce, and Jonathan Hwang—demonstrated extraordinary strength, wisdom, and character. In my opinion, they are the true heroes of the story. At every step, they showed great sensitivity and compassion towards Francisco Nava, even as they worked with Detective Flanders and others to determine whether someone they had known as a friend had perpetrated a grotesque fraud. Then, on Monday night, these young men on whom Francisco had imposed profound anguish and misery sat with him in the presence of University officials, quietly listened to his apology, and offered him ungrudging words of forgiveness, consolation, and encouragement. I was filled nearly to bursting with admiration for them. Commonweal blogger David Gibson should have checked with Princeton’s administrators (Dean Deignan, for example, or Vice President Dickerson) before cruelly libeling these students with the charge of “kicking [Nava] to the curb.” But again, don’t take my word for it. Please make the calls.
There are lessons in this case about jumping to conclusions instead of waiting for the evidence, and about seizing on opportunities to politicize tragedies in the hope of blackening those with whom one disagrees. I hope that writers for Commonweal and the Nation will learn the lessons. Checking with me about the facts would have been an elementary courtesy. Checking with the leadership of Princeton’s campus security and with the persons in Princeton’s administration responsible for coordinating its actions was something any responsible journalist would have done.
I respectfully request that you post this letter on the Commonweal blog and MoJ. In case you prefer for any reason not to phone those Princeton University officials who can substantiate each of the claims I have made, I will copy Charles Davall and Dean Deignan on this message with a request to write to you if anything I have said is in even the slightest respect inaccurate.
Best wishes,
Robby
Is there some way of getting a response from Max Blumenthal at The Nation? I don’t have any idea whose account is more accurate, but saying “those allegations are despicable lies” instead of saying something like “Blumenthal had his facts all wrong” leaves me wanting to know more.
I’m glad that Professor George weighed in on this. My first impression from reading the story on the First Things blog was that he had been very cautious from the outset and that as soon as any doubts about Nava’s story arose, Professor George was very open to considering them. Reading the story in The Nation, I thought perhaps I had gotten the wrong impression about Professor’s George’s actions. His comments lead me to think that my first impression was, in fact, correct and The Nation either had an axe to grind, or engaged in very shoddy reporting.
I would like professor George to respond to Morning Minion’s comments about whether that society follows Anscombe in her words and deeds.
David Gibson,
There has been no better table listener than Bill Clinton whose charm was and is so immense that Newt Gingrich avoided him because of his persuasiveness. Obama has a way to go before he is in that league. Klugman is way off in calling Hilary a warrior and drawing that comparison.
Obama is a very shrewd politician who has benefited by being between Clinton and Edwards. He has no idea what he has in store for him if he wins the nomination. We will see whether he can withstand that heat. Now that he is a frontrunner we will find out a lot more about him.
As far as prudence is concerned, politics is a very dirty business and people are justly cynical about it. There is very little purity there, including Jimmy Carter , when he ran.
Professor George is free to create a dotCommonweal account and enter the conversation here whenever he chooses. It’s a simple process, and I hope he does. (It would save Cathy the trouble of having to post his correspondence.)
I appreciate his having taken the time to send his corrections, and hope he has forwarded them to the Nation. But it is important to emphasize that the conversation in this thread has unfolded as a response to the two links Cathy posted–not as original reporting. Indeed, I wrote “apparently” because I was summarizing the part of Blumenthal’s story relating George’s interaction with the Sun. I was responding to Blumenthal’s article–obviously. The notion that I am independently (or elsewhere) advancing the version of events that George has now corrected is simply false. In other words, there is no “Blumenthal and Gallicho” version of events. (I presume that Professor George is referring to the Sun when he writes, “They evidently published what they wanted to be true about me and the Anscombe students, but it turns out to be, once again, the very reverse of the truth.”)
Professor George writes:
Quite right–there are lessons to be learned from jumping to conclusions. Presumably these would apply to those who didn’t see the early signs of Nava’s fictions, including Anscombe public relations chair Brian McGinley, who penned the op-ed citing Princeton’s lack of action after the initial “threats” against Nava as evidence of an anticonservative double-standard.
(You can read it here: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2007/12/14/opinion/19732.shtml –Please keep in mind, I am relying on the Princetonian‘s reporting for McGinley’s I.D.)
Can someone figure out the timeline of the Daily Princetonian? When I clicked on the link above, i looks to me that the McGinley op-ed appeared in the Daily Princetonian on Friday, December 14. It also looks that Nava sustained his injuries that very night. Is that timeline correct?
I also wish Professor George would check in here directly. I don’t really understand his post. It is very long and talks about lots of things, none of which is really relevant.
No one here canonized any of the press reports. But surely we can’t take his own statements as gospel truth, given his self-interest and the efforts to spin this story from the beginning. I am sure everyone in Princeton Township thinks Robert George is a great guy. Was that at issue? As Grant noted, we weren’t advancing the story, or doing journalism. This was commentary on the story, and the larger issues it exposes–something any blog does.
Instead, Robert George lets loose a school of red herrings that aren’t really relevant to any of the issues raised here, except to do the decoy tactic of getting everyone to talk about the faults of various news accounts so that we’ll forget the main issue…
Journalistically speaking, I wonder why Professor George is so upset, in that he led/participated in a concerted effort to get the story out the way he wanted to friendly outlets before anyone else was the wiser. First Things? The Sun? Fox News? Nobody thought to dial the New York Times? Or just couldn’t find the number?
Professor George writes:
“There are lessons in this case about jumping to conclusions instead of waiting for the evidence, and about seizing on opportunities to politicize tragedies in the hope of blackening those with whom one disagrees. I hope that writers for Commonweal and the Nation will learn the lessons.”
That is rich, given that Professor George and friends did not wait for the evidence, but rather seized on their opportunities.
I think if Professor George et al were that concerned about the sanctity of the truth (and about Francisco Nava) they would have let the authorities sort out the mess without the preemptive p.r. campaign. It strikes me as an unseemly bit of damage control. (Also, just as a point of interest–how does Professor George explain the Brandon McGinley editorial? Published on Friday, it states all of the things that Professor George denies happened, in terms of playing the victim card. McGinley was scapegoating of Princeton to the greater glory of Anscombe. It just doesn’t compute. But Anscombe says they didn’t do this, Heaven forfend. Is McGinley one of yours? Inquiring minds would like to know…)
As for my “cruelly libelous” statement…that the Anscombers accepted Nava’s apologies is very sweet, as is the fact that Professor George was so deeply affected by it all. But reading the Anscombers public statements, they seem concerned about themselves, not Francisco Nava. Whether that is right or wrong, it is just an opinion, and not remotely libellous. Moreover, Professor George is not exactly a shrinking violet when it comes to tough rhetoric. For him to affect such sensitivity here–as well as employing such threatening language in defense of his sullied virtue–seems odd, at best.
But again, that brings us back to Cathy’s original post, which is what this says about the intensity of the culture wars, and the desire to make this virtual reality truly “real.” Francisco Nava felt so compelled to make his case (and impress his friends?) that he went to these lengths to make himself a martyr. And presto, look: According to Professor George, the Anscombers have become the victims in all of this. It is the rest of us, guilty of sins we did not commit, who are the bad people here.
Reporting from Wonderland, this is David Gibson…
I can’t agree with Grant and David. I think that Robert George has a legitimate bone to pick with us and that the point of his letter was actually quite clear. The Nation article accused him of 1) raising “howls of persecution,” 2) “attacking Princeton’s administration;” 3) and “launching a campaign” to defend Mr. Nava.
None of these assertions are adequately supported by evidence in the article, which is marked by an absence of original reporting (especially compared to Ryan Anderson’s account in First Things) and is based heavily on material from the New York Sun and the Daily Princetonian. George’s rhetorical question in the Sun article—“Are there double standards and reforms that need to be made? Absolutely”—was clearly not intended to be an attack on the Princeton administration’s handling of this particular case, which is what the Nation article suggests. In the Sun article, George’s statement that Nava’s injuries seemed too serious to be self-inflicted comes after a quote acknowledging the incident in Nava’s past. In the Nation article, the former quote is used to suggest that George “insisted” on Nava’s innocence, but I don’t think the context of the Sun article supports that construction.
So much for the Nation article. But does George have a legitimate bone to pick with us Commonweal bloggers as well? I would suggest that he does. In his first post in this thread, David Gibson suggested that 1) the Nation “gets the story and the facts right;” 2) the Anscombe Society, in its response, does not; 3) that the Anscombe Society “wanted to make hay of this;” and that 4) the Anscombe Society “kicked Francisco Nava to the curb.”
I don’t believe that these assertions are adequately supported by evidence either. While it may be true that the Nation got the general order of events correct, I don’t believe—for the reasons stated above—their characterization of George’s role and motivations is accurate. David may well have been referring more to the former than the latter, but I can certainly see why George would take David’s statement as an endorsement of the Nation’s assertions about him (i.e., George).
With respect to the Anscombe Society’s response (see the link under Cathy’s first comment), it is not clear to me which statements David is criticizing. His statement that the Anscombe Society “wanted to make hay of this” suggests that the Society led a campus campaign in defense of Nava to advance their cause. But the only evidence that such a campaign was being mounted by the society seems to be the op-ed in the Princetonian written by Brandon McGinley. But McGinley is nowhere identified in the op-ed as a member of the society (although he is identified in a more recent article as its Public Relations Chair) and a perusal of the Princetonian web site makes clear that he is a regular columnist and seemed to be writing in that capacity. A similar perusal of the Anscombe Society web site suggests that he holds no official position with the group (although the leadership of campus organizations is notoriously fluid). Matthew Schmitz, who wrote a similarly toned op-ed for the The Princeton Tory weblog, also does not seem to be a leader in the group, nor is Stephen Hsia, who wrote a post on the Princetonian blog calling for “solidarity with the victim and his peers, and that all hate crimes on this campus be treated with the fair application of justice.”
There certainly seemed to be planning in the works for some kind of “solidarity event.” What is interesting, however, is the lack of public statements (at least to the press) by the official leadership of the Anscombe Society during this period. Given what I know of campus politics, I have no doubt that many of those who were commenting were strongly sympathetic to the Society and may well have been members (membership also being somewhat of a fluid concept in campus groups). But surely if one is going to charge the Anscombe Society with “making hay” of this incident, one should be able to cite specific statements and actions by the leaders of the organization. Their relative silence during this period seems to corroborate the version of events offered by the Society, Professor George, and the First Things account.
David also takes at face value the Nation’s closing observation that Nava’s defenders “have fallen silent” and “left him to law enforcement,” and even reinforces this by stating that they have “kicked him to the curb.” But the Nation article offers no evidence—none—for this assertion. It quotes no one and offers no facts about what interactions, if any, have occurred between Nava, George and the leaders of the Society since Nava’s deception was revealed. In his response to Robert George’s assertion that David’s statement was “cruelly libelous,” David suggests that his phrasing was motivated by a perusal of the Society’s recent public statements, which “seem concerned about themselves, not Francisco Nava.” But the context of his original comment suggests it was motivated primarily by his reaction to the Nation story.
Grant Gallicho, for his part, appears to place great weight on Brandon McGinley’s op-ed as evidence of a campaign on the part of the Anscombe Society (he cites the op-ed in four posts). As noted above, however, it is not clear what position McGinley holds, if any, with the the society. A recent article in the Princetonian suggests that he is their PR Chair, but the Society web site states it is Joel Alicea. In any case, McGinley never identifies himself as a member of the Society and does not quote any members of the Society. That he is an aggrieved conservative goes without saying, but there is nothing in the op-ed to suggest that he was acting officially on the Society’s behalf.
In sum, I do not see any evidence that Prof. George and the leaders of the Anscombe Society acted irresponsibly. They took Nava’s initial claim of being a victim of physical assault seriously, as they should have given what they knew at the time. As additional evidence became available that cast doubt on Nava’s version of events, they gradually “throttled back.” I’m having a hard time figuring out what they should have done differently.
In their response to George’s letter, both Grant and David suggest that they were merely commenting on the Nation story, not necessarily agreeing with it. I think this is a difficult claim to make. As noted above, both clearly assert a preference for the Nation’s version of events. David even goes so far as to accuse George of waging a “pre-emptive p.r. campaign” to get the story into sympathetic media outlets. I’ve gone on at length (almost certainly too much length) about why I think that is an unsupported exaggeration.
I think the Nation story was an extraordinarily flawed piece of reporting and that we were wrong not to criticize it more strongly.
Peter,
You are extraordinarily kind to employ “we” and “us” in your tempered critique of the thread.
My one small contribution was to deplore the rhetorical excess of the “Nation” piece.
But in my reading the thrust of the thread was, if not to “canonize,” at least to beatify the “Nation’s” article.
To then suggest that Robert George ought to join the conversation on dotCom smacks of adding insult to injury.
I, for one, think we owe him an apology.
We risk contributing to the “culture wars” we notionally deplore.
Peter: I appreciate your critique, and its clarity. I’ll clarify some issues here myself, but my first response is, and was, that arguing over the point-by-point accuracy of the Nation article effectively obscures the larger issues in play, and plays into a victimization role for the Anscombe folks. The thread was never an attack on them, and yet they have diligently worked to turn this whole episode into as assault that confirms their pre-existing worldview. To me, that seems to be a trope common among culture warriors, left and right.
Indeed, see Jody Bottum’s Tuesday, Dec. 18 FT blog entry (http://www.firstthings.com/blog/2007/12/18/why-talk-about-the-princeton-story/) in which he asserts that Professor George “will be attacked for not seeing through the student.” That’s a classic tactic: charge that we will be attacked, and then everyone rushes to your defense for something that never happened. Ahime.
The debate over the Nation piece began (in reviewing the thread now) when a couple of commenters weighed in against the Nation and our having linked to the story, contending that its rhetoric and reputation discredited it, especially vis-a-vis the Anscombe Society statement. I expressed the view that such a presumption was unfair, and not supported by the facts. I explicitly stated that both items (The Nation and the Anscombers, as well as most of us) were self-serving to a degree, but that the Nation piece got the story and the facts right. As you indicated, what I meant was that a journalistic treatment of the totality of a story was much preferable to a statement from an organization that was trying to promote its own interests in the midst of a crisis.
Did Blumenthal get some facts wrong? Yes. Do they detract from the overall import of his piece? No. He made the clerkship error, and then, more centrally, he said that George knew of Nava’s sketchy past when he blasted the anti-conservative bias on campus. They should be corrected. But the thrust of the Nation piece was that the Anscombers and their allies try to make hay of the “hate crime.” That seems to hold up. The citations regarding Harvey Mansfield, David Horowitz, Brit Hume, not to mention your own citations, Peter, of Brandon McGinley and Matthew Schmitz, show that these polemicists did jump on the bandwagon. That is what culture warriors do. We saw it at Duke, we even saw it during the recent Denver church shootings, when a few evangelical leaders got caught shouting about the proof of an anti-Christian bias in this country–before it turned out that he gunman was one of their own flock.
Neither I nor Grant nor anyone else canonizes the Nation piece. Fa from it. But the Nation gets the story right, whatever its faults. So did the Sun, and the Times, and most of all the Princetonian (which does great work). The Anscombe response is simply their explanation, one slice of the larger story. It is not the entire story.
Your lament that Professor George “has a legitimate bone to pick with us” for first linking to, and then not criticizing strongly enough, the Nation story, seems off the mark. The thread wasn’t about the Nation story until the Anscombe folks and their friends made it about the Nation story. That’s what they want to do. Find a messenger, and shoot him. Sadly, it is working.
The points where I would disagree with you are on the society’s treatment of Francisco Nava and their “pre-emptive p.r. campaign.”
As for the p.r. campaign, whether the phrase was too strong or snide, fine. But how else can you view their effort to work with Ryan Anderson at First Things and other “neo-con” media to get their own story out before anyone else had it? And in the way they wanted? It was almost bizarre, frankly, to see a journa such as First Things do such a lengthy and impassoned treatment and spin on the whole unfolding news story episode. Professor George and others worked with Ryan Anderson to get that version out there, and, as per Jody Bottum’s post (cited above), occassioned criticism from a couple of FT board members. One stated: “There is no good reason for FT to have been swept into this story…Assure me that I am wrong in fearing that FT is taking on the role” of culture-wars publications.
Jody defended the FT involvement well, and interestingly, to me, placed FT in the role of a competitor among journalistic outlets. That’s an intriguing shift, it seems to me, but fodder for another discussion.
Look, this is a blog, not a piece of original reporting. But my parsimonious explanation for the effort by the Anscombers seems right on: That this was a crisis within the con/neo-con/theo-con community and they wanted to get out front on it. Rather than an “unsupported exaggeration,” I think my observation is the most obvious (and unoriginal) one in this entire episode.
My criticism of their treatment of Nava grows directly out of this p.r. campaign. Peter, let’s step back and look at this episode again: Francisco Nava is injured, possibly badly, in an apparent beating on Friday night. His friends and his faculty adviser-mentor Professor George are mobilized, and rightly offer him support, take him in, etc. Then seeds of doubt begin to sprout as conversations between Nava and George et al continue. This is a very sensitive, very confidential personal crisis, one that could lead to God knows what lasting damage to a young man. He is speaking with his friends and faculty adviser, and with the authorities.
BUT the first thing that his friends and faculty adviser do is to take what this disturbed young man has told them a forge it into a narrative that is posted on the Internet. This was happening over the weekend, on Saturday and Sunday, before the story was widely known, before the police had received a confession from Nava (that occurred on noon Monday).
Would you have done the same if a student in such a crisis state had come to you? This is the most problematic issue of the whole episode, and the one that has received the least attention, it seems to me. This young man was going through a terrible psychological, and probably a legal, crisis. And his friends and faculty adviser relate it all, in all its personal details, on the Internet, while it is unfolding.
That seems to me to be a very wrong turn. It bothers me very much, and if we disagree about that, I’m afraid we’ll have to leave it at that.
But thanks for the post, Peter, truly. This episode has sadly gone the way of so many Culture Wars battles…It seems one cannot even observe from the sidelines without becoming collateral damage. But I do think we need to continue to discuss these and related Culutre War issues because of the damage they do, and to press for fairness and balance and to describe what is going on, even at the risk of spending way too much time in the blogosphere. Not to do so would result in greater polarization, not an outcome I desire.
David,
Forgive me for butting in in the middle of these extensive and thoughtful commentaries.
I would like to ask a few questions.
First, you said, “But the Nation gets the story right, whatever its faults.”Do you think that the two errors are the only faults of this piece? Or do you agree with me and others that there is something deeply problematic with its tone and expression? Does journalism consist only in “the story” or in the telling of the story as well?
Secondly, did the Nation try to “make hay” over the incident? Did you? Did Cathy?
This young man was going through a terrible psychological, and probably a legal, crisis. And his friends and faculty adviser relate it all, in all its personal details, on the Internet, while it is unfolding.
That seems to me to be a very wrong turn. It bothers me very much, and if we disagree about that, I’m afraid we’ll have to leave it at that.
This is certainly one way to describe it. But it might also be described in this way: “In the midst of a situation that was already a matter of public discussion, in which people associated with the Anscombe Society has already weighed in in support of Nava, the leadership of the Anscombe Society publically acknowledged that there were some doubts about Nava’s story and that they did not want to rush to judgement.” This was certainly how I read the First Things story. Is it their choice of media outlet that is the issue? Perhaps they should have gone to The Nation or the New York Times to express their doubts?
In any case, as we learned here in Baltimore when Cardinal Keeler released to the Baltimore Sun the names of all the priests in the Archdiocese who had been accused of sexual abuse, what one person calls “betrayal of the accused” another person calls “transparency.” I suspect our choice of description has a lot to do with the view we already hold about the person doing the revealing.
David Gibson —
The “thrust” of the piece would have to include the 10 or so paragraphs attacking Robert George, suggesting that he’s a front for a “cult,” accusing him of knowing about Nava’s past history before talking to the media, etc. And then the piece ends by basically accusing George of lying about his role in exposing the hoax. Blumenthal clearly didn’t intend for all of the above to be merely tangential.
In his closing paragraphs, Mr. Gibson also misses something crucial: The very fact that the Anscombe people made their misgivings known so quickly actually discredits the claim that the “thrust” of Blumenthal’s story was correct. That is, besides being a hit piece on George, Blumenthal’s “thrust” was that the Anscombe folks were jumping all over themselves to promote a story that turned out to be a hoax. But it seems that the Anscombe folks came forward with discrediting information as soon as they were made aware of it.
This point, made twice, is also not quite right:
The thread wasn’t about the Nation story until someone said, without qualification, that the Nation “gets the story and the facts right.”
I posted the Anscombe Society’s response. I tried to make vivid the degree of culture clash with an analogy–the “richard dawkins society” at a religious institution. And I used the nation piece to illustrate the virulence of the culture clash. I assume people know the place of the Nation in the American discussion, as well as the place of First Things.
I wasn’t endorsing anyone’s version of the facts. If that’s what blogging entails, I guess I’ll have to give up blogging.
Mr. Gibson,
The Nation was one of the two artciles linked in the post starting this thread, along with the Anscombe Society’s explanation. The citation of the Society’s response was followed by commentary questioning the prudence of the Society’s very existence, whereas the link to The Nation was posted without comment, so it would not be unreasonable to deduce that as an endorsement of The Nation.
I should also note that Prog. George is not asking you to take his statements as “gospel truth,” and has provided us the means to independently verify their veracity. Have you done so and found an inconsistency? You have offered none, except to continue to muddy the waters with suspicion.
I do not doubt that there are Culture Warriors who tried to make hay of this incident. What nobody has been able to establish is that Prof. George and the Society were among them. The only actions that have been established is the McGinley op-ed and Prof. George’s comments to a newspaper. The rest is guilt by association with the usal suspects.
As for the op-ed, as Mr. Nixon wrote, McGinley was apparently a regular contributor the the Princetonian‘s op-ed page. So, we have a college student with a regular column who beleives that his friend was just the victim of a politically motivated assault. And you expect him to not write about it? And that his failure to exercise this heroic restraint is sufficient to damage the reputation of the Society? I think charity demands better than that.
There is no evidence that Prof. George initiated his contacts with the media, and it now seems apparent that his comments were (IMO reasonable) responses to questions.
So, I find the evidence for the narrative that Prof. George and the Society waved Nava’s bloody shirt in order to escalate the culture wars quite lacking.
I must also say I find Prof. Kaveny’s tactics here to be quite passive aggressive and, her protestations notwithstanding, escalating the culture war. She advances one side of the Culture War, while claiming she is doing no such thing. If she thinks is the path to peace, she is badly mistaken.
To Kathy, and FC Bauerschmidt and Stuart Buck: Why the focus on The Nation story? I said it was self-serving, as was the–in my view–neo-con crowd’s version. But The Nation and the other journalistic accounts tried to project a global view. Did the Sun get it right? What about their tone? The Princetonian? I think focusing on the issues at hand is better than continually laying down smoke screens.
As for the virtue of the Anscombe Society laying out the Nava case publicly before the investigation was concluded, I can’t see that as transparency as much as damage control. They could certainly have acted as they did without broadcasting their private conversations with this troubled young man to the world. Their actions benefited only themselves, not Nava, or the investigation.
Mmm. Mr. McG.
Joe K., a regular contributor to the blog, suggested the Anscombe society was engaged in “Common Ground.” I tried to explain why I characterized the Anscombe Society as a culture war group rather than a common ground group. They have, in my opinion, a black and white world view on the issues important to them. I tried to give illustrations.
So, I’m not on the other side of the culture war– i.e, commitment to expulsion of religion from the public square, commitment to moral relativism. I think there are more shades of gray.
I don’t expect peace. I think culture warriors prefer each other–each side validates the other–to those of us in the muddled middle. But I think there really is a muddled middle.
Why the focus on The Nation story?
Because you claimed, without qualifying words, that the story was accurate, and continued to do so despite fair warning that it was not. After you put the accuracy of the Nation’s hackish article front and center — including its numerous and unfounded attacks on Prof. George — it’s a bit too late to claim that this is somehow an illegitimate issue to discuss.
Mr. Gibson,
“neo-con crowd’s version”?
What on earth does neoconservatism have remotely to do with this story? Again, this seems to me to be an attempt at guilt by association — this version of the story is brought to you by the same crowd that brought you the Iraqi invasion! These tactics lead me to doubt your professed weariness with culture wars.
The focus is on The Nation story because that is what was linked to in the post, you said they “got it right,” and is the basis for your labelling Prof. George and the Society as the bad guys in the culture war.
John McG’s charge that Cathleen Kaveny has been “passive aggressive” and his implication that she is deliberately “escalating the culture war” and being disingenuous about it seem very ironic to me, since I find his statements utterly unfounded personal attacks that don’t engage any of her ideas and smack very much of the culture war kind of rhetoric she is trying to get away from.
dotCommonweal, unlike some blogs, is not a place where the contributors write essentially journalistic pieces and what comments come in are akin to letters to the editor. It is a place where the contributors provide topics and we all engage in discussions together. Starting a thread on dotCommonweal is very different from writing a piece in Commonweal itself. The suggestion that Professor Kaveny should have contacted Robby George before posting a link to the article in The Nation is as ridiculous as the idea that saying “here’s the take of The Nation” constitutes an endorsement of Max Blumenthal’s article.
In a game of tug of war over a muddy creek, the first ones in are the ones in the middle.
It seems to me that a real referee would have to take a seat on some nearby high ground. Not sure that’s possible, actually, but if it is, they have to be removed enough that they can’t touch the rope.
“The thread wasn’t about the Nation story until the Anscombe folks and their friends made it about the Nation story. That’s what they want to do. Find a messenger, and shoot him. Sadly, it is working. ”
And Further the attempt was to make Commonweal the story.
Whatever the cultural wars, those of you are high flying in knocking Contributors on this blog, show me a blog on the right which lets everyone give their opinion like this one.
Just for the record, I saw nothing wrong with Cathy’s original post, including her linking of the Nation story.
I was however brought up short by David Gibson’s statement that “the difference between the Nation report and the Anscombe response is that the Nation gets the story and the facts right.” Not only do I think this statement is incorrect, but it also shifted the discussion from Cathy’s original point about the Culture Wars to the question of the rightness or wrongness of the Anscombe Society vs. the Nation.
The original post consisted of:
* a link to the Anscombe Society’s response
* Musings on the role the Society plays in the culture wars, comparing it to a militantly atheistic group on a religious campus
* a link to the Nation‘s article, a takedown of Prof. George and the society.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that one intent of the post was to lead the reader to the conclusion that Prof. George and the Anscombe Society have a negative impact on public discourse, and that their behavior around the Nava incident is an example of this.
This is a valid position, but one which Prof. George and others are entitled to defend themselves against. But when they do, it is cited as one more example of them turning up the heat of the culture wars. This is what I find disingenuous.
—
I have not engaged Prof. Kaveny’s arguments because there really isn’t an argument except this vague impication that Prof. George and the Society are bad for public disourse. Her complaint is that they do not offer “middle ground” options. Given the forces that universities like Princeton that are pushing in the opposite direction, I am curious how they could arrive at the common ground if groups like the Society went silent.
Mr McG. this was actually my second post on the topic. I treated it as a continuity, assuming that the interpid dotcommers would read the second post in the context of the first. . My first post, a couple of posts below, linked to the First Things story–without confirming the facts. Here is what I said then:
“My question: Leaving aside the particular situation of this young man, who may very well be disturbed, and this particular situation, which may well have features we don’t yet know about, we might profitably ask a broader question:
Does framing one’s debates and disagreements with fellow members of one’s community as a “culture war” heighten people’s expectation of physical conflict among the disputants, or contribute to some (disturbed) people’s willingness to engage in it?
Does the “war” metaphor change what we expect from one another? If A really believes B is a minion of the culture of death, why wouldn’t A expect B to harm him/her? How thick is the line between wars of words and actual violence?
Isn’t there a better way to describe our disagreements?”
This post was follow up post to that post. There is no “vague implication.” This is a straightforward claim. I DO think culture war rhetoric is bad for public discourse. I don’t want to censor it. I don’t believe in censorship. But I do believe it ought to be critiqued.
More substantively, I don’t think framing things as matter v. antimatter, Anscombe v. secular hedonism, is either an accurate reflection of the academic or moral options out there, or helpful to the Princeton students. I thin Princeton students are getting A, B, and C (Anscombe Society) and X, Y, and Z) (secular liberalism).
I don’t think middle ground is arrived at by the extremists splitting the difference politically. I think you can develop a principled view drawing upon different principles, and a different conception of human flourishing, than either extreme does. There are such views out there.
Maybe I’m missing something in the conversation here, but in my view, a true “culture warrior” seeks to a) establish himself as a persecuted minority in an immoral or corrupt mainstream society and b) engages in tactics designed to provoke and annoy the mainstream in order to create confusion and destruction.
Having misspent a certain amount of my youth as an anti-war and feminist culture warrior, I can assure you I would have been deeply disappointed had the tactics of my comrades NOT been found annoying.
While the views and positions of the Anscombe Society may annoy some people–and while it may have supporters who have used the sad theatrics of Mr. Nava to claim that the lives of those espousing conservative social views are in danger–they sound like a fairly well-behaved bunch, out to engage through debate and dialogue.
If they were true culture warriors, they’d be out with those who enjoy displaying photos of Matthew Shepherd and noting how many years he’s been in hell. Or carrying naked Ken dolls engaged in homosexual acts with nooses around their necks. (These were some of the lovely images on a “Frontline” program some years back that explored gay hate crimes.)
I value this dotCommonweal community quite a lot, so I have been giving some sustained thought to whether or not anything that has taken place within this thread indicates that something is amok and needs attention. My own personal conclusion is no, and so I would respectfully disagree with Fr. Imbelli’s claim that “we” probably owe Professor George and apology. What we owe him is exactly what was provided to him, and opportunity for him to make his case.
I think there is more to know, but will probably never be learned, about the extent to which this incident was getting groomed in war room fashion to explode on the web as a clear sign that violent hate is now in full expression on the left. I think Grant is absolutely right to see the McGinley op-ed as an early moment in this effort, and I think it is naive to say that he is just a regular op-ed contributor. I also find it a telling admition that Prof. George has nothing, I repeat nothing, to say about Mr. McGinley, nor about his status as a PR person for the Anscombe Society. Nor does he have anything to say about exactly how it is that so many big names were already denouncing this incident. To ask us to believe that there is no coordination here is asking a lot. Perhaps Prof. George had absolutely nothing to do with it if it did in fact occur, but I do not think it was clearly a sign of jumping the gun or biased response on the part of David G. or Grant to focus on this part of the story.
As has been said by more than one person, this is a blog, not a journal, even if it is a blog connected to a journal. This means that stuff will get written that should be read for what it is, namely a post on a blog. Here’s one example: thoughout this discussion, I have thought that David Gibson’s concerns about the Anscombe Society’s response to Mr. Nava after the truth came out to be a little strange. Like others on this blog, I can see good reason for silence (especially if he required aborting an otherwise promising Internet campaign!). Moreover, the published material indicates that Society members have expressed genuine agony over Mr. Nava’s future. BUT, my point in raising this is that David’s concerns are David’s concerns. The fact that they show up on this blog does not make Commonweal party to them, nor accountable for them. Professor George writes with a tone that suggests he believes otherwise. If he himself were posting, I would respectfully challenge any such implications. However, he seems to make quite clear that he has no interest in participating in a dotCommonweal conversation. To that I say can confidently say that such a conclusions is his, and no doubt our, loss.
For all the sturm unt drang, I think this has been a very substantive and civil discussion and I very much appreciate David’s response to my post, as well as the other comments. I wanted to make a couple of additional points.
First of all, I want to grant Robert Imbelli’s point that it was improper to use the “we” and “us” pronouns in a way that implied some kind of collective responsibility. I think it’s clear from my post that my disagreement is primarily with David and Grant. To imply, as I did, that all shared their opinions was a mistake and I apologize for it, particularly to Cathy, who I agree was trying to take us in a very different direction before we started down this road.
Secondly, I think the nub of our disagreement is that David believes that Prof. George and the Anscombe Society behaved in a way that was improper and I don’t. David sees a concerted effort by the Society and its supporters to portray themselves as victims. I see a group of impassioned undergraduates angry at the attack on their friend and its implications for free speech on campus. David sees the use of that friend’s disclosures as a cynical attempt to protect the organization. I see a group of chastened activists realizing that they have been misled and that intellectual honesty demands that they find ways to disclose what they know.
Am I just naïve? Perhaps. But I, too, was a campus activist once, albeit one who leaned more gauche than droit. I remember the passion of those years, and the speed at which I would race to give voice to real or imagined injustices. I remember the small and large ways that I tried to evade truths that would unsettle my worldview. I look at these young people and I see myself through a glass darkly. I look at how they behaved in light of a genuine crisis and I think, “on the whole, not bad.” I look at my own past and I am not necessarily convinced that I would have done as well.
My original post suggested that the problem was that David and I were using a different set of facts, but perhaps we are just reading the same facts differently. I think, though, that when the reputation of individuals and organizations is on the line, charity demands a certain presumption of innocence unless the contrary can be clearly demonstrated. I don’t think it was demonstrated in this case, which is why I think Prof. George’s anger was justified.
Mr. Petit,
I think it is uncharitable to launch smears like that without doing evenrudimentary research.
But I’ve learned today that making vague unsupported insinuations about other people’s character is a hallmark of civil discourse, while citing evidence to debunk them is mean and nasty and part of the problem in our culture. Maybe it’s “asking a lot” to not believe that McGinley secured his regular column at the Princetonian as part of Prof. George’s nefarious plan to stage an attack and use it to discredit his political opponents. Charity believeth all things…
I suppose it would also be mean and nasty of me to note that your last two paragraphs contradict each other — an op-ed by a college sophomore who thinks his friends are being threatened is sufficient to wreck the Society and Prof. George’s reputation, but the comments of David Gibson, a Commonweal contributor, should not be held against Commonweal. Right.
Link above should have gone here.
John McG,
Above, you said the following:
However, Brandon McGinley’s column appeared in The Daily Princetonian on Friday, December 14, before the assault was faked. McGinley was writing about the threatening e-mails, received Wednesday evening, December 12, now of course also known to be fake. The news article in The Daily Princetonian reporting the threatening e-mails and Brandon McGinley’s column appeared the same day.
There is no denying that McGinley wrote regularly for the paper. I think it is unwarranted to imagine him part of a plot, but I do wonder how he came to write his column the same day the news account appeared in the paper. One possible hint is that once when he quotes Nava, he introduces the quote with, “he wrote to me.” I am wondering if Nava didn’t write his story and send it to McGinley, who could be expected to be sympathetic, in an attempt to get publicity for the “threats.”
It is interesting that the column is so emotionally charged that it is easy to read it as a reaction to the assault (which didn’t happen) rather than a reaction to the e-mail threats (which didn’t happen either). The first time I read it, I also thought it was about the alleged assault.
McGinley, in the column, says the following:
I would need to hear a lot more (especially now) to be convinced that being a vocal conservative at Princeton puts one at risk.
I guess this discussion leaves me with two lingering factual questions. As Joe P. says, we’ll probably never know.
1. I think the McGinley op ed is key. Mr. McGinley is apparently the Director of PR for Anscombe as well as a Princeton columnist. Why didn’t he identify himself as the Director of PR such in the column–isn’t the dual role a potential conflict of interest that a journalist or columnist ought to disclose? Did Mr. McGinely show his column to other members of the Anscombe Society leadership on Thursday night before publishing it Friday? Did they approve it-encourage it? If they approved the op-ed, despite what FT says were objective reasons to doubt the threats, then I do think some expression of agent-regret, not necessarily moral regret, would be appropriate. Their behavior on Friday sounds exemplary. Nonetheless, their Director of PR did provide the set-up for the Nava hoax. Not every moralist believes in agent-regret. But I do.
2. Nava said he beat himself up. I still don’t get how Nava could have inflicted such an apparently severe beating on himself. How can an apparently normal human being overcome the natural mechanism against that form of self-injury? But I may be overly timid–I have to steel myself to go into a cold swimming pool.
It’s remarkable that no one who stalwartly defended the Nation story (even in the face of undeniable evidence of the author’s slapdash approach to the facts) has hinted at an apology to Prof. George.
Prof. Kaveny:
What makes you think that the Anscombe Society had “objective reasons to doubt the threats” before the op-ed was published on Friday? The chronology from the First Things piece is unambiguously and clearly stated: The op-ed was published on Friday; the “attack” supposedly happened Friday night; and then “late that night,” one of the Anscombe folks heard from a friend that Nava had been involved in a similar hoax in high school.
So what “objective reasons” did the Anscombe folks have before the op-ed came out?
Stuart, the theratening emails were received by various members of the Anscombe group BEFORE Thursday night–they’re talked about in the McGinely op-ed.
This is what FT says about the threatening emails themselves:
“After he dropped Nava off, George gathered the other students who received the threatening e-mails to see where things stood. They discussed ways to assist Public Safety in the investigation, both to get to the truth of the matter of what happened to Nava, and to know for sure whether their own lives were in danger. Along the way, other potential problems with Nava’s story emerged. It seemed, for instance, implausible that Nava would have actually received the 250 responses to his “Latex Lies” op/ed that he claimed. And the fact that the first death threat came before the op/ed bothered them.
More, the second e-mailed death threat looked odd. How did the sender know to send a second threat that masked the obscenity with percentage marks unless one of the recipients was also the sender and noticed that he hadn’t received the message, and then resent it in a format that wouldn’t be blocked by the spam filter? (Then again, it is also possible that the sender blind carbon-copied (bcc) himself.)”
Objectively, it seems to me that these problems with the emails were present before that Friday night–because the emails themselves were present before Friday (and certainly by Thrusday night) although, according to FT, those problems did not emerge to the consciousness of the Anscombe Society before Friday night.
So this is key: IF McGinley consulted the other members of Anscombe before running the op-ed, I do wonder why they didn’t notice the problems with the threatening emails on Thursday night –and perhaps qualify the op-ed. It seems, from the FT narrative, that they realized the problems with the emails in conversation with each other on Friday night. I’m not saying they were morally culpable in any way for failing to realize the problems with the emails earlier –they are young, engaged people, as Peter says. But the problems with the emails were there to be discovered, and it is a cause for agent-regret that the Anscombe Society didn’t discover them sooner. (“If only we’d seen the problems with the emails sooner, our PR director would not have run an oped telling a “grotesque” tale of politically motivated liberals threatening conservative students to the indifference of the administration.”) It seems to me that if I cause harm, even non-negligently, to others, an expression of regret is not out of order.
John McG: I do not understand your claim that there is a contradiction between the two paragraphs of my earlier post (although there are a lot of typos!), and would value some clarification. Regarding Prof. George, you will note that I write that even if there was a full blown effort to get this story out to as many sources as possible that Prof. George may have had nothing to do with it. I also indicate that it would be a loss to the dotCommoneal conversation if he were not a participant. I fail to see how this is an effort to sully his reputation. I did note that the one Anscombe Society member who, beyond Mr. Nava, is of most interest in this affair, namely, Mr. McGinley, receives absolutely no mention in Prof. George’s letter. There is no need to speculate about nefarious plots by Anscombe Society members to justify the conclusion that a person trying to do nothing be get the facts straight, as Prof. George claims he is, should have something to say regarding Mr. McGinley’s involvement in this, and especially, what, if any, interaction he had with the Anscombe Society.
That last bit seems key: Until they learned of Nava’s previous hoax, they might not have had reason to parse earlier events quite as closely.
Would you join Mr. Nixon and Fr. Imbelli in applying this standard to the other side here?
There are many questions in my mind, a number of them the kind rarely answered because of the way news organizations protect their sources.
What was the source of the news story that appeared on Friday, December 14, in The Daily Princetonian?
How did it happen that Brandon McGinley’s column appeared in The Daily Princetonian the very same day (December 14) as the news article? It is usually the case that an opinion column (though not necessarily an editorial) commenting on a news story appears some time after the news story. So one wonders about the source and the timing of McGinley’s column.
What prompted The New York Sun to do the story they did?
Why did all involved go to First Things instead of The Daily Princetonian?
If Robby George’s account posted above is accurate, didn’t The New York Sun grossly misuse his quote and leave out an important part of what he says he told them? George says:
But here is George’s “absolutely” quote in context in the Sun article:
Isn’t it perfectly reasonable to read the quote as a confirmation of the two paragraphs directly preceding it? Was Blumenthal incorrect to conclude, based on that part of the Sun article, that George was criticizing Princeton for its handling of the Anscombe affair? Wouldn’t it have been much more accurate to quote George as saying, “Princeton’s administration and campus security people are handling the Nava investigation in an exemplary manner and without discrimination of any type. But are there double standards and reforms that need to be made at Princeton? Absolutely.”
George, it seems to me, would have been the Sun’s most important source regarding what was going on at Princeton, but if his account of what he told the Sun reporter is true, the Sun left out the most important part of what he told them and instead got quotes from others who weren’t involved in any way. (David Horowitz: “The left has now become the hate group.” Harvey. Mansfield: “It should be easy for liberals to identify a case of intolerance; they’re good at that.”)
If The Nation and Blumenthal are to be accused of “despicable lies,” shouldn’t The New York Sun at least be accused of biased reporting?
I’m traveling for the holidays, and have only sporadic Internet access, so I just want to add a brief clarification regarding the McGinley op-ed. He was kind enough to send the following reply to my questions about the piece and his role in Anscombe: “I was and am the public relations director for the Anscombe Society. It is important to note, though, that my article in the Prince was not published in that capacity, but simply in my role as a Prince columnist. The op-ed was not officially tied to Anscombe, although several members had a hand in crafting it.”
McGinley’s response is quite interesting, in terms of the scope of the Anscombers involvement in his rather strongly-worded piece. As is the fact that McGinley has not been much referenced by the Society subsequently. My principal question at this point is whether McGinley or his collaborators have said anything subsequent to the revelation of Nava’s misdeeds, in terms of a retraction/apology/regret. One would seem to be due, given the tone and content of their criticisms. I also wonder if Mansfield and Horowitz and Rusty Reno and others who jumped on the bandwagon before it went off the cliff have had any subsequent musings. That would require some Googling that a bottle of red will not allow me this evening…
McGinley, the director of PR for Anscombe, wrote an op ed attacking the rest of the campus for its indifference to the Ansocombites suffering and Nava’s suffering. That very evening, Nava is hurt. Professor George doesn’t talk about McGinley. The First Things editorial –which was prepared with the assistance of Anscombites — glides lightly by the op ed. But McGinley tells us that “several members had a hand in crafting it.” Nonetheless, he assures us that the Anscombe Society per se isn’t involved.
It does depend, I guess, precisely upon what you mean by “Anscombe Society.”
I guess it comes down to that sort of parsing of words, statements, and omissions.
Merry Christmas.
It’s interesting to note that Ryan T. Anderson’s post on First Things remains exactly as it first appeared. Every other piece I have found on the Internet written before Nava’s admissions that he faked the threats and the attack has some sort of update.
It’s also interesting to note that Anderson makes no mention of Brandon McGinley, although there is a reference to his column and a link to it. If Anderson knew that members of the Anscombe Society collaborated on the column, it seems to me not mentioning it is a significant omission.
I would like to see Anderson–using his already established access to most of the principals–write another piece reexamining everything that happened in the light of Nava’s confession. I’m wondering if I am being naive in saying that.
Since McGinley’s role within the Anscombe Society was a key aspect of my earlier post, I probably should comment (although I have lost my voice through a cold, so perhaps the Lord is trying to send me a message…:-).
Grant Gallicho was correct–and I was wrong–that McGinley held an official position with the group. I completely agree that McGinley should have disclosed his affiliation. Although the rules for a columnist are somewhat more flexible than those for authors of articles, I also think he was guilty of shoddy reporting. He based his op-ed entirely on Nava’s version of the story and does not appear to have called anyone from the Princeton Department of Public Safety to get their side of the story. Based on the facts he presents, McGinley does not sufficiently prove his case that there is a “double standard” at work.
Having said that, I don’t think it was unreasonable for McGinley to express strong anger about the situation based on the facts as he knew them at the time. The use of threats to suppress unpopular speech is something that all of us would probably condemn in the strongest terms.
I’m looking back at my original post to see which statements I would revise in light of these disclosures. I was critical of David’s use of the term “make hay” to suggest that the AS was manipulating these events to their advantage. In light of Grant’s clarification, I would agree that the AS was involved–although somewhat indirectly–in efforts to publicize the e-mail threats and to raise broader questions about a “double standard” with regard to conservative views. However, I still do not see any evidence that AS members sought to use the “attack” on Nava in this fashion. Other individuals clearly did, as evidence by the posts I linked to. On the whole, I think the AS leadership acquitted themselves well from Friday night on.
It has been suggested to me that if I am to be parsing people’s statements this closely, it might be well to apply this to Prof. George’s missive as well. Was it reasonable for George to suggest that both Commonweal and The Nation were making the same set of charges when the former’s contribution was primarily a set of blog comments on the latter’s article? I have read through this thread and Prof. George’s letter a number of times in order to reflect on this question. I’m afraid that I must still hold to the view that the blog posts in question defended and even occasionally amplified on the Nation account by drawing in material from First Things, the Princetonian, and the Sun, as well as making speculations about the various actors in this drama. It became, in effect, an independent narrative, one that at least implicitly called Prof. George’s character into question.
This leads me to my final point, which is whether any of those affiliated with the AS (including George himself) are obligated to express what Cathy terms “agent regret.” The four possible points would be 1) the use of unsupported allegations in the McGinley op-ed that inflamed the situation; 2) the failure to disclose the role of AS in crafting the op-ed; 3) the inappropriateness of sharing information about the ongoing investigation with Ryan Anderson at FT; 4) whether George (in his letter) or the AS (in their blog statement) should have accepted some responsibility for their role in crafting the McGinley op-ed or their failure to be sufficiently skeptical of Nava’s various allegations.
As I said earlier, I think McGinley needs to come clean about his affiliation and should take responsibility for not obtaining DPS comment. With respect to the Ryan Anderson piece, I take Prof. Bauerschmidt’s position that it would have been irresponsible not to give Anderson the full story. Anderson himself (and FT) might have been well advised to hold off on the story for another day, but if he was committed to publication, there is no question that the AS had to tell what they knew. Anderson might also be advised to disclose his close association with Princeton and Prof. George, as he is a recent graduate (2004), lives in the town, and works at the Witherspoon Institute, where George is a senior fellow.
This leads to the question of whether it would have been appropriate for both George and the AS to take a slightly different tone in their final comments on the incident, expressing some degree of regret. I do think that the AS needs to acknowledge at least an appearance of impropriety in their role in the McGinley op-ed, but ultimately McGinley alone must take responsibility for its contents. But I do not believe they can be faulted for failing to see through Nava’s deceptions earlier than they did. As for Prof. George, I don’t think he needs to take any responsibility for the McGinley op-ed unless he indeed had a hand in crafting it. But one thing I think he should think about is whether it is wise for a professor to be so deeply involved in the activities of a student organization. I think both he and AS would benefit from a greater degree of distance.
As with everything I have said, I am willing to revise any of these statements should additional evidence surface. I will leave the last word to others. Barring some truly surprising revelation, this will be my last post on the topic. I wish everyone a blessed Christmas.
Robby George implied that it was wrong of dotCommonweal (and Mirror of Justice) not to contact him before posting a link to the Blumenthal article. But the discussion of the Anscombe affair was already underway on dotCommonweal on December 17, a day before the Blumenthal article appeared on The Nation website, and two days before the link to it was posted on dotCommonweal. The link to Blumenthal was one of a number of links provided by the official contributors themselves and those of us writing comments. The Blumenthal piece was brought in as part of an ongoing discussion, and was not intended to be the focus of the second thread. The idea that anyone should have sought to get George’s side of the story before posting the link to the Blumenthal story—clearly a polemic—strikes me as basically just silly.
That some people criticized George in the course of the discussion here, or imputed motives to him that he may or may not have had or actions that he may or may not have taken, should not surprise anyone who takes part in a discussion forum like this. It’s largely what these forums are all about. Since I have been participating here, official contributors and those of us who write comments have on occasion been critical of President Bush and other political officials, bishops, and even Benedict XVI. We have argued about their intelligence, actions, intentions, and motives, and no one has ever suggested they should be contacted and permitted to set the record straight. No one has ever said, “You owe Bush an apology,” or “You should have checked with the archbishop before posting that.”
The difference here is that Robby George got angry and contacted dotCommonweal, so now there is soul-searching going on. Given the nature of this forum and the fact that George is a controversial public figure, I don’t think anyone here owes George any more of an apology than is owed to President Bush or various bishops and archbishops throughout the country who have been criticized here.
If Robby George has a beef with anyone, it should be The New York Sun, since, as I have pointed out above, he claims to have made statements to them that flatly contradicted the whole thrust of their article:
George criticizes Blumenthal for saying, based on the Sun article, that he criticized the administration, but here is how his comments to the Sun appear in context in the article:
It would have made a world of difference in the Sun article if George had been quoted praising the administration and the investigation, but it’s not in the article.
Regarding how much the Anscombe society sought to make use of the initial (fake) threats, we still do not know the answer to how The Princetonian got the news of the threats, and how the news article about the threats and the McGinley column appeared in the same issue of the paper. We now know members of the Anscombe Society collaborated with McGinley on his column. I am wondering if they were not also responsible for getting The Princetonian to print the news article about the alleged threats.
We also don’t know how Nava’s previous hoax came to light, and there are two accounts (not necessarily contradictory) of how the police were told. In one, George insists Nava tell the police. In another, Sherif Girgis, another Anscombe Society member, is said to have warned the police about the Groton incident.
Then, of course, there are questions about the motives of giving the story to First Things (and posting it at 3:54 a.m. on Monday morning). I am not sure I would disagree that from Friday night on, George and the members of the Anscombe Society handled the situation well, but I still wonder if the First Things story was an attempt at preemptive damage control because things were quickly falling apart.
Leaving aside the several posts straining to interpret every behavior of the Anscombe Society in the worst possible light, it might be interesting to return to Prof. Kaveny’s original point:
A useful point that Prof. Kaveny makes here: In the modern university, “individual choice” functions as a religious faith, and its adherents frown on those heretics and subversives who suggest that God’s will might be an even higher good than individual choice.
God’s will and/or natural law, I should have said.
Stuart, It’s not as if there is a linear demarcation between “individual choice” and living according to God’s law/natural law. Doesn’t one have to make choices about what constitutes living according to natural law (or make a choice as to whose interpretation of that concept one is going to follow)? And does maximizing personal choice rule out the possibility that people do see their choices as being constrained by concepts of right and wrong? It can seem insulting to be told that unless you follow the one true path you are choosing degeneracy and evil.
No one from the “other side” of the AS has chosen to participate in this discussion. No one has yet explained how the AS has been prevented from participating in student life at Princeton, to the degree that any other student organization does. Professor George suggested that AS makes positive contributions that are appreciated by both faculty and students. That other students choose not to join it or to embrace its mission is not the same thing as suppressing that mission.
Stuart
You say
It seems to me that’s a pretty unfair interpretation of Prof. Kaveny’s position in the light of her message above posted December 19th, 2007 at 7:26 pm, in which she in essence is saying the Anscombe Society is presenting a false choice between two extremes. (For some reason, it makes me think of the old quote that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or our Lord. Not a great way, it seems to me, to teach Christianity.)
Give me individual choice over “God’s will” any day, if by “God’s will” is meant some pre-packaged version of Truth that may not be questioned and challenged. Among those who value “God’s will” over individual choice are suicide bombers.
Barbara:
All true. But the dilemma here doesn’t arise because anyone thinks that individuals are legally obligated to obey all of the commands of natural law, or because anyone thinks that individual choices can’t be based on “concepts of right and wrong.”
Rather, the dilemma that Prof. Kaveny has so deftly identified arises because — at least as to some issues — many people in modern university settings tend to act as if individual choice is all there is, and moral reasoning is nothing more than a faux pas when used to suggest that people ought to be making different choices in their private lives. That’s not the belief as to other issues, of course; few people seem to think that private racial prejudice (to take one example) is just a matter of individual choice that is off-limits to condemnation via moral reasoning.
David Nickol: I’d like to trump your citation of suicide bombers with the civil rights movement. If you then play the card of the Inquisition, I’ll raise you by pointing to 19th-century abolitionism in England and the United States.
Stuart Buck:
You wrote, “I’d like to trump your citation of suicide bombers with the civil rights movement. If you then play the card of the Inquisition, I’ll raise you by pointing to 19th-century abolitionism in England and the United States.”
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Could you explain a bit more? Thanks.
Gene — sorry to be cryptic. I was referring to the fact that it’s an old game being played here. When the question of whether individual choice should ever be shaped by God’s will or moral reasoning comes up, there’s always someone who pulls out an inflammatory example wherein evil was committed in God’s name, to which the other side can then name examples wherein good was done in God’s name.
Stuart,
Please note that I said
I hope you are not advocating a pre-packaged version of the Truth that may not be questioned and challenged!
The civil rights movement and abolitionism before it were minority movements against the prevailing mores. They were not about pre-packaged Truth.
It seems to me if certain people in the first century had not practiced individual choice, there would be no Christianity, since the Jews following the orthodoxy of their day would not have followed Jesus, and the members of various pagan religions would not have converted to Christianity.
In any case, I don’t think you really meant “God’s will.” What you meant is God’s will as understood by you. One of Prof. Kaveny’s points was that even within Catholicism, there is a much wider range of thought on sexual and reproductive issues than the views advocated by the Anscombe Society.
Because a few commenters have held out hope that an op-ed written by McGinley showed bad behavior on the part of the Anscombe Society, it might be worth reading this letter (I understand that Prof. Kaveny invited Prof. George to post this here, and he gave me permission to do so):
In light of Stuart’s decision to post Robby’s Christmas Eve Day letter to me on the blog, I thought the blog might be interested in my response:
Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 09:42:59 -0500
From: mkaveny@nd.edu
Reply-To: mkaveny@nd.edu
Subject: Re: FW: Princeton
To: “Robert P. George”
Dear Robby,
Thank you for your email.
My sense is that the disagreement is not only about the facts, but also about
the proper interpretation and significance of the facts. That’s pretty much
par for the course on the blog. I certainly believe you have a right to defend
yourself, by posting all or part of your December 24 email to me on the blog.
You may not be aware of this, but unlike Mirror of Justice or First Things,
dotCommonweal encourages comments by people who are not official contributors
to the blog. Here is the hyperlink to the page that allows one to post
comments (the third option allows free registration without purchasing
Commonweal).
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/register.php
It is my hunch, incidentally, that the thread died a natural death over
Christmas. Needless to say, your response will revivify it. But that is
certainly your call to make.
In addition to copying Bob Imbelli and Stuart Buck on my reply, I am also
copying Grant Gallicho, the editor of Commonweal responsible for the blog. His
email is:
Grant Gallicho
Like many of us, he is traveling and visiting family and friends over the
holidays, but I’m sure he will help you in the unlikely event that you
encounter a technical glitch should you decide to post a reply.
Best wishes in this Christmas season.
Cathy
Perhaps this is not so much an issue of interpretation as it is two ships passing in the night. Let us leave as settled, as I believe most of us did long ago on this thread, the issue of how the Anscombe Society acted in relation to Mr. Nava and the Princeton administration. Let us grant that their actions were entirely proper and deserving of praise. Two questions remain:
1) Was the Anscombe Society in the process of gearing up for a significant web campaign to get as many people as possible outraged about the e-mails and the attack?
If the answere to this question is yes, as I believe evidence indicates, then Prof. George is not entirely correct when he indicates that the Anscombe Society waited to act until all the facts were in. Rather, with respect to the wider world, not within the walls of Princeton University, they may have jumped the gun.
2) Are the responses of the Anscombe Society as exemplified in the McGinley op-ed and by major conservative talking heads examples of “culture war” tactics?
If the answer either to this question, or the first question, is yes, then it was entirely legitimate to raise this matter as an example of the kind of culture war phenomena about which Prof. Kaveny has been blogging for some time now.
Stuart Buck wrote: “Because a few commenters have held out hope that an op-ed written by McGinley showed bad behavior on the part of the Anscombe Society…” I don’t know whom he’s referring to, but I don’t count myself among those hoping to learn of bad behavior on the part of anyone in this dizzying affair. McGinley told me that several members of the Anscombe Society had a hand in his op-ed decrying Princeton for failing to act on Nava’s faked threats because of an anticonservative bias. George says doubts about Nava’s poor lies didn’t surface until he beat himself up, so McGinley was justified in his complaint. I remain surprised that such capable people didn’t wonder about the canned threats earlier. Likewise, I’m not convinced by George’s explanation of why McGinley and his Anscombe co-authors were justified in their response. The university’s failure to act does not justify McGinley et al.’s assumption of malice on the part of university officials.
I’d better sign off here–don’t know when the iffy Web connection I’m on will cut out on me. Signing off, from southeastern Minnesota…
Stuart,
If you have been reading the whole thread, you know that Brandon McGinley wrote to Grant Gallicho saying,
Imagine an identical situation, but that it was not The Daily Princetonian, the Anscombe Society, Robby George, and Brandon McGinley, but instead The New York Times, the Clinton Campaign, Teddy Kennedy, and a Times columnist who did not acknowledge he was working for the Clinton Campaign or that other members of the Clinton Campaign had helped him write the column. I can only imagine your denunciation of the whole affair would make any negative remarks made here pale by comparison.
At the very least, even assuming Robby George and others giving the “inside” account of the affair are correct in everything they have asserted, McGinley should have identified himself as the PR Director of the Anscombe Society in the column and acknowledged the input of other members.
I think I can only echo Grant’s response above, and add that the suspicions of ill-will toward the Anscombers and their friends are found only in the Anscombers own communications. There seems to have been a persistent effort to drive this thread away from substantive discussion to a focus on charges that were never made, and plaints about the poor treatment of the Anscombe Society–complaints that were made by attacking others. Then I and others respond, and the responses are characterized as attacks, and so it goes. That is unfortunate.
I do not understand why Professor George continues to use proxies to comment here; I wish he would join in himself to better clarify issues and, hopefully, to make any discussion less personal, less speculative, and more substantive. Posting by proxy, along with his enlistment of Bob Imbelli and Stuart Buck as allies, and the posting of private email correspondence with others, makes me very uncomfortable.
In his response, Professor George repeats many of the charges he has made before, and focuses on issues that were never issues–such as whether he and the Anscombers knew of Nava’s hoax when they were blasting Princeton and the community. It seems clear now, as it did from the start, that such was not the case. The issue was, in the context of the ongoing culture wars, how Culture Warriors will jump at the chance to play the victim card and accuse others of bad faith, and how that mindset might–I say might–feed such hoaxes (on both sides), and how it backfires, as it did here.
What is clear is that McGinley and other used very “inflammatory” language (Ryan Anderson’s own term) against the Princeton community–language which subsequent revelations showed was unfounded and unfair. Professor George seems to excuse this (I don’t want to presume anything here, however). Yet the invective stands, it seems. I think charity would require some sort of expression of regret. If such expressions have been forthcoming, I’d appreciate a citation.
In any case, I think Joe Petit’s comment above about talking past each other is on the mark. Again, the Culture War creates a great deal of collateral damage, and dialogue is one real victim.
David Nickol — what you “imagine” is neither here nor there.
David Gibson:
That account is nearly the inversion of the truth. You did not enter the discussion by “respond[ing]” to anyone’s “attack[s].” Your first post itself was an unprovoked attack on George, in the form of unqualified praise for Blumenthal’s story in which George was portrayed as a dishonest schemer who called up journalists with a story that he probably knew to be false. You then continued to turn a blind eye to the question of Blumenthal’s inaccuracies (i.e., the simplest biographical details), until — as should hardly be surprising — George was provoked to defend himself.
Your professed interest in “dialogue” and “substantive” issues seems to boil down to this: “I have the right to attack you and to praise an article filled with lies about you, but if you try to defend yourself, that’s just a distraction from the substantive issue that I want to discuss (namely, your bad effects on public discourse).”
Stuart,
Feel free to dismiss the hypothetical situation, but the point still remains that the public relations director of the Anscombe Society crafted a column with other members and published it in the newspaper without revealing his position in the society or the fact that the article was a collaboration with other members.
I suspect (although this is so far an unanswered question) that members of the Anscombe Society were also responsible for the news story in The Daily Princetonian. (If not, how did the reporter get the “scoop”?) If this is the case, the Anscombe Society arranged both the news coverage of the face threats and the commentary on the news coverage.
It seems clear to me that the Anscombe Society seized on the alleged threats as an opportunity to promote their cause in a manner that was less than 100 percent honest, and by claiming victim status, a tactic conservatives usually deplore.
One thing I don’t understand is why Robby George was moved to defend himself in such detail on dotCommonweal, and yet the Blumenthal piece on the website of The Nation (which is the only place it appeared and is not in the print version The Nation) has no reply from Blumenthal, but just a brief defense from the dean of undergraduate students.
I suppose dotCommonweal should be flattered that George took this forum so seriously.
I meant to say above that the Blumenthal piece in The Nation has no reply from Robby George.
Stuart, the tone of your comment does not merit a reply, but just a point on the content of your remark. I did not launch an “unprovoked attack” on Professor George by endorsing the Nation piece. The piece was part of the second post on the Anscombe episode; I had already commented on the first thread. Father Imbelli high up in this current thread briefly critiqued the Nation piece as culture war rhetoric in comparison to the Anscombe society press release. I saw it differently, and still do–I said BOTH were “self-serving,” as I believe they were and are at the service of their respective agendas. You said I offered “unqualified support for the Blumenthal” story. That’s simply not the case, as the comments show. Kathy then weighed in with another whack at the Nation piece, and even Cathleen Kaveny was at times criticized for simply posting it. I believe, and still do, that the Nation got the larger story right in its effort to put the episode in a wider context. Clearly it did so with lamentable high dudgeon, but neither I nor dotCommonweal are the authors of the piece. It simply offers–with its flaws–a far more complete picture of the situation. It was, as much as anything, a necessary balance to the publicity efforts by the Anscombers and their friends. That is my opinion. It is not an attack, nor did I endorse any such thing. I would ask that you cool down.
David Nickol: Why would you be surprised that The Nation wouldn’t allow a response from George?
David Gibson: I stand by the substance of what I said. As to tone: if Fr. Imbelli and Mr. Nixon ask me to apologize, I’ll do so, because I think that their opinions are worthy of respect.
Stuart,
Are you saying Robby George wrote a “web letter” (as The Nation calls responses to web-only articles on their site) and The Nation didn’t print it? If that is a fact, I’d like to know it.
Isn’t that what you were saying? Or were you just trying to find yet another specious reason to cast some sort of blame on George?
Stuart,
What I said can be taken at face value and contains no hidden accusations and no ulterior motives. I wonder why Robby George took the trouble to present his side of the story to dotCommonweal and not to The Nation. George said the Blumenthal column contained “despicable lies,” and yet he chose to tell his side of the story in detail only to dotCommonweal (and, to a lesser extent, Mirror of Justice). Why?
Based on the limited amount of attention I pay to these kinds of things, my guess is because public figures of a certain stature rarely respond personally to critical pieces like Blumenthal’s. I am actually less surprised he did not respond personally to The Nation than I am that he contacted dotCommonweal. As I said previously, this is a discussion forum, not a news outlet, and those of us who write comments are critical of people up to and including George Bush and Benedict XVI. I made an unkind remark about a well known author here recently and got a personal e-mail from him, but in general it seems strange for people to respond to discussions in a forum like this.
That’s really scraping the bottom of the barrel. As your previous post made clear, you have no basis for claiming that Robert George refused to “present his side of the story” to The Nation.
Stuart,
I don’t understand why you see virtually everything anyone says as an attack on Robby George.
I’ll bet you $25 George chose not to respond personally to The Nation. (And I do think if he had, The Nation would have printed it.) Well known people rarely respond directly to pieces like Blumenthal’s.