Jonah and Juan

There is a minor dustup between Professor Juan Cole up at U Mich and Jonah Goldberg at NRO. Goldberg wrote a column published in Jewish World Review [read it here] in which he says some unkind things about Professor Cole. Cole took offense and said a number of even more unkind things about Jonah [read his post here]. A blogger [Justin Katz, read him here] and several readers of NRO chimed in to support Jonah and abuse Cole. And so it goes....

Both Goldberg and, especially, Cole have engaged in inappropriate language. Jonah started it when he used several unkind terms to characterize Professor Cole and his arguments. Cole's response to these provocations was way over the top and downright abusive. This is unfortunate, because both men have reasonable things to say.

Cole was right to note that there were negative aspects to the Iraqi election. It was far from perfect and not so exceptional when compared to the recent electoral experience of some other states in the region [Iran and Turkey come to mind]. He was also right to note that the American media in the wake of the election was presenting a unidimensional view of a complex phenomenon, one that the Bush administration would find congenial.

Goldberg was right when he asserted that the Iraqi elections were of monumental significance in the context of Iraq's history and in terms of their political repercussions. Even as flawed as they were, the Iraqi elections produced a massive shift in opinion within Iraq, throughout the Middle East, in Europe [as Condi is showing] and, most importantly, in the United States.

Professor Cole was right to point out that his understanding of Middle Eastern affairs is far greater than that of Mr. Goldberg and that Jonah's argument regarding the Iranian elections was flawed and simplistic, and Jonah was right to point out that Professor Cole's arguments are extremely one-sided and are contested by other credentialed experts in the field, and that his primary emphasis was upon U.S. politics, about which he does have considerable expertise.

Unfortunately, the playground rhetoric indulged in by both men and their supporters has obscured their reasonable arguments. On balance, I believe Jonah Goldberg has a stronger case. The Iraqi elections were a truly historical event with regional and even global repercussions. Professor Cole further weakens his position by simply dismissing Goldberg's arguments, retreating into academic authoritarianism [I'm credentialed, you aren't, so shut up], and viciously attacking his opponent. But Jonah and his supporters are far from innocent in this regard. What might have been a serious discussion has been dragged down to the level of a schoolyard brawl. That is unfortunate for all concerned.

Come on children, let's fight nice.

UPDATE:

Ah! A voice of reason. John Burgess posts over at Dust in the Light, to confirm Professor Cole's standing as an expert on Middle Eastern affairs, but notes that Cole's expertise does not carry over into broader political judgments.

UPDATE:

Now James Wolcott has joined the fray, and contributes nothing much except a few snide remarks.

Atrios contributes a brief comment with some wisdom in it. He writes that Cole's requirement that "you should know something about a subject before you pontificate about it before an audience" would mean "the end of punditry as we know it."

P. Z. Myers over at Pharyngula makes a cogent observation. To wit:

We need a better word than “elitist”. I can sort of understand the dislike of the term; it conveys the idea of an undeserved sense of entitlement. We are not talking about an aristocracy here, however, where the entitlement is bestowed unearned, but a meritocracy where one is expected to make a significant effort before one’s opinion is valued. In the topsy-turvy world of the American conservative extremist, academics who invest years in training and study are despised as aristocratic elitists..., [snide silliness follows].

Several of Jonah's e-mails [those that support him] are reprinted over at NRO's Corner. They make a few relevant points. To wit:

Several Arabic speakers strongly contest Cole's understanding of the situation in Iraq.

Cole has no difficulty citing the work of non-specialists when they support his position.

Cole feels free to comment on Israeli government and politics, an area that lies outside his expertise. [I'm not sure this is true].

Cole's animus against the Bush administration biases his perspective on the whole question.

[Biased expertise is no better than ignorance. Of course this opens the old question of whether objectivity is achievable or even desirable and where "interest" ends and "bias" begins -- let's not go down that road, it leads to interminable BS, and just agree that commentators must strive to be fair.]

On the matter of expertise, Jonah himself comments:

I wouldn't debate Juan Cole about the Middle East for the same reason I wouldn't debate Paul Krugman about economics.

Nevertheless, about American politics or foreign policy, I'd have no problem or reluctance debating either of them. And as for Wolcott, I cannot imagine there is a subject I would be undermatched to debate him on....

Another of Jonah's readers remarks:

It is in no way necessary to "live in the Middle East" in order to be able to grasp -- *conceptually* -- the issues that occupy us there, any more than it was necessary to have lived on the moon in order to achieve the first landing on its surface.

In "The Gulag Archipelago", Solzhenitsyn wrote that "To taste the ocean requires only a single drop." He did not explicate it in these terms, but he was referring to the utility of concepts to human affairs. Juan Cole isessentially arguing a radical empiricist angle, the necessary implication of which (in a *consistent* -- not hypocritical -- application) is that transmission of knowledge is impossible because only direct experience with every discrete detail (grains of *sand*, even) can result in knowledge.

He goes on to remark that Cole's position, if rigorously applied, suggests that nobody should bother to read the Professor's books because they can only supply second-hand, and therefore inferior knowledge.

I am impressed by the fact that this, like so many internet disputes, has produced, in addition to the vast amounts of drivel that pervades the medium, some well-conceived and well-argued positions on all sides.

With regard to P. Z. Myer's post: Of course we are not talking about an aristocracy of birth, but a "meritocracy" which claims authority on the basis of presumably superior training, intelligence, insight, and cognitive abilities, such superiority being ratified by various credentialing institutions.

The presumption that justifies such an arrangement is that meritocratically-based, credentialed elites can exercise authority impartially, objectively, and wisely for the good of all. If, however, it can be shown that the meritocrats constitute a self-perpetuating privileged group that wields authority in the service of its own particular interests rather than for the general good, that justification crumbles and the meritocrats are exposed as just another interest group competing for power and privilege. This perception underlies the frequent charges of elitism directed against those who would style themselves, as Donna Shalala did a few years ago, "the Best and the Brightest" [what a loathsome term! I had thought nobody could utter it with a straight face after David Halberstam's massive takedown of the Vietnam era meritocrats, but she did.] Maybe a better term is needed, but so, too, is a healthy dollop of self-examination on the part of those who, on the basis of their credentials, presume to think for us all.

UPDATE:

Jonah Goldberg has published an extended, civil, and only slightly snarky response to Professor Cole here.