Neo-McCarthyism?

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isn't it a bit odd that the mccarthy era is always the comparison? ideological conformity is surely the norm in public life -- even in academia. in britain, gilroy would probably be hounded out for *not* linking the invasion of iraq with the geopolitical interests of israel.

― Real Goths Don't Wear Black (Enrique), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 09:25 (twenty years ago)

No, Enrique - it is not one bit odd to make this analogy.

A witch hunt's a witch hunt's a witch hunt. Time for a mass teach-in of The Crucible; that's on the canonical American syllabus and you cannot fuck with it.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 09:42 (twenty years ago)

Few would argue there are direct parallels between the current assaults on liberals in academe and McCarthyism. Unlike the McCarthy era, most threats to academic freedom - real or perceived - do not, yet, involve the state. Nor are they buttressed by widespread popular support, as anticommunism was during the 50s

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 09:48 (twenty years ago)

wasn't this phrase used in a key scene in Dazed & Confused by the blonde poker playing guy?

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 09:51 (twenty years ago)

yeah

― Real Goths Don't Wear Black (Enrique), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 09:53 (twenty years ago)

...

But in other ways, argues Ellen Schrecker, author of Many Are the Crimes - McCarthyism in America, comparisons are apt.

"In some respects it's more dangerous," she says. "McCarthyism dealt mainly with off-campus political activities. Now they focus on what is going on in the classroom. It's very dangerous because it's reaching into the core academic functions of the university, particularly in Middle-Eastern studies."

― Real Goths Don't Wear Black (Enrique), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 09:54 (twenty years ago)

the whole thing is chilling but the McCarthyism charge is a bit glib if not ahistorical or maybe just hysterical. At the same time US right-wingers are now charging their critics in the "liberal media" with "neo-McCarthyism" at the drop of a hat. The term is just becoming meaningless. Also at play here I think is a disconnect between teachers and students, young people are dismayingly conservative in some ways it's the reverse of college life in the 60s when the new left demanded "school for the students."

I was just saying last night we need a good bio-pic of Joe McCarthy.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 10:05 (twenty years ago)

On the web there is Campus Watch, "monitoring Middle East studies on campus"; Edwatch, "Education for a free nation"; and Parents Against Bad Books in School.

Finally, someone dares to take a stance against Da Vinci Code!

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 10:12 (twenty years ago)

m, have you seen goodnight and good luck? what did you think of it, if you saw it?

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 10:13 (twenty years ago)

At the same time US right-wingers are now charging their critics in the "liberal media" with "neo-McCarthyism" at the drop of a hat.

well indeed and the hell of the thing is there might be a smidge of truth in eg horowitz's classification of a lot of putatively left-wing academia. even in the above article younge makes slightly dubious claims of progressivism for, say, gilroy's ideas about israel.

― Real Goths Don't Wear Black (Enrique), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 10:14 (twenty years ago)

Ah see I have just been distracted by WORLD'S LARGEST TRAPPED BUMBLEBEE.

McCarthy's anti-Communism had a lot to do with his anti-Semitism. Today's path of hate and fear leads to other targets, for equally spurious reasons, also subjecting them to trial by anything but jury, or nuisance legal actions. Evil conservative impulses in America nearly always have to do with fear of the intellectual/physical/etc. power of the Other.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 10:22 (twenty years ago)

Also this massive, massive sense of entitlement should tell you something about the changing demographic of students in the US: their places seem much less earned than paid for, as the students have the attitude of 'my card is behind the bar -- why isn't my drink here yet?'

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 10:27 (twenty years ago)

In a classic contradiction, McCarthy was a bit of an "other" himself: alcoholic closeted homosexual. His protege throughout the Senate hearings was the infamous Roy Cohn aka "the Gay Nixon."

I really enjoyed Good Night And Good Luck, thought the integration of vintage footage of McCarthy was well-done. Took it with a grain of a salt also, imaginging that the portrayal of Edward R Murrow was somewhat romanticized. What I really need is a defintive book on the controversy, my call for a biopic above isn't a request for Oliver Stone to school us all on McCarthyism.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 10:32 (twenty years ago)

well possibly but not everything comes down to identity politics! there was also this little 'cold war' going on; likewise the heat against gilroy is about the War On Terror as much as anything to do with othering the intellectual (and of course *his* manicheanism is equally about the WOT).

― Real Goths Don't Wear Black (Enrique), Tuesday, 4 April 2006 10:39 (twenty years ago)

eleven years pass...

Headlines from 2017: "Principal in Park Slope is Cleared of Communist Organizing" https://t.co/hkCabPWCJX
— John Carl Baker (@johncarlbaker) September 1, 2017

― ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Friday, 1 September 2017 13:56 (eight years ago)

six months pass...

Just finished watching Preminger's Advise & Consent (1951)
(pretty great) and it made me realise how little I actually know about McCarthyism, HUAC and so on.

Can anyone recommend a decent book (or books) on the subject, ideally with a bit of depth on the Hollywood blacklists too?

― carrotless, turnip-pocketed (fionnland), Monday, 5 March 2018 21:18 (eight years ago)

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