Edward Said, professor of English at Columbia University, is the newly installed president of the Modern Language Association, the professional association of college and university teachers of literature and languages. As such, in theory, it is the organization representing the standard bearers for transmitting the humanities to the next generation. It is thus not a little ironic that Said stands out as perhaps the most vituperative, venomous and vulgar academic in this country. His only rival is Noam Chomsky, his Jewish counterpart, to whom Said bears a striking resemblance. In addition to the snarling contumely which is their hallmark response to the slightest criticism, both men sport a visceral anti-Americanism which, thanks to the culture of today's academy, has turned them into academic super-stars --this, despite the fact that the quality of their critique
Said is perhaps the most vituperative, venomous and vulgar academic in this country.
Last month, we offered a series of quotes from Professor Said speaking at a symposium in Gaza that gave insight into the level of his intellectual discourse. Suffice it here to remind the reader of one: "The American policy tries to annihilate nations that do not follow America's ideology...American history [and] society is based on the annihilation of nations." In December 1998, he reacted indignantly to the charade where the PLO in Gaza, Clinton in attendance, supposedly changed its Charter. (Eliminating the Charter is the rug the PLO has repeatedly sold since the signing of the Oslo agreements). Said was indignant at any semblance of changing the Charter's formal commitment to destroy Israel. Said Said: "What the Israelis are trying to do is to force Palestinians to change their own history and I don't see why we should do that."
In an unfortunately all too rare display of protest, Jon Whitman of Hebrew University sent a letter resigning from the Association that was published in the PMLA Forum (the Publication of the Modern Language Association's letter section). His emphasis was on a humanistic value wholly foreign to Said: civic discourse. The following are excerpts from Whitman's letter.
"The President of the MLA publicly and officially represents the organization. I believe that such a representative should have displayed regularly not only distinction in critical scholarship but also dignity in the public treatment of others. Edward Said's professional work has extensively influenced several fields of literary study. But his public assaults against individuals whose views reasonably differ from his own deeply violate fundamental values repeatedly professed by the MLA. At times, such assaults have passed beyond the forms of disparagement that often compromise contemporary academic disputes. They have passed into acts of aggressive contempt and blatant dehumanization.
"The variety of disturbing cases includes an exchange many years ago with several members of the MLA ("An Exchange on Edward Said and Difference," Critical Inquiry 15 [1989]:611-46). In a detailed article one scholar argued that greater accuracy and breadth of information would noticeably revise Said's claims about the Middle East (Robert J. Griffin, "Ideology and Misrepresentation: A Response to Edward Said"). In his reply ("Response"), Said tried to discredit alternately the author's sanity, his scholarship, and his humanity. His "solemn idiocies," cried Said, "inhabit a semi-deranged world entirely his own." This scholar--"if that is what he is," scoffed Said--is, "only, to the best of my knowledge, the author or two (or is it three?) below average articles on Dr. Johnson." "I surmise," Said postured, that "Griffin is actually 'Griffin,' an ideological simulacrum": it could be asked "if he is a human being."
"Perhaps even more than the original critique, Said's reaction exposed some of the stark deficiencies of his own claims, including his profession to speak for the cause of humane behavior."
Whitman goes on to cite a series of assaults by Said, many on Jews (ironically chiefly left wing critics of Israel like Michael Walzer whom he calls a figure of "characteristic idiocy") but some, relatively mild by Said's standards, on Arabs (presumably guilty of not being sufficiently inflamed against Israel for the burning Said). Whitman points out that "the more reflective the critique of his views, the more enraged his reaction. When confronted with his insults (like those quoted in this letter), he cries that his own integrity is being impugned."
Said's reply, published in the same issue (January 1999), is as churlish and unapologetic as ever. Complains Said: "All the comments he ascribes to me occurred in specific, extremely combative contexts in which I was attacked first at least as unreasonably as anything I either thought or said afterward....He says nothing about the relentless verbal attacks on me (e.g. Edward Alexander -- also a literary scholar -- "The Professor of Terror," Commentary, August 1989)..." And Said then launches into an ad hominem attack on Whitman "one of the real sources of his animus (and of the inordinate amount of time he must have spent trawling in a lot of marginal writing) resembles that of a partisan, recently nationalized Israeli once again fighting a Palestinian.
(Continued on p.11)
Outpost - 10 - June 1999