I’m guessing he gave them money. There are no bigger whores in the world:
Marty Peretz is finally receiving some long overdue recognition: Harvard’s Committee on Social Studies in its forthcoming 50th anniversary celebrations will pay homage to the man. Participants in the 50th anniversary celebrations include: Michael Walzer, Stanley Hoffmann, Marty Peretz (who will speak over lunch), Amy Gutman and Harvard President Drew Faust.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
If I am not mistaken. Amy Gutman used to be(and maybe still is) the big cheese at University of Pennsylvania(yeah .. another Ivy).
DougJ
It is strange because Peretz is a nobody academically, whereas the others (at least the ones I know of) are big stars. I suspect he’s because he gave them a lot of money.
NobodySpecial
Michael Walzer is a contributor to TNR. Shock.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Stephen Walt had a little something to say about this yesterday at Foreign Policy: http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/13/will_harvard_do_the_right_thing
(And while I am briefly linked to in the piece [ahem…] I would have mentioned it even if not…).
It’s a shanda, as we Jews say, a scandal. Peretz is a blight.
(But on the other hand, how much do you want to bet he’s going to be met with protests? That might be a good thing, actually).
BGinCHI
Somebody tell Yglesias.
PurpleGirl
No, he gave them a list of names — people who would contribute large amounts of money. It’s how fund-raising works. Harvard honors him, he gives them leads on who to call on for money. If they’ve given to Harvard before, it’s extra over that but if they haven’t, it’s a new name to mine.
Bulworth
Peretz is Very Serious.
Cacti
Somebody help Marty before he “accidentally” writes something horribly bigoted again.
someguy
But on the plus side, Justice Breyer at least seems open to the possibility of banning Koran burning & similar abuse of Muslims. So intolerance and bigotry isn’t on the rise everywhere.
El Cid
There’s nothing controversial about hating Arabs and Muslims and publicly arguing that they should be killed or dispossessed. This is just normal mainstream discourse.
aimai
Oh for *&%% I graduated from Soc Stud in 1982–played with Michael Walzer’s daughter when I was little–and I’m wondering if this Amy Gutman was the Amy Gutman I knew. Marty was a whiny little hanger on at Harvard back then. I think he “taught” a Freshman seminar (or a house seminar) about something to do with his fake publishing career but which really had to do with hot Harvard undergrad boys. This is all very embarrassing. Why are they tarnishing my degree?
aimai
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@El Cid: Wellll… I would argue that that isn’t really the case anymore. He stirred up a lot of dust with that column, and that dust is a really good thing. It’s pretty controversial at this point.
It’s just not beyond the Pale, as it should be. Yet.
(I’m going with: “Yet.” Call me optimistic. Do your worse).
geg6
Yesterday I read a list of people who are going to be there to honor this racist fuck and was shocked to see some of the names on that list.
I mean, seriously, Al Gore, Ed Zwick, E.J. Dionne? Seriously?
Edited to add link: http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/i-worry-about-what-don-graham-ej-dionne-and-david-ignatius-owe-seminal-marty-peretz.html
Fuck every single one of them.
Erik Vanderhoff
Harvard’s faculty gets their knickers in a twist over Larry Summers and Martin Peretz gets a catered lunch. What. The. Fuck.
Keith G
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
How would we know?
4tehlulz
@aimai: W’s degree didn’t tarnish it?
Libby
Yes, his opinions are wrong, and should be governed. But, let us be honest, Juan Williams is a bigger whore.
JGabriel
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
For the general public, maybe. Peretz will just look confusedly at the protests, and himself protest, “How can they not love me? I’m fighting for their lives and safety! The Muslims must have got to them!”
.
General Stuck
@someguy: Burning crosses is illegal, why not Korans. One thing to burn a flag related to the impersonal of a country, another to do something hateful and violence inciting, related to a protected constitutional practice of an individuals religion.
I agree with Breyer.
geg6
@4tehlulz:
I don’t think W got his graduate degree in social studies, did he? Oh, no, he didn’t. Harvard Business conferred his MBA on him. Considering the MBAs I’ve met who attended Harvard’s business school, W was a genius.
DougJ
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther:
I saw that!
Ash Can
@aimai: I was just thinking, “Gee, this is embarrassing for Harvard. Yikes.” Of course, I’m a graduate of Johns Hopkins SAIS, so I know how it feels to be deeply embarrassed by my alma mater.
4tehlulz
@geg6: You’re trying too hard to keep the Harvard name clean.
El Cid
@Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther: I think such anti-Arab racists and anti-Muslim sectarians get tripped up when they’re too crude or exaggerated in their hatreds. Peretz erred by stating his racist and sectarian theses too bluntly. If he had maintained a pained, sad act of disappointed but wistful realism, and had used quotes from Lawrence of Arabia and several page columns, no one would have batted an eye.
In this country, you can argue (maybe up until fairly recently) that black people are dumb, but you have to work hard at saying it just the right way. The “Bell Curve” and whatnot. You can’t just leap up to the podium and go all bug-eyed and wave your hands around and call black people dumb.
You know, sometimes you gotta just take some nation of these indifferentiated semi-organic masses of Arabs or Muslims or various Middle Eastern darkies and throw it up against a wall because they’re really all like an ant colony anyway, and tell them Suck. On. This., but you have to make sure it doesn’t sound too directly like the sexual metaphor it is.
geg6
@4tehlulz:
Meh. I couldn’t care less about Harvard’s reputation. I only wish to protect poor aimai.
Hell, I’m one of the losers who had to get my degrees at public universities. Pitt and Penn State will never have to worry about Marty Peretz and his ilk…too proletarian for them.
Keith G
@General Stuck:
Really?
geg6
@Keith G:
Well, technically, if you do it on someone’s lawn it is.
Keith G
@geg6: Of course, when it can be a direct threat.
General Stuck
@Keith G:
Yup, like geg6 says, under certain circumstances. Though it’s never been tested for religious book burning, that may extend to anywhere in public, if it incites violence, or can be expected to. Worth a try to treat as a hate crime and see what the courts do with it. imo
Breyer seems to think so. edit
Luthe
On behalf of all Bryn Mawr alumnae everywhere, I apologize for Drew Faust being part of this.
ricky
REAL acheivers give their money to schools that name buildings and stadiums after THEM.
martha
@aimai: I feel your pain. John Yoo has not exactly given we Berkeley grads the warm fuzzies either.
Keith G
@aimai:
I want to tell you how much I enjoyed your thoughtful, pointed, and complete take down of McArdle over at Delong’s place. I never want to say silly and dishonest things in your presence.
Keith G
@General Stuck:
Exactly the point of my retort: As a general activity, no. As a specific threat, yes.
aimai
Ah, well, “you pays your money…and you takes your bigots…” I have to believe that the guest list was organized quite some time ago and that its severely embarrassing those, like Al Gore, who are on it now. The thing about Peretz is that he and his views were really like some crazy uncle in the attic until our entire foreign policy shifted, under Bush, and made the wildest wet dreams of the anti muslim assholes a mere, mundane, reality. Now its not possible to dismiss Peretz as just an asshole with bigoted opinions and deep pockets. Soc Stud should rethink this. Harvard should rethink this. But given their financial crunch I doubt they will. (Also, to whoever said they were shocked that Harvard got rid of Larry Summers over his attacks on women…uh…Summers had pissed off the entire faculty, and destroyed Harvard’s endowment, before he passed from that mortal coil. If he’d kept his misogyny and his racism on the down low and increased the endowment he’d still be there.)
aimai
morzer
Harvard has one simple rule: give us the money and do and say what you like. Harvard shelters plagiarists, racists, frauds of every description. And that’s only the faculty.
fasteddie9318
I wish I could say I was surprised by this.
But, frankly, Harvard awards are cheap, most notably to Harvard administrators. And among those Harvard administrators led by the University President Faust there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random prostitution that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.
NonyNony
@General Stuck:
“Inciting violence” strikes me as a different standard than “intimidation”. Burning a cross or an effigy on someone’s lawn targets a person, while burning a book or a flag (at least ostensibly) targets an idea or an organization. That strikes me as a very tight line that I wouldn’t be eager to see our current Supreme Court try to walk. Would drawing pictures of Mohammed also be an “inciting violence”? What if I want to burn a picture of Glenn Beck – is that “inciting violence” from Teabaggers?
Honestly, if “inciting violence” is the problem then maybe we should declare having soldiers in foreign territory to be illegal as well. I imagine a few thousand soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq is more of an incitement to violence than any nutjob with a church of less than 4 dozen people burning a book. Hell a few thousand soldiers in Saudi Arabia was apparently a source of “inciting violence” against the World Trade Center and those guys were just manning a base, not running combat missions…
General Stuck
@Keith G:
no it wasn’t, your retort just stated “really” to my statement that burning crosses was illegal, which was true. It was geg6 who pointed out the nuance. not you.
a specific threat is not the criteria, intimidation is. When we are getting cases of Muslims being attacked due to their religion, in the presence of Koran burnings, it is an open question whether that should be intimidation, or incitement to violence. Which is not protected speech. Again, Breyer thinks it might be, and I agree. in point of my comment.
General Stuck
@NonyNony: You make good points, but where to draw the line. I would say burning a religious book in public in the presence of religious bigotry and violence, is different than drawing a cartoon. But your point is taken in taking it too far. My point relies only on the fact a religious book is involved, which is the primary symbol of a particular religion, otherwise I agree with you.
General Stuck
But I think this calculation and comparison is absurd.
Steve
I thought the Ivy League was supposed to be a hotbed of Israel-hating Hamas sympathizers. How strange.
Omnes Omnibus
@General Stuck: I think burning a Koran to piss people off is an asshole move. It is, however, expressive conduct much like burning the US flag. I have very strong reservations about any attempt to limit any form of speech, including expressive conduct. If a specific act of Koran burning is part of an intimidation campaign or was a direct incitement to violence, such an argument can be made but the burden should be on the prosecution to show that the intent of the act was true intimidation or incitement and not speech that got out of hand. This burden should be damn high.
Keith G
@General Stuck:
Oh for golly sakes, Stuck.
Ok, if you insist, my bad for not including quote marks, or some other indication (a raised eyebrow emoticon?) to indicate the proper meta-message.
Next time, I will fully flesh out my interjection.
Cain
@someguy:
Activist judges!
cain
Kiril
This article from the Harvard Crimson dated December 10, 1975, mentions that “Martin H. Peretz, lecturer on Social Studies, gave up his position as master of South House last June in order to devote full time to his recent purchase, The New Republic.”
It then goes on to say:
“[S]ome of Peretz’s critics charge that his ardent Zionism is giving the magazine a new kind of predictability, not only in its treatment of the Middle East, but the rest of the world. Disgruntled former members of the staff say his yardstick for all matters is how they affect Israel, that his hawkish position on Israel has had a ripple effect on other issues. One of them cynically suggests that the magazine be renamed ‘The Middle East..And the Rest of The World.'”
and
“Peretz has taken the opportunity to express his position in editorials, arguing against Israel’s returning to its pre-1967 war boundaries and, according to Newsweek, suggesting invasion as an option to protect U.S. oil interests in the Middle East.”
Betsy
@aimai:
I just forwarded the Foreign Policy piece about it to the Crimson and the Globe, highlighting Peretz’s most offensive statements in my email. They probably won’t do anything with it, but I tried, at least.
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
yes it should be, and as things continue to degrade in this country concerning intolerance and bigotry, and violence. I expect that high burden to be met at some point. Maybe not with the preacher down in FL, who only threatened burning Korans, but escalating hate speech in increasing corners of the right wing along a wide spectrum of non white races and religions and in a variety of forums.
General Stuck
@Keith G:
I personally like smiley faces, but Cole hates all things corny and decent. So no smiley face for you.
Cain
BTW my wife shocked me the other day when she came home and told me that she was listening to NPR about how Muslims have managed to pass some form of Sharia law in Michigan and she was worried.
My wife is a very intelligent woman and I could not believe she was swayed by NPR of all programs.. or rather the person who they were interviewing. After explaining how things worked that nobody can just implement something like that. In any case there are plenty of christian bigotry in state laws anyways.
I told her later that I was surprised that she was taken in. She told me that she thought about it and was surprised how easily she herself fell into that trap because when she did think about it she realized that it was all a bunch of crap.
This is what we are dealing with folks. The kind of misinformation and lack of objective reporting is what causes this kind of hate coupled with a lack of education on how government works and how laws are passed. It really drove home how scary this kind of crap can be and how it can take on a life of its own.
cain
El Cid
@Cain: When I listen the BBC’s NewsHour (the single best broadcast news program in the world) cover the US, I cringe hoping that it’s an actual BBC correspondent. When it’s not, it’s the same nimrod shit from an NPR nitwit or your standard rep from the billion dollar media.
NonyNony
@General Stuck: Of course it’s absurd. It’s an absurd comparison because the whole discussion is absurd. Pastor Flaming-Asshole wants to burn a book. That’s what we’re talking about here. He’s a troglodytic asshole, but the correct response to that is “Christ what an asshole”, not “OMG – someone is showing a lack of respect to another religion, let’s make it illegal to do that because the members of that religion might get mad and kill someone.” Add to that the fact that he’s a fucking pastor and showing contempt for other religions is what religions have historically done and the whole discussion becomes even more absurd. He could burn the Koran as part of a sermon about how Islam is a religion of Satan and the Koran a Satanic Bible. Now what? You really want to make the case that the state should step in and stop the free exercise of religion just because he’s preaching hate? There are very few churches in the US who don’t preach hate towards some group, and the haters have more political power than the non-haters.
My point with the absurd comparison is that there are a lot of things that we do that piss off other people, and yet for some reason it’s only the ritualistic displays of contempt that people focus on in these discussions. Burning a flag, burning a Koran, drawing Mohammed – yeah those are visible things that piss people off. But so is bombing a wedding party with a Predator drone or invading another country. And yet for some reason speech is what comes up on the chopping block. Why would that be?
GregB
Is Peretz going to close out his speech with a Koran burning?
General Stuck
@NonyNony: So what is the difference in someone who burns a cross on a black church lawn, or across the street. One is illegal and the other likely not. I agree with Omnes that the burden to prove intimidation and incitement to violence should be high, but I agree with Breyer it is not out of line to consider where the line is drawn. The guy in Florida didn’t do anything so we don’t know the consequences. But this shit is only going to get worse imo, and it something to keep an eye on because there are limitations to free speech when the equivalent of screaming fire in a crowded theater begins occurring.
Omnes Omnibus
@General Stuck: I, personally, would place the burden at almost insurmountably high. I am about as close to being a pure 1st Amendment absolutist as there can be.
Johannes
General Stuck and Keith,
The recent cross-burning case (Virginia v. Black, 535 U.S. 343 (2003)) turned on the factual context–whether or not the prosecution had proven a specific intent to intimidate the homeowners. The decision struck down as unconstitutional a presumption of such intent, and further found that the combination of the cross-burning (with its violent history and meaning) + intent + the present ability to enact violence was sufficient to render the statute constitutional. The Court followed earlier precedent holding that “the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969). Brandenburg v. Ohio was also an earlier cross-burning case.
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus: I am too, till people start dieing in fairly large numbers, but then if that happens, maybe it’s time to rather than quote the constitution, follow Sarah’s advice of lock and load.
Seems to me that that is where the Overton Window is mostly headed in this country. Hope I am wrong though, cause I’m too old for civil war.
Omnes Omnibus
@Johannes: Pedant warning: Brandenburg was not a cross burning case, but otherwise you are on the money. Brandenburg was a Klan leader convicted of advocating Klan-like things including violence.
Gozer
Man, am I ever glad that I was the child of a lowly union worker. The worst KU ever produced is Steve Doocy, Jim Ryun, and Phil Kline.
On second thought, that is pretty bad…
…
Personally, once someone crosses the line on something like anti-semitism, racism, etc. I’m inclined to think they support the whole shebang. Someone racist is likely to be misogynist, someone deeply misogynist is likely to anti-semitic, etc.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Peretz held some seriously retrograde views of African-Americans or women.
Keith G
@Johannes:
Thanks. Since it is late in the day (for me) and my mind is mushing out, I did some Google fu and found a simpler text.
Which seems to suggest that burning a cross is protected speech and is not illegal except for a specific carve out.
John
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:
Amy Gutmann is the president of Penn. I think this is probably Amy Gutman, a journalist, novelist and Harvard Law School alumni programs employee.
Basilisc
I got my degree in Soc Stud in 1987. I think Peretz was one of the founders of the program in the late 1960s, when he was a junior faculty member. Instead of sticking it out & trying for tenure, he married rich, bought a failing opinion magazine and said a proud f-you to the academic life – wouldn’t you? Since then he’s provided a steady outlet for the not always coherent writings of people like Landes, etc. So I guess they’re right to honor him, even though the rest of us are right not to give a sh-t.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@Keith G: You ask an excellent question, and I’m back 4 1/2 hours later to say:
You can’t know. You’ll just have to – uh – trust me! That’s it. Trust me.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@JGabriel: Well yes. I think that Peretz, as a vessel for human potential, is a lost cause.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@DougJ: The idea that you were wandering about the web, got to FP, saw my name & thought of me here just does my head in, it honestly does!
I think I have to thank Mr. Kristof for it, because though I have actually had a tiny bit of professional contact with Stephen Walt in the past, and he’s been very friendly and even supportive, I don’t think he really follows my blog or anything — the man has an awful lot going on, after all! So again: Thank you, Mr. Kristof!
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
@El Cid: I think you’re absolutely right. I think it was the very bluntness of the statement “Muslim life is cheap” that tripped him up the most. There would have been outcry even if he had taken more words to state the same thing, but it wouldn’t have been as broad or as sustained.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
…and apparently I’m talking — A LOT — to a dead thread. Hi dead thread!
Sigh. I spend too much time in RL.
whitepup
Why the surprise? As the late David Halberstam made clear in his Seminal Book, the Harvards’ are the “BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST”.
WHITEPUP
Johannes
@Omnes Omnibus: (Super Pedant Warning): Brandenburg didn’t turn on the cross burning, because the State relied on the defendant’s statement that “We’re [the Klan] not a revengent organization, but if our President, our Congress, our Supreme Court, continues to suppress the white, Caucasian race, it’s possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken.” However, that same film, as the Court noted, “showed 12 hooded figures, some of whom carried firearms. They were gathered around a large wooden cross, which they burned.” 395 U.S. at 446. All of the acts asserted together were deemed protected, so I felt my characterization wasn’t off.