[tied] Re: Excerpts from Aryan Idols by Stefan Arvidsson (2006)

From: mkelkar2003
Message: 46310
Date: 2006-10-09

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> On 2006-10-09 05:12, mkelkar2003 wrote:
>
> > "Most notable is perhaps that no one reacted to the fact that the
> > editor of the world-leading journal for research on the
> > Indo-Europeans, Journal of Indo-European Studies, Roger Pearson, had
> > since the 1950's has been "one of America's foremost Nazi apologists
> > and quite clearly a racist with one of the world's best web of
> > contacts." Before Pearson, along with Marija Gimbutas , Edgar C.
> > Polome' and Raimo Antilla, founded the Journal of Indo-European
> > Studies, he had worked with Hans F. K. Gunther, who had continued to
> > spread his racial doctrines after the fall of the Third Reich.
> > Pearson was also chairman of the American Division of the World Anti
> > Communist League and lobbied in Washington for more funds for the
> > Defense, the Contras, and the UNITA guerillas. Together with Polome',
> > one of the United States' leading researchers in the area of Germanic
> > religion, he has also published the academic, racist journal the
> > Mankind Quarterly (Arvidsson 2006, p. 304)."
> >
> > Arvidsson, Stefan (2006), Aryan Idols: Indo-European Mythology as
> > Ideology and Science, translated by Sonia Wichmann, Chicago and
> > London: The University of Chicago Press.
>
> I'm no fan of Roger Pearson, but what on earth does all that have to do
> with the validity of Indo-European studies? Do you, with Arvidsson,
want
> to insinuate that anyone who has cooperated with Pearson in any way
> (e.g. by publishing something in the JIES or co-editing the journal) is
> some sort of neo-Nazi by association and can therefore be suspected of
> having a neo-Nazi "false consciousness" that affects -- and compromises
> -- his or her scholarly work? Such suggestions are not merely moronic;
> they are also libellous: their purpose is to damage the reputation of
> selected scholars not by confronting their opinions but by character
> assassination. To take one example, have you read anything written by
> Anttila? Do you know anything abut his political views? Has he done,
> said or published anything that could be interpreted as racist? (All
the
> answers are NO.) I'm particularly upset by this case, since I happen to
> know Raimo Anttila personally. For me, he's a living human being, not a
> straw likeness of one put up by some fool as a target for mud-throwing
> practice. Incidentally, being a Finn by birth, with a non-IE
language as
> his mother tongue, he can hardly be suspected of "Aryan idolatry".
>
> Piotr
>

"Before Pearson, along with Marija Gimbutas , Edgar C.
> Polome' and Raimo Antilla, founded the Journal of Indo-European
> Studies, he had worked with Hans F. K. Gunther, who had continued to
> spread his racial doctrines after the fall of the Third Reich."


If one reads the above sentence carefully, Arvidsson is saying that
Pearson's activities were *before* he founded the JIES with certain
other individuals. I do not think he is insinuating anything. Thanks!

M. Kelkar