Re: [tied] Fwd: Aryanism and Journal of Indo-European Studies

I just wonder if a civilised discussion of these things is possible. While regretting that the issue has been so politicised, you yourself politicise it further by devoting more space to people's mindsets and political sympathies than to their scholarly opinions, and using ideologically loaded terms. If you think being on the "wrong" side of a ploitical divide produces a false consciousness in a scholar -- well, that's little better than hardline Marxism. If you object to Zimmer's "Hindu nationalists", let's eliminate mud-throwing altogether and try to abstain from habitually using emotional language, including words and phrases like the following:

colonial-missionary fabrication
the savior of Dravidians
bleeding-heart liberalist
leftist/rightist
Marxist, Marxist-leftist (and other similar combinations)
etc.

Finally:

> VA: So I gather it is not wrong to accept money also from smugglers, murderers, neo-Nazis and all kinds of criminals to fund journals. Not that Roger Pearson is any of them, but I really marvel at the low morals and ethics of the 'scholarly readers' of the JIES. Surely, 'Indian Nationalists', and 'Hindu Nationalists' are more respectable than them.

Florid hyperbole and propaganda again. Vishal, I know you can do better than play a soap-box orator. If Pearson isn't "any of them", why introduce smugglers, murderers and other straw figures in the first place? Do you mean that even if Pearson is not an actual smuggler or murderer, his unnamed villainy nevertheless casts a shadow on the JIES? Whatever you think of Roger Pearson's personal opinions and sympathies -- even if you find them disgusting -- has anyone ever suggested that he raises money for the Journal by doing something criminal? Do you seriously believe that murderers, drug-lords and neo-Nazis organise collections to fund an Indo-European journal? What for, if Pearson does not even use it to promote his personal ideology? As long as he does not, his private life and non-scholarly opinions are _none of my business_. I'm not a sans-culotte -- not in the Polish weather. The JIES is _not_ an emanation of Roger Pearson's personality. I know what I'm saying, because I read the Journal quite regularly and I absolutely fail to see in what way my reading it degrades my morals and ethics.

Piotr