From: Juha Savolainen
Message: 26193
Date: 2003-10-02
Apropos on the concerns of Glenn:
Indeed, I think that the key criteria for identifying racism is to ask (a) whether �Linguistics, genetics and anthropology are happily mixed up� and (b) whether there is an intended (either explicit or implicit) claim for the superiority of some ethnic group, �defined� in the confused sense just given. If both criteria are satisfied, then it is racism pure and simple. Unfortunately, there is a long and very sinister tradition of such racism in the field of �Indo-European studies�. Even more unfortunate is that the genuinely scholarly community of Indo-Europeanists still has not found a way to cut all threads to this repellent tradition. It grieves me to look at the publisher of, say, the �Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual UCLA Indo-European Conference, Los Angeles, November 9-10, 2001�. As far as I can judge � as an amateur � the quality of many of its contributions, well, they look superb to me. Nor is there any trace of racism (as far as I remember) in any of these scholarly papers. Yet the publisher is the notorius �Institute for the Study of Man��
Even worse, I only have to glance at the website
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/lrc/iedocctr/jies.html
to remind myself that:
�The JOURNAL OF INDO-EUROPEAN STUDIES, founded and published by Roger Pearson, began publication in 1972. It has served ever since as a medium for the exchange and synthesis of information relating to the anthropology, archaeology, mythology, philology, and general cultural history of the Indo-European speaking peoples�
and that
Manuscripts & Subscriptions
Should be sent to
Roger Pearson, Institute for the Study of Man
1133 13th Street NW, Suite C2 Washington, DC 20005 USA
Yes, to that Roger Pearson, a repulsive Nazi�
However, I also want to say that when neither of the criteria is satisfied, it is not racism to seek answers to Indo-Europeanist questions by using the resources of linguistics, cultural studies (archaeology included) and genetics. In fact, without genetics (whether based on non-coding �junk genes� or not), we have no realistic hope to trace ancient population movements. True, these studies are not yet as resolving as they should, but they are definitively part of the picture here.
Best regards, Juha
01-10-03 18:47, Glen Gordon wrote:
> I would have accepted this discussion if there was ANY sense
> to it. Unfortunately, while the overuse of "blond" is indeed suspect
> in a forum where idiot sk*nheads like to join debates such as these,
> any obsession over ANY colour of hair is a ridiculous and very moot
> point for a linguistics forum.
Talking of such obsessions, here's the latest from John V. Day (*),
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/vol2no3/jvd-europeans.html
published online in _The Occidental Quarterly_, a Web journal for those
concerned about the uncertain future of Western Man (euphemistically
speaking).
http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/
Linguistics, genetics and anthropology are happily mixed up in the
article. The author gives us glimpses of his obsession here and there
throughout the article, but most clearly in the closing paragraph and
the one-line conclusion.
Piotr
(*) Author of _Indo-European Origins: The Anthropological Evidence_.
Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man (2001).
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