-By John Armor
A movement has begun among American college professors to boycott Israeli universities and professors and Israeli culture, over the “oppression” of Palestinians by Israelis. I read some of the press accounts of this academic movement, and decided to investigate its leader.
David Lloyd, Professor of English at the University of Southern California, is the leader of this US effort. Anti-Semitism is commonplace in Europe, where such boycotts are old news. The background of Dr. Lloyd doesn’t look that bad on first glance.
On his Biographical Sketch, there are only a few hints that the man is off-balance. Half of his writing about literature is dedicated to the Irish. As a fellow Irishman, I consider all the Irish potentially dubious.
He has written relatively little, choosing to co-author or co-edit his more recent works. Two of those raise an eyebrow: The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse, co-edited with Abdul JanMohamed (1991); The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital, co-edited with Lisa Lowe (1997).
We have to go into the gentleman’s Curriculum Vitae to get a clear index on this man’s thinking. We get some clues when we read that he sat on and chaired committees for “Ph.D. and M.A. candidates in dissertations in English, African American studies, Ethnic Studies, Comparative Literature, and Political Science.” These services began at the University of California at Berkeley.
The chapter headings of his perhaps widest-read book, Culture and the State, includes one that says, “Capitalism vs. the Democracy.” A major article is entitled, “Discussion: Post-Modern Critiques of Marxism: Implications for Political Practice.”
With a lot of digging we get a picture of Professor Lloyd’s sociology and politics. He is opposed to the western philosophies of government, except for Marxism which was developed by Karl Marx in his flat in London. Dr. Lloyd is a student of victimology. Whomever he classifies as a victim is more authentic, has better ideas, and produces better literature, than those he classifies as oppressors.
Like Professor Noam Chomsky, who is a world-recognized expert in linguistics at MIT, Professor Lloyd has a single expertise in one subject (Irish literature and poetry) which he has expanded into a uninformed and dangerous world view that will mislead all who take him seriously. There is a saying about PhDs that they learn more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing. Having a doctorate and holding a tenured position, and having assorted awards from organizations of people just like them, is no guarantee that the opinion of that person on a subject outside his field is worth a plugged nickle.
Why do I call this man a bigot? The classic definition of a bigot is not just racial. It is any person who holds a particular view so strongly that he/she immediately rejects any facts which would undercut that view.
Here is the position of Dr. Lloyd’s group: “As educators of conscience, we have been unable to stand by and watch in silence Israel’s indiscriminate assault on the Gaza Strip and its educational institutions,” the U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel stated. The group called for punitive measures against Israel assault [on Gaza].
Firing uncontrolled rockets into civilian populations is a war crime. Hiding those rockets in their own civilian areas so retaliation will kill their own children, is also a war crime. And sending bombers into civilian areas carrying bombs that will produce shrapnel and kill and wound a maximum number of civilians, is also a war crime.
The Palestinians have been doing these things for more than a decade. And the good professor is concerned with attacks on Palestinian educational institutions? Does he have the slightest clue what is taught to children in those schools about murder and martyrdom? Does he know the military activity taking place at those universities?
There is only one productive use of Professor Lloyd’s boycott Israel effort. All of the tenured professors that sign onto his effort are self-identifying themselves as economic and social bigots who should not be infecting the students of America with their entrenched ignorance. These are “educators” in desperate need of some education of their own.
How sad. But how important it is that we pay attention to these fools in our midst.
____________
John Armor is a graduate of Yale, and Maryland Law School, and has 33 years practice at law in the US Supreme Court. Mr. Armor has authored seven books and over 750 articles. Armor happily lives on a mountaintop in the Blue Ridge. He can be reached at: John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
Fair Use: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of political, human rights, economic, democracy, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, educational, or satirical purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site/blog for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.