Below the fold, a twitter-based debate on a review essay in NYT.
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“This review essay on “anthropologists” on Afghanistan in the NYT is the nadir of moral-less imperial hubris. nytimes.com/2011/11/20/boo…
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“@sepoy Hey! That’s my mentor you’re Mishraing there. I think “nadir” is putting it a little strongly, in any case.
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“@jonathanshainin tell your mentor Rory Stewart is not an anthropologist; that Afghanistan doesn’t exist for western gaze alone
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“@jonathanshainin that AAA only “balked” after roundly being criticized and that Stanley McChrystal is not your critical voice
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“@jonathanshainin if 10 years later, the best a review essay in NYT can do is to rehash a military perspective, than it is indeed, the pits
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“@sepoy All fair points, but only AAA one really hits. What you’re objecting to (fairly) is the utter neutrality of the thing. On my reading,
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“@sepoy the broad point is one you wouldn’t disagree with — an examination of how US scholars have constructed a “knowledge” of Afghans,
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“@sepoy how the military has attempted to use that knowledge, and how even the COIN mantra of knowing the country well was a joke.
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“@sepoy finally, the piece never says Stewart is an anthropologist — he comes in as a critic (however qualified) of the “knowledge project”.
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“@jonathanshainin oh i am glad there is neutrality. And i am glad you accepted stewart as an anthropologist
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“@jonathanshainin i know man, but i am tired of staying at that point. that myopia gets lent credence on the pages of NYT by such “essays”
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“@sepoy I see your point. But are they used as “correctives”? Or as one side in a functionalist US-oriented argument about “knowledge”?
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“@jonathanshainin Which is the point innit? The essay in which Rory Stewart and Stanley McChrystal are “CORRECTIVES” is a nadir
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“@jonathanshainin its oh-well-here’s-the-thing-o-children-of-empire-tone which got to me first, but yeah that essay is the nadir.
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“@atnussan actually no. I am fighting with @jonathanshainin about the politics of review essays in NYT.
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“@sepoy I don’t see that tone, really. I suppose my charitable view is that putting the “knowledge project” under any scrutiny is progress.
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“@jonathanshainin but how can it be under “scrutiny” if you quote a military general and ex-MI-6 AS “corrective’. Sorry. No.
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“@sepoy I mean “scrutiny” in the most literal sense: it is being examined as a thing, held up and looked at, even if on its own terms.
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“@jonathanshainin even if the task of that essay is simply to say “oh a buncha peeps wrote some books on Afghanistan!”, i have problems
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“@jonathanshainin because it never even tries to problematize the actual issue of gazing at Afghanistan to “figure” it out
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“@jonathanshainin Add to it the “knowledge systems critique” and it just manifestly fails by not reconciling the identities of authors
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“@sepoy But is the problem in that case that it talks of anthropology in the context of occupation without acknowledging that fact?
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“@sepoy By which I mean: the “pure” anthropological project, sans military, is a priori devoted to “figuring out” foreign places, right?
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“@jonathanshainin no, all examples it cites of anthro is in service of military – and frames it precisely in those terms.
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“@jonathanshainin there is a WHOLE LOT of anthro on Afg that is just not noted because its functionally un-militiraziable (?)
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“@jonathanshainin @sepoy You’ve both made some fair points, but the refs may give it to Shainin for the neologism “Mishraing.”
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“@sepoy That is indeed the frame. (I would say most American newspapers would demand as much to justify publishing such a piece.) But…
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“@sepoy …Is Coburn’s book an example of anthro in service of military? Or is the piece just discussing it inside of that frame?
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“@jonathanshainin we wouldn’t know because the essay makes no space for any other perspective. and your point about US newspaper demand
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“@jonathanshainin is precisely my point about “imperial hubris nadir” whatever i ranted. BUSS.
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“@sepoy I suppose we are back at the beginning, then. Mostly I’m disappointed that you didn’t say anything about the beard pic I sent.
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“@NaheedMustafa Yeah, I got BUSSed. The only available comeback is BAKWAAS, but I wouldn’t do that to @sepoy.
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“@jonathanshainin actually the proper proper is BUSS HAI TERI MAAN – CHAAR NUMBER KI BUSS. @naheedmustafa
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“@sepoy Now we are way beyond my pathetic grasp of the language, which doesn’t go past TUM BUSS. @naheedmustafa
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“@NaheedMustafa char number lahore mein pagal khanay jati thi @jonathanshainin
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“oh man can I just endorse everything @sepoy said re: that article [follow his tweets to @jonathanshainin for the full screed]. WTF NYT?
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“I am forcibly reminded of the c.2005 READING LIST OF FAIL titled “The Reporter’s Arab Library” nytimes.com/2005/10/30/boo… (by robert worth, natch)
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“in which, no kidding, “if you read one book about Iraq” it should be Thesiger’s “Arabian Sands”
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“@jonathanshainin points well taken (and Worth wins nadir-title) but @sepoy is right about the problem of the ‘neutral’ frame here
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
As I mentioned to @sepoy yesterday over email (no tweet from this tuti-yi hind), #rorystewart is also 74th on Foreign Policy mag’s hot new list of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers”:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/28/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=0,44#thinker74
Full list here: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/2011globalthinkers
It’s a strange list, really… at first I thought it was going to mean “Global” in the old West n’ Rest sense of “anyone not from US or Europe”, especially after seeing the first 8-10 names were almost all associated with recent Arab revolutions, all tied for the No. 1 spot. But then I see Ben Bernanke. Huh? And Obama… and… and… this can’t be serious… DICK FUCKING CHENEY. And CONDI RICE. And a whole host of other people I would never associate with any sort of intellectualism whatsoever (well, maybe Obama). John McCain at No. 51, AHEAD of Thomas Friedman, and even Mr. Stewart?
Influential, yes. Powerful, most certainly. But thinkers? I think not. W.T.F?