Carl Ernst has added to his course syllabus.
Carl Ernst is the University of North Carolina professor who has included a trip to Jihad Watch in his course syllabus, as an example of “advocacy/attack religious websites.” In this post several days ago I pointed out that Ernst didn’t point a single false statement about Islam or jihad either here at Jihad Watch or in any of my books; instead, he manipulated his students’ judgment by calling me an “Islamophobe” and casting aspersions on my publishers.
I called him on this, not because Ernst is more egregious than the professors who make up the Middle East Studies Association establishment, but because he is typical of the attitudes of that mainstream today. His name-calling and guilt-by-association games manifest utter intellectual bankruptcy on his part, and his course is a good example of the propaganda that passes for academic study all too often these days.
On his syllabus, Ernst says of Jihad Watch (as well as of Front Page Magazine and Campus Watch): “One can consider these sites as critical not only of Islam, but also of Islamic studies as an academic discipline.” But of course this is another false statement. I don’t want to see less academic study of Islam; I want to see more of such study -- along with more honesty, more openness to different perspectives, and more focused analysis of the reasons why genuine Islamic Studies are needed more than ever these days. That is, we need to see courses on jihad, on jihadism, on Islamic supremacism, on dhimmitude. Nary a one, however, exists, anywhere. Ernstian whitewashes rule the day.
Anyway, this second post about this has been occasioned by an addition to Ernst’s syllabus (thanks to Jihad Watch reader James for the heads-up). After being taken to task for offering assertions without evidence and propagandistically manipulating his students’ view instead of helping them form their own judgment, did Ernst finally offer his students some actual reasons why what I say about jihad and Islamic supremacism is false? No, but he did add this sentence to the syllabus -- it wasn’t there a few days ago, when I wrote the first post: “See further the comments by Prof. Daniel Varisco and journalist Jim Lobe on Horowitz’s ‘Islamo-Fascism Week.’” (This is a week we are organizing in mid-October on campuses all over the country, to raise awareness of the global jihad.)
Take a look. Varisco froths at the mouth for paragraph after paragraph, calls Horowitz an “idiotologue” and the week “Islamofascism by and for Idiots week.” High-level academic discourse, this, and Lobe’s is no better: he talks a lot about who’s giving money to whom, and lists Horowitz Center pamphlets as if the names alone show how evil the whole thing is. Maybe they do to some people, but in neither essay is there a single actual statement to the effect that what we are saying about Islam is false. The academic establishment doesn’t work on the basis of reason -- it just smears its opponents, and assumes the sheep will fall into lockstep.
It’s ironic, finally, that Ernst characterizes my earlier writing about him as “angry” and then links to these two unhinged attack dogs on a syllabus for a course at a respected, or once-respected, university.
But such is the state of Middle East Studies these days.
UPDATE: Hugh Fitzgerald offers Carl Ernst’s students a recommended reading list.
