John Mearsheimer is no stranger to controversy. In the summer of 2007 Mearsheimer and his Harvard colleague Stephen A. Walt published The Israel Lobby in which they argued that lobbyist groups that were pro-Israeli were exerting undue influence over American foreign policy. Mearsheimer and Walt were charged with Anti-Semitism, which was a charge I found really out of place. The arguments they made were that Israel is not a country that should receive disproportionate aid from the United States, and that Israel should not be allowed to be free of criticism. This is most decidedly not anti-Semitism; its a legitimate criticism. But this didn't stop a firestorm from brewing around the book. During my time working with people in the Political Science department I heard the debate go on and on. People who worked with Mearsheimer swore up and down that he wasn't an anti-semite. People like Alan Dershowitz begged to differ. And on it went.
Then, this year, Mearsheimer wrote a blurb for Gilad Atzmon's book The Wandering Who? which has generated significant criticism in its one right. The student newspaper at the University of Chicago, The Maroon, published a letter written by Dershowitz in which he cites, at length, some of Atzmon's more despicable rants. At issue seems to be that Atzmon's writings, beyond his newly published book, are riddled with some fairly controversial statements and that Mearsheimer was simply not careful when he chose to blurb Atzmon's book. As a matter of fact, Mearsheimer has come out and said
I was asked to review Atzmon's book and see whether I would be willing to blurb it. This is something I do frequently, and in every case I focus on the book at hand and not on the personality of the author or their other writings. In other words, I did not read any of Atzmon's blog postings before I wrote my blurb. And just for the record, I have not met him and did not communicate with him before I was asked to review The Wandering Who? I read only the book and wrote a blurb that deals with it alone.He chose to focus only on the book in question and has explicitly denied any knowledge of Atzmon's other works. The issue I have with this defense is that it raises serious questions about anyone's responsibility when reviewing and endorsing someone else's work. How much should one scholar know about an author before he or she choses to endorse their work? Is there some minimum standard that must be met? Certainly people rarely agree completely either with a work they endorse or with the author who wrote that book. But is it one thing to disagree about somethings, like political views or philosophy, and another when it comes to prejudicial views?
Certainly, there is a standard in academia to avoid ad hominem argumentation and to, instead, deal with the ideas at hand. But is this always responsible to ignore an author's previous works and views in favor of remaining focused on the writing at hand? I can't speak to the quality of Atzmon's book itself- I have not, nor do I have a desire to, read it. But the entire controversy has raised questions for me about how much scrutiny individuals should be under when they choose to read and represent others. The banner of "academic freedom" has been flying for quite some time, and it has continuously found itself under fire. I think academic freedom is important, but I also think personal responsibility is important.
I'm not a fan of Mearsheimer's work. I'm actually not a fan of his theoretical framework. And now, I can't say I'm a fan of Mearsheimer's judgement. Beyond this, I have never actually read or heard Mearsheimer say anything anti-semitic. I have, however, seen him now exercise some fairly questionable choices in what he wants to endorse. But I have to thank Mearsheimer for one thing. He's made me think much more carefully about what it means to endorse a work and how much I should know about the author of that work before I chose to say anything publicly about it.
