« Best Non-Council Post | Main | Leftist Assaults on Free Speech »

April 15, 2005

"Discover the Network" works

As I mentioned in an earlier post, David Horowitz has created a new website called "Discover the Network" which is a database of left-wing groups and people. It is the best single research tool for this that I have found so far.

I used it yesterday in a debate with a leftist on Dr. Sanity's website. The leftist challenged us to name "anti-America, anti-Democracy" academics. I used "Discover the Network" to list several in my reply. He (or she) was taken aback. It was, I admit, quite satisfying.

Horowitz has a new post on his Frontpagemag site in which he debates a leftist professor, who "has concerns" about Discover the Network:

FP: Prof. Timothy Burke and David Horowitz, welcome to the third and final part of our series on DiscoverTheNetwork.org. Prof. Burke, let me begin with you. What is your assessment of DiscoverTheNetwork? And can you kindly also tell us where you personally stand on members of the left who ally themselves with the enemy in our terror war?

Professor) Burke: On DiscoverTheNetwork, some of my objections have already been ably described by my colleagues. Let me mention a few of my greatest concerns.

First, I think the entire project has an almost non-existent sense of what represents a “linkage” between two separate individuals. This is the bread and butter art of intellectual or political history, the major question in the study of social networks. What is minimally needed to claim a serious or substantial connection between two people in terms of ideas they share, institutional projects they are both contributing to, influences they exert on one another? Whether you’re talking about a connection across time (some individual in the past influencing some individual at a later time) or space (some individual in one society or community influencing another), you have to define what you regard as a meaningful connection, stick to that definition, and provide evidence of it. ...

Horowitz: Professor Burke begins with a series of insults – as seems to be the norm for leftists, particularly when discussing issues with conservatives whose work they have not read. But underneath the unearned scorn poured forth in Professor Burke’s first two paragraphs lies an interesting point, in fact the only interesting point that has surfaced in the three conversations so far.

If I could rephrase this point for Professor Burke, it would be that DiscoverTheNetwork doesn’t articulate the rationale for the linkages it makes on the site in a fashion explicit enough to make clear to him and leftists like him what the rationale might be for its construction. (I notice I have received no such critiques of the linkages on DiscoverTheNetwork from conservatives of whatever persuasion. Nor have any liberals for that matter found the categories in the site suspect let alone risible.) In Professor Burke’s view – respectfully rephrased -- DiscoverTheNetwork identifies networks but doesn’t explain why anyone who shares the assumptions and prejudices of the left should take them seriously
Read the whole thing.

Posted by Tom at April 15, 2005 9:55 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.theredhunter.com/mt/refer.cgi/356

Comments

Post a comment




Remember Me?

(you may use HTML tags for style)