Reply to Dr. Schott

Dear Dr. Schott, 

This is in reply to your email to me which I reproduce for the benefit of
the list:

Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 14:53:52 -0500 (EST) 
From: Thomas S Schott <tschott+@pitt.edu> 
To: Louis Proyect <lnp3@panix.com> 
Subject: Re: Japan bombs New Mexico

i feel bombarded by your many postings. i feel it's too many. i would
dislike leaving the list because i'm bombarded. sincerely,  a many-year
subscriber

===========

Now, Dr. Schott, it is a little difficult for me to understand why a
tenured professor would use the lower case for the word "I". The last time
I saw such an affectation was in the 1960s among flower children. Were you
one? Now turning to more germane matters. You may have a point that my
communiqués from the front have no business on the WSN network, which does
bill itself in the following terms:

"WSN is an electronic conferencing network and information source for
scholars and researchers who are studying world-systems. The purpose of WSN
is to facilitate the sharing of information about research, data,
publications, announcements, meetings, syllabi, commentary, book reviews,
scuttlebut and etc."

I have to admit that this has very little interest to me. Although I am not
a professor, I do write for journals occasionally and have a piece on the
Blackfoot Indians from a world systems perspective (Eric Wolf's more
particularly) in the latest "Organization and Environment." But generally
this WSN statement of purpose smacks of academic elitism. I am surprised
that anybody associated with a discipline as radical sounding as world
systems would be such a mandarin, but perhaps the problem is that there is
nothing very revolutionary about teaching courses in 14th century history
after all.

Turning to your resume, you say:

"My research accounts for the global institutionalization of science and
technology and the organization of research in local, national and
globe-spanning networks.

"This research has been funded by grants from Denmark, Sweden, Israel,
Brazil and USA, especially NSF, and by the World Bank (see list of
publications and article on the web in vol. 4 of the Journal of World
Systems Research)."

Now I wonder what kind of scholar who operated in the tradition of such
extremely radical thinkers like Wallerstein and Frank would receive funds
from the World Bank. I can't imagine that when Frank was writing all those
books on the plunder of Latin America that he received that kind of
funding. I suspect that within the bailiwick of World Systems, there are
all sorts of enterprises going on, including those that don't challenge
existing power relations at all. Here is a graf from a paper you have
archived in the Journal of World Systems Research:

"The first column in Table 16 shows that self-reliance in the deferential
ties is far higher in North America than in any other region. The second
column shows that North American research is also especially self-reliant
in the network of susceptibility to influence from various regions. North
American scientists are also more locally reliant in their emulation of
peers than scientists in any other region. The fourth column shows that
North American scientists are also especially locally reliant in their
desire for recognition from peers. Across the networks, as indicated by the
mean listed in the last column, North American research is considerably
more self-reliant than the research in any other region. This evidence
corroborates the hypothesis that the center is especially self-reliant..."

Isn't it fair to say that this is just a banal exercise directed to the
academy? How is the world changed by sterile number-crunching of this type?
I think the problem of social equality, including that of scientists in
third world countries, is very real, but that won't change because of your
paper, will it? In fact, everything about your career seems like a
conscious avoidance of genuine problems of social inequality.

Your resume states that your interests include coaching soccer. My
suggestion to you is that you investigate ways in which you might impact
the world besides kicking a ball around. There is a peace group at the
University of Pittsburgh, whose activists could link you up with emergency
actions. I can even give you some names. In the meantime, keep your advice
about what to post to WSN to yourself.

Louis Proyect


Louis Proyect
(http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)