----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Rod Hay notes that Reder in is article "did not document actual anti-Semitic remarks [by Hayek] but neither did he document the positive acts in defense of jews that he did for Schumpeter and Keynes." Rod has narrowed like a laser beam on perhaps the most highly serious and even chilling aspect of the whole episode -- the fact that Reder link Hayeks to a group of rather nasty anti- semities on the basis of essentially no visible scholarship. Reder makes it clear that he knows at least a bit of the literature on Keynes and Schumpeter, and that he's looked at some section of their private letters and papers. There is no evidence in Reder's article other than the citation of a _SINGLE_ 1978 interview only _very partially_ republished in Kresge's _Hayek on Hayek_ that Reder has looked in any way at the large literature on & by Hayek, or that he is familiar in the slightest degree with Hayek's private letters and papers -- indeed, there is not even any hint that Reder is aware of what Hayek has published on matters closely tied to the topic of Reder's article, for example, Hayek's writings on his part Jewish second cousin Ludwig Wittgenstein. As I've stated elsewhere, when the matter is one of whether or not to label someone an anti-Semite -- and to group a person with a set of rather nasty anti-Semites -- someone had better meet a very high level of scholarship, proof & care -- at least as high as the level of moral opprobrium which would go with the labeling. And in my judgment Reder has not come close to meeting this standard. Rod also remarks that "I did not read Reder as claiming that Hayek was an anti-Semite but that he shared many of the stereotypes of the period." One of the most disturbing things about Reder's article vis-a-vis Hayek is the degree to which it trades in guilt by insinuation and association -- within Reder's section on Hayek he includes a bit of evidence of some nasty anti-Semitism on the part of some University of Vienna faculty members. He then immediately _summarizes the chapter_ with the with words "the anti-Semitic remarks reported above", subtly sweeping Hayek into the same net with the nasty anti-Semitism of these U. of Vienna faculty members. The effect of the article is to repeatedly do essentially this same thing time and again -- moving freely back and forth between such expressions as "anti-Semitic", "(ambivalent) anti-Semitism", "anti-semitism", "ideological-ethnic bias", and "distaste for Jews", etc. -- leaving the overall impression that what we are we are dealing with in different forms is anti-Semitism by some anti-Semites, with Hayek fitting right in the mix. Reder implies that Hayek fits right in the mix with Keynes and Schumpeter, building the theory of a set of anti-Semites and a form of anti-Semitism engendered by "the absence [on the part of these anti-Semites] of a 'need to mind manners' .. stem[ing] from the confident (and correct) belief that few Jews with whom they wished to maintain amicable relations would not take umbrage at even overt breaches of good manners." Reder speaks of his Keynes and Schumpeter as having power relations over the jews they disparaged, and of the jews in their purview having no alternative than the power structure these men controlled for the pursuit of their own intellectual and career aspirations. But there are more than a few ways that Hayek DOESN'T fit right in with Keynes and Schumpeter, beyond the more obvious fact that Hayek belongs to a completely different generation. In Hayek's case, when he came to maturity, it was von Mises (a jew) in the power position within Hayek's employment situation. Similarly 23 of the 26 members of the Mises seminar were Jewish -- and this was the circle that Hayek prized intellectually. Likewise, Hayek's _own_ intellectual seminar (the "spirit" circle), which he also highly prized, was composed predominately of Jewish students and intellectuals. When Hayek left for London, it was Hayek as much as anyone else who was an outsider -- and made to feel one by people in powerful positions (including the Prime Minister of Great Britain). If Reder had met even the minimal demands of good scholarship, he would either have been aware of all this, or he would have included these significant differences in his account. Greg Ransom ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]