[Peace-discuss] Feisal G. Mohamed and Cary Nelson debate what’s at stake in the Salaita affair

[Carl G. Estabrook via Peace-discuss]

http://chronicle.com/article/A-Growing-Hunt-for-Heretics-/148589/

Nelson: "...Meaning is not stable and ultimately decidable, so the battle over what Salaita’s tweets mean in an ultimate sense is largely futile. And no one can be certain what Salaita intended with his tweets. But one can track how people experience them and what their social, cultural, and political impact is. And on those grounds, several tweets cross the line into anti-Semitism."

Deciding what Salaita's tweets mean "is largely futile" and "no one can be certain what Salaita intended," but if some people (like large donors) "experience them" as anti-Semitic, he can be fired?

It would be hard to find arguments as silly as that within 20th century totalitarianisms. It's the absurd if vicious end of Postmodernism.

--CGE