“American Radical”: Norman Finkelstein Movie in 2009

Yes, the director and producers are David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier, the former is Canadian, an independent filmmaker but his main job is at Canadian Broadcasting Corporation–which is interesting in itself as Norm delights in ranting against the CBC, but then panders to one of their employees for his film. At one time I supported this fellow, Norman, and wrote defenses for his tenure. After getting to know him personally,I found out he is not what he is cracked up to be. It was quite disappointing. Unlike other academics that suffer greatly for their political beliefs, I have figured out that was not our Norm’s problem. It was his arrogance, hypocrisy and lack of collegiality why he got fired from every job he had and he gloats in it. Yes, collegiality should not be a determining factor of an academic’s performance. But truth be told in political science, as opposed to the humanities, just producing books is not enough you must publish peer reviewed journal articles, which he did not. He will tell you he does not want to be paid for his beliefs, but he does from every lecture he gives. Yes, he should be paid, but at least not lie about it. People who have supported him, he backbites and when they ask for support in return, he will do just enough to get by and then complain about having to serve them. He is a poor excuse as a human being. If it were not for Professors Chomsky and Edward Said, who were his readers on his dissertation at Princeton, in addition, on his account, finally finding a sympathetic advisor, he would not have obtained his PhD. Although I find Dershowitz’s beliefs despicable and contrary to mine, Normie did not pick his battle well in the end albeit his debatorial performance was superb on Democracy Now. In the trailer you state that he appears fanatical and confused, I would say rather that he knows exactly what he is doing and is sociopathic, demoniacal and a promoter. He makes his living off the misfortune of Palestinians and most recently after his trip in Gaza he has drummed up with other activists a campaign to free the seige in Gaza–which I think is outstanding–but the killer is he has the audacity to put his mug on the front of a website poster announcing the January1, 2010 event.

Thank you Maximilian for your reply. I am going to address each of these points you have made.

1) If Finkelstein was denied tenure because he did not publish-in reality means re-publish–articles in obscure journals rather than very widely received books, then the tenure commitee was staffed by asses.

Response: As you have not indicated if you are an academic, and if you are you are not familiar with the tenurial process. What I understand from a colleague in Italy, they are subject to the same practices. I will preface this discussion that I come from a family of university academics, including myself. A close family member sits on the Tenure Committee Board at a prestigious research university. For the social sciences, such as psychology, sociology, and political sciences, yes peer reviewed journal articles are preferable over books. This is not to say books from university presses (that Norman has) do not count, but articles carry more weight. Humanities, less so, but even in History all your historians worth their salt have their fair share of peer reviewed articles in addition to books. You can say, paraphrasing you, “it is a sewer system”, lest we forget academia works similarly to a corporate business plays by certain rules (functional theory). If you enter it you have to play the game, however inhumanely despicable it is, or exit. Even Normie refers to the farcical combination of academic freedom and the tenure bid.

Although Professor Chomsky has turned social activist in his later years, he was a linguistic theorist and I read his work in journal articles long before his activism. As for Said, he is in the humanities where books and date of published research are less considered a critical issue–the natural sciences and social sciences are much more concerned with the currency of the articles written.

2) I also NEVER heard of anyone being fired for “arrogance” “hypocrisy” because if that were the norm, assuming we can agree on who is an arrogant hypocrite, then many university departments would be suddenly vacated.

Response: Edit out hypocrisy as that rightly belongs more into my criticism of him as an activist. Again, it is about playing the game, you can rewrite the rules of tenure, but it is not acceptable to insult staff members, ones who do your clerical work for you. Until you obtain tenure, you have to have a big smile on your face, how hypocritical and disgusting it is, you ask even a friend of mine, who was a high school teacher labor organizer. He is antithetical to being a “brown nose”, but until he received his tenure he had to pass students who later he never would have but he needed the money. It doesn’t seem to me Norm was an independently wealthy man where he could act as an aristocrat. He reportedly called a staff member a “bitch”. Now, maybe she was conducting herself in a shrewish manner, but if he is genuinely concerned about tenure he has to hold his tongue. But even if you dispute that he ever used this chauvenist appelation towards a staff member, Norm does have a sexist way about him as I personally have read comments he has written to me about women. Your criticisms are much more respected if you are contained within deconstructing their ideological bias rather than supplementing them with ad hominem comments, albeit tempting about their gender. Again, if one is not interested one’s tenure bid, this is cool, but Norman, at the time was, so do not whine and complain later. He should have at least tried to repair any misunderstandings with the three members of his minority review in order to stave off Dershowitz’s vicious onslaught and collaboration with these dissenting peers. .

As for the collegiality issue, this is code for groupthink and submitting to the standard piety. Again I refer you to the tenurial process. I had one friend, untenured professor that could not bear the
hypocritical niceties of being a team player and serving on academic committees she opted out.
“Offense if taken more than it is given, and attending to other people’s emotional states should not be Finkelstein’s homework”
My response is why should a colleague or staff member have to put up with his snarly attitude either. By Norman’s own admission, he used to be a surly and insecure man. As my doctoral advisor told me once and I pass these words of wisdom on “we are all in the same life boat” meaning we have to respect each other whether at the time we feel inclined to. Evidently, Norm chose not to.

“He makes his living off the misfortune of Palestinians”…should we ignore their misfortune altogehter, so as to not be accussed of “using it”.
Yes, this is not an observation that I singularly invented. There have been criticisms on his website and ones he has implied in print. Initially, I wholeheartedly defended him against what I deemed as ostensibly trollish remarks, but have come to learn I was incorrect. This is where my issue of his hypocrisy comes into play. He states righteously that he does not earn any money off his beliefs contrary to what is posted about him on the Internet, but I know personally he does. Second, if you are genuine about a cause would you not first feature a media announcement of Gazan children in need than your own mug shot (his face) . Come on???? The height of narcissism, on his part. If you have been to Gaza and West Bank it is heartbreaking and these children need to be exposed in print rather than a high profile political scientist.
Maxmillian, I regret that first hand I know about this person more than I want to know. Dealing with him professionally ,he treats fellow academics as well as myself, who are in solidarity with him, in a disdainful manner. If he is not granted center stage on a panel,he is not content. But in the instances when he is upstaged, he turns suddenly humble. I get the impression he makes incriminating commments based solely on subjectivity.

My criticism of Finkelstein will not drive me to the other side and obsequiously defend Dershowitz, this is clearly against the integrity of my character. But on other hand, I cannot uphold a person who, in spite of his beliefs being congruent with my own, is disingenuous at his core.

While I am not an academic and must bow to those who know Prof. Finkelstein personally with regard to his character, it changes nothing, in my view, as to why he was denied tenure in his last position. My understanding is that the faculty and student council of DePaul University strongly endorsed Finkelstein’s tenure and that he appears to have been turned down for purely political reasons. The American Jewish/Israeli lobby, having been stirred up by Dershowitz, who was so soundly humiliated by Finkelstein in their debate, represents vast amounts of potential contributions to American universities, DePaul appears to have caved in like wet cardboard.

Anyone know when this film will be released?

Don’t feed the trolls, or plants, I should say in this case. I still want to know more about the people involved in this. Anyone?

It seems a pity that points made by academics seem always to be hidden in a vast plethora of words, more semantics than statements. Thus causing the eyes of the uneducated, such as myself, to glaze over long before the gist of the matter becomes totally clear. Could it be that Professor Finkelstein rankles academia by his forthright pros his determination to call a spade a spade.

Prof. Finkelstein states what the vast preponderance of the world’s countries, USA excepted of course, understand only to well; that Israel is a rogue state, that when originally formed immediately drove 800,000 Palestinian inhabitants from their land and their country. A rogue state that has started a war virtually every decade since the 50’s and is in continual contravention of International Law and UN Resolutions. A rogue state, with what is considered to be the fifth most powerful army in the world, which describes an attack upon a virtually unarmed ghetto, Gaza, as a war.

Professor Finkelstein calls it as he sees it, and, being Jewish himself, can hardly be written off as an Anti-Semitic. One can barely imagine how thoroughly disconcerting this must be for the US Zionist/Israeli lobby, a lobby that apparently wields such incredible power and influence in the United States.