NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/soc/history/10434

Text File | 1992-12-29 | 5.7 KB | 121 lines

Newsgroups: soc.history
Path: sparky!uunet!noc.near.net!news.cs.brandeis.edu!binah.cc.brandeis.edu!RATH
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: jefferson question
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (USENET News System)
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Organization: Brandeis University
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>,<[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 03:58:09 GMT
Lines: 108

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Brian Douglass) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Brian Douglass) writes:
>>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Corbett Ray Rowell) writes:
>>>>
>>>>    Please email [e-mail]
>>>>    Sorry about spelling errors, modem is acting up.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Selected excerpts from Douglas Wilson's article on Jefferson in the
>>>November 1992 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.
>>
>>I found tyhe order in which you presented this as possibly misleading.
>
>Who the hell asked you?!

It was posted in an interactive public forum. Had you wished no one
but the person addressed to see it, you might have e-mailed them,
as they requested.

>Did you read Wilson's article?  I did, and for
>everyone's edification, the excerpts were in EXACTLY the same order as the
>author, Douglas Wilson wrote them.  The original poster asked for information
>on the supposed affair between Jefferson and Hemings, I presented Wilson's
>article as a source that such an affair is generally considered nonexistent
                                  ^^^^^^
>by Jefferson scholars.  A daliance perhaps, but not affair.  And where I
                           ^^^^^^^^              ^^^^^^^^^^
>deleted things it was simply to remove digressions and elongations.  And you
>will notice that I used continuation marks so that anyone who wants could
>trace my deletions.
>
>If you found my excerpting misleading, why didn't you fill in the
>continuations?  Perhaps because you never had the article and/or never read
>it?
Congratulations on reading an article.  I wrote on the basis of what
you posted.
I was not criticizing your excerpting of the article, but the order it was
presented in.  As you so eloquently statre, it was the author who ordered
it so, not you.  Thus the problem I have is with the author, not you.


"Affair:"--an illicit amorous relationship or liason. {duration not
    specified}                            ^^^^^--see below
"Dal[l]iance"--sexual toying or flirtation.


>
>>The substantive disagreement most scholars are talking about is with
>>Brodie's assertion that the liason was long-term and happy, not with whether
>>or not it happened.
>
>Ala this excerpt:
>". . .  And whereas there are grounds for suspecting a liaison, such as the
                                                        ^^^^^^^
It seems your author would be more inclined to call it an affair than
a dalliance.  He would most likely say that there is not enough solid
evidence available at the moment to say for certain either way.  I'll go read
through that article and you go read the dictionary through.  when your
done, lets talk some more. til then I'd rather not.  I hope the person
who originally requested the information got the point of my message.
It was not meant as an attack, but rather as a reservation I hold with
the author *of the quoted material's* method of making an argument.

>terms of Jefferson's will and the testimony of Hemings son Madison, there are
>no grounds whatever for believing in what Brodie called the "private happiness"
>enjoyed by Jefferson and Hemings.
>
>I think this states very clearly that the question is not did they do
>something, but the question of "private happiness" and a long running
>liaison.

That is why I brought it up to the top from its position as a throwaway
line buried in the middle of the last paragraph.
>
>>By shifting the focus over to Brodie instead of Jefferson and bashing a
>>marginal argument decisively, the author of the excerpts
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
       As you and I are both full aware, you are not the author.
That is why I wrote "of the excerpts" and not "of the post."

>>seems to discredit by association the whole argument.
>
>Look, dip-sh*t, I didn't propose anything.  I merely repeated a very
>respected Jefferson scholar's writings on the Hemings question, and tried to
>show his theory that what many accept as common knowledge, is dismissed by
>those who study Jefferson for a living.  For instance this excerpt:
>
>"That is pure speculation.  Because Brodie's thesis deals in such unwarranted
>assumptions, the great Jefferson biographer Dumas Malone regarded it as
>'without historical foundation.'"
>
>You want to argue with someone, argue with Wilson, or Malone for that
>matter (is he even still alive?).
>
>>TJ's relations w/Sally Hemings, and whether or not they produced a child, are
>>still discussedby scholars, and even "college teachers"--who might
>>nonetheless be dismayed by Brodie's wor.
>
>Fine.  You can take it up with Wilson at Monticello at the conference.  And
>if you'd read the f*ckin' article you'd realize that Wilson's whole point in
>discussing the Brodie affair was the pervasive Presentism now afflicting
>historical figures, in particular Jefferson.

Thank you for your even-handed and scholarly summary of the article.
Vocabulary and reading comprehension need work, though.  Unwarranted
personal attacks are about par for
the course--say, you don't drive in Boston do you?