Re: Stephen Gould

[Rick Parkany <rparkany@BORG.COM>]

Ah, me, Dr. Casey: *silly & self-indulgent* 60s?

For a minute, there, I thought we were talking present day union
leadership--especially in teachers' trade-unionism. Then I fixed my gaze and
faced the reality of our present discourse--contemporary unionism is *tragic* and
self-indulgent, remembering as I do the devolution of political and social
leadership hard won in mid-century (often to the sound of gunfire and weeping
wives) into self-serving security issues, coopting social and classroom issues
across the public's coffers, and the animal farm-esque *silliness* the rank &
file was subjected to across this demise by the *leadership*...    ;-} rap.

Dr. Leo Casey wrote:

> Yes, George, Gould sees himself as a Marxist. I also would not be surprised
> if he was involved in political activities during the 1960s which, especially
> in retrospect, appear at best silly and self-indulgent. But that doesn't tell
> us anything about the quality of the arguments he makes in _The Mismeasure of
> Man_.
>
> Nor does the fact that the book is, for the most part, a history of science.
> In fact, most all of the works of Gould that I have read are histories of
> science. History does have its place, especially in the study of science --
> would you dispute that it is important to know, for example, how the
> development of concepts of intelligence were enmeshed in concepts of racial
> and class difference, and linked to efforts such as eugenics?
>
> Leo Casey
> United Federation of Teachers
> 260 Park Avenue South
> New York, New York 10010 (212-598-6869)
>
> Power concedes nothing without a demand.
> It never has, and it never will.
> If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
> Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
> want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
> lightening. They want the ocean without the roar of its waters.
> -- Frederick Douglass --
>
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--
"Dein Wachstum sei feste und lache vor Lust!
Deines Herzens Trefflichkeit / hat dir selbst das Feld bereit',
auf dem du bluehen musst." Peasant, Richard A. Parkany: SUNY@Albany
Prometheus Educational Services - http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/
Upper Hudson & Mohawk Valleys; New York State, USA

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