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  • Greek Ethnography in the Age of Ethical Formalism
  • Vassilis Lambropoulos

I know of no literary critics or cartographers who protested the catachrestic use of the words “poetics” and “topographies” by Michael Herzfeld and Artemis Leontis, respectively, in the titles of their books. Neither do I recall any archeologists or grammarians correcting terminological misunderstandings created by Foucault’s “archeology” or Derrida’s “grammatology.” Thus I did not expect that my use of an anthropological term would be misconstrued, especially given the explicit and emphatic disassociation of “ethnography” from anthropology in my recent paper. However, since Loring Danforth has responded with an apologia pro domo suo, I am forced to repeat myself by reassuring him that the paper was not a “serious critique of the work done by anthropologists in the field of Modern Greek Studies.” On the contrary, I largely share Danforth’s positive evaluation of his discipline’s contribution to our field and hope for anthropology’s continued influence on other disciplines. I trust that this statement can help him leave this non-issue behind.

Danforth seems equally worried that support for Modern Greek might adversely affect the study of Turkish and Slav heroes or of Egyptian and Navajo cultures. Obviously, since I said nothing in my paper about these topics, I consider this another non-issue. If it helps alleviate his fears, though, I shall be glad to reassure him that I, too, find these areas worthy of study and see no reason why those working in them should not also look for exemplary accomplishments. But I am puzzled by Danforth’s disposition to conflate my reference to Greek “exemplary accomplishments” with a claim of Hellenic superiority. I hope he has not ceded the word “Hellenism” to fanatics and that therefore he is not inclined, with reverse fanaticism, to suspect of nationalism anybody who is using that word. Unfortunately, Danforth’s unwarranted fears about such non-issues made him miss completely the direction of my argument, and so fall into the trap of ethnography. When I criticized ethnography for both its ethical formalism and its focus on minority rights, instead of contradicting myself I was simply pointing out the dialectical impasse of that approach. Danforth’s response proves that indeed the two attitudes presuppose, rather than contradict, each other: a scholarly engagement with identity politics can only follow a disengagement of scholarship from ethical politics. For example, when he wants to convince us that he is “deeply committed” to Modern Greek Studies, he states that “our primary obligation is to produce good scholarship,” thus reiterating Max Weber’s famous position in his lecture “Wissenschaft/Science as a Vocation” (1918) on the “impossibility of ‘scientifically’ pleading for practical and interested stands.” If that were the case, however, why is Danforth taking pride in the establishment of a Committee for Human Rights (1995) by the AAA (an action so belated that The New York Times considered it newsworthy)? Why is producing “good scholarship” our “primary obligation” to Modern Greek but not to human rights? Conversely, is it possible to apply “scientific pleading” to human rights but not to Modern Greek? If Danforth can campaign for the rights of others, why is he so adamantly refusing to campaign “on behalf of Modern Greek Studies programs”? My reflections on the “moral sentimentalism” of ethnographic research were prompted by similar applications of this double standard. Since the generation of Weber and Simmel, scholars who accept as their single [End Page 189] responsibility “good scholarship,” sharply differentiating it from all other kinds of obligation, feel an urgent need to become advocates after coming under fire (from Cultural Studies and other multiculturalists, in the recent case of anthropology) or experiencing liberal guilt for their professional and intellectual disinterestedness.

As indicated in the short bibliography of my paper, the voluminous critique of rights from Karl Marx to Alasdair MacIntyre (including contributions by Critical Legal Studies, African-American Studies, political theory, ethics, feminism, and economics) has shown that, instead of practicing an ethical commitment, rights advocates presuppose and confirm the functional differentiation of scholarship and its renunciation of ethico-political responsibility. Fundamentally what is at work here is the same crude dialectic that, in the name of difference...

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