*Meta EDIT
Sorry m8, didn't see you edit in more stuff, not ignoring your points
That's pretty much an appeal to consequence / appeal to emotion right there. If he writes something then it's just a book. If a whole discipline implodes because of him just writing a book, that's their problem, not his.
Of course it's their problem, that's why I bring it up. He can fire and forget as many things, he's one more missile fired at the fragile pillar of muh grecoroman anime studies.
Anyway they're all stuffy old academics, it's not your normal shtick to give a damn about their cosy little theories. I'm skeptical that you of all people are suddenly feeling bad for some academics who've had their ivory tower rattled.
I was lucky to go to one of the last schools offering Latin & Classics on the curriculum, from all I've seen of it it's not an ivory tower of stuffy old academics. You know me, I despise the lot! :
D
Classics though, Jesus, it's not an ivory tower of aloof intellectuals. That tower fell down a long time ago and the underfunded remnants of starving students are scurrying through the rubble trying not to be swept away by the wind. It's a grim situation for all involved really, it's like God - a fragile thing, as strong as those who uphold it.
Also note that I've read Bernal's book, and at no point does he cite "large scale Egyptian colonization of the Aegean". So any disproof of that would seem to be a red herring / straw man. The Bernal critics suffer from one main flaw - they're often debunking stuff he never wrote rather than taking apart his actual argument. And the stuff they're debunking is often completely at odds with what is in his books.
Forget large scale, the critic was bringing up the point that there is no evidence of any colonization or interest in colonization from the Ancient Egyptians in the Aegean
e.g. the writer I cited above showed the Egyptians weren't black and and says "Bernal was wrong" despite ... "Black Egyptians" not having the slightest thing to do with anything Bernal wrote.
The criticism that Bernal was deliberately interpreting myths or legends wrong (portraying Danaus as the founder of Argos for example?), the criticism that Bernal used legend or myth as evidence in lieu of evidence (Cadmus bringing the alphabet far before we know the alphabet appears), Edith Hall talking of the historical approach to myth being outdated by the 19th century, James Weistein criticizing him for relying on his own interpretations of myths instead of evidence e.t.c., I don't see this addressed at all.
Also just to further stress, I do not hate education. As a matter of fact, I think it is one of the most important institutions we have. Police, Armies, Governments and Medical Services fix problems when it's too late - the damage is done. Schools fix problems before they are problems. Nor for that matter do I really have a disdain for ivory tower intellectualism, I value knowledge for knowledge's sake, I don't see why a philosopher has to justify a practical utilization of their vocation to exist, and it saddens me to see them serving as coffee baristas. I only have distaste for those smug few desirous of elitist consolidation, of families running dynasties of favoured children going to schools whose fees outstrip the salaries of multiple families. I feel bad when disciplines die, as I am learned to appreciate them :/
Those aren't good reasons to never question orthodoxy.
What orthodoxy existed?
Even Bernal's harshest critics concede that he was right about how scholarship got to that point.
Nobody ever questions the stuff he wrote about the "white washing" of Greek history that happened from the 18th-late 19th centuries because they know that they wouldn't have a leg to stand on if they questioned what he wrote about that. And that's what about 2/3rds of his book is all about. So in other words, the vast bulk of what he wrote about how academia got to that state using dodgy logic isn't the part they try and refute.
Then call me the utmost harshest critic then because I call into question his use of anachronism especially regarding the 18th century, when it was the mid-19th century to mid-20th century that saw the birth of racialist discourse. Likewise it is easy to argue that many of the Academic Europeans of the mid-19th century were racist Orientalists, because there is an abundance of evidence pointing to that and was in discourse decades before Bernal published this book. So what are Academics going to address, something which in all likelihood they agree with because they studied it in critical theory classes when they were fresh 20 somethings, or the evidence-less assertion that Greek civilization is born from Egypt?
Often they try and tar him with guilt by association - e.g. pointing out that what other people say is wrong, then implicate Bernal merely because he's on the same "side" despite him not actually espousing their views - or debunk things which he in fact clearly stated the opposite - in the intro to the first volume of the book he mentions that he doesn't believe that Egyptians were black, yet "black egyptians" is cited in articles like the one I linked above as something he "got wrong". Did that writer even read his book?
What is this with black Egyptians? Answering the criticisms of fools is no substitute for answering criticism!
Or the "lack of widespread Egyptian settlements" argument, when in fact the vast bulk of his firrst book, when it's not talking about the 18th-19th century scholarship stuff, is in fact centered on the possibility of Hyksos settlements in Greece. And the Hyksos are categorically not Egyptians. Yet somehow they manage to write whole articles and books "debunking" him without ever mentioning the Hyksos at all. How can they not mention that at all when it's basically his central theory?
His central theory is that "the native population of Greece had initially been civilized by Egyptian and Phoenician colonists and that additional Near Eastern culture had been introduced to Greece by Greeks studying in Egypt and Southwest Asia. Moving beyond these prevailing models, Bernal proposes a Revised Ancient Model, which suggests that classical civilization in fact had deep roots in Afroasiatic cultures."
*EDIT
Mfw found out just now Bernal is an ancient academic dude born pre-War who graduated Harvard, Cambridge, Kings and Berkley
Ivory tower intellectuals strike again
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