10-29-2006, 12:36 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->That the search for origins not only is faulty from a theoretical perspective, but can also be ideologically suspect, became clear to Lincoln when the discussion about Dumezil's far-right views grew lively in the 1980s. Other information that came out during the same time also indicated that the discipline of Indo-European studies had not entirely freed itself from its dark past. The racial-anthropological perspective had more or less disappeared from view in the Indo-European disciplne -- even if Gimbustas described the Indo-Europeans as belonging to the Nordic race, and even if both she and Renfrew believed that the developing area of Genetics would shed new light on the question of the Indo-Europeans' origin. But behind the scenes the situation was different. Most notable is perhaps that no one reacted to the fact that the editor of the world-leading journal for research on the Indo-Europeans, Journal of Indo-European Studies, Roger Pearson, had since the 1950s been "one of America's foremost Nazi apologists and quite clearly a racist with one of the world's best web of contacts." Before Pearson, along with Marija Gimbustas, Edgar C. Polome, and Raimo Anttilla, founded the Journal of Indo-European Studies, he had worked with Hans F. K. Gunther, who had continued to spread his racial doctrines after the fall of the Third Reich. Pearson was also chairman of the American division of the World Anti-Communist League and lobbied in Washington for more funds for defense, the Contras, and the UNITA guerillas. Together with Polome, one of the United States' leading researchers in the area of Germanic religion, he has also published the academic, racist journal the Mankind Quarterly.
In the 1970s, the Mankind Quarterly, which alternates articles about race and genetics with articles about the Indo-Europeans and prehistoric cultures, became a model when one of Europe's leading neo-fascists, Alain de Benoist, founded his own journal called Nouvelle Ecole. In the journal's so called Comite de patronage were, among others, Roger Pearson, Mircea Eliade, the German classicist Franz Altheim (formerly of SS-Ahnenerbe), Marija Gimbustas, Stig Wikander, and the Swedish anthropologist Bertil J Lundman. There was also the Benoist sympathasizer Jean Haudry, who publishes France's foremost journal for Indo-European studies, Etudes indo-europeennes. Some people were probably on the Comite de patronage because they were unaware of its political sympathies, or because they wanted to sun themselves in the flow of great scholarly names; others were there because they supported the neo-Fascist views of the journal. Georges Dumezil was also on the journal's Comite de patronage. But when Benoist in 1972-73 (no. 22-23) published an honorary issue for Dumezil, which made the French press speculate whether Dumezil sympathized with Benoist's neo-Fascism, Dumezil withdrew his support from the journal. In newspaper interviews, he later made it clear that he did not support Benoist's neo-Fascism, at least not without reservations. However, this even triggered the ideologically critical examination of his work that was initiated by Arnoldo Momigliano and Carlo Ginzburg (see the introduction).
The debate around Dumezil, Pearson, Haudry, Indo-European scholarship, and Fascism made Lincoln add his support to those who felt that the Indo-European scene had to be cleaned up. In several articles, Lincoln argued that it could actually be proved that Dumezil's sympathies for French and Italian Fascism had influenced his scientific research of the 1930s. As a consequence of this, Lincoln became more or less persona non grata among the Indo-Europeanists of the United States, and references to his work declined. In the 1990s, Lincoln continued to critically study the history of Indo-European scholarship, which resulted in Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship (2000; a work that would have been very important to the ideas in my study had it been published before the Swedish edition). His studies of Indo-European mythology have now made him question the very belief in an objective historiography, and he sees the scientific search for knowledge as a site for political power struggles. The work of cultural studies is, according to Lincoln, "myth plus footnotes". In one of his latest articles, Lincoln has also chosen to modify the classification system of the history of religions. The myths that he earlier studied as "Indo-European" are now presented as "Eurasian" or as "Indo-European" (in quotation marks). With that, the category of religion that saw the light with Oriental Jones' discovery in 1786 is eliminated.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In the 1970s, the Mankind Quarterly, which alternates articles about race and genetics with articles about the Indo-Europeans and prehistoric cultures, became a model when one of Europe's leading neo-fascists, Alain de Benoist, founded his own journal called Nouvelle Ecole. In the journal's so called Comite de patronage were, among others, Roger Pearson, Mircea Eliade, the German classicist Franz Altheim (formerly of SS-Ahnenerbe), Marija Gimbustas, Stig Wikander, and the Swedish anthropologist Bertil J Lundman. There was also the Benoist sympathasizer Jean Haudry, who publishes France's foremost journal for Indo-European studies, Etudes indo-europeennes. Some people were probably on the Comite de patronage because they were unaware of its political sympathies, or because they wanted to sun themselves in the flow of great scholarly names; others were there because they supported the neo-Fascist views of the journal. Georges Dumezil was also on the journal's Comite de patronage. But when Benoist in 1972-73 (no. 22-23) published an honorary issue for Dumezil, which made the French press speculate whether Dumezil sympathized with Benoist's neo-Fascism, Dumezil withdrew his support from the journal. In newspaper interviews, he later made it clear that he did not support Benoist's neo-Fascism, at least not without reservations. However, this even triggered the ideologically critical examination of his work that was initiated by Arnoldo Momigliano and Carlo Ginzburg (see the introduction).
The debate around Dumezil, Pearson, Haudry, Indo-European scholarship, and Fascism made Lincoln add his support to those who felt that the Indo-European scene had to be cleaned up. In several articles, Lincoln argued that it could actually be proved that Dumezil's sympathies for French and Italian Fascism had influenced his scientific research of the 1930s. As a consequence of this, Lincoln became more or less persona non grata among the Indo-Europeanists of the United States, and references to his work declined. In the 1990s, Lincoln continued to critically study the history of Indo-European scholarship, which resulted in Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship (2000; a work that would have been very important to the ideas in my study had it been published before the Swedish edition). His studies of Indo-European mythology have now made him question the very belief in an objective historiography, and he sees the scientific search for knowledge as a site for political power struggles. The work of cultural studies is, according to Lincoln, "myth plus footnotes". In one of his latest articles, Lincoln has also chosen to modify the classification system of the history of religions. The myths that he earlier studied as "Indo-European" are now presented as "Eurasian" or as "Indo-European" (in quotation marks). With that, the category of religion that saw the light with Oriental Jones' discovery in 1786 is eliminated.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->