Re: Davidow on "Transmigrations"

[S. Naomi Finkelstein <bear...>]

genug is genug! nu?
naomi








On Thu, 3 Apr 1997, Solidarity Foundation wrote:

> 
> On Thu Apr 3 07:56:09 1997, Dan Kazez wrote:
> 
> > Poor Wolf Krakowski has shot himself in the foot. Krakowski's rebuttal to
> > Ari's review reads like the ravings of a lunatic. Knowing nothing of the
> > situation, but seeing Ari (who I don't know personally) publicly skewered,
> > allow me to lend a strong vote of confidence to Ari.
> 
> Let me state clearly at the outset, I don't know Dan Kazez, I don't know
> Ari Davidov, I don't know Wolf Krakowski, I haven't heard Wolf Krakowski's
> CD, I haven't ever heard one note of Wolf Krakowski's music, and I haven't
> read Ari Davidow's review.
> 
> I have, however, read Wolf Krakowski's rebuttal to Davidov's review, and I've
> read Dan Kazez's defense of Davidov.
> 
> Despite the lack of context, reading Krakowski's rebuttal did bring me one
> definite conclusion: the place of the critic on the Internet is different
> from that of the critic in the print media, because on the Internet the
> subject of the review has as much access to the medium, and thus to the
> reading public, as the critic. In other words, the roles are reversible:
> the critic can be judged as a performer by a performer acting as a critic.
> The public can be the judge.
> 
> That's why I don't think it's very helpful for members of the audience to
> "take sides" "knowing nothing of the situation." A "vote of confidence" is
> beside the point. This isn't to be handled like a political issue. 
> Krakowski's rebuttal, while strongly worded, does not read "like the
> ravings of a lunatic." It raises issues of real substance which are
> recognizable as leitmotifs in the cultural debates that have been going on
> within the Ashkenazic Jewish world for the last 50 years. Whether these
> issues really have any connection with Davidov's response to Krakowski's
> CD I don't know at this point. But I think we ought to find that out before
> coming to any conclusions. And by the way, coming to a conclusion, or at
> least formulating questions, does not necessarily mean taking one person's
> side or the other. We are perfectly capable of coming to independent 
> conclusions, that some points are valid and some are hot air, no matter
> which side they come from.
> 
> Itzik-Leyb Volokh (Jeffrey Wollock)
>