اورلاندو فیگز و قلم زهرآلود ناشناس

این که یک تاریخدان در سایت آمازون و با اسم مستعار کتاب رقیب خود را به تندی نقد کند از چه جهت مشکل آفرین است؟ کیت آنگلهارت این مساله را بررسی‌ می‌کند.

Orlando Figes
A book "Historian" would certainly endorse (Photo by Catherine T under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike licence).

مطالعه موردی

در آوریل ۲۰۱۰، یک مفسر ناشناس با نام مستعار تاریخدان، چند کتاب به تازگی منتشر شده درباره تاریخ اتحادیه جماهیر شوروی را در سایت آمازون (Amazon.co.uk) به تندی نقد کرد.”تاریخدان” کتاب پروفسور ریچل پولنسکی را کاری “پر حجم” و “متظاهرانه” توصیف کرد و آخرین جلد کتاب پروفسور رابرت سرویس را “بی‌ ارزش” و “بسیار بد” خواند. این مفسر در عین حال کتاب “مهم و عالی‌ ”  اورلاندو فیگز، استاد کالج بیربک را مورد ستایش قرار داد.در ایمیل‌های خصوصی‌ای که بین متخصصان این رشته ( از جمله فیگز) ردّ و بدل شد، این ظنّ به وجود آمد که ” تاریخدان” در واقع خود فیگز بوده است. در یکی‌ از این ایمیل ها، پروفسور سرویس این شیوه نقد کردن را ” حملات شخصی‌ نامطلوب به سبک رایج در شوروی” توصیف کرد.

و بدین سان سرو صدای دانشگاهیان در آمد. فیگز قاطعانه اتهامات علیه خود را ردّ کرد و رقیبانش را متهم به تهمت و افترا نمود. او هم چنین به وکیل خود دستور داد که بر علیه پولنسکی،سرویس و سایر انتشاراتی که حدس و گمان‌های این تاریخدانان را منتشر کرده بودند دست به اقدام قانونی‌ بزند. اما هنوز مدتی‌ از تهدیدات قانونی‌ فیگز نگذشته بود که همسر او که یک وکیل است اعتراف کرد که نوشتن انتقادات کار او بوده است. فیگز ظاهراً از ماجرا اظهار بی‌ اطلاعی کرد و با حیرت گفت  : “همان لحظه از موضوع با خبر شده است”.

اما این توجیه نیز به بار ننشست و دیری نپایید که در آوریل ۲۰۱۰، فیگز اعلامیه‌ای منتشر کرد و در آن‌ “مسئولیت تمام و کامل” انتقادات منتشر شده را پذیرفت و از کسانی‌ که به آنان تهمت زده بود عذر خواهی‌ کرد. او هم چنین پذیرفت که خسارت‌هایی‌ را که پولنسکی و سرویس بابت هزینه‌های حقوقی ماجرا متحمل شده بودند  پرداخت کند.

نظر نویسنده

As Polonsky eloquently explained in July 2010, “our cause of action was not the pseudonymous Amazon reviews themselves. Our objectives in pressing this case were to recover the considerable costs we had incurred in fending off Professor Figes’s legal threats…” This is an important distinction. Though his actions were cowardly, petty and unbefitting his distinguished academic title, Orlando Figes had the right to publish reviews of his peers: anonymously or otherwise.

But what of the legal brouhaha that followed? Polonsky and Service both criticised Figes’s hasty resort to legal means: his menacing legal notices and charges of libel. Indeed, Figes’s attempt to turn the law against his rivals appears absurd—but only because he was lying all along.

Our ninth draft principle specifies: “We should be able to counter slurs on our reputations without stifling legitimate debate.” If Figes had been telling the truth—if he was not, in fact, the pseudonymous reviewer—we might be sympathetic to his desperate efforts to protect his professional reputation. It does feel somewhat tragic when academic debate turns litigious. But the right to sue for libel, in appropriate circumstances, must be protected. Figes abused this protection; but this does not, as Service has suggested, mean that the protection is itself unjust.

In fact, Service’s post-debacle commentary is itself troubling. Service has lashedout at the “electronic media that enable the ink to flow from poison pens”. TheGuardian reported that, in a private email to peers, Service noted: “Gorbachev banned [anonymity] from being used in the USSR as a way of tearing up someone’s reputation. Now the grubby practice has sprouted up here.”

I hardly think using technological or Gorbachev-style government measures to quash anonymous discussion is appropriate. Service surely understands that anonymous criticism has, in history, had its rightful place.

- کیت آنگلهارت (Katie Engelhart)

:منتشرشده در آگوست 30, 2012 with بدون دیدگاه print Print

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  1. Antoon De Baets سپتامبر 17, 2012 در 8:24 ق.ظ
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    ANONYMITY IN SCHOLARSHIP SHOULD BE AN EXCEPTION

    Katie Engelhart’s interesting discussion of the negative anonymous reviews of Rachel Polonsky’s and Robert Service’s works by their colleague Orlando Figes takes a curious turn at the end. Service, she writes, noted that Figes’s attitude reminded him of the Soviet practice of personal attacks. Engelhart, though, shrewdly remarks that Figes had the right to publish anonymous reviews, and she rejects Service’s view with the following argument: “Service surely understands that anonymous criticism has, in history, had its rightful place.” This argument is historically and morally untenable.

    Anonymous criticism certainly had a rightful place in history—as a weapon of the weak. When in times past, graffiti and anonymous pamphlets defied the aberrations of power, they were given credit. This is hardly the case here. Figes was not the weaker party: his works are praised as much as those of Polonsky and Service. Anonymity did not serve to shield him from the vengeance of academic power; rather, it was an instrument to improperly hit his professional rivals. From a historical angle, the argument is misplaced.

    Figes had the right to publish anonymous reviews, but as a citizen, not as a professional or as a scholar. As a professional, that is as a publicist, he had no good reason to remain anonymous. Journalism and anonymity go together only in the one widely recognized case of secrecy regarding a source that gives information in confidence. Figes did not protect such a source, he protected himself. As a scholar, that is as a historian, his position is even weaker. Scholarship and secrecy are each other’s enemies. Scholars have to strive for maximal transparency and accountability. Disclosure is the rule, confidentiality the exception. Peer review, if it wants to be anonymous, needs strong justification. In the Figes affair, no such justification was available, and the anonymity was in violation of scholarly deontology. Engelhart’s argument is correct at the level of citizenship only, but if the duties of professionalism and scholarship are taken into account—and they should, as the affair centers on publication and scholarly rivalry—it founders.

    Ironically, in apologizing and redressing the wrongs caused by his action, Figes seemed to accept the above reasoning more than Engelhart does.

    Antoon De Baets

  2. brianpellot سپتامبر 7, 2012 در 11:09 ق.ظ
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    Did RJ Ellory learn nothing from Figes? Another author caught out for trashing colleagues and glorifying his own work on Amazon – http://goo.gl/gP0we

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