史学家在亚马逊网站匿名恶评对手的书籍到底有什么不妥？Katie Engelhart探讨了这出悲喜剧衍伸出来的问题。
2010年4月，一位神秘的评论家以假名”历史学家”开始在亚马逊网路书店针对新出版的苏维埃历史书籍发表苛刻的评论。 “历史学家”认为蕾切尔·波隆斯基教授（Rachel Polonsky）的作品“晦涩”又“做作”; 罗伯特·谢伟思（Robert Service）教授最新著作是“垃圾”、“烂书一本”。同时，这位评论家热情赞美伯贝克学院教授奥兰多·费吉斯（Orlando Figes）的作品“优美又不容忽视”。在该领域著名学者专家（也包含费吉斯本人）私下往来的电邮中，大家不禁起疑:这位“历史学家”不正是费吉斯本人？在其中一封电邮中，谢伟思称这些评论为“旧苏维埃式的讨 厌人身攻击”。
震惊学界的扯皮就此展开。费吉斯严正否认对他的指控，并控告他的对手毁谤。他立刻请律师扬言要对波隆斯基、谢伟思和几个发表学界猜测的刊物采取法律行动。但是法律行动尚未开始，费吉斯的妻子，大律师斯蒂芬妮·帕尔默（Stephanie Palmer）便承认评论出自她本人。费吉斯震惊地发表声明，表示他自己“也才发现这件 事”。
但是这解释很快被推翻。 2010年4月23日，费吉斯发表声明，愿意为评论“负全责”，也向他所指控的对象道歉。他随后同意支付波隆斯基和谢伟思相关法律行动所造成的费用和赔偿。
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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
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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