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SethCotlar's profile
Seth Cotlar
Seth Cotlar
Seth Cotlar
@SethCotlar

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Seth Cotlar

@SethCotlar

Teaches American History at Willamette University. Wrote a book on Tom Paine and the Americans who hated/loved him. Writing a book on nostalgia in 19th C Am.

Salem, Or
medium.com/@sethcotlar
Joined May 2014

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    Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

    You'll be surprised to hear, surely, that the Federalist is completely full of sh*t. I happen to know one of the books on this list because I was asked to review it in 1997.pic.twitter.com/ZSsi7ZGNL0

    7:12 AM - 13 Aug 2019
    • 154 Retweets
    • 489 Likes
    • 🌎ChasBeekeeper🕯 Terry Wilson BD MBA CPA xXxT4XP4Y3RxXx401(k) I Sing the Body Electric James Pitt 🔮 Timothy Raben jared (not from moonrise kingdom) ChronicPayne
    8 replies 154 retweets 489 likes
      1. New conversation
      2. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        I read it, but then told the academic journal that had commissioned the review that they shouldn't waste space reviewing a work of speculative fiction. I mean, the book was fascinating, but as a specimen of late 1990s conservative culture, not as an actual work of history.

        3 replies 10 retweets 216 likes
        Show this thread
      3. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        Looking back now, however, I think I should have written the review. After all, this 20+ year old book, which no professionally trained historian could read without laughing out loud at least once per page, is described here as a "scholarly" and "well-researched" book.

        2 replies 17 retweets 207 likes
        Show this thread
      4. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        Looking back, I also can see the outlines of an emergent, conservative worldview that is amenable to Trumpism. For example, here's the opening paragraph of the draft of my unpublished review.pic.twitter.com/Ri0zWwK1wa

        1 reply 13 retweets 189 likes
        Show this thread
      5. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        West's list of "white male historians who totally got the founders wrong" includes several fairly conservative people. It includes folks who offered a pretty wide range of interpretations of the founders. BUT THEY ARE ALL COMPLETELY WRONG, says Thomas West.

        2 replies 5 retweets 138 likes
        Show this thread
      6. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        The book's argument relies largely on creating a straw person boogeyman. Our "modern sophisticates" (a precursor to today's term "globalists?") simply don't get how brilliant and perfect the founders were!pic.twitter.com/6CFBNRhCaf

        2 replies 6 retweets 123 likes
        Show this thread
      7. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        The term "sophisticates" is a pretty capacious term apparently. It included Conor Cruise O'Brien (a Burkean conservative) and Thurgood Marshall. It included radical feminist historians and liberal political scientists. Sophisticates all apparently.pic.twitter.com/xRzqNpaduZ

        4 replies 6 retweets 107 likes
        Show this thread
      8. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        Dr. West's previous work, before showing the entire history profession why they were wrong, involved writing about Plato. Because nothing prepares one to disprove what specialists have to say about the 18th century than reading lots of Plato.

        2 replies 6 retweets 115 likes
        Show this thread
      9. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        But that sure didn't stop a murderer's row of high profile conservatives from blurbing his book, including William Kristol, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Michael Novak, and Dinesh D”Souza. Literally nothing has changed in the conservative intellectual world since then. Nothing.

        5 replies 13 retweets 168 likes
        Show this thread
      10. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        This book offered a willfully obtuse misreading of the scholarship, and then "destroyed it" with a series of decontextualized cherry-picked quotes. It's the kind of scholarship that could only emerge out of a hermetically sealed bubble of right wing self-righteousness.

        2 replies 7 retweets 160 likes
        Show this thread
      11. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        But there it was...blurbed by leading conservatives in 1997, and there it still is, valorized in 2019 in the Federalist despite the fact that no one who has done archival research with 18th century documents (or who knows the scholarship being demolished) could get past page 5.

        1 reply 10 retweets 129 likes
        Show this thread
      12. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        I feel sorry for students who are assigned this book as a work of history. There is such a great corpus of work on the founders that offers a diverse array of competing interpretations of them. But no, such "sophisticates" have no place in the conservative academy.

        1 reply 3 retweets 101 likes
        Show this thread
      13. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        West's book has the substance of a Ben Shapiro YouTube video. It would be great if conservative intellectuals actually took the time to do the archival work necessary to produce a work of history. Sadly, almost none have. And so we get ridiculous books like West's instead.

        2 replies 10 retweets 138 likes
        Show this thread
      14. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        Instead of choosing to join the world of modern intellectual inquiry, conservative intellectuals have built themselves (thanks to many generous donors) an alternate academic universe where they don't have to engage with people they don't like.

        2 replies 20 retweets 159 likes
        Show this thread
      15. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        As any student of the free market and biodiversity will tell you, this has led to a real ossification of "the conservative mind." Instead of jumping into the fray, they've created a straw person version of "leftist academics" and decided they are not worth engaging with.

        1 reply 5 retweets 123 likes
        Show this thread
      16. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        So the conservatives write books for each other, not caring what people outside that universe think of them. They form colleges to train students in their school of thought. And then they point to 99% of other colleges and say "you all just do group think!"

        2 replies 19 retweets 142 likes
        Show this thread
      17. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        I suspect they justify it to themselves by saying "the culture" has been shaped by "liberal academics" and so their students already are familiar with what professional historians have to say...they need to be reprogrammed (red-pilled if you will) with "the right sort of ideas."

        1 reply 2 retweets 91 likes
        Show this thread
      18. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        But nothing good will come of building a world of "alternate history" as written by David Barton or Thomas West, or encased between the pages of books like these. It's the historical equivalent of climate denial or creationism.pic.twitter.com/31sdbpLaPY

        4 replies 8 retweets 95 likes
        Show this thread
      19. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        Once you've socialized young conservatives into your hermetically-sealed world of "knowledge" that is so detached from the reality of the archive and existing scholarship, it's hard for such folks to function effectively in "the outside world."

        1 reply 6 retweets 115 likes
        Show this thread
      20. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        It just becomes a war of competing worldviews--you brainwashed liberals say slavery caused the Civil War, but I know that slavery had little to do with the Civil War because my "Politically Incorrect" history book taught me the truth, rather than your liberal lie!

        4 replies 7 retweets 94 likes
        Show this thread
      21. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        I didn't write the review in 1997 because I thought perspectives like West's were simply going to go the way of the dinosaurs. It really wasn't worth engaging with in any serious way. I now realize just how wrong I was about that.

        1 reply 2 retweets 102 likes
        Show this thread
      22. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        Not that my review would have made any difference in the world. But at least it would be out there in the ether as a counterpoint to the many glowing things that residents of the alternate universe known as "the conservative intelligentsia" had to say about it.

        4 replies 1 retweet 91 likes
        Show this thread
      23. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        Seth Cotlar Retweeted honor sachs

        As I was saying...conservatives do their readers no service by encasing them in a hermetically-sealed world of alternate facts.https://twitter.com/drhonor/status/1161308029255426048?s=20 …

        Seth Cotlar added,

        honor sachs @drhonor
        <SCREAMS IN HISTORIAN> <GESTURES WILDLY AT . . . BOOKS> https://twitter.com/Adrian_Hilton/status/1160975829465206784 …
        2 replies 3 retweets 83 likes
        Show this thread
      24. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        I highly recommend this powerful memoir by someone who was socialized into the world of the conservative academy and who eventually left it.https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/leaving-conservatism-behind-blue-collar-republican-progressive …

        2 replies 25 retweets 101 likes
        Show this thread
      25. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        By treating learning as a sort of catechism designed to inoculate someone from "liberal lies," conservative institutions do young people no favors. They just set them up to be repeatedly "owned" like D'Souza, or to eventually leave the fold once they encounter alternate views.pic.twitter.com/zghsI4xfbg

        3 replies 5 retweets 78 likes
        Show this thread
      26. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        The author of that piece about leaving conservatism, @MatthewSitman, is also the co-host (with @SamAdlerBell) of an excellent podcast on the history of conservatism. It's very much worth your time and your support.https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/know-your-enemy-matthew-sitman-BrzUGaeiHEX/ …

        2 replies 9 retweets 73 likes
        Show this thread
      27. Seth Cotlar‏ @SethCotlar 13 Aug 2019

        Seth Cotlar Retweeted Seth Cotlar

        For those who crave more "conservatives are terrible historians" content, here's another thread in that vein. In this case, the historian in question is Senator Mike Lee.https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1121847659088629760?s=20 …

        Seth Cotlar added,

        Seth Cotlar @SethCotlar
        4. But, you know, what are basic textbook facts about Anglo-American political history amongst ideological soulmates who have a radically partisan and ahistorical take on the Constitution to promote?
        Show this thread
        2 replies 3 retweets 49 likes
        Show this thread
      28. End of conversation

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