15. Magness argues that, even in the editorial defense of the 1619 Project, the NYT doesn't address the VERY SERIOUS charges against the New History of Capitalism, and indeed "continues to extend this defective body of academic work its imprimatur and credibility."
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16. Yeah, how DARE the New York Times be informed by cutting-edge scholarship that includes (checks notes) a Bancroft Prize winner. SO ILLEGITIMATE. The economic historians hate the NHC bc it introduces ideology into their neat formulae and "objective" measurements.
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17. So the New History of Capitalism is absolutely controversial. It is an extensive critique of dominant systems and ideologies--within both the US and the historical profession itself.
Remember: the Dunning School didn't go down without a fight, either.
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18. What Magness is doing is amplifying a sector of scholarly critique (one borne largely out of pro-capitalist sentiment and turfiness) to argue that the 1619 Project is dependent upon some fringe theory that "real" historians have rejected. And that's just wrong. Don't buy it.
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19. The major problem here, though, is Magness's scorekeeping. He's gaming this framework--HISTORIANS 3, HANNAH-JONES 2. TAKE THAT, 1619 PROJECT--to appear as a neutral arbiter. Like John Roberts, he wants to come across as a mere umpire, callin' 'em like he sees 'em.
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20. But when you create your own strike zone, and impose arbitrary professional standards (No sociologists allowed!) like an angry-white-dude version of Calvinball, you aren't a neutral arbiter. You're engaged in an ideological project of your own. One Andrew Sullivan loves. Yay?
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21. Magness also chides the NYT for not including enough experts in the Revolutionary through Civil War era (by which he really means the five historian critics), and ignores the fact Hannah-Jones and the Times employed a welter of scholarship and fact-checkers in this project.
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22. I would counter that we can read a lot into the fact that these 5 critics approached a range of well-known, prize-winning historians who work in the revolutionary through civil war eras, and none signed their letter. None.
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23. I pointed out earlier that none of these 5 critics, or any of the other scholars who've publicly taken issue with the 1619 Project, is a scholar who actually studies the experience of the enslaved themselves, or the Black experience. That is also important to note.
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24. If you look at those who are taking an almost morbidly gleeful delight in attacking the work of the 1619 Project, it's a handful of senior scholars who made their reputations largely via traditional political/military Great-Man (or at least Great-Man-adjacent) work +
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25. a collection of libertarians and other capitalist fanboys who have several axes to grind against the New History of Capitalism and are furious that its influence is so visible in this project, Andrew "race science is good" Sullivan, & a bunch of 'class>race' white Lefty bros
26. To the WSW folks (who've been a platform for Oakes, Wood, and McPherson's critcisms of the 1619 Project and thus taken this whole thing to the level of performance art), read Manning Marable's _How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America_ and Cedric Robinson's _Black Marxism_
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27. In the United States, class and race are thoroughly intertwined. You cannot stir them apart. Even Marx knew this--though this thread is way too long and that's another thing I'm writing anyway.
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28. To conclude: Magness's attempt to settle scores isn't nearly as substantial as he pretends. In the words of Althusser, "Ideology never says 'I am ideological'." There is no more potent form of identitarianism than white dudes telling everyone else to stop being identitarian.
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again pathetically attempt to bring up the fact that the critics of the piece are libertarian as well as use the poisoning the well fallacy by associating all libertarians with ones who are race realists as a lame attempt to dismiss their arguments.
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