Kevin Levine and company rages

Kevin Levine feels that he has a good rebuttal to my article on the Museum of the Confederacy at http://www.blackcommentator.com/. (You can read the installments as they are published by going to this blog posting. http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2011/11/moc.html).

He also feels he has an adequate response to this posting about his attacks on my essay. http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2011/11/white-paternalism-of-kevin-levine.html.

His rebuttals are blogged and can be read at this link. http://cwmemory.com/2011/12/06/a-response-to-edward-sebesta/

So I am reviewing his rebuttal.

Levin says in the beginning, "I admit that characterizing Sebesta's essay as a 'rant' was a poor choice of words, but I maintain it is a poorly researched essay."

First thing, Levine declared that he couldn't bring himself to read the essay. So I am not sure how he knows that it is poorly researched or even knows what my arguments are. Second, not all four installments are published.

However, there is a third aspect to this specific criticism of the essay and his criticisms of the essay in general. He doesn't discuss or mention anything in the contents of the essay. The essay is bad because he doesn't like its conclusions. Kevin Levine avoids discussing the contents of the installments and I don't think he has mentioned even a single thing about the contents.

Then of course Levin likes to engage in name calling, and then as moderator allow posted more rabid name calling that might be a little unseemly if he did it himself.

The other revealing aspect of this post is Levine's establishmentarianism. In an article in the New York Times, reporter Edward Rothstein states that the Museum of the Confederacy (MOC) is changing because the president of the MOC says so. Is Rothstein even aware of my research sources? What was his research to come to his conclusions? I am not sure how anything in the article refutes the evidence in my essay. Or course these questions are irrelevant to Levine, the point is that an authority figure has an opinion that is different to mine.

Later in the essay, Levine says "In addition, while Sebesta is fond of quoting his favorite 'neo-Confederate' sources he never comes to term with the fact that the scholarly community has embraced the MOC." Levine needs to remember Carlyle's statement, "Every new idea starts with a minority of precisely one."

So it isn't about the evidence, it is about what the current conventional wisdom is, and how can Ed Sebesta think evidence is superior to conventional wisdom or the established authorities.

Kevin Levine's and Brook D. Simpson's comments are a gift since they are unabashed, unveiled, and explicit expressions of certain attitudes amongst some Civil War enthusiasts.



Levine's first hysterical denunciation after I had the first installment published is online here: http://cwmemory.com/2011/09/15/calling-out-edward-sebesta-and-calling-on-james-loewen/

The free guest links to all four installments of the article are in the blog posting:

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2011/11/moc.html