Now, for Martin Kramer’s questions.
1. Are Mearsheimer and Walt “intellectually dishonest”?
This is an easy question.
They would be dishonest, if they knew their statement is wrong (“much of this unpopularity stems from the Palestinian issue”).
But their statement is not wrong, it’s correct, as the above surveys demonstrate.
And so, their statement is honest.
2. Are Mearsheimer and Walt “academically incompetent”?
This too is an easy question.
They would be incompetent, if they set themselves a feasible task, but were not able to accomplish it, after expending sufficient effort.
But the statement Martin Kramer challenges, it’s a true statement, and they make their true statement in a “New York Times Bestseller.”
And so, they’re competent.
_______________
Then how do we label the lacuna, as Martin Kramer claims it to be, in footnote 73 to chapter 2?
But is it a lacuna?
The footnoted sentence contains a compound assertion (the U.S. is unpopular, and the reason why).
The footnote documents the first assertion, a quotation from page 54 of the footnoted Pew survey report, that the U.S. is “unpopular,” as Mearsheimer and Walt summarize the report.
“Hated” is the word Pew uses, on page 1 of the report, about the relevant regions, the “true dislike” of America, felt there:
“True dislike, if not hatred, of America is concentrated in the Muslim nations of the Middle East and in Central Asia, today’s areas of greatest conflict.”
The footnote reference-number (“callout”) sits at the end of the sentence, a single sentence containing both factual assertions.
The first assertion is a quotation, and a quotation requires a footnoted source.
The second assertion (the reason why the U.S. is hated) is not a quotation, and so does not require a footnoted source. The authors do not attribute it to that survey, and they do not source it.
Apparently, that’s the style of the authors, or the publisher, to put all footnote reference-numbers at the end of a sentence. In some books, all such footnote “callouts” are grouped at the end of paragraphs.
Mearsheimer and Walt wrote 211 footnotes, in their pre-book working paper, which they posted to the Harvard and Chicago university websites.
Every single footnote callout they positioned at the end of a sentence.
They did not footnote sentence fragments.
In their book, they wrote 1,399 footnotes. All six footnote callouts, on that page 68, are positioned at the end of sentences. I’m still awaiting my copy of the book; I presume it’s the same style for the rest of the book too.
Accordingly, this book, like others, might be full of sentences/paragraphs only partly documented by a footnote.
A book which does not footnote sentence fragments (footnote callouts embedded in the sentence interior):—
This writing/publishing style does not constitute what Martin Kramer claims it does:
A “claim” by the authors, that the footnote “supports their argument.”
With this form of words, Martin Kramer misrepresents what Mearsheimer and Walt wrote, in that sentence.
Martin Kramer portrays them needful of “support.”
Because they are making an “argument.”
Trying hard to persuade an audience, to believe something, something controversial, something disputed.
But they’re not making an argument.
They’re not trying to persuade anybody of anything.
In that sentence, the assertion Martin Kramer challenges is not an “argument,” it’s a simple “fact.”
The whole sentence merely recounts facts, two facts, not two arguments.
Two facts which are not controversial.
Two facts which are not disputed.
These two facts:
(1) The U.S. is hated.
(2) Much because the U.S. is a co-conspirator with Israel, a co-principal, an inciter, aider and abetter, facilitator, enabler, protector, financier, in a many decades-long, massive, violent criminal enterprise, of historic proportions, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the confiscation, the colonization, of Palestinian land, enforced by a brutal iron fist, of apartheid, walled ghettos, Nacht und Nebel kidnappings, torture, and such.
Or, as Mearsheimer and Walt phrased it:
“The Pew Global Attitudes Survey reported in 2002 — before the invasion of Iraq — that “public opinion about the United States in the Middle East/Conflict Area is overwhelmingly negative,” and much of this unpopularity stems from the Palestinian issue. [73]”
Their “argument” (elsewhere in the book) is this:
What to do about it.
What to do about these facts.
And there, yes, they seek to persuade the audience:
That the U.S. should withdraw from this violent criminal enterprise, terminate its unconditional support for Israel, stop vetoing U.N. Security Council resolutions, join the rest of the world, resolve to enforce our collective values.
And then lead, or else get out of the way.
An international effort, to stand with Israelis, their activists, their valiant, their timid, their intimidated, encourage Israelis, to heed their better nature, isolate and coerce Israel, its government, its shadow governments, its bullies, its elites, its profiteers, its buccaneers, to terminate their violent crimes, withdraw their army, their settlers, back inside their borders.
And leave their neighbors in peace.
Yes, I don’t suppose, that’s exactly the way they phrase it. But I don’t suppose either, they would squirm, at my summary of it, their argument.
Mearsheimer and Walt support their argument, not with footnotes — as Martin Kramer claims they claim — but with facts, including the true fact Martin Kramer challenges.
Some of the facts they recount, they also footnote, the source of them, quotations, for example.
And some they don’t, common knowledge, for example (this example) and, another example, details their footnoted sources themselves lead to (also this example).
There are many facts in the book, and Mearsheimer and Walt do not claim, what Martin Kramer claims they claim, that every fact is footnoted. That every footnote documents every assertion in a sentence or a paragraph.
They don’t need to document every fact.
They don’t “argue” about facts.
They don’t have to persuade an intelligent audience, to believe facts.
Their task is to search-out the facts, marshal them, draw inferences from them, learn the lessons they teach, and then persuade the audience, to take action, do something about it:—
The catastrophe those facts portray.
And show them the way.
As for facts, authors represent, that what they write is true (excepting fiction, satire, roll-playing, and such).
It’s true, whether it’s footnoted or not.
And that includes the true fact Martin Kramer challenges.
That’s their claim.
They do not promise to footnote every fact, to vanish their important footnotes, into a sea of mediocrity, unnecessary footnotes, ballooning a book, and its price, to no good end.
_______________
Footnoting sentence fragments, this is common in writing for audiences paid or obligated to read what you write, legal writing, scientific writing, maybe academic writing generally.
But, thumbing through several of them, I don’t see it’s common, in writing politics books, for a general audience.
Customers, who can take it, or leave it, when surveying the bookseller’s wares.
I don’t have CMOS: The Chicago Manual of Style. I don’t suppose it decrees rules on this topic (e.g., different rules for different audiences), a topic of substance, not style.
The CMOS staff say, in a case like this, the footnote reference-number (“callout”) should not be at the end of the sentence, but inside the sentence instead, terminating the first of the compound assertions. Because the second assertion, which follows it, is unsourced.
That’s how I understand this, their answer to a question about an academic paper (not a politics book):
“The idea is to provide a citation every time it’s needed, not to follow arbitrary rules about numbers of note callouts or their location in a paragraph. You need a new note every time the source changes, and the callout should be located where it makes the most sense — at the end of a clause or sentence, if possible. Each time you use a different source (or a different page number in the same source), a new note is appropriate. If the contents of an entire paragraph can be attributed to a single source, then a single note at the end of the paragraph is sufficient.”
• “Documentation,” second question (undated) (The Chicago Manual of Style Online, source: “New Questions and Answers,” undated, posted January 2008, The University of Chicago) (CMOS email: “the January Q&A”).
In an email, “Staff,” from CMOS, told me this (January 3 2008):
“CMOS does not try to advise scholars on how to write their books or theses or document them. Rather, our job is to provide advice for styling citations and preparing a manuscript. You might look at one of Charles Lipson’s book for advice on when content needs documentation.
16.30 gives examples of the placement of note numbers, which should go at the end of a clause or sentence if possible. So yes, if the citation goes only with the first part of a sentence, the callout should be in the middle of the sentence rather than at the end.
16.34 discourages using more than one note reference at a single location and notes that a single note can contain more than one citation (see 16.37).”
A politics book:—
It’s not a brief to a court.
It’s not evidence in a trial.
It’s not a medical journal.
It’s not an academic Thesis.
And so, authors and publishers are entitled to adopt a style conventional for their audience, and if there be no convention, then a style they suppose will suit their audience. They can relegate all footnote callouts to the end of sentences, if that’s what they want to do.
May be, publishers long ago decided, footnoting sentence fragments discourages a segment of the general audience from buying a book, denoting detail beyond the interest of some otherwise buyers, that it interrupts the flow of the narrative, distracts readers, exasperates them, makes them anxious, unsettles them, with the prospect of a parallel, contrary narrative, buried in the footnotes, a feeling they’re missing something, important, a key caveat maybe, if they don’t stop reading, and check a footnote.
There are plenty of general readers who accept the competence of the authors, and simply want to hear what they have to say, without distractions. These readers may be glad, the authors disciplined themselves with footnotes, but are content for others to check them. They don’t want to feel forced, to read footnotes, an extra 100+ pages, of small print. To what end? They have other things to do. They’re not invested in that detail.
_______________
I have this opinion:
This publishing style puts the reader on notice, that the book does not observe precision placement of footnote callouts.
And so, notice, that a footnote may not document every assertion in the sentence, the paragraph, the stretch of text, which follows the preceding callout.
Given this style, it seems to me undesirable, nevertheless, to conflate an unsourced assertion into a footnoted sentence, or earlier in its paragraph, even if (as here) the authors did not source it to that footnoted reference.
It’s an avoidable ambiguity.
Not an ambiguity in the text (a clear, unambiguous, assertion, in this example), but an ambiguity in the source.
It inconveniences a reader, who wants to know more about one of the compound assertions, but not the other.
If s/he knew a source didn’t pertain to what s/he wanted to know more about, then s/he wouldn’t have the bother, and the disappointment, of checking it, to no avail.
And if s/he doesn’t have access to the source, or ready access, then s/he can suffer anxiety, distraction, interruption, bother, wondering what it says, investigating how to locate it, maybe buying the source, or a copy of it, an affliction, inflicted by the authors, on that reader, unnecessarily.
It’s not polite, to inconvenience readers.
Especially, when they pay you money.
But, it’s not polite either, to abuse somebody, for an imperfection.
And, much more than not polite.
It’s reprehensible.
If that were our ethic, we’d be in for a big dose, all of us, of continuous self-abuse.
And much more too.
In fear of abuse, we would run no risk, accept no challenge, tackle no problem, pursue no dream.
Explore not.
Ask not.
Seek not.
And find not.
Shall we disengage, from troublesome issues, abandon the field, to elites and bullies, retreat home, tend our defenses, distract ourselves, with mindless pursuits, decline, when justice beckons, begs us, to speak?
No.
Our nature, our salvation, our destiny, is to take the field, engage our elites, reform them, dismiss them, face-down our bullies, speak when beckoned.
Sow our values, nurture them, tend them, harvest them, distribute their fruits.
And defend them.
Yes, that sentence might be better split into two.
Not for the sake of the sentence, which is better as it’s written.
But for the sake of our bothered reader (if any), our investigator, who seeks one source but not the other.
And yes, they’re batting nearly 1000.
One accurate footnote, to one accurate sentence, with one ambiguous callout, in obedience to a callout convention (don’t put it in the middle of a sentence).
In a book with 1,399 footnotes.
That’s 999.285.
In baseball language (1398/1399*1000).
And, they earned an asterisk: They got a hit, with that footnote, they got on base, they scored a run. But they didn’t get credit for it. The scorekeepers ruled it a ‘base on error,’ on account of an ambiguity, not in the text, not in the footnote, but where the footnote’s callout sat, watching the action. They protested. They said it wasn’t fair, they sat that callout down, right where the rule said it should be. But the umpire, he was unmoved. “Yes, that’s true,” he said. “But, there is no rule, which says, you have to put all those words together, in one sentence.” They stood mute, they stared at the umpire, then they turned, and walked away.
999.285.
And, with a boost, from a positive asterisk.
As close as you can get, without actually being there.
But it’s not perfect.
It’s better than perfect.
It invests the public.
And that serves their goal:—
Not to write the perfect book, but:—
Provoke the perfect storm.
News, controversy, discussion, argument.
Space, forums, contenders, audience.
For elaboration.
Their imperfections, they brighten the light, turn up the volume, attract attention, to their message.
This message:
There’s a catastrophe, and a simple solution.
999.285.
A mighty accomplishment.
On a new frontier.
Back in the locker room, they looked at each other.
And smiled.
