Local Boulder Paper: Letters to the Editor: Ward Churchill

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CHURCHILL

Professor's critics should read essay

I wonder how many people out to crucify Ward Churchill have actually read the offending article. Among the clumsy analogies and over-the-top polemics — it comes across like the first draft of a man in heat — is a message which this Establishment reader finds somewhat affecting.

It taps into my own long-suppressed anxiety about the possible consequences of our increasing we're-No. 1 cultural hubris. I felt it after the gratuitous Highway of Death strafing at the end of Gulf War I. I feel it with the Crusade undertones of today's Iraq War. I often feel it when I regard a foreign policy backed by a military might that is big and powerful and often dumb as a fist.

I read Mr. Churchill's essay as an Edvard Munch scream. Read the entire article — including the unfortunate references — in context. If nothing else it provides a perspective on the part of those that we fear. That in itself counts for a lot. To suppress this point of view would also support Mr. Churchill's notion that we may be suffering from a "delusional pathology."

STEVE SMITH
Boulder