“Legal academic studying art, heritage and the law” Derek Fincham criticises me on his blog that:
As for the other accusation, I felt that was a misleading and unfair remark. Dealing with comments sent to this blog actually does take up time reflecting on what was said and composing where necessary a reply [and one that is less visible than the material on the ‘front page’]. Most of the people who have sent comments on what they have read here have had them accepted and posted here (Mr Fincham, you have to open the "comments" tab under the posts to see them).
For the sake of my own curiosity I made a rough count, and I make it that 232 of the 700 odd posts here have comments, so that’s a third. Admittedly some are my own, where I have used the comments box as a way of adding a post script, but there’s still a fair smattering of remarks by various antiquity dealers, metal detectorists, archaeologists, a lawyer or two I believe, and just general passers by. They include some that agree with me and many that do not.
I have indeed rejected - as is my prerogative - a number of comments posted, but never anything which attempts to add to the discussion in hand. One or two of the rejected posts have been outright abusive and highly personal attacks, and while maybe serve as an illustration of what kind of people go metal detecting (for it is mainly from that milieu that they seem to come) they are not otherwise very edifying reading. I’ve had one guy who tried to use the comments box of this blog to direct us to his model railway forum (!), another guy in India who wanted the comments section here to advertise his business selling ancient dugup coins and cut flowers (which he obviously sent to other bloggers, two of which posted his advert on their blogs - I think I am right in saying that Derek Fincham was one of them). I also rejected a few that said totally lame things like one-line posts saying in effect "why cant we all be friends?” because they lacked any substance and frankly just annoyed me.
So I really do not know what justification Derek Fincham has for saying Barford's blog does not "allow comments".
Barford's […] blog, […] does not allow commenting and has badly distorted many of my positions in the past.Not being a mind-reader, I can only represent Dr Fincham’s views in the way I understand them from what he writes. To the best of my knowledge though, whenever I have discussed what he has written, I always give a reference (at least that is my intent), so any reader can check my wording against his.
As for the other accusation, I felt that was a misleading and unfair remark. Dealing with comments sent to this blog actually does take up time reflecting on what was said and composing where necessary a reply [and one that is less visible than the material on the ‘front page’]. Most of the people who have sent comments on what they have read here have had them accepted and posted here (Mr Fincham, you have to open the "comments" tab under the posts to see them).For the sake of my own curiosity I made a rough count, and I make it that 232 of the 700 odd posts here have comments, so that’s a third. Admittedly some are my own, where I have used the comments box as a way of adding a post script, but there’s still a fair smattering of remarks by various antiquity dealers, metal detectorists, archaeologists, a lawyer or two I believe, and just general passers by. They include some that agree with me and many that do not.
I have indeed rejected - as is my prerogative - a number of comments posted, but never anything which attempts to add to the discussion in hand. One or two of the rejected posts have been outright abusive and highly personal attacks, and while maybe serve as an illustration of what kind of people go metal detecting (for it is mainly from that milieu that they seem to come) they are not otherwise very edifying reading. I’ve had one guy who tried to use the comments box of this blog to direct us to his model railway forum (!), another guy in India who wanted the comments section here to advertise his business selling ancient dugup coins and cut flowers (which he obviously sent to other bloggers, two of which posted his advert on their blogs - I think I am right in saying that Derek Fincham was one of them). I also rejected a few that said totally lame things like one-line posts saying in effect "why cant we all be friends?” because they lacked any substance and frankly just annoyed me.
So I really do not know what justification Derek Fincham has for saying Barford's blog does not "allow comments".
I received the following from Derek Fincham yesterday, he complains I did not post this comment when he sent it last week. In fact I never received it via the blog. He has asked me to post it from his email which I do, unedited.
ReplyDeleteHere is the comment, posted 9/9:
I hesitate to post this here because I've attempted to correct your wildly inaccurate characterizations of me in the past and you have unceremoniously rejected them. Please do not invent quotes or statements from me on your blog. You've done this yesterday, and again today.
But to say I have a lack of concern for these laws is preposterous. I have spent a lot of time in an effort to bring attention to these issues, published on them extensively, and completed a Ph.D. at the University of Aberdeen examining these laws and policies. Please apologize and correct this. If not I am afraid I will have to cease reading or linking to your site.
Moving to the larger issue, do you think the USA has no laws governing the illegal trade?
This is a common mis-perception of those who have never examined these issues with any rigor. I'd encourage you to read a seminal work on the trade, Paul Bator's "An Essay on the International Trade in Art", published in the Stanford Law Review and later as a monograph. Do you want to encourage the trade to change its policies? If so, it may take some compromise. This is simple civics. If you want to shout across the divide, expecting lawmakers to just wave a wand and fix the problem, then the looting will surely continue, but of course then you can maintain your moral high ground while sites continue to be looted at an alarming rate. And of course misrepresenting the arguments and opinions of others helps you do this.
Dr. Derek Fincham
Dr. Derek Fincham
Westerfield Fellow
Loyola University New Orleans College of Law
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Please visit my blog at http://illicit-cultural-property.blogspot.com/
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My SSRN Author page:
http://ssrn.com/author=612637
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END OF QUOTE
Well, first of all, I do not really think I have been “characterisng” you as much as reporting and discussing what you say about compromise modeled on the PAS. The reader can judge whether it is “wildly inaccurate”.
ReplyDeleteI do not recall “unceremoniously rejecting” any comment you have sent. I have records that since I started this blog, you have sent three only (3/10/08, 14/11/08, 17/11/08 all in connection with the discussion of your ideas about the PAS). All three are posted on the blog. You tell us you posted this comment on the ninth, but I did not receive it earlier, so perhaps this is the explanation of why anything else you sent me never appeared?
You say “Please do not invent quotes or statements from me on your blog. You've done this yesterday, and again today. Pardon?
I really have not the foggiest what you are talking about. You mean these two posts http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2009/09/archaeologists-should-compromise.html
http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2009/09/bizarre.html ?
There are no “invented” quotes here, your words are quoted verbatim (via copy and paste), I cannot see any “statements” there at all, invented or otherwise. Both posts contain links to where I found the opinions with which I am discussing, so the reader can check if I am quoting you correctly or wildly inaccurately “inventing” stuff. This is just bizarre.
“If not I am afraid I will have to cease reading or linking to your site” Well this obviously would be the tragedy of my life of course, never to be read by Derek Fincham ever again. What kind of a pompous threat is that for goodness’ sake? Go, skulk with the metal detectorists and PAS people, and never darken the portal of my blog ever again if you feel so strongly about it, it really is no skin off my nose.
As for what you call “shouting across the divide”, it's at least god that you recognise that a divide (rather than "common ground") exists.
What will make the lawmakers make laws is public disgust at what is going on. The lawmakers will not get off their butts unless they see there are votes to be won by going with the flow of public opinion. And there is the crux of the matter, where the “shouting across the divide” comes in. This is what we have groups like SAFE for. Let’s get journalists writing about this, TV documentaries talking about it, get it on Oprah, get it on adverts on the sides of buses, get rappers rapping about it (Kanye West, here's a way to make amends). Lets’s show people how important the problem is and how urgent. Let people start talking about the antiquities trade like they do drink-driving and use-once plastic carrier bags, the cruelty of fox hunting with hounds. Then we get the laws.
But Mr Fincham, all this is by-the--by, you still have not made the case why it has to be archaeology which makes the compromise. Why we have to compromise the archaeological record to suit the whims of a minority of acquisitive people who cannot be bothered to help curb the trade in illicit items. That is the key question I posed to what you said.