Как не надо писать о диссергейте

[alliruk]

В журнале "Тайм" статья о диссертационном скандале.

Автор, Саймон Шустер, в частности, пишет: "The man in charge of Medvedev’s purge is Igor Fedyukin", "Some experts feel his “purge” could be a way of hitting back at the conservatives surrounding Putin, who have mounted a campaign against Medvedev".

И так вся статья. "Медведевская чистка", "дать сдачи путинским консерваторам". По-моему, самая неудачная интерпретация событий, которую только можно вообразить. Политизировать ситуацию, перевести ее из проблемы очищения научного сообщества в мифическую "борьбу Медведева с Путиным", - верный путь заболтать все, и усилить позиции противников того, чтобы довести дело до конца.

Оптика журналиста делает неинтересным все, что не имеет отношения к кремлинологии (а предполагаемые "разборки" между П. и М. - классическая тема "кремлинологов"); поэтому можно не разбираться (или намеренно искажать), как именно начался скандал, кто какую роль сыграл, и какие цели ставил.

А диссертация Путина, конечно, интересная тема. Но если мы говорим о стратегии укрепления институтов, - то там на сегодняшний день просто стена, а если о репутациях, - то ту репутацию уже не испортишь.

Comments

[alliruk.livejournal.com]

Dear Simon,

Thank you for your reply. Still, I doubt that we should put every problem in Russia in the context of Putin staying in power: we will change nothing if our logic will be like that you propose: "how can we talk about fixing it when Putin himself is accused of plagiarism?" - "how can we talk about fixing problem of corruption when...?", etc.

Moreover, Konstantin Sonin demonstrated that the case of Putin's plagiarism is less obvious: while, according to strict academic standards, it is plagiarism; still within current already devalued level of academic integrity in Russia it may be considered as an error in citation and a minor mistake (here I rely on Konstantin's judgement as I did not read Putin's text). However, the case now on the table is that of an open and bold falsification; much more obvious for everybody (even people far from academia). If academic community will not stop this open falsification, there is no need to fight less obvious plagiarism or weak texts defended as dissertations. This step must be done first.

When - at this point - the need to make a decision on the obvious case is mixed with hardly reachable at this time, less obvious for wider audience and politically motivated accusations towards Putin, it jeopardizes the prospect of achieving the much needed purification of academic sphere.

It does not mean that we do not need to struggle for high academic standards from which ground Putin's dissertation will be also questionable. It means that we do not need to mix one goal with the other.

Sincerely,

Ivan.