The more forgivable sin.

I posted When the Floor Gives Way Beneath You yesterday. This is the kerfuffle arising from Naomi Wolfe's new book whose thesis was completely undermined when it became apparent in an on-air interview that she had fundamentally misunderstood and misinterpreted the records she had relied on for evidence.

Now everyone is either making the case that it could have happened to anyone (mainstream media) or that once again the Mandarin Class are protecting their ideological own regardless of how egregious the errors they make.

What I haven't seen is anyone juxtapose Wolfe's case with that of Michael A. Bellesiles and his similarly empirically comprised book, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture.

Wolfe's thesis was that the State criminalized sodomy before 1857 but that over the span of a decade or two, the State shifted and criminalized homosexual love instead.

Bellesiles' thesis was that gun culture in the US did not emerge until the events leading up to and after the Civil War. That during the settlement era up to the 1850s, guns were few and far between.

Bellesiles' book was delightedly received in the press and its thesis is still regularly deployed by those more passionate in their argumentation than informed. It was so well liked it received the Bancroft Prize.

But then everything came crashing down. It turned out that the evidentiary basis for the thesis was marred by faulty research, misunderstanding of the evidence and outright misrepresentation of the evidence. The thesis still stands but the evidence to support the thesis is largely ruined. One more plausible idea brought low by empirical reality.

For Bellesiles, the outcome was tragic. He resigned from Emory University and went into academic exile, teaching at some local college in Connecticut. In 2010, he attempted a comeback with a new book, 1877: America's Year of Living Violently . A return again marred by questions about accuracy. If I recollect correctly in one of his early interviews, he recounted a story about a supposed military veteran in one of his classes. A story which quickly became apparent was not an actual factual account. If not made-up from whole clothe, at the very least a composite of possibly a number of conversations. It was the kiss of academic death for someone trying to resurrect a career brought low by accusations of academic malfeasance.

What will happen with Wolfe? Will she pay any penalty? Ann Althouse thinks she is going to be treated wth kid gloves.

I don't know. But they sure look like similar cases. A thesis intended to appeal to the postmodernist critical theory Mandarin Class. A well oiled publicity campaign. A sudden questioning of the empirical data and a rapid collapse of the evidence. People who are in the postmodernist critical theory Mandarin Class are unlikely deterred by the loss of evidence. Postmodernist critical theory is all about belief over evidence, so the loss of evidence is not a real issue for them.

But will she be exiled as was Bellesiles? I doubt it. It seems like Wolfe was just not well versed in her thesis whereas Bellesiles was viewed as well informed but intentionally deceptive. In addition, a lot of public intellectuals had plenty of time to demonstrate their pleasure with his book and to use it in arguments well before anyone began to check the facts. Bellesiles made them look foolish. Wolfe's error was caught pretty quickly after publication, way before there were too many interviews or books reviews. She made herself look foolish which is a much more forgivable sin.