[INDOLOGY] Fwd: Hitler and MLBD

[Matthew Kapstein]

>what is the crime of MLBD if it publishes it for scholarly use just like it is sold on many booksellers cited above.

Dear colleague,

In response to your question above, we are not speaking of "crimes," except perhaps the crime
of piracy and infringement of copyright. What many of us find to be deeply disturbing in MLBD's
conduct is not, however, anything criminal in that sense; it is a moral problem: MLBD has become a
purveyor of racist hate literature, and many of us in the field of Indology do not believe that
our field, or our own work, should be sullied by association with racism.

The qualification "for scholarly use" has no value, because no book-dealer is in a position to
oversee how the books they sell are used.

"just like it is sold on many booksellers" also has no value: it is ithe equivalent of arguing that
X has the right to beat his wife because Y does so.

I hope that this is sufficiently clear.

Matthew Kapstein
Directeur d'études,
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
The University of Chicago
________________________________



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20140518/c253581d/attachment.htm>