Talk:Mike Davis (scholar)

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I find this article far too subjective and critical of its subject. By including quotes from such a questionable and low grade source as the 'New Times' i feel that the work of Mike Davis is being completely undermined. Please refer to writings including that of Nation contributor Jon Wiener which address the issue of Davis' credibility. Because Davis is a prominent left-wing thinker, he has been the subject of a ridiculous campaign to mar both his sense of honesty and intellectual validity. Opinions such as that currently expressed in this article are heavily biased and distract from the importance of Davis' work.

The reason that 'New Times LA' is defunct is because they offerred poor factually unsupported criticisms. Anyone can critique a person for being a liberal or a conservative, but to me an effective critique of a writer is an effective critique of his books, and thus far I have failed to see an effective negative critique of the books written by Dr. Mike Davis. On the other hand I have seen multiple praise of the books by Dr. Davis by such non-defunct organizations as Kirkus Reviews, San Francisco Chronicle and The Nation.

New Times LA is defunct because it got bought out by its competitor, the LA Weekly (owned by Village Voice), in an exchange that raised more than a few eyebrows in LA's journalism community. It had nothing to do with Davis. (And, IMHO, New Times was a far more interesting paper than LA Weekly). The paper's criticism of Davis was lame, I agree -- in their obsession with scandal, writers Jill Stewart and Rick Barrs ("the Finger"), picked up on then-Malibu real estate agent and amateur fact-checker Brady Westwater's 20-page screed attacking Davis based on dubious analysis of alleged errors in Davis' footnotes. Some of the errors were indeed errors; some were simply not; none of them were as significant as Westwater claimed and the whole thing was blown ridiculously out of proportion first by Westwater and then by a series of articles in New Times LA. Joel Kotkin was thrilled, but everyone with an academic background familiar with Davis' work knew it was BS. Westwater, a real estate agent in Malibu, was irate for pretty obvious reasons when the chapter from Ecology of Fear showed up in the LA Weekly, with a photo of a Malibu fire on the cover, and the title "LET MALIBU BURN." So he devoted his life to combing through every footnote in Davis' books and trying to destroy his credibility. Apparently, he is still obsessed with undermining Davis' credibility, to no avail. Anyway, the point is, New Times LA's undoing had nothing to do with its Davis criticism, and it was actually an excellent alternative paper in its day -- what it lacked in comprehensiveness it more than made up for in irreverence. And no LA paper since - not the Weekly and none of the alternative papers that have cropped up in its wake - has produced a column as cool as "the Finger."--csloat 09:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Commodore Sloat makes a good point that there is two sided debate regarding Davis' veracity. The Los Angeles trilogy has been shown to contain factual errors, as well as a politically biased theme. Davis is a self-avowed Marxist and his work regards the inequities of Los Angeles real estate politics. The debate itself deserves mention so those reading Davis' work are aware that it is political in nature and is not uniformly acknowledged. While Westwater's work is also not above critism the Salon article linked in the biography provides a useful counterpoint. Pchoate 18:45, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Let me clarify: Westwater's "work" is a joke. True, by combing the footnotes carefully he found some errors and exaggerations, as one could with just about any academic manuscript. But he did not find evidence that Davis was a fraud or that there was a systematic attempt to distort things, as he claimed. There is only a two-sided debate about this because one "side" is populated by ideologues like Westwater and Jill Stewart and... well, not really anyone else. I don't know of any credentialed academic who takes the claims seriously. Don't get me wrong - everyone knows Davis has a literary flair, and there is hyperbole in his work; in addition, I don't think he has ever tried to hide or disavow his politics. But the claims made by Stewart and Westwater that he has been discredited are ridiculous.--csloat 20:00, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not so worried about Westwater or Stewart, but the NPOV of this article regarding Davis' work as a scholar. "Literary flair" and "hyperbole" are understatements, his reporting selectively supports his thesis, and contains well established overstatements and logical fallacies. Davis makes minimal effort to balance his arguments or present them in a larger context and thus are more political than scientific. His work certainly is eye-opening and interesting, but his books are classic examples of confirmation bias. Regards - Pchoate 16:53, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

But Westwater and Stewart are pretty much the only published sources that can back up your claims. The "well established overstatements and logical fallacies" that Westwater claimed to have found were mostly themselves overblown exaggerations. If you got this information from elsewhere, let us know, but this isn't the place for original research. Also, let's not confuse an inability (or perhaps an unwillingness) to understand particular methods or claims with "confirmation bias." As I've said, I don't know of a single credentialed academic who takes these claims about Davis seriously. If you know of one, please share (and, of course, feel free to add their published research to the article). But if there is none, we are left with the likes of Jill Stewart and Brady Westwater.--csloat 20:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess I have a problem with the level of hyperbole in his writing. I do find several references confirming academic acceptance of his work. The NationRadical Urban Theory Pchoate 23:01, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I could certainly understand that - as I said, he has a literary flair; some passages are hilarious if read out of context. (As an example, look for his comment in Ecology of Fear that mountain lions and coyotes have become an integral part of the Los Angeles street scene.) But I think the criticism that came from Stewart et al had its origins in Westwater's screed. It was provoked by the LA Weekly publishing "Let Malibu Burn" (along with a lurid photo of a Malibu fire on the cover), and my sense is that certain people in the press -- people already known for digging up sensationalism -- picked it up because they wanted to bring down a scholar who had just won a "genius" award. The criticism died down since then, and if you look at academic sources, his work is no more controversial than it was before the flap. I'm going to try to edit the sentence again to reflect this; see what you think.--csloat 00:30, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

The change I made was pretty minor; it would not be a bad idea, if this article is expanded at some point, to include more information about the controversy; as I said, I think that controversy was very limited in time and that it had as its main source Brady Westwater's obviously invested screed. Some indication that it was a time-bound event is probably necessary here.--csloat 00:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)