Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

You're constructing this as a conflict between meddling reactionaries and the expression of sensible voices that have heretofore been excluded, good vs. bad. In Jeremiah True's case, I don't think that's a satisfactory description of events and motives. As I understand the situation, True's exclusion from the conference portion of Prof. Savery's class was initially justified by the suggestion that his ideas - not his manner of presenting them, but the ideas themselves - made others in the class feel unsafe. I believe we set a terribly dangerous precedent when we habituate ourselves to thinking of the expression of ideas in terms of threat, safety and harm. While there are certainly cases where such framing is appropriate, they're relatively rare, and outside that context, it's intrinsically hostile to the free exchange of ideas.

Of course, it's possible that True's manner in class was aggressive, threatening or otherwise actionably disruptive. But Professor Savery didn't make that claim in justifying his decision. He instead went with the assertion that True's ideas simply made people feel unsafe. That he thought this appropriate is troubling, and doubly so the administration's apparent support.

― 2-chords, a farfisa organ and peons to the lord (contenderizer), Sunday, March 22, 2015 4:57 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not claiming that no instance of this has ever resulted in shitty illiberal things happening for bad reasons. this was my first post itt

goes without saying that the illiberalism is wrong and has no place in universities, but i wonder if articles like this & that chait one are blowing it up for spin. i wonder if the illiberal stuff is a trend or if they're just the extreme (and unfortunate) outliers in the general trend of universities trying to make more inclusive spaces.

my problem is, even the social justice kids who go to the greatest lengths to be reasonable get painted with this brush. the trick played by fucktwads like chait is to make people like me & you feel like good liberals who support free speech and discourse for turning our nose at this stuff. maybe this nyt one isn't as bad in terms of generalizing it to all "pc" as the chait one idk

I reject the suggestion that this is an isolated non-incident, irrelevant in the larger scale of things if not for the shit-stirring interference of a few online "reactionaries". It's part of a larger pattern and the natural product of ideas and strategies that have gained sway in recent years. That they emerged from social justice movements and seek to protect/empower the less privileged does not oblige us to uncritically support them in all applications. Good intentions are no guarantee of good ends, after all.

where is the evidence of the larger pattern? so far we have a sample of, what, 4? if there is a larger pattern, can we find some group of people who identify as wanting to carrying it out? no one is saying we should "uncritically support them in all applications." but criticizing an instance and criticizing a conjectured "larger pattern" that (in this case is implied but in the chait article was explicit) is being substituted for "social justice" are completely different things.

but flopson this entire thread is more or less about documenting the illiberal leftism trend- obv it's real enough

i thought this was just the thread ppl bumped whenever another thinkpiece citing the same 4 examples makes the rounds

There's something of a shell game being played with words safe and unsafe here, I think. True, and defenders of unlimited free speech generally, keep saying, like, "I didn't threaten anyone, I used polite language" like that's proof that everyone else is being CRAZY.

I believe that microaggressions are real and bad and ppl shouldn't have to deal with the bombardment of them all the time because they DO DAMAGE, but even if you don't agree for whatever reasons, PTSD is a thing that happens to people after trauma. And trauma includes a lot of things that happen, not, just, like "being shot at in a war zone."

Oh actually I see adam kind of addressed that--I somehow skipped over some posts itt.

Anyway yeah the idea that if no one verbatim threatened to physically harm you, there's no possible justification for you to ever feel "unsafe" and if you do, it's your own weak brain being afraid of IDEAS is some bullshit.

based on that reason post i think it's a bad idea to use Jeremiah true as a typical example of college illiberalism, at least until some fuller reporting comes out

flopson - i do agree that this is a very minor phenomenon and has little to no impact on that culture at large, but isn't that a kind of weird argument to make? it implies that if it weren't so minor, then yes, it would be an actual problem. which is ultimately what all these ppl are saying. chait wasn't arguing that the entire culture has been impacted, just that the parts that have are - ahem - "problematic."

Again, these are private institutions. Try this shit in a Walmart and see what response you get.

― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, March 22, 2015 3:13 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

p interesting that 'private institution' is getting played as a trump card by leftists itt. that used to be a v contentious point of 1st amendment law, and one in which the liberal justices were on the opposite side. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Corp._v._Tanner

and under some state constitutions j true absolutely could set up shop in a store and they wouldn't be able to kick him out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._Robins

i do agree that this is a very minor phenomenon and has little to no impact on that culture at large, but isn't that a kind of weird argument to make? it implies that if it weren't so minor, then yes, it would be an actual problem. which is ultimately what all these ppl are saying.

also, yes, this is a minor phenomenon and the response to it has been pretty minor as well: a few opinion pieces by people who are pretty unknown outsde of certain circles. I imagine if you talked about this stuff to nearly anyone irl you'd have to explain who Chait was.

I think this is a symptom of the right losing the culture war. The right wing intellectual youth, those culture warriors who would be at an anti-gay march (if they had them, even republicans support gay marriage) have nothing to do. So they're doing this. They are too for the Tea Party, but have been exposed to those extremist ideas, and are considering them in their logic experiments. Ultimate I think both parties are going to dissolve into abstraction, the inherent absurdities of ideology being picked part by events like these.

They are too smart for the Tea Party. /edit

I believe we set a terribly dangerous precedent when we habituate ourselves to thinking of the expression of ideas in terms of threat, safety and harm.

― 2-chords, a farfisa organ and peons to the lord (contenderizer), Sunday, March 22, 2015 4:57 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I mean this is super otm. What do you think the dangers are? I wonder what would happen if some legislation were passed and the law was written with predatory corporate interests in mind.

but isn't that a kind of weird argument to make? it implies that if it weren't so minor, then yes, it would be an actual problem

I don't think that's a weird argument to make at all. I think revolutionary Maoism is a terrible ideology, and if it were a serious force on campuses, it would totally be worth writing long opinion pieces fretting about it, but since it's in fact a tiny fringe, it would be weirdly tendentious to write long opinion pieces fretting about it.

This is the internet and people that know how to use the echo chamber properly can have their speech amplified.

Of course, it's possible that True's manner in class was aggressive, threatening or otherwise actionably disruptive. But Professor Savery didn't make that claim in justifying his decision. He instead went with the assertion that True's ideas simply made people feel unsafe.

no, he went with the former

xxp social justice authoritarianism is a much bigger force on campus than Maoism

ROTC bigger than both of those.

and there has never been any controversy about having them on campuses

xxp social justice authoritarianism is a much bigger force on campus than Maoism

I'm sure that's true, but I went to college in the early 1990s, so I've already been through one full wave of newspaper columns about "our campuses are dominated by political correctness" that were absolutely irrelevant to actual campus life then. Why should I find this wave any more believable? I have seen nothing to make me think that "social justice authoritarianism" is a major aspect of the life of more than a tiny fragment of US college students.

Just scary to think social justice has infiltrated a private Portland liberal arts college that doesn't give out letter grades.

lol

"social justice authoritarianism" is maoism, m/l

I always thought that social justice was particularly a deemphasis of economic justice in favor of minoritarian identity politics but tbh I'm not sure I really have any idea what the 'social' in social justice means.

all the people i know of who would be classified as "social justice" type people take opposition to capitalism p much for granted. they're just not marxists.

as long as we're generalizing

Thought it was an appeal to basic human empathy (thus "social") in the face of inflexible and dehumanizing ideology.

all the people i know of who would be classified as "social justice" type people take opposition to capitalism p much for granted. they're just not marxists.

― goole, Monday, March 23, 2015 1:12 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as long as we're generalizing

― goole, Monday, March 23, 2015 1:12 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's otm, imo

I just meant it glibly in the sense of struggle sessions and Maoist self criticism

lmao first comment hall of fame

https://clairelehmann.wordpress.com/2015/03/20/our-generation-did-not-invent-political-correctness-but-we-can-fight-it/

Having read something about what actually happened to people during the Cultural Revolution, I get hazy with rage when people refer to privilege talk as "Maoist self criticism." Maoist self criticism works something like this.

"A ¡°black board¡± (or hei paiºÚÅÆ) hung on the front of the person who was labeled as an ¡°enemy¡±: On the board were written titles such as ¡°member of the black gang,¡± ¡°counterrevolutionary,¡± ¡°reactionary academic authority,¡± and so on. Below the title was the person's name with a red ¡°X¡± over it. This symbol was used because outside a court of justice there was usually placed an announcement on a bulletin board with a red ¡°X¡± over the name of the person who had been condemned to death. Many teachers were forced to wear such a self-condemnatory board whenever they appeared in public.

At the beginning most boards were made of cardboard. But later some students made heavy boards in order to add to the physical insult. At Beijing First Middle School, which was near the ruins of the old city wall, some students even took a huge brick from the city wall and hung it from a thin wire around the neck of their principal, Liu Qiming („¢†¢Ã÷), while denouncing her."

Read the whole thing if you can stomach it.

http://hum.uchicago.edu/faculty/ywang/history/1966teacher.htm

That's the kind of stuff that happened during the Cultural Revolution but that's not exactly how self-criticism worked. People whose previous statements in support of the party line, now contradicted the party line were forced to write statements of apology and to claim that the new thinking had always been ideologically correct.

lmao first comment hall of fame

^^^

glibly! i said glibly!!! dont struggle session me!!!

I am the God of MRA’s [men’s rights activists], Anti­feminists, Anti­Marxists, Libertarians, and White, heternormative men and women everywhere,” wrote True in a different part of the16-page essay posted on his Facebook page

An update from Reed: http://www.wweek.com/portland/mobile/blogs/blogView/id:32992

also he has done a youtube interview with Chuck C Johnson

so based on the Daily Beast linked to in that article, it sounds like Reed actually handled this decently, or did I miss something? the original Buzzfeed piece looks really premature now too

dont struggle session me!!!

― max, Monday, March 23, 2015 8:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow man

http://www.mediaite.com/online/so-that-reed-college-rape-stats-kid-is-going-a-little-fubar/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/24/rape-culture-troll-threatens-reed-college.html

Protest or no, when you read True’s rants and online name-calling (he referred to one female commenter as “a bitch and a cunt” and called another “fatty”), it all starts to seem a bit nuts.

“I am the God of MRA’s [men’s rights activists], Anti­feminists, Anti­Marxists, Libertarians, and White, heternormative men and women everywhere,” wrote True in a different part of the16-page essay posted on his Facebook page, “I am a misogynist and a misandrist, a racist, and a feminist. And now I’m here to call you out on your bullshit, Reed. I made my entire college run for cover because I’m an actual activist. I yelled “n**ger” in public places and nonviolently disrupted a forum on student activism when I felt my rights weren’t respected. Now that’s activism… Gender feminists. I am a biracial, bisexual, non-gender conforming Black n**ger. Suck. My. Enormous. Black. Dick.”

In the same essay, True writes separate missives to Savery, Barack Obama, “my n**gas in the hood,” Kevin Spacey, Emma Watson, and even Anita Sarkeesian (“I demand a formal apology from you to the entire gamergate movement.”) It’s rambling, but his point seems to be that he can use this moment to say anything he wants, and might as well while the public platform lasts.

Read the whole thing if you can stomach it.

http://hum.uchicago.edu/faculty/ywang/history/1966teacher.htm

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, March 23, 2015 4:03 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark

Yeah as somebody whose family went through these episodes, don't really appreciate the glibness in this thread w/r/t what happened during the Cultural Revolution

i'm off work sick, should i read his opus

xp

i draw the line at chuck c johnson youtubes tho, no way

feel at this point that the guy is just trolling those ppl who were initially inclined to defend him, or at least his right to put forward unpopular views in class discussion

“I am the God of MRA’s

Crazy World of Arthur Brown's lost first draft

Getting angry at kids who leave lectures on rape is as useless as it is politically incoherent: What is the proper response to students who wish to exit voluntary lectures and go someplace else? Should they be forced to stay? How would we ensure that they are actually listening?

For students still developing their politics and personal strategies for grappling with views they find disagreeable, there isn’t much harm in stepping out of a lecture hall and into a safer space. Given that safe spaces have been a part of feminist discourse since the early days of the women’s movement, it seems unlikely that they will suddenly proliferate through broader culture, robbing us all of fair discourse.

A far likelier scenario is that colleges will—and should!—remain loci of experimental politics and their expressions, and that elite institutions will remain culturally removed from the world around them by nature of their constituents and the shape of the academic labor market. A continued obsession with campus culture will surely remain a politically impotent habit among the media class—unless those with axes to grind take up the cause of university staff as tenuous employees and citizens of a weak welfare state, a possibility even more distant than campus cultures suddenly mattering to the world at large.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121375/shulevitzs-new-york-times-essay-sparks-outrage

really there's no point in getting angry at anyone. anger is a toxic emotion. we should just love each other.

Tone policing

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/South-Windsor-Teacher-Facing-Termination-Over-Sexual-Poem-297593041.html?_osource=SocialFlowFB_CTBrand

http://allpoetry.com/Please-Master

okay

feelin like some old time 4n+h0ny 345+0N ilx up in here

feel like the teacher who shows that poem their high school students is begging for disciplinary action