The Coddling Of The American Mind (Trigger Warning Article In The Atlantic...)

Anyway, McGill principal Suzanne Fortier pretty much explicitly agrees with j.'s point:

It is anybody’s judgment if after an article like that, politicians would be happy to come to an event,” Dr. Fortier said. “That’s not pressure, that’s just reality.”

http://activehistory.ca/2017/03/shes-hot-female-sessional-instructors-gender-bias-and-student-evaluations/

this is not coddling related per se, but I guess this is the best thread for it? was thinking that some of the factors ppl have identified as causes of the polarising behavior discussed itt could also be factors here as well (treating students more like consumers with corresponding "the customer is always right" attitudes etc)

One of the rolling academia threads would be the best place for that but, yeah, there's a mountain of literature on the uselessness of student evaluations, the factor discussed in that article being but one of the reasons. I'm just thankful that I now teach under Program Chairs who agree.

A useful archive of some of the literature: http://studentevaluationsareworthless.blogspot.com/2008/05/why-student-evaluations-of-teachers-are.html

I guess I don't think they're useless/worthless, since they can provide very valuable feedback. However, they can make or break your career when you are sessional, since departments sometimes use them as the sole measure of someone's teaching, which is a highly inappropriate use for them.

I can't find the rolling academia thread either so: I'm not sure that that Vimy Ridge incident couldn't have happened to a male professor tbh. As a (non-white and at-the-time young-looking) male instructor, I will note that in my first 2.5 years of teaching, I received plenty of challenges to my authority, ranging from students openly chatting throughout every class, no matter how many times I asked them not to; students who obviously plagiarized telling me aggressively "I'm not taking a zero" before slamming the door; a student asking repeatedly "where are you getting this information? Is it just from the Internet?" to the point where I started including bibliographies with my Powerpoint presentations; students refusing to leave my office after fighting a grade (for frankly worthless work) for 20-30 minutes...

Rolling higher education into the shitbin thread

Ah, thx

i work at a university. before getting my permanent job i was in the temp pool. one of my assignments was doing data entry on a batch of student evaluations for the linguistics department. some of the shit students would write would be crazy, in terms of being extremely negative about instructors who were broadly popular. was also strangely common for both male and female instructors to get comments about how cute or hot they were

Moved the discussion to the shitbin thread.

i hate this thread title and fucking loathe "political correctness" gone mad bullshit but lately i have been getting very fatigued by some of the social justice communities w/ whom i interact online and in my professional field. i'm a poc and an underrepresented minority in my field (academic libraries) and i've been heavily involved in diversity & inclusion / social justice & equity efforts in various capacities, working to rectify issues around recruitment, representation, communication, etc. in my field. it has been exciting and rewarding work and on a personal level i have met a lot of wonderful people doing this work. it has been amazing to connect with other poc and underrepresented groups who have felt marginalized and who are now doing work to make our field more diverse, welcoming, equitable, and inclusive.

but lately i feel like the communities, at least in my field, that are talking about some of these things have devolved into such a bullshit "cool kids" cliquish thing in which there is a woke crowd who knows what's up and then all the rest are dumb mansplaining oppressors, there is no room for patience or thoughtful discussion or an awareness that people are still learning about these issues. there are major discussions about social justice and inclusivity happening right now at conferences and professional listservs, it is great, but there is also this dynamic i frequently see in which the second a straight white dude suggests anything that is not 100% on board w/ the standard SJ internet mileu - even if it is very thoughtful, respectful, considered - people flip out, give a bunch of one-liners, make rude comments, say shit like “oh great another straight white male" and subtweet, subtweet, subtweet. this is a small field, everyone knows each other, but people i otherwise respect a lot respond in public forums in such toxic ways and it frustrates me. i see people at all levels of power responding this way, including some very prominent library directors and administrators at huge institutions, and it just feels toxic, cliquish, and exclusive. how the fuck do you expect to gain allies if every time someone suggests something different your immediate response is a rude dismissal or subtweet? at a previous job, i was a member and then a chair of a D&I committee, and over the 4 year period i served on that committee i saw how slowly allies were formed, how much work, patience, and empathy it took from all parties. if some straight white dude (or other person) made a good faith criticism or comment, we would patiently engage, and in most cases those people would come around. they kept showing up to our events and listened in and learned a lot. i am not even talking about dumb or offensive comments - i get that at a certain point you just have to say “fuck you” to some of those, but when “fuck you” happens to people who are earnestly and thoughtfully questioning you and are making a good faith effort to engage, why should we expect those people to become allies?

:(

not like this is any shock but i think you're otm and this is such an odious thing about discourse on the left imo it's not just sj activists but ime pretty much all places where political activism meets the internet. when i meet ppl doing irl face2face activism they are some of the most genuine, thoughtful, listening ppl i have met and then pretty much every online space - twitter, tumblr, facebook - the loudest ppl monopolize the discussion with defensiveness, rage, smugness, etc. it's terrible for so many reasons - one is what you mention because sometimes interlocutors w/ arguments you're tired of / think are trolls are potential allies if treated right. another is one is that you can't know your enemy if you don't know what they have to say. but the truth is that the best reason is that epistemic humility is such an important virtue and this whole "i know the truth i don't need to hear dissenting opinions any more" is disastrous. i think also it has led the left to basically cede the entire discourse of convincing moderates to the right. (not to mention this whole nasty internecine conflict btwn the left and liberals which is surely productive for the future political success of any ideas that are important to us.)

epistemic humility is such an important virtue and this whole "i know the truth i don't need to hear dissenting opinions any more" is disastrous

do you think this is a relatively new thing with the left? I can understand how this particular form and the venue (the internet) appear novel, but I can't help being reminded of the countless internecine infights of previous lefty movements

it seems like atm in particular the daggers are all out prob bc u kno

"i get that at a certain point you just have to say “fuck you” to some of those, but when “fuck you” happens to people who are earnestly and thoughtfully questioning you and are making a good faith effort to engage, why should we expect those people to become allies?"

well, ultimately because it's the right thing to do. it's about the ideals and not about the petty fucking people sometimes involved. i get where things are at right now. there's been a time of exceptionally open conversation and that has had a tendency to devolve into hostile and demeaning bullshit and at a certain point it's necessary to cut off the conversation and retrench. and if that cuts het cis white males like me out, whatever, that sucks and i roll my eyes a lot, but seriously people like me need to learn how to shut our goddamn mouths and listen every once in a while. i'm a big boy and i'm not going to abandon my commitment to justice just because some people are into power tripping.

i'm not going to call them on it either, because it's not my place, and certainly you're in a better position to call people on their bullshit than i am... i'm out as far as trying to speak for disenfranchised groups, but i certainly wouldn't mind having you speak for me. :) but if you don't feel up for that, you know what, don't worry about it. i don't think the conversation is really any worse off for missing my voice right now.

Yeah, that's how I feel but there are times when it seems like people are pretending everything is okay within their ranks and I feel like I should stick up for someone or something but I'm not sure I'm well informed enough and I just keep my fingers crossed and hope better people will prevail, but it feels cowardly and irresponsible to say nothing sometimes.
So it's a relief when some people better people acknowledge that things are getting a little scary.

but seriously people like me need to learn how to shut our goddamn mouths and listen every once in a while

feel free to start anytime btw

the only thing that honestly disturbed me is when some "progressives" started going after people who are into bdsm. i've been through that shit already, and i'm not going for it again.

"but seriously people like me need to learn how to shut our goddamn mouths and listen every once in a while

feel free to start anytime btw"

you guys are as predictable as pink floyd fans. fortunately for you i don't really have much to say to pink floyd fans either.

Yes, you and I can speak for ourselves as white dudes who don't feel any further need to engage because of how woke we already think we are

*posts 20 paragraphs about how I have nothing to add to the conversation*

but seriously, heed my words:

*posts some other bullshit*

Marcos, yr posts illustrates why I treat the people I meet like people and not like a representative sent from a marginalized group to appeal to my ability to do god knows what. i'm not here to save anybody. I don't fuck with activists because they don't need to be fucked with, they can do what they do for better or worse, I have no interest in the world of people positioning themselves above other people.

pink floyd fans are not the problem. spoiled brat 'talented americans' with 'good taste' need to wake the fuck up

Marcos, yr posts illustrates why I treat the people I meet like people and not like a representative sent from a marginalized group to appeal to my ability to do god knows what. i'm not here to save anybody. I don't fuck with activists because they don't need to be fucked with, they can do what they do for better or worse, I have no interest in the world of people positioning themselves above other people.

― sleepingbag

i miss 2009 ilx.

no i don't. i don't miss people who thought the way to "win" a discussion was to cow them into silence with zings. worst possible approach. the more you tell me to shut up, sleepingbag, the more i'll post. and then when you figure it out and stop telling me to shut up, i'll pack up my tent and vanish off the thread for the next three months, because the very premise of this thread is 2009 ilx personified and it will never not be like that.

what's the next step? spam the thread with "ironic" photos? or was the somebody else who did that?

the only thing that honestly disturbed me is when some "progressives" started going after people who are into bdsm. i've been through that shit already, and i'm not going for it again.

― increasingly bonkers (rushomancy), Wednesday, 26 April 2017 23:44

I recently heard of someone losing a job because of that. Some people were calling it "kink shaming".

drupal. i find that vanillas in general, and this includes a lot of ilx, have a little bit of difficulty differentiating between "that is super skeezy and gross" and "nobody should be allowed to do that", and if there's any advantage at all to bdsm it's that it's functionally necessary to be able to make that differentiation.

this thread has became completely incomprehensible to me

lol

I think it's been clear for some time that being "woke" is a form of cultural capital, and thus more concerned with drawing social distinctions (in Bourdieu's sense) than forming political solidarity across those distinctions.

yea that is pretty right on

This is all very alien to me. Aside from not recognising the descriptions of 'coddled progressives' etc., 99% of the people I interact with are not the sorts who concern themselves with social justice. In fact, I wish that people narcissistically jockeying to be the most 'woke' was a major part of my experience, rather than the everyday passive prejudice I see.

Woke privilege

The drupal people did not go after that guy because he was into bdsm, nor because he was gorean. They've made that very clear.

xps

wow great post up there marcos

I can understand how this particular form and the venue (the internet) appear novel

time and geography have been flattened. the internet doesn't just "appear novel" it has fundamentally altered communication across the globe. often now within minutes of something happening people across the planet are discussing it.

like before maybe an issue resulting leftist group inner fighting would be between a dozen or so people, now it involves hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands, all weighing in instantaneously

Surely the pre-internet group troubles would have been much easier to smooth over. Definitely less doxxing and life ruining stuff.

Seen some trigger warnings for misgendering, ciscentrism and allocentrism. Do people really have ptsd attacks because of these individual things or couldn't these be put under broader warnings?

Have never heard of allocentrism before, but from reading about it just now it seems like the kind of thing the trigger warning crowd would be in favor of. What am I missing?

What harm comes from those warnings? Xp

Allocentrism is a collectivistic personality attribute whereby people center their attention and actions on other people rather than themselves

bolded the flaw in the theory. it may work for robots

maybe allocentrism triggers former cult members?

The drupal people did not go after that guy because he was into bdsm, nor because he was gorean. They've made that very clear.

xps

― heaven parker (anagram)

huh, i must have missed where they did that. controversy tends to get more disseminated than perfectly reasonable explanations - have a link to a reasonable explanation?

there's some stuff here:

https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/a-statement-from-the-executive-director

and a bit more detail here:

https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/working-through-the-concerns-of-our-community

tl;dr: they're not saying why they asked him to leave but they're assuring us it was not b/c of his private life

"because the very premise of this thread is 2009 ilx personified and it will never not be like that."

"what's the next step? spam the thread with "ironic" photos? or was the somebody else who did that?"

i've learned a lot from this thread! and now i know what drupal is! sorry you hate it and the people on it and that it reminds you of 2009. i only started it to get opinions about an article in a magazine with the title *The Coddling of the American Mind* that came out in 2015. I didn't mean for it to be a rolling thread. But it turned into one. i promise i won't start spamming this thread that i started a year and a half ago with ironic images the way i used to in 2009. thanks for listening.

also, great post, marcos! sorry for the constant bumping of a thread title that has outstayed its welcome.

man, the open source community remind me so fucking much of mainline protestants sometimes. i know there's a fine line to walk w/r/t privacy but lack of transparency (_particularly_ in the open source community) will always lead people to assume the worst. the drupal people are in a tough spot here - with the narrative already having become "garfield was sacked because he was a gorean", simply saying "no he wasn't" with no further comment may not be read by everyone as a credible statement. :(

no worries scott any concerns i have certainly aren't targeted towards you. and frankly i'm as bad as anybody else, i keep posting to this thread even though i flat out told that guy i'd stop, but the drupal thing is a topic of particular interest to me and for whatever reason it never got hashed out on the gor thread revive a couple weeks back!

I now regret looking up "Gorean"

I'm going to assume it's a community of people who live as though Gore had won the 2000 election.

yea that and then just throw some sex slaves into the mix

let's all go to GOR!!

the "ironic" thing for me is that since i started this thread i've had to learn to cope with frightening triggers and they are no joke and they are no fun and i only wish good things for anyone going through any rough times out there.

Well done! I'm much the same - self-harm/suicide triggers can knock me sideways.