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

and Lynda Barry!

k3vin k otm, dude's e-mail was dumb and he's doing himself no favors in his tour of PC MADNESS media, but it wasn't so offensive as to justify immediately demanding his firing and shouting "fuck what what you have to say" in response to his request for discussion.

People will always have different opinions. This opinion was not obviously bigoted -- only arguably rooted in privileged blindness, although I am sure you can find people of all backgrounds who would agree with him -- and so so the idea that its vocalization caused "harm" to students is just manipulative.

He's gone on Fox News, so statistically, it's more likely than not that he is a racist...

― Frederik B

i didn't know you worked for google

Fred you are a blight on us all

"hey black people let's be cool about this and put phenotype aside"

i can totally understand waking up one day and going "hey why are WE the ones leaving?"

what followed sounds like it didn't quite work out tho

i mean, he seems kind of clueless, but i don't think anything he has said is objectionable enough for him to lose his job, which is what the protesters want. you can't have universities with faculties made up 100% of people who agree 100% with every tenet of the social justice/intersectional left, whatever you want to call it.

the protesters at this school are suspicious of anyone that isn't part of their movement--who doesn't talk about stuff exactly like they do--regardless of their actual sympathies. it doesn't seem like this approach is very promising for people who want a more equitable society--it's just going to fuel more factional conflicts and scramble the battle lines.

again, this seems like a marginal issue compared with all the other horrible things happening in our society right now -- with the fact that we have a malevolent narcissist in the white house, a man who won by running a campaign based on racism -- but i think it would be a mistake to dismiss it, it's not a coincidence that this is emerging at the same time our friends on the right have embraced a politics of pure resentment.

That goes to something I've seen elsewhere, that a lot of emotional fervor that goes into these brouhahas is re-directed political anxiety both as a result from and causing a lack of power in any greater institutional setting.

Like this is born of despair for not being able to affect anything on a material level, but also a result of continued habits that deemphasize or destroy collective action to change things.

It's the presumption that shaming people changes the system what produced 'em.

There's certainly a Nietzschean "genealogy of campus morality" critique waiting there for anyone who wants it.

" you can't have universities with faculties made up 100% of people who agree 100% with every tenet of the social justice/intersectional left, whatever you want to call it."

Agreed that you can't.

Do we agree that it's not even remotely desirable though.

Just pointing out that the students at Evergreen had some very really demands as well, including the disarmament of campus cops.

Do we agree that it's not even remotely desirable though.

Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cMYfxOFBBM

I feel like some of these student eyebrows should not be protected as free speech.

eyelashes

re the frequent rejoinder that they're just college kids and we have to cut them some slack
a. i was thinking back to my college days and i don't recall acting like this, or knowing anyone who did
b. presumably ppl who act like this in college and aren't corrected will just act like this as adults
c. fbofw ppl take college activism as metonymic for the left in general so it's not great

nb i've heard angela nagle discuss at least pts b + c

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCtbtmmWsAAJKoL.jpg

Ah yes, for the intellectual glory days before postmodernism, when bigotry didn't exist.

Steven Pinker is way too smart to be referring to social phenomena as "inevitable"

yeah. the imprecision of "inevitable" was unfortunate. he probably should have chosen something like "ensuing". this wouldn't imply an almost Newtonian cause and effect connection between the two phenomena. but you are, to speak precisely, quibbling over a word of secondary importance which does not carry his point.

if you behave foolishly your enemies will inevitably have an easier time mocking you

yeah. the imprecision of "inevitable" was unfortunate.

To my eye, at any rate, it's a deliberate attempt to shift responsibility for people being assholes away from the people who chose to be assholes and towards the people who, apparently, left the otherwise-only-potential-assholes literally no choice but to enact their assholery.

But REASONABLE PEOPLE MAY DIFFER, I concede I may be putting too much weight on one word

i think it's more like ppl will always be assholes but if you didn't abrogate your credibility maybe u could better address them instead of turning them into a cool countercultural movement

tbf I remember not really caring for that book when it came out after loving "the language instinct" so maybe i'm letting my negative feelings about the book as a whole inflect my read of that quote

Steven Pinker is way too smart

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Monday, June 19, 2017 7:36 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not in evidence tbh

Not sure what to make of the Left's responsibility idea but I find it funny how many rightwingers act like the Left weren't babysitting them well enough.

Pinker isn't a right winger ime

it's a deliberate attempt to shift responsibility

rhetoric is like that and Pinker is a rhetorician as well as a scientist. rhetorically, the quote contains both a direct rational argument and a (submerged) emotional one. you're focusing one word that carries a bit of the emotional argument, and treating it as if it were saying one clear-cut thing, but that isn't how it works. your response is among a number of shades of possible emotional responses, which happens to be negative in your case, because it rubbed you the wrong way. that's a weakness in the rhetoric, but not in the reasoning.

Pinker isn't a right winger ime

― Mordy, Tuesday, 20 June 2017 17:42

I wasn't talking about him (I like Pinker), I was meaning the "you made us harass you" trolls and cranky broken records

I don't agree with everything this writer says but it provides a decent catalogue of recent cases where American contingent faculty have been professionally punished (including losing their jobs in at least two cases) for expressing views that offend conservatives in non-classroom situations. (Dettwyler posted opinions on social media. Durden appeared on Tucker Carlson's show, without even being identified with her professional/academic affiliation.)

Yeah, I took notice that two persons were fired in a day, both were leftwing, both were women...

One particularly aggravating aspect of this is that the low compensation and protection provided to adjuncts is 'justified' on the grounds that they are only hired to perform a specific task: teach a class, not to do research or present their views at conferences, not to represent the university publicly, not to provide additional service. It seems especially gross that they could then be penalized for speech or activity that takes place on their own time, that has nothing to do with their contractual relationship to the institution.

Is this all Tucker Carlson does? I only ever seem to see the clips in which he has that dumb bewildered look at what the left are up to now.

Hurt conservatives' fee fees, get fired.
Be the author of The Bell Curve, get defended by the administration.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/adam-carolla-ben-shapiro-testify-congressional-hearing-free-speech-at-colleges-1021334

Members of Congress are curious about the riots that ensue at U.C. Berkeley and other universities seemingly whenever a conservative is scheduled to deliver a speech. A hearing has been scheduled on the matter, and among those invited to testify is comedian Adam Carolla, The Hollywood Reporter learned Friday.

Insiders say Carolla has accepted the invitation and will address a dozen or so congressmembers in a joint hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Health Care, Benefits and Administrative Rules and the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Affairs for up to two hours on July 27 in Washington.

Others planning to testify include conservative author and pundit Ben Shapiro and Nadine Strossen, the former president of the ACLU and a founder of Feminists for Free Expression. The topic of the congressional hearing is: “Challenges to Freedom of Speech on College Campuses.”

like... why

just why.

the riots that ensue at U.C. Berkeley and other universities seemingly whenever a conservative is scheduled to deliver a speech.

yeah they wish! usually what happens is dinesh d'souza or somebody comes and they hope to have a riot and instead nobody shows up except the 12 kids on campus who still remember who dinesh d'souza is and then they all sit in a circle and congratulate each other on their lonely bravery

"who can illuminate this issue for us.. wait! duh!!!! adam carolla"

Also invited is newspaper article commenter THE_TRUTH_HURTS

Carolla is apparently working on a movie about all this, but I thought real Americans hated Hollywood types telling them what to do?

he's made a career out of cosplaying a real american man, i guess that's close enough?

In response to the first question, he'll say, "Hey, lighten up!," crack open a Bud Light, and Journey's "Anyway You Want It" and/or Kenny Loggins' "I'm Alright" will start playing.

Siggy socky siggy socky hoy hoy hoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHYkHmpLiiM

Anyone know about the case of Samantha Bankston at Sierra Nevada College. This seems like might have the potential to be another real-world campus free speech issue but I haven't found much on it so far, other than this article, the linked change dot org petition, and a reddit thread: http://dailynous.com/2017/07/14/sierra-nevada-fires-philosopher-apparent-retaliation/

They keep going back to this well

Another data point (with more linked within) of a 'left' adjunct seemingly losing his livelihood because of stupid but dubiously actionable comments, many of which were made on private social media accounts: https://theestablishment.co/trumps-weaponized-base-is-going-after-academics-i-know-because-i-was-targeted-cf79d0f7fcb7