Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

well obv that is a fair reaction to studying a moldbug

amateurist obv otm

that butler quote a good example of her inability to extricate herself from a humanist (habermasian?) and vague concept of "language" as the foundation of politics/community, etc.

not expert on butler, but think i know what you mean

yes humanist & vague; was going to argue with ‘habermasian’ bc she makes point, explicitly & implicitly, of opposing/ distinguishing her thought from his. e.g. anti-normative, emphasis on irreducible self-opacity etc

but maybe that effort goes to support yr point. still committed to some version of enlightenment/ critical/ emancipatory project (but in complicated foucauldian vein); if it's 'habermasian', maybe in much broader looser sense one cd also call it aristotelian, wrt primacy of rhetoric, near-identification of ethics/politics & rhetoric (i.e. rhetorical situation of speaking/ spoken subjects, speaking to/ spoken to by others)

tbh have attachment to something like this vague humanist picture too. off topic (sorry) except maybe relevant to why ‘free speech’ is among highest values for me

i guess i just meant that these guys and gals seem to spend most of their time playing language games and appealing to authority and not actually making testable observations about human behavior and society

but i guess i don't want to get into this again

amateurist, have you read Ellen Willis? The most rigorous, jargon-free, and practical feminist writer I've read.

i like ellen willis a lot. what does she have to do with critical theory?

probably that she aint goin around making 'testable assertions' like yr cranky ass pretends to want whenever your hobbyhorse obscurantists pop up and give you a chance to preen

told!

:) you're not wrong, amst. but you can always read critical theory as strange kind of fiction, like borges story

really it's just midrash upon midrash ad infinitum all the way down & around (no ground text), taking apart & generating fables & metaphors

http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/liberalism-as-drama

review of a new 'chronicle' of liberalism by an economist (a the economist) dude

Thus Fawcett, a learned and polyglot former journalist, has set out to write not a “philosophy” of liberalism, but a “chronicle” of it: a series of dynamic adaptations and compromises. Liberalism retains four core ideas: the inescapability of social conflict; a distrust of power, whether political, social, or economic; faith in human progress; and “respect for people whatever they think and whoever they are.” Tracking those ideas, liberalism consistently seeks an ethical order without divine authority or tradition; an economic order without monopolies and local barriers; an international order of treaties and trade rather than force; and a political order without absolute authorities or unchecked powers.

What gives liberalism its variety and variability is not only the need to adapt to constant change but also the tension among these four ideas. Abandon any one of them and you’re no longer fully a liberal. Yet combining and vindicating all of them at once requires intellectual skill and political nerve. Fawcett, then, sees liberalism’s “endurance and life” as the work of thinkers who embodied skill and nerve — who creatively combined these ideas, in ways that differed across countries and times — and of leaders who pursued them all at once.

http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/against-students/

Sarah Ahmed on fantasies of the "problem student" ("the consuming student, the censoring student, the over-sensitive student, and the complaining student"):

The figure of the censoring student who pushes unwanted speakers off campus exists in close relation to the consuming student. Both work to create an impression that students have all the power to decide what is being taught as well as what is not being taught, what is being spoken about, as well as what is not being spoken about; and that this power is at the expense not only of dons and departments, but also politicians, journalists, and other public figures. [...] Yet the instances of apparent censorship (translate: student protests) seem to generate more discourse and discussion rather than preventing discourse or discussion. So much high-profile speech and writing is generated by those who claim they are silenced!
But we can still ask: what is the figure of the censoring student doing? By hearing student critique as censorship, the content of that critique is pushed aside. When you hear a challenge as an attempt at censorship you do not have to engage with the challenge. You do not even have to say anything of substance because you assume the challenge is without substance.
In the first instance, critique and contestation (“they want the wrong courses!”) is dismissed as consumerism; in the second instance, protest (“they don’t want the right people!”) is dismissed as censorship.

in the second instance, protest (“they don’t want the right people!”) is dismissed as censorship.

that description overlooks the fact that at times a group of protesting students will imperiously demand that an invited speaker not be allowed to come or to speak, based on their critique of that speaker's views, which in fairness can be described as an effort to censor, but given the fact that no group of students is empowered to veto an invited speaker this effort toward censorship is limited to the critique and is powerless aside from its persuasion.

it is probably good to remember that one of the acceptable definitions of 'to censor' is 'to label as morally repugnant'. it doesn't always mean 'to forcibly suppress'.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/opinion/sunday/judith-shulevitz-regulating-sex.html?referrer=&_r=0

not really sure where this belongs, but this threads seems as good as any.

in the second instance, protest (“they don’t want the right people!”) is dismissed as censorship.

that description overlooks the fact that at times a group of protesting students will imperiously demand that an invited speaker not be allowed to come or to speak, based on their critique of that speaker's views, which in fairness can be described as an effort to censor, but given the fact that no group of students is empowered to veto an invited speaker this effort toward censorship is limited to the critique and is powerless aside from its persuasion.

it is probably good to remember that one of the acceptable definitions of 'to censor' is 'to label as morally repugnant'. it doesn't always mean 'to forcibly suppress'.

― Aimless, Monday, June 29, 2015 12:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, and i think the sum total of this sort of thing over the decades is that the type of speaker who is frequently invited to campus has indeed narrowed.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/06/30/lsu_professor_fired_over_f_word_p_word_off_color_joke_finally_academia_s.html

It would be one thing if Buchanan had woven said profanity into a slur. But she didn’t. She said “Fuck no,” something I have also done in class on numerous occasions, to only mild titters. She used the word pussy to denote cowardice, something I have also done in class, albeit in reference to Faust, who 100 percent is one. She also made an off-color joke to students, that their partners might become less supportive as the sexual intensity of their relationships waned (an offense that deserves a talking-to).

For all this, after an 11-hour hearing, a committee of Buchanan’s peers concluded that she be officially censured (which is not the same as “censored,” except in this case it is), and never use “potentially offensive language” in the classroom again. But the LSU administration found that already-Draconian punishment insufficient. Buchanan actually got fired. Please inure your sensitive dispositions to my French, but this is re-goddamned-diculous.

yikes! i swear a fair bit in class. why would anyone be bothered by that?

although it sounds like the off-color joke rather than the f-word got her fired. still. jeez!

The reports suggest that the decision came directly from chancellor and there isn't any obvious evidence any of the students complained.

yes apparently the termination letter cites the classroom language, but there's talk about her function in public education having more to do with it?

sounds like the chancellor found a convenient excuse to fire someone they'd wanted to fire for ages

Tbh calling someone a "pussy" in class is unacceptable imo--not grounds for FIRING, necessarily, but way more offensive than "swearing" as such.

that probably took 5 or 6 of the hours in the 11-hour hearing to hash out

depends on context i'd think. calling a student a pussy? unacceptable pretty much no matter what. male professor calling a public figure/character a pussy? problematic, but not as bad. female professor? kind of weird to get upset about that

aimless probably otm, sounds like a vendetta

so much for being "down with the kids"

an 11-hour hearing is the most offensive part imo

agree with io there, its not hard to avoid shit like this in work/classroom settings ffs

There are a bunch of offensive terms for people that we don't even use ON THIS BAORD no matter who we are, ffs, some of which were in frequent rotation up until a few years ago when some posters asked that we stop! It's not impossible, you just have to give a shit. A gendered & gender-patrolling slur like "pussy" has no place in any community that even PRETENDS not to be made up of assholes.

i doubt those were the LSU president's concerns

xp - the right answer is to ask the person to stop using the term. you don't step in and fire them from their job before you give them a chance to change.

she had me at "fuck no"

can a female professor say the b-word?

That's the wrong question. The question is, Is an atmosphere where sexist, gendered, racist, homophobic insults are used a desirable environment for your college/business/what have you? And if the answer is No, then What kind of steps do you need to change to constructively change that environment to one in which such words & actions aren't normalized?

Institutional or community-wide culture change isn't really about individuals imo.

i think we all agree that her calling someone (anyone; even a fictional personage) a "pussy" was very bad judgement. but a firing offense? if that was a firing offense, there wouldn't be a single football or basketball coach employed at an institution of higher education.*

*ugh, don't get me started on double standards for athletic dept. employees.

but yes this stinks of someone waiting for the professor to step out of line in order to fire them.

this event seems to be very much about an individual!

xps

no idea what prof buchanan is "really like;" what we do know is that her firing was based on no student complaint and done over the recommendation of a faculty investigative panel that recommended censure

perhaps she had a long history of this kind of rough talk that came up to the administration outside of official channels. you can imagine anything, if you want

the story in the advocate indicates that the president's read of the evidence is pretty tendentious

Buchanan was fired even though a committee of five faculty members that presided over an 11-hour dismissal review hearing held on March 9 recommended that she keep her job.

While the committee found that her adult language and humor violated university policies that protect students and employees from sexual harassment, it found no evidence Buchanan’s comments were “systematically directed at any individual.”

The committee recommended she be censured and agree to quit using “potentially offensive language and jokes” that some found offensive.

The committee also faulted the university for failing to have the chair of Buchanan’s department work to resolve her behavior prior to having the Human Resources Office investigate.

LSU President and Chancellor F. King Alexander rejected the faculty committee’s recommendation that Buchanan be censured and instead urged the LSU Board of Supervisors to dismiss her.

In an April 2 letter to Buchanan, Alexander pointed to the committee’s finding that she had engaged in sexual harassment but didn’t mention that the committee had recommended censure, not termination.

The chancellor also cited an allegation that Buchanan had violated a student’s rights under the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, an allegation the committee had rejected as “not substantiated by testimony.”

The chancellor also cited an allegation that Buchanan had violated a student’s rights under the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, an allegation the committee had rejected as “not substantiated by testimony.”

oooh

btw does merely saying 'fuck no' (not in response to a student but in re. a discussion of a work of literature) create a hostile working environment? in that case the word 'fuck' is so far removed from its sexual meaning that i would argue it doesn't carry any sexual connotation whatsoever. no more than saying 'shit! this projector is broken' is alluding to coprophilia.

any breach of a norm of propriety may be perceived as hostile for a variety of legitimate or illegitimate reasons

sure

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/30/zandria-robinson-univ-of-memphis-professor-whitene/

she had already accepted another job a while back

the university reporting that she no longer works for them is not stating that she was fired

when this popped up on twitter yesterday and under the hashtag i saw loads of academic/twitter activists being all 'i am outraged' before they realized any of that, it put online-outrage-mongering in really sharp perspective

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/07/01/twitter-explodes-false-reports-u-memphis-fired-professor-why?utm_content=buffer3f581&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

"we need a more nuanced intersectional reading of the thing," says the professor whose twitter condemnations lack all nuance

http://www.thenation.com/article/211337/professor-was-fired-saying-fuck-no-class#

this article mentions a lot of recent creepy-liberalism-in-academia events, going all the way back to patti adler's 'prostitution lecture', but it also contains different reporting about theresa buchanan

Recently, there’s been much discussion of what some say is a growing intellectual chill and sexual panic on campus. In the latest example, on June 19, Teresa Buchanan, a tenured associate professor of education at Louisiana State University, was fired from the school where she’d taught for twenty years for using off-color language. Her alleged offenses included saying, in class, “fuck no” and making a joke about sex declining in long-term relationships, as well as using the word “pussy” in an off-campus conversation with a teacher. Reached by phone, she says she had no memory of saying “pussy” to anyone, but said that, if she did, it likely would have been in a conversation about how teachers must learn to handle irate parents. “If a parent is very angry and says, ‘You need to do a better job, you little pussy,” you need to know how to react. I wasn’t calling anybody that word.”

From the Nation article:

The student, he learned, was threatening to bring him up on sexual harassment charges. “Oh, I felt unsafe,” he whines, imitating her. The director, he says, told him, “I know this is bullshit, you know this is total bullshit, since you’re gay, but you really don’t want to deal with this bullshit. Just give her the grade.”

Bizarre to leave uncriticized the claim that gay dudes are incapable of creating a toxic atmosphere for women.

that guy sounds like an A+ asshole

Honestly, being the kind of teacher who prides himself on his blunt truth-telling and likes to pull out the "whiny little girl" voice is positively correlated with running a classroom that's crap for women, though obviously I know nothing about this guy in particular.

I also think that "student programmed to hyperachieve will do anything to avoid a B+" has much more to do with this story than "political correctness gone mad."