Elsewhere (177)
Janice Fiamengo on feminist narratives and unmentioned history:
After 1832, about one in five men had the right to vote. Almost half of adult males, though, were still not eligible to vote when they accepted the call to fight and die for their country in the First World War. It wasn’t until 1918 that the right to vote was extended, not only to women – which of course we hear a great deal about – but to all men. So how can this be – that this part of the story is almost completely unknown? How come when we celebrate the extension of the franchise to women, we don’t talk about its extension to poor and working class men?
Via sk60, Jonathan Foreman on the Tim Hunt “sexism” drama and the dishonesty and malevolence of certain key players:
The most generous interpretation of Connie St Louis’s bizarre behaviour is that she was too intellectually limited to recognise irony that was somehow obvious to an audience composed mostly of people who spoke English as a second language. A leak of the unedited version of her “Stop Defending Tim Hunt” piece for the Guardian is so garbled and incoherent that this actually seems plausible, though it also makes you wonder how and why she came to be teaching journalism even at a third-rate institution like London’s City University.
And Peter Hasson on ‘progressive’ educators and predetermined conclusions:
Multiple professors at Washington State University have explicitly told students their grades will suffer if they use terms such as “illegal alien,” “male,” and “female,” or if they fail to “defer” to non-white students. According to the syllabus for Selena Lester Breikss’ “Women & Popular Culture” class, students risk a failing grade if they use any common descriptors that Breikss considers “oppressive and hateful language.” […] Students taking Professor Rebecca Fowler’s “Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies” course will see their grades suffer if they use the term “illegal alien” in their assigned writing.[…] White students in Professor John Streamas’s “Introduction to Multicultural Literature” class are expected to “defer” to non-white students, among other community guidelines, if they want “to do well in this class.”
Imagine what such ‘thinkers’ might do if granted real power.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.
Fiamengo previously.
If identitarian dogma and begged questions aren’t your thing, you could always take a course in which you “look at selfies as an expression of gender, race and sexuality.” Because then everyone will respect your intellectual wattage and countless job offers will be thrown at your feet.
And for readers who’ve been following the Hugo Awards / Sad Puppies drama, this may be of interest.
“Teacher keeps $90K job after being late 111 times.”
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/213401/
Corbyn: Death of Bin Laden was “a tragedy”.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/6614682/Jeremy-Corbyn-calls-Osama-Bin-Ladens-death-a-tragedy.html
“Imagine what such ‘thinkers’ might do if granted real power.”
The problem is that the filters are nowhere near fine enough to exclude them all……
Then we have a Clinton etc..
From Prof Briekss’ syllabus:
Final Project – Culture Jamming Project
Culture Jamming was originated by guerilla anti-consumerist social movements to call attention to the social,
political, economic, and cultural costs of conspicuous consumption and unfettered capitalism. Your final project
for this class is to create an advertisement which calls attention to the themes of this course. As we move through
the semester, I will provide examples in class to help trigger your imagination and creativity with the project. I
recommend looking into groups like AdBusters for examples of what you will be expected to create. I will provide
a detailed project outline in the second week of class.
She is in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies, which is an extremely elliptical way to get to Dept of Re-Education.
which is an extremely elliptical way to get to Dept of Re-Education.
Arrested adolescents teaching the credulous.
I use the term teaching loosely.
It’s maybe too late to be unduly concerned about Breikks’ and Fowler’s nasty methods of racial and cultural blackmail, when we have Yasmin Alibhai-Brown openly endorsing blatant discrimination simply for being ‘white’ and ‘male’. Forget about considering someone’s political views when considering their suitability for political leadership – as although Y A-B likes Corbyn’s political stance, it seems his whiteness and maleness are too much for her.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/i-like-corbyn-but-lets-face-it-we-dont-need-another-white-man-at-the-head-of-a-political-party-10478920.html
That’s not racist or sexist btw, just Yasmin putting the world to rights by discriminating on the basis of, er, race and sex.
I live up the street from the school where Mr. 90 Grand teaches. The combined income of the surrounding 5 blocks does not equal his salary.
Multiple professors at Washington State University have explicitly told students their grades will suffer . . . if they fail to “defer” to non-white students.
Query what the the definition of “defer” is? It would seem, given that “Streamas . . . previously generated controversy by calling a student a “ white shitbag,” that the best way to comply is to simply not take his class.
Multiple professors at Washington State University have explicitly told students their grades will suffer…&c
This is, I believe, a danger vastly overrated. Any person of pallor stupid enough to enroll in these courses will be such a nitwit to begin with that xe or xir will be falling over zemzelves bowing and scraping before any persons of color (but not colored persons) to apologize for their offense of pallorness that the chance that one of zem would use one of the doubleplusungoodwords, other than to describe how unplusgood it is and how it is a reflection of Pallor Privilege, would be about the same chance as one of them being struck by a meteorite, or as of securing meaningful employment after graduation.
While we’re once again on the topic of “the word illegal is mean, nasty, and bunches my underwear”, let’s address the now popular (seeming)dysjunctive syllogism “illegal refers to verbs and not nouns. People are nouns. Therefore people cannot be illegal”. At least, I think that’s what they’re going for at least partly, vs. the more spectacularly dishonest “It should not be (so it isn’t) illegal for a person to exist”, which is the only alternative and doesn’t depend on the syllogism at all, instead conflating activity and identity (again). I’ve definitely seen the first in action, though, usually with a veneer of smugness. “My opponents aren’t even literate!” and so on.
Trouble is, the first premise is entirely wrong, which seems obvious when you compare it to the similar _criminal_. Criminal is absolutely an adjective for verb activities and the like, in a fairly synonymous manner with “illegal”, but is also an adjective for nouns that engage in those verb activities (“criminal organization”) and indeed, the participants themselves. Hence, “criminal”. The next time some soft-skulled simp or crooked-minded intersectionalist suggests that people “cannot be against the law”, ask them if people can be a crime. Then have them take up arguing “criminal”‘s definition with a judge. I’ll make the popcorn.
Illegal
Illegal alien
Both completely logically constructed, correct in common use for a century, in keeping with normal English use dating back a half-millenium… I think I’ll keep them, thanks.
Culture Jamming was originated by guerilla anti-consumerist social movements to call attention to the social,
political, economic, and cultural costs of conspicuous consumption and unfettered capitalism.
Hey, guerilla anti-consumerist social movements, how’s that working out for you?
Hey, guerilla anti-consumerist social movements, how’s that working out for you?
Don’t forget that Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn was an early guru of the Occupy fad, the one who said, “It’s about antagonising people and slapping them around a little bit and waking them up to reality.” Yes, slapping people around, for their own good.
Perhaps this is a bit OT, but in the “cluelessness” category…Was reading an article concerning the “Into The Wild” Chris McCandless, a 24-year-old honors graduate who wandered off into the wilds of Alaska and got a little more from mother nature than he presumably bargained for. In the comments I had this exchange with a (presumed) Buddhist concerning…Buddhism, I think. Or possibly the “small mindedness” of certain tribes. Though to be fair, after reading Mr. Nelson’s response I’m not entirely sure which one of us is the mas cluelessness one.
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/mnnprod/why_are_we_still_talking_about_chris_mccandless/newest/#comment-2157102835
Hey, guerilla anti-consumerist social movements, how’s that working out for you?
Guerilla anti-consumerist rally for today cancelled, organizational conflict with Marxist chimpanzee book club.
Students taking Professor Rebecca Fowler’s “Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies” course will see their grades suffer if they use the term “illegal alien” in their assigned writing
I smell a lawsuit.
A little off-topic, but arts and culture related, Boris Johnson on the destruction of Palmyra in today’s Telegraph;
It is now almost exactly 2,000 years since the inhabitants of Palmyra completed that temple, and the reason it has survived is because every succeeding generation has marvelled at its harmony and elegance of conception.
It has survived every conqueror and every invasion in a region famed for the brutality of its invaders. No one has been so moronic and vile as to destroy an object that so adorned our collective civilisation – no one until Daesh, or Isil, or whatever we want to call them. People feel instinctively that these buildings stand for something remarkable – the willingness of one civilisation to learn from another, to adopt architectural styles, to blend, to merge – to enjoy and accept and build on the legacy of the past.
White students in Professor John Streamas’s “Introduction to Multicultural Literature” class are expected to “defer” to non-white students, among other community guidelines, if they want “to do well in this class.”
And yet all students have to defer to Professor John Streamas, a white guy, if they want to do well in class. Ironic, eh?
The most generous interpretation of Connie St. Louis’s bizarre behavior is that she was too intellectually limited to recognize irony that was somehow obvious to an audience composed mostly of people who spoke English as a second language.
Ahhh, yes, the occupational and functional limitations of those who regularly and completely fail at EFL comprehension.
No, not ESL, Eee Eff Elle comprehension . . .
And yet all students have to defer to Professor John Streamas, a white guy, if they want to do well in class. Ironic, eh?
John Houseman
Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.: You teach yourselves the law, but I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush; you leave thinking like a lawyer.
Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.: Mr. Hart, here is a dime. Take it, call your mother, and tell her there is serious doubt about you ever becoming a lawyer.
James T. Hart: [pause, as he is leaving the room] You… are a son of a bitch, Kingfield!
Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.: Mr. Hart! That is the most intelligent thing you’ve said today. You may take your seat.
“No one has been so moronic and vile as to destroy an object that so adorned our collective civilisation – no one until Daesh, or Isil, or whatever we want to call them.”
It’s worth noting, however, that Middle Eastern Islam has had its repeated periods of cultural destruction. And that Islam rather thoroughly destroyed the architectural heritage of Hinduism and Buddhism in those parts of India that it controlled.
Via sk60, Jonathan Foreman on the Tim Hunt “sexism” drama and the dishonesty and malevolence of certain key players:
Actually, for everyone that took part, there is the quite longstanding, and therefore uniformly respected and absolutely honorable practice which they are merely following, and of course everyone acknowledges such being the only thing to do.
After all, when something is occurring which The People don’t like—such as the national stock market crashing—You blame someone.
https://ccgrs.wsu.edu/faculty-staff/john-streamas/
“Dr. Streamas is currently researching the social and cultural implications of various constructions of time and space.”
How this is different from contemplating his navel is not revealed.
Arrested adolescents teaching the credulous. I use the term teaching loosely.
Who the hell wastes money on a course that tells them how guilty they are for being white?
Who the hell wastes money on a course that tells them how guilty they are for being white?
Someone does. Generally, I should think, they’re teenagers who want easy answers and don’t like autonomous mental activity, or maths. Remember this bewildered young lady and her worthless degrees?
If it weren’t so fraudulent and malign, you could almost admire the chutzpah of presenting dogmatism, question-begging and mental uniformity as a scholarly endeavour. The sheer brass neck of threatening students with penalties for using realistic language – and thereby questioning the premise of the course – while saying those same students should “strive to keep an open mind.” An open mind being implicitly defined as wholehearted acceptance of the lecturer’s own political worldview.
I mean, are these people audacious, or just dim?
Somewhat related: You mustn’t say ‘mankind’.
‘If it weren’t so fraudulent and malign, you could almost admire the chutzpah of presenting dogmatism, question-begging and mental uniformity as a scholarly endeavour’.
Con-artists are good at identifying victims who want to be gulled.
“Incoming freshmen at several universities are being instructed on the use of gender-neutral pronouns, lest they inadvertently use offensive terms like “he” or “she.”… We should not assume someone’s gender by their appearance, nor by what is listed on a roster or in student information systems,” [Donna Braquet] says, before going on to suggest ways that students and professors can demonstrate gender sensitivity.”
http://campusreform.org/?ID=6775
How far up their own arses do they plan to climb?
We should not assume someone’s gender by their appearance,
Ah, but if you do assume a person’s gender based on their appearance, you’ll only be right practically all of the time. So obviously that’s no good.
And it occurs to me that pointedly avoiding gender-specific pronouns is much more likely to cause offence, as it suggests you aren’t quite sure whether the person you’re addressing is male or female. Which is not something that many people find flattering or endearing.
How far up their own arses do they plan to climb?
I’m afraid with some people it’s asshat all the way.
A)
“Teacher keeps $90K job after being late 111 times.”
“>http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/213401/
B)
Defying US top court, clerk denies gay marriage licenses
Reuters – 29 minutes ago
C)
How far up their own arses do they plan to climb?
I’m afraid with some people it’s asshat all the way.
D)
Siiiiiiiiggggggggggghhhhhhhh . . . . . .
Incoming freshmen at several universities are being instructed on the use of gender-neutral pronouns, lest they inadvertently use offensive terms like “he” or “she.”
When in doubt one can use the fine lists compiled by at Ask A Non Binary which cover nigh any situation, animal, or vegetable, and offers over 200 choices for humans or those with human DNA who might identify as something else.
Ah, but if you do assume a person’s gender based on their appearance, you’ll only be right practically all of the time. So obviously that’s no good.
Laughed out loud. Now I have to pretend to do some work.
Who the hell wastes money on a course that tells them how guilty they are for being white?
People who think that Their Betters have something important to tell them.
We should not assume someone’s gender by their appearance,
Because if a bloke wants to present as a chick, and I assume that said chick-like person is a chick, I’m good on the pronoun thing, right?
Honestly, it’s not as if people outside San Francisco and the mountains of Borneo walk around with their genitalia uncovered, and in the case of Borneo the natives are far more circumspect and modest about it.
We should not assume someone’s gender by their appearance,
I sometimes wonder if the Clown Quarter of academia might actually be a massive and rather perverse behavioural experiment, the point of which is to see just how credulous and mentally deformable human beings are.
‘Center director Donna Braquet seems to acknowledge in her accompanying explanation of the document.
“These may sound a little funny at first, but only because they are new,” she writes, arguing that “she” and “he” would also sound strange “if we had been taught ze [one of the gender-neutral pronouns] growing up.”’
‘Ze’? For real?
I seem to recall from my childhood that in playground versions of WWII the lads who got to be the boxheads would pronounce ‘the’ as ‘ze’, particularly when they were pretending to issue commands.
So could we see German exchange students assuming that Ms Braquet is taking the piss out of them? That would be funny.
A moment of beauty: a-MAZE-ing shot of the summer monsoons in Arizona. Prolly didn’t look that good in person.
I sometimes wonder if the Clown Quarter of academia might actually be a massive and rather perverse behavioural experiment, the point of which is to see just how credulous and mentally deformable human beings are.
Regardless of intent, that’s exactly what it’s turning out to be.
AWK! Polly want a cracker-ass to defer!
I confess I am at a loss to explain the continued desire among young adults to spend the several years and several tens of thousands of dollars required to acquire the badge of shame that is a ‘Studies’ degree from a modern US university. The sole explanation that springs to mind is they are wound up and sent off into the mainstream workforce to wreak havoc, like an army of academic Typhoid Marys.
Con-artists are good at identifying victims who want to be gulled.
Yes, absolutely. But there’s also an element of complicity. It’s worth bearing in mind that such courses allow people of modest ability to feel statusful and superior, and therefore entitled to scold the rest of us. For some, a dogmatic and disreputable course is (a) an easy pass if you’re suitably credulous and conformist or willing to lie as required, and (b) a small price to pay for a license to be randomly angry and pretentiously indignant.
In much the same way that quite a few disaffected young women take a degree in Women’s Studies in order to pretend to be an expert in downtrodden womanliness, and thus entitled to seethe professionally, as it were. Even though the ‘experts’ who taught them bollocks about gender rarely, if ever, have any formal qualification in – or discernible knowledge of – biology or neuroscience. Apparently, a middling degree in English literature somehow makes one an expert in all aspects of the world.
I’m seeing a growing sentiment of worry around a bunch of blogs in both Europe and America that goes something like this:
If the only candidates willing to protect the borders are Nazis, people are going to elect Nazis. Add qualifiers as desired for neo-Nazis, proto-Nazis, quasi-Nazis, semi-Nazis, demi-Nazis, Nazi-oids, etc.
This resulting from various shriekerati constantly asserting that Trump is Hitler, the Sweden Democrats are Hitler, Jobbik and Fidesz are made of Hitlers, deportation is Hitler, doing anything to dissuade the migrant-vagrant flow across the Mediterranean is Hitler, not doing anything about the migrant-vagrant flow is also Hitler because they’re drowning out there and we must do something, and building a wall on the Mexican border is, like, Double Hitler because you know where else had a wall? Berlin! And Berlin is in Germany! Checkmate, racist! (Never mind that the Berlin Wall was 1. built after the death of Hitler, and 2. supposed to keep people in, not out. History is hard, let’s go shopping.)
Well, if all these things are Hitler, people might conclude that maybe Hitler isn’t so bad. Helped along by the Downfall parodies, of course. Anyone who was 20 in WW2 is over 90 now. Hitler is gone from living memory, and a generation grown up on “Hitler Reacts To…” shorts is primed to think of Hitler as funny shouty man, not kill six trillion jews man.
Con-artists are good at identifying victims who want to be gulled.
I think you may be missing who the mark is.
“Police don’t actually protect law-abiding citizens from criminals so much as they protect criminals from the much-rougher justice they’d get in the absence of a legal system. Burglars would be hung from lampposts, and shoplifters would be beaten and tossed into the gutter if there were no police.”
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/213608/
so much as they protect criminals from the much-rougher justice they’d get in the absence of a legal system.
Quite.
Tell me again, when were the Metropolitan Police formed? Robert somebody…
Ah, but if you do assume a person’s gender based on their appearance, you’ll only be right practically all of the time. So obviously that’s no good.
[My daughter:] Pffft. I do love this blog.
[My daughter:] Pffft.
Is that a bad pffft or a good pffft?
Wait. Is there a good pffft?
@sackcloth and ashes | September 01, 2015 at 17:09
I’ve never understood the amount of attention given to gendered pronouns given that their absence does not seem to make e.g. the Turks particularly feminist. But I suppose most of the people involved are unaware of the existence of other languages than English.
An educated leftist speaks. Seems there are quite a few Lauries in the world.
A lorra lorra Lauries.
An educated leftist speaks.
It’s like SJW twitter took human form.
“It’s like SJW twitter took human form.”
One my favourite comments from that page went something like this:
“It’s like someone built an android and the operating system is Tumblr posts”
It’s like SJW twitter took human form.
Yes, Ms Brooks is practically shuddering with piety. I think my favourite part is when she can’t recall when and where something was allegedly said and instead repeatedly shrieks “I do my research!”
And the shawl – sorry, pashmina – was a really bad idea.
Obviously a sarcastic Pfffft.
Very much an in thing with today’s yoots.
This made me chuckle.
“Just noticed how well the Obama logo works for Trump with some simple color changes and rotation.”
https://twitter.com/ratherironic/status/639144032325636096
I’ll say this for Kate Brooks, there’s a certain magnificence about her ridiculousness. As well as the shawl she should wear a winged helmet and carry a spear. It would really enhance her Wagnerian vibe.
An educated leftist speaks
I managed about 60 seconds of that before involuntarily clicking the delete tab button – impressed that you lasted as long as you did.
I don’t think I’d like to meet her, though I’ve probably shared the street with her, so to speak. What really strikes me is that the kind of really angry and obnoxious feminist of the 1970s and 80s has returned. Back then they were considered a bit crazy by everyone. Now they are practically running the show.
Another example was Brendan O’Neill’s “discussion” with Harriet Brown from the spectator. Joy all round!
On a happier note, I’m vaguely friendly with a postgrad student in her late 20s who can’t stand what happened to Tim Hunt.
impressed that you lasted as long as you did.
I was practically heroic. But it’s interesting how often these displays – and they are displays – rely on an absurd emotionalism. People like Ms Brooks (or Laurie Penny or any number of others) apparently want us to see just how many FEELINGS!™ they’re having, even if those FEELINGS!™ leave them spluttering and incoherent, as if FEELINGS!™ were proof of virtue, a shortcut to “I am obviously right.” Sort of, “I’m having ALL THESE FEELINGS!™ – so many FEELINGS!™ I can’t even think straight – how dare you not defer to me?!”
Which is a bit of a conceit.
Ms. Brooks is very screamy. I can’t hear screamy people.