Don’t Oppress My People With Your White Devil Science
In the video below, filmed at the University of Cape Town, members of the science faculty meet with student protestors who wish to “decolonise” the university and not pay their bills. During the meeting, one of the staff, one of the “science people,” points out that, contrary to claims being made by a student protestor, witchcraft doesn’t in fact allow Africans to throw lightning at their enemies.
He is promptly scolded for “disrespecting the sacredness of the space,” which is a “progressive space,” and is told either to apologise or leave. Repeated cowed apologies ensue. The offended speaker, the one claiming that Africans can in fact throw lightning at each other – and who disdains “Western knowledge” as “very pathetic” – then uses the apparently scandalous reference to reality as the sole explanation for why she is “not in the science faculty.”
There being no other, perhaps more obvious, reason.
Among the gems, this:
That, since you ask, is where the lightning-hurling crops up, cited as a guiding example of this New, More Glorious Paradigm. Like science, if only in name, but browner and therefore better, obviously.
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.
Lifted from yesterday’s comments. Via AnotherFred.
Update:
Given the air of farce, it’s hard to tell exactly how sincere or disingenuous those filmed above are being. Perhaps the ostensibly respectful audience is held in place, in part, by a morbid curiosity. However, what is obvious is the protestors’ delight in passive-aggressive leverage and games of social dominance. The appeal to witchcraft and “sacredness,” the pretence of victimhood and injured feelings, all of it seems a pretext to cow the faculty, the “science people,” and to indulge in scolding. Some people really enjoy that kind of thing, of course, and will become cartoonish and absurd in order to indulge in it.
As Nikw211 notes in the comments, the students don’t seem overly troubled by the largely white, Western origins of the claptrap they regurgitate. But the claptrap is flattering, and is intended to flatter, and thereby seduce. It offers excuses. Not least for mediocrity. And so we have students, supposed intellectuals, demanding they be taken seriously while claiming, based on nothing, that the scientific method and tribal superstition are just rival epistemologies and therefore – yes, therefore – somehow equal in their accuracy and usefulness.
And despite the inevitable rumblings of racial oppression, I can’t help wondering whether the students would be similarly indulged and deferred to if they had paler skin.
Update 2:
In the comments, Theophrastus steers us to a piece in the Times, which offers a taste of the studious climate at the University of Cape Town and elsewhere:
Science lecturers contacted by The Times said that violence at the country’s universities had made work almost impossible. Many are afraid to speak out against the students. Lecturers warned of an exodus of academics to overseas universities or privately owned institutions… While none of the academics would comment on the “Sciencemustfall” movement, one referred to a period in the early 2000s when Thabo Mbeki, the president at the time, refused to allow an antiretroviral treatment campaign for people with Aids. Mr Mbeki’s health minister promoted a traditional African method for fighting disease: a concoction of garlic, beetroot and onion.
As a result of such identitarian pieties, which include burning historic artwork and smearing statues with human faeces, I’m sure the protestors will soon be surging to the forefront of intellectual endeavour.
Details, details . . .
…they really think the whole world is as thick as those around them.
Which also fairly accurately describes the American left. Not that every group doesn’t have a few of its own.
The trickiest part of winning the stupidity contest is having to pretend to be smart while doing it, but tune in to watch the hilarity unfold as our contestants do their best on “That’s Not Funny!”, broadcast daily.
I’m amazed that nobody is able to create a film parodying this sort of thing.
With that stupid woman at the University of North Dakota and things like this, SJWs seem to be attacking science from the same vein they attack everything.
I’m amazed that nobody is able to create a film parodying this sort of thing.
That would be a hate crime.
I’m amazed that nobody is able to create a film parodying this sort of thing.
As commented here on some number of occasions, Poe’s Law.
Angry Studies, around which such protests congeal, tends to attract people of fairly limited ability and who find themselves struggling in an environment intended, at least originally, for people smarter than them. And which typically results in a dissonance between their self-image, their vanity, and the facts of the matter. Happily, Angry Studies offers endless excuses for why these difficulties, these feelings of inadequacy, are not their fault, but the fault of everyone else.
They’ve been ‘colonised’ by leftism and they don’t even know it.
They’ve been ‘colonised’ by leftism and they don’t even know it.
Well, as Nikw211 pointed out upthread, the students don’t seem overly troubled by the largely white, Western origins of the claptrap they regurgitate. But the claptrap is flattering, and is intended to flatter, and thereby seduce. It offers excuses. And the students above are just the latest in a long line of self-flattering dupes. And so we have students, supposed intellectuals, demanding they be taken seriously while insisting, based on nothing, that “Western” science, all of it, is a “product of racism,” and while claiming, based on nothing, that the scientific method and pretensions of witchcraft are just rival epistemologies and therefore somehow equal in their accuracy and usefulness.
And despite the inevitable rumblings of racial oppression, I can’t help wondering whether the students would be similarly indulged and deferred to if they had paler skin.
Surely the correct response to a claim “My people can throw lightning at their enemies” is “Go on, then. I am clearly your enemy, so light me up.”
The Times follows up on David’s piece:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/lecturers-fear-worst-as-students-add-african-science-to-demands-wncgpq5fm?shareToken=26f25f2106849f656e61f7e52403bc64
(The link may not work, as the article is behind a paywall.)
For those deflected by the Times paywall, here’s a taste of the studious climate at the University of Cape Town and elsewhere:
As a result of such rumblings, which include burning historic artwork and smearing statues with human faeces, I’m sure the protestors will soon be surging to the forefront of intellectual endeavour.
As a result of such rumblings, which include burning historic artwork and smearing statues with human faeces,
This all reminds me of nothing so much as an epic 4chan troll.
1) make up really stupid idea.
2) promote said idea amongst gullible, mis-educated college students.
3) laugh as entire generations take stupid idea seriously and destroy themselves.
Which in turn makes me think that Marx may have been the greatest troll in human history…
The Times follows up on David’s piece:
I give you the new Wxmyn’s Studies Building:
A quick check reveals that sub-Saharan Nobel prize winners in science and medicine are all Persons of Pallor, so we have a problem from the start.
Seeing as how Newton never set foot in Africa, and was dead before the British took over the Cape Colony, I am not sure how that works either.
Meanwhile, I demand these clowns cease the cultural appropriation of white devil baseball and bucket hats, t-shirts and pants, and go back to hide shields instead of mattresses which are clearly colonial, unless they want to see if they are magic mattresses which will stop the evil juju of bullets.
“That sort of belief in magic rather than science is what leads to this…” and “You see this a lot in Africa, and other places… I saw this working with Nigerians and Indians. They’d try to fool me using childish, dumbass tricks and rhetoric that probably work on an uneducated farmer, believing they are smarter than anyone else”.
This was taken late last year in Ibo, a former slave trading port and Portuguese colony off the coast of Mozambique. Whilst we were there, there was clearly power available in the two hotels on the island (they were run by Europeans and had generators) but nowhere else. Later, as we were being shown around the city (in which the locals live most picturesquely in post-apocalyptic fashion amongst the ruins of the colonial buildings abandoned by the Portuguese when they scarpered in 1975), and the electricity was on at the local communal wash-house, the shop and the barbers’. When I saw the remains of the power station I asked our shifty and evasive local guide where the power came from.
“Oh, it’s hydro-electric”, he said airily.
Which was bollocks, of course. The island is tiny and as flat as frying pan, and the only was they could have generated power that way was by using a tidal barrage system, which was conspicuous by its absence (we arrived by helicopter and would have seen it, and if it had existed they would have made a big song-and-dance about it). No, they had a generator stashed away somewhere which would have been turned off the minute we left.
Par for the course, I’m afraid.
I give you the new Wxmyn’s Studies Building
Very good, FMM, though it could be the Afro-chemistry lab.
I give you the new Wxmyn’s Studies Building.
Obviously, such people are easy to mock, but the question is–assuming they actually believe what they’re saying, as opposed to merely trolling for attention–what do they envision their world will become if they are successful in their #ScienceMustFall campaign?
Which leads to the second question: Who/What’s behind this? There’s more to it than a simple “All our problems are attributable Europeans” mantra. As has been mentioned before, these people are being willingly led down a path of ignorance. In a world where witch-doctors summon lightening upon their enemies, the dude with the biggest “thunder stick” is going to be king.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to begin preparing to summon an annular solar eclipse in Cape Town for February 26 of next year. It involves preparing roast chicken and vegetables for dinner tonight.
“Who/What’s behind this?
The likes of this chap. Malevolent racist demagogues have been known to find a big audience in post-apartheid South Africa, encouraged by the usual type of useful idiot.
…what do they envision their world will become if they are successful in their #ScienceMustFall campaign?
I suspect they are no different than our own smelly hippies who believe eschewing dead white male knowledge, hugging trees, living in yurts, and recycling toilet paper will bring on some sort of paradise on Earth where everyone lives in “harmony” with nature, peace shall guide the planet, and love will steer the stars, etc., etc., though it would be an ethnically cleansed African version.
When I lived in Nigeria a few years back I recall Nigerians remarking that South Africa seemed to be going in the same direction as their country, and in some ways (such as violent criminality) had already overtaken it. Nigeria’s problems were not, by and large, the result of people actively wanting to destroy functioning systems, however. They were merely the unintended consequences of greed. Also Nigerians tended not to blame colonialism for all their troubles.
I also heard this joke:
“Mummy, mummy, what did people use before we had candles?”
“Electricity.”
I do wonder what the fat white girl hopes to achieve through her participation. She should perhaps be careful what she wishes for.
Dictator in a Polo Shirt
Lecturers warned of an exodus of academics to overseas universities or privately owned institutions…
Yeah, well, I’m not sure why they think they’re going to be any better off elsewhere. They may not have to deal with the decolonization of science, but they’re going to have to be retrained all the same, unless they’re already fully on board with feminist science.
It’s not like this sort of thing hasn’t happened before. The Middle Ages are also called the Dark Ages for a reason, and it’s not because there was a solar eclipse that lasted 1,000 years. The forces of obscurantism never rest. And lest we think we are immune to this, let’s not forget the politicization of science in developed countries. Lysenkoism in the Soviet Union, the persecution during the Third Reich of the people who were guilty of engaging in non-Aryan science (and non-Aryan art, etc.), and nowadays the entire AGW hoax, the drive to create a feminist science, as documented in these pages, and on and on.
The future is going to be interesting.
what do they envision their world will become if they are successful in their #ScienceMustFall campaign?
Meanwhile, socialism is worse than a murderous dictator.
I’m fairly sure even “Doctor Yakub” would question her science. http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread564478/pg1
“Angry Studies, around which such protests congeal, tends to attract people of fairly limited ability and who find themselves struggling in an environment intended, at least originally, for people smarter than them.”
Which is why you have so many minority students protesting on American college campuses these days. They get in by affirmative action, can’t hack it in real courses, devolve to angry studies, then when they realize they are not being truly educated, they start making demands for segregated housing, study groups, more minority faculty/advisers (as if that would somehow improve their plight).
People in Angry Studies came in angry because of their low social status, which is a function of lower intelligence, which made them dumb down into Angry Studies, which makes them angrier still. Circle of Life.
From Joe’s “abovetopsecret” link…
Yes. Would not be the first time. Don’t you think?
People in Angry Studies came in angry because of their low social status…
Some of them, but I think one would find an over representation of spoiled Persons of Pallor who have zero reason to be angry.
Lightning Bolt!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ekugPKqFw
but I think one would find an over representation of spoiled Persons of Pallor who have zero reason to be angry.
Agreed. At least till their fellow revolutionaries/fashionistas turn on them.
Mwanwhile, at the intersection of Florida, Africa, and SJW streets…
I wasn’t aware gorillas, particularly dead ones, had culture to appropriate, or that they could be offended, but OK, if you say so.
Mwanwhile, at the intersection of Florida, Africa, and SJW streets…
I wasn’t aware gorillas, particularly dead ones, had culture to appropriate, or that they could be offended, but OK, if you say so.
http://campusreform.org/?ID=7391
“To remain inclusive, the writer says to avoid wearing Ireland’s flag and drinking green beer.”
Now we are getting down to the Irish….
Now we are getting down to the Irish….
You left out the best bits (aside from the picture…)
Nothing says “inclusivity” more than not mentioning St. Patrick on St. Patrick’s day.
Great granddad Muldoon would set about these cretins with his shillelagh.
I wasn’t aware gorillas, particularly dead ones, had culture to appropriate . .
God damn you all to hell!
“To remain inclusive, the writer says to avoid wearing Ireland’s flag and drinking green beer.”
According to a parallel school(?) of logic(?) Peter Thiel isn’t gay.
Perhaps someone should let him know.
Oh, and in related news, diversity—actual diversity—is noted as being valued.
Don’t Oppress My People With Your Literate Devil Literacy.
London insists on English requirement for private hire drivers
Now we are getting down to the Irish….
Actually, I think Mr Wagner was taking the piss.
In proof that he is not serious I would suggest you read his other opinion pieces, including:
“In defense of the Flat Earthers”
“Dakota Access Pipeline May Be Best Option”
and
“The pros of a Trump presidency”
IMO those are not the positions that a person really offended by St Patrick’s Day would hold.
They’re being the oppressors while donning the robes of the oppressed; it must be a heady experience.
https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/735467109979848709
h/t Insty
My recent convo with a wet fish, who has not responded to my linking davidthompson.typepad.com/academia as evidence.
Ironic as hell that he’d demand actual scholarly demonstrations of my thesis.
My recent convo is here: https://twitter.com/ProfAFinlayson/status/787940862454075396
My recent convo is here
That’s an awful lot of preening and evasion for such a short exchange. A status queen, methinks.
Obviously, such people are easy to mock, but the question is–assuming they actually believe what they’re saying, as opposed to merely trolling for attention–what do they envision their world will become if they are successful in their #ScienceMustFall campaign?
The cynic in me would like to assert: These people don’t believe what they’re saying, but they’re not trolling either. Most people don’t believe what they’re saying. This here is a particular manifestation of the wider human habit of signing onto something one didn’t read through.
Do you believe every EULA you agree to, after all? Do you remember the terms of a single one? Have you bothered to read this site’s cookie policy? If you are a US citizen who’s spoken favorably of “the law” in general, did you mean to include, say, the federal regulation of cranberry barrel size as separate from other fruits and vegetables barrel size? World citizens who prefer the UN and “human rights” to the US, are you aware that the UN has defined genocide down to the point where there are several thousand genocides every year?
As long as the chips are up and don’t look to be coming down any time soon, whyever should people think through what they’re saying and consider the factual content? That takes effort. So much easier to just repeat “white privilege” “decolonize science” “women’s studies” “the patriarchy” for the approval of one’s friends and the warm glow of self-righteousness.
in which the locals live most picturesquely in post-apocalyptic fashion amongst the ruins of the colonial buildings abandoned by the Portuguese when they scarpered in 1975
Interestingly, the HBO miniseries ‘Generation Kill’ was filmed in Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique because they most closely resembled war-torn Iraq.
Anonymous assertions, no definitions of terms, no systematic evidence, no clarity to claims. Fine for Twitter. Not scholarship.
I’ve experienced the opposite, as the individual I debated claimed that I was in no position to respond to her arguments by dint of the fact that I didn’t know anything about her life experience.
Conveniently, she never offered us any insight into her biography, thus rendering (in her eyes) any rebuttal impossible.
Post modernists love to move goal posts.
Regarding the good Dr’s request for evidence, Heterodox Academy has a number of studies concerning bias and questionable scholarship in the social sciences (Jonathon Haidt, one of its founders, has also written extensively on the topic): http://heterodoxacademy.org/solutions/
Speaking of Halloween costumes…
!
(The small text outlined in yellow says, “One size fits most”)