Return To The Planet Of The Bedlamites
Jillian Kay Melchior shares an eye-widening guide to the Clown Quarter’s academic standards, and the unhappy personalities it attracts:
The three academics call themselves “left-leaning liberals.” Yet they’re dismayed by what they describe as a “grievance studies” takeover of academia, especially its encroachment into the sciences… Beginning in August 2017, the trio wrote 20 hoax papers, submitting them to peer-reviewed journals under a variety of pseudonyms… Journals accepted seven hoax papers. Four have been published…
One hoax paper, submitted to Hypatia [a journal of feminist philosophy], proposed a teaching method centred on “experiential reparations.” It suggested that professors rate students’ levels of oppression based on race, gender, class and other identity categories. Students deemed “privileged” would be kept from commenting in class, interrupted when they did speak, and “invited” to “sit on the floor” or “to wear (light) chains around their shoulders, wrists or ankles for the duration of the course.”
Students who complained would be told that this “educational tool” helps them confront “privileged fragility.” Hypatia’s two unnamed peer reviewers did not object that the proposed teaching method was abusive. “I like this project very much,” one commented. One wondered how to make privileged students “feel genuinely uncomfortable in ways that are humbling and productive,” but not “so uncomfortable (shame) that they resist with renewed vigour.”
In the world of intersectional grievance hustling, citing dog-humping incidents as evidence of “rape culture” constitutes “very good work” and “excellent scholarship.” We also learn that an aversion to transsexuality can be “challenged” with “receptive penetrative sex toy use.” Oh, and it turns out that you can impress a peer-reviewed feminist social work journal with chapters of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
And yes, there is a video by the hoaxers, explaining their motives and unexpected success, embedded below the fold.
Further background and responses can be found over at Quillette, including this rather telling observation by Nathan Cofnas:
The flagship feminist philosophy journal, Hypatia, accepted a paper arguing that social justice advocates should be allowed to make fun of others, but no one should be permitted to make fun of them. The same journal invited resubmission of a paper arguing that “privileged students shouldn’t be allowed to speak in class at all and should just listen and learn in silence,” and that they would benefit from “experiential reparations” that include “sitting on the floor, wearing chains, or intentionally being spoken over.”
The reviewers complained that this hoax paper took an overly compassionate stance toward the “privileged” students who would be subjected to this humiliation, and recommended that they be subjected to harsher treatment. Is asking people of a certain race to sit on the floor in chains better than asking them to wear a yellow star? What exactly is this leading to?
A good question. What might such people do, given real power?
Via Andy Ngo. Previously.
Well, we could look at the Soviet Union for what happens when the intelligentsia takes power, and see its full ugliness.
The reviewers complained that this hoax paper took an overly compassionate stance toward the “privileged” students who would be subjected to this humiliation, and recommended that they be subjected to harsher treatment.
Behind closed doors they don’t even try to hide what they are.
Behind closed doors they don’t even try to hide what they are.
Quite. This isn’t education, or even politics. It’s pathology. And so, again, a familiar question. If you were sadistically inclined and wanted to indulge in psychological abuse – of children – under cover of being virtuous, what would you do differently?
From the WSJ article:
Perhaps it is too much to hope that Affilia’s editors could not comment because they were otherwise occupied with sackcloth and ashes.
Forgot the link: Fake News Comes to Academia
So they’re dumb *and* nasty. Good to know.
This isn’t education, or even politics. It’s pathology.
“Embrace the power of and”.™ 🙂 Pathological politics.
you can impress a peer-reviewed feminist social work journal with chapters of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Thus illustrating why the term feminazi was invented.
citing dog-humping incidents as evidence of “rape culture” constitutes “very good work” and “excellent scholarship.”
“The reviewers were worried that we didn’t respect the dogs’ privacy. That’s their concern.”
O.M.F.G.
The scene starting 3:10 is quite interesting, insofar as the mental process being described has an air of sociopathy.
So they’re dumb *and* nasty. Good to know.
Well, it’s curious just how often ostentatious wokeness is difficult to distinguish from a license for malice.
Coincidence, I’m sure.
Perhaps this is a good time to mention my University satire? No? Well, I’ll mention it anyway:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0789WFMTB/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=B0789WFMTB&linkCode=as2&tag=hecdrum-21&linkId=ee0031e40223a97898ca56c3115b8c30
More detailed background on the hoaxes here.
The difference between the chains and the yellow star is that the star was forced, but many of todays students will happily sit on the floor and demand the chains, so brainwashed have they become
New Real Peer Review highlights some of the inanity.
…but many of today’s students will happily sit on the floor and demand the chains, so brainwashed have they become.
From: …transsexuality can be “challenged” with…
:snork:!
That one has to be a Poe, surely?
but many of today’s students will happily sit on the floor and demand the chains,
I’m not quite sure which is more revolting – the wretches who volunteer to participate in these masochistic farces, or the sadistic wretches who prey on them.
Somewhat related.
Could this be one?
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11199-018-0962-0
“Distinguished Associate Professor” Christine Fair wins this week’s prize for the Most Ironic Dickensian Name.
What distinguishes the fair professor is her “viral” tweet:
“Look at thus [sic] chorus of entitled white men justifying a serial rapist’s arrogated entitlement,” she wrote. “All of them deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps. Bonus: we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine? Yes.”
This week’s triumph pales in comparison to this:
“Last year, for example, she got Richard B. Spencer, the white supremacist whose speeches have roiled college campuses, kicked out of a private gym they both used after she angrily confronted him.”
As Hyacinth Bucket’s (pronounced BOO-KAY) brother-in-law Onslow would say “Ah, nice!”
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Georgetown-Professor-s/244708
Apparently dog-parks are hot-beds of dog rape. In fact, lacking informed consent, all sex between dogs is rape. Therefore, all dog owners are accessories before the fact, and those who defend dog ownership or promote dog parks are complicit in the oppression. But you knew that already.
Apparently dog-parks are hot-beds of dog rape.
I think the terms used were “rape-condoning spaces” and “places of systemic oppression.” And this earth-trembling insight was arrived at via “black feminist criminology.” And so, naturally, a supposedly reputable feminist journal, the foremost journal of its type, “closely considered” the paper – the editor’s words – and deemed it an example of “excellent scholarship.”
But as the hoaxers demonstrate, the Angry Studies journals and departments will accept even wildly absurd arguments, riddled with glaring errors and ludicrous assumptions, provided those arguments arrive at the expected conclusion and support a chosen narrative. It’s both funny and yet not.
But as the hoaxers demonstrate, the Angry Studies journals and departments will accept even wildly absurd arguments, riddled with glaring errors and ludicrous assumptions, provided those arguments arrive at the expected conclusion and support a chosen narrative. It’s both funny and yet not.
And why shouldn’t they? We pay them good money to do so. Combine that with a complete lack of will by anyone to stop them and it’s predictable.
https://youtu.be/liQB7ZycEOg
We act surprised when such hoaxes are easily perpetrated, but the fact is every submission to such social justice “academic” journals could qualify, even the ones submitted in nominal–cough–“good faith.” Outside of the STEM fields, academic journals have zero purpose or value other than to provide places to rack up points on one’s quest for tenure and allow those who publish them to continue to convince themselves that they’re very, very smart–much smarter than the rest of us schmohs.
Douglas Murray has some thoughts.
As David stated in the comments to the previous post, he’s been writing this blog for 10 years. Do we think the situation in western Academia and Politics is now better, or worse than it was 10 years ago?
Sadly, I’ll have to go with worse.
Outside of the STEM fields, academic journals have zero purpose or value other than to provide places to rack up points on one’s quest for tenure
Zero? I wouldn’t go that far: There are scholars in the humanities doing good work.
Oh, and it turns out that you can impress a peer-reviewed feminist social work journal with chapters of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
I am not surprised in the slightest, if their reworking substituted “Jews” for “Patriarchy” or “cis-white-male” or whatever the latest approved hate group is today.
These feminist idiots wouldn’t recognize a real Nazi if one came up and slapped ’em on the rear. As long as they were spouting current feminist pieties and buzzwords, they’d be accepted as right-on and woke af.
The lack of self-awareness in these SJW types is scary – they are as fascist as any Nazi ever hoped to be.
There are scholars in the humanities doing good work.
Who are they? The humanities have been overrun by postmodernists and SJWs. There may still be a few high quality literary or philosophy or history quarterlies but they’ve been overwhelmed by the sheer number of “new” journals filled with drivel. (I say that as one who studied literature and philosophy for ten years in the late ’70s/early ’80s.*)
Part of the problem is the glut of people with meaningless Ph.D.s These people have to produce “scholarship” in order to perhaps gain one of the ever fewer tenure track positions in academe. The demand for places to publish caused an increase in supply and a dilution of quality. Further, those scholars who dare to oppose the new orthodoxy are marginalized at best or defamed and deemed anathema at worst.
*I don’t mean that as a “My identity is X; therefore, I win” response. It’s just that I saw the current trends beginning decades ago, which is why I chose not to pursue an academic career.
On a somewhat positive note, the Hitler paper might actually get cited by future papers.
More as evidence, than as praise.
But citations nonetheless.
As Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia said about the excesses of political correctness being exposed in the 1990’s, we won the argument, they won the assistant professorships.” The PC crowd has now spent a generation boring into the institutions, and we haven’t moved beyond our 90’s reaction of rolling our eyes and expecting the bubble to burst in the next five years.
There’s no revelation here and no public shaming, any more than streetfighters are shamed by being discovered not to observe Marquess of Queensbury rules. These people don’t claim to be disinterested or objective – those are the values of dead white European male academia. These people are loyal to their own values, where bias and personal agendas are expressions of authenticity, hatred of white people is righteous, and bullying of white people’s children is justice.
See also.
See also.
And yet.
There’s no revelation here and no public shaming,
I suppose the question is: how do you shame people who are, it seems, quite shameless?
I suppose the question is: how do you shame people who are, it seems, quite shameless?
Especially since they are protected by their peers: Very few in academia want to clean house. Many departments are in the hands of these sorts of people.
So I sez to the waiter, I’ll have the Social Justice Special with a side of mockery and a dab of ridicule on top. And ze says to me, ‘excellent choice’.
how do you shame people who are, it seems, quite shameless?
They are shameless because they are not accountable for the shameful things that they do. In fact, as I stated above, they get rewarded, constantly, for doing the things that by our measure should bring shame upon them. Shame only works if society is willing, or more accurately believed to be willing, to withhold sustenance from the shamed. Otherwise, what should they have to fear? Shame is simply a state of mind that one can easily get over with a little help from the Clown Quarters and the culture and such. Meanwhile, shame is heaped upon the productive members of society even for being productive. This will not end, thus the shameful will not be shamed, until this upside-down scenario is by some means reversed. It starts by defunding them. Yet I see no efforts, even on the far horizon, for doing so.
And ze says to me, ‘excellent choice’.
Or would that be: ‘stupid choice, you cishet fool.’
Oh dear, looks like anger studies has affected the medical community
I suppose the question is: how do you shame people who are, it seems, quite shameless?
Helicopters.
Oh dear, looks like anger studies has affected the medical community
“Holistic health advocate.”
submitted to Hypatia [a journal of feminist philosophy]
you can impress a peer-reviewed feminist social work journal with chapters of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
“Hypatia”. And so we come full circle: from strident ethno-Germanic embrace of flattering pagan-tinged heresy myth to strident feminist embrace of flattering pagan-tinged heresy myth. Arms locked in solidarity against the ickily Christianist patriarchy, Catholic church, Jews… in the end, what does it matter the target?
Mr. Kingsley, Mr. Wagner, you may have more in common than you thought… and some explaining to do.
Granted, it was Affilia that accepted the Hitlerism, but these dens are all somewhat interchangeable. If anything, Mein Kampf is too levelheaded to claim academic immunity from ridicule, surely, or to claim that The Jew be kept after class in chains.
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2018/04/big-ambitions.html
In case it’s not been mentioned, the “Fat Bodybuilding” hoax submission has amused us before!
Granted, it was Affilia that accepted the Hitlerism, but these dens are all somewhat interchangeable.
Somebody once pointed out that if you check the citations in these papers in a
feministpostmodern scholarly journal, they are all citations of other crackpot papers. They don’t cite real scholarship because nothing real supports their bullshit. And nobody but the crackpots cite these crackpot papers.“Crackpot”. Dare I say “fraud”?
The value of peer-reviewed journals lay in the belief that different groups of scientists would have different opinions and perspectives, and would therefore be skeptical of whatever novel hypotheses came in for review. If you were submitting your work to such a review, you’d make damned sure that your methodology was sound and well-documented, and that you triple-checked all of your equations.
In a world where every member of the field is expected to march in lockstep with the group, singing from the same hymnal, there is no skepticism, no serious investigation of methods and findings, and therefore no reason to do good work. Little wonder then why the nonconformists are drummed out so thoroughly — a modest investment in driving out the nonbelievers means you need not spend time and effort on your academic work thereafter.
I sincerely hope that more people take notice of the degeneracy of our universities and their ecosystems, and start demanding change. Declining enrollment is one signal that even the dimmest Board of Regents can understand; declining funding from the State is another. I fear that none of these problems will be addressed until the bureaucracy is faced with credible threats of lost revenue. We certainly can’t rely on professionalism or shame as motivators.
Related from Toni Airaksinen
Pull quote:
Jeffrey Beall, a former expert on predatory journals and University of Denver academic, spoke with PJ Media about this. He suggested that even “peer reviewed” journals now have to lower their standards to compete with each other.
“Traditional publishers like Taylor & Francis are competing with open-access publishers, many of whom are very low quality and even completely corrupt, not carrying out a bona fide peer review,” Beall told PJ Media on Wednesday.
“To compete with open-access publishers, many traditional publishers have lowered their standards, rushing through peer review with insufficient vetting,” he said, but declined to make any statements about Taylor & Francis.
Last year, Taylor & Francis grossed $600 million in revenue.
>As David stated in the comments to the previous post, he’s been writing this blog for 10 years. Do we think the situation in western Academia and Politics is now better, or worse than it was 10 years ago?
Oh, it’s definitely much worse, no question about that. We long ago reached “Shut down all the Arts and Humanities and Social Science departments” stage.
On the upside, it is the intelligentsia that is usually the first to get purged. So there is that at least.
Come the revolution brother, take your glasses off for your own sake.
Totally ridiculous. But now there’s Morten Bay, PhD. Now here comes scholarship, people: https://t.co/fFGSxJToi5. Critical reviews of The Last Jedi are a Russian/Rightwing conspiracy. At last, problem solved.
In a world where every member of the field is expected to march in lockstep with the group, singing from the same hymnal, there is no skepticism, no serious investigation of methods and findings, and therefore no reason to do good work.
Yep, and having been a peer reviewer, there is a reason some of us started calling it Pal Review.
A few weeks ago David posted a link from footage of the domesticated foxes of the Belyaev experiment. I have found a book about it, How to Tame A Fox, by Lee Alan Duyatkin. Enjoy! 🦊
Critical reviews of The Last Jedi are a Russian/Rightwing conspiracy.
Wow. Whodathunk basic storytelling was so limited!!!
I have found a book about it, How to Tame A Fox, by Lee Alan Duyatkin. Enjoy!
. . . . once one tracks down a source, and don’t forget to use one of the links at the upper right of this page . . .
. . . people: “>https://t.co/fFGSxJToi5.
. . . Something seems a bit mangled with that link, but there are initial alternatives to begin with, where what may be the paper does seem available.
The value of peer-reviewed journals lay in the belief that different groups of scientists would have different opinions and perspectives, and would therefore be skeptical of whatever novel hypotheses came in for review.
I beg to differ, but only slightly. It’s all about incentives; at one time it was possible to make quite a name for yourself (and thus, your grant-dispensing institution) by blowing gawping holes in other people’s scientific work. This had the side effect of improving scholarship, but ultimately it was really about getting rich and famous (or at least keeping the grant money rolling in). This is no longer the case. I’m not sure if it was the rise of open-access journals, as R. Sherman mentions; or possibly the explosion of the humanities and soft sciences. After all, it’s particularly hard to disprove gobbledygook the way you can a poor paper in the hard sciences. Either way, demonstrating the utter fatuousness of poorly-written studies is now the domain of Nazis On The Internet rather than statisticians and ambitious tenure-seeking profs.
We certainly can’t rely on professionalism or shame as motivators.
Helicopters. I keep telling you people.
All right, all right, I’ll stop. But you’re correct about the funding, and we’re back to incentives again. This stuff happens because it’s possible to make a comfortable living doing it, and that’s true because there’s a whole lot of money and easy credit flowing about in Western society. This:
We long ago reached “Shut down all the Arts and Humanities and Social Science departments” stage
…also known as the Japanese Model, is the only thing that’s going to do it and that’s only going to happen if enough politicians realize they can get rich and famous by instituting such a policy. I’m not convinced there’s enough of the electorate willing to demand such a radical course correction.
Alan Sokal approves.
@Hector Dummond:
Perhaps this is a good time to mention my University satire?
How does one satire a university these days? The parable about bringing coals to Newcastle comes to mind.
I am not surprised in the slightest, if their reworking substituted “Jews” for “Patriarchy” or “cis-white-male” or whatever the latest approved hate group is today.
It’s not even necessary to rework Hitler’s speeches.
Last year, one wag at a rally protesting Trump got up and gave one of Hitler’s speeches, waiting to see how long it was before/if anyone noticed.
None did, and, of course, he was cheered with great applause.
Open access journals aren’t the problem. Publishing a paper isn’t the motherlode — you need citations of your paper. And journals are ranked, so an unknown paper mill doesn’t score much, at all.
You need a book from a high rated publisher if you really want to score.
Moreover, an academic wanting a proper scholar who does not read the actual output of a short-listed applicant is an utter moron. Just looking at a publication list is not due diligence.
I read in a few areas of academe. Actually opening journals and read them, not taking other people’s words for it. Specialist journals remain high standard, for the most part.
I read history journals, and they have yet to suffer from any of these issues in the areas I read (although obviously a tiny subset). I imagine there are areas, say suffrage history, where’s it bad, but in my areas they’re uniformly good.
Education journals are a bit different. There’s good work, mixed with bad work, and then some pomo nonsense.
Most of the bad work is poor experimental design and terrible statistical analysis. Pomo loons aren’t wasting their time doing the hard work of even a poor experiment, so their work is easily spotted. They’re the ones arguing without any real evidence, good or bad.
You can definitely reach great heights in the field of academic education spouting politically correct nonsense — Jo Boaler for example. She takes other people’s research and bends it to fit. But there’s plenty of fight against that movement (it helps that the facts tend strongly to support traditionalists).
Architecture has always been full of pretentious knob-ends spouting art-wank. Perhaps there was a time before I read them when they made hard sense, but I doubt pomo has made much difference.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/journals-publish-hoaxers-absurd-gender-studies-q7f60l7v6
From the Quillette piece linked above, this, by Jonathan Anomaly:
Sounds about right. And we’ve seen how those would-be dragon-slayers behave. Many, many times.
…also known as the Japanese Model, is the only thing that’s going to do it and that’s only going to happen if enough politicians realize they can get rich and famous by instituting such a policy.
Exactly, the great Milton Friedman was there ahead of you. Sort of.
However, as long as the Left owns the media, creating the political climate of opinion necessary is out of the question.
“Morten Bay, PhD…. Critical reviews of The Last Jedi are a Russian/Rightwing conspiracy.”
He must be up for tenure review, or promotion.
“Morten Bay, PhD…. Critical reviews of The Last Jedi are a Russian/Rightwing conspiracy.”
Judging by the half hour of it that I had to sit through recently, the film seems sufficiently bad to irritate and disappoint large numbers of people without any nefarious third-party involvement.
Well, we could look at the Soviet Union for what happens when the intelligentsia takes power, and see its full ugliness.
Well, the European and American Left are not planning on actual death camps, but they are fully on board with every punishment short of that–prison, fines, forced psychiatric treatment, loss of jobs, harassment, terror and mob violence. And of course if a Deeply Caring Progressive were to murder a conservative that would be excusable as a natural reaction to evil. And so we see that this is what the “moderate left” really is.
“Morten Bay, PhD…. Critical reviews of The Last Jedi are a Russian/Rightwing conspiracy.”
So Mark Hamill is a Russian spy? Because I recall that he expressed reservations about TLJ until he was re-educated.
Well, the European and American Left are not planning on actual death camps,…
From their point of view, neither were the Soviets. The deaths in the Gulag were collateral damage. A core tennet of the Left is not being held responsible for outcomes. Leftists believe that they are only accountable for their intentions. The camps in the Soviet Union were intended to rehabilitate non-believers through physical labour. The fact that humans can’t survive on 400 clories a day while performing intense physical tasks was inconsequential to the soviet ideologues.
Make sure to invest in the stock of bulldozer manufacturers anywhere the extreme left is in power.
Make sure to invest in the stock of bulldozer manufacturers anywhere the extreme left is in power.
Terrible advice! Everybody knows that the enemies of the State shall be ‘encouraged’ to dig their own graves. Also, bulldozers make Mother Gaia weep.
Objectivity is oppressive.
https://twitter.com/clairlemon/status/1047744182641602560
Objectivity is oppressive.
Or at least somehow unfair.
Mr Mudde construes the exposure of dogmatism and incompetence as a “right wing attack,” even when the three people he rails against describe themselves as left-leaning liberals. I see he also uses “white” as a self-explanatory pejorative. Naturally, he’s an educator and also a Guardian columnist. I keep hoping that I’ll one day be surprised. Alas, not today.
Objectivity is oppressive
So…science should be biased and in service of a prejudged end?
That’s the “science” of witch doctors using chicken entrails to explain the universe.
That’s the “science” of witch doctors using chicken entrails to explain the universe.
Or in this case, political science.
Well, the European and American Left are not planning on actual death camps…
They might not have updated their existing plans in a while, at least not that I know of, but given the pathologies on daily display, I suspect they’re simply holding firm on the existing ones as already optimal.
… the exposure of dogmatism and incompetence as a “right wing attack,”…
Who says comedy is dead ?
Chester Draws “Most of the bad work is poor experimental design and terrible statistical analysis.”
Right from the start, in my first Freshman year physics class, the professor emphasized the importance of good experimental design and statically analysis.
David | October 03, 2018 at 19:36
This reminds me of a hoax by James Randi. He coached some people to fake paranormal talents. He also insisted that if anyone asked them if they were hoaxers, they were to admit it immediately. Nobody did. Finally these hoaxers revealed themselves.
Here we go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Alpha
“Part of Randi’s instructions to these men was to tell the truth if they were ever asked whether they were faking the results; they were never asked this question directly. The researchers assumed that the participants would have no qualms about lying in their answer to a straightforward question if they were also lying about their abilities.”