From "An N.Y.U. Sexual-Harassment Case Has Spurred a Necessary Conversation About #MeToo" by Masha Gessen (in The New Yorker), about the NYT literary scholar and philosopher Avital Ronell.
I was particularly interested in this quote about Ronell's method of teaching, which "circulated on Facebook." The author wrote anonymously, reportedly out of fear of retaliation:
We don’t need a conversation about sexual harassment by AR, we should instead talk about what AR and many of her generation call ‘pedagogy’ and what is still excused as ‘genius.’ When people talk about sexual harassment it’s within the logic of the symbolic order – penetration, body parts – I doubt you will find much of this here. But AR is all about manipulation and psychic violence. . . . AR pulls students and young faculty in by flattery, then breaks their self-esteem, goes on to humiliate them in front of others, until the only way to tell yourself and others that you have not been debased, that you have not been used by a pathological narcissist as a private slave, is that you are just so incredibly close, and that Avi is just so incredibly fragile and lonely and needs you 24/7 to do groceries, to fold her laundry, to bring her to acupuncture, to pick her up from acupuncture, to drive her to JFK, to talk to her at night, etc. . . . All I am saying is: the AR-case is not about a single case of sexual harassment, it’s about systematic manipulation, bullying, intimidation, pitting students against each other, creating rivalry between them. . . . I agree the concept of “Avital Ronell” is a great one: I too would love to be friends with a smart, hilarious, queer, Jewish, feminist, anarchist theorist!
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There must be a certain sort of person vulnerable to this sort of manipulation.
But other than pure force of personality - academic rewards seem quite trivial as an incentive.
University faculty are mostly very broken people. Society figured that, since most of them aren’t violent, it was cheaper to employ them at colleges than house them in mental institutions where they belong.
They have had influence over a very small percentage of students. But those students are vocal.
No one listened to those vocal students until the last 25 years or so.
Now institutions cater to their nonsense. Even the NFL.
Ronnell and her friends are now headed to the guiilotine courtesy of their students.
Times up for them and others.
Always fun to watch the Left devour itself.
When you are an academic star, you can grab them by the pussy. But you can’t grab them by the dick.
#MeToo is what happens when you make a choice that nature does not offer.
The new theory works for a while and then it doesn't.
“I too would love to be friends with a smart, hilarious, queer, Jewish, feminist, anarchist theorist!” Ugh, sounds dreadful!
"It also matters a great deal that the latest fallen star is an academic and a feminist"
True, it matters that the biggest #MeToo a**holes turn out to be leftists. It matters that #MeToo meant to hit Trump but instead boomerangs back onto progs.
"If the ultimate objective of #MeToo is a fundamental change in power relationships—if it is indeed a revolution and not merely a series of attempts at retribution—then it may call for confrontations and discussions in the mode of truth-and-reconciliation commissions that societies undergoing change have organized."
If the ultimate objective is a fundamental change in power relationships, then #MeToo has a ways to go to undo prog oppression in the MSM, Hollywood, academia, high tech, and most nonprofits.
Prog power or a decent society: what'll it be?
I think I know the answer.
Actually, I think I know what it's all about: "Tenure."
Sounds like other students could be filing their own non-sexual harassment suits.
The truth-and-reconciliation proposal in this context is just weird. It reads like an attempt to kick a clear Federal crime into the realm of abstraction.
...then it may call for confrontations and discussions in the mode of truth-and-reconciliation commissions that societies undergoing change have organized.
It disturbs me the way these people throw around Orwellian expressions like "truth and reconciliation" without a hint of historical understanding or irony. Like the NPR guest I heard a while back burbling on about "social engineering" in the context of people not living where she wanted them to live (in properly "diverse" neighborhoods), as if everybody understood the expression to carry no connotation that wasn't wholesome and doubleplusgood.
“I too would love to be friends with a smart, hilarious, queer, Jewish, feminist, anarchist theorist”
Sounds like a blast.
“I too would love to be friends with a smart, hilarious, queer, Jewish, feminist, anarchist theorist”
Narcissists make poor friends.
I prefer to be friends with well-adjusted people. The people who are conservative in their life choices, their finances, and their social choices. There are dinner parties and block parties. Sometimes there are fireworks or sporting events.
Academics publish articles that nobody reads, collect data that does not matter for accreditation agencies and government agencies, and teaches people way too many subjects do not encourage critical thinking.
And their industry is contracting. The value proposition is broken. It is inevitable that these stories reach the public square as resources become more limited. Forget about it!
Mattering seems to matter to the author.
Not mattering is what might be happening.
"I too would love to be friends with a smart, hilarious, queer, Jewish, feminist, anarchist theorist!"
A dream come true!
2 observations:
1) Professor - grad. student relations weren't like this, at all, when I was in academia. But maybe that was because it was STEM, in the '90's, and we were all manly men.
2) Masha Gessen is one of the most fucked-up people on the planet.
"In debating the allegations against the philosophy professor Avital Ronell, academics are doing their job: engaging with things in great complexity," the New Yorker breezily informs us.
That sounds like splendid academic fun, but it's an entirely different inquiry than the one that determines whether someone's civil rights were violated.
"Psychic violence. . . . pathological narcissist...acupuncture,...acupuncture"
I think you know where I'll be going with this.
The whole bunch of feminist post-structuralist literary and philosophical purveyors of 24-karat academic bullshit should be locked up in a room and left to deconstruct one another until only parched bones remain. The truth of abnegation; the reconciliation of meaninglessness; the justice of the grave.
”In debating the allegations against the philosophy professor Avital Ronell, academics are doing their job: engaging with things in great complexity," the New Yorker breezily informs us.
About as complex as an episode of Maury Povich or Real Housewives.
What does get very complex is finding ways to spin it that still advance the long march to Chavism.
“I too would love to be friends with a smart, hilarious, queer, Jewish, feminist, anarchist theorist”
You better have ALL of the power.
”It also matters a great deal that the latest fallen star is an academic and a feminist"
Because identity is all that matters.
The Maoist left demands struggle sessions!
Yeah, this is new.
"It matters that..."
Hmmm, no, maybe none of this stuff actually matters outside of "broken people with their heads up their butts" circles.
"...a necessary conversation."
Translation: "...really fucked-up people doing anything but talking any sense about what ails them."
When people talk about sexual harassment it’s within the logic of the symbolic order – penetration, body parts – I doubt you will find much of this here. But AR is all about manipulation and psychic violence. . . . AR pulls students and young faculty in by flattery, then breaks their self-esteem, goes on to humiliate them in front of others, until the only way to tell yourself and others that you have not been debased, that you have not been used by a pathological narcissist as a private slave, is that you are just so incredibly close...
Sane people somehow manage to understand and deal with these kinds of emotional pathologies without feeling the need for a fundamental re-ordering of society, Masha. Have all the "necessary conversations" you want with your fellow "revolutionaries". But the rest of us aren't all that interested in being "re-ordered" by your lights.
I just remembered ... South Africa had Truth and Reconciliation 15 minutes ago
Academic fights are so ruthless and bitter because the stakes are so low.
Will let you know how it went when I remember.
"About as complex as an episode of Maury Povich or Real Housewives."
It has more of a Jerry Springer vibe to me.
AD at 5:20 nails it.
Getting kicks from Abusing the servants is as old as it gets. The gender/sexuality smokescreens are all we see
new here.
Where is a handsome man to warn him to back off when you need him?
"the rest of us aren't all that interested in being "re-ordered" by your lights."
Bring criminal charges. Put her in prison. This kind of "let's rehabilitate her" thinking is what went on the Catholic Church in the abuse scandals. You see how well that worked.
The contrast between this story -- sexual harrassment of a grad student by a left-wing Lesbian university professor -- and the previous story -- about "hate chicken" -- is illuminating. Misbehavior by "our kind of people" always requires a deep understanding of the nuance behind the motivation of the behavior. Misbehavior by members of the lower orders always requires unqualified condemnation. I favor applying the same standards in both cases, and I really don't care which it is. If a Christian baker is to be condemned for not supporting gay marriage or gender change, then condemn the harassing Lesbian prof, too. Or leave them both alone.
Has no one else ever met a drill sergeant?
ut the rest of us aren’t all that interested in being "re-ordered" by your lights.
Oh, but they are interested in you. Try to watch and NFL game without having their politics jammed in your face.
"then it may call for confrontations and discussions in the mode of truth-and-reconciliation commissions that societies undergoing change have organized"
How would you like to be called up in front of the truth-and-reconciliation commission? That doesn't sound like the people who send one off to a reeducation labor camp at all.
I agree the concept of “Avital Ronell” is a great one: I too would love to be friends with a smart, hilarious, queer, Jewish, feminist, anarchist theorist!
LWL?.....is that you? I'm fairly certain that one of your commenters wrote this dialogue months ago!!
Whenever someone tells me we need to have a "conversation" I reach my Browning.
Figuratively, of course.
Bad behavior by a female university is still bad behavior.
The former head of the CDC just got perp walked for less than what this professor is alleged to have done.
The 60-something lesbian feminist and the 30-something gay grad student sure do make an Odd Couple. Someone should write a play about it.
In leftist circles, someone who professes that we need to have a "conversation" about a subject, is entitled to talk to themselves and jerk something.
"Perhaps justice can be found neither in closed investigations nor in open court but in a different sort of public forum... then it may call for confrontations and discussions in the mode of truth-and-reconciliation commissions Perhaps victims should face their abusers and tell their stories not only to and through the media but to one another."
I guess the Left doesn't feel that the justice system is working for them (unless it's Bob Mueller), so it's time for truth and reconciliation commissions.
The Cultural Revolution s coming to your neighborhood soon.
Do today's progressives realize that 1984 was about them? So was Atlas Shrugged.
Hmm. The old 'starting a conversation' schtick.
Generally that happens when some minority creates a hate crime against themselves (once again, in Academic settings) to scream about how racist the rest of society is.
It is, in short, an attempt to distract from one's criminal action.
it's nice to see Feminists and their Media Tools trying the same technique to excuse their sexual criminal acts.
Just when you thought that Feminists couldn't get any lower since the Clinton Excuse Tour, BAM, once again they surpass expectations.
Please note: I understand ANY group having bad actors. This isn't about group responsibility. This is the GROUP action trying to excuse the criminal.
But at least she wasn't selling supplements.
I started reading Atlas Shrugged and the only thing I recall in that windy piece was a college professor lecturing a young woman in a dinner party, deriding 'popular culture' and insisting that NO book should ever have more than 15,000 copies made no matter how well liked it was.
Essentially, one could see the professor sucking the joy and hope out of this young woman, a kind of intellectual rape to excuse his own personal failings as a human being.
I guess that Rand actually knew academics...
I'm curious about the use of *alleged* since the article seems to be about going to a non-legal-judicial set up to hash things out.
Is it necessary? Or a marker of reserving judgement? While vociferously denying need for such!?
--1) Professor - grad. student relations weren't like this, at all, when I was in academia. But maybe that was because it was STEM, in the '90's, and we were all manly men.
I assume that was a joke. Everywhere in STEM academia was like that for the chicks I knew working for men..but theen were less likely to do the borderline pathology and just stick with the gaslighting.
The funniest thing about reading this explanation was it made me think of Henry James. The great postmodern crit theory anarchist clearly had read Henry James even if her students hadn't! Score one for knowing some actual white male literature.
In the corporate world the disparate power of the superior over the subordinate would be enough to get the superior in deep trouble for whatever trespasses Ronal may have made. I don't really understand what the fuss is in academia - other than that is about all academics do; fuss. Of course one only need to look at the Bill/Monica situation to realize how most academics (lefties) really view the effect of disparate power and probably why they are having such a hard time squaring this circle.
In leftist circles, someone who professes that we need to have a "conversation" about a subject, is entitled to talk to themselves and jerk something.
"We need to have a conversation" is code for "Our side is losing the debate."
"smart, hilarious, queer, Jewish, feminist, anarchist theorist!"
Sounds typical.
Correct, Earnest Prole.
LOL
"--1) Professor - grad. student relations weren't like this, at all, when I was in academia. But maybe that was because it was STEM, in the '90's, and we were all manly men."
1980: I was turned off from grad school at a top 10 university by constantly overhearing the "conversations" (i.e. verbal abuse) between profs and students filtering down the halls. And this was at a premier STEM school. Most of the venom seemed to be the product of jealousy - the profs had failed to get positions at the #1 program, at a neighboring university.
Most of my female peers did not become practicing engineers. In fact, most explicitly rejected that choice. Some went to grad school, but most worked in some tech-marketing related field. What a waste of talent.
"smart, hilarious, queer, Jewish, feminist, anarchist theorist!"
I spent a lot of up-close-and-personal time with one such (except for the "theorist" part-she was stubbornly practical).
I've never been more afraid for my personal safety.
Please note: I understand ANY group having bad actors. This isn't about group responsibility.
Cover-up, maybe. The former, yes, not unless they have commonly shared principles or uniform behavior that engender or determine an outcome. No color judgments.
"I've never been more afraid for my personal safety." You gotta be kidding.What the heck is in your drinking water Drinkwater.
NIMROD!
Nimrod is a name like Helmut or Umlaut that never fails to bring a smile to my face.
DILLIGAFF
Otto,
Circumstances conspired such that I was physically cornered when this woman's bipolarity & paranoia asserted themselves. Also, she was built like a NFL linebacker. Knives were at hand. Also children.
You do the math.
Feminists aren't supposed to be #MeToo-ed!
I wonder what would have happened if he'd told her he didn't want to go to bed with her, the first time. If he had trusted her not to be a lunatic and dump him out of his program, or blacklist him, or whatever panoply of wickedness he assumed she'd visit on him if he asserted a boundary.
I'm too much of a coward to apply this standard when the sex roles are reversed, but since they aren't: why shouldn't this man have been expected to mitigate his damages? And didn't he name his own price on the damages? He judged finding a new adviser to be costlier to him than tolerating her abuse. He got the degree, and subsequently a job; now that he's safe, he'd like to renegotiate. He wouldn't want me on the jury.
"He judged finding a new adviser to be costlier to him than tolerating her abuse."
Yep.
Grad school is a weird world where advisors can be very abusive. I was part of a research group where we called our lead "the bad boyfriend" for the way he jerked us around. I was fortunate that he didn't have any hold over my financial support or graduation requirements. He was hurt when I didn't have him on my dissertation committee, but I knew he was a bad actor. Another student did have him on her committee and he ran things so down to the wire she talked about dropping out of the program entirely even though she had a job in hand for that August.
From the inside, if someone is signing your checks and your dissertation, it is costlier. Sometimes there's no one else at your institution to switch over to. Or if there is, you're signing over yet more years of your adulthood away.
I'm happy with my degree and that I'm not in academia. I'm happy with the advisor I *did* have--not the bad boyfriend. But I tell everyone who will listen not to go to graduate school unless they cannot imagine ANY possible life that could be happy without such a degree.
How would you like to be called up in front of the truth-and-reconciliation commission?
Come on, what’s not to like about a good old Maoist struggle session?
Take out the sexual part of it, and a lot of this reminds me of the academic side of climate science.
Hmmm. I'll have to ask my female then-colleagues more specifically about their experiences (which I don't remember, at the time, being abusive in general). Perhaps I was unusually insensate or unusually lucky with my choice of advisors (in retrospect the meanest thing done to me was being given the smaller bedroom at the ski condo) but I am amazed at the shit people will apparently put up with just to cling by their fingernails to a ledge on Mount Academia. When it stopped being fun for me, I bailed.
All very funny, but it's distressing when a university of so-called scholars cannot muster the intellectual arguments to identify inhumane abuse, condemn it by name and chase it from the ivory tower. Especially when the abuser is a professor of ethics.
Bunch of pussies.
Why would parents pay for this? Why would people go into debt for this weird old lady? I don't question why the University has her there because Universities have lost their luster for me in the last 10 years. Some of these schools need to do a clean sweep and start fresh.
This is the cultural equivalent of the Iran-Iraq War in the 80s.
Why can't both sides lose?
Allison said...
[in the 90's] "Everywhere in STEM academia was like that for the chicks I knew working for men..but then were less likely to do the borderline pathology and just stick with the gaslighting."
My girlfriend was a physics grad student in the 90's. Her advisor fell in love with her and kept calling her into his office to tell her about it, while his wife was dying. It was grotesque and harrowing. Perhaps the worst thing about it was that we both liked and respected him, but his behavior was just intolerable, and he would not stop. She very nearly quit, although she had nearly finished her thesis. This idea that you just "switch advisors" is laughable. I actually quit my first advisor, and I was very fortunate to find another. The university is not obliged to provide you with even one advisor, and you can't get a degree without one.
They've been doing this crap for decades if not longer in the non-STEM programs. One of my professors in grad school (which I got from someone who'd been at the meetings) discussed the incoming classes in terms of which ones he wanted to bang. And he did, several of them. He was, at least, a decent looking man.
Mine turned into a raging alcoholic so I ended up doing my dissertation pretty much solo. No revisions, edits, nothing, I just turned the dumb thing in and they all signed off on it. Which may suggest that doing it that way -- if you can -- is preferable.
Or maybe I was just hot s**t. =)
My dream version of myself would be having Laslo's talent for lampooning shit just like this.
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