[N]o student has ever demanded that my classes include a trigger warning or asked for a safe space. But my colleagues and I have been given much more reason to worry about the ideological agendas of elected officials and politically appointed governing boards....Trawling is the right word there, by the way. The image is of fishing with a net. You might think, isn't it trolling?
Faculty members conducting research on social or environmental issues that does not align with views of the party controlling the State Legislature may prefer to keep their heads down rather than speak out...
On both private and public campuses, instructors who discuss race, gender, class, reproductive rights, elections or even just politics can find themselves subjected to attack by conservative groups like Media Trackers or Professor Watchlist. Faculty members in public institutions also have to worry about the possibility of having their email searched via Freedom of Information law requests. The ultimate audience for such trawling is lawmakers, who set the rules for public institutions....
I got distracted from the topic of this post into the distinction between the 2 verbs, trawl and troll. Trawling is done with a net. The literal meaning is fishing with a net, and we may used the fishing-with-a-net metaphor when speaking about searching documents.
Troll, the verb, has a lot of meanings. I could lose the rest of the morning in the OED entry on this word (just the verb, not the noun). But one of the meanings really is about fishing, and it's why you stumble over the question whether the right word is trawling or trolling in the context seen above.
To troll in fishing is to fish with a running line. That's used figuratively too. But the image is of some bait dragged along to attract the some being that may succumb to the temptation to bite. That's not how a net works. I'd rather be trolled than trawled.
The oldest appearance of troll in this sense has God using this fishing method:
1606 S. Gardiner Bk. Angling 28 Consider how God by his Preachers trowleth for thee.That makes me think of Jesus saying to his disciples, "I will make you fishers of men." He meant by trolling of course. Not trawling!
I invite you to say what I've heard you say before: Althouse is trolling us!
Posts
99 comments:
"I'd rather be trolled than trawled."
Either way, you end up in the frying pan.
Ann, in John 21:6 we see they were using nets: "He told them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it there, and they were unable to haul it in because of the great number of fish."
So they were trawling rather than trolling...
[...] instructors who discuss race, gender, class, reproductive rights, elections or even just politics can find themselves subjected to attack by conservative groups [...]"
Of course lefty groups *never* do this to conservatives.
Not heard of this professor before. I assume he is not an Engineering Professor, nor a Professor in any real science.
>>That makes me think of Jesus saying to his disciples, "I will make you fishers of men." He meant by trolling of course. Not trawling!
My reading of that verse is different from yours. The disciples were trawlers, catching fish with nets, as is mentioned other times in the NT.
When trolling, you catch fish one at a time, on a hook. Trawlers catch large numbers with a single cast. I think Jesus was referring to catching multitudes of men...
I invite you to say what I've heard you say before: Althouse is trolling us!
And therefore never send to know for whom the belle trolls; She trolls for thee.
Trawling is done with a net which is dragged across the bottom, a dragnet. It scoops up whatever happens to be there, i.e. it is indiscriminate.
The trolling image, sans the word troll: "Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find."
Well played , chickelit.
"Either way, you end up in the frying pan."
No. Because when I'm trolled, I can resist taking the bait.
If there's a big net, your autonomy is overcome. No choice.
Huge difference!
"No. Because when I'm trolled, I can resist taking the bait."
That's what all the fish say, yet I'm rarely wanting at dinner time.
If you're a shellfish, you might get dredged.
"Ann, in John 21:6 we see they were using nets: "He told them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it there, and they were unable to haul it in because of the great number of fish." So they were trawling rather than trolling..."
They were using a net, but perhaps not in the way we call trawling which is dragging it behind a moving boat. I think they were just using their arms to throw the net and pull it in.
If the fishing for men is done with a net, it's a worse idea than I would like to think Jesus meant. I think that Jesus used words to express ideas that reached into human minds that were able to think for themselves and choose. And yet a trolled fish is going for the bait and tricked by the hook, so that's actually pretty devious.
Also, Jesus didn't limit himself to persuasive words. He also amazed and entertained with miracles, including miracles that provided food — notably fish — and alcoholic beverages.
On both private and public campuses, instructors who discuss race, gender, class, reproductive rights, elections or even just politics can find themselves subjected to attack by conservative groups like Media Trackers or Professor Watchlist.
What the hell? Isn't that "more speech?!" Why are "attack[s] by conservatives groups" somehow not covered by ideas of free speech, but attacks by professors or whatever groups they favor are? What the hell can "free speech" mean if you're objecting to the speech (against you) of some other group? It's too political? The 1st Amendment was specifically designed to protect political speech--the very concept of freedom of speech is directly tied to political speech!
That's an embarrassing critique, really. In trying to complain about State action (government threatening to take action to curtail unpopular speech), which is a valid complaint/worry, this genius can't help but tip his hand--he's really opposed to any pushback by other, non-State groups. Too bad, man, you get the same rights as those conservative groups get--and as we've been told repeatedly there's just one good response to offensive free speech. More speech, motherfucker--that's what it's about.
"To trawl" is just another one of those words in drag.
How obtuse can this guy be?
I assume the good professor is ignorant of the case of Marquette's John McAdams, who publicized an instructors' refusal to allow a Marquette student to offer a point of view in class consistent with Catholic teaching, only to have the university suspend him, refuse to allow him on campus, and ultimately move to revoke his tenure and fire him. Please have Prof. Moynihan explain why he deserves a salary if he cannot manage a classroom discussion in a fair and open matter? I had many professors I disagreed with. The best encouraged me to challenge ideas, even if they disagreed with me or I with them. The ability to make a point and defend it has been lost.
"That's what all the fish say, yet I'm rarely wanting at dinner time."
But you don't have "all the fish," you have the one that took the bait.
It is for us, the potential fish, to decide what's worth biting on and to avoid getting eaten.
Faculty members in public institutions also have to worry about the possibility of having their email searched via Freedom of Information law requests.
THe FOIA was signed into law by LBJ but it's the fault of conservatives for using it?
HoodlumDoodlum:
The argument you allege is made is not a unique one. That is exactly the preferred interpretation suggested by the paid 'professional' press as regards the First Amendment.
I prefer reading in the original language: "All the animals are equal but some are more equal than others."
Conservatives is the answer in a NYT op-ed
Shocking.
"It is for us, the potential fish, to decide what's worth biting on and to avoid getting eaten."
Stupid fish taste the same as smart ones.
Well done as usual, Althouse. (I don't like the idea of dropping the "Professor"; it is a professional honorarium that you have very rightly earned. Like calling Bob Knight "Coach." How do you feel about it?)
Professor Moynihan's laundry list of liberal gripes is so one-sided. OF COURSE the state legislature is going to decline/resist the provision of state funds, which they have a duty to protect, to things that they find offensive. Elections have consequences, Barack Obama once said.
There is of course another level of state supervision over public universities, and those are the boards of Regents/Trustees/Directors, who are often liberal Democrats. (In purple Michigan, with a Republican governor, and two large Republican majorities in the state house and senate, the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan is supermajority Democrat.) And university administrators are overwhelmingly left and far-left.
Moynihan seems to think that anything that state governments do that does not unquestionably support the leftwing bent of major state universities is speech restriction. What nonsense.
Build a leftwing Hillsdale College if that is what you want. You've already got the Ivy League, supplying an outsize number of graduates to state and federal governments. Liberals do own state universities.
Donald P. Moynihan raises a good issue:
Why should any public employee at UW have to concern themselves with the population of Wisconsin that has 1) elected the largest GOP majorities in both State Houses in decades 2) supported Governor Walker and his reforms, 3) elected and supported a 5-2 conservative court, and 4) gave Wisconsin's electoral votes to Trump.
God forbid that administrators and professors treat the general public as their employer, and the students and parents that foot all the bills as customers.
Quit polluting our young people.
And therefore never send to know for whom the belle trolls; She trolls for thee.
Excellent, chickelit! :-D
Dragging a net through a university is probably is the best way to haul in a load of liberal professors, now that he mentions it.
MadisonMan,
Professor of Public Affairs. Full professor no less.
Boo frickin' hoo.
Actual accountability and oversight is a bitch.
Mad Man said "real science". Heh you are sounding like a far right conservative.
A full professor of Public Affairs--who sees a fascist under every bed. Guess he never got over the fear of the bogeyman from the tales his mother told him when he was three.
Have they learned nothing? Trump pointed the way. Hand write and deliver, then that FOIA email dragnet will come up nil. IF there's something you want to say that you don't want to become an email search discovery anchor that'll drag you down, either by hack or by net, pen, paper, post, people!
Just make sure the receiver is a trustworthy sort who'll burn the evidence...
Acts 13:48: "And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed."
Predestination. Trawling or trolling?
Academic freedom and tenure at schools that accept tax money should be eliminated. If churches have to change their policies to accommodate current political winds or else lose their funding, the same should apply to universities.
Let's be honest - in a world where we are now arguing over what the presence of a penis or vagina indicates, we 've gone as far as we're going to in the social sciences.
I grep when I fish.
You have to trawl before you can walk.
[N]o student has ever demanded that my classes include a trigger warning or asked for a safe space
Students of an opposing point of view may prefer to keep their heads down rather than speak out
Conservatives don't go around asking for safe spaces or trigger warnings. Those whiny tactics are for snowflakes and buttercups.
These people don't really understand how "free speech" works.
He looks really serious on his web page.
No zingers from his students, I bet.
Republicans don't band together to get people fired or silenced on campus. If a Republican asked for the professor to not put safe spaces or trigger warnings or whatever on their syllabus, that's... that's miles different from shouting down and threatening violence for inviting a conservative on campus.
Some examples of repression, please. The good professor's screed reminds me of when the Dem's said passing the Patriot Act, I think it was, would allow the government to search your library records. Well, the act was passed, and no library records of which I know were searched.
I assume he is not an Engineering Professor, nor a Professor in any real science.
As pointed out elsewhere, you will not see these complaints from STEM faculty.
"On both private and public campuses, instructors who discuss race, gender, class, reproductive rights, elections or even just politics can find themselves subjected to attack by conservative groups like Media Trackers or Professor Watchlist."
-- Professor Watchlist is a thing? Never heard of it. I know plenty of people worried about not getting tenure for their political views.
This is a fishing expedition. Which brings to mind Isaac Walton's all time best seller in England, The Compleat Angler. It came out in 1653, but still beats the sales of the 1611 KJV in England.
Now go everywhere and lure the hearts and minds of people. The Resurrected Christ said that.
Doesn't the modern term "troll", come from internet troll, as in "one who lurks on a forum posting to provoke others", from troll a folkloric monster? Rather than "troll" as a form of fishing?
That is my understanding.
Here in Michigan, we have a local use - Troll, as in "People who live below the (Mackinac) bridge". Which sort of follows that definition. A half state of Trolls?
My understanding is that in the Internet context, "trolling" is laying out bait to generate outrage for its own sake, and the bait may or may not be the troll's genuine opinion. So you post something like "the only thing the Nazis ever did wrong was to pick on Norway" so someone else will read along and say "whaaaa? The Nazis did many things wrong besides that! I shall list them for you!"
This is a bit different from "Moby-ing" which is where you post outrageous opinions you don't hold in order to falsely present that side as stupid or horrible. So a leftist might go online and post as a right winger and state something like "I don't hate blacks, I just think their cranial capacity does not allow them to create complex thoughts" so someone reads it and says "boy, those conservatives sure are bigots!"
"no student has ever asked for trigger warnings or safe spaces in my class"
A tell that you are doing it wrong. Conservative students don't ask for these things, liberal students do. So you just admitted that none of your liberal students are ever challenged by what you teach.
Maybe that's why the state legislature is questioning why taxpayer dollars are supporting you to begin with.
Brando, Mobying is a subset of Trolling.
"As pointed out elsewhere, you will not see these complaints from STEM faculty."
I was never concerned about politicians reading my emails.
"Here in Michigan, we have a local use - Troll, as in "People who live below the (Mackinac) bridge". Which sort of follows that definition. A half state of Trolls?"
I first heard of that in college when a friend's roommate from the U.P. used the term. I asked what the "trolls" called the "yoopers" and he didn't know.
Shorter Moynihan:
"Wah...the Right wants to treat us exactly the same way the Left has treated them the last sixty years!"
"Brando, Mobying is a subset of Trolling."
Yep, it's a form of it. I believe it originated when the DJ (?) Moby suggested liberals do it over a decade ago, as a way to make conservatives look bad, which would be brilliant if he didn't publicly reveal his plan to such an extent that we named the practice after him. But ever since, when we see an outrageous-enough troll we have to wonder if it's a Moby.
Are fake hate crimes a form of Mobying, then?
Michael K said...As pointed out elsewhere, you will not see these complaints from STEM faculty.
--
Right. But as I learned from my niece who was handed two science classes to teach (one outside her specialty) in a UW-Wisconsin school, she was given carte blanche..not even an outline. Very little in terms of evaluation either.
I hope she is doing a good job. But my sense is there is very little to assure that.
I think it would be shocking for those students and parents footing the bill.
"Professor Watchlist is a thing? Never heard of it."
It's probably similar to a list at Dartmouth, which I think the Dartmouth Review started to warn students about wild eyed leftist professors or incredibly dull lecturers to avoid.
The leftist professors hated that and the Review was always being attacked and copies of it being thrown away, etc.
@walter - Yes, she needs to develop her own teaching materials. As to lack of evaluation, that is a legitimate criticism, especially if she's inexperienced
"Are fake hate crimes a form of Mobying, then?"
Yes.
tcrosse said...
Trawling is done with a net which is dragged across the bottom, a dragnet. It scoops up whatever happens to be there, i.e. it is indiscriminate.
Which Jesus descibed in Matthew 13:47-48, using an image the crowd would clearly understand.
47 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:
48 Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.
Trolling? You are shooting me a line.
And then there's green-thumbed Meade, who'd probably rather trowel than troll or trawl.
"Faculty members conducting research on social or environmental issues that does not align with views of the party controlling the State Legislature may prefer to keep their heads down rather than speak out."
"May prefer." In other words, chose. But if they do not choose that, they will still have their jobs, if tenured, and it probably will not hurt their chances of getting tenure from their liberal colleagues in the department.
Conservative professors, on the other hand, run the risk of not being promoted, or never being hired in the first place.
The man is pointing out a small problem while ignoring a large one.
Where is Nat Hentoff when we need him?
Professor M. is silly. Restrictions on campus speech come from the left, not the right. Minor conservative reactions to lefty dominance are themselves speech. The right to speak freely does not entail the right to be funded by taxpayers to speak freely.
You don't know how appropriate that word is in relation to Christianity unless you read my latest book, Creating Christ. Of course, you might accuse me of trolling, in both the biblical and the Internet sense, but the symbol of Christ, for the first three centuries at least, was of a dolphin or fish entwined around an anchor (a kind of baited hook) instead of the symbol of the Cross preferred by Emperor Constantine.
Trawling is pulling a net behind a boat. At what depth depends on what species you are fishing for.
Pulling a net along the bottom is "bottom trawling."
Casting or setting a net is not "trawling."
"Trolling" is pulling a lure - not bait - behind a (small) boat at low speed.
"Trolls" are large, fearsome, and ugly, but stupid, creatures who live in the mountains according to Norse mythology.
"After having seen tenure protections weakened in the last legislative session, Wisconsin professors now face the prospect that legislators will allow guns in classrooms, something our private peers will not have to contend with as they seek to protect a climate conducive to vigorous debate."
Yep. Shootout at the intellectual corral.
Yes some on the right are casting a wide net, trawling, in hopes to pull up something fishy to justify their attempts to shut down and intimidate the university faculty. The Wisconsin Idea serves the folks of Wisconsin well, and the goal of shifting and winnowing for truth serves the development of it students well.
"Trolls" are large, fearsome, and ugly, but stupid, creatures who live in the mountains according to Norse mythology.
Or, IIRC, in Grimm's Fairy Tales, trolls sometimes hid under a bridge in wait of children. Possible an early metaphor for pedophiles, since the children in the tales were warned about the trolls and that they ate children.
Moynihan is definitely not STEM. From his CV
1
Curriculum Vitae
Donald P. Moynihan
Professor of Public Affairs
Phone
Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs
Fax:
University of Wisconsin
-Madison
E-mail:
Professor of Public Affairs, 2011-
present; Associate Director, 2009-
2012; Associate Professor 2007
-
2011, Assistant Professor 2005-
2007, La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Madison-
Wisconsin
•
Assistant Professor, Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, Fall
2003-
Fall 2005
•
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Michigan State University, Fall 2002
EDUCATION
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University.
Ph.D. in Public Administration, August 2002.
Dissertation:
Pursuing Rationality in Public Management: Managing for Results in U.S. State Government.
Committee: Patricia W. Ingraham (chair), Stuart Bretschneider, Jeffery Straussman, Jodi Sandfort,
Alasd
air Roberts, Scott Allard, Allan Mazur.
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University.
Master of Public Administration
, June 1998.
University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland.
Bachelor of Arts in Public Administration,
June 1997.
https://www.lafollette.wisc.edu/images/publications/facstaff/moynihan/moynihan-CV.pdf
Note his BA from Limerick Ireland. Can we take this to mean that he is not even an American? At least not by birth and education.
I redacted his email, phone etc.
John Henry
Moynihan says:
[N]o student has ever demanded that my classes include a trigger warning or asked for a safe space.
So who is requesting the safe spaces and trigger warnings? If not the students, is it Trump supporters and conservatives requesting them?
I am confused.
I think that he may mean that no student has ever requested it of him which might make sense. Students would make the damands to the administration. The administration would then have all profs include trigger warnings and perhaps safe spaces.
Sounds like Irish blarney to me.
John Henry.
A bit more poking around turned up this on his faculty page:
A native of Ireland, Moynihan completed his bachelor of arts degree in public administration at the University of Limerick
There once was a prof from U Mad
Who made all the Trumpers so sad
He thought they were stupid
But he was just cupid
That now we should treat him so bad
So is he here on a green card? Is he an American citizen?
John Henry
Has he submitted this to a Wisconsin paper?
guns in classrooms, something our private peers will not have to contend with as they seek to protect a climate conducive to vigorous debate."
Seems like introducing guns into debates makes them more vigorous. Half the students on one side of the classroom, the rest on the other. 3 minutes of gunplay and whichever side still has the most students able to walk out unassisted "wins" the debate.
Seems vigorous to me.
John Henry
So is he here on a green card?
--
Punny!
No, no, mockturtle.
"The Three Billygoats Gruff" is a translation of "De Tre Bukkene Bruse" - one of the tales from Asbjørnsn and Moe, and as Norwegian as the mountains themselves.
I'm sorry, in spite of the Professor's rigorous credentials and alleged experience in such matters, there is so much stupid in this op-ed that it is impossible to take seriously.
Will the left be happy when the last white male is purged from UW Madison?
Round and round. Will no one rid me of these meddlesome ideologues?
The good professor spends way too much time trying to deconstruct the words while forgeting that the only reason to employ words is to communicate. By the time she gets to the correct usage/definition/etc everyone forgets the subject of the post. Might as well just post the language topic and ignore the topic de jour.
Jaydub, I think lawyers--and law professors--are more about the 'letter of the law' than the 'spirit of the law'.
"protect a climate conducive to vigorous debate"
Snort. Hey prof, name 3 conservatives in the faculty lounge.
While you are at it, define "conservative" for us.
See, it's one of the questions I ask all job applicants. Tells me what kind of education they paid for. Most fail the interview.
mockturtle:
lawyers--and law professors--are more about the 'letter of the law'
Not even that. It was lawyers -- and law professors -- who effectively excised Posterity from the Constitution without actually removing the written letter from its content. Only a verbal statement or myth passed to each successive generation.
There are other examples. This is just the most audacious.
Well, Merriam tells me "trowl", and likely "trowleth" are ancient versions of "troll", but in the metaphor about Jesus, it is quite clear that the reference is to trawling, not trolling- indeed the verse/s make/s no sense otherwise- the metaphor refers to the gathering of many by few or one.
That doesn't follow. Fake hate crimes are only Mobyism if they are staged by the alleged preps to discredit the alleged victims.
For example, all the BLM lies about Martin, Brown, Gardner, Grey and Scott. For those to be Moby, BLM would have to be a front group for Storefront
Which I've often wondered about, but my understanding is that the white supremacist movement is too busy cooking math to engage in such clever deceptions.
Stormfront not storefront. LOL. See how much Dell sucks?
Cooking meth not math. Gee those rascally racist accountants.
%#@@!! Dell
Fen: "Stupid autocorrect"
Cry me a river. - Podesta's IP guy
IT not IP... grrrrr... I quit. (throws Dell laptop into fireplace)
Before Fen tosses computer...
"Stupid automobile"
Dr. Moynihan is presently Professor of Public Affairs and Director of the Rob't La Folette School of Public Affairs up in MadTown.
http://www.lafollette.wisc.edu/faculty-staff/faculty/donald-moynihan
He was born and partly educated in Ireland (although his graduate degrees are in Public Administration from Syracuse U.) and is probably not related closely, or at all, to the late, sainted Senator/UN Ambassador Daniel P. Moynihan (whose Ph. D., interestingly, was in History; although at Harvard he was a Professor of Education, of Urban Politics, and of Government).
I'd guess that the younger Prof. Moynihan is disinclined towards the elder Prof. Moynihan's infamous strategy of "benign neglect", vis-a-vis some of the more intractable aspects of Inner City dysfunction.
He meant by trolling of course. Not trawling!
Are you sure? Looks like they're trawling to me.
He was born and partly educated in Ireland
And partially educated he remains.
Looks like they're trawling to me
Of course, Peter and Andrew could be hauling in only the good fish, leaving the bad fish to continue to swim and do fishy things... Hey, wait a minute...
" instructors who discuss race, gender, class, reproductive rights, elections or even just politics" well, they don't discuss these topics, they have a fixed agenda and conduct indoctrination. For example, the word "Trump" is hate speech, "reproductive rights" are absolute and the sanctity of life may not be mentioned, the white race is evil, they think there is a class system when data shows much higher income mobility here than in Europe. 90 to 98% of academics outside of hard science depts contribute and vote democrat. "Studies" departments are neither academic nor professional, but rather purely leftist political organs. So if politicians get riled about the pure lefty spin of academia, he thinks this is censorship?
As for FOI requests, Greenpeace (et al) have been happy to use this against the few campus conservatives they could find.
"But my colleagues and I have been given much more reason to worry about the ideological agendas of elected officials and politically appointed governing boards...."
O, that those worries may be proven justifed! Let it be so!
This sad sack would look so appealing, squatting by a frozen on-ramp with a "Will Wurk For Food" sign around his neck. I would stop my car, take his picture, and hand him a buck. Tuck it in his belt, even.
The Jerk Store™ called. They want their Donald P. Moynihan back.
I think the disciples were net fishermen, not line fishermen. Luke 5:4, John 21:6.
I don't see many Leftist speakers shouted down and refused to allow speak.
I never see conservatives do it on the few times it happens.
The only ones who shout down leftists are uberleftists.
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