As one academic wrote to me in a private message, “sorry I’m not saying this publicly (I have no interest in battling the mean girls on Facebook) but fwiw it’s totally obvious to me that you haven’t been committing acts of violence against marginalized scholars.” Later, this same scholar wrote, again in private, saying Tuvel’s article is “a tight piece of philosophy” that makes clear that the position that “transgender is totally legit, [and] transracial is not—can only be justified using convoluted essentialist metaphysics. I will write to her privately and tell her so.” Others went further and supported Tuvel in private while actually attacking her in public. In private messages, these people apologized for what she must be going through, while in public they fanned the flames of hatred and bile on social media. The question is, why did so many scholars, especially feminists, express one sentiment behind closed doors and another out in the open? Why were so many others afraid to say anything in public?MEANWHILE: In Alexandria, the real Hypatia did not face mean girls on Facebook, but mean men...
... who "tore off her clothing" and either ripped "her body in pieces" with "tiles" or "dragged her... through the streets of the city till she died."
Why name your journal after her if you don't have courage?
Posts
148 comments:
Because they're pussies.
Thats why.
As one academic wrote to me in a private message, “sorry I’m not saying this publicly (I have no interest in battling the mean girls on Facebook)
I can relate to this.
It's huge. It's a huge problem with us right now.
Hunters can be loners: gatherers, not so much.
I dunno. Two faced hypocrites? Fundamentally dishonest people?
I lost track of anything that's going on. It seems to be an internal leftist thing.
Put women in philosophy and you expect soul-searching and tears.
Maybee, I'd wonder how many of those mean girls were taught by these same people.
Education has lost its mind. Since it DEEPLY hates a lot of the people funding it, they should lose those peoples money.
Because if they are honest they will end up like the Duke Divinity dude.
@MayBee - I can understand that, but the folks who apologized in private but publicly joined in the Struggle Session? They're not friends and allies, and should be publicly rebuked for their personal cowardice and hypocrisy.
Why are academics bigger cowards than they have to be? What kind of person becomes an academic?
Because it really is only a game to them. Something Nietzsche stressed that impressed me was that the killing of God would be misappropriated by those who could never seriously go beyond the death. Many who thought they killed God would only replace dogma with dogma. Everything turns into a game and nothing becomes serious. St Thomas Aquinas stresses the fact that grace builds upon nature. What we do at every minute has a consequence to our ability to tap into God.
When you endeavor to create a world where everything is relative and nothing is true, you can't then complain when people run with it and start to interpret things in ways you don't agree with.
I've seen hens in the barnyard kill the one that is hurt. If there's blood or an open sore they'll peck her to death. Not sayin' these feminist academics are chicks, but just sayin'.
I'm sure the academic fights over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin got pretty vicious too.
To me the gender thing is a kind of insanity.
Facebook has (at least!) 58 gender options.
ABC news complied a list
Agender
Androgyne
Androgynous
Bigender
Cis
Cisgender
Cis Female
Cis Male
Cis Man
Cis Woman
Cisgender Female
Cisgender Male
Cisgender Man
Cisgender Woman
Female to Male
FTM
Gender Fluid
Gender Nonconforming
Gender Questioning
Gender Variant
Genderqueer
Intersex
Male to Female
MTF
Neither
Neutrois
Non-binary
Other
Pangender
Trans
Trans*
Trans Female
Trans* Female
Trans Male
Trans* Male
Trans Man
Trans* Man
Trans Person
Trans* Person
Trans Woman
Trans* Woman
Transfeminine
Transgender
Transgender Female
Transgender Male
Transgender Man
Transgender Person
Transgender Woman
Transmasculine
Transsexual
Transsexual Female
Transsexual Male
Transsexual Man
Transsexual Person
Transsexual Woman
Two-Spirit
Put me down in the camp that thinks there are men and women. And that's pretty much it. Those are the breeders who will have children. The rest of it is academic stupidity, greedy and egotistical doctors, and sheep-like parents who do horrific violence to their children because our culture suggests it's a good idea.
Insanity.
I will also say that "race" is every bit as fluid and variable as these idiots imagine sex to be. I do not think we should normalize still more plastic surgeries to alter the pigment of human beings. But feel free to have sex with somebody who looks different than you do. Your baby will be one of an infinite variety of human beings.
You'd think people who put Darwin stickers on their cars would be a bit more thoughtful about human reproduction. It's this ignorance of babies and baby-making, of sex itself, that makes their ideology so stupid.
“transgender is totally legit, [and] transracial is not
Heresy. I knew when I very young that I was different. I loved math and electronics. I obeyed my overbearing parents and studied hard.
I joined the chess club. I couldn't make a layup to save my life. When I failed my first try at the driving test, I knew then I wasn't white. I was Asian. I used straightener on my hair, died it black, bought some non-prescription glasses. I'm still a pre-surgery transracial. Fat will be added to my eyelids as soon as I am old enough to not require parental approval for the operation.
Yup, transgender and transracial are exactly the same.
Congruence philosophers (e.g. "=") have avoided reconciliation. I'm surprised they survived the baby trials of early chauvinism. Today, they wrestle in a progressive, unmanageable muck of their own creation, while dragging anyone unfortunate enough to hear, see, or speak to them.
Wow that was a lot. I think you are wring in a certain regard, culture shock. Hindus have a beautiful religion and Krishna was always a male/female figure. I do not think transgender is a modern term. Confusing and nothing to indulge in, yet it has its serious traditions.
I summoned up the courage and entered the fray suggesting only that Hypatia invite critical responses to the article. This suggestion was met with ridicule and derision. I then asked critics to respond with philosophical arguments rather than lobbing insults, which was met with claims that I was doing “violence” to marginalized scholars.
I love that the small part of the humanities which is professional rather than activist now has to contend with the childishness of their activist allies. These infantile practices have been used against the non-left for decades with the full support of those who now pretend to be above them. If they were serious people they would have demanded these standards all along but instead demand standards only for the In-Group.
Academia is marching toward irrelevance.
Whereas those calling for a retraction were doing just that to a junior woman in a field, philosophy, nearly 80% of which is still populated by men and which is still resistant to feminism
Interestingly the author is calling for group group power politics in defense of feminism as if this isn't the root cause of the problem.
Saint Croix, I would add a third--asexual. It's a thing, medically real. But I wonder, looking at that list, whether there is anyone anywhere who can say what all 58 are and how each is unique from the other 57.
Here's a thought--perhaps there are 56 people in the world not adequately covered by male and female and those 56 people each get to decide their own designation. So each is a cohort of 1.
I'm for one and not the other.
While it's true you can't change either, I'm a white male and will remain a white male no matter what I'd prefer happens during my life. I can't and will never be able to change that fact.
However, I fully support transracialism. Like Martin Luther King, I believe we ought to be focusing on the content of ones character rather than the color of their skin. And I think the way to kill non color blind governmental programs that favor one race over another is through transracialism.
On the other hand, while I believe the distinction between the races is unimportant, the distinction between the sexes is important.
Example: A child ought to have both a mother and a father in their lives. However, the mother and father can be any race.
In sports, it's only fair that women should get to compete with other women. Men with men. But it doesn't matter what color those men and women are.
I think conservatives would be smart to support and push for transracialism. Not so with transgender.
Why?
1. Because they are Fascists.
2. Because they are, at their cores, dishonest.
3. Because they lack even a minimum level of courage.
"Hindus have a beautiful religion and Krishna was always a male/female figure"
Krishna is a god/goddess. Is there any evidence that Indian society has been traditionally more accepting of transsexuals or of gays, for that matter? I honestly don't know, I'm asking.
I do not profess to have great knowledge of Hinduism and I am sure it contains wisdom, but their caste system never struck me as "beautiful."
Racial can refer to character (e.g. principles) and "color of skin" (e.g. genetic identity). Race is a choice in the first sense and generational in the second.
Humans exist as two binary sexes: male and female. Gender refers to attributes with normal distributions: masculine and feminine. Each distribution is correlated with natural function. Individuals are defined by a constellation of character choices and gender attributes. Most men and women are proportionately masculine and feminine, respectively, with homosexuals, bisexuals, crossovers, etc. on a transgender spectrum.
We live in an era of outrage—let’s call it the Trump era. That’s how Trump got elected, by voicing outrage. His most ardent disciples uncritically and unthinkingly believe everything he says because it is expressed with anger and zest. Civility is suspected of being “political,” which has become a dirty word. It’s hard to argue with outrage, and that’s precisely the problem. Outrage has become the new truth.
Love this. The activist's left's SOP for two decades is now blamed on Trump. More In-Group signalling.
The feminist thought police are the flip side of the alternative facts machine.
I'm sure the 1 in 5 women on campus are raped statistic existed before Trump's tweets about crowd size at the inauguration.
What I find most distressing about the hostile attacks against Tuvel, the article, and my defense of an open dialogue about it, is that there are people and institutions out there that are trying to deny rights to women, especially trans women and women of color
Is this the fifth In-Group appeal?
The real enemy is our culture of displaced outrage and its symptoms, namely the thought police and the alternative facts machine.
Kelly, you're appealing to the thought police and alternative facts machine, what on earth makes you think this appeal will help? That's why they see you as the enemy. They're making progress using fake facts - the 1 in 5 statistic allowed the Dear Colleague letter which caused the campus witchhunts and supports radical institutions. How many Womens Studies radicals now have Ed system jobs for life because of this program? What do you have to show for your efforts?
Isn't wonderful to live in such a happy time when the actual big things to worry about no longer exist so we can now focus on the silly things?
"why did so many scholars, especially feminists, express one sentiment behind closed doors and another out in the open?"
If you have to ask...
Are you kidding me?
Put it this way: Because Tolerance. Hah!
can only be justified using convoluted essentialist metaphysics
Just wait until they find out that gravity is only a theory.
Gee, I wonder if this sort of thing happens in other parts of academia or in the scientific community.
"Intersex" is a real thing; there are a very small proportion of people born with characteristics of both sexes. Almost all of these used to be "corrected" at birth. Now, not so much. (There was a very good article on this decades ago in The Sciences, the much-lamented journal of the NY Academy of Sciences, titled "The Five Sexes." Man, I miss that magazine, which was not only uniformly interesting and literate, but illustrated with the most impressive examples of modern art I have ever seen. Between that and Lingua Franca and Spy ...)
Most of the rest of the list looks just like designer gender-coding to me, though.
"Others went further and supported Tuvel in private while actually attacking her in public." Meh. Let's have their names, and examples of what they wrote in public and private. It's a common tactic, to claim that the same people are on both sides. "ACA was a _conservative_ idea: look, this conservative think tank once proposed it, and Romney supported something like it in Massachusetts. That _proves_ that the Republicans in Congress who opposed it to a man were hypocrites!"
Much more likely that there was a group of academic thugs crucifying Tuvel on social media and elsewhere, and another group of lesser thugs who kind of feel queasy about it but don't speak up.
Why, oh, why? They all know the totalitarian, take-no-prisoners left. They all know their colleagues are cowards. They all know administrators are cowards. They all know arguments must bow to politics. It seems in academia the culture war is already over: few people even care to fight anymore.
But looking at the kerfuffle from the sidelines, one wonders: is anyone in the US more coddled and accommodated and celebrated than so-called marginalized people?
Christ was crucified. To be defeated is not a sign of a lacking in truth.
From the article...
If an essay written by a young feminist scholar in support of trans rights is violent and harmful, then haven’t we leveled all violence such that everything has become swept up by it, and the very notion of violence has lost its meaning?
Nothing really to say here except FINALLY! WHAT THE HELL TOOK YOU SO LONG???
"A Hindu nationalist organisation is promising to help Indian couples conceive "superior" babies with high IQs and fairer skin than their parents, sparking media criticism."
Apparently, Tuvel’s worst offense was the “deadnaming” of Caitlyn Jenner. Deadnaming is using a trans person’s birth name instead of their chosen name, which can do harm when outing a person as trans, or when that person considers their old self or old name “dead.” I was fiercely attacked on Facebook for pointing out that Jenner is a public figure, a Reality TV star, who doesn’t reject deadnaming herself in her book: “Transgender guidelines suggest that I no longer be referred to as Bruce in any circumstance. Here are my guidelines: I will refer to the name Bruce when I think it appropriate. Bruce existed for sixty-five years, and Caitlyn is just going on her second birthday. That’s the reality.” The irony is that some of the same people publicly disparaging Tuvel for deadnaming Jenner, privately admitted that they’d never heard the word “deadnaming” before the Facebook frenzy. Call it a teachable moment.
...oy...
JaimeRoberto said...
Gee, I wonder if this sort of thing happens in other parts of academia or in the scientific community."
I'm afraid it does. Look up Judith Curry and her battles with the AGW crowd.
And Michael Mann, he of the discredited hockey stick theory, is still teaching.
Standing up to public opinion takes courage; people frequently buckle under social pressure. It's rare to stand on principle against the culture.
And finally, inevitably, the author jumps the shark.
We live in an era of outrage—let’s call it the Trump era. That’s how Trump got elected, by voicing outrage. His most ardent disciples uncritically and unthinkingly believe everything he says because it is expressed with anger and zest.
Because rabid identity politics, the cache of victimhood, and intersectionality all started in 2017. No, sorry, but the "era of outrage" was long underway before Trump ever filed his paperwork to run.
"Tuvel’s article in support of transgender and transracial identities didn’t threaten anyone, and didn’t jeopardize anyone’s career. "
Kelly Oliver is clueless: Tuvel's article does not just jeopardize someone's career, but entire industries.
The utter reasonableness of race self-identification highlights the insanity of gender self-identity and thus simultaneously destroys both the race industry and the gender industry.
Tuvel wiped out two species of birds with a pebble!
This is why the reaction was so strong, and why no argument may be permitted.
So . . . shall we dissolve the monasteries?
Rick said...
Academia is marching toward irrelevance.
They are leading our youth into a civil war they will lose badly. They are taking a lot of innocent people with them.
Fear.
Next question?
Left wing Nonsense Tag - needed.
Student loan repayments doth make cowards of us all.
damikesc said...
Because they're pussies.
Thats why.
It is more than cowardice. There is a core vein of mendacity on the left. They have always looked down on the proletariat even as they claim to be their champions.
Just look at how they treat people after they achieve power.
"especially feminists"
Well, lookie here: the answer is right in your headline.
I hate to pile on, but I think maybe Althouse is just trolling us here...
Wait a minute. Are you saying that...women...will say one thing to their friend's face? And then say something different behind her back??
How long has this been going on?????
Guys. My oldest daughter is finishing her sophomore year in high school. I have to send her off to college in two years. I have no idea how to do this. How do I send her into this carnival funhouse where education, thinking, logic, reason, facts etc are the opposite of what they are supposed to be?
My question is not rhetorical. As a human, as a mother, I am truly scared shitless.
People who are all 'whoa it's the beginning of the end for these zany universities! they've really jumped the shark!' are not taking it as seriously as I am, or have more of their lives behind them. These people control our culture and will for a very long time. There is no escaping them. Like MayBee, I've given up. I can't deal with all my nice lifelong friends who repeat tribalist bullshit all day long on social media and on girls night out dates whom I honestly believe would send me to reeducation camps if they could. I just read a novel by Joe Hill (snide leftist Stephen King's son) that was about post-apocalyptic tribalism and groupthink that was so unselfaware that it had its own nonironic snide leftist virtue-signaling tribalist groupthink nods.
I'm serious (sort of). Where's the redoubt up in the mountains where we'll reassemble while we still have freedom of movement? Is someone stocking it with books before they start burning them?
How's this going to end?
Why were so many others afraid to say anything in public?
**********************
Because most members of my gender are chickenshit, despite decades of female "empowerment", can't stand on their own when they are of the minority opinion, and generally need the comfort of a group of women.
Case in point: I've lost track of the # of women I've met too insecure to take up a fucking HOBBY like beading without the comfort of a class of 10 other women with lots of hand holding, preferably from a female instructor. Have a friend who wants to "get back into sewing" but its "more fun with a friend" - since I have no fucking desire to haul my old school, very heavy cast iron sewing machine across town simply because she's too insecure or whatever to start sewing again...guess she won't be making those curtains she wants so bad!
If so many COLLEGE educated women are intimidated by sewing or putting beads on string, not surprised academics are too chicken to stand by an unpopular belief.
Hillsdale in Michigan is a college
Misplaced Pants: have your daughter enroll in a STEM program; engineering programs don't leave much time left for soft science crap.
My question is not rhetorical. As a human, as a mother, I am truly scared shitless.
I have unabashedly been telling them (my kids, 7yo, 9yo, and 13yo) that unless they receive and academic or athletic scholarship, we're not paying for college. The environment is toxic, the washout rate too high, and the tuition is ridiculous.
Women are cunning?
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...Guys. My oldest daughter is finishing her sophomore year in high school. I have to send her off to college in two years.
You are already screwing up.
Your daughter should already be taking college level courses. Start her off this summer by enrolling her in a community college to take some of the basics. Don't overload her. Take the next two years to cut off all the crap courses that fill most majors.
Then when she graduates high school, she will be able to knock out two years on a full scholarship at some Divinity school like Duke, and become ant-racist.
No student loans, and full of piss and vinegar...
Ann did you watch Mysteries of Lisbon
Because they are fundamentally dishonest. You have to be a liar to be a progressive.
Blogger Earnest Prole said...
Women are cunning?
5/9/17, 11:27 AM
I totally thought that said something else.
I need to get my eyes checked.
Our betters, ladies and gentlemen.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
"Intersex" is a real thing; there are a very small proportion of people born with characteristics of both sexes.
Feeling masochistic, I looked at Oliver's paper
Enhancing Evolution: Whose Body? Whose Choice?
As near as I could figger-out, she's claiming that eugenics is bad because Bantus have a unusually large incidence of true hermaphrodites.
Blogger I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
Guys. My oldest daughter is finishing her sophomore year in high school. I have to send her off to college in two years. I have no idea how to do this. How do I send her into this carnival funhouse where education, thinking, logic, reason, facts etc are the opposite of what they are supposed to be?
My question is not rhetorical. As a human, as a mother, I am truly scared shitless.
It seems our daughters are at the same state of life.
My daughter is starting highschool and college simultaneous courses next year. It seems she can graduate highschool and have two years of college done.
This will probably save me a lot of money. If not me, her.
Uh uh, they are women. This is not hard to figure out.
This is group dynamics. Happens everywhere, including here.
I've been in meetings where I disagreed with "the leader" and nobody supported me, yet afterward have given support. In more than one case, even my manager agreed with me, but still formally reprimanded me.
Conforming to the group can be a powerful motivating factor. Not conforming can be very risk in real terms.
I am quite sure that people have made comments here and been derided by others who actually agree with them.
SDaly said...
I had a very interesting Twitter exchange with an Indian woman who blamed all of India's troubles on the British imperialists.
I said, "Yeah, it's too bad the British imposed a caste system on India that limited the human potential of untold millions of people." She responded that she believed the caste system was justified as it reflected fundamental genetic differences between the groups. I asked if maybe British imperialism couldn't also be explained that way, and she stopped responding.
5/9/17, 10:53 AM
In the very long history of India, British rule was but a blink of the eye. The British takeover of India was gradual and haphazard and would not have occurred without the acquiescence of friendly princes.
The Indians have the British to thank for the democratic system they have today. The Mother of Parliaments was a bit more successful in exporting their system than we are.
Re: I have misplaced my pants:
I would have said, "send her to an engineering school -- the light of civilisation has not been forgotten there," only my own dear alma mater, Harvey Mudd, has disgraced itself recently by compromising its standards in response to a student protest.
That would never have happened in my day, although I saw them jamming the thin end of the wedge in the door while I was there. I started taking classes there in high school. Tests in my multivariable class were designed so the average would be maybe 50-60% or so, giving the professor a nice, normal distribution to work with. But by the time I matriculated, they'd made it softer and gentler so the average was higher. Even then, though, Mudd was hard. One of my math professors explained that her intention was to pitch the class just above our level, so we would all feel like we were about to drown. The administration didn't quite do the "look to your left, look to your right" routine, but they told us frankly that Mudd was hard, and some number of us would be dismissed -- "invited to retire" -- before graduation. Even if it destroyed our GPAs, in comparison to all those other schools with their inflated grades, we were proud. I could be proud of my degree, even though I was in the bottom half of the class.
So the way Mudd has devolved makes me sick at heart.
You are already screwing up.
Your daughter should already be taking college level courses. Start her off this summer by enrolling her in a community college to take some of the basics. Don't overload her. Take the next two years to cut off all the crap courses that fill most majors.
Then when she graduates high school, she will be able to knock out two years on a full scholarship at some Divinity school like Duke, and become ant-racist.
No student loans, and full of piss and vinegar...
I find that comforting advice because we're on it....she's already enrolled in a couple of dual credit classes and in addition takes her first AP test on Thursday. She'll take more dual credit and AP classes over the next couple of years and should be able to graduate high school and then leapfrog over most of freshman and sophomore year. So, limiting exposure should help, then?
Misplaced Pants: have your daughter enroll in a STEM program; engineering programs don't leave much time left for soft science crap. I'm so grateful that she's wired for STEM. She's interested in aviation and gets effortless straight As in her science and math classes (in fact was just inducted into the math honor society last week). I tell her that she's gonna encounter some "stand up and be recognized, vagina-possesser" nonsense and she matter of factly said "well if they give me scholarship money, I'll clap my cymbals like a good performing monkey all day long."
I worry more about the education she is not receiving, a classical education that teaches logic, rhetoric and thinking skills. We do our best at home and prepare her that the world is turning upside down, radically, in how it handles the very concept of knowledge and information and thinking, and I guess that's all we can do. I just wish I'd known earlier what the world would be like when she's shoved out into it.
I would have said, "send her to an engineering school -- the light of civilisation has not been forgotten there," only my own dear alma mater, Harvey Mudd, has disgraced itself recently by compromising its standards in response to a student protest.
I have heard of many of these stories, and it scares and saddens me.
Not to get all woman-y about it or anything, though :)
Althouse, if you have time, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this from a parenting perspective, if you're not too irritated that I've pulled the thread in that direction a bit. You raised smart boys who are I believe around my age (midthirties). How did you do that, and what would if anything would you do differently in the current climate and culture vs. the 80s then they and I were kids?
Pants,
When I sent my two oldest daughters off to college I was worried too. They are a year apart and within two years they were both out from under my roof. I had to trust them. I had to know they would make mistakes and would have the requisite knowledge to mitigate the damages. I let them know that if they came to me with a problem of their own making, I would let them know they were wrong and then try to help them deal with it, or take the consequences. In their senior year, I allowed them more freedoms, so as not to have them be unprepared for the freewheeling and reckless atmosphere college life can be. Both older girls and then a younger daughter all made it through without any major mishaps.
Given the nature of genetics and the infinite combinations of chromosomes in the human race at the present time, the whole idea of "race" is an artificial construct. So there is some value in categorizing but 1/2, 1/4, 1/8... has evolved into meaninglessness. As previously stated, it works only until it goes the other way from your preferences.
As for gender, just have sex with who you want to and stop acting silly.
(Senior year of high school)
I worry more about the education she is not receiving, a classical education that teaches logic, rhetoric and thinking skills.
One of my friends teaches optimization courses in the business school of a Catholic University. Plenty of Latin and Classic classes on the books. There's a lot of schools in North America to choose between.
I knew two undergrads who attended Harvey Mudd and got the impression there were too many parties with a Frat-like drinking atmosphere. Got the impression it was fine if one's kid was prudent, but not if he was inclined to indulge himself.
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
Guys. My oldest daughter is finishing her sophomore year in high school. I have to send her off to college in two years. I have no idea how to do this.
My oldest is finishing his sophomore year in high school, and I'm already working on this.
Reason has someone who follows campus lunacy which can provide strong material from one source. I started with having him read "Until Proven Innocent" about the Duke Lacrosse scandal. As far as I know this case was the only time in modern America most of the country knew they were witnessing prosecutorial misconduct while the case was still being investigated. It clearly demonstrates how institutions pursue their interests completely without regard to facts or reality. The bottom line: stay away from these professors and their student acolytes.
Step 1:
Show her this stuff now so she understands there is a group of people on campus whose life goal can be achieved by destroying her. Like cults the radicals initially offer friendship and a sense of purpose which can be quite attractive to people in a new setting and perhaps emotionally vulnerable. Let her to to beware such approaches (also helpful in avoiding Amway reps).
Step 2:
Tell her to major in something serious and value that discipline in others.
While almost every campus has these people except for the specifically liberals arts training centers (Amherst, Oberlin, Yale, etc) they are a small minority of students. It's easy to avoid them if you understand you need to.
Pants,
Oh and don't worry that their minds will rot with all the liberal professors they'll be exposed to. One of my older girls is a conservative, one is a liberal. The youngest daughter, an attorney, also a liberal.
Why name your journal after her if you don't have courage?
Maybe it is intended as a warning as to what will happen if you don't toe the line...
As a philosopher by training (BA), I find "Journal of Feminist Philosophy" a red flag.
Once you get into "Philosophy of" or "adjective Philosophy", you're on uncertain ground; the only two of the former I trust as disciplines are mind and science.
Re: wwww:
I knew two undergrads who attended Harvey Mudd and got the impression there were too many parties with a Frat-like drinking atmosphere. Got the impression it was fine if one's kid was prudent, but not if he was inclined to indulge himself.
That's just one of the dorms (West). The other dorms -- at least in my day -- were pretty sedate. Overall, the campus culture tended towards nerdiness and whimsy: unicycles, croquet, cross-dressing, the usual. Loud music and drinking were the exception, not the rule (though they were certainly a well known part of campus culture).
Just googling, it seems that Linde has acquired the noisy reputation as well, although when I lived there it was quiet. So perhaps the culture has changed as well.
Why name your journal after her if you don't have courage?
Oh, they think its courageous to march around wearing pussy hats.
The problem, and it is a problem, is that the institutions in which many of us have invested, in which we have for a time put great stock, are purposefully destroying themselves. When that destruction is complete, when the seed corn is well and truly gone, how will society adjust?
This is the removal of Chesterton's Fence, on a societal level. And I fear the monsters that were properly walled off will exercise their power again. And the effort to restore the wall may well be beyond the capacity of a diminished people.
Balfegor-
My daughter graduated from Harvey Mudd a couple years ago. Got a very rigorous STEM education. Also got a lot of liberal BS on top of it. But then, she was pretty liberal before she went.
And she survived West for a year.
Misplaced falsely asserts: Guys. My oldest daughter is finishing her sophomore year in high school. I have to send her off to college in two years.
Why? Why not have her do something useful for a couple of years?
Misplaced Pants,
Might I suggest a hitch in the USAF or the USN? They will learn an actual job skill, and make the transition from child to adult in 3 years. College these days is a 4 year extension of childhood run by immature 'adults'. They can even earn a 2 year degree while serving. The educational benefits are also excellent once you complete an enlistment.
Best of all, they will be in service to something larger than themselves, which will help them towards a fuller, more meaningful life.
I promise that when they get out, should they then go on to a university, they will never feel the need to run to a safe space and play with teddy bears.
"I worry more about the education she is not receiving, a classical education that teaches logic, rhetoric and thinking skills"
I would worry about that too. It's no accident that they have dropped those requirements. If you have a grounding in logic, rhetoric and thinking skills, you won't buy into their attempts to brainwash you.
Interesting to see all the anonymous comments by people doubting the courage and integrity of academics. Are they all in academia? I wonder.
"The question is, why did so many scholars, especially feminists, express one sentiment behind closed doors and another out in the open?"
The answer to this question is simple and ancient. People want to have the good life. People are attracted to professions that provide the good life, as however they define it but money is typically involved. This tends to result in three well-established phenomenon:
1. Persons with limited talent worm their way into positions that they are not qualified though perhaps sufficiently credentialed, then go about making sure that they cannot be removed easily. This often involves attaching themselves to some greater authority for which they do service in exchange for protection and promotion. The authority ends up with an army of ambitious useful idiots that can be used as needed for desired outcomes. (Occasionally, the authority ends up creating something it can no longer control.)
2. Persons who are qualified do not want to lose the good life and therefore can be easily cowed. Some will join up with the authority for the advantages it provides.
3. Anyone who does not get into line is attacked by the authority, his useful idiots, and the cowed. The status quo is maintained unless the authority wants it changed.
There's nothing new here. It is just tribalism for intellectuals. We have seen this in astronomy with Galileo, in mathematics with Cantor (he ended up in a mental institution), and now here. The fact that socially conscious studies have little rigor and great deal of emotion and dogma simply makes it worse. It is high stakes when someone questions a position that upon further inspection has no basis in fact.
Q: Why are academic battles fought so fiercely?
A: Because there's so little at stake.
Because they're dishonest cowards.
I totally thought that said something else.
Yes, that's my leetle joke.
I was at work at a research lab when I heard the most perfect British accent behind me. Turned and it was the perfect eccentric physicist with socks with his sandals, riding his bicycle down the hall. He was Chinese from Hong Kong. He had all the British mannerisms. Don't tell me he was Chinese.
Another scene: two post-docs talking. A: go out for pizza? B: nope, got my experiment tonight.A: but that will take all night! B: No problem, I'm German. B is black
Race is an arbitrary construct, unlike sex. There are no brain differences or hormonal differences, just differences in customs, beliefs, and habits. Blacks in the US are utterly unlike African blacks, of whom I have met many.
"Q: Why are academic battles fought so fiercely?
A: Because there's so little at stake."
Unfortunately this is no longer so. All that stuff in the university leaks out to the real world. In regulation, in legislation, in litigation, and in the mores and taboos of the leadership and those who create societies' media content.
Thanks for the post, Althouse.
You invited people who won't say things publicly to comment on academics who won't say things publicly... and you are an academic with a public blog.
As I said earlier, academics are generally more cowardly than they have to be. Althouse is still alive, career unruined, despite having any number of opinions stated publicly. It's not that dangerous. Why the cowardice of so many others? Not everyone is an adjunct. Some people have tenure. Why don't we hear more from them?
"There are no brain differences or hormonal differences"
Yes there are actually. Physical, medical, and neurological differences abound.
"Althouse is still alive, career unruined, despite having any number of opinions stated publicly."
Althouse is retired. Its also not clear what the professional-worklife cost actually was of, say, the Walker episodes, to start. And it seems, my perception, that the persecution has been getting worse since maybe 2014-15.
@MayBee - I can understand that, but the folks who apologized in private but publicly joined in the Struggle Session?
No, I can't relate to that.
MountainJohn said...
Q: Why are academic battles fought so fiercely?
A: Because there's so little at stake.
Which makes it so odd that people focus so intently upon them.
John Lynch said...
Not everyone is an adjunct. Some people have tenure. Why don't we hear more from them?
Probably because most of them don't give a shit about any of this stuff.
John Lynch said...
Interesting to see all the anonymous comments by people doubting the courage and integrity of academics. Are they all in academia? I wonder.
Althouse commentariat getting some tough love.
ARM-
I'm all for the right not to give a shit. However, when we depend on experts to the degree that we do I'd like for them to have the courage to stand up to nonsense. When they won't, I'm not inclined to pay much attention anymore.
Alatair Robert's comments are cogent
"It seems to me that there is an elephant in the room of the academy. It isn't accidental that these sorts of conflicts are most prominent in female dominated quarters of the university, where more female-typical modes of sociality are most pronounced. A traditional male code of sociality celebrates strength, courage, and mastery and expects honour. Properly channelled, this can be conducive to direct engagement in ritual academic conflict, people demonstrating the strength of their intellectual and rhetorical agency, their mastery of ideas, the courage to put themselves and their claims in jeopardy in the realm of public debate, and the honour not to shrink back from or avoid honest and direct engagement.
By contrast, female intrasexual conflict tends to be more indirect in character, involving social pressure and the threat of ostracization, appeals to third parties to intervene, combative networking, sabotaging opponents' reputations, etc. If this isn't tamed and channelled carefully, it will tend to produce an academy dominated by 'mean girls', who avoid direct academic challenge and stress-testing of their ideas, protecting the dominance of their positions through demonizing opponents, freezing them out of the realm of discourse, ostracizing them from the academic community, savaging their reputations through professional gossip and badmouthing, appealing to university administration and other parties to close them down, etc. Unsurprisingly, this is exactly what we are seeing in a number of different areas today."
more here
http://thephilosophicalsalon.com/if-this-is-feminism-its-been-hijacked-by-the-thought-police/#comment-3294190010
John Lynch said...
I'm all for the right not to give a shit. However, when we depend on experts to the degree that we do I'd like for them to have the courage to stand up to nonsense
We do depend on expertise, at least when it suits us, but in this case, transracialism, I am guessing that the average person has as much expertise as most academics.
Joe: This is group dynamics. Happens everywhere, including here.
I've been in meetings where I disagreed with "the leader" and nobody supported me, yet afterward have given support. In more than one case, even my manager agreed with me, but still formally reprimanded me.
This is true (and I've had similar experiences). But I think the version of the phenomenon manifesting in academia today, this escalating hysteria of struggle session and purge, is also fed by another common human tendency with which most of us are probably familiar - incompetents engaging in CYA and ego-defense.
There are a lot of people running around "higher" education these days, second- (and third- and fourth-) rate intellects who really have no business there, as a perusal of the word-salad pumped out by "scholars" for "studies" journals will reveal. Like their counterparts outside of academia, staying on the attack and making an endless fuss about the alleged wrong-doings of colleagues is used as a way to to deflect scrutiny from one's own lack of merit.
"Why name your journal after her if you don't have courage?'"
Isn't it obvious; the Hypatiaists are a one-issue microorganism that, sadly, is somehow seen to be reflective of something tat is important.
pdug@1:11 has explained the whole thing entirely. It is no coincidence that the academics in the previous post who unjustly persecuted a colleague were women. And I say that as a woman. This sort of dynamic plays out again and again in environments dominated by women.
Yes, Sydney. Sadly, it does. I saw that clearly moving from a male-dominated work environment to a female-dominated one.
Yes, Sydney. Sadly, it does. I saw that clearly moving from a male-dominated work environment to a female-dominated one.
5/9/17, 1:37 PM
And I've seen it too. But even before that, one semester of living in a house with 6 other women was enough to clear any sentimental ideas about "sisterhood" out of my head.
pdug quoting: "It seems to me that there is an elephant in the room of the academy. It isn't accidental that these sorts of conflicts are most prominent in female dominated quarters of the university, where more female-typical modes of sociality are most pronounced."
Yeah. I had a discussion recently on the question of whether women's entry into a field, at least at some critical percentage, kills progress and excellence. And not just because of different patterns of social interaction between the sexes, but simply because of different distributions of intellect and talent.
I had been musing idly about efforts to attain "gender parity", and observed that any institution that wants to comprise the "best and brightest" can't have "gender parity". There are significantly more really smart men than there are really smart women; there are significantly more males than females crowding up the right tail of the distribution curve for any trait associated with excellence and its pursuit.
Excuse me while I draw a straight line between this kind of cowardice and why no one on campus and damn few in the media will tell the truth about fascistic Islam, let alone defend the right to speak of people like Ayann Hirsi Ali or even Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant.
There was a time when education was expected to BUILD character. Education now destroys it.
@Saint Croix, regarding your post at 10:08, where on the list is "Male and damned proud of it"? Just askin'
There are significantly more really smart men than there are really smart women; there are significantly more males than females crowding up the right tail of the distribution curve for any trait associated with excellence and its pursuit.
We also excel at the dumb end of the spectrum!
"The question is, why did so many scholars, especially feminists, express one sentiment behind closed doors and another out in the open?"
Because they are from the party of science.
@Saint Croix, regarding your post at 10:08, where on the list is "Male and damned proud of it"? Just asking'
Still not a Facebook option, apparently. But you'll be happy to know they have added 21 more gender options, including man. Also woman.
Being in a similar situation as Pants, here are my thoughts:
1) Consider College a credentialing program that also happens to be an educational institute and a networking opportunity.
2) Max out the college credits in high school, then get into the college with the best reputation possible.
3) In that good college, filter out the garbage professors and courses. Pick out the good professors, and establish them as mentors.
4) Realize that while there is much ado about this toxic environment, only a handful of schools that are any good are really affected. Berkeley, Mizzou, Yale, Duke, Penn State...That leaves a large number of institutions that are not flushing their reputation down the toilet.
5) Be ruthless in excluding Universities which allow their reputations to suffer from this. Your Alma Mater should be a asset on your resume, not something that makes you a laughingstock.
This is how you get scapegoats
"we know you are really innocent of wrongdoing, but you must die that the people may live"
ARM: "Which makes it so odd that people focus so intently upon them."
The academic battles are good indicators of the battles to come in the larger society so tracking what is happening on campus makes perfect sense.
Afraid of retribution, and rightly so. Organizational Behavior 101 compounded by ideology, hubris, lack of principles, ambition and, in the case of academic feminists, just plain immature catty high school clique type behavior.
Some women are completely ready for Prime Time, and some are not. A significant percentage of the latter take refuge in politicized academia.
"why did so many scholars, especially feminists, express one sentiment behind closed doors and another out in the open?"
Really, especially feminists? That's the question? Shouldn't it read, "so many scholars, including of course the feminists ..."
Disingenuously lying about their goals to cover up the ugliness of their sentiments? Huh, who would have thought.
Reminds me of the closeted Hollywood Trump supporters Bret Easton Ellis tweeted about.
It used to be cool and hip to be a disinter, to go against the grain.
For one thing, I believe in a way, it discourages whistleblowing.
Courage to speak up against the mob is never in high supply, so nothing here surprises me. If Ms. Tuvel were up for a burning at the stake, you wouldn't even even have the private e-mails written.
It's a risk vs reward decision. How many of the "97% of scientists" actually believe the global warming crap? Maybe 5%?
I have t to admit o be boring but 21 Pilots singing I can't help falling in love
Althouse,
"... especially feminists ... "
The answer is right there, embedded in the question.
ALP,
" have your daughter enroll in a STEM program; "
Oh no no No No NO!!!!!
The proper statement is, "If your daughter can't imagine not doing chemistry/biology/engineering/physics/computer programming, then have her enroll in a STEM program." Otherwise have her stay the F**K away, we already have waaaaaay too many people in tech fields who have no aptitude and/or don't belong here.
Just like the hockey stick in climate. Every time there was a security lapse or a leak that provided a peak behind the curtain, climate scientist were discovered mocking it, but in public, they defend it, for the same exact fucking reason, fear of the Digital Brownshirts.
I can't believe that my browser capitalizes 'Digital Brownshirts.' Like Al Gore made a comment, and now it is a Holy text.
Women, in particular feminists, are well aware of the pitfalls of female chauvinism and baby hunts, and, when caught, baby trials. It's a double-edged scalpel that they should have predicted, but many, apparently, did not, and are now surprised... or something. Pride before the fall.
I never understood why there wasn't a biology requirement in the gender studies program. How can you be an expert on gender without some basic knowledge of the nuts and bolts of things. It's probably why no one took gender studies too seriously as a field of study.
"The emperor is naked!" cried the child.
And ultimately, that's what it comes down to, whether the story is called "The Emperor's New Skin Color" or "The Empress's New Penis" (or Old Penis, as the case may be) or whatever. Anyone may claim to be anything they want, but actually becoming it is something else entirely. I may claim to be female or black or a giraffe, but in the end, I'm still a white male human. Wishing doesn't make it so.
ALP said "Because most members of my gender are chickenshit, despite decades of female "empowerment", can't stand on their own when they are of the minority opinion, and generally need the comfort of a group of women."
Also because they are feminists, hypocrites, passive-aggressive, and need the protection of anonymity. Feminists need Daddies to enforce their demands, usually Daddies in black robes.
It's a purge. Stalin would certainly recognize it.
We used to have this thing called "academic freedom" to allow scholars to pursue their research and thinking to their own conclusions. Theoretically, "academic freedom" still exists. That's why professors and schoolteachers are awarded tenure.
Unfortunately academic hegemony has rendered the idea meaningless. The current threats to academic freedom come not from a heavy-handed government or narrow-minded religionists but from OTHER ACADEMICS.
The ivory tower now is occupied by totalitarians and cowards. Shame on all of them.
And to connect further dots, this is the real reason for all those college protests and counter protests. Its not about black block or street violence, those are just incidental tactics to prevent anyone from cracking this totalitarian indoctrination system.
That's why Milo, Murray, Coulter, and etc.
Pants,
I'm paying the freight for five missionary kids to go to Wheaton/Belmont/LeTourneau. Luckily, four are getting about 30-50% of the tab from grants. But all had dual high school/college credits plus AP classes plus one had about 12 community college transfer credits. None of them seem to be shaving any time off of how long it is/has taking to graduate (two graduated last weekend). Either the credits didn't transfer in full or they had to take
something else in its place. Where it did help was it giving them advanced standing so they had first crack at registration for classes.
Just saying.....
@misplaced pants, if your daughter is good at math have her take predicate calculus; she'll learn more about logic there than in any philosophy class. Otherwise I'm with Kirk Parker -- don't let her major in STEM unless she can be happy doing nothing else. STEM in college is nothing like STEM in high school.
I find the emotional venting about universities to be unrelated to the reality of most real-world institutions. The most obvious point is that the liberal arts are dying at most universities. Students are increasingly focused on vocational/professional training that will get them a job. The universities are accommodating that demand, not expanding their arts programs.
Because Brownshirts scare people and are not only not punished by college administrators, they are encouraged by them.
When the Brownshirts are not punished, they will continue to attack the weak.
The primary message of this and the prior Althouse post would seem to be "keep women out of academia".
"The most obvious point is that the liberal arts are dying at most universities."
This is true, but the reason why . The Liberal Arts, or rather the Classics, are being displaced by soft but content-less programs.
Some faculty lists, from UCLA, where I have had on the spot reports - compare the FTE's assigned:
The Classics Department - In old university systems, this would have been either the whole university or a bloody big chunk of it.
http://classics.ucla.edu/faculty/
LGBTQ Studies -
http://lgbtqstudies.ucla.edu/people/faculty/
Gender Studies -
http://www.genderstudies.ucla.edu/faculty/
Anyway, here is the total department list, you can see where the faculty money is going, and it is not in the traditional idea of the Liberal Arts, but in a host of soft or softish foolishness.
http://www.college.ucla.edu/academics/departments-and-programs/
And this is besides the huge waste in non-faculty employment.
You know, if the Republican ideal of a color-blind society were to be realized than transracialism would be a moot point and loser whites wouldn't be trying to pass for black.
And if true misogynists wanted proof of the inherent lack of suitability of women for roles in academics they could certainly point to this dust-up over Tuvel to help make their case.
This is why I laugh to myself when women go on and on about how much better the world would be if women ran things - equality! no more war! Anyone who truly knows women knows this is absurd. I have worked with and for both men and women - and the women were not better bosses or managers.
Parents of children preparing for college, be aware. Make sure you and your kids look to see how many AP courses or college credits your school choices will accept. My second son busted his butt taking AP courses and Northwestern would only accept 4, They look for reasons to exclude some. Too much revenue loss!
Universities are ruined. They're for everyone to get their job papers now.
For those lucky readers who didn’t follow the nasty attacks on social media
Yup.
Well, when you have a profession whose main attraction is guaranteed lifetime employment without ever having to grow up and go out into the world, you must expect it to be populated by cowards and conformists.
I'm always frustrated at the outrage people show about Hypatia's murder but don't even know that about a hundred years earlier another great woman intellectual from Alexandria was brutally tortured and killed. Of course I know the reason for the double standard: she was a Christian, and was martyred for her faith. St. Catherine of Alexandria, the patron saint of philosophers.
There was a famous porn star (adult film actress?) in the 80s named Hypatia.
Courage is for the other guy.
IMDB's write-up on the porn star Hyapatia Lee:
Hyapatia Lee (pronounced "high-a-PAY-sha") was born Vickie Lynch. By 1980 she was performing regularly on stage as an actress at the Black Curtain Dinner Theatre, in the near north side of Indianapolis. By 1982 she had changed her name to Hyapatia (in honor of her Cherokee Indian ancestry). She was a regularly featured exotic dancer (house exotic) at the Red Garter Lounge, where owner John Najem would introduce her: "Here she is--the lovely and talented Miss Hyapatia Lee" to much applause from the audience. In early 1983 she went to Hollywood to become a movie star, and wound up becoming one of the most popular stars in the history of adult films. Beginning her film career in 1983, she made about 36 films until her retirement in 1993 (some of her movies were released a bit later). She was married to director Bud Lee for a few years, and they had children together (they divorced in 1993). In 1993 she was inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame. She was given the "Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Free Speech Coalition in 1995. Nowadays, Hyapatia performs as the lead singer in her rock band Double Euphoric. Her porn days are behind her, and she has spoken out actively for environmental issues and animal rights.
(/unQuote)
I'm not very familiar with Hyapatia's work, but I do like her 1988 film (which she screenwrote as well as acted in, while her husband Bud Lee directed) called The Ribald Tales of Canterbury, which seems quite sweetly done in my opinion.
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