A tersely brilliant question framed by Ilya Shlyakhter, published in "Letters: Canceled by M.I.T.: The Professor’s Talk" (NYT).
It could become impossible to invite anyone anywhere, because something could turn up post-invitation and you'd need to pull off the awkward, conspicuous act of revoking the invitation. It could become impossible to accept an invitation, because you're asking for anyone to search through whatever there might be out there that could be used against you, throwing your life into total disarray.
ADDED: I'm searching the NYT and finding a lot of letters to the editor from Ilya Shlyakhter. I'll highlight a few:
2005: "How ironic that an attempt to 'humanize' this presidency with some informal humor had to be 'written by a longtime Washington speechwriter' and required 'several days of rehearsals'!"*2005: "If government displays of religion had been pushed by Mother Teresa, I might accept them, but they're pushed by people who often contradict the very messages they want prominently displayed. Such religious displays would actually serve a useful purpose if seen for what they are: not affirmations of righteousness but testaments to hypocrisy."
2006: "Like soldiers, organ donors may serve for a mix of altruistic and pragmatic reasons. Why let the soldiers be paid but not the donors?"
2015: (about a ban on a type of ammunition used by target shooters and hunters) "If the Second Amendment protects sporting and target shooting, we should rethink its place in the Constitution. What other sport or hobby has constitutional status? And how is the ability to practice a hobby 'necessary to the security of a free State'?"
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* I blogged about that one here and said: "And she described Bush's ineptitude in his early days of ranching with the old joke that he 'tried to milk a horse ... and it was a male horse.' So, thanks, Laura, for leaving us with that picture of George with a horse's penis in his hand! "
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26 comments:
One way to look at it is this could become a boondoggle for bland people who have nothing to say.
…that assumes the no invite policy will be consistently applied.
Assumes facts not in evidence…
MIT disgraced itself in many ways. I guess that beaver mascot is really a rat.
Curbing restrictions on sporting & target shooting fits perfectly with 2A. If the militia is pressed into service, is useful if they know how to use a rifle, or as the Founders put it, well-regulated.
Shlyakhter has a real knack for the hot take. /s
With all due respect to AA, even his latest is pretty bad. The university isn't taking a risk. It's just more opportunities to virtue signal.
Do you think leftists in the government see challenges from environmentalists as risks? No. They are just opportunities for consent decrees.
The call is coming from inside the house.
If this link works, here is some great background on this whole mess.
https://nation.foxnews.com/watch/9ff542d77ed30bf076528863439ccfac/
“This Person” is surely being ironic in *not* noting the irony in which Shlyakhter’s comments are marinated. Nobody can needle at the level shown in his comments and not have an excellent sense of irony.
His latest —about MIT— seems exactly right. Once you start picking winners, you own the whole field —especially the losers. Hell, you own the might-have-beens.
That's the whole point. To shut people up. To make people afraid to speak and to make others afraid to associate with them if they do.
Not sure MIT and other institutions have a choice about whether they'll be held responsible. It's a mob after all.
How do you pronounce Shlyakhter?
It's Too Bad that MIT doesn't have a website! Then they could use rule 230 like facebook;
Any subjectively promote, or BAN people; based on whether or not they wanted to!
One hobby with constitutional status is writing letters to the editor.
Yes, you do run into problems when you invite a human being to speak at your school or business. Chances are, he or she has said or done something that is entirely unacceptable at some point in their lives. The answer seems to be to invite no one, ever, anywhere. It's the only sure way to not antagonize activists. And we do live in a world where the activists seem to rule. Or maybe I have it backward. Maybe we live in a world in which there is a gargantuan lack of courage to stand up and say to these activists: 'No!'.
I'd have a number of problems with those other comments from Ilya Shlyakhter. He's clearly a brilliant person (upon looking up his background), but that does not mean he's got it right in areas outside of his expertise. In fact, I'd have an issue asking him to speak at my old school. I might have to protest.
They had to kill science in order to embrace global warming.
There is no rational analysis that supports marxism.
So they had to do away with rational analysis.
Without rational analysis to support their system they must eliminate comparisons to other more effective systems.
They are not intelligent. They are not nice. They are vicious violent people hiding behind a facade of hypocrisy and hatred.
MIT is god 😉
link to video
It could become impossible to invite anyone anywhere, because something could turn up post-invitation
I think I'll start a temp agency featuring bland, boring people with nothing interesting to say, people who can fly at a moment's notice to replace someone who's been uninvited to an event. (This week only: buy a BIPOC lesbian and get a cis white guy at half-price! Call now! Operators are standing by...!)
Ilya’s take on MIT is right on. Her 2015 take on gun sports suggests that she is unfamiliar with emanations from penumbras. LOL!
Amadeus 48 said...
"MIT disgraced itself in many ways. I guess that beaver mascot is really a rat."
As one of MIT's longest standing traditions, the Brass Rat serves to unify each graduating class as they approach the midpoint of their time at the Institute. We as this year's RingComm are beyond honored and excited to continue this tradition for the class of 2022.
http://brassrat2022.mit.edu/
Thought-crimes and censorship are natural for the authoritarian left.
"Once M.I.T. starts choosing speakers based on their public stances, it becomes responsible for every stance of every speaker it does invite. Isn’t that a bigger risk for M.I.T. than a stance-neutral policy?"
Brilliant in the eyes of nice liberals who think consistency and integrity are academic values. Sorry, no.
MIT is responsible for protecting itself against leftist mobs by caving asap. It is responsible for signaling sufficient virtue to keep research funds flowing.
Non-deplorable speakers can do what they've always done, and no one cares institutionally. In particular, no one cares about what nice liberals have to say.
Once you get past the "right speech" gate keeper, all is well.
For now....
As long as they don't invite slave owners or white people they will be fine.
"What other sport or hobby has constitutional status?"
Oh, gee, I don't know...photography? blog-writing? First Amendment?
But, of course, I'm no constitutional scholar.
No. Because it depends.... Only an antiquated belief in logic and consistency would support the possibility of difficulty. Because it all depends.
Attempting to cast suspicion on our right to bear arms, he says: "What other sport or hobby has constitutional status? And how is the ability to practice a hobby 'necessary to the security of a free State'?"
According to the courts and current opinion, the liberty of our recreational reading is protected by the first amendment. That's a more frivolous hobby, if we're using that word, than sport and target shooting.
Sport and target shooting may be recreational, but they train and maintain the skills necessary for more avowedly serious gun use. It might be suggested that escapist reading somehow strengthens the intellectual powers needed in the serious conversation of our republic -- a doubtful suggestion. The case for the second amendment is firmer.
he ‘tried to milk a horse ... and it was a male horse.’
The thing about regarding the idea of milking a horse as being the epitome of ridiculousness, is that horses have been milked for human consumption for many thousands of years — the fierce warriors who conquered half the world for Genghis Khan rode mares, whom they milked for sustenance as they rode across thousands of miles of Eurasian steppe to destroy nation after nation.
A stanza from a song in Chesterton's The Flying Inn:
No more the milk of cows
Shall pollute my private house
Than the milk of the wild mares of the barbarian;
I shall stick to port and sherry,
Because they are so very,
So very, very, very Vegetarian.
(The book is a satire on vegetarianism, as well as teetotalism, Islam, and other things.)
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