The real tragedy is that university used to be a place where you could be convinced that some of the ideas you had going in might be wrong. Now the only thing that's being taught is that certain people just aren't allowed to speak at all.
People who used to have their ways of thinking changed at university are now leaving silent, angry, and still wrong.
It is indeed a sad day when people, that is, students, are censored by their own. It's astounding that this would happen being that through disagreement and argument is how we find our better ways. My sentiment is that here is the one place where we should feel free to share our ideas no matter how immature or adolescent they are. This should be the place where we get to open up and explore. But, as they say, the left and the right have conspired to silence discussion and only received opinion is welcome.
Here's the relevant quote:
"In other words, and not for the first time in history, the far left is allied with the far right, and drags the soggy centre along whimpering behind it."
Anyone who uses terms like "the left" is pretty much announcing where they are coming from, and that their argument is almost certainly going to be simplistic and flawed.
Take this excerpt:
Surely the left believes in secularism and despises
the superstitions that have held humanity back? Not
so, and not for a long time.
If "the left" believes in secularism and atheism, and the people he's talking about oppose secularism and atheism, why does does he conclude this means "the left" no longer believes in secularism, rather than the people he's talking about are not actually "the left"?
He claims "Feminists, gay-rights campaigners, anti-fascists and anti-Islamists" are being sanctioned or persecuted. So the left is against feminists, gay-rights and anti-fascism? What do those groups represent then, "the right"?
If there's one claim socialism and communism can make, it's that it's diametrically opposed to Islamism, as evidenced in numerous post-war socialist, secular Arab countries, Afghanistan in the 70s and 80s, and in the fact that leftists have been persecuted and murdered in every Islamist state from Saudi to Iran.
In any case, the ‘left’ as I suppose I have to call it
Why does he have to call it "the left" if even he states they hold "reactionary views"? Because he's pandering to a right-wing audience on a right-wing website.
For the most part, I take it to mean the academic intellectual left. Yet, I think this dive into who Cohen is referring to is a detour which misses the point. The regrettable issue is various groups (left, right, whatever) within academia being able to establish taboos and enforce topics non-grata, to the detriment of thought exploration and discussion by the student body as well as the faculty.
Alternately, the accepted shorthand for some groups may well be "the left" and "the right". Similarly, there are people who will use the term "Social Justice Warrior" while identifying with the movement, because it is a decent shorthand.
"What do those groups represent then, "the right"?"
It is possible to have other disagreements with those viewpoints despite what others might believe. For example, it is absolutely ideologically consistent that while the left may support atheism in the abstract they would also fail to support its logical conclusion that Islam as a religion and its practitioners should be re-educated.
Similarly, the right may support gun owners but still disagree that felons/minorities should be allowed to own firearms.
"The Jews" is an accepted shorthand for some people, and like "the left" you can be fairly certain the argument around the term is not going to focus on what a great bunch of lads they are.
As to the other point, if both groups are "the left" (even though in this case one group is not behaving that way) then why argue that "the left" is censoring/repressing, when it's at least equally true (I'd say more true) that "the left" is being censored/repressed?
I mean it's pretty funny seeing people on "the right" pretending to care that feminists and gay-rights activists are being shut down.
"The Jews" is an accepted shorthand for some people,
Many of those people themselves being Jewish, referring to their own communities and people! I see what you're driving at, but the simple fact of the matter is that "leftist" is no more an automatic insult that "rightist" unless one is misidentified.
I mean it's pretty funny seeing people on "the right" pretending to care that feminists and gay-rights activists are being shut down.
I think it's reasonable that even the most die-hard reactionary may see the existential threat posed by policies and behaviors used to silence folks they might otherwise like. After all, mob justice is never guaranteed to stay in one's favor.
Which universities have shut down feminists and gay rights activists from speaking? Even the most hard core conservative campuses in the South haven't done so. On the contrary, there are tons of campuses across America who have shut down conservative speakers from speaking.
There were Bernie Sanders protesters in Chicago just last week who shut down Donald Trump's right to speak. Can you name instances when Hillary or Bernie Sanders speeches were shut down from conservative protesters?
Please don't be ridiculous. There are tons of videos you can find on YouTube of leftists shutting down conservative speech. Look at Milo and Ben Shapiro for instance. Can you provide some examples of the right doing the same on university campuses?
Why the ad hominem attack? Show me instances of conservatives shutting down speech like liberals have done with Milo and Ben Shapiro. Even Michael Blomberg has spoken about how liberals have essentially shut down conservatives on university campuses in his Harvard commencement speech.
The author seems to reminisce about a time when universities were pure outlets of free thought. At that time women were vastly outnumbered by men in universities. The time when universities were pure and free for everyone exists only in the authors imagination.
Universities have a lot of overhead these days, and to paraphrase Mel Brooks in Blazing Saddles, the assistant deputy vice provosts say "we gotta protect our phoney baloney jobs".
We're becoming a society that values having or feelings affirmed rather more than having the truth affirmed. Is this not at the core of what we're seeing?
When moral relativism is your religion, anyone with moral conviction is your enemy and must be silenced.
What's most pitiful is the cowardice displayed by all who should know better. University trustees and professors, business leaders, entertainers, and every last one of us who has ever surrendered to this tyranny in our schools, our jobs, or our communities. Instead of fighting back, we capitulate and cower in fear for our reputations and livelihoods. Seeing this in my own country, America, especially disgusts me. How many good men have put down their lives to secure for us the blessings of liberty. Today, we lack the confidence and courage to even raise a word in their defense.
You left out an important dimension. The modern trend is to run everything "more like a business." The heads of universities come decreasingly from academia, and re instead MBA and politically connected people. This is justified by the need to bring in more money, because the states no longer want to fully fund the university.
My belief is that businesses don't like controversy unless it brings profit. Free speech at a university rarely brings profit. So people who want to run a university like a business are not likely to fight against calls to reduce free speech on campus.
And there have always been calls to reduce free speech on campus.
Or to repurpose your phrase, "When business and profits are your religion, anyone with moral conviction is your enemy and must be silenced."
"How many good men have put down"
See, that's the sort of sexist language that encourages knee-jerk reactions, and gets people like me labeled "PC". My wife deployed twice to Iraq. Don't you dare leave out all those women who have died for the US, including nearly 200 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
> See, that's the sort of sexist language that encourages knee-jerk reactions, and gets people like me labeled "PC". My wife deployed twice to Iraq. Don't you dare leave out all those women who have died....
I'm inclined to agree that "running things like a business" is part of the reason why no one wants to make a stand. But I have to disagree with this:
>Or to repurpose your phrase, "When business and profits are your religion, anyone with moral conviction is your enemy and must be silenced."
It's not the businessmen who are trying to shut down free speech and debate on college campuses.
>See, that's the sort of sexist language that encourages knee-jerk reactions, and gets people like me labeled "PC". My wife deployed twice to Iraq. Don't you dare leave out all those women who have died for the US, including nearly 200 in Iraq and Afghanistan.
You're totally right, so while we're at it, I've gone back and fixed an old quote: "One small step for a man or a womyn, one giant leap for man- and womyn-kind". I think I could get that one through even toughest SJW language police. What do you think?
Seriously though, I didn't mean to refer to only men. (edit: Perhaps "good people", as suggested below, would have worked too.) I used the term in the broad sense, referring to human beings in general. The modern trend is toward politically correct phrasing that makes a butchery of the English language. I don't see how the phrasing is any more sexist than "mailman", "fireman", or "salesman", which are commonly used in the gender-generic sense. Interestingly, there are many female chairman who insist on being called "chairman", not "chairwoman" or "chair".
The phrases "good people", "good souls", "good citizens", "good soldiers" and "good Americans" all would have been better than "good men", depending on your focus. I think "good souls" would have been the most poetic of these phrases for your intent.
If you mean to include the members of the Merchant Marine or the CIA who have died to support US military policies, then "soldiers" doesn't work.
If you mean to include the members of the Peace Corp who have died to support US non-military policies, then "soldiers" also doesn't work.
If you mean to include the American solders who are not US citizens, then neither "citizen" nor "American" would work.
If you mean to include the many female soldiers who have died in American conflicts, then "good men" doesn't work. While "man" can include all people (reflecting its Germanic roots), a phrase like "The show is especially popular with middle-aged men" is almost universally understood to be different than "The show is especially popular with middle-aged people", nor does the door marked "Men" indicate the gender neutral bathroom. We are also not long from the time when women were excluded from organizations on the justification the bylaws specify men, or from the time when "research men" and "typist girls" worked together as "he" and "she" respectively.
As to your Armstrong quote, your term "fix" confuses me. The past simply is. We can change our understanding of the past, and understand it's context in different ways. We can change how we do things in the future. But we cannot "fix" the past.
Still, I will consider an alternative history where the first moon landing were to occur this summer, with a male pilot named Armstrong2. You already saw that I am not against using the gendered term "wife" (derived, by the way, from 'wif', meaning a female man. When "man" was a gender neutral term, she would have been a wifman and I a werman, meaning a male man). I see no reason for Armstrong2 say 'small step for a man or a womyn' when "man" is a better fit and non-exclusionary. (If Armstrong2 were a woman, would you not think 'that's one small step for a woman, one giant leap for mankind' to be somewhat odd?)
You brought up 'womyn'. I believe you did it as a debate technique to polarize to topic and make a false association by assuming that a small group of feminists is representative of the whole of "SJW". Still, I will consider that possibility.
If Armstrong2 were to say "one giant leap for man- and womyn-kind" then that would be an expression of Armstrong2's views of gender identity. Is that what you think Armstrong2 believes? If so, then what's wrong with that statement?
I can answer that. The Armstrong in our timeline wanted an inclusive term. 1969 was the time of upheaval in race relations, gender relations, and international relations. He wanted a term that could encompass everyone, and do so in a poetic, memorable statement. If Armstrong2 were to say 'man- and womyn-kind' in the alternative timeline similar to our modern one, it would be a divisive phrase. If "man-kind" really meant everyone then there's no need to say "womyn-kind". If "man-kind" is limited to just males, then those woman who do not accept the aspirational goals behind "womyn" would feel excluded. This would be most of the women on the planet. Therefore, "man- and womyn-kind" would not be an encompassing phrase.
Hence why I think your objection has no merit, and your proposed phrase fails to capture the intent behind Armstrong's quote. I can of course think of many alternatives, but don't see the point. Nothing I write can shine against the excitement and glory that imbues that first trip to the moon. I can, however, say that "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for humanity" is a better alternative than what you proposed.
Tell me, do you still use the terms "aviatrix" and "authoress", "poetess" and "doctress", or have you embraced that butchering of the English language? Or do you somehow believe the terms you grew up with are the correct ones, and not the result of the generations of butchering the language that came before you?
I was being supremely sarcastic with my quote rewriting.
>Tell me, do you still use the terms "aviatrix" and "authoress", "poetess" and "doctress", or have you embraced that butchering of the English language?
I'd only ever use the male form for all of those (poet, author, doctor etc.), but I still use "actress" and "actor". "Actor" for the gender-generic sense.
The bigger point is that chastising people over language is stupid. So what if someone uses different constructions than you? Even if it is a political statement, do you really think it's warranted to throw around the word "sexism"? That accusation is used to scare people into silence and to misdirect attention away from content of their ideas.
Saying that people butcher a language is a form of chastising people over language.
Why should others follow your suggestion when you don't do it yourself?
Why should others respond with thought and respect when you offer only supreme sarcasm?
And no, I will not let people like my wife stay faceless in the background of "the good men." How would you prefer that I correct usage like this in the future? Do you have a better term than "sexist"?
>Why should others respond with thought and respect when you offer only supreme sarcasm?
Revisionist history doesn't work when the history is two scrolls up. I made a joke, but I also gave you a serious response along with it.
>Saying that people butcher a language is a form of chastising people over language.
That's my opinion but I don't go around correcting people every time they drop a "he or she". I certainly don't start making insinuations about their character over it. I was responding to a completely unwarranted attack.
>And no, I will not let people like my wife stay faceless in the background of "the good men." How would you prefer that I correct usage like this in the future? Do you have a better term than "sexist"?
This isn't how you have discourse. You don't pick out two words that someone says, make it about your wife, and call them a sexist. Especially when it's abundantly clear that the role of women in the military wasn't even part of the discussion. But if your goal was to derail discussion, you were somewhat successful.
And I followed up on your serious response with the suggestion of "good souls", plus an analysis of the alternatives. I then addressed to your sarcastic response, taking it serious to show the different ways to analyze alternatives.
"You don't pick out two words that someone says, make it about your wife, and call them a sexist"
What I wrote started "See, that's the sort of sexist language that encourages knee-jerk reactions, and gets people like me labeled "PC". I did not call you a sexist. You may think that's only a technical point. I can accept that, though I disagree. It certainly wasn't meant as an attack on your character. (That said, would you prefer a safe area where you won't get your feelings hurt?)
If you can suggest a better way to object - one more likely to lead to effective change, let me know.
As it was, when my wife was demobbed and we went to the Army FRG meetings (https://www.armyfrg.org/), even a few of the external (civilian) presenters would refer to the returning soldier as a "he". They were quickly corrected, and not just be me. And when I did object, the presenter did not turn around and call me PC or accuse me of besmirching their character.
It's almost as if the way towards good discourse is to respond to an objection rather than double down on the original viewpoint despite a warning that it's a sensitive subject.
> "One small step for a man or a womyn, one giant leap for man- and womyn-kind". I think I could get that one through even toughest SJW language police. What do you think?
I think "the SJW language police" probably know that Neil Armstrong is not a "womyn".
Who's to say what Neil Armstrong identifies as? Also this is excluding people who identify as non-man, non-womyn genders. It is also ableist against those who have limited mobility by comparing achievements to walking and jumping.
There's no pleasing people who are a prior offended.
Neil Armstrong. That's who gets to say what Neil Armstrong identifies as.
Neil Armstrong publicly identified as a man. "That's one small step for a man" is an expression of that identity, as is "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind." Everything we know about him, from his own statements about being a "schoolboy" in Ohio on up, is consistent with an expression of that identity.
He also publicly identified as an engineer: “I am, and ever will be, a white-socks, pocket-protector, nerdy engineer, born under the second law of thermodynamics, steeped in steam tables, in love with free-body diagrams, transformed by Laplace and propelled by compressible flow.” - http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/08/obituary
Well, the actual quote during the moon landing, Armstrong insists[0], was "One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." So I think we can be reasonably sure. ;)
Idioms are a bitch. I'm no native speaker, but I see no good alternative to "good men". "Good People", maybe? But I bet native ears would cringe a bit.
"Good people" would have worked fine, though at some cost to dramatic impact. The really barbarous constructions are things like "he or she" as the third-person singular pronoun. There's five camps I can think of on this:
1) Keep using "he" as the gender-generic third-person singular pronoun. This was the only accepted option for a long time. I think this is the best sounding, but some crowds might give you grief for it.
2) Use "he or she" every time. This is the worst.
3) Use a mix of both "he" and "she", but obviously be consistent when referring to the same abstract person. I like this in theory, but in practice, the "she"s pops out of the page and direct attention away from what you're trying to say.
4) Use "they". This seems to be winning, though many find it to be a grammatical abomination, since "they" is supposed to be plural.
5) Always use "she". This is how you let everyone know that you have a political agenda.
For points 1) and 4), just so you are aware, "they" as a singular pronoun has been in popular use since the 14th century. The idea that the "correct" gender neutral singular pronoun is "he" came about in the 19th century. I find it much harder to support the idea that "'they' is supposed to be plural" with this in mind.
Okay, I'm lost: why the downvotes? This sounds like reasonable comment, even useful (the first sentence is a good summary of the article's subject). I see no attack to any particular group.
What in this comment could possibly rub HN the wrong way?
Oh. Reminds me of that one time, where some jerk went all wise on me, by picking individual words from my post then responding "strong words".
On the surface, I was the angry stampede, and he was the voice of reason. Except he didn't seem to notice that my "strong words" tended to cancel each other (some of the words he cited actually restricted the scope of the others).
It's like the tone is more important than the message. Can't people read, before they take offence to surface details? I hope this is a loud minority problem.
Lesson learned: thou shalt not use strong words, even to express a fair and balanced position. What a mess.
Dramatic is the right tone here. We are seeing the collapse of intellectual freedom and openness in the places where it was supposed to be valued most. This does not bode well for our civilization. My generation, the millennials, holds free speech in much lower regard than previous generations. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/20/40-of-millen... . Everyone who values freedom should be very alarmed.
Millenials didn't invent video game ratings, movie ratings, the seven 'dirty' words, the hays code, or blacklists.
If your generation targets something that's actually harmful, you're ahead of the game.
Consider a space that becasue all speech is allowed, is dominated by speech that marginalizes some subset of the population. Is that 'free'?
I think that if you want a place of intellectual exploration, excluding people is as dangerous as excluding certain ideas. And there seems to be a trade-off.
I very recently graduated from a college where these activists were very active. I can assure you, that there is not some epidemic of racism or any other kind of discrimination that this is a legitimate reaction to. It's nothing short of a political power-grab and an attempt to shut down any discussion by people that they don't agree with. They have successfully created a climate of fear. The reaction among all of the different institutions--different academic and administrative departments, student groups, greek organizations, alumni groups, etc.--is nothing short of race to capitulate the fastest.
> why the downvotes? This sounds like reasonable comment
Happens all the time here, unfortunately, but questioning why is a waste of time. Half the posts in this thread - ironically about free speech - are grey. The surprising thing is that your post isn't, simply for mentioning the D-word.
I suspect the downvotes are happening for the same reason that so many potential voices on campuses are being rejected outright -- because they don't toe the line. ;-)
People who used to have their ways of thinking changed at university are now leaving silent, angry, and still wrong.