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How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

nytimes.com

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Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#31

Post by dang »

mklingen wrote: post #13
stcredzero wrote: post #4

The takeaway for those in the US: To detect nascent authoritarianism, look at who in particular is getting persecuted in academia. Another good heuristic: Look at who's over-serious and who is best wielding ridicule.

Just come out and say what you mean instead of slimy implications. It's obvious you believe in the false narrative that conservatives are somehow being "persecuted" in academia. This is a disengenous lie spread by right wing propaganda networks like fox news from a few cherry-picked examples. And even if it were true, people disagreeing with your position and calling you out on it is not "persecution."

Please don't take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. Nothing new will come of it, therefore nothing interesting, therefore nothing on-topic for HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#32

Post by SamReidHughes »

mklingen wrote: post #13
stcredzero wrote: post #4

The takeaway for those in the US: To detect nascent authoritarianism, look at who in particular is getting persecuted in academia. Another good heuristic: Look at who's over-serious and who is best wielding ridicule.

Just come out and say what you mean instead of slimy implications. It's obvious you believe in the false narrative that conservatives are somehow being "persecuted" in academia. This is a disengenous lie spread by right wing propaganda networks like fox news from a few cherry-picked examples. And even if it were true, people disagreeing with your position and calling you out on it is not "persecution."

It absolutely is true, according to a grad student I know. Who was persecuted for being Christian and, generally, non-liberal.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#33

Post by dang »

All: please don't post unsubstantive comments or ideological flamebait in this thread or any other HN thread.

Please do follow the site guidelines. They include "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#34

Post by d1ffuz0r »

wefarrell wrote: post #27
stcredzero wrote: post #4

The takeaway for those in the US: To detect nascent authoritarianism, look at who in particular is getting persecuted in academia. Another good heuristic: Look at who's over-serious and who is best wielding ridicule.

That's hardly the takeaway from this article. In Turkey the state took jobs and freedom of mobility away from those with ideologies that the regime did not favor. This article says nothing about persecution from the academic establishment to which you refer.

Sounds like California

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#35

Post by [deleted] »

mklingen wrote: post #13
stcredzero wrote: post #4

The takeaway for those in the US: To detect nascent authoritarianism, look at who in particular is getting persecuted in academia. Another good heuristic: Look at who's over-serious and who is best wielding ridicule.

Just come out and say what you mean instead of slimy implications. It's obvious you believe in the false narrative that conservatives are somehow being "persecuted" in academia. This is a disengenous lie spread by right wing propaganda networks like fox news from a few cherry-picked examples. And even if it were true, people disagreeing with your position and calling you out on it is not "persecution."

[deleted]

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#36

Post by chewz »

We had something like this in 1968 in Poland with communist propaganda condemning intelectuals and cosmpolitans and workers activists beating students on the streets (like they do in HK these days).

Sztoptanski called that Dictatorship of Dishrags. Generally the best weapon against such times is irony and a sense of humor and grotesque.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Szpota%C5%84ski

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#37

Post by MrLeap »

organsnyder wrote: post #15
not_a_cop75 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to look to either side for autocrats. Just because Trump has some autocratic tendencies doesn't mean Obama wasn't also quite full of them. As a nation autocrats tend to be the ones that abuse power rather than limit their power to what has traditionally been acceptable. You can also look to see which presidents support institutions which would seem to allow autocracy to more easily flourish.

OP said as much: "from both left- and right-wing movements". Trump is currently in power—Obama is irrelevant at the moment.

History is rarely irrelevant.

The law changed to allow the government to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial under a republican administration. When its sunset came, the power was affirmed by a democrat.

The authoritarianism wheel hasn't been turned backwards in a long time.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#38

Post by notadoc »

The USA is purging intellectuals as well through outrage culture, online mobs, and the weaponization of political correctness. Both the far right and far left do it routinely to their advantage, they both seem to think the ends justify the means. Whoever has the loudest megaphone and can effectively stir up a sufficiently large outrage mob is the winner. Facts do not matter, evidence can be deemed "offensive" and is immediately discarded, there is no room for nuance, opinions must conform to group-think, and attempts at humor is often the worst offense of all. Anything can and will be taken out of context. Their intention is to harm, destroy, cleanse the culture and ideology into acceptable thought. Careers are ruined, achievements are discarded, lives are destroyed, names are slandered.

That this type of behavior has been recently normalized, encouraged, and incentivized by both the far right and far left in the USA is a very disturbing trend. Historically this has never worked out well, so let's hope it all stops sooner than later.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#39

Post by stcredzero »

wefarrell wrote: post #27
stcredzero wrote: post #4

The takeaway for those in the US: To detect nascent authoritarianism, look at who in particular is getting persecuted in academia. Another good heuristic: Look at who's over-serious and who is best wielding ridicule.

That's hardly the takeaway from this article. In Turkey the state took jobs and freedom of mobility away from those with ideologies that the regime did not favor. This article says nothing about persecution from the academic establishment to which you refer.

That's hardly the takeaway from this article.

The article talks about academics being persecuted.

In Turkey the state took jobs and freedom of mobility away from those with ideologies that the regime did not favor.

Good point. To look for authoritarianism, look for powerful organizations and people taking away jobs and economic security from "those with ideologies the regime did not favor." It works for more types of organizations than just the state.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#40

Post by CorruptedArc »

So firing 6,000 academics and restructuring and a single major university counts as a purge? I mean a great many places are laying off professors with Liberal Arts Degrees many more than 6,000. In modern day the focus is shifting away from those careers. Even if that is a bad thing it is still the truth of the matter. This just seems like its trying to push a ham-fisted narrative. I'm no fan of Erdogan but this seems like textbook attempt at Yellow Journalism.
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