On Being Blacklisted • Hacker News Board

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#141

Post by alphabettsy » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 2:24 AM UTC

betwixthewires wrote: post #111

yew wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? I've just read the article. It's a collection of crypto-fascist dog whistles about race; it barely merits being called an opinion. (It is an example of why the academic personnel pool needs the thorough cleaning it's currently getting.) Anyone who declined to associate with the author would be right to do so. There aren't many people who don't understand what this kind of article is really about. The Chicago Rev…

Oh come off it. "Dog whistle" is just a made up term used by dishonest bullies to accuse people of saying things they didn't say. I challenge you to list the "dog whistles" in the original article referenced.

It’s certainly not, they are very real, but that doesn’t mean the article contains any.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#142

Post by monkeypizza » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 2:25 AM UTC

ttt0 wrote: post #127

monkeypizza wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is a coherent, stable proposal. For a tolerant society to adopt complete tolerance, even of things designed to destroy their society, is unstable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

It's fine, just don't call yourself "tolerant". It's doublespeak, just like how the word "racism" is used today

In your definition of tolerant, is it required to tolerate even attempts to destroy the tolerant person? i.e. is there a line beyond which tolerance doesn't apply? Where do laws fit in here? I honestly thought that tolerance already included this concept - it actually means tolerant of difference of opinion, except for attempts to overthrow and replace the system of tolerance itself.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#143

Post by dnissley » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 2:27 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #116

hirundo wrote: post #12

Is there anyone that wants to defend this blacklisting of the author by the Chicago Review for writing this article [0]? That is, not to reconfirm that they do indeed have the right to do so, but to argue that they are right to do so? Maybe some of us can avoid this fate if we understand the grounds for it, since they decline to make it explicit. What did he say that was not just wrong, but so wrong that he should no…

> Is there anyone that wants to defend this blacklisting of the author by the Chicago Review for writing this article? Well, first, “blacklisting” for an exclusionary practice is a poorly chosen term for an act by a single actor and not a coordinated action across a group of theoretically competing actors. Second, are you looking for a defense of the act within Chicago Review’s “editorial and political agenda” (which…

Why are the last two pure wastes of time? It seems to me that they could be productive lines of inquiry.

Also, let's not be coy -- it's pretty obvious what their agenda is. At the very least you and I both know. I've seen you round these parts before, partner.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#144

Post by alphabettsy » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 2:27 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #67

dkdk8283 wrote: post #45

Let’s please collectively agree to abolish cancel culture. Opposing ideas cause growth. Singular ideologies do not lead to growth or change.

Cancel culture is only the symptom of those institutions being taken over by ideological extremists. The solution is competition. Universities are destroying their brand with those positions. I am probably not the only engineer unimpressed by slogans like “decolonise maths”, and I would think twice before hiring graduates that excelled in that environment. Likewise, companies that push those ideologies should be boyc…

Is that not the worst kind of cancel culture? You’re going to discriminate against graduates of a university with a professor or department you don’t like?

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#145

Post by monoideism » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 2:27 AM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #23

yew wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? I've just read the article. It's a collection of crypto-fascist dog whistles about race; it barely merits being called an opinion. (It is an example of why the academic personnel pool needs the thorough cleaning it's currently getting.) Anyone who declined to associate with the author would be right to do so. There aren't many people who don't understand what this kind of article is really about. The Chicago Rev…

> It's a collection of crypto-fascist dog whistles about race... I must not be a dog, then, because I'm not hearing it. For those of us with less acute hearing, could you point out the dog whistles? > ... it barely merits being called an opinion. No, it has a definite opinion. You may not agree with it, you maybe would prefer to ignore it, but it is quite clearly there.

I notice that yew responded to a lot of the comments here, but not to any of them that asked him to point out specific dog whistles.

This generation has learned a debating style where they call anything that they strongly dislike as being "fascist". Such a style is not conducive to a working democratic society (is that the goal?).

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#146

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 2:27 AM UTC

ariabuckles wrote: post #119

waterhouse wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think what a lot of the commenters are missing is that this article, and statements like "If I must revise my teaching to conform to a popular view of inclusivity that I do not share" have an impact on not just his research, but also sends a message to his students: that he doesn't whether they feel safe being there matters, and that they don't deserve to have representation in studied works. You're making a jump…

I might be making a jump, because I've followed a lot of these discussions over time. To my understanding (and as a disclaimer, I advocate strongly for it), "inclusivity" in general means making an environment safe for people of marginalized backgrounds. So to me, his declaration that inclusivity as a value ought to be up for debate seems to indicate he doesn't think it's a top priority that students of marginalized…

[deleted]

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#147

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 2:29 AM UTC

ariabuckles wrote: post #134

manfredo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are so many literary authors that aren't white men, that arguing that he should have the right to decide to only teach works from white men (if he deems them to be the best works), does seem to me like arguing that we shouldn't teach the history of marginalized people. No, it does not remotely seem like arguing that we shouldn't teach the history of marginalized people. How do you go from "I should be able to…

That's fair. I should have said he's arguing for the right to not teach the history of marginalized people, not that he's arguing that others shouldn't (though he does seem to be arguing that others should be allowed to not teach it).

As I read it, he's arguing for the right not to have to choose what literature to teach on the basis of whether it came from marginalized people. He wants to teach the best literature, not black literature or brown literature or white literature.

I mean, if you were teaching physics, you wouldn't teach ideas based on what race or nationality the person was who came up with the idea. I know, literature is different - it's more subjective, it's not empirically verifiable to determine the quality. Still, the desire to pick the best books based on the content of the books rather than the race of the author does not seem to me to be that horrible of an idea.

"I have a dream that one day my children will be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." And let books be judged not by the color of their author's skin, but by their content.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#148

Post by ariabuckles » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #136

ariabuckles wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be making a jump, because I've followed a lot of these discussions over time. To my understanding (and as a disclaimer, I advocate strongly for it), "inclusivity" in general means making an environment safe for people of marginalized backgrounds. So to me, his declaration that inclusivity as a value ought to be up for debate seems to indicate he doesn't think it's a top priority that students of marginalized…

I think what the parent poster is getting at is that many of us are bewildered at the way you are using the word “safe”. I take it you aren’t saying that students believe that an assailant will be hiding in the classroom with a bat ready to assault them as the enter the classroom. Rather I take you and others to be using safe to mean something like comfortable. But unsafe and uncomfortable are two different words. Th…

I mean psychological safety, as in https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/after-years-of-research-go... , or as in "will i face verbal bullying in this space". That is a different type of safety than physical safety, but it's very real. How much people experience not feeling psychologically safe varies widely, though.

I'm a visible minority, and my rights are frequently a part of political debate. In spaces where those debates are allowed to happen, it's often not safe for me to participate. It's a hard feeling to describe or put into words for someone who hasn't experienced others saying that they shouldn't be allowed to do participate in some aspects of society because of a characteristic they can't change.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#149

Post by Bakary » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

The looming elephant in the room here is that the marketplace of ideas is extremely crowded. Universities becoming job training centers and/or finishing schools is one thing, but even if that were not the case you'd still have to deal with the simple phenomenon of your voice getting drowned out in the unending torrent of societal criticisms in various forms of media. Ironically, getting censored in this way is probably quite helpful for that professor to broaden their reach.

Re: On Being Blacklisted

#150

Post by konjin » Tue, Mar 09, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

Bakary wrote: post #137

konjin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest thing for my generation to understand is that the politics of our youth are no longer the politics of the present. To quote the many times canceled Orwell: And this tolerance or plain dishonesty means much more than that admiration for the USSR happens to be fashionable at this moment. Quite possibly that particular fashion will not last. For all I know, by the time this book is published my view of the S…

I don't meant this as a personal attack but there is something faintly ironic about this statement Orwell is pretty the much the one-stop gramophone record for quotes when someone wants to express concern about censorship or authoritarianism in a vague, semi-lyrical way

Only if you know nothing about him or his life.

He was cancelled in Britain from when he went to fight in the Spanish civil war until the end of WWII and the start of the cold war.

Which is what makes his quote so noteworthy, he was right, his view became the dominant one, but it still wasn't an improvement because the people repeating it did so without thinking.