How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals • Hacker News Board

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#191

Post by spaced-out » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

deogeo wrote: post #186

sgnelson wrote: post #117

Same thing has happened in Hungary https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/06/george-...

Amazing how a billionaire funding an institution with a self-admitted propaganda purpose is 'democracy', while elected officials trying to limit the influence of foreign capital is 'authoritarian'. By that logic, limiting the influence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute is also anti-democratic.

>Amazing how a billionaire funding an institution with a self-admitted propaganda purpose is 'democracy',

Source?

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#192

Post by deogeo » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 1:45 AM UTC

spaced-out wrote: post #191

deogeo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing how a billionaire funding an institution with a self-admitted propaganda purpose is 'democracy', while elected officials trying to limit the influence of foreign capital is 'authoritarian'. By that logic, limiting the influence of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute is also anti-democratic.

>Amazing how a billionaire funding an institution with a self-admitted propaganda purpose is 'democracy', Source?

The very article linked in the post I replied to: "Soros had conceived the school during the dying days of communism to train a generation of technocrats who would write new constitutions, privatize state enterprises, and lead the post-Soviet world into a cosmopolitan future."

And its wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_European_University) states: "A central tenet of the university's philosophy is the promotion of open societies."

It cites https://www.ceu.edu/rethinking-open-society, which supports that statement.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#193

Post by TomMckenny » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 1:46 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #157

sgnelson wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the past few years, it seems to me, that HN is suffering a bit from the eternal september effect. It seems (again, to me) that many HN commentators are very technically knowledgeable, but are sorely lacking in understanding politics, social sciences, liberal arts, etc. It also seems (again, to me) that there has been a lot more authoritarian beliefs expressed by the comments. Take my opinion and observations for…

In my experience, it's usually the people who've been here for long that tend to express views differing from what we're all supposed to believe. So maybe it's a reverse eternal September? Maybe it's a reflection of a growing disillusionment with geopolitics and its reporting in western media? I mean, the story looks pretty damning on the face of it, but you have to consider that the last time the same media called a…

There is zero possibility that anything like that will happened to Turkey just as there is zero possibility of that happening to Saudi Arabia for their journalist murdering. The current rulership of the US (and Poland for that mater) actively dislike academia and the free press.

Also, the US will need to use Turkey for whatever it plans to do to Iran. So if anything, revealing Erdogan's atrocities is annoying to the current leadership not helping.

> what we're all supposed to believe...growing disillusionment with geopolitics and its reporting in western media

Since we're talking about the NYT, I must say that at this time the US is overwhelmingly controlled by a party that condemns the media and its own free press as a lying enemy of the people. This is why the hated there grew enormously in the last few years. I understand there are similar forces in several other nations.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#194

Post by antod » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 1:53 AM UTC

tepidandroid wrote: post #177

antod wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or... damning articles about the situation in Turkey have been popping up regularly for 5ish years now. IMO they need to keep popping up frankly. Likewise, Turkey's increasing moves away from NATO towards Russia were always going to reach a threshold where some steplike point was crossed (the F-35 vs S-400 thing) and some public consequences happened. I would've thought if this particular timing was a case of "Manufa…

I can respect your point of view as I think that it's based on some historical realities that cannot be so easily dismissed. However if you look at the history of NYT articles on Turkey and Erdogan going back years [1], there are scant few articles that are critical of Turkey or Erdogan in the way this and other articles in the past weeks and months have been (beginning from the time Turkey began to drift away from i…

> From my point of view, this article and others like it could be interpreted as a very early precursor to forced regime change in Turkey.

Maybe, but it seems a bit much for them to even entertain that one - they (whoever they actually is) haven't had any luck with Iran or North Korea where whipping up some sort of frenzy or story about a direct threat would seem much easier.

Getting Turkey to that position of threat seems like pushing shit uphill.

My point is that once you're aware of Manufactured Consent being a thing that has happened, it can be easy to see it everywhere even when it isn't necessarily there. Overdoing it can be a little hard to distinguish from deepstate/illuminati conspiracy theorists. Edit - definitely not implying this here.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#195

Post by mhh__ » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:14 AM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #72

username90 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many experts are just preachers in different attire. Honestly, should we really listen to scientist who gets labeled experts based non replicable studies? The problem is that all of them gets the same doctors titles but only some of them are doing honest research, and our current society has no good way to deal with this. As a result laymen notice that significant parts of science is pure bullshit, no wonder there ar…

Also, should we listen to scientists who are speaking outside of their area of expertise ? "I'm a medical doctor, so let me tell you about meteorology." People import authority from an area where they have it to use in areas where they don't. Note well: This does not excuse purging intellectuals, in Turkey or anywhere else. Intellectuals aren't gods, but they aren't vermin, either.

We shouldn't really listen to anyone. Consider them first, sure, but we have to judge on a per-argument basis (David Irving was - as far as I know - a reasonably respected if unorthodox Historian early in his career - now he is not... for obvious reasons).

Speaking of which, I recently saw a petition which was sold along the lines of "100s of scientists sign petition condemning 5G", where the vast majority of signatories were either scientists not working in a related field or physicians (Who are not scientists at all).

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#196

Post by duxup » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:18 AM UTC

meshr wrote: post #174

duxup wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Intellectuals should stop sharing their knowledge/skills with obscurantists. What does this mean?

You shouldn’t teach anyone how to make a "weapon" if you can’t be sure that it won’t be used against other intellectuals. See also my reply above.

>You shouldn’t teach anyone how to make a "weapon" if you can’t be sure that it won’t be used against other intellectuals

What does that mean?

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#197

Post by tepidandroid » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 2:43 AM UTC

antod wrote: post #194

tepidandroid wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can respect your point of view as I think that it's based on some historical realities that cannot be so easily dismissed. However if you look at the history of NYT articles on Turkey and Erdogan going back years [1], there are scant few articles that are critical of Turkey or Erdogan in the way this and other articles in the past weeks and months have been (beginning from the time Turkey began to drift away from i…

> From my point of view, this article and others like it could be interpreted as a very early precursor to forced regime change in Turkey. Maybe, but it seems a bit much for them to even entertain that one - they (whoever they actually is) haven't had any luck with Iran or North Korea where whipping up some sort of frenzy or story about a direct threat would seem much easier. Getting Turkey to that position of threat…

Agreed and point well received.

Just want to point out that the situation in NK is different than Turkey because, as we all know, it's a nuclear power in close proximity to a treaty ally.

With Iran... well, we can see the ridiculous predicament that we are in today because of the unilateral actions of one party over a treaty agreed to by 7 signatories. I would not rule out direct military intervention and regime change in the near future there just yet (at massive cost of human life). The world has seen one too many times what happens when nations disobey the global hegemon.

It may indeed seem silly and tin-foil hat-ish, but there are many ways of forcing regime change without overtly declaring war. Coup d'états, spontaneously occurring uprisings, etc.

Not to indulge in the paranoia of world leaders too much, but Erdogan famously survived his 2016 coup which he claims to have been backed by the CIA [1]. The Philippines' Duterte has mentioned in several interviews (in a non-sarcastic way) his fear of being assassinated by the CIA after his pivot towards China [2]. The truth is that geopolitics is probably simultaneously more boring and more full of intrigue than we can imagine.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

[2] https://youtu.be/rHjlCmdyesY?t=645

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#198

Post by dang » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 3:49 AM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #121

HN is the only place I've seen people outright defending the PRC's human rights abuses. Something about HN really brings out the ultra-nationalists.

The community here is divided wherever society at large is divided. Don't forget that it's international as well. That has a much larger impact than I think most readers realize.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20518872.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#199

Post by somlor » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:21 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #173

somlor wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "43 Group" comes to mind. https://vimeo.com/64299989

...so postwar Britain was at serious risk of being taken over by fascists? Probably something more like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVqLHghLpw

Immediately after WW2 all fascists worldwide disappeared in a poof of smoke. Also their rise to power has always been abrupt and without warning via an on/off switch.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#200

Post by petre » Thu, Jul 25, 2019, 5:32 AM UTC

chewz wrote: post #36

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

Similar things happened in other Soviet occupied countries that would become part of the Eastern Block. Otherwise transplanting a political and ideological system from the USSR wouldn't have worked, not without replacing the then current intelligentsia with a new one, ideologically aligned with the USSR.

I'm always thankful to the Polish because they sparked the 1989 revolutions with Lech Wałęsa's Solidarność movement.