How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals • Hacker News Board

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#21

Post by mklingen » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

not_a_cop75 wrote: post #20

mklingen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Andy Ngo, an independent journalist, almost losing his life is hardly a cherry-picked example.

WTF does Andy Ngo have to do with "persecution" in academia? Is Any Ngo an academic?

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#22

Post by not_a_cop75 » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 6:45 PM UTC

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.

By that logic, Reagan is also irrelevant, but people spout about Reagan all the time.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#23

Post by VLM » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

The difference between propaganda and news is propaganda tells what happened AND dogmatically enforces what to think. This situation is similar to how its a holy obligation to snarkily tell blue collar workers to "learn to code" when their jobs become obsolete, but snarkily telling journalists "learn to code" when their legacy jobs go away is reported as a hate crime.

“It all depends on whose ox is being gored”

The argument in the propaganda seems to boil down to its a tragedy that people publicly trying to subvert a society won't be getting paid anymore by the society they're trying to subvert. As if an immune system response is somehow immoral.

Also this article is strongly biased anti-immigrant. If you don't want this kind of culture replacing the legacy in Scotland, Sweden, or France, you're just a racist. This is just kinda how the new culture of Europe does things and its beautiful.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#24

Post by baq » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

It begins with experts being blamed by politicians for daring to know things incompatible with a particular world view. When opinion gets more important than fact, democracy becomes populism and in the limit, authoritarianism.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#25

Post by benj111 » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #7

"People have had enough of experts" - Michael Gove God help us

To be fair Gove would say that. It's like BJ is unlikely to say that the people want a competent PM that makes well thought out decisions, and has tamed hair.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#26

Post by hyperion2010 » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 6:48 PM UTC

joncp wrote: post #18

shmerl wrote: post #6

The era of fascists like Erdogan will come to an end as well.

Sadly, not as long as human brains are made of meat.

More 'made using primate genes.' There are many perfectly good brains that could be made out of meat, they just need to have certain bits about social hierarchy from our primate past removed or tweaked.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#27

Post by wefarrell » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 6:49 PM UTC

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.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#28

Post by meshr » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 6:50 PM UTC

Intellectuals should stop sharing their knowledge/skills with obscurantists. They should allow obscurantists to fail or at least to make obscurantists to depend on intellectuals. The motto should be "first control then money gaining or sharing"

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#29

Post by gumby » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 6:52 PM UTC

monksy wrote: post #9

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.

Right now there are people who have stated criticism of political bias (pro-conservative, conservative-leaning speakers, center-left, etc) that are being punished in the US academic world.

I'd be curious about some substantive examples.

I have seen that assertion frequently made, and even have attended multiple seminars on the topic (I have some friends very worried about this issue) as well as some FIRE meetings and fundraisers.

Yet I typically see the same few examples repeated and amplified. FIRE loves to talk about the cases it has challenged under Title IX -- and it always wins, because the law considers this an important issue! (https://www.thefire.org/issues/title-ix/)

Look at the recent (past couple of days) kerfuffle about Prof Wax, whose statements I consider abhorrent. Based on past practice I am pretty sure she'll keep her job.

There are issues around groups peripheral to universes (non-sponsored student groups and the like) but they pretty much by definition aren't part of universities.

Re: How Turkey Purged Its Intellectuals

#30

Post by chrisco255 » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 6:52 PM UTC

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."

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-09-17/colleg...

It's not a lie. Liberals own academia. 39% of colleges have no Republican professors. In many majors, the ratio is between 15 and 20 to one Democrats per Republican.

There is no world where ratios like that exist and discrimination doesn't occur.