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The latest campus cancellation is different

theatlantic.com

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Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#301

Post by tsss »

refurb wrote: post #135
ekianjo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Stop listening to them? EDIT: That's especially effective since the Twitter mobs keep moving targets every couple of weeks anyway. They don't have any patience.

Precisely. Just because you have a Twitter account doesn’t mean your ideas or opinions are well thought out, rationale or even coherent.

I would argue the opposite is the case. What political opinion expressible in less than 500 characters can be worth listening to?

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#302

Post by karaterobot »

umvi wrote: post #3

How do we neuter the power of Twitter mobs? Seems like they can bully and intimidate any organization from universities to corporations to GitHub projects to kowtow to their demands. Their demands are usually to fire, boycott, or boot people with opinions that run afoul of the mob. Not a healthy precedent to set. We will regret this later if we continue down this path.

Neuter the power of Twitter mobs by not using Twitter. If you don't like a thing, don't hold your noise while doing it, just stop doing it. For many people, I know Twitter seems like it's an eternal, undying force that will never go away, and we must learn to live with it: it's not. I promise, it will die if you stop feeding it.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#303

Post by missblit »

helen___keller wrote: post #199

If it wasn’t Twitter it would be Facebook, TikTok, Reddit, or whatever social network is cool tomorrow. The social media cat is out of the bag. Mob justice is, unfortunately, the purest form of democracy, untempered by government or constitution or other forms of control. The only paths forward are to live with mob justice or to enforce actions against free speech and expression (ie making it illegal to cancel someon…

Social Media is not the purest form of democracy because the people using social media, or who have a lot of followers on social media, are not representative

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#304

Post by civilized »

metagame wrote: post #296
civilized wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're saying and it's reasonable. I think you greatly overestimate the objective rigor and correctness of your analysis, but I get it. Sanctioning widely-held views as not meritorious alienates a lot of people too. They don't seem to figure into your calculations. Based on your other posts, you seem to think that the most important audience for the talk is prospective climate change researchers, who you b…

You're wording this in a way that's deliberately representing your ideological opponents in the worst possible faith and light, and if nothing else it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of not only the views of your opponents, but of people who would be sympathetic to your views if you would take ten seconds to apply tact to your words. This is the exact opposite of a good-faith argument and a demonstratio…

I'm baffled by this response. I've done my best to summarize what you seem to be saying and what I see as the blind spots. I don't even see you as an opponent. We seem to disagree on a particular PR tactic and how it plays with the public.

Is "I get what you're saying and it's reasonable" something that a person who is deliberately trying to represent your ideas in the worst possible light would say?

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#305

Post by f-jin »

cratermoon wrote: post #282
lolinder wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article argues, and I agree, that a university is free to not invite someone if they view them as controversial. Where the problem really is is that they invited him and then retracted the invitation in response to a mob. The retraction is what makes this problematic. EDIT: the other point that the article makes is that this professor's "controversial" views are held by upwards of 70% of the American public. The…

> this professor's "controversial" views are held by upwards of 70% of the American public. First of all, who says? Second of all, just because a majority believes something doesn't make it right. There was a time when the majority of Americans believed slavery was OK. Times change.

Majority rule is kind of the underpinnings of democracy though, and free speech is a major factor in effective democratic systems.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#306

Post by tomnipotent »

civilized wrote: post #240
metagame wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I've said multiple times in the thread, my own viewpoints are very close to the professor's! Public opinion of people who are not already in the system , however, is a different game, and you should always go with the safest bet if doing propaganda. It's critical.

I get what you're saying and it's reasonable. I think you greatly overestimate the objective rigor and correctness of your analysis, but I get it. Sanctioning widely-held views as not meritorious alienates a lot of people too. They don't seem to figure into your calculations. Based on your other posts, you seem to think that the most important audience for the talk is prospective climate change researchers, who you b…

> alienates a lot of people too

Who cares? With that attitude we wouldn't have ended slavery, woman wouldn't be able to vote, civil rights wouldn't have happened, and hetero marriage would still be the only option.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#307

Post by freebreakfast »

motohagiography wrote: post #180
ren_engineer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the problem is that prestigious institutions are run by bureaucrats wearing its skin. For example this article says "MIT buckled", when in reality some campus admin buckled because to them it's not worth risking their comfy job over a speaker. The bureaucrats have no skin in the game, they don't benefit from thinking about long term damage to MIT or society in general. From their perspective it's logical to bow to Tw…

A pervasive lack of backbone among individuals in institutions is key to this. The shunning and shaming tactics used by online mobs are a very particular form of human aggression. Speculating on a correlating factor among the people in these institutions who seem so consistently vulnerable to it may be itself, problematic, but it's as though the organizations are missing anyone with the instinct to challenge or defle…

The most memorable example of "lack of backbone" for myself was Evergreen State College president, George Bridges.

There was a large protest in 2017. The administration met to discuss the situation. Students prevented the administrators from leaving the meeting room unless they had an escort to ensure the administrators came to a resolution.

The president mentioned his need to use the restroom to one of the protest leaders. The student responded, "Hold it."[0] He finally went to the restroom a couple of minutes later, but he was escorted by some of the protesting students.[1]

[0] https://youtu.be/Msfsp5Ofz4g?t=290

[1] https://youtu.be/Msfsp5Ofz4g?t=455

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#308

Post by rscoots »

nimbius wrote: post #128

just for clarification, the speaker has a newsweek peace that rails against diversity, equality, and inclusion as a sinister regime that actually works against diversity and actually hurts the public trust. he then goes on to insist universities are 'diverse' enough, so dont worry about them. his citations are...tentative at best. https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-16... The guy also made a god…

How would you respond to this point then by the author?

>If every cringeworthy analogy to the Third Reich were grounds for canceling talks, hundreds of professors—and thousands of op-ed columnists—would no longer be welcome on campus.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#309

Post by tomerv »

prepend wrote: post #273
mawise wrote: post #118

Seems like there were two things Abbot did "wrong", one was to argue against affirmative action, and the other was to use a nazi reference to make his point. Does anyone have first-hand knowledge of what the mob said on Twitter? I'm curious if they differentiated between the two. For anyone who hasn't seen it, Netflix's fiction THE CHAIR satires cancel culture in liberal institutions and their story includes someone…

It seemed like the nazi reference was appropriate though. In this case, the university system in Germany was ruined by a move away from merit toward an incorrect and abhorrent philosophy. I think that doesn’t mean that affirmative action = nazism. It means that focusing on things other than merit has negative consequences and should be avoided. A recent comedy, Death of Stalin, points this out on the micro level when…

It doesn't really matter if the nazi reference was appropriate or not, using nazism as a comparison point is taboo for any kind of serious discussion. Once you compare anything to nazism you pretty much forfeit the discussion, even if it's a valid comparison.

Re: The latest campus cancellation is different

#310

Post by still_grokking »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #270

Actually it's not different. University lecturers have been protested or cancelled for decades for reasons unrelated to their topic, usually due to political beliefs or corporate interests that clashed with students' ideals. "Cancel culture" is specifically about "personal" societal reforms, which is what makes it different than the older complaints about general politics. Back in the day it was "edgy" to protest or…

We all know why you're posting this form a throwaway account…
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