MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
bariweiss.substack.com
MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
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Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#2> On September 30 the department chair at MIT called to tell me that they would be cancelling the Carlson lecture this year in order to avoid controversy.
The department chair should be named as there needs to be accountability for such decisions that are derisive for free academic endavors. Don't blame a Twitter mob, the decision to give in to unreasonable demands was made here.
The comments on Twitter demand much without saying anything worthwhile. They are alumni and that allegedly perfectly justifies their propositions. In some contexts that was also a title for a priestly scholar and these initiatives are nothing else than a religion that demands allegiance. They see themselves on an enlightened mission to rid the world of unbelievers. This has to stop, best would be yesterday.
I think holding these chairs accountable is the best start. Here the mistake was made because they know the smarter ones often give in. That is were Poppers magic words so often cited by the disciples of goodness actually become relevant.
Furthermore I don't think Ford wants to be associated with racism and discrimination again.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#3This is a sad state of affairs where one can't even have a meta discussion about a topic without having to tip toe around ill-defined lines.
In the long run, this has the potential to turn people how want to stay out of politics and draw them in out of necessity, or they may also be cowed into something they disagree with to protect their livelihood.
In either case, it's not a good thing that one may not seek science in academia. The thing that got us to where we are. Without science and inquisitiveness, even into controversial subjects (many normal things were at one time controversial) we would not be where we are today.
This is being undermined by dogmaticism and we can only hope science prevails.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#4What people haven’t grasped yet is you can’t fight the mob.
There’s no recourse, no appeal, no tribunal, no council of wise learned people you can go to when the mob sets out to destroy you.
You’re just simply fucked and have to accept you’ve been cancelled, your reputation is ruined and you’re “out”.
That’s all there is to it and no-one has come up with a solution.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#5Based on what little I’ve read about his situation, and general academic conventions, I don’t think MIT should’ve cut the author’s speaking invitation.
But him getting dragged on Twitter? Yeah, that’s going to happen when you write an op-Ed in Newsweek that oafishly compares DEI efforts to the Nazi purge of Jewish students and scholars:
https://www.newsweek.com/diversity-problem-campus-opinion-16...
> Ninety years ago Germany had the best universities in the world. Then an ideological regime obsessed with race came to power and drove many of the best scholars out, gutting the faculties and leading to sustained decay that German universities never fully recovered from.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#6What are the long term ramifications of Twitter outrage circles canceling people whose ideas don’t exactly align with the mob?
I used to think this trend would fizzle off, or that institutions would learn to ignore a vocal minority, but it seems like neither of these are happening; that the problem is only becoming more perverse.
Is this a predominantly North American thing, do other countries handle challenging discourse better?
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#7> You may agree with some of my positions and disagree with others, but in a free society they cannot be considered beyond the pale.
I think this is a bad take. In a free society people can consider whatever they want in order to judge a person.
I do see the irony in watching those who traditionally used the mob to force conformity of minorities now experiencing it themselves. Saying things like "the threat woke ideology poses to our culture, our institutions and to our freedoms." As if this is some new phenomena that's only now being discovered, and hasn't been leveraged against different groups since the dawn is society.
This is what it looks like when a traditionally dominant social group becomes somewhat relegated.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#8This is a sad state of affairs where one can't even have a meta discussion about a topic without having to tip toe around ill-defined lines. In the long run, this has the potential to turn people how want to stay out of politics and draw them in out of necessity, or they may also be cowed into something they disagree with to protect their livelihood. In either case, it's not a good thing that one may not seek science…
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Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#9The only solution to this sort of thing is if institutions only accept formal, in person complaints from members of that institution.
To do this they’d have to specifically recognize the problem of mob cancellation and decide to listen only to their own members.
Re: MIT Abandons Its Mission. and Me
#10This is a sad state of affairs where one can't even have a meta discussion about a topic without having to tip toe around ill-defined lines. In the long run, this has the potential to turn people how want to stay out of politics and draw them in out of necessity, or they may also be cowed into something they disagree with to protect their livelihood. In either case, it's not a good thing that one may not seek science…
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>facing mild criticism from your peers
Demanding that someone loses their job seems a bit more than mild and quite mobbish. Would you not agree?