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Charles Murray, controversial author of The Bell Curve, which promoted links between intelligence and race, was shouted down by protesters at Middlebury College last Thursday. PBS reports:
Murray had been invited by Middlebury's student group affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank at which Murray is a scholar. [...] Prior to the point when Murray was introduced, several Middlebury officials reminded students that they were allowed to protest but not to disrupt the talk. The students ignored those reminders and faced no visible consequences for doing so. [...]
After the students chanted for about 20 minutes, college officials announced that the lecture would not take place but that Murray would go to another location, which the college didn't name, and have a discussion with a Middlebury faculty member — livestreamed back to the original lecture site.
According to Middlebury officials, after Murray and the professor who interviewed him for the livestream attempted to leave the location in a car, some protesters surrounded the car, jumped on it, pounded on it and tried to prevent the car from leaving campus.
Other sources note that political science professor Allison Stanger, who agreed to moderate the discussion, was attacked while accompanying Murray to the car, ultimately requiring treatment at a hospital for neck injuries caused by protesters pushing her and pulling her hair.
Murray himself later gave an account of his experience on the AEI blog. He emphasized that Middlebury's administration and staff displayed in exemplary ways their encouragement of free speech:
Middlebury's stance has been exemplary. The administration agreed to host the event. President Patton did not cancel it even after a major protest became inevitable. She appeared at the event, further signaling Middlebury's commitment to academic freedom. The administration arranged an ingenious Plan B that enabled me to present my ideas and discuss them with Professor Stanger even though the crowd had prevented me from speaking in the lecture hall. I wish that every college in the country had the backbone and determination that Middlebury exhibited.
But Murray notes that the outcome was very different from his previous controversial appearances:
Until last Thursday, all of the ones involving me have been as carefully scripted as kabuki: The college administration meets with the organizers of the protest and ground rules are agreed upon. The protesters have so many minutes to do such and such. It is agreed that after the allotted time, they will leave or desist. These negotiated agreements have always worked. At least a couple of dozen times, I have been able to give my lecture to an attentive (or at least quiet) audience despite an organized protest.
Middlebury tried to negotiate such an agreement with the protesters, but, for the first time in my experience, the protesters would not accept any time limits. [...] In the mid-1990s, I could count on students who had wanted to listen to start yelling at the protesters after a certain point, "Sit down and shut up, we want to hear what he has to say." That kind of pushback had an effect. It reminded the protesters that they were a minority. I am assured by people at Middlebury that their protesters are a minority as well. But they are a minority that has intimidated the majority. The people in the audience who wanted to hear me speak were completely cowed.
The form of the protest has been widely condemned even by those who vehemently disagree with Murray, as in the piece by Peter Beinart in The Atlantic that claims "something has gone badly wrong on the campus left." He argues strongly that "Liberals must defend the right of conservative students to invite speakers of their choice, even if they find their views abhorrent."
Meanwhile, student protesters have responded with their own account, disclaiming the hair-pulling incident as unintentional and "irresponsible" but condemning the Middlebury administration for their "support of a platform for white nationalist speech." They further claimed "peaceful protest was met with escalating levels of violence by the administration and Public Safety, who continually asserted their support of a dangerous racist over the well-being of students."
Personal note: My take on all of this is that the actual subject of Murray's Middlebury talk has been lost in the media coverage, namely his 2012 book Coming Apart, which (ironically) is a detailed discussion of the problems created by a division of the intellectual elite from the white working class. He explicitly dilutes his previous connections of social problems with a black underclass by noting that many of the same issues plague poor white communities. While his argument is still based on problematic assertions about intelligence and IQ, the topic of his book seems very relevant given recent political events and issues of class division. There's some sort of profound irony in a bunch of students at an elite school refusing to allow a debate on the causes and results of division between elite intellectuals and the (white) working class. I personally may think Murray's scholarship is shoddy and his use of statistics frequently misleading (or downright wrong), but I don't see how that justifies the kind of threats and intimidation tactics shown at this protest.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Thursday March 09 2017, @02:59AM (3 children)
"Citation Needed". Show me an example of widescale right violence.
World War Two? Lots of Bell Curvy theories about races floating about then, too.
("jmorris, you really should be more careful! If I were you, I would leave before someone drops a house on you as well!" Glinda, Good Witch of the North)
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday March 09 2017, @03:12AM (2 children)
Ok champ, riddle me this: Who was the "Right" side in WWII?
On the Axis side you had fascists, socialists, national socialists and other assorted leftist misfits along with whatever the hell Japan thought it was doing.
On the Allied side you had FDR's fascist leaning proto socialists, Joe Stalin and the Soviets who I really hope you are stupid enough to say was a "right winger" and a Great Britain who was pretty socialist before the war and went full socialist after and stayed that way until Thatcher. The U.S. kinda snapped back to reality after the war with Ike and has wobbled on the edge of falling into the socialist abyss ever since. Reagan was the closest we came to walking back from the edge and he didn't really do much, it was more a case of we stayed in place long enough to get some stability... before sliding right back left as soon as he left office.
WWII was a war inside the socialist family between the nationalist wing and the internationalists.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday March 09 2017, @06:48AM (1 child)
Fucking Nazis, jmorris, fucking inferior racist trying to prevail by the pure force of will, and when that failed, by mindless storm-troopers. Mousellini even went there, but the Aryan Race stuff is a bit hard to miss. The Japanese had a similar view of all other Asians, if they were so weak as to be colonized by westerners, they should not object to being "liberated" and ruled over by the superior descendants of the Sun Goddess, right?
I am more or less certain that your view of history is completely mind-fucked into the realm of "fake history". Drunk history would be preferable. So, to answer your question, the Axis was the "right" side in WWII, which means they were the "wrong" side as well. It is only the fortune of history, and America, that makes them also the losers. So when ever a racist right-wing authoritarian like you asks this question, my only response is that, yes, it is perfectly alright to punch a Nazi in the face. And this applies to all right-wing racists. (And all racists are right-wing? Did you ever notice that? I mean, it can't just be a coincidence!)
Are you once again going with the low-information conservative faction meme that since Nazis were, after all, National Socialists, that some how leftist movements are fascist? Your ignorance of political science never ceases to amaze me, jmorris! The "nationalist" part means that the "socialist" part is not in fact Socialist. Fascist is named after the Faeces,
The Italian term fascismo is derived from fascio meaning a bundle of rods, ultimately from the Latin word fasces.[14]
Got your Wikipedia citation right there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism [wikipedia.org] . Opps, looks like I misspelled it to mean something like "shit"! No matter! The "fascio" was a bundle of rods bound around the handle of an axe, a war-axe, and when the Roman Senate handed this over to someone, he was the "Dictator", the one whose "dicta" was law, for a period of emergency. What always amazed me about Rome was that the Senate did this several times, and the Imperator gave the fasces back. Usually when you grant someone supreme executive power, that is the last you see of it. It is a credit to Roman Generals, prior to that prick and Petraeus wanna be, Julius Caesar, that they used power only in the interest of the Senātus Populusque Rōmānus (SQPR, on the sheilds of all Roman legions).
But, of course, this is your error, jmorris. You are American, no doubt, which means you are both geographically and historically challenged! The Founding Fathers of you nation, fortunately, were neither. They understood that supreme executive power had to be limited in order for Republic to survive. In other words, America should learn from Rome's mistakes. Handing over absolute power may work when you are attacked by Puns, like Hannibal, but it is not a sustainable model of governance. As a right-wing nut-job, I know that you crave in your heart of hearts to have a supreme leader, or at least an obercommander! to tell you what to do, since you obviously are not capable of working that out for your self and becoming a citizen of a democratic nation. I pity you, you pathetic bastard!
But here is more to the point, and I go on too long an have other things to do right now, but I will make time for you, oh you misguided Soylentil: Leftists do not oppress anyone. It is antithetical to leftist doctrine! The only reason a leftist government would use to power of the state is to prevent some members of the state from oppressing and exploiting others. That is just the way it is. Now you might say the Kulaks were just decent landlords trying to make a ruble. But we all know they were not. So to suggest that there is equivalency between Hitler, a deranged American Republican Party Racist White Supremecist, and Stalin, who was not racist at all, is really a bridge too far. If your mind can cross that, your mind is truly broken. But then, any Soylentil who has been paying attention already knows that.
For your edification, jmorris, let me suggest this way to understand the left/right divide. The left is always trying to achieve something. You may not agree with their goals, but if they use force, in protest, or revolution, or the power of the state, that force is always in the service of some further goal. Violence is alway instrumental to the left, it is never their primary aim.
So, the right: For the right, it seems that power itself is the goal. And this could be the source of your confusion. Fascists in power are notoriously promiscuous in their ideology! Bread and Circuses? Trains running on Time? Keeping the Jews from taking our jobs with the HB-1 visas? Sound familiar? No, the main thing is the fasces , the power, and power with no purpose, well, welcome to the Dark Side, The Dark Enlightenment Side, the Bannon side, the Peter Thiel side, the Sith side. This is why, of course, the dark side always loses. They stand for nothing except standing for something, so that once they win, they have to stand against themselves?
Evil cannot prevail, since it is parasitical on good. Look up Catholic Doctrine on the principle of bonum privatum, and realize that the right actually does not exist. It is only a mindless opposition to the left. But the left has actual plans and policies, so it can exist without the opposition of the right. Just think of what Trump(no)Care is: it is only a rejection of Obamacare, not substance, no real policy, just the resistance of those who have nothing better to suggest. And those who do, suggest a Bell curve.
So my point, jmorris, is that you are a nihilist. Much like the Nazis, you believe in the use of force for no other reason than to destroy. But unfortunately, Nazism, Fascism, and Japanese KoDoism were all defeated in the last world war. Which side are you on, jmorris? Which side are you on?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday March 10 2017, @09:18PM
Well, I did get a little too busy to deal with Jdumbass, but I doubt I could have dealt with him nearly as masterfully as you did.
Thank you :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.