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The latest manifestation of the conservative targetting of academia is the Professor Watchlist, created by the "activist organization" Turning Point USA, founded by rising star Charlie Kirk. It's stated purpose is to "watch" professors "who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom"
Of course, this is not new. David Horowitz has written a book called The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America . HeterodoxAcademy.org has rational articles discussing the liberal slant to modern college campuses. Nicholas Kristoff writes an interesting piece on the same topic. However, with the election of President Trump, the stakes may have been raised. A professor in California has gone incognitio after criticizing Trump in the classroom and receiving death threats.
But more important is how the attempt to blacklist liberal academics has actually backfired. George Yancy [not the George Yancey from the Kristoff piece above] published a response, "I Am a Dangerous Professor" in the New York Times, and since then it seems to have become de rigueur for all academics to get their name on the Professor Watchlist in order to cement their tenure. An entire hashtag on Twitter has taken form: #trollprofwatchlist! People have taken to mocking the list by suggesting candidates such as Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, and Jesus, not to mention Socrates, who obviously belongs.
Charlie Kirk may not be dangerous, but he did start this list. I am watching him now.
[Editor note - This story was substantially rewritten for balance. As always, the original submission is available at the link below.]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:57PM
The watchlist may be the wrong way to address the problem, but the problem is real: Academia, especially in the US and the UK, is utterly dominated by progrssives and SJWs. Just to take one recent example: Consider the "ze" movement at Oxbridge [thetimes.co.uk]. Microagressions. Safe spaces. Trigger warnings. This kind of stuff would be laughable, if it weren't so pathetic.
So: what is a better solution?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:18PM
> So: what is a better solution?
I dunno. But we could start with no longer blindly repeating fake news that makes us feel righteous.
No, Oxford University isn’t ‘banning’ the use of Mr and Mrs prefixes [thetab.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:11PM
Neither OP nor the Daily Mail article implies words are being "banned" in formal policy. This is a strawman rebuttal.
It advised that while the process of removing gender-specific titles is underway, people should be given the option of appearing without any prefix.
Emphasis mine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:53PM
> Neither OP nor the Daily Mail article implies words are being "banned" in formal policy. This is a strawman rebuttal.
Except the "process of removing gender specific titles" is not "underway."
Strawman rebuttal indeed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:18PM
Neither OP nor the Daily Mail article implies words are being "banned" in formal policy
Dude, the word BANNED is literally right there in the title of the Daily Heil article.
Its even in the damn URL:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4043394/First-ze-Mr-Mrs-BANNED-Oxford-University-tells-colleges-remove-gender-specific-titles.html [dailymail.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:42PM
Read the whole thing. Despite the clickbait headline, the actual article doesn't leave that impression.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:54PM
Well, the article may be incorrect, but you can hardly blame anyone for believing it: it was published on numerous reputable sites. Second, this kind of thing has happened [telegraph.co.uk], and undoubtedly will happen again.
"Fake news" - can we drop this term already? I doubt that the Times, the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and all the other sites that carried this article did so in some conspiratorial attempt to deceive people. If you read the actual statement by the Student Union, they deny producing such a leaflet, however,
"We believe the resources which are referred to within many of the articles could be support materials used by our student leaders and welfare representatives"
And further
"...the assumptions made may in fact refer to a policy used with the Students’ Union Council, where it is asked (for accessibility and minuting purposes) that everyone who speaks states their name, college and pronouns."
Which is even stupider than "ze" would have been. "Hi, I'm Ralf, College X, my preferred pronoun is 'grhmph'". Stupid, because pronouns are - by definition [dictionary.com] - not individualized words.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:26PM
I doubt that the Times, the Daily Mail ... did so in some conspiratorial attempt to deceive people.
Hahhahhhahhahhahah! hahahhahhahahahhhahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhahhahha!
Hahhahhahahha!
AHAAAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHH!!! HAHHHA!
HAHHAHHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.....!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:33PM
> Stupid, because pronouns are - by definition - not individualized words.
Its like you put words together with correct syntax but the actually meaning of the words is beyond your grasp.
I shall now refer to you by the pronoun I prefer for you - zeithead.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:09PM
Stupid, because pronouns are - by definition - not individualized words.
Except they are (to a very limited extent), because English has no gender-neutral pronoun for people, forcing a speaker to choose a gender/sex when making a reference to a person, hence "individualizing" that person if only by gender/sex.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing for an arbitrary proliferation of random new pronouns, but it would be convenient to have a gender-neutral 3rd-person pronoun that we just go along with. Actually, we do have one ("it"), but it's perceived to be insulting if applied to a human.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:15PM
And by the way, I'm not just suggesting this for reasons having to do with transgender people or whatever -- I personally have a number of times made an unintentional faux pas in prose when I assumed the wrong gender based on a name (often an unfamiliar one to me, but from its general sound, I made a mistaken assumption). Luckily I've never actually published something with such an error in it, and nowadays I'm rather careful about such things. If I can't figure out the gender/sex for certain, I often have to resort to linguistic "hoops" to avoid needing a 3rd-person pronoun, which sometimes results in very awkward prose.
This could all be avoided if we just had a gender-neutral pronoun.
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @04:43AM
I am a man who has a thin voice, and I live in a place where my name is frequently considered feminine. You know how many times people start their phone conversation with Madam? Everyday. It hurt me, actually, initially, but it doesn't anymore - because with time I became comfortable with who I am.
You know what's the funniest part? Nowadays people automatically correct themselves after I start speaking!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:14PM
You're not very creative, are you? I'm not either, but I was using "they"/"them" more than twenty years ago when I wanted to avoid specifying a sex.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:21PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:33PM
> Nowadays the new word for it is "fake news" which means "I disagree with the conclusions this writing wants me to hold."
Well, that's the reactionary definition.
The progressive definition of "fake news" is factual incorrectness.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:20PM
The progressive definition of "fake news" is factual incorrectness.
Correct. We've always been at war with Eastasia.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:00PM
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:46PM
Well, that's the reactionary definition. The progressive definition of "fake news" is factual incorrectness.
I see people of all sides declaring stuff fake simply because they disagree with the author. I see a bunch of people who never went through all the "fact or opinion?" lessons I had to go through in school.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:50PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:56PM
> And then right after I posted this I had an email from someone saying that a particular term is "fake news." How can a term be fake news?
Convenient that you neglected to mention the "term" or the context.
Seems to me you absolutely know your outrage is based on bullshit but can't stand the light of critical scrutiny.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:53PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:46PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @01:56AM
He's right. You are wrong. And that's because, despite your lies, he's talking about the context around the term "election hack." If that phrase had zero contextual meaning then you'd be right. But it is loaded with meaning that refers to the current election and what the russians did with respect to it.
So my question to you - where you deliberately lying and you really knew all this deep inside, or was your post really a confession of your own ignorance?
I'd like it to be the former because that would be proof you actually understood what people were talking about and actively chose to lie in order to persuade. It a shitty way to persuade but at least it means you are operating on the same cognitive level as most of us. But if it is the later, it means you believe your own bullshit and really aren't fit to comment at all. Which would mean that arguing with you is fruitless since these are topics that you will never really grasp. Like square trying to convince the other flatlanders there really are more than 2 dimensions.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Wednesday December 21 2016, @05:38PM
No, and I haven't stopped beating my wife, either.
I literally don't care if the election was "hacked."
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:09PM
Well, if I saw an article which made prolific use of the terms "thetan" and "Xenu" in a positive / non-ironic context then I could be pretty sure it was an article about how wonderful Scientology is, and so I probably wouldn't want to waste any more of my time on it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:20PM
That's a conceit. There are lots of facts in the world, and cherry-picking those which support your narrative is not the acme of truthfulness, either. The major complaint of those levelling the very double-edged charge of "fake news" is that they cherry-picked other facts that supported a different narrative. They're mad that their scheme to rig the outcome didn't work.
Trying to back-pedal now, to try to redefine what they meant by "fake news" as something legitimate, is transparent and unsupported by research or experience. Humans have always traded in rumor, and claiming that rumor altered the outcome is risible. Reading wild rumors in email chains from my looney tunes relatives did not sway my vote in the 90's, and they have equally negligible impact on my when they're delivered via social media.
It's also profoundly patronizing for the champions of the "fake news" to tsk-tsk, tutt-tutt about the poor little dears, the Independents, who were led astray by said rumors. They are not children, they're not stupid, and they don't need some self-interested sack of pricks to tell them how to think.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:03PM
No, fake news was(and continues to be) absolutely a thing. There's no need to inject opinion into it.
Idiots sharing and resharing their outrage about a protestor being paid to protest Donald Trump that was provably made up just for clicks that massively outperformed real news. Especially on the right wing. The only two groups I see whining about how the backlash against fake news are people who are stuck deep in a false-reality driven bubble and positively insane libertarians who value the right to deceive and see corporations bowing to public pressure as "economic terrorism"
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:52PM
Your precious "real news" stands revealed as utterly untrustworthy. Your precious legacy media have attained single digit trust numbers, comparable to Congress itself. And still you plow on ahead, oblivious to events in the real world, certain of the rightness of your Holy cause and sure that if you and your allies only yell "RACIST!" and "NAZI!" and such a bit louder you can still win.
May you languish in the wilderness for decades like the Conservatives did. They (until recently I counted myself in their number... sadly) too knew they were right and couldn't understand how they kept losing, how the country refused to see the wisdom in their policy prescriptions, how they, the Party of Abraham Lincoln, were now the racists.
I woke up, realized much of what Conservatives accept as absolute Truth is in error and, along with the whole Alt-Right, am embarked on a new journey to figure out what really is true and what is not. But just discarding a few of the stale dogmas of Conservatism inspired the country to not only give Trump a chance, they have given Republicans top to bottom a chance to prove themselves. Which of your most cherished ideas are you yet ready to question? The answer to that question, answered millions of times across the left will decide now long you stay on the outside howling in rage.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:02PM
And the exact unhinged response I was expecting. Lookit that.
You're insane. The fact that the media in general doesn't do a great job doesn't excuse you running off to fringe sites that utterly invent stories. I really do appreciate your motivation for intentionally misinforming yourself, but it doesn't make your worldview any less predicated on outright fabrications. You're full of shit, and the only excuse that your conspiracy-added mind can come up with is "You were unfair calling literal nazis nazis, WAAAH".
Fuck you Jmorris. You are absolutely part of what's destroying the country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:51PM
Found a jew rat.
How many Shekels do you get for your demonic work?
Its either that, or you're too young and naïve to know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:48PM
OK. You go ahead and take that long journey. Just so long as it takes you somewhere that you can't post here.
And my prediction is that buyer's remorse will set in within a year. Remember, you read it here first on SN!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:29PM
jmorris is a guard rail on the bounds of SN discussion. If he goes, then people could sail right over the edge of the cliff.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @07:54PM
No, fake news was(and continues to be) absolutely a thing.
I can't see where I said otherwise. That doesn't change the fact there are a lot of people crying "fake news" when they disagree with opinions.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:41PM
I acknowledge how I was unfair to your post. I've just already been sick of the level of genuine misinformation permeating society for about the past 3ish years.
I started feeling like conspiracy theorists were winning online spaces towards the beginning of 2014, and it's gotten worse and worse, and the bullshit surrounding the presidential election amplified it to an unreasonable and insane degree.
I know we saw the beginning of it it with 9/11 truthers in 2k4-2k5 and birthers in 2008, but the floodgates for just utter nonsense have really flung open and we get pizzagate, paid protestors bullshit stories, anti-semitic conspiracy theories, invented murder-suicides attached to the email thing, hillary sold weapons to ISIS, Pope Francis endorsing Trump, and so many more (I sincerely tried to look for a left-leaning piece of made up bullshit so I could pretend I'm balanced, and I failed. I know there were a couple)
Regardless of whether people shout it unreasonably to maintain resistance to cognitive dissonance, there's something utterly broken going on here, and it's way worse than it has ever been.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:49PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:56PM
Correct answer. 100%.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:34AM
I sincerely tried to look for a left-leaning piece of made up bullshit so I could pretend I'm balanced, and I failed
That's because you buy into the conspiracies. The Patriarchy. GamerGate. The 23% wage gap. MRAs. Trump. The Pink tax. Untested rape kits.
And of course, the current hot conspiracies: Russian hackers, and fake news.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:39PM
(Score: 4, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:56PM
Just to take one recent example: Consider the "ze" movement at Oxbridge
the [Oxford Students' Union] described the article as "a piece of misinformation" and said no such leaflet existed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-38318986 [bbc.co.uk]
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:57PM
Ding ding ding! The term"SJW" has used rendering the above post null and void. Please try again with a coherent and rational argument.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:23PM
Yeah, I'm starting to feel the same way about "safe spaces" as well. I'm sure the concept is rooted in reality, and maybe some rare people of a radical leaning do try to enforce such things[1] but the idea that everybody who is even vaguely left-of centre is running around shouting "SAFE SPACE SAFE SPACE TRIGGER WORD" at every opportunity in lieu of having a good argument is starting to sound like so much hysterical right-wing deflection/ projection.
[1] I'd also argue that in some contexts a "safe space" might be appropriate - for example a rape counselling centre or something like that. I don't know enough about rape counselling to say for sure, but it doesn't sound unreasonable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:23PM
Ding ding ding! The term"SJW" has used rendering the above post null and void. Please try again with a coherent and rational argument.
The specific wording does not invalidate the validity of a point. Please take your own advise.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:27PM
Fuck off you ignorant fascist cunt. And die in a fire while you're at it. Or gunfire from fellow red-blooded patriots exercising their "rights."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:12PM
You really should stop talking with that strawman of yours. It's not healthy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:30PM
I said fuck off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:53PM
Your reaction does a better job of making his argument than he does. Think about that a while.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:59PM
Why do liberal democracies not create overt watch lists of conservative educators?
It's always the far right that makes lists, it seems, or perhaps its the liberal news media that only promotes the far right's new lists.
Back in college, it was also what the professors told us students happened in the McCarthy era, where people were labeled as communist sympathizers if they didn't donate to a particular campaign, or wore the wrong clothes, and had little to do with communism other than it being an easy label to apply when seeking witches to remove.
Being the nerdy type, I checked out the story and it checks out... unless history was rewritten by the liberals.
Why do people keep using the term SJW? Labeling things like that just invites scorn. It's like an arms race. Certainly the creation of lists of progressive academics to target in order to clean up whatever problem is spouting-- is that not the result of warrior seeking to enforce social justice from his own perspective, or is there better term for the same thing? Does SJW only get applied to ideas one doesn't like?
Maybe a better solution is to stop targeting people that are not being overly harmful in their actions just because its different, and stop making up terms to label them as the enemy, and instead start working to resolve differences or establish a common ground or framework? That is harder, though, and I am no good at it. Compromise is hard, because it means you lose when the other person wins. Fortunately, they often feel the same way, so no one really comes out on top if you have a poor perspective on the process.
It's the true statesman that can make each group feel like winner despite giving something up, but polarization and name calling does not really help achieve that. I haven't seen many win/wins in politics lately.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:40PM
I just put Charlie Kirk on my Whippersnapper Watch List.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:49PM
Why do people keep using the term SJW?
Because some astroturfing company hired by the Koch brothers or similar cooked it up and introduced the idea onto the alt-right "grass roots" websites. The idea spreads from there because it is designed to appeal to that demographic.
They invent this phantom bogeyman of a world-controlling conspiracy of "SJWs" and pin all the world's racism and bigotry and injustice on them. Then the people they want to influence can simply label their enemies with that term and no longer need to think of any reasons for their choices or consider any other points of view. For ultimate irony, they then accuse the other side of using derogatory labels to silence their opponents. It also gives all the racists and bigots and promoters of injustice a nice warm glowy feeling because they can now convince themselves that they are no longer the bad guys, and they can say and do and vote racist and bigoted things and not feel guilty about it, in fact, to feel proud for it. They also get to play at being the poor oppressed minority standing up bravely to the Evil Empire.
These terms are ephemeral, they come and go. SJW is about dead now. "Identity politics" is the new one, and now "Safe Spaces". If you watch you can see them come and go in waves - all of a sudden, a term that was used in every other post by every other poster disappears, and in its place a new one appears. It's like watching ideas flow through the Borg mind, except in this case the Borg mind is controlled by a few rich guys and their spin doctors. But whatever the term, it is always an attempt to externalize the self-loathing of the right and pin it on the left like a target, kind of like how repressed gays in denial are drawn to gay-hate organisations.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:36PM
Yeah I'd say that's not far from actual practice, having spent spans of time on Madison Avenue, and also in the presence of the power elites. The power elites are really bad at crafting those, by the way. They're quite tone deaf. They rely on the Madison Avenue guys to compose their messages for them.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:58PM
> stop making up terms to label them as the enemy,
The term SJW isn't about labeling an enemy, its about being able to dismiss ideas without critically evaluating them.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:51PM
Do we really need to evaluate ideas that are so far out of line with reality? At some point it becomes a complete waste of time to evaluate things that are so ridiculous.
If the SJWs want to be taken seriously, it would help immensely if they'd actually know what the fuck they're talking about. You can't negotiate with them, nor is there any basis in reality for their positions. These are not people that simply are advocating for an unpopular position, these are bullies that try to cut off other people's free speech so that they don't have to have their world view challenged.
That's not something that deserves the attention necessary to dispute it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:32PM
If the SJWs want to be taken seriously, it would help immensely if they'd actually know what the fuck they're talking about.
Et tu, Francii!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:02AM
You don't seem to be self-ware enough to realize this, but you just demonstrated the GP's point through your use of circular reasoning about "SJWs." Your declaration that they don't "know what the fuck they are talking about" is literally a dismissal of ideas without analysis or critical argument.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:02PM
Spoken like somebody who doesn't actually know what an SJW is.
You're neglecting the middle here. I've seen the arguments before over and over and over again, precisely how many times do you think I should debunk the same arguments? Precisely how much of my time should I waste on people that are gish galloping? Perhaps I'm that much smarter than you, but it doesn't really take much thought to see the fallacies in these posts. Most of which are effectively copy pasta of other people's poorly thought out and deluded world view.
We don't live in a rape culture, women do not make less than men for the same work, disagreeing with people is not wrong and I have absolutely no responsibility for other people's feelings. Those are just a few of the things that routinely come up from those sorts of posters. Oh, and cultural appropriation. Somehow that's wrong if white people do it, but when other groups do it they're being forced to do it. Never mind that the dominant culture isn't found anywhere else in the world and everybody else had to learn how it works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @11:05PM
Shut up, Francis!!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:58PM
It's always the far right that makes lists
Eeeh, about that [github.com]...
Why do people keep using the term SJW?
Because regardless of the word used, describing authoritarian cultural marxists will always acquire that connotation since the concept itself describes deplorable behavior. The only way not to have a negative word for SJWs is not to have a word for SJWs.
On the flipside, as a strongly liberal person myself, I've never been called an SJW by American conservatives. Have you ever considered that maybe the smoke is there for a reason?
Certainly the creation of lists of progressive academics to target in order to clean up whatever problem is spouting-- is that not the result of warrior seeking to enforce social justice from his own perspective, or is there better term for the same thing?
No, it's the result of trying to live in a society which condones biggotry against you.
Does SJW only get applied to ideas one doesn't like?
It applies to cultural marxist ideas. I don't like Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but I certainly wouldn't call either of them an SJW.
Maybe a better solution is to stop targeting people that are not being overly harmful in their actions just because its different, and stop making up terms to label them as the enemy, and instead start working to resolve differences or establish a common ground or framework?
They [professorwatchlist.org] are [professorwatchlist.org] being [professorwatchlist.org] overly [professorwatchlist.org] harmful [professorwatchlist.org]
These are just a few names I found by randomly clicking around the list, I'm sure there will be far more egregious examples if one was to look.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:00PM
> Eeeh, about that...
Wow, a twitter filtering tool to protect individuals from organized harassment. Totally the same thing.
> cultural marxist
Lol. Are we resurrecting that one now? Be sure to abbreviate it to make it faster to type over and over and over.
(Score: 4, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:16PM
OK, let's look at your examples shall we?
Dr. Charles Strozier : Oh noez! He believes that climate change is a factor in middle-eastern poverty, which in turn is a factor in jihadi recruitment! Quick, call the national guard! Save us from this terrible threat!
Darry Sragow : He's SUPPOSED to be partisan, [insidehighered.com] and for balance the university gives equal time to a Republican partisan. However your watchlist site somehow omits that detail. I'm sure that was just an oversight, and not glaringly dishonest.
Latham Hunter : Feminist who wrote an article about how Christmas is wrapped up a bunch of centuries-old patriarchal tropes. Well duh. But you believe that someone expressing an opinion about Christmas is "overly harmful", and worthy of being put on a watchlist? Did I get that right?
Peter Singer : OK, this one is a bit of a wonk. However I wouldn't be too worried about him brainwashing young adults - his views are so unpalatable that very few people would take them on board without opposition. He's a philosopher, so his job is to logically analyse the ethics and morals we take for granted, and it appears that has led him to some uncomfortable conclusions. The question is, does he bully and brainwash his students into following his own beliefs, or does he encourage them to argue, examine and criticise them? I don't know. Do you? The "watchlist" website certainly makes no effort to find out.
Selena Lester Breikss : Looks like someone who allowed her own gender issues to seep into her work. Oh dear. Note that the University told her she couldn't [nationalreview.com] classify words like "male" and "female" as hate speech.
So what do we have? A feminist and a history professor who hold some opinions on climate change and gender issues that those on the right might disagree with. A part-time non-lecturer whose job is to represent the Democratic side of a balanced lesson in political partisanship. A lecturer who made a professional slip up and got slapped back down by her employers, and one guy who holds some radical and somewhat disturbing opinions, but who may or may not try to impose them on his students. Is this really the best you can do? Remind me, just which side is it made up of crybaby pussies begging for a "safe space" devoid of opposing views?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:32PM
There's two problems with the people listed
1) Their opinions are kooky and not worth $30K/yr tuition in an era of internet and usenet where insane ramblings disconnected from all reality but amusing to think about are free and easy to find. Or more like, hard to avoid.
2) They got on the list for punishing critical thinking and dissent from their own views specifically committed against students to the right of Marx.
Maybe I'll try an analogy that should make sense to more left wing thinking people using their terms. They love talking about nazis, so I will too. Some nazis had really weird beliefs about the hollow earth under Antarctica and so forth. But lefties would see the problems with hollow earth theory are that it distracts from more significant areas of anti-nazi criticism such as ovening the Jews, the hollow earth is not important and more or less off topic and is useless in the sense of angels dancing on the head of a pin anyway. The hollow earth is not why nazis are declared problematic. The other problem with hollow earth theory is most lefties want to punish nazis for something other than very weird geological theories, like, say, ovening Jews, or killing all the commies they could find, things like that. They don't want to kill them right back for supporting hollow earth theory, they want to kill them for killing Jews, an eye for an eye until we're all blind etc.
I think I made a pretty fair analogy above. Or at least it would be hard to improve without changing all out of recognition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:59PM
1) Their opinions are kooky and not worth $30K/yr tuition in an era of internet and usenet where insane ramblings disconnected from all reality but amusing to think about are free and easy to find. Or more like, hard to avoid.
VLM, I gots a final solution for you! Just do not attend University! Worked for the Buzz! And what do you need that bit of sheepskin for anyway? Obviously college is not for you, if you think that you are paying for the "opinions" of the professors. I am sure you have your own opinions already, and that they are just as much opinions as any other opinions, so why pay money to change them for some other opinions you also do not understand? Cite: see above about the abyss.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:05PM
> 1) Their opinions are kooky and not worth $30K/yr tuition
whoa whoa whoa, what happened to all the free market stuff we all love to hear so much about? Surely if some people are prepared to pay 30k/yr, then those people are atomatically worth 30k/yr, right? Something something invisible hand something something market forces.
> 2) They got on the list for punishing critical thinking and dissent from their own views specifically committed against students to the right of Marx.
Citation needed. Only one of the ones listed threatened to punish students, as far as the watchlist website or a google search can tell me, and that was not for "holding opinions to the right of Marx" but for using words that she herself found objectionable.
I'm not sure I follow your analogy - you're saying that "lefties" are idiots for thinking that the hollow earth stuff was worse than the holocaust stuff?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:51PM
On the flipside, as a strongly liberal person myself, I've never been called an SJW by American conservatives. Have you ever considered that maybe the smoke is there for a reason?
You know, that is just what a flaming SJW would say! Your failure to insult gives you away, you SJW!!! Pretending to be a critic of Authoritarian Cultural Marxism (ACM) is the oldest trick in the book or ACMs who are also SJWs!! Your not foaling anyone, you SJW! (There, now you have been called a SJW, you SJW!)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:32PM
Thats the whole point. Its the propaganda techniques of labelling and demonizing the enemy (plus a lot more). It helps promote tribalism and non-thinking, which are the virtues of modern day fascists.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:19PM
The whole point of the SJW label is that there's nothing of value in the post. It doesn't take much time to figure out when you're dealing with an SJW after you see a few posts. There's a lot of people who conflate the term SJW with social justice advocate and the two are not even remotely the same thing.
If you're dealing with an advocate, they might be uninformed about something, but they'll generally be operating in good faith. SJWs are essentially trolls that lack the awareness of what's going on to even do that right. If you change your mind on the issue, they'll just come back with something else that's completely insane in the name of equality.
The good thing though, is that it's usually fairly clear cut what you've got and if it's not clear, then just don't bother to respond, it's not like opinions and posts are rare.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:04PM
The whole point of the SJW label is that there's nothing of value in the post. It doesn't take much time to figure out when you're dealing with an SJW after you see a few posts.
. . .
The good thing though, is that it's usually fairly clear cut what you've got and if it's not clear, then just don't bother to respond, it's not like opinions and posts are rare
Let me get this straight, Francis is accusing Francis of being a SJW? This does not help, it is not fairly clear, and quite possibly insane. I guess I just will not bother to respond with the obvious rebuttal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @10:25AM
I see Aristarchus thinks he's outwitted me again.
Pro-tip, paint chips are not potato chips.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:24PM
I… look. The premise is laughable. Why would somebody transgendered want to be referred to by an imaginary pronoun instead of an authentic one?
There again, maybe the answer key is this “gay rights campaigner” Peter Tatchell [petertatchell.net]. Let's take a look.
Hmm [petertatchell.net]
London & Belfast – 24 October 2016
The Appeal Court in Belfast has today ruled that a local Christian-run business, Ashers Bakery, was wrong to refuse to decorate a cake with a pro-gay marriage message.
“This verdict is a defeat for freedom of expression. As well as meaning that Ashers can be legally forced to aid the promotion of same-sex marriage, it also implies that gay bakers could be forced by law to decorate cakes with homophobic slogans,” said human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation.
Wait. A gay activist taking a pro-free speech position on wedding cakes? It's almost as though some of faggots think that forcing somebody to produce work they object to is wrong. It's almost as though you right-wingers are assholes who always miss the target. Seems you have a lot in common with another group of people who absolutely hate male homosexuality and transgenderism.
Hmm [petertatchell.net]
London - 3 August 2007
Gender reassignment (sex-change) surgery is unnecessary and a form of body mutilation, according to Guardian columnist, radical feminist and lesbian campaigner Julie Bindel….
Ms Bindel is challenged in the BBC programme by a four-person panel: human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell; Professor Stephen Whittle, a world expert on transsexualism and the law who had reassignment surgery nearly 30 years ago; clinician Kevan Whylie, a consultant in sexual medicine and gender dysphoria specialist; and psychotherapist and transsexual Michelle Bridgman of the Gender Trust….
Ms Bindel proposes that transsexualism is a condition "created by reactionary psychiatrists in the 1950s" who promoted the false idea that it is possible to be born "trapped in the wrong body." She asks: "is it right to apply a surgical solution to what I believe is a psychological problem?"
…
Peter Tatchell defends transsexual people and gender reassignment surgery as an issue of "choice, self-determination and human rights."
He endorses Ms Bindel's criticism of "traditional male and female roles and the social pressure to conform to cultural expectations of how men and women are supposed to behave," describing these as "often profoundly oppressive." But he goes on to criticise Julie for "putting gender theory and ideology before the happiness of individual human beings who feel out of place and unhappy in their birth sex."
So, I don't get it. Once again we see the steadfastness of feminism with the right wing. The article you link is an outright lie as others have pointed out. Is just easy to blame the transgendered because there's so few of them they can't really stand up to you damned feminists and right-wingers?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:28PM
Sure, Kurenai, because every single feminist is a TERF. Just like every Christian is a member of Westboro and every single gay dude is a flaming cross-dressing showtune-singing glitterslut.
That is a helluva big brush and a lot of tar. Watch where you're swinging that thing around, lest you alienate your few remaining allies. I've already had it up to here with your bullshit.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:18PM
because every single feminist is a TERF.
It's like those M&Ms.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:00PM
Skittles, not M&Ms, and nice work; you just lumped yourself in with the neo-Nazis. Excuse me, "alt-right."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:45AM
No. I said M&Ms, and I meant M&Ms. Everybody knows that only Skittles are racist. See here now [slate.com].
Ok, I will admit that when I picked up on the M&M thing at first, I didn't realize the connection to Nazi propaganda. Of course, it was obvious that the statement was morally wrong, however one gets used to being an all-men after a few decades. When the Nazi connection came to light, I threw up in my mouth a little bit. Then I got over it because the irony was delicious. Here's the relevant tweet. I can't link it, of course, because TwitFace is an inferior medium, as I'm sure you're aware:
"UNFAIR! NOT ALL MEN!" Imagine a bowl of M&Ms. 10% of them are poisoned. Go ahead. Eat a handful. Not all M&Ms are poison. #YesAllWomen
— Martin Wagner (@wagnerfilm) May 26, 2014
(Score: 2) by mth on Tuesday December 20 2016, @04:13PM
So: what is a better solution?
Protest whatever statement or action you disagree with. Don't disqualify the entire person.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by jdavidb on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:41PM
So: what is a better solution?
People leaving each other the heck alone.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings