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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: 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.