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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, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:56PM
I don't much care about your opinion; you're a nazi so fuck you. But I do wonder what people like Jmorris think when they see posts like this.
Elsewhere in this discussion he's saying that people are crying wolf about calling people nazis, and yet the boring old anti-semitism that defined the worst of the Nazi party is everywhere with even a casual glance. Does he look at that and say "Well that's not me so obviously it has nothing to do with this?" Or does he write it off as trolling(I mean, honestly who can tell or care at this point)? Do his eyes just roll right off the words?
How do people see that this stuff is appearing everywhere and go "Yep, the problem is definetly still calling people nazis unfairly"? Call it a curiosity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:42PM
But I do wonder what people like Jmorris think when they see posts like this.
I imagine the same thing as myself - "Really Ethanol? Try harder".
Elsewhere in this discussion he's saying that people are crying wolf about calling people nazis, and yet the boring old anti-semitism that defined the worst of the Nazi party is everywhere with even a casual glance. Does he look at that and say "Well that's not me so obviously it has nothing to do with this?" Or does he write it off as trolling(I mean, honestly who can tell or care at this point)? Do his eyes just roll right off the words?
Obviously neo nazis still exist and I don't think anyone would contest that. The problem most people have is when people are labelled as nazi when they obviously aren't, or when the evidence is not enough to clearly determine it.
Calling someone a nazi is a heavy allegation, it should not be thrown lightly.
How do people see that this stuff is appearing everywhere and go "Yep, the problem is definetly still calling people nazis unfairly"?
I doubt anyone here would object to classifying this particular comment as nazi sentiment.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:47PM
I think more people are unreasonably defended as "not 100%-sure, for-certain a nazi" when they are, than called a nazi when they're not.
At a certain point militaristic, cult-of-personality ethnonationalism looks like a duck, sig hiels like a duck, and walks like a goose regardless of whether they're actively matching every tenet of national socialism perfectly.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:53PM
uh, yeah, except anyone and everyone who simply disagrees with your diagnosis and prescription are 'nazis', the word has NO MEANING in the manner you use it...
i -an anarchist of no particular flavor- am a nazi, calling out zionists makes you a nazi, saying mean things about anyone (oh, except for -you know- nazis) makes you a nazi...
nazis abound in your eensy-weensy, teeny-tiny proscribed worldview...
(Score: 1, Troll) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:04PM
Oh, bullshit, just the stupid-ass ethnonationalists who identify strongly with authoritarian ideologies all are.
The problem is that shouldn't be a lot of people, but it is. You're taking Godwin's law and using it to ignore that they're here, they're getting a lot of power, and doing shitty things with it.
As far as Zionism goes, it's about half and half people who genuinely care about a government receiving financial and military support from the US while remaining one of the latest remaining apartheid states in the world, and people who use that as a code-word for anti-Semitic ideas that tend to center on conspiracies about how "The Zionists" just happen to control everything. I can be a member of the former group and recognize the reality of the latter. I know I've been called anti-Semitic because of that, but you know what? I understand those charges and how it relates to the shitty people out there who are saying shitty things. I don't go out of my way to resent people who are concerned about it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @01:46PM
"Nazi" is not, and was not, an absolute. Using it as such is dangerous, too. It lulls people into thinking that they're not absolutely evil, so they couldn't possibly be called a nazi justly. They are just a little evil, so calling them a nazi is just hurtful hyperbole. Fascism in the Third Reich reached the extremes it did because people kept making those same little rationalizations.
We know that not even the guys tasked with carrying out the attrocities, the Einsatzgruppen, were absolutely evil. Their incidence of suicide, heavy drinking, mental breakdowns, and the like were so high Berlin kept trying to come up with ways to shield them from the psychological effects of what they were doing. That wouldn't have been the case if those guys didn't feel guilt for what they were doing.
The point is it's a lot easier for a society and individuals to cross the line into evil than most people now think it is. It is best to be vigilant, but also to call out people precisely on what they've done so that you don't rob more extreme labels of their meaning. If somebody does something foolish, call them a fool. If he kills a man in cold blood, call him a murderer. If he steals, a thief. If he expresses hatred or contempt for an ethnicity, a bigot. Save "nazi" for the people who want to round others up and march them into gas chambers, but also don't be afraid to level that charge when they purpose exactly that.
Soylent has a few bigots and some fools, but we also have a couple of real nazis.
Washington DC delenda est.