SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday March 08 2017, @04:36PM (3 children)
Having read the book, this is libel.
I've read the book too. I've also read a lot of detailed academic discussion and critiques of the book (though admittedly, I read most of this over a decade ago, so I don't remember all of it).
Setting aside that "libel" is a tort against a person, not an object (like a book), I've already posted above noting that The Bell Curve has a LOT of other stuff in it other than race/intelligence stuff. I linked to the Wikipedia article on it in the summary to encourage people to find out more. AND, regardless of the rest of the book, the reason why this protest happened is because of the book's statements on race and intelligence, so I wasn't characterizing the book as a whole, merely noting the RELEVANT fact about it to understand the present story.
It should be noted that Murray apparently WANTED this sort of reception for his book. It's now long-forgotten, but the release of the book was more than peculiar. Despite looking like a scholarly book (lots of notes, etc.), it was not submitted for peer review before publication. Despite being marketed as a "trade book" for mass public consumption, final galleys weren't circulated to reviewers in advance to allow informed critical reviews. Instead, it was released in this mysterious way, seemingly to provoke immediate controversy between a bunch of uninformed reactions on both sides. It wasn't until many months after release that academics had time to digest the details and provide an informed response, but by that time, you had two sides entrenched in this uninformed characterization of the book -- and that has shaped its reception ever since. (For details on the release, I'd recommend the first portion of this very old Slate article [slate.com] from 1997.)
Bottom line: if you or Murray want to complain about the unnuanced reception of the book, Murray has only himself to blame for the way it was released. I'm pretty sure he wanted the controversy.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 08 2017, @05:13PM (2 children)
Oh... very well. I should probably re-read the book to freshen up. I wonder if there's a newer kindle edition with newer data.
I think WRT reception of the book when it was new, other than tons more street violence now, it would not be realistic to pretend the politically motivated reception would be unpredictable. If he went public the publisher and editor HQ would simply have been burned down or rioted or whatever. Its not like today when he could just toss an ebook up on the internet, political censorship was a stronger force back in the bad old days.
Anyway aside from the political stuff on a personal note have a very nice day!
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday March 08 2017, @06:45PM
If he went public the publisher and editor HQ would simply have been burned down or rioted or whatever.
Actually, think it would have likely produced a more measured response, at least in some outlets. Peer review might have convinced them to tone down the "social policy" proclamations that got them into some trouble. And I imagine more of the public debate would have been focused on the broader question of connecting IQ to class division (sort of the "Idiocracy" problem), including critiques of that position. Instead, public debate got mired in what was perceived as the most outrageous part of the book. It would have been helpful, for example, if the APA report [mensa.ch] could have been part of the public debate, since it points out some of the places where the book was right and other places where the book didn't appear to agree with current consensus.
Instead, such nuanced responses were delayed for a year or two.
Anyway aside from the political stuff on a personal note have a very nice day!
To you as well!
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday March 09 2017, @04:45AM
For the lazy or impatient, there's a condensed audiobook on Youtube.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.