Beware the commissars of political correctness!

So the answer to Chait’s question as to “whether [we] agree” with “a movement that regards the delegitimization of dissent as a first-order goal” is to say “I’m not willing to answer that question until the movement becomes more of a problem.”

Is that right?

I haven’t been on a college campus since 2001 when things were very different, and I will not claim to have any knowledge as to the reality on campus these days. I suspect Chait hasn’t been, either, and I appreciate Henry’s diagnosis (that Chait suffers from always-Marxists-under-the-bed syndrome.) But … is there a reason we are unwilling to straight up answer Chait’s question?

Shorter me: We can talk about whether we would kill baby Hitler, but we can’t talk about whose side we would be on if the PC police really did take over?

The question isn’t “can we answer this question.”

It’s why the conversation is suddenly about this topic.

Fewer Drezners with handsomely paid employment would also be salutary

Fewer Art Decos declaiming in reactionary mode might also be ‘salutary’.

More Belle!

https://crookedtimber.org/2015/02/02/belle-ing-the-chait/

I have noticed more criticism of the contents of what becomes shared or common knowledge through required courses than of micro-aggressions, costume choices or disinvites from fraternity parties. That is a a challenge to what is being imposed on students rather than a struggle by students to impose pc speech standards on the campus community. Who knows? We could have pernicious campus speech codes as a symbolic commitment to diversity that curricula in required courses and hiring decisions belie. It would be a cheap way to handle the deeper source of alienation that some students have.

I second Kent’s point. The free speech issue is, surely, a red herring relative to the real problems at Yale, Missou, etc. But it would be much harder to make it a distraction if student activists and sympathizers would drop a few pious asides in favor of liberal principles. Maybe start with “Now, we are fully committed to free speech [etc., spelling that out briefly]. But that commitment is consistent with [go on as usual]”

The reluctance of the cultural left to discuss free speech issues openly makes it seems like they have something to hide – some position on free speech that would be unacceptable to most people if openly asserted. They don’t; so this appearance should be easily dispelled. Maybe just maybe this would help us get on discussing what matters.

“I haven’t been on a college campus since 2001 when things were very different, and I will not claim to have any knowledge as to the reality on campus these days. I suspect Chait hasn’t been, either, and I appreciate Henry’s diagnosis (that Chait suffers from always-Marxists-under-the-bed syndrome.) But … is there a reason we are unwilling to straight up answer Chait’s question?”

I’m from Ann Arbor, went to the University of Michigan, and knew the times back when Chait was there. Basically, he was traumatized by loud people on the left, and never got over it. Thirty years from now, he’ll still quake in his shoes when he hears a liberal student get angry.

Oldster @10, google search turns up mostly Ben Carson. I haven’t been able to find any “prior art” on that specific quote fabrication.

We should be more outraged by threats to free speech from our own side, since they betray our own principles and make us look bad. I don’t think that’s centrist trolling (though it could be depending on the source.). A true liberal should be unable to take his / her own side in an argument, should be super-scrupulous about condemning people purporting to be anti-racist but betraying the cause through thuggishness.

I have to disagree with the idea that Chait now is simply like Chait then. I believe the tone is more and more that of the late Mickey Kaus. This is no accident! My theory is that Chait has been assassinated by Kaus, whose contrarianism shtick eventually led to such low paying venues as that Talkers site or whatever it is, dedicated to all things Limbaugh-ish – and even there he got fired. So what is a man in his position to do? Contrarianism is so 00s that even Slate was lukewarm to Kaus’s proposal for clickbait. But he noticed the coveted New York Magazine post. What to do?
It was relatively easy to lure Chait out – Kaus sent him an email, signed anonymous admirer, that there was a horribly totalitarian Marxist oriented power grabbing politically correct event happening in the human geography department of X university that threatened to throw the Democratic party into retreat abroad and socialism at home. Chait, ever sensitive to the danger of human geography as a platform for the Nazi like takeover of the state, (it was most likely their influence that kept Lieberman from his rightful position as heir to Gore and candidate in 2004) bit, and met anonymous in a dark alley in New Haven. Bit mistake! Kaus struck him from behind, and – being, like Lon Cheney,a master of facial disguise – assumed his identity. I hope this makes it all clear.

Jonathan Chait in 2007, on how the radical blogospheric left was co-opting Matthew Yglesias …

This has to be the funniest thing of all time. Iggy was never all that leftish, as he’s proven over and over again.

Damn. I saw that misplaced italics close but was too late to stop the submit.

-some Yale students are demanding a faculty member lose his position (as “house master”, at least), because his wife and he are not supportive enough of Yale regulating the Halloween costumes of Yale students.

There was no attempt at regulation.

Cassander even gets the cliche wrong. It’s AMAZE not AMUSE, you ninny. By 3:1!

Ps – one of my fave lines in the Kaus-Chait piece was this one: “The reason every Marxist government in the history of the world turned massively repressive is not because they all had the misfortune of being hijacked by murderous thugs.” This is so true. But it does beg the question, why would a beacon of light and liberty, like the anti-Marxist U.S., sponsor slavery for some 70 years and apartheid for one hundred further years, and create, at University of Missouri, a white only eduction which refused to graduate a single black student until 1950? Is it cause the US was run by murderous thugs? I’m anxious to hear the answer. Maybe it had something to do with favoring some race over another and having a justice system that reinforced it. But that seems like a Marxist kinda answer, so it can’t be right. Surely the right answer is: the US used to be run by murderous thugs.

TF79 – less about political correctness than the rise of a quasi-religious style of politics among the protesters. It is that that I find far more disturbing and alien than the question of free speech per se.

So much of it seems in effect to be about righteousness, the extirpation of sin, the performance of virtue, the adequacy of contrition, competition for purity, etc.

Two strange straws in the wind: a) before he resigned, protesters were demanding a handwritten apology from the President of Missouri for his inaction on the issues that bothered them and b) the banner carried at Yale which focused on the statement “We Are Loved.”

The concern trolling double standards will never stop, because they constitute a very cheap and easy rhetorical trick against any political opponent, and have been used for literal millenia.

Apparently 2015 CE still offer shelter to political blog commenters who can be made to fall over themselves trying to soothe the concern of their enemies.

Garrulous@32: TF79 – less about political correctness than the rise of a quasi-religious style of politics among the protesters. It is that that I find far more disturbing and alien than the question of free speech per se.

So much of it seems in effect to be about righteousness, the extirpation of sin, the performance of virtue, the adequacy of contrition, competition for purity, etc.

I suspect much of this is driven by social media. Since people are “visible” all the time, they’re constantly performing their political virtue for whatever their imagined audience is. This leads to annoying behaviors like nonstop signalling that you’re among the saved have the correct opinions, rushing to make sure you join whatever the latest pile-on is even if you have no idea what it’s about (can’t be seen displaying insufficient zeal, after all), the weird obsession with going over apologies with a fine toothed comb in order to find some reason to declare them inadequate in some way & etc.

Not exactly the new NKVD coming to murder us all in our beds, but annoying and worth criticizing when people get carried away. There would be less call for criticism if it were confined to overzealous 18 year olds, but it’s not.

RG @ 30: Surely the right answer is: the US used to be run by murderous thugs.

“used to be” ???!

I agree that the Chait article in numag was pretty rubbish. But I find the OP here and the response pretty disappointing. I think that there is something important happening. By choosing to respond to Chait, Crooked Timber is turning away from trying to get to grips with important arguments.

(Incidentally, I see that the Crooked Timber post on the Laura Kipnis case was also cast as a response to a rather poor conservative lament rather than a substantive engagement with the issue.)

Chait frames the problem as about Marxists(!) and mob rule. He says the problem is an ideology which ‘prioritizes class justice over individual rights’. In my view, this is wrong. There is a problem with a society which increasingly prioritises protection of the vulnerable over free expression of ideas. There are various problems here. Not the least of which is that it actually constructs people – especially young people – as vulnerable.

I would be interested to see the Crooked Timber response to pieces in the New Atlantic by Conor Friedersdorf (The New Intolerance of Student Activism) and by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt (The Coddling of the American Mind).

As Friedersdorf put it:

‘One feels for these students. But if an email about Halloween costumes has them skipping class and suffering breakdowns, either they need help from mental-health professionals or they’ve been grievously ill-served by debilitating ideological notions they’ve acquired about what ought to cause them pain.’

Myself, I think this deserves more scrutiny. Those commentators who claim not to see anything unusual or different in the rise of safe spaces, trigger warnings or twitter storms over ettiquette – I think they are closing their eyes.

“Those commentators who claim not to see anything unusual or different in the rise of safe spaces, trigger warnings or twitter storms over ettiquette – I think they are closing their eyes.”

Once more with feeling: Nevermind the murderous thugs. Here’s the PC police. I NEVER SEIZED TO BE AMAZED that not a single hand-wringer about PC has responded to my citation of articles by Martin Jay and Lewis Lapham about the manufacturing of outrage about PC. Actually, I am not at all amazed, amused, alarmed or even surprised. Handwringing about PC is, of course, a particularly noxious strain of… PC: my-PC-is-correcter-than-your-PC PC.

Which suggests a name for these faux centrist civility kibitzers: The Correcter Set. The correcter set is shocked and appalled by post-teens whining about trigger warnings but unmoved by the deluge of copiously funded right-wing ranting about the Satanic PC conspiracy.

[Being Twitter-account-less, I hope I’m doing this right:] https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/664514023082336256

No, making fun of Chait is not useful.

Sheldon Wolin, Politics and Vision, expanded 2004, Ch 17. Wanted to quote more, especially on localism

The centrifugals and their ideologies reflect heightened self-consciousness and sensibilities that turn upside down most traditional and some modern democratic conceptions of the political. While they may enter into alliances with other centrifugals, the broader values of equality and commonality tend to be, at best, a tactical convenience (“rainbow coalition”). The challenge of attracting like-
minded individuals, and thereby differentiating the group from others, takes
precedence over what is general amidst diversities.

Centrifugalism might signify the end of unequivocal conceptions of citizen-
ship—“we are members with common obligations because we live or were born
here”—and their dilution by conceptions based on “dismembership:” member-
ship comes down to choosing the group(s) with which one wants to become as-
sociated (re-member) and signifying the group(s) from which one dissociates,
dismembers. It implies that citizenship, as the core notion of democratic mem-
bership, is a residual category useful for the rights and protections it affords, a
sometime role with reservations attached rather than a positive, unifying force
enabling society to cohere despite differences and to cope with problems that ex-
ceed the capabilities of any discrete group or alliance of groups.

Identity Politics and The Erasure of Class Paul Campos at LGM, today. The comments are very much worth reading, it appears that even mentioning that an African-American is rich is irredeemably racist. Campos may not survive this.

“I already feel like campus is an unlivable space,” said Butler, who is African American. “So it’s worth sacrificing something of this grave amount, because I’m already not wanted here. I’m already not treated like I’m a human.”

[Butler] is a member of a prominent Omaha family. The newspaper says that Butler’s father is Eric L. Butler, executive vice president for sales and marketing for the Union Pacific Railroad. His 2014 compensation was $8.4 million, according to regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

It’s interesting that a significant section of “the left” thinks that identity politics is just a new growth of liberalism. Adolf Reed probably being the most prominent example. So in that view Chait vs. PC is just a fight of different views of individualism. A fight between an individual’s right of expression and an individuals right of respect for identity. The Marxist would point out that neither question the right of individuals to own property.

@bob mcmanus

Does Campos come in at some point in the thread and clarify his point?

Because the first 15 or 20 comments suggest that there is actually considerable confusion about what the f*ck he was trying to say — the only real hint is the “erasure of class” in the title of the post.

But you know, Campos didn’t actually write a post. He just selected some quotes and submitted them without further comment. So if he gets sh*t in the comments section, it’s partly his own fault.

LFC @45: “Chait is a fairly well-known journalist, someone who is making a living by his writing, and he shouldn’t be quoting people in a misleading way.”

In other news, they just arrested the conservative dude who exercised his right of free speech by threatening to shoot every black person he saw on the Missouri campus.

I’ve lived and worked on college campuses for going on forty-five years. In my experience, the only thing university administrations hate worse than racist and sexist speech is people objecting to racist and sexist speech.

The anti-pc campaign is a coordinated campaign ginned up to distract us from what the UNC system is doing to programs that pay attention to poverty, what Scott Walker is doing to the Wisconsin system and on and on and on.

When Chait and other liberals get as exercised by Iowa political regents intimidating a professor as they do a crowd of loud undergrads demanding to be treated with respect, I’ll pay attention. Until then, screw ’em and their delicate fee-fees. (http://www.bleedingheartland.com/2013/02/19/bruce-rastetter-tried-to-educate-distinguished-iowa-professor/)

Not surprised to see that most of you agree there’s nothing to see here, and anyway look at the much worse problems over there.

But it could be worse. I mean, that you basically deny the existence of the illiberal left, at least you implicitly agree that it would be a bad thing if they really were like that. At least you haven’t joined them in calling for the Christakises’ heads.

Lemmy thinks the attitudes of the illiberal left go hand in hand with “single payer healthcare, 15$ minimum wage, a rollback of the prison state and improved welfare protections”. Which of those was it Hillary Clinton is in favor of again?

Wilder gets conspiratorial about who’s funding FIRE. As long as we are conspiratorial (and why not?), I can think of many shady and powerful groups who benefits both from a schism on the left, and on the young left developing an attitude to identity that resembles European nativists most of all.

56: “you basically deny the existence of the illiberal left, at least you implicitly agree that it would be a bad thing if they really were like that.”

You mean, if they were really acting like Stalinist henchmen? If we agreed that that would be a bad thing, would you then go away?

No, TM. Harald wants us to admit that they are already acting like Stalinist henchmen.

Maybe skepticism and differentiation could be deployed in more than one location at once.

It should be possible to both recognize and despise Trumpism, say, in all its stupidity and brutality, AND to look closely and questioningly at the new social movements: for example their dubious fondness for authority, their neo-essentialism, etc.

And to ask to what degree those movements and political styles fit quite neatly with aspects of neo-liberalism, e.g.:
https://www.teachforamerica.org/person/deray-mckesson

Timothy Burke’s implication is correct IMO, they are nationalists. Strong in group attachments, loudly expressed dissaproval of anyone who goes against the tribes myths and norms, virulent hatred for outsiders, worship of dead ancestors and traditions. I dont see it as a left right issue. At least theoretically liberalism should be more self critical than this. It’s a takeover by a nationalist elite.
Do I fear them? Not really, but (as would often be acknowledged on the left) privileged groups like this who are ensconced in powerful institutions and social networks will set the norms and rules of the future, and (as would often be acknowledged on the left) small committed groups can exert serious social control from the bottom up.
Colleges are playing the parts that the old national schools (or Madrasah) played. Teaching students in the rituals and obligations of the tribe. Teaching them to avenge their dead ancestors and drive out the heretics. It’s as old as dirt. I have little doubt that we’re living through the end of the old halcyon days of freewheeling hat tipping and contretemps a la jovial.
Millennialism comes to the millennials.

I finished undergrad in 2012 and never encountered any of these supposed threats to campus free speech from leftist radicals. In fact, I don’t think I’d even ever heard of such a thing. I’ll be heading back for grad school next year, I’ll have to be on the lookout.

We don’t know how Butler lives, or how his family lives. I don’t, anyway.

There’s a very useful comment here: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/11/identity-politics-and-the-erasure-of-class-from-american-political-discourse/comment-page-1#comment-1734952

…much less racism pervasive and serious enough to characterize it as not being treated “like a human,” but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

Well, what matters is what Butler feels isn’t it, and who can argue with his feelings?

“No, absolutely definitively, I would never say that my feelings of oppression and dehumanization at only getting paid $5 million when my male costars were getting $8 million in any compare or are more important than a victim of human trafficking, some poor 14-yr-old girl sold into sexual slavery dying before she’s 21. I have so much compassion for them, and am donating $5k. It is horrible of you to bring that up, whaddabouter brosocialist.

Now can we get back to talking about my feelings and experience of oppression, even from the left who pretend to be feminists? Hah.”

Roger Gathman at 69 asks ‘Why, I want to know, doesn’t Kaus-Chait have the courage to defend our fine Oklahoma boys who were chanting traditional songs of the south and hosting jungle parties’?

I will defend 100% their right to chant. If Chait won’t, then it is because he is not a consistent defender of free speech.

I’m with Aryeh Neier, refugee from the Nazis and director of the ACLU during the battle over the right of the Nazis to march through Skokie, Illinois: ‘Nazis must be free to speak because Jews must be free to speak and because I must be free to speak’.

If Chait won’t defend free speech then do you agree with Chait or with me?

@Roger Gathman

>But it does beg the question, why would a beacon of light and liberty, like the anti-Marxist U.S., sponsor slavery for some 70 years and apartheid for one hundred further years, and create, at University of Missouri, a white only eduction which refused to graduate a single black student until 1950? Is it cause the US was run by murderous thugs?

rarely have I seen a less begged question, but I’ll answer. For one, in 1775, every state in human history had sponsored slavery, and in 1860, most still did. The US was indeed run largely by slavers, but that did not make it exceptional. what made it exceptional was the number of people in it who were opposed to slaving. That you think the US’ slightly slower abandonment of barbaric principles compares to the unprecedented barbarism of the multiple communist genocides and mass slaughters says far more about your penchant for special pleading than your “begged” question says about chait.

cassander@74

bullshit

74, no. If the American slavers had been defeated good and properly in 1783, then slavery would have ended, as it did in Jamaica and other parts of the British empire, in 1833. The slaves in the US were a much higher percentage of the population than the population of the gulag even in 1937. So, you are wrong about this begged question. However, don’t thank me – I put enlightenment like this out there for free!

Roger @78 you are too kind to @74.

By cassander logic, we should perhaps view the Nazis as exceptionally humane in that they abandoned their barbaric practices after a mere 12-year trial period!

I haven’t been on a college campus since 1989, and can testify that what I am reading about is very, very familiar.
I remember the very same sort of blend of adolescent drama, mingled with sincere concern, applied over similar real world injustices such as aparthied, that caused the same sort of eye rolling and concern trolling by those outside the university.

Yes, young people do stupid stuff, often in pursuit of stupid goals, but often in pursuit of very real and urgent social problems.

I think its odd that when young zealous military recruits drunkenly make nativist slurs, or get out of control while stationed overseas, we toss it off as youth, but never use it as a cudgel against patriotism.
When earnest young missionaries become boorish about their faith, we don’t see handwringing articles about the looming Christian totalitarians.
When frat boys make racist slurs or drunkenly grope women, we assume it is an aberration of the Greek system, something rare and out of character.

Its only when zealous young people make pratfalls on the left, that people like Chait suddenly clutch their pearls.

Most of the time when frat boys do that, people see that as typical, not aberrational–at least in the circles I travel in.

@Roger Gathman

>74, no. If the American slavers had been defeated good and properly in 1783, then slavery would have ended, as it did in Jamaica and other parts of the British empire, in 1833. The slaves in the US were a much higher percentage of the population than the population of the gulag even in 1937. So, you are wrong about this begged question. However, don’t thank me – I put enlightenment like this out there for free!

Defeated by whom? in 1783, no national government had ever banned slavery. if the worst you have for the US is that it wasn’t 50 years ahead of the most progressive government on earth on this subject, that’s pretty faint condemnation.

> Nazi germany, in which some risked all by opposing naziism, should therefore be praised as the place where anti-nazis risked more than they did anywhere else.

the people who were anti-nazi in germany should certainly be praised more than anti-nazis elsewhere, inso far as they took a greater risk by doing so.

>That individuals in the US during the first 73 years of its existence opposed slavery had a lot to do with the fact that half of the US consisted of slave states.

again, in 1775, they were ALL slave states, as was every other state both in the world, and in all of history. I have no idea how you think that half the country banning slavery somehow proves that they were especially wicked slavers.

>Not to speak of the eviction of Indian nations from their territories, or the seizure of Mexican territories at the point of a gun, etc

you’ll have to point out where I said that was a good thing, because I don’t remember saying it. That, or stop thinking you’re clever for beating up strawmen.

@Sandwichman 1

By cassander logic, we should perhaps view the Nazis as exceptionally humane in that they abandoned their barbaric practices after a mere 12-year trial period!

except for the fact that the Nazis were more barbaric than their neighbors, not less, that they didn’t abandon their practices, they were militarily defeated, put on trial, and shot. So other than being completely inaccurate, sure!

Sandwichman at 73 asks me:

“So, on the one hand we have a problem as profound as the hyping of gluten-freedom; on the other a problem as trivial as climate science denial. I know where I would put my priorities. Do you?”

My assessment is that freedom of speech has to be one of the most questions today. Without it

Roger Gathman at 79 asks we with respect to the racist chanters and / or Nazis:

“are you defending their right to speech vis a vis not being put in prison, or their right to speech in all institutions?”

I would be extremely reluctant to silence them with institutional power. You try to get me to take the side of the bosses against the workers with the example of Ann Coulter. But if you ask me when employees should be sacked for speech acts, I say never so long as they are able to do their job.

That doesn’t mean I think that racists should suffer no consequences. Of course things very much depend on the specifics, but with the chanters I would suggest starting debates. With Nazis I would help organise counter demonstrations – and if they had any significant support it would be absolutely essential to challenge their ideas, too.

I think there is an important line between speech and assault. For sure institutional power and the law should be used against assault or incidents such as the fecal swastickas. We could debate where the line is – for me that would be examples such as cross burning on someone’s lawn.

I suspect in the end this is really where the essence of a lot of disagreement is. If words are taken to be a form of assault on the same level as physical violence, then I understand people will support regulation of speech on the same basis that they want to regulate violence.

But let’s look at the Yale case, which I think is a good reminder of what we are talking about.

This is from Erika Christakis’ email:

“I wonder, and I am not trying to be provocative: Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious… a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition. And the censure and prohibition come from above, not from yourselves! Are we all okay with this transfer of power? Have we lost faith in young people’s capacity—in your capacity ­ to exercise self­censure, through social norming, and also in your capacity to ignore or reject things that trouble you?”

It’s important to remember what sparked the protest and calls for resignation here. It was absolutely not whether unacceptable behaviour should be consequence free. Christakis’ question was NOT about whether norms should be enforced. Her question, tentatively raised, was whether students were capable of enforcing such norms (in relation to Halloween costumes) through self regulation.

I don’t think that students, or anyone else, should be OK with losing that capacity and giving it up to institutional authority.

JK @88 “My assessment is that freedom of speech has to be one of the most questions today. Without it”

I guess you meant to say “important”. Perhaps you intended “controversial,” “misunderstood,” “misrepresented,” “over dramatized.” “abused”…

When I was a lad there was no fucking freedom of speech. Sorry, but there wasn’t. You were not allowed to peacefully speak, leaflet or table against military recruitment on campus. UC. Berkeley. Look it up, folks.

Where were all these stout conservative defenders against political correctness in those days? Wanna bet they would be first in line to go down and join the students? More like writing editorial diatribes against the filthy radical scum.

Jk, I’m not trying to get you to take the bosses side against Ann Coulter – I remember this incident because, as I wrote on my blog, ironically (given her anti-union positions), she was not protected by any union. I don’t have a hard and fast rule about where institutions can clamp down on speech myself, but I don’t think the Oklahoma case is problematical. I’m not sure what counts as assault, but I think Oklahoma, given its past history of discrimination, has every reason to enforce rules to make black students comfortable, for the same reason that the allied occupiers banned Mein kampf in Germany after the war. Absolutism about speech always seems to me self contradictory. If I fire x who has given me bad advice I have acted upon, I am not violating his freedom of speech – although from an absolute perspective, of course I am. From the absolute perspective, no institution would have the right to discipline some male who made loud comments about the physical attributes of female workers. I don’t even see, from an absolute viewpoint, how an institution could respond in any way. To label the speech an assault in this case and not in others seems to me to weasel out of the libertarian dilemma. Myself, I am also a weaseler. I’d punish the guy who kept calling his boss or manager a shithead, but the guy trying to unionize the joint, in my opinion, should enjoy full rights to do so.

Sandwichman 89
The first amendment to the U.S. Constitution clearly states that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” It doesn’t say I can’t tell you to shut your stinking pie-hole, you fascist, racist, sexist pig. It doesn’t even say that the University of California can’t tell you to shut your pie-hole.

This is a side pt, but it’s well-established that the 1st amendment applies to ‘state actors’, not just to Congress. So, as a general matter and w/o getting into doctrinal specifics (which I’m not competent to do anyway), the 1st amend. does apply to U. of California b.c it’s a state university.

“@seldo: Hell hath no fury like a bunch of white guys asked politely to make a small, cost-free change to their vocabulary.”

Yep.
/Frankly I have almost given up commenting on these threads as it is always the usual suspects saying the same predictable things.
// Jon Chait is the worst example of the kind of “sensible liberal” hippy puncher so popular in today’s media. I refuse to take anything he writes seriously.

MPAVictoria@96: You mean like this incident, for example?
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/06/07/about-that-hate-crime-i-committed-at-university-of-chicago

I am reluctant to cite it, not only since it is a long read, but since it remains within a traditional culture wars “check your vocabulary” paradigm. And what is interesting about the current conjuncture is the ways in which it goes far beyond that. And makes the kind of statement you quoted disingenuous and smug smug smug.

101. Agreed. That’s why Germain Greer refers to trans-gendered people as ‘self-castrating males,’ not women.

Personally, I’m generally quite impressed by how smoothly the PC process generally works. The really egregious crimes, where communities of self-selecting males are allowed to systematically rape and abuse vulnerable young girls over a period of years by Labour lefties who say nothing lest they be accused of racism or Islamaphobia demand attention: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28967427 , as do the ongoing ‘honor’ killings deemed normal by large sections of certain communities. We are different, Thank God, and don’t hang gay people from cranes or stone adulterers to day (anymore!).

As for the ‘author’ Henry cites here, his grotesque attacks on common sense and any anti-war critic during the run-up to the Iraq debacle freed me from ever having to give him more than a thought.

Sam D.@101 Don’t want to sidetrack the thread, but…

I know that was a long text – I said it was – but if you really claim that then a) you simply didn’t read it and/or b) you are giving up on the difficulties of thought in favor of cueing up your own stereotypes.

@Garrulous:

I’m pretty sure I did read it and I stand by my opinion. It’s a classic example of outraged entitlement, complete with “here is my extensive progressive CV”, “why is my valuable allyship not fêted and respected”, and “the people I offended and refuse to apologise to are the real bigots”. Textbook stuff.

@106 Does all offense expressed have to be accepted as such? What if it is an unreasonable taking of offense? What if he doesn’t owe them an apology, but rather they are being obnoxious, aggressive, stupid and over-sensitive?

Or does the mere constellation – self-declared offense, man of a particular gender and color implicated – lead necessarily to your moral conclusion?

In my reading, he has nothing in particular to apologize for, in fact those who accuse him do. In other words, the pat situational stereotype presented by MPA V, and enthusiastically echoed by you, simply doesn’t apply. But wheeling out those stereotypes seems convenient and comforting to many.

@Garrilous Does all offense expressed have to be accepted as such?

No – anyone can choose to be deliberately rude or cruel if they wish. But equally, the rest of us can judge their behaviour.

What if he doesn’t owe them an apology, but rather they are being obnoxious, aggressive, stupid and over-sensitive?

“This student became so incensed by our refusal to [make a small cost-free change to our vocabulary] that this student stormed out of the seminar. In tears.” – Dan Savage

I’m just going to leave that there, to be honest.

#110- to be honest, leaving it there is not really okay. Because the next step was that Dan fucking Savage was been accused of a “hate crime.” And the people who promised to maintain confidentiality of the event breached it, making that sort of event no longer possible. The whole point of the event was that whatever was said would not leave the room, and these people just don’t give a shit about that, because their childish drama is more important.

Dan Savage has to defend himself against the charge of committing a “hate crime.” That’s something you might want to leave there. To be honest.

There is no such thing as PC. It’s an appellation applied to universal political tactics. Something only becomes PC when people want to smear leftists. Case in point:

Michelle Malkin pitches a fit when google puts up a Cesar Chavez doodle on Easter.

http://twitchy.com/2013/03/31/google-celebrates-easter-with-cesar-chavez-birthday-tribute/

The AFA and Matt Barber claim that putting rainbow stickers on Mississippi businesses amounts to Christian persecution

http://barbwire.com/2014/05/28/homofascist-bullies-launch-anti-christian-sticker-campaign-ms/

Gun rights activist successfully intimidate gun store owner to stop selling smart guns

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/02/us-usa-maryland-smartgun-idUSBREA410SD20140502

Conservatives have predictable tantrum over rainbow Doritos

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/09/want_to_know_what_gay_tastes_like_try_rainbow_doritos.html

The Game of Life shoves the homosexual agenda down conservatives throats

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/15/conservative-christian-site-decries-game-of-lifes-gay-agenda/

Liberty University bans College Democratic club

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052200793.html

If you file off the serial numbers, you would not be able to tell which side of the political spectrum these stories came from. The gun store example is particularly instructive. Can you imagine the outrage if liberal actors had done that to a gun store, or banned a College Republican Club? As to the rest, they’re basically identical to the “Microaggressions” that conservatives scoff at and use to paint liberals as thin skinned whiny babies, all of it completely ignored by the MSM. On the subject of colleges, I invite you to peruse the various codes of conduct at conservative Christian universities, which make the various “PC” incidents on liberal campuses look tame by comparison. Here’s a little teaser from Pensacola Christian College:

Dancing—The seductive nature and worldly music of most forms of dancing are contrary to biblical principles. PCC wants students to have a wholesome relationship with members of the opposite gender without the temptations that are often associated with dancing, so dancing is not permitted.

Look, we’re not going to agree. You think that it’s fine for a bunch of 18 year olds to smear a good man’s reputation in order to promote themselves, and I don’t. You think it’s okay for a bunch of children to disrupt events in order to dramatize themselves, and I don’t. We have reached a point in which everyone thinks that they are the stars of their own reality shows, and you think that’s okay, and I don’t. We don’t have a lot of common ground here.

“ut none of those facts, as fundamental and significant as they may be, is a justification, or excuse, or even relevant to, mobbing and threatening student journalists in a public space; threatening the person and livelihood of professors who hold classes when you don’t want them to; trashing and de-funding a student newspaper that funds an op-ed you disagree with; threatening the livelihood of a professor who is insufficiently supportive of Halloween costume regulations; spitting on free speech (with actual spit); disposing of sexual assault cases, and male students, with mockeries of due process; spitting on free speech (more figuratively) in the pages of the NYT, WaPo, and yes, The New Yorker; and censoring (sorry, “no platforming”) talks by insufficiently fashionable feminists, and others.”

Yes because riots, protests, people over reacting and what not never happened on University campuses before now….

And what are the children actually saying? Yes that message is being drowned out, because, beyond hiring a bunch of senior diversity administrators (easy, and now done), it is much harder to deal with the climate of intense, unrelenting unwelcomeness POC feel at all colleges in the US. Beyond the near daily shootings, bomb threats, and violence, there is the active skepticism of our presence on campus.

Read Professor Bonilla to get a glimpse:
https://www.facebook.com/eduardo.bonillasilva.7/posts/10153801849099668

Stalinism at Yale:

(1) Some Yale students take the opportunity of Halloween to dress up as racial stereotypes and the like.

(2) University administration sends out e-mail prior to Halloween this year urging students to think about their costume choices in light of not being a jerk to other people, if possible. No new official policy or threat of sanction is included.

(3) Spouse of residential college master, which position does in fact carry with it a tradition of more than providing an “intellectual space” for students in that college, sends out response to administration e-mail, invoking spectre of small children unable to dress as Indian princesses to defend student “self-regulation.” This is received by many on campus as (a) tone-deaf at best, and (b) dishonest at worst as a response to an e-mail encouraging students to self-regulate in this matter.

(4) Students protest response, and some call for residential college master to be removed from that particular position (while retaining their separate academic appointment), as they believe the response weakens the well-established support role of Yale masters. Master engages protestors in dialogue, with one student becoming loudly angry about her objections.

(5) Students rally outside an event organized by a campus organization named after the author of God and Man at Yale, partly in protest of a speaker’s joke about Native American genocide. Authorities remove a single disruptive student from event.

(6) As various related long-standing issues bubble up to the surface, a larger rally is held demanding greater administrative attention to these matters. President engages protestors in dialogue.

(7) Some students speaking at a debate on affirmative action express regret that the debate had not been postponed. The debate proceeds without incident.

(8) Racist signs are posted on campus by outside agitators.

(9) ???

(10) All free-thinking defenders of First Amendment rights are fired / expelled from Yale, then dragged off to a gulag on West Rock.

Please note that this is all taking place at a university where many of those currently howling about “political correctness” and “suppression of free expression” attacked the appointment of Juan Cole to a professorship, an offer that ended up being overruled by the university administration. It would also be interesting to see where these valorous champions of free expression stood on the Salaita matter, or the 2008 politically-motivated firing of the president of William & Mary (The answer could surprise you!). Well, as long as no actual spit was involved …

“Wait… you haven’t been criticizing them this whole time?”

Well I thought it was clear I was talking about what is acceptable in current left activist discourse, but if you want to have a discussion of free will and the possibility of independent action I’m all for it.

@121, I think you are minimizing the gravity of this grave situation.
As a great man once wrote: first they came for my neighbor’s Little Black Sambo book, and I said nothing. Then they passed the Brady bill and my neighbor had to get a licence for his automatic rifles, and still I said nothing. And then they came for my asian nerd student costume, and nobody was there to say anything for me. This, in poetic form, sums up the Stalinism that has been visited on us since the sixties. I hope you are happy. Look about you at the ruins of our civilization, and cry.
Or vote Trump! and make america great again.

#118 – “what the “children” are actually saying.”

The children in the particular case that you and I were discussing are calling Dan Savage a criminal. That is what they are “actually saying.”

“we do at least seem to agree that this about privilege outraged by insubordination.”

Actually, no. One of us thinks that the particular case we were discussing is about immature people who believe that the world needs to come to a stop whenever they open their mouths. The other of us thinks that such people have a right to monopolize whatever conversation they are part of, and that if they are not catered to they have been the victims of a hate crime.

The evidence out of Mizzou is consistent with a culture of racism among the fraternities, which are extremely difficult for universities to control, as they are independently funded and they are their alumni are powerful. If that is what is going on, it will take a concerted effort by the non-fraternity student body and the faculty to force the administration to take on the fraternities.

“a culture of racism among the fraternities, ” no, don’t blame it on fraternities, as they are not all alike. The Pan-Hellenic (historically POC) have been very supportive of the whole protest. More importantly, don’t blame fraternities because it lets HWCU that don’t have a greek culture to get a pass, even though they are just as hostile to POC as Mizzou or pre-civil war Alabama.

There’s too much mixing and matching going on in this conversation. Rules of etiquette are not the same as suppression of free speech and exactly what those rules are have to be negotiated and renegotiated. In a dispute over manners, there’s nothing wrong with somebody raising an unreasonable demand.

If some twerp wants to call me a “cisgender male,” that’s their problem, not mine. But I reserve the right to object that it’s a distinction without a difference — at least beyond the intention of stigmatizing me as congenitally “privileged” and thus without standing in any discussion about oppression. Go ahead. Make my day. Check my privilege. Trigger my itchy finger.

As for the regulation of speech by the State, slander, libel, perjury and fraudulent misrepresentation are not protected speech. Exactly what constitutes slander, libel etc. is a matter of judgment, legal or otherwise. An awful lot of what passes for political discourse, at least in the U.S.A. borders on slander, libel, fraud… Some of it undoubtedly crosses the line.

The liberal ideal of free speech thus appears as somewhat of a chimera. In what respect is it interfering with the constitutional rights of a presidential candidate to expose the fact that he is peddling outright lies that impugn the reputations of innocent people?

Now, as for the Chait/Kaus identity switch, I think Chait suffers from a recurring Walter Mitty daydream in which he heroically faces a firing squad of “murderous left-wing thugs.”

It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. Chait stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking. . . . He put his shoulders back and his heels together. “To hell with the handkerchief,” said Jonathan scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Jonathan Chait the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.

No – “religious” here is not really about transcendental principles as such. More like a worldview which presumes and celebrates the transcendental righteousness of a group or a position.

Yes, the average Pharisee considered himself a highly moral figure, a model to others.

“He’s certainly an arsehole.”
He’s done an enormous amount to help young gay people.
And the people who said he’d committed a hate crime were not acting out of stress. They are waging a campaign of character assassination. Either they are foolish children or they are evil adults. Take your pick.

I’d have thought “religious” in the original comment meant something like: not open to rational objection. That may be right or wrong, but it at least makes sense. Instead, I can’t even understand what people are arguing about (I was going to say “disagreeing”, but I’m not sure this rises to the level of disagreement.)

“I didn’t go to college, so maybe I missed this, but is making sure minorities endure lot of offensive slurs a core part of the experience?”

Apparently.

“He’s certainly an arsehole. I don’t — and you shouldn’t — expect unreasonable levels of precision in language from people who are under stress, and dealing with arseholes is stressful.”

Seems reasonable to me. When I’m stressed I accuse people of hate crimes. Or when they disagree with me. And I usually direct these accusations at people who have devoted their lives to combating hate crimes and saving the lives of countless young marginalized people.

@geo
Since you recommended Jim Sleeper’s piece, I read it. I found it rather disappointing.
Here’s Sleeper:
…as was clear Wednesday night, when four panels composed mostly of Yalies of color spoke to thousands of us Yale people of all colors who packed into Battell Chapel to hear their accounts and assessments. There was some racial “theater” in a few lines I could have done without, but almost all of what I heard came from the speakers’ hearts and their deepest humanity.

So what *did* he hear? He doesn’t say. Not a single solitary word. Not a single example. Nothing. Instead we get observations at the end about civil society, liberalism, and the market, which cd have been recycled from anything Sleeper has written over the years.

I could go on, but since I’m in a less than generous mood, I won’t. Just … meh. Basically unobjectionable in its outlook, but not really a good piece.

Bloix: “And the people who said he’d committed a hate crime were not acting out of stress. They are waging a campaign of character assassination.”

To state the obvious: Your accusation is that the students said something that you find objectionable. Maybe it is objectionable but it’s speech. You are highlighting the central contraditction of all anti-PC discourse, a contradiction that I have never seen addressed by any anti-PC crusader, certainly not by Chait:
The discursive strategy of anti-PC is exactly the same as the discursive strategy of PC, namely to delegitmmize certain kinds of speech. It is transparentlly dishonest how anti-PCers try to paint themselves as pro- free speech and their opponents as anti-free speech when what they are doing is exactly the same thing.

Imagine someone with a profound hatred of the color orange. On the street, he sees someone wearing a hi-ves orange vest and start shouting at them to take it off. He passes a bookstore and sees a copy of “Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit” in the window – he approaches the owner, demanding that the book be removed and threatening to start a boycott of her store if she does not comply. Seeing an orange light at a traffic junction, he calls some friends and they march en masse to the city council, insisting on an end to the visibility inflicted on them without consent. An official comes out to speak to them, asking “I don’t get it. What is the difficulty with orange, really?” A number of people in the crowd react angrily: how dare he speak about this problem with such levity? How dare he, who has never suffered as they, even allow himself to have that word pass his lips? They demand his resignation.

151 – Garrulous.

Did you pick the colour orange randomly? Because if I replay your scenario in my mind but place it in Northern Ireland then it doesn’t look nearly as absurd as I think you mean to imply.

“The discursive strategy of anti-PC is exactly the same as the discursive strategy of PC, namely to delegitmmize certain kinds of speech. It is transparentlly dishonest how anti-PCers try to paint themselves as pro- free speech and their opponents as anti-free speech when what they are doing is exactly the same thing.”

And this comment wins the thread. We can shut the internet down and go home folks.

The discursive strategy of anti-PC is exactly the same as the discursive strategy of PC, namely to delegitmmize certain kinds of speech.

This is, of course, false. First of all…hold on… as I was saying, first of all, it frames the issue as “PC” vs “anti-PC”, which can then be glossed as “people who want only butterflies and rainbows, and those Bad People”, but instead the issue is “free speech” vs “official suppression of speech”. People defending free speech don’t only defend the speech of those they agree with, and even if they do, that is not the same as trying to stifle the speech they disagree with.

Physically mobbing a student journalist to remove them from a public space is not “discursive strategy,” stealing and destroying student newspapers is not “discursive strategy,” spitting on people is not “discursive strategy,” presuming guilt and trashing due process is not “discursive strategy”.

I can see where demanding that people lose positions because they disagree with you, or demanding that the free expression of others be officially sanctioned, or demanding that a student newspaper be de-funded because it published an op-ed you disagreed with, is “discursive strategy,” but it is one of opposition to free speech, and should be met with the “discursive strategy” of disagreement.

And contrawise, disagreeing with someone is not, in itself, harassment or violence or abuse.

“But it’s not. According to the current received wisdom, Greer’s position is not something to be argued against and defeated by reason and evidence – it is something that must not be said.”

Reread this. And then apologize.

Heartening to see so many conservatives suddenly embracing second-wave feminism. I do wonder if the consciousness-raising sessions might be a bit long-winded though.

The discursive strategy of anti-PC is exactly the same as the discursive strategy of PC, namely to delegitmmize certain kinds of speech.

This is, of course, false.

Physically mobbing a student journalist to remove them from a public space is not “discursive strategy,” stealing and destroying student newspapers is not “discursive strategy,” spitting on people is not “discursive strategy,” presuming guilt and trashing due process is not “discursive strategy”.

No, it is the same. Your examples of what is not “discursive strategy” are isolated incidents. Chait is not condemning isolated incidents, he is attacking the whole “PC movement” or whatever you wish to call them (and by extension Marxism in general, apparently), as if all were equally guilty of those wrongs.

And Chait’s broad brush approach most definitely frames the issue as “PC” vs “anti-PC” (or wait, by alluding that if PC “thugs” took over the government it would end with millions dead in a nightmare of neo-Stalinism supposed to portray things in a positive light?)

“I have no idea what you are trying to say. Reread my own comment?”

Yes go back and reread your comment. Then really think about it.

“Physically mobbing a student journalist to remove them from a public space is not “discursive strategy,” stealing and destroying student newspapers is not “discursive strategy,” spitting on people is not “discursive strategy,” presuming guilt and trashing due process is not “discursive strategy”.

To the contrary, this is a part of the rough and tumble of public life. I am rather astonished by the generation of delicate conservatives, who apparently are as fragile as flowers.
Here’s a rather typical story. In 1997, in New Haven, news came of the shooting to death of a black kid in East Haven. The story is here: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/17/nyregion/tangled-aftermath-of-a-killing-by-police.html?pagewanted=all I was living in New Haven at the time, and joined the march through East Haven, which was organized by the kind of people the Chaits and the Kauses abhor – probably Marxists, maybe feminists or, worse, “civil rights” leaders. It was a peaceful march in the street, with the usual chanting. Spectators from East Haven lined the sidewalks and booed. At one point, somebody had set up a stand and was dispensing lemonaid. Well, it turned out this person was a clever New Havenite who had diluted piss with a little water. Ho ho!
I thought it was a sick trick, but it was not the end of the world, or even an indication of some larger “ideological” problem with that closed community. In the heat of battle, whether in the rivalry between football team fans or on the hustings, shit – or, as in this case, piss – happens. Trump has his bodyguards remove a Latino reporter. A Mizzou group hustles a reporter from a student newspaper away from a scene. To describe this excitedly as the prelude to totalitarianism shows that one is very young, or hypocritical, or simply stupid. It has become common to hire guards at political events and force people from opposition groups who are spotted to leave. I fail to see this as the end of the world of light and liberty as we know it.

“To the contrary, this is a part of the rough and tumble of public life. I am rather astonished by the generation of delicate conservatives, who apparently are as fragile as flowers.”

I agree that charges of pc-terror are overblown and used strategically on the right to de-legitimize student activists, and there’s a huge amount of bullying and silencing and verbal nastiness directed at marginalized groups that is unreported and usually invisible.

But you seem to imply everyone who has a problem with some of the examples discussed on the thread is a conservative, which is clearly not the case, and b) it’s not clear all of the examples that have been discussed in this thread fall equally under the rubric of “rough and tumble.” That seems dismissive and too easy.

Ironically, a major argument on the right is precisely that incidents like the one at Yale proves left wing students cannot handle debate as “a part of the rough and tumble of public life.”

You don’t have to like or agree with Chait to think there are problems with the way some student activists operate – not least because their actions are a propaganda windfall for the right.

@167 WTF? Tricking people into drinking piss is borderline assault, not a sick trick. That person should have been reported to the police.

MPAVictoria@157

‘Reread this. And then apologize.’

I appreciate saying this is opening myself up to accusations of being a conservative troll or something, but I can’t help wondering if responding to someone who is criticising people for being thin-skinned by demanding an apology for something without an explanation of what it is, isn’t kind of proving Bloix’s point in some way.

167, maybe the person was reported to the police. Myself, I think all too many things end up being regulated by the police, but I wouldn’t argue against this case. Except what police would you report it to? The East Haven cops? It wouldn’t surprise me if the trick had been thought up by the East Haven cops.
If you are part of a left leaning demonstration, here’s one of the rules: the cops are not your friends.

On the Savage incident: he was criticised for saying a word *while explaining why he no longer uses it*. He was referring to the word itself, metalinguistically, not actually using it to refer to anyone, and he was doing that precisely in order to speak *against* its use. A word that has come to be used only to refer to itself is a dead word. And yet someone claimed to be offended by the very fact that the word was being physically uttered, regardless of the purpose; the mere occurrence of this specific series of sound waves in the air was unacceptable to them. This is sheer idiocy, an obvious infantile attempt at attention seeking and self-assertion, and the fact that people here defend something like this is one proof that, unfortunately, there really is a problem with PC. Other arguments (‘come on, we all know Savage is a great person’, ‘have respect for the elders!’, even ‘it was confidential’) are beside the point.

As for being ‘politely asked to make a small cost-free change to one’s vocabulary’ – the question should always be whether the specific change is justified or pointless. Acceding to pointless demands, no matter how easy to comply with, is a symbolic humiliation, just like making pointless demands, no matter how easy to comply with, is a symbolic self-assertion. Symbolic humiliations are generally unpleasant to human beings, and they are often a prelude to more substantial ones. Informally stigmatising and ostracising people for not acceding to *pointless* demands may not be technically censorship, but is a practice harmful to free and rational discourse. As for language specifically, a person’s language use is felt to be part of who they are, changing it is inconvenient and it is normal that one only agrees to change them when one has a good reason to. That is not to say that there sometimes isn’t a good reason, but that needs to be demonstrated; simply pointing at the ease of complying (and at the very presence of a demand) is not a sufficient justification.

PatrickInIowa, students have strong incentives to figure out who the good students are and the bad ones. If you know that certain students were admitted under a weaker standard, you know they are less likely to be good ones. It’s completely irrelevant how you know this, or what feature lets you know this. And remember, the complaint Numbers made wasn’t that students judge the abilities of their fellow students, but that they suspect that black people benefit from weak admission standards. I wonder why they would think that, when public universities have repeatedly gone to the courts to seek the right to do just that!

js., clearly you didn’t get the memo about nuance being dead.

@177 “…and the fact that people here defend something like this is one proof that, unfortunately, there really is a problem with PC.”

1. people here defend juvenile attention seeking, ergo
2. …
3. there really is a problem with PC, ergo
4. …
5. THE GULAG!

Aside from a few missing steps to be filled in by administrative staff, an impeccable argument! It has evidence, deduction and conclusion. The rest is, as they say, doctrinal specifics.

For the record, I’ve got no use for idiots who falsely accuse of Dan Savage of hate crimes. But their behavior is symptomatic of idiocy, not something called “political correctness.” People who defend such idiots don’t do so because they believe it is politically correct to do so. They do so because they agree with, or sympathize with the idiots. Hey, I’m all for giving idiots a break but when they step over the line into slander, they are committing a sin, calumny.

They are sinners! Let he, she or it who is without sin throw the first stone.

So we have idiots, idiot sympathizers and moral panic over the suspicion that idiot sympathy is a symptom of some kind of leftist malaise. This is why we cannot have good things.

@kidneystones: My thoughts exactly. The times when I’ve been given the resources to really help struggling students by practicing over and over what they need to be successful have been some of the better moments of my teaching. But it’s a heck of a lot easier to buy yet another administrator instead of ensure that schools in California are adequately funded and properly run.

Re the “dear god”: you’re misunderstanding me. And since that bit is liable to be misunderstood, let me say: I think it’s abundantly clear that DS isn’t and wasn’t guilty of a hate crime. On the other hand, the semantics of use vs. mention are hideously complicated, and there’s a plausible and not uncommon view in the phil. of language that mention implies use. So that you cant actually disavow the semantic content of a term by putting quotes around it. In fact, about a decade or more ago I heard a talk by Susan Hornsby (I’m on a phone so you’ll have to look her up) precisely on this topic where she argued that if one finds a term objectionable such that one wouldn’t use it, one should be committed to not mentioning it either, on logical grounds. That’s what I meant when I said that the question is more complicated than it initially appears.

How long before somebody attributes the terror attacks in Paris to “political correctness”?

Fr. Jonathan MorrisVerified account ‏@fatherjonathan 3h3 hours ago
Paris news station just said it’s not clear if timed, coordinated massacre in Paris is “terror”. Blind political correctness.

I admit error. The D-word should never be said. Unless you’re Jeff Bridges. Otherwise, no.

And on and on… On it like a dirty shirt.

Polaris ‏@polaris01usa 6m6 minutes ago
France is reaping the fruits of slavish political correctness. Not pretty, but true. #Paris #ParisAttacks

Joe Flacko ♏️ ‏@hennessy610 7m7 minutes ago
..over 100 people killed by terrorists in Paris and you no good liberal bastards worried about political correctness

CRITICAL NEWS ‏@PressSecret 39m39 minutes ago
CRITICAL NEWS Retweeted Luke Johnson
Political correctness is a tool of the fool. In #Paris, a war against humanity. All things must be considered. CRITICAL NEWS added,

Victor Nikki ‏@hapkidobigdad 44m44 minutes ago
#MillionStudentMarch
Whenever you addled brained pusses wake from ur stupor, look at the Paris HT &see what ur political correctness wrought
5 retweets 6 likes

G A on Rock 94 1/2 ‏@GARock945 45m45 minutes ago
When political correctness dictates you cannot profile,Paris will happen here,but hey,we stopped granny trying to fly with excess shampoo.
7 retweets 9 likes

Matthew Sewell ‏@MatthewJSewell 52m52 minutes ago
“We mistake political correctness for charity, shallow optimism for hope and an ideology for faith.” https://shar.es/15OR1B #Paris
3 retweets 0 likes

East Coast Driving ‏@eastcoastdriv 59m59 minutes ago
Never back down from your opinion. Don’t let political correctness interfere with the truth. #Paris #ParisAttack
0 retweets 1 like

John RatzenbergerVerified account ‏@Dratzenberger 1h1 hour ago
Tragedy in Paris. Is political correctness gelding Western Civilization?
19 retweets 36 likes

Non-Entity ‏@GeorgeScumbag 1h1 hour ago
Paris has survived the Hundred Years War, plague rats and the Nazis, but Political Correctness will kill it as dead as Dillinger.
0 retweets 1 like

Peter Bax ‏@peterbax50 1h1 hour ago
This Paris attack is well organised, done by trained people living amongst us. That’s how political correctness pays off
1 retweet 3 likes

Jallenator ‏@jallen191 2h2 hours ago
Have a very strong feeling the Paris attacks will change everything. The end of political correctness, the start of police states?
0 retweets 1 like

Aka @Clickman8 ‏@Asher_P_Fly 2h2 hours ago
Screw #PoliticalCorrectness! I’m coming out of the closet with the following admission; I have Islamophobia! There…I said it! Pray 4 #Paris
5 retweets 12 likes

Caleb Franz ‏@CalebFranz 2h2 hours ago
Political correctness literally kills. Call it like it is. Radical Islamism. #Paris
0 retweets 3 likes

Jaco ‏@Moesamoeroep 3h3 hours ago
We can no longer for the sake of political correctness ignore the fact that we have an issue. #Paris #Humanity
48 retweets 62 likes

TSEC ‏@TomTSEC 3h3 hours ago
Which is more important in #Paris ? Weak science on climate control or real threats from extremist Islamacists and political correctness?
9 retweets 4 likes

Alex Kirby ‏@AlexJKirby 3h3 hours ago Indianapolis, IN
This will be on our shores if we continue to ignore the threat. Remember that during the next election. Political correctness kills. #Paris
5 retweets 8 likes

Prez ‏@PrezDog 3h3 hours ago
Prayers for #Paris. Haven’t we had enough political correctness? These dogs have to be exterminated.
4 retweets 3 likes

FaceMask ‏@FaceMaskYid 3h3 hours ago
We let political correctness bring murderers & savages into Europe & now law-abiding citizens are paying for it with their lives. #Paris
20 retweets 22 likes

Samuel Gregg ‏@DrSamuelGregg 3h3 hours ago
Live web feed on what is happening in Paris: http://www.france24.com/en/livefeed This is what happens when political correctness denies reality.
1 retweet 3 likes

Victor Nikki ‏@hapkidobigdad 3h3 hours ago
How many more Paris attacks is it going to take to shake you PC imbeciles awake. Your Political Correctness kills.
8 retweets 8 likes

MephistoFish ‏@mephistofish 3h3 hours ago
Remembrance Day- remember that? That was about freedom – well you fucking lefties created this. Well done. #PoliticalCorrectness #Paris
0 retweets 1 like

Tomas Leon ‏@tome212121 3h3 hours ago
“Refugees” did it, but political correctness obssesed western media will never say it . #parisattack #paris #isis #terrorism #islamisevil
3 retweets 3 likes

Pastor Dan Haight ‏@Pastordjh 3h3 hours ago
Political correctness already abounds in the Paris reporting. Call it like it is #Terrorism
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Niki ‏@nikicucina 3h3 hours ago
Deadly shooting & explosions in Paris. Believed 2 be Islamic terrorists. Chaotic! Enough w/ political correctness, they are at war with us!
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Benjamin Kanarek ‏@benjaminkanarek 3h3 hours ago
Fuck Political Correctness! Islamic Extremists have declared war on the City of Paris! It is time to Kick some serious ASS!
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Fr. Jonathan MorrisVerified account ‏@fatherjonathan 4h4 hours ago
Paris news station just said it’s not clear if timed, coordinated massacre in Paris is “terror”. Blind political correctness.
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Nick Miranda ‏@nrmiranda 4h4 hours ago Chesterfield, MO
26 killed in Paris (so far),we are committing suicide by political correctness;when will we get proactive and kill them, then ask questions?
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jm ‏@jm83nj 4h4 hours ago
Paris political correctness and cowardice unfortunately is paid back with the blood of innocent civilians. Prayers are with you 🇫🇷 👏
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Jacob Wohl ‏@jacobwohl 4h4 hours ago
This is what happens when political correctness is more important to leaders than national security. #Paris

Hey Sandwichman,
Get away from the computer and go take a walk. Some reflection will do you good.

me: “Physically mobbing a student journalist to remove them from a public space is not “discursive strategy,” stealing and destroying student newspapers is not “discursive strategy,” spitting on people is not “discursive strategy,” presuming guilt and trashing due process is not “discursive strategy”.

Roger Gathman@167: “To the contrary, this is a part of the rough and tumble of public life.”

The “rough and tumble of public life”? This raises so many questions about just what you think is acceptable. If the mob had smashed the student journalist’s camera, would that have been OK with you? Could they have delivered a good old-fashioned rough-and-tumble beat-down, is that OK? How about pepper spray or tasers for violators of university quad safe spaces, there’s usually no permanent damage, so no problem, right? Apparently urine-aid is no big deal, and spitting on people is OK, how about throwing shit at them, is that cool? I mean, only people who have said hurtful things. If stealing and destroying newspapers is OK, how about denial of service or other digital attacks on webservers with bad opinions, you’re good with that? How do you feel about “false flag” operations? Doxxing? Bomb threats and pulling fire alarms to disrupt discussion panels you disapprove of? Just what are the limits of rough-and-tumble action in the service of a righteous cause, such as collegiate Halloween costume regulations or 10-part grovelling apologies from administrators?

Yeah… the thing you think I’m saying is not the thing I’m saying.

js.: the described view may exist in phil of language, but I doubt that it is common. Are you thinking of Jennifer Hornsby? She’s written on derogatory terms, but as far as I can tell not to say that they cannot be mentioned without being used. From her Meaning and Uselessness: How to Think About Derogatory Words: “Certainly there are occurrences of derogatory words that are utterly inoffensive… because they are examples in which it is part of the speaker’s message that she has no use for the word… This paper would have to be very abstract indeed if derogatory words could not even be mentioned” (she includes ‘nigger’ 15 times in the paper, along with many other slurs).

As to the broader points: I’m not sure why we have to fit ‘p.c.’ into a right/left olympics over who’s shittier. I don’t like petty leftwing authoritarianism and conformism. I don’t think that this commits me to anything at all when it comes to whether I think it’s the greatest danger confronting the nation, or whether I’d prefer my petty leftwing authoritarianism to my rightwing authoritarianism.

I went to a Krishnamurti school as a kid (left wing pseudo-guru social critic and inspiration to lots of new age hippies). They taught us wonderful social values that I still cherish to this day. They were also bent on conformism who simply could not accept that we might not all agree at the end of the day. And so they treated dissidents with the most passive-aggressive social pressures they could marshall up, always, always in the sanctimonious terms that said dissident was wounding the community, punishment was self-defense and–ultimately– healing, etc. It wasn’t exactly the gulag, as I am currently living to tell the tale, but it WAS stupid, and often very self-serving, and certainly not a celebration of the dignity and autonomous moral sense of every individual.

On the balance, I’m still glad I went there! I turned out pretty all right. But the bad parts were bad–and I get frustrated when we’re not supposed to be able to perceive that (or, at least, it is unspeakable in polite company to actually point it out) because of our presumed allegiance to the greater team.

Not sure if you’re being ironic, but the reason we are talking about it is that Dan Savage was accused of a hate crime in those circumstances.

@203 Yes and yes. I have no problem telling people to fuck off when they are being bone ignorant, or when they are engaging in precisely the trivialization of tragedy they accuse others of.

They haven’t counted the bodies yet, and France will be on lock-down and here you are trying to use the tragedy in Paris for a gotcha fail. It’s so you.

I’ve heard from just one friend based in Paris and I’m still waiting to hear from others in who are themselves very likely in a state of shock. Just heard now from another as I tap, thank god.

It’s a teachable moment! Asshole.

SH @203: I’m not being ironic. I said in my first comment on this topic that it was wrong to accuse DS of hate speech, and then again that it’s “abundantly clear” that DS wasn’t guilty of a hate crime. I’m not sure how many more ways I can put it.

Probably no good beating a dead horse here, but I just can’t help myself:
I hereby declare that ‘Herrenrasse’ is a Nazi ideological term, and Nazism is evil.
I hereby declare that ‘The White Man’s Burden’ is a colonialist ideological term, and colonialism is evil.
However, it is apparently ‘plausible’ to claim that that due to my very typing the words ‘Herrenrasse’ and ‘The White Man’s Burden’, I ‘can’t actually disavow’ Nazism and colonialism.
Many commenters here have declared that ‘political correctness’ is a right-wing term for something that doesn’t exist, and believe that right-wing politics is evil.
However, it is apparently ‘plausible’ to claim that due to their very typing the term ‘political correctness’, these commenters ‘can’t actually disavow’ the right-wing attacks against alleged ‘political correctness’.
Also, never mention the bear by his name or else he’ll come and eat our livestock! Just call him ‘Ole Brownie’.
Also, kill him! He said ‘Jehovah’! (oops)
It does take some intellectual sophistication to bring us all the way back to this sort of thing.
That’s it, done here. Sorry for the momentary levity, I hope nobody reading this is mourning.

Roger Gathman 209: you didn’t really clarify your boundaries on acceptable actions, and you mentioned a lot of irrelevancies, but I’m happy to hear that you’re against stealing newspapers. Although, you “don’t find it shocking”. I suppose there are people in the world who do, but what does that matter?

You mention the decades-ago demagogueries of Reagan, or recent ones of Trump, as though they are relevant, although I don’t see how. You mention a “safe space” principle, as though a public area such as a state university quad can be made private at whim, and in particular from journalists. You mention the “much more real issue, which is one of class and race privilege”, as though ending those things required abandoning civil liberties.

You mention “the academy’s failure, generally, to take apart structures that have been there since apartheid days”. As I look at the “Amherst Uprising” manifesto, I see: demands for general apologies from administrators; a demand for some people to be censored and to be required to receive extensive training for “racial and cultural competency”; a demand for a “zero tolerance policy for racial insensitivity”; the removal of the unofficial mascot “Lord Jeff”; and various other “keep us out of jail” and “put them in jail” conditions. Now I like to see administrators grovel, and sensitivities get trained, and awarenesses get raised, and mascots get removed, as much as anybody, but nowhere on the list do I see any “structures” being taken apart. I wonder what you have in mind.

212, no, I mentioned a lot of relevancies, made an argument about the structure of conduct and the rules that bind it, and used various examples to dispute your notion that there is an ontological division between private areas – areas that you don’t explain, so intent is your search for relevancies, but which I suppose are defined by contract – and public areas. If you think Yale university is a state of Connecticut university, you are wrong. If you think State universities don’t customarily regulate the flow of people in its space, than you are lost in space. If you think that destroying newspapers on campus is a shocking and criminal act, I urge you to attend a tailgating party at the game between Texas and Oklahoma. There you will have all the shockingness you want. You can tremble with indignation about it for years!

Here’s one for the point-scorers.

“A 23-year-old California State University, Long Beach student was killed in the Paris terror attacks, the school announced Saturday. Nohemi Gonzalez, an El Monte resident, was a senior studying industrial design. She was in Paris attending the Strate College of Design as part of a semester abroad program.

Gonzalez was one of 17 CSULB students studying abroad, according to a school official, who also said the other 16 students are safe. During a press conference, school officials said that Gonzalez was killed at one of the restaurant locations while she was out with other students. In the chaos during the attacks, one of the students noticed Gonzalez had been shot and was taken away on a stretcher. The student got in touch with the university and Gonzalez’s friends and family to inform them of what happened. The student’s name was not released, but officials at Saturday’s press conference called the person a hero for their actions.

Design professor Michael Laforte said the department was a small family and that Gonzalez’s passing deeply impacted everyone. She had recently come in second in a design competition.”Nohemi was something of a star in our department. She was a shining star,” he said. The university will hold a vigil at 4 p.m. Sunday.

The attacks in Paris were attacks on the young – and the young at heart – at play, in bars, cafes, restaurants, on the street, in a national stadium, and at a club. Ms. Gonzalez and her family had every reason to expect her summer of study in Paris would be as full of joy and learning as it is for so many of us who study and spend time in this wonderful city. I watched one interview yesterday with a man about my age desperately trying to locate his son. He was distraught, intense, but relatively calm. He reported that he had made ‘a hundred calls to the police, but to no avail. It was understandable, he said, because sadly he was not the alone in his frantic attempts to locate his son missing at the concert.

More, unhappily, to follow.

@ 217 Actually, I’m not trying to tell you anything. I did tell you to SFU because your timing and priorities are/were badly off. Nor was I alone. One other suggested more gently than I you think about might be the best way to respond to an extremely tragic event that is/does affect many here, directly or indirectly. As it turns out, I took several courses in a Cal State graduate program some years ago, so was doubly saddened to learn that a particularly bright, beautiful young woman who very clearly embodied her family’s dreams was snatched from their lives. My own students, family, friends, and peers are all aware of personal and professional connection to Paris. I’ll doubtless have to field some questions and expressions of concern. As noted by at least one other, I am far from alone in this respect. I fully expect that some people I know will be more directly affected as these victims are identified. Others here have either already received such news, or harbor real fears of bad news to come. Given that some 99 more are critically injured this process is likely to continue over time.

I get the sense that none of this registers with you as real experience, which is why, in part, I find nothing to object to in your feeble invective. You write that you began teaching at university in 2012. Congratulations. To give you the benefit of the doubt I’ve constructed a persona for you, which may or may not be accurate. You have never buried one of your own children. Indeed, you may have none. You have not been present at the birth of one of your own children, attended a graduation, taken your own child to a hospital to receive care, or had any of the sundry joy and sorrow-filled experiences that are part and parcel of being part of a family. That is the only possible logical explanation I can find for your insensitivity and extraordinary lack of empathy towards a community of educators and students. Age doesn’t always bring wisdom, and certainly hasn’t in my own case.

I hope you have an easier path, and I sincerely hope you never have to experience some of the events I’ve identified above, or that parents across France and outside France are living through right now.

Best regards.

“I did tell you to SFU because your timing and priorities are/were badly off.”

Nope. You told me to shut the fuck up because I was highlighting the opportunism of propagandists whose “timing and priorities” was entirely predictable. For some inexplicable reason, exposure of hateful propaganda causes you more discomfort than the hateful propaganda.

You don’t seem to have any scruples about exploiting personal tragedy to score YOUR point, which is that I am being crass and insensitive by calling attention to the crass insensitivity emotion mongering by those that exploit personal tragedy to advance their hateful political agenda.

Please don’t try to palm off your smarmy “benefit of the doubt” psychologizing on me, Bucko. Your violin is out of tune. With benefits of the doubt like that, who needs character assassination? I wonder if you have any idea of how transparently dishonest your rhetorical clichés are. I’m sure you would never cease to be amazed.

I’m not, personally, much of a fan of ‘point scoring’ post tragedy, but 218 is truly extraordinarily obnoxious.

What Donald Johnson says.

Donald Johnson and js.

You’re right. I was procrastinating marking term papers.

Seems like kidneystones is trying to exert pc pressure here.

@229. Yes! But not quiet like these folks: http://www.mediaite.com/online/dartmouth-protesters-disrupt-students-in-library-fck-you-you-filthy-white-fcks/

More protests, leading to more resignations, leading to more protests, leading to…

…change.

Hope that helps.