No, it's not one of my articles today, but I felt that this story was just so good that it had to be shared. And it links to not one but two great Everyjoe articles!
So Laura Kipnis, a left-leaning female professor in the film-making department of Northwestern University committed the grave error of criticizing the new anti-harassment policies at her college and others, pointing out that they were based on paranoia rather than fact and questioning the concepts of 'consent' that are being pushed by these new policies.
As a result, she had a group of students protest her by marching by carrying mattresses (in reference to Emma Sulkowicz, who did the same as an art project and attention-getting exercise after her claims of rape against another student were rejected even by the ridiculously lax standard of University Kangaroo Courts), demanding that she be punished by the University administration for daring to pen an article even questioning a group of policies that made the court systems in Communist East Germany look like the very model of fairness and openness by comparison.
But that's not all! She then became the subject of a case of her own, under the very same Title IX procedures that are being used to justify kangaroo court procedures in dealing with Sexual Harassment/Rape/Assault charges on campus. She wasn't charged of sexually harassing anyone, mind you. In fact, at first (as is apparently, horrifyingly NORMAL in these procedures) she wasn't told what she was being charged of at all, only that she was subject to a hearing on charges she wasn't allowed to know about. She was also told that she was not allowed to have lawyers defend her, but the university would have lawyers prosecuting. The defendant in what passes for the "University Justice System" is not allowed legal counsel, whether facing sexual assault charges or the charges Kipnis was facing, which although (again) she wasn't even allowed to know the charges against her at first, she only eventually managed to find out were the grave Thought Crimes of "creating a chilling effect" (that could intimidate women from reporting harassment on campus) and of "retaliation" -- that is, incredibly, the argument that by writing an article that was critical of the Anti-harassment policies on campus she was trying to 'retaliate' against those policies. Yes, apparently on campuses today just saying you disagree with the anti-harassment procedures on campus means you could be charged under the anti-harassment procedures on campus!
Every time I think "this must be the absolute peak of postmodernist pseudo-activist Censorship-loving anti-civilizational thought-police Collectivists absurdity", something vastly more absurd happens. It would be funny, if it wasn't for the fact that people very literally can get their lives destroyed. These red-brigade style kangaroo courts have the power to destroy the careers of professors, or ruin the futures of young students, for daring to disagree with the privileged fantasies and outright lies of a molly-coddled gang of pseudo-activist idiots who actually believe themselves superior to everyone else and have no moral qualms whatsoever about ruining lives for the sake of what they imagine to be the 'greater good' (of them being in charge of everyone else's life, that is).
God help us if these people and their poisonous ideas continue to spread and gain power and influence in other areas than the increasingly-irrelevant Student-Loan-Debt Factories.
RPGPundit
Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Solitario Egg + Gawith's Navy Flake
It's worth she's been cleared of all charges, not that I entirely disagree with you about the rest.
ReplyDeleteSure, she was. But how long until someone isn't? This whole thing is a constant question of pushing the envelope. 20 years ago, such a charge would never have been taken seriously; the person making it might have gotten in trouble, in fact, for trying to attack freedom of speech on campus. There would have been an outcry among students, not against the professor, but against the idea of the administration even considering trying to silence her opinion!
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ReplyDeleteI guess Orwell was right, Only that it wasn't a boot, it was a High heel that says "Smash the patriarchy".
ReplyDeleteWell, it says "Rights without responsibilities!" but other than that, yes.
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ReplyDeleteIronically enough, post-modernism and this kind of mob-rule are the results of extreme individualism rather than collectivism. After all, in this (mis-)culture, all that matters is what the subjective individual feels from his or her narrow viewpoint; it's a "narrative" and thus promoted to the status of absolute truth. A student got offended by what her professor said? This becomes absolute truth, and a crime rather than a subjective feeling of getting hurt. Who cares about the harm it does to society as a whole? Because only the narrow subjective individual viewpoint matters. The ideas of common good and common sense - were replaced with the hyper-individualist entitlement culture. Post-modernism abolishes society and replaces it with a horde of self-entitled individuals whose each subjective point of view is elevated to the level of absolute divine truth. These sorts of things are very bad for the common good (which needs free speech, free thought and due process for a just society), but the common good was abolished, as it is "collectivist" and part of history (and we are now past "the end of history"). We are in the "me" culture - the abolition of society and community in favor of the self-entitled super-individual. "Society" and "Community" are now dirty words.
ReplyDeleteI'll go further - post-modernism is the result of taking consumer-capitalism to an extreme. Ideas and truths are now consumer goods - you pick and choose what you want from the self or display-case. All criteria are out the window as this is all individual consumer choice. If you have money, you can buy The Truth and it will be indisputable.
The idea that certain (false) "truths" should have to be imposed on Individuals whether they agree or not is COLLECTIVISM.
DeleteThe "common good" was, in an Individualistic society, always meant to be a set of common understandings of how to protect the rights of the Individual. In a well-functioning society, the law would enshrine the rights of an individual to their own freedom of life, liberty (including the freedom of expression, of speech, and various others), and the pursuit of happiness (which includes right of property). The job of the law would be to ensure no one person can impinge upon any other person's essential rights.
But Collectivism, WHAT WE HAVE NOW, says that there is no truth, and thus no inalienable rights, and thus all rights that exist are subjective and collective rights. Your presentation, Omer, of a society where everyone has a 'right to their own narrative' is NOT TRUE. Only those who belong to certain correct demographic groups have a right to that group's narrative. If the individual feeling 'offended' is a Christian, for example, their right is not as favored as if the person being offended is a Muslim.
The common good depends on the absolute and INALIENABLE right of the Individual. Whereas Collectivism depends on a mob-rule, with no guarantee of any specific rights for any individual, but rather rights belonging to those who are in charge of the collective (be they post-modernist pseudo-intellectual elites, as we have in this society, or the Caliphate in ISIS, or the "Holy" and Apostolic Roman Catholic Church, or the Mormon Prophets, or the Politburo, or what-have-you).
In Individualism, truths are by definition ABSOLUTE and OBJECTIVE. Something is either true or false. And rights cannot be taken away ever.
In Collectivism, truths are determined by the special elite, and are placed in a relativist hierarchy based on what the collective feels.
Which of these is more like what we're living through now?
The Left has long used "tolerance" and "freedom" as keywords to promote their ideas; unfortunately what they mean is "tolerance of my ideas, never yours" and "my freedom, never yours."
ReplyDeleteI suggest we ignore Left and Right as terms. Let's go with the balance between collective and individual. As we have seen there is a real tendency in establishments and institutions to convert ideas into dogma and then be repressive of dissent if individual rights are not defended. An example here would be that a unionised workforce would be able to resist what is clearly employer abuse of disciplinary procedures. So a collective group defending an individual is one possible outcome.
ReplyDeleteI suggest we ignore Left and Right as terms. Let's go with the balance between collective and individual. As we have seen there is a real tendency in establishments and institutions to convert ideas into dogma and then be repressive of dissent if individual rights are not defended. An example here would be that a unionised workforce would be able to resist what is clearly employer abuse of disciplinary procedures. So a collective group defending an individual is one possible outcome.
ReplyDeleteI suggest we ignore Left and Right as terms. Let's go with the balance between collective and individual. As we have seen there is a real tendency in establishments and institutions to convert ideas into dogma and then be repressive of dissent if individual rights are not defended. An example here would be that a unionised workforce would be able to resist what is clearly employer abuse of disciplinary procedures. So a collective group defending an individual is one possible outcome.
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