Nero Looked Out His Window and Watched Rome Burn
A gay, Jewish journalist gives interviews while in hiding as a rioting mob calls for his blood in the streets below.
This isn’t Berlin 1939, it’s Berkeley 2017. It’s not the Nazis we need to worry about; it’s the SJW cultural Marxists.
The social justice left is the biggest threat to freedom in the US, more than anything else, including president Trump and his cabinet. Their willingness to use violence to silence anyone with whom they disagree, their hysterical fear mongering to prevent differing viewpoints from being aired, their slander and libelous attacks on anyone who doesn’t tow their party line, their lack of patriotism, their obvious contempt for America and its constitutionally protected rights, and their obvious indoctrination with cultural Marxism make them a clear and present danger to the security of this nation. We should all be concerned about this and yet, and yet, otherwise intelligent people will look at the political violence, designed to prevent free speech and consider it a good thing. Wake up, folks.
Today there are riots in Berkeley, CA. Fires have been lit, rocks thrown, buildings looted, and an immigrant speaker had to be spirited away by a security detail because of threats to his safety. Berkeley—ironically with its history of defending free speech, you know, the right enshrined in the First Amendment that underpins all our other rights and freedoms—is now the site of riots that are making world news.
Watching this is so surreal because these are the exact same problems we’ve been dealing with in our communities for the past couple of years, just on a large scale and far more dramatically. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a quick refresher). What’s the common denominator? Marxism, always and inevitably. It goes after our fundamental freedoms (especially religious freedoms). And given that we have a generation of students subjected throughout their entire academic career to unthinking cultural Marxist indoctrination (we let all those communists and hippies go into education…bad idea that. They shouldn’t have been let anywhere near academia), they’re ill prepared to connect the historical and ideological dots.
It’s time to get woke, as the left would say, but we need to educate ourselves and wake up to the absolutely nihilistic, ahistorical, anti-theistic, unpatriotic, anti-family, anti-tradition dogma behind their rioting. Social justice? Not hardly. Social justice is a perversion and a mockery in its name. It doesn’t seek actual justice but the enslavement of the masses and if our traditions have any hope of survival, we need to crush this now, inexorably, or they will crush us.
And if you think this is hyperbolic, consider the history of Iran. In the 1950s it was a progressive, modern culture with Western values, women in education, medicine, law and prosperity was high; they had a bright future. Then they started having protests just like this on college campuses, which turned into riots, just like this. Khomeini came to power and now they’re a backward, impoverished, totalitarian state. And the women, their future there isn’t looking so bright. (They sure don’t go around with pussy hats). I could draw similar parallels all the way back to ancient Rome but we don’t need to: this is happening here today. You can either allow it, or stand and resist it, stand in support of our fundamental freedoms as Americans. Drive this communist trash out (with your words, your humor, and your commitment and engagement with the political process – while they go around muttering about punching Nazis and the more delusional among them actually acting on it). I am so deeply ashamed to be an American right now. I have never been more disappointed in this country than I have been today.
Here’s a full news report along with one of those aforementioned interviews:
Posted on February 3, 2017, in community, Polytheism, Uncategorized and tagged Community, Marxism, politics, Polytheism, Rhyd Wildermuth, SJW bullshit, wtf. Bookmark the permalink. 28 Comments.
Gangleri's Grove 
Milo’s a dick and intentionally inflammatory, but intentionally being an inflammatory dick doesn’t give anyone the right to punch him any more than Richard Spencer deserved a punch in the head. With that logic, people who beat the shit out of Malcom X, or anyone who had been a racial separatist for much of his career in the civil rights struggle, would have earned every blow that came his way. The thing about ethics that I think folks on every side forget is that they have to apply to everyone or they are not ethics.
If different opinions, even ones we find odious, are violence, then this country is over. We won’t need to wait for a shadow government or a heavy-handed one to bring down its fist, we’ll have effectively rendered free speech null and void ourselves.
We sure as hell don’t need to agree with one another. I do not like Milo in the least, and I don’t like what he stands for. However, he was invited by students on campus to speak, and they had a right to hear what he had to say even if those who were there found it reprehensible.
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What makes it all the more terrible is that those who are using this political violence to suppress free speech are shitting on the sacrifice of millions of americans who died to protect the very thing that allows them to do so: our very freedoms.
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By eroding the free speech of others, they erode their own. It’s a nasty feedback loop. There’s no good end to it.
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I was following a couple of Twitter accounts that were commenting on the riot last night. One of them had provided a link to a livestream someone within the Antifa rioter group had been doing during. The things I saw were barbaric. Horrific. I have a bad feeling that last night was simply the start of a very long year of political violence to come. I’ve seen kind, welcoming people on my Facebook friends list turn into Nazi-punching left wing nutjobs (it’s not often you get to use a phrase like that in a sentence. I’d best get comfortable with it…) and promoting behaviors and actions that literally under any other circumstance would constitute criminal stalking and abuse. What I watched unfolding last night was not peaceful assembly, nor peaceful protest. It was overgrown children throwing violent tantrums and rather than stick their fingers in their ears they attacked and beat people with whatever was on hand. They destroyed banks. Even a freaking Starbucks. And one man’s freedom to speak was ripped to shreds simply because one group didn’t like what he had to say.
Personally, I don’t speak on political matters, but this one. This one just hit me the wrong way. And I dread to think about what lies in the year ahead for everyone on both the right, left, and even in the middle of the political spectrum.
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I was so sick at heart watching videos of that violence. I agree with you about what is to come and I worry for the future of our democracy. Freedom of speech….that’s a core constitutional right. without that, without that undergirding our political system, we’re done.
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I’m curious and I’m asking because I have a deep respect for your work and writings in polytheism but what do you mean by “cultural Marxism”?
I’ve seen the phrase before in some other contexts that were strongly linked to anti-Semitism. I’m not going to be one of these leftists that insult and attack anything (or dismiss) that disagrees with me. Instead, I’d like to understand, respectively, what you mean by “cultural Marxism”.
As for Milo, I’m not remotely a fan of the things he says. His (and his fans’) treatment of Leslie Jones on Twitter was needlessly horrible simply because she had the audacity of being in “Ghostbusters” Additionally, he’s harassed transgender people in his audiences who were not harassing or insulting him.
However, I think lighting fires and smashing things plays right into his (and his audience’s) narrative of the Left being violent (which isn’t always the case as we saw with the Women’s March). People have the right to speak just as others have the right to (peacefully) protest speech.
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I’m not a fan of much of his work either (I agree with some of it, but I think his performance goes over the top more than occasionally) however, it’s not about whether or not I agree with him. it’s about freedom of speech. that right applies, must apply to all of us, to everyone — most especially to those with whom we disagree the most. It’s the most foundational right of our democracy.
give me a few moments and i’ll address your cultural marxism (i’m in a conference call…need to wrap that up)
Edit: ok, here is a link describing cultural marxism: http://www.marylandthursdaymeeting.com/Archives/SpecialWebDocuments/Cultural.Marxism.htm. This link is not without its bias, however, what it accurately describes the influence of Marxism in our culture (in academia it’s rife).
a better blog, I think, on the topic: http://alternative-right.blogspot.com/2014/01/herbert-marcuse-and-tolerance-of.html?spref=fb
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But they aren’t communists, they are even anti-capitalist, they’re just liberals who want certain reforms.
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the average (wo)man on the street, maybe; but the organizers have a clear agenda, and it’s shaped by cultural marxism.
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I guess they are trying to achieve equality in their own way. Unlike some lefties I do not dismiss every political term not of my beliefs as a buzz word bc that is dishonest.
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I prefer Sargon of Akkad from the UK, Kraut & Tea from Germany, and Some Black Guy, Harmful Opinions and Eazy on Me from the US.
I drew the line on Milo when he praised the Catholic Church for being “right”.
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*shrugs* for me, it’s not about agreeing with any of these people (though I do watch Sargon occasionally). It’s about protecting their freedom of speech.
I mean, if we can’t listen to those with whom we disagree, even virulently, and then argue in a reasoned manner …we’ve already lost. I mean this is a core principle of our democracy and not just when it’s convenient.
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It started out as a peaceful protest of about 1,500 people, and then 150 people came out of nowhere and started all the violence. That seems very suspicious.
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Antifa trash strike again.
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One of the things that the peaceful groups NEED to do is to make PUBLIC BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF AN EVENT THAT VIOLENT PROTESTERS ARE NOT WELCOME — otherwise the violent protesters will become the public face of the event.
Over 3 million women and men gathered in various cities supporting the Women’s March on Washington on the day after the inauguration of our current occupant of the Oval Office. There were almost no instances of violence that occurred during these “sister marches”, and one of the reasons was that it was made clear prior to the event that violent protest was not welcome. This was IN PART due to reports that violent agents provacateur were trying to infiltrate the event.
Whether it was due to a group against Mr. Yiannopoulos or a group trying to undermine the protest the net effect was the same. I personally find this man abhorrent in his views on women, ethnic groups, and faith groups. However, I will NEVER condone violence as a tool of political protest. It undermines the point that people are trying to make if all that onlookers see is the violence
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I have a different perspective on this. When I was in college, the Smith Republicans invited an ex-gay speaker on his ex-gay book tour. The reason the person came to Smith was not that he wanted to give a lecture, but that college students are an ideal target for newsworthy publicity when it comes to offensive, anti-science, and wrong-headed speakers. You have 18-22-year-old young adults who have little experience organizing sensible protests. At the Smith demonstrations, there were literally 6 different groups coordinating their own protest responses, and the result was absolute chaos. I was studying abroad and had to learn about it through LiveJournal and YouTube clips, and it was just shocking how little they were all talking to one another before the event. The reason one sees political mistakes among that age group is that they’re still just trying things out, and I don’t think that the left consistently mentors youth to learn how effective activism works in the same way that Quiverfull mentors conservative homeschooled kids to be Christian politician-warriors.
This is actually an example of someone on the right manipulating that inexperience to get free publicity — if you see a controversial right-wing individual giving speeches almost entirely at colleges, you know that this kind of thing is what they’re gunning for. That’s why Milo’s eyes are smiling in the video even though he’s trying to put on a deeply serious tone. The ex-gay speaker back in 2007 also had really good Fox News publicity from the Smith chaos. There’s also some question as to which side (Milo, to drive publicity, vs. actual protesters) the violent rioters were actually on, but I’ll leave that to investigative journalists who have the educational qualifications. In the words of that pizzeria guy, “the intel on this isn’t 100%.” I don’t do Facebook anymore, so I don’t know what kinds of things are being shared on that platform about it and am pretty happy with the Chronicle of Higher Education coverage. I’m mostly concerned about the tweets regarding federal funding, as Berkeley does important research in the physical sciences, and everyone in physics and astronomy is interconnected due to the way teaming works in scientific research. (I am a science librarian who supports these disciplines.)
A lot of the PC culture stuff is actually just related to demographic shifts. Stuff that faculty have taught forever in colleges (mostly for white and male students) may carry an emotional charge for other students. If a faculty member does not have the pedagogical acumen to provide students with frames of reference for their reading (e.g., how to read Ovid), it’s their responsibility to learn up-to-date pedagogical methods. One of the problems is that it’s a self-serve kind of thing, so a brilliant researcher might actually not intuitively know how to teach. No one at Smith, to my knowledge, complained about all of the rape in Ovid when I was there — but it’s a women’s college, so our classical mythology professor did a lot of groundwork on how to interpret what those rapes meant. I don’t think he would have done that at a coed school.
Social justice isn’t a threat to freedom. It’s just that when people don’t listen to one another, people start shouting to be heard, and then everyone — on all sides — gets way too worked up to actually focus on the real issues: racism, classism, homophobia, and gender equality. People with power also have an instinctive reaction that makes it harder to avoid the shouting. I actually take issue with the idea that social justice work is anti-family, anti-theistic, and unpatriotic — but then again, I see the pacifist grace of important social justice movements as good models, and part of my worship of the Erinyes leads me to believe that pacifist resistance is the best way to ensure that no one ultimately gets hunted down by dead people.
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Gavin McKinness was pepper sprayed and shouted down by Antifa thugs, who then rioted on the NYU campus last night.
These men aren’t nazis. they’re not white supremacists. And they’re not out to “corrupt” the young. They’re conservative speakers. period. But the left can’t tell the difference between that and a nazi and that is pathetic. It’s also dangerous, and a slap in the face to every soldier who died defending the freedoms these antifa trash abuse.
I don’t quite see how you can look at what is going on with the antifa thugs, with the SJWs curbing free speech (check out Jorden Peterson ,a Canadian Professor who damn near lost his job because this) and think it anything but a threat to our liberty.
‘pacifist grace.” …that would be lovely. They’re not embodying that though. Were you actually following the protests since the election? there’s been very little pacifist about it.
as to academia: those shifts need to be resisted at all costs. When you have students demanding “safe spaces” because they can’t handle opposing opinions, or demanding that they be given a pass on reading difficult material because it might be ‘triggering’ or demanding that professes make college a ‘home’ not an intellectually challenging learning experience (as one Yale student did, ultimately resulting in two professors being forced to retire) or demanding that because these writers are white, they shouldn’t have to read Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dante, et al in a literature course, or demanding, as recently happened in the UK that we take the white men out of philosophy…that is an attack on western culture and western values, a further dumbing down of our children. Those students should be denied federal funding and expelled. obviously they’re not ready for a university environment. let’s give that money to students that are and that’s from a woman who has taught Ovid.
I remember when I was doing my Religious Studies degree, I had a professor (at NYU) who was a proud marxist. His parents had been (in his words) ‘communist agitators’ in the 1960s and he was very very proud of his left leanings (and had a massive problem with anyone who wasn’t). that is not an uncommon experience and conservative students are routinely silenced in universities (as are conservative professors and we’re not talking Quiverful nuts. We’re talking people who whatever their social values, are economically and politically to the right of center).
I don’t believe the social justice agenda has anything at its core to do with addressing racism, classicm, homophobia, misogyny, etc. it has to do instead with silencing any opposing view until we have the veneer of having addressed these things and that is both vile and un-American.
and when I see students chanting ‘no borders, no country’ (and they don’t mean that without healthy borders we have no healthy country), and burning flags, and talking about how terrible this country is (so get the fuck out if you’re so offended by it), you will never convince me that it’s not unpatriotic. When you have things like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glIiZU4lYNE — the show being discussed here not this particular video), you’ll never convince me that this movement isn’t anti-family. It’s not political mistakes they’re making. We have a generation that never learned to think rationally and reasonably, that has no idea how our political process works, that never studied government or civics, and that isn’t used to not getting its own way or reasoning instead of emoting.
and yes, liberal media is trying to spin this as Milo causing the riots himself. It’s bullshit. It’s like blaming a rape victim when he or she is attacked. The liberal media just cannot grasp that it’s own people are thugs. The rest of us have no problem grasping it. Many of these protests aren’t just young people. There are teachers involved as well (at least in the NYU protests I link to here). When the adults in your world are incapable of reasoned response is it any wonder the children are going crazy?
i’m still curious as to where you see any pacifist grace in the SJW response. They’re raving lunatics who want nothing more than to violently silence anyone who disagrees with them. When they can’t achieve that by deplatforming, slander, libel, (you’re a racist! you’re a nazi!), they’ll riot. Where exactly are you seeing pacifism?
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OK, so I’m trying to read your response in the context of what I wrote because I think we’re having a communication error. Let’s try to figure out why.
I’m going to try paraphrasing what I read as your main points in a few bullets: (1) Conservative speakers should be allowed to talk on campus. (2) Violent agitators from several politically “left” orientations have been impacting the safety of individuals who don’t share their ideology. (3) Faculty are worried about their job security because students are criticizing their teaching methods. (4) There is no such thing as social justice outside of violent social justice warriors.
I have some concerns that how I interpreted #3 and #4 are not precisely what you intended for me to hear. However, let me address each of these points.
Before I get started, let me say that I am interpreting the term “left” to mean anyone who believes that the social contract between the Government and its People includes social safety nets, regulations against abuse by private companies, and the respect for the beliefs and values of all Americans insofar as those values and beliefs are not in conflict with the Amendments and the rights we retain by them. This is different from how you are using the term. The left includes a broad number of political philosophies. I’m a social democrat, not a Marxist, communist, or democratic socialist, but we’re all lumped together.
I see anarchism and libertarianism as liberal and conservative versions of the same anti-government sentiments. You seem to include anarchism in the left, which is why I put it in quotation marks when I was trying to paraphrase your point #2.
(1) Yes, conservative speakers have rights to free speech. The government cannot abridge it. Private individuals and institutions can because they are not the government. Now — before you respond to that — universities generally uphold free speech because a free exchange of ideas is part of an educational institution’s core values.
(1a) My original point might need further explanation. On the Christian extremist right, one has children who are trained and mentored from a young age (preteen to teen) on how to respectfully engage with legislators and the government. These kids then run for office when they grow up, and we have about 40 years of this process infiltrating the US government right now. On the left, there is typically no such leadership because we tend not to homeschool our kids and turn them into phone bank workhorses. The Christian Dominionists in America and how they want to police the rest of us via legislation is actually my chief concern here.
(2) Pacifism is a tradition of Gandhi and MLK, and it comes from ideas of ahimsa. I don’t think the political rioters in Berkeley are any different from the militia that took over that government park about a year ago. There are also right-wing individuals who have done shootings in a yoga studio, Unitarian church, &c. due to anti-woman and anti-non-Christian sentiments. Violence in politics is wrong, period. It doesn’t matter who does it.
(2a) While I agree with many social justice issues on G&R, one of the places I draw the line is with the obsession with revolution and violence in radical ideologies on both the right and the left. I think that wanting a revolution for any reason is insane because it just ends with dead children. I took a Revolution to Revolution course on France when I was in college and focused on the failed 1848 rebellion, which was part of the inspiration for Les Mis. On the one hand, you have this idealized modern musical that talks about the glory of resistance. On the other hand, you have dead young people and the ones who were caught in the crossfire. People play “One Day More!” a lot more than they play “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.”
(3) Let’s go back to what I actually wrote, which is that (a) demographic changes require updating teaching methodologies and (b) I never saw anyone going for the smelling salts at Smith for our delicate feminist constitution. My point is that somehow or other, women’s colleges and HBCUs are able to teach the Canon (mostly white men) to women and students of color. Maybe looking at their teaching methodologies would be a good start for faculty at historically white and male institutions. If teaching is part of someone’s job, le should stay up to date. The merit process for universities is equally at fault here because what matters to the tenure committee is the number of papers published in important journals (or books, I guess, for humanities faculty). That’s starting to change as universities realign with their teaching missions.
(3a) There is something in library science called a “reference interview,” which basically boils down to the assertion that people are really bad at asking for what they really want. A reference interview is designed to tease out the real issue. The real issue for students seems to be a mismatch between teaching methods and demographic shifts. The way to fix that is through faculty professional development in teaching, not by trigger warnings.
(4) I said, “Social justice isn’t a threat to freedom.” I did not specifically talk about violent social justice work, and in my original comment, I mentioned the pacifist tradition within social justice movements. To take an example from LGBTQ+ rights, there is a difference between GetEQUAL (which includes civil disobedience and wants people who are OK with getting arrested) and Lambda Legal (which focuses on judicial action). The reason there are so many LGBTQ+ rights advocacy groups is that there are non-compatible ideas about tactics for equality. The same is true for other social justice movements.
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I watched the commentary on CBS Morning News. One student (a person of colour) shook his head sadly and said, “We are supposed to be able to speak and to listen. How else are we to know anything. This is an university. We need to listen as well as speak.”
I got the distinct feeling that the rioters did not want anyone to hear Milo Y. I also got the distinct feeling that the rioters are deeply afraid of him. One word from him, and we all become Nazis? Is that why we riot, because we fear words? Whatever happened to booing the guy after he spoke to show displeasure? Whatever happened to not attending?
What are these anti-fa afraid of?
I lived through the sixties and the seventies with SDS and the Weathermen. It is the same impulse – to destroy what you don’t understand, to destroy what you don’t like, all in the name of some holy cause.
I see the same form of silencing on Facebook with my friends. They have unfriended anyone who has a good word to say about President Trump. They bombard everyone with cut/paste of how we should be outraged at this or that, and man the barricades. I can’t talk to many of them since they are white-hot with rage. It is the assumption that everyone has to care about the same things as they do in the same way as they do. It is the assumption that everyone has to conform to their ideas.
It is no longer – I have my opinion. I dislike your opinion. It is now I have my opinion, and my opinion is your opinion. If you has another one, you are evil and vile. Personal autonomy has ended.
Which brings me full circle to the anti-fa and the protests. THEY HAVE DENIED EVERYONE THEIR PERSONAL AUTOMONY. They have dictated to everyone what they should think and feel. Control. Total control from anarchists – some oxymoron.
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that’s it in a nutshell, neptunesdolphin. and i feel so bad for that poor student and others who actually want to learn and to learn how to engage with viewpoints with which they disagree. The university is failing them. So are we.
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He has Jewish ancestry, but he’s a practicing Catholic.
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Hey Kaye, in response:
You wrote: “I’m going to try paraphrasing what I read as your main points in a few bullets: (1) Conservative speakers should be allowed to talk on campus. (2) Violent agitators from several politically “left” orientations have been impacting the safety of individuals who don’t share their ideology. (3) Faculty are worried about their job security because students are criticizing their teaching methods. (4) There is no such thing as social justice outside of violent social justice warriors.”
My response: with regard to 2, violent SJW and antifa agitators have been abrogating freedom of speech in those with whom they disagree. Safety is a concern but a greater concern is the threat to liberty. With regard to 3, the problem isn’t faculty being worried about their jobs (though many are), the problem is the betrayal of even any façade of maintaining the integrity of education. If students need trigger warnings because bad shit happened in history and they don’t seem to know this, then maybe they’re not ready for college. Any attempt at all to limit in any way the discipline taught (in my case Classics) I find offensive, demeaning, and ill thought out. I don’t think the classical canon ought to be truncated or amended in any way to accommodate students who lack perspective and/or emotional resiliency. It is their privilege to learn, to steep themselves in the best the Western canon has to offer, to partake of knowledge that helped shape our civilization. I see value in traditional Western culture. Students aren’t criticizing teaching methods because the teachers are incompetent, they’re criticizing because they’re being exposed to new ideas that they find uncomfortable and their feelings™ aren’t being cossetted. Welcome to the real world.
As to number four: yes, there is such a thing as social justice. I don’t think the ‘social justice movement’ or your average ‘social justice warrior’ has anything to do with it.
You wrote: “Before I get started, let me say that I am interpreting the term “left” to mean anyone who believes that the social contract between the Government and its People includes social safety nets, regulations against abuse by private companies, and the respect for the beliefs and values of all Americans insofar as those values and beliefs are not in conflict with the Amendments and the rights we retain by them. This is different from how you are using the term. The left includes a broad number of political philosophies. I’m a social democrat, not a Marxist, communist, or democratic socialist, but we’re all lumped together.”
Yes, perhaps I should have said more clearly: alt-left or “illiberal” left because left is not synonymous with liberal, and not everyone on the left is an emotionally stunted lunatic.
I specifically find the social justice movement rife with Marxist politics, cultural Marxism, etc and that is specifically what I object to (I don’t object to government safety nets. For instance, I very much think we ought to have free education and medicine. I do object to hate speech laws and to any legislation designed to limit free speech in any way. I object to paternalism in government, and I object to the government determining in any way what women can do with their bodies. I’m fairly socially liberal but I don’t think people should be forced to speak in certain ways or be prevented from speaking. Ever.).
You wrote: “I see anarchism and libertarianism as liberal and conservative versions of the same anti-government sentiments. You seem to include anarchism in the left, which is why I put it in quotation marks when I was trying to paraphrase your point #2.”
I agree with both of these being anti-government but Anarchism is on the left, at least as I have encountered it in our communities. Or rather, it is twinned in our communities with antifa crap.
You wrote: “(1) Yes, conservative speakers have rights to free speech. The government cannot abridge it. Private individuals and institutions can because they are not the government. Now — before you respond to that — universities generally uphold free speech because a free exchange of ideas is part of an educational institution’s core values.”
That is actually a major issue right now in universities. More and more with the press of SJW extremists, universities are caving on this issue. https://www.thefire.org
You wrote: “(1a) My original point might need further explanation. On the Christian extremist right, one has children who are trained and mentored from a young age (preteen to teen) on how to respectfully engage with legislators and the government. These kids then run for office when they grow up, and we have about 40 years of this process infiltrating the US government right now. On the left, there is typically no such leadership because we tend not to homeschool our kids and turn them into phone bank workhorses. The Christian Dominionists in America and how they want to police the rest of us via legislation is actually my chief concern here.”
We should take notes. It both frightens and appalls me how deeply entrenched in our government dominionists are right now and yes, that has been a multi-decade strategy. (I favor homeschooling, but not for religious reasons. I find the paucity of educational standards in this country appalling.). I think we can agree that the Dominionist threat needs to be watched very carefully and countered by active participation in our civic process.
You wrote: “(2) Pacifism is a tradition of Gandhi and MLK, and it comes from ideas of ahimsa. I don’t think the political rioters in Berkeley are any different from the militia that took over that government park about a year ago. There are also right-wing individuals who have done shootings in a yoga studio, Unitarian church, &c. due to anti-woman and anti-non-Christian sentiments. Violence in politics is wrong, period. It doesn’t matter who does it.”
I’m aware of the history of pacifism. I don’t think you can honestly say that it’s being demonstrated in the SJW movement. I never said that other groups weren’t also violent. Look at Islam for example. I agree with you however: violence in politics is wrong, regardless of who does it.
You wrote: “(2a) While I agree with many social justice issues on G&R, one of the places I draw the line is with the obsession with revolution and violence in radical ideologies on both the right and the left. I think that wanting a revolution for any reason is insane because it just ends with dead children. I took a Revolution to Revolution course on France when I was in college and focused on the failed 1848 rebellion, which was part of the inspiration for Les Mis. On the one hand, you have this idealized modern musical that talks about the glory of resistance. On the other hand, you have dead young people and the ones who were caught in the crossfire. People play “One Day More!” a lot more than they play “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.””
I think the G&R people are part of the problem. They’re promoting a Marxist agenda which is, at its heart, deeply anti-theistic and anti-family. I’m very moved by your comment “I think that wanting a revolution for any reason is insane because it just ends with dead children.” Yes, but they don’t care. Part of that is a doggedly ahistorical viewpoint (promoted by Marxism) and part of it lack of forethought, inability to project the ultimate trajectory of their politics. And part of it is a callous indifference toward life. Look at how they respond toward the idea that Pagan elders in our community will go without their medications and die if there were to be a revolution. Their attitude: they shrug their shoulders and say “capitalism kills people too.” They obviously don’t care about individuals or the good of this country.
You wrote: “(3) Let’s go back to what I actually wrote, which is that (a) demographic changes require updating teaching methodologies and”
I disagree with you there. A good, competent teacher should be able to speak to all his/her students. There is a difference between updating methodologies (I very much disagree with recent pedagogical changes in my field and the field of language all around. I don’t find them conducive to learning) and culling parts of the curriculum. It’s not just the first that is occurring.
You wrote: “(b) I never saw anyone going for the smelling salts at Smith for our delicate feminist constitution. My point is that somehow or other, women’s colleges and HBCUs are able to teach the Canon (mostly white men) to women and students of color. Maybe looking at their teaching methodologies would be a good start for faculty at historically white and male institutions. If teaching is part of someone’s job, le should stay up to date. The merit process for universities is equally at fault here because what matters to the tenure committee is the number of papers published in important journals (or books, I guess, for humanities faculty). That’s starting to change as universities realign with their teaching missions.”
It shouldn’t be that difficult for a teacher to demonstrate why their subject is relevant to students of color or women or [insert minority here]. If there is truth and value in a subject then that is irrespective of race, gender, etc. Maybe we should start by not damning everything white men have contributed to Western culture. I do think there is a problem with tenure. I’ve seen too many professors who have nothing but contempt for their students and they get away with it because they are tenured. They don’t have to give a damn. Their position is secure. Then also universities will hire adjuncts or push undergrad classes off on grad students to avoid having to hire tenured professors (with the benefits and salary that entails). It’s really messed up and could use a significant overhaul.
You wrote: “(3a) There is something in library science called a “reference interview,” which basically boils down to the assertion that people are really bad at asking for what they really want. A reference interview is designed to tease out the real issue. The real issue for students seems to be a mismatch between teaching methods and demographic shifts. The way to fix that is through faculty professional development in teaching, not by trigger warnings.”
I think the problem is a generation of students that have been ill brought up and ill taught, over indulged and abandoned. This is a generation that has been abandoned by the adults who should have nurtured their emotional and intellectual growth. We are reaping what we sow.
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(1) Yup. The Chronicle has been reporting on a lot of these issues, as I said in the original post. They named a few pro-free speech organizations. I’m actually really pleased with their approach to coverage.
(2) Pacifism is there in patches. There are a lot of people looking at women’s portrayals in video games, for example. They get lumped in under the SJW label, but they have had a concrete impact on the industry. There are more options for queer and women characters. A recent news release from a game developer (for Conan Exiles) even said that one could now customize penis size in addition to breast size for their game avatars because they realized that just being able to customize breast size was sexist. It’s important to recognize that social justice movements are not all violent and disruptive.
(3) You and I have slightly different interpretations about what causes trigger warnings. That’s unsurprising because the conversations around them are always really lively in academic settings. I think that part of the problem is also that there is so much upheaval in higher education right now that discussing one issue just leads to the tangle of the rest. The people who care about teaching get training, update their syllabi as necessary, and are great at facilitating learning. The people who don’t care have less student satisfaction with their courses, but you’re right — they often are the ones with tenure. The faculty I know who care about pedagogy really enjoy talking about how they are designing their courses to help students learn. I agree that it should be very straightforward to demonstrate relevancy and context. I just don’t always think that it’s done effectively.
(4) I’m actually in a weird place in that I grew up UU Pagan, and I have served on SJC in one congregation (the social justice committee). SJW was how we abbreviated “social justice work” in our meeting minutes.
The conversation about defining the left: I didn’t include anarchism in the left because while I was writing the original response, I concluded that the spectrum of right-to-left precludes a belief in government. I’m not really sure where libertarianism and anarchism fit in beyond saying that they’re both anti-government, but that they take ideologies from the political right and left respectively. That’s why conservative Republicans can be in alignment with libertarians on some issues, and likewise on the left, anarchists are in alignment with members of other ideological communities on some issues.
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i want to be very clear where i stand re. academia: i don’t think there should be ANY place for trigger warnings in academia. Ever. I don’t think it constitutes effective teaching and in fact, quite the opposite.
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Yes, and that’s a place where we disagree in some respects. I’ll also be clear that WRT protest and resistance, I’m 100% behind the nonviolent protesters organizing right now — it’s the violent subgroups that concern me because they have real potential to do damage to the missions of racial, social, gender, &c. justice movements. Protesting is a free speech right. On a le droit de manifester. 🙂
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Free speech works both ways. I’ve had awful things said to me, but I did not respond with violence. That simply would have allowed the person verbally harassing me to take the moral high ground. I picked apart what they said with facts, spewed their own nonsense back at them like the vomit it was, and enjoyed the look of horror and frustration as they tried to figure out something to say and had nothing. And that is what the SJW don’t want to happen. They want to silence anyone who disagrees so the nonsense they spew can’t be picked apart.
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Social Justice is possible by following these simple rules:
The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Wheaton’s Law: “Don’t be a dick.”
#LiveDeliciously
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Kaye, i have zero problems with non violent protestors. I think they’re misguided here, but they absolutely have the right to protest, as long as the first amendment still applies.
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