Responsible Academics and Diversity

 My friend told me about the Critical Approaches to Diversity section on her syllabus, and wondered if--since I like the professor--if it would be Critical in a heterodox way?

I said that no, it is likely to be the orthodoxy, but that doesn't mean he's not a good professor or academic.

In fact, he is a good, responsible academic because he is going with the orthodoxy, and he's not an expert on this particular area.  So he is deferring to the experts, and that's good.

What went wrong in this case is that the expertise is illegitimate due to institutional capture because the usual epistemic forces that govern scholarship do not function normally on these issues.  

"Progressive" Journalistic Standards

The particulars of this story are unremarkable, but it's just another banal example of how progressive orthodoxy and its accompanying standard practices are rife for abuse by bad actors.  

This WaPo piece on the Queer Appalachia account includes these quotes illustrating the progressive tendency to not ask for evidence and take things on trust when it comes to marginalized people and good causes, as asking for and supply evidence is itself an injury:

"As the account picked up followers — 276,000 and counting — it received coverage from NBC News, Slate and USA Today, among many others....

"In a 2018 Bitch Magazine article, author Kristina Gaddy described QA as a collective of 15 people, a number that Gaddy attributes to Mamone....

"I spoke to nine people who donated material for the Electric Dirt zine, five journalists who have covered Queer Appalachia, and nine representatives of small nonprofits who received or were supposed to receive money from QA. They all said they’d never communicated with anyone at QA except Mamone....

"Journalists, perhaps eager to support what they perceive as a worthy cause, have written stories built only on interviews with Mamone...

"The rhetoric Mamone and Queer Appalachia use make them somewhat criticism-proof. “They have a lot of clout, and everyone is so afraid of backlash, being accused of not being supportive,” says Kayleigh Phillips. “I did feel a level of compassion [for Mamone],” she says of their time working closely together. “But ... they’re preying on the people that they’re supposed to be helping.”...

"“They presented themselves as a leftist and an anarchist,” says Leo. “But at the end of the day, it’s capitalism. And it’s been exploitation of all these people who really believe [in] and maybe have projected what they’ve wanted onto this project.”"

Same as with Erdley's Rolling Stone UVA sexual assault story, when she didn't try to corroborate certain facts, even when the public assumed she had--including her supportive audience, i.e. Anna Merlan etc.

China: Why Was 'Kung Fu Panda' Made in the U.S.?

Via Slate Star Codex...

"The blockbuster success of an American animated movie that's set in ancient China, highlights Chinese culture, mythology and architecture and stars a kung fu fighting panda has filmmakers and ordinary Chinese wondering: Why wasn't this hit made . . . in China?"

I find it interesting that I would expect such a piece today to be written using the "cultural appropriation" frame, while this piece was mostly framed with/as/as on "free market's creativity" when it was written in 2008.

Constitutional Law of Gay Marriage and Function of Focus: Expressive, Symbolic, Virtue of Character

Some people who favor gay marriage--including top constitutional lawyers, who don't just favor it but believe it to be a constitutional imperative of required by justice--still take issue with the reasoning of the Obergefell decision.  It continues in a shaky line of vague, seemingly ad hoc jurisprudence, that is unnecessarily controversial and therefore sub-optimally/maximally legitimate.

Instead, they argue, of inventing/discovering/articulating a new right to a new or changed entity based on a new protected class, base the articulated/established right on the more settled law of sex discrimination.  This has the added benefit of according/cohering more with common sense: gay relationships are no worse or better than straight ones, cause it doesn't matter if one partners with a man or a woman, i.e. the person's sex doesn't matter/shouldn't matter/be relevant/is relevant.  

And while I have no knowledge at all about the legal path this case and preceding cases in the larger effort to get to this point, I can't help but wonder if the fact that the legal option actually pursued (other than tailored to Kennedy's prejudices) is related to the seemingly newly ascendant focus on symbolism and language and the expressive function of political acts.

Is there a connection between the focus on symbolism and language and the possible legal cases/paths of reasoning on gay marriage, i.e. the court could have legalized gay marriage nationwide using less controversial legal reasoning (sex discrimination) but which would not have out right made a case for gay people?

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They're focusing on the expressive function of the law

, but there's also the focus on the agents involved

and basing one's political position on prioritizing the ability to tell the virtuous from the vicious, or to express/communicate/show-illustrate/declare/call attention to for others the virtue (or otherwise) (or vicious character) of others.

Rape Jokes, Free Speech, and Inclusion

My train of thought on freedom of speech inspired by the unpleasant rape jokes in family Guy:

Dialogue:

A: rape jokes are wrong, you shouldn't make them. On top of that, they're not even funny.

B: sure, they're funny. Who are you to decide what's funny and what's not for everyone? And likewise, who are you to decide what's right and what's wrong (for everyone). I don't think they're wrong; I think they're fine.

A: fine, maybe I can't prove that they are wrong or not funny across the board, and maybe you're right that they are not wrong. But regardless of whether they are ultimately right or wrong, they still means that sexual assault survivors/victims and others sensitive to the issue will avoid your show. In essence then, the inclusion of rape jokes in your show is a method/means excluding sexual assault victims/survivors. That what you want?

Danger of Identitarian Deference: After its Cause Wins, Does it Reverse its Position?

Having a rule of identitarian deference or other standard of identity politics under which some people's view is given more weight than others in accordance with who has the least power is dangerous because, once the disadvantaged cause in question that righteous/virtuous people are fighting for and for the purpose of fighting for which identitarian deference is established/practiced gains support and power and begins to win and becomes dominant, then it wouldn't lose the benefit vantage of identity, and opposition what in fact. 

In concrete terms, for example, Emma Sulkowicz has more power in some ways than Paul Nungesser; after all, one was supported by a multitude including elected officials and the other was not. Similarly, racial minorities have more social power and white supremacists and the KKK do at this time in this country. 

Should the arguments between these camps then really be settled by, or addressed by giving any (argumentative/discursive) benefit/advantage to, privileging the side with less power?

Identity Politics Criticism

I worry that (some of) my criticism of identity politics is (getting) conflated.

A lot of what I criticize of identity politics is not its policy and personal behavior/treatment/practice conclusions.  

It is not my position that we ought not to or can not (not in terms of possibility/ability) lessen the tilt against, and even positively tilt things towards, the marginalized, like in recognizing that “neutral” policy is best thought of/called “facially-neutral” and may indeed still be unfair and need changing, and in recognizing that some explicit advantages for the marginalized in treatment, like affirmative action or exceptions to free speech, may indeed to justified or even obligatory restore justice after countless examples of other phenomenon going to other way, reverse the effects of those that are in the past and those still persisting with us.

Instead, what I am criticizing of identity politics is the idea that we must even do so (engage in this retilting/rebalancing) in the debate itself on the question of whether or not to do so. 

There's also a problem of self-reference here too, among other things.

Free and Public Speech and Value-Neutrality: Public Sex & Nudity, Body Image, Social Roles, Sexual Assault, Media and Other Representation, and General Activism

David Frum scoffs at efforts to remove or change a large public billboard advertisement for a fitness product that features a sexy, fit woman in a small bikini
as obviously wrong

But if we already have and accept laws against public/the public presentation of drug use (public drinking) and public nudity and public sex actions and even depictions, pictures or video, of nudity and sex acts, then surely we've already violated value-neutrality, and certainly have violated (freedom of speech's) content-neutrality of/for (regulation of) public speech and expression.  

So what's the problem then with further restricting public speech some degree tighter than it is now, even if just to include images and media that uphold/propagate social roles and impossible ideals, and lead to body negativity, body image health issues and psychological issues in high numbers, and sexual assault issues, and gender identity issues, and economic and educational and racial bias/racist prejudice,
given how bad we know these things are right now (and how bad the various ideas to address them are right now, and how bad the general politics of the issue is--not amenable to good solution/policy/practical conclusions/choices and very amenable to false accusations, bad arguments, etc.)

I oppose regulating all speech that is contained to those who positively consent to hearing it, but unless you want to be forced to allow public nudity and public sex acts and/or depictions of them, (etc)...


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dafd
My little reading on culture has shown how people pass down values and attitudes (culture) intergenerational and socially/in a socially diffuse way.
To the extent that the culture passed down can be the CoP
it may be inferred that people need positive role models, since they need "models for life"/examples of living, etc.
This is why gender and racial and queer representation is important, especially with regard to not only positive examples but much less negative stereotypical examples that reinforce negative stereotypes.

Identitarian Deference in Abortion Rights Rhetoric

I just realized another long-standing example of "identitarian deference" that I never noticed/recognized before:

"it you don't have a uterus, you do not get a vote"

"if you're not a woman, you don't get an opinion on this issue"

This is a very long-standing, from as far back as I can remember following politics, argument/piece of rhetoric/retort used by pro-choice women (and even some men) on the left to argue against pro-life men.

When in the past I've been thinking about how best to argue against some of these more risky/destructive tendencies, I've tried to recall previous examples of identity politics and identitarian deference ad hominems to show how the approach is fallacious; I especially tried to show them examples of conservative ad hominem fallacies that they might have decried as fallacious at the time and still would have the partisan amenability to that judgment.
But I was also trying to identity past examples of erroneous identity politics and identitarian deference in general, including on the left, in order in part to discover whether recent developments, in identity politics and PC--especially on campus, really represent a change on the political scene, whether there really was something new.
Even when I was recently casting about for specific identifiable examples of earlier lefty identitarianism, I didn't think of this.  Could mean nothing, but could be because of how deep this was engrained and normalized...

***

Incidentally, the current line on gender identity and trans rights would invalidate/preclude this rule anyway, since men and women can no longer be assumed to have penises and vaginas, respectively, and in general that there is no external way to determine whether they have a uterus or not--and asking them is rude and verifying is assault and insult.  

Equality and Democracy and Myth of the Medals

Oberlin radicals' and other student activists' proposing to eliminate grades below Cs, for instance, are perfect examples for Platonists to point to in order to show how some political proposals to promote equality and democracy (which are the same thing, since the political equality of each person would preclude any from having more power than another, a condition with which only equal votes for all--democracy--can be consistent) could hurt/injure the polity:

Allowing the silver and bronze to rise above their stations, including into the ruling gold and thereby undermining the quality of governance, as well as wasting some potential ability in roles it isn't needed.

It's overall a great illustration of what the Ancients and the Founders feared with regard to rule of the mob.  

Purely Malicious Expression and the Limits of Free Speech?

Does free speech and 1st amendment protect purely retaliatory claims-speech and legal actions?

Retaliation Charges Menace Freedom of Speech

According to this link, the courts mostly say yes, but some new opinions may differ. 

That this apparent consensus gives way to the newer interpretation would accord with some of my thinking elsewhere that, (following) from the falsity of the speech-action distinction (without a difference), free speech cannot justify intentionally (and purely?) malicious hurtful speech. 

PC vs. Fair Notice and Retroactive Legislation

I believe that at least some of the hostility to PC, especially from those otherwise inclined to support civil rights causes on the left, comes from the same impulses that underlie the (legal) doctrines/maxims of 'fair notice' and against/prohibiting retroactive legislation, and not without reason.  Many standards, like against micro-aggressions, erasure, and invalidation, and other forms of discursive violence, are not only higher than they used to be--which is certainly very plausibly the right thing to do--but vaguer and more fluid than they used to be (both there's more variability of them between different people, and they change more/faster over time [I suppose, for each person and for populations as a whole]).

Conor Friersdorf talked about "concept drift" (I think) in The Atlantic.  

Catherine Rampell reported on "sombrerogate" and Bowdoin.  Her second report included the detail that the school administration itself had committed the same discursively violent violation itself only the previous year, with even additionally offensive fake mustaches.  

Conor also reported on the case of the micro-aggressing email and response.