tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post1993877219726517754..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Politics of Pastiche: "voters... need someone to fire all the political-correct police"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-40924021416791907692015-09-02T05:01:19.551-04:002015-09-02T05:01:19.551-04:00I am not a fan of the "adjunctification"...I am not a fan of the "adjunctification" of faculty. I have long argued in many venues that the bottom line on tenure is to protect academic freedom, and that is exactly what adjuncts do not have, along with their generally lousy pay.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-70616965299487156752015-09-02T01:15:59.270-04:002015-09-02T01:15:59.270-04:00Barkley, I don't disagree that administrations...Barkley, I don't disagree that administrations do stupid things that in some cases infringe on some concepts of academic freedom, but as you point out "it is from both political sides." I would take issue with your "both" as I wouldn't consider Democrats as representative of "the left," there isn't something I would consider a coherent left, and there are undoubtedly sincere Christians and other traditionalists who aren't allied with the vast right-wing think-tank/foundation propaganda mill. In other words, the petty intrusions are much more pluralistic than the mighty wurlitzer propaganda campaign that collates them into a malicious tyranny "more terrible than McCarthyism."<br /><br />As for "academic freedom," I don't think it means what you believe (and we both wish) it means. My understanding is that the prevailing interpretation has to do with the relative freedom of the academic <i>institutions</i> from state interference, not freedom of the academic <i>personnel</i> to profess whatever their conscience tells them to. Of course such "freedom" is subject to budgetary constraints anyway so I would go running around thinking I could wave the black flag of Anarchy with impunity.<br /><br />Now if you want to talk about something that is a major impediment to what we might view as academic freedom, consider the adjunctification of university teaching. But that is not a plague of "political correctness" so never mind.Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-34769635589894555772015-09-02T00:40:58.959-04:002015-09-02T00:40:58.959-04:00Oh, UC was just one example, and I do not think an...Oh, UC was just one example, and I do not think anybody has actually been fired there. There are others and recent. So, we have Teresa Buchanan fired from Louisiana State for saying "Fuck no." in a class. We have John McAdams fired from Marquette for a blog post in which he criticized the conduct of a grad student teacher who had a dispute with a student over gay rights. There is Steven Salaitis, who left a tenured position at Virginia Tech to take a position at U. of Illinois, with the offer retracted after pro-Israeli donors objected to certain statements he had made criticizing Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians. This is not just all just the pc stuff that Trump and others are whining about. It has become quite widespread and is from both political sides. There is a real issue here of boards and administrators thinking they can fire faculty for things they say, not even things in classrooms.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-16556634145656764282015-09-01T19:16:09.898-04:002015-09-01T19:16:09.898-04:00Eugene Volokh:
"Though UC didn’t forbid suc...Eugene Volokh: <br /><br />"Though UC didn’t forbid such statements, labeling them as racial and sex-based “microaggressions” tended to send a powerful message to faculty members and students, especially ones who weren’t protected under tenure — a message that you had better not express certain views if you want to stay on the administration’s good side. That’s a serious blow to academic freedom and to freedom of discourse more generally."<br /><br />What a load.<br /><br />UC didn’t forbid such statements...<br />UC didn’t forbid such statements...<br />UC didn’t forbid such statements...<br /><br />The rest is pure BULLSHIT. Because, I repeat:<br /><br />UC didn’t forbid such statements...<br />UC didn’t forbid such statements...<br />UC didn’t forbid such statements...<br />Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-71088386471307758852015-09-01T18:06:37.394-04:002015-09-01T18:06:37.394-04:00Lewis Lapham:
"It was at [Irving] Kristol...Lewis Lapham:<br /><br />"It was at [Irving] Kristol's suggestion that I met a number of the fund-raising people associated with the conservative program of political correctness, among them Michael Joyce, executive director in the late seventies of the Olin Foundation. We once traveled together on a plane returning to New York from a conference that Joyce had organized for a college in Michigan, and somewhere over eastern Ohio he asked whether I might want to edit a new journal of cultural opinion meant to rebut and confound the ravings of The New York Review of Books. The proposition wasn't one in which I was interested, but the terms of the offer-an annual salary of$200,000, to be paid for life even in the event of my resignation or early retirement-spoke to the seriousness of the rightist intent to corner and control the national market in ideas."<br /><br />Footnote: "The proposed journal appeared in 1982 as <i>The New Criterion</i>, promoted as a "staunch defender" of high culture, 'an articulate scourge of artistic mediocrity and intellectual mendacity wherever they are found.' Joyce later took over direction of the Bradley Foundation, where he proved to be as deft as Weyrich and Kristol at what the movement conservatives liked to call the wondrous alchemy of turning intellect into influence."<br /><br />Bradley Foundation = Encounter Books = Recycled Lyndon LaRouche conspiracy theory bilge. Every word they utter is a lie, including "and" and "the."Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-52396709355626612592015-09-01T17:49:25.233-04:002015-09-01T17:49:25.233-04:00Yeah sure, Janet Napolitano, that well-known Frank...Yeah sure, Janet Napolitano, that well-known Frankfurt School critical theorist. Anecdotes of stupid administrative edicts are precisely that, anecdotes. And lots of 'em are, if you will pardon the expression, bullshit. As in right-wing propaganda bullshit.<br /><br />I don't have a lot of time to waste tracking down the REAL story behind a <b>Eugene Volokh</b> propaganda barrage but "restrictions on speech"? No, this looks like some stupid "sensitivity training" program that probably has about as much to do with Janet Napolitano as the pizza named after her. <br /><br />These assholes are on salary to the likes of the Bradley foundation to dredge up cause celebres of "restrictions on free speech" and the best they can come up with is some dimwit seminar?<br /><br />Don't repeat as "reporting" ANYthing you read in the papers, Barkley, until you've verified it. Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-11295556991171553382015-09-01T15:53:56.311-04:002015-09-01T15:53:56.311-04:00Oh, I guess I'll poke a bit here. Mostly fine...Oh, I guess I'll poke a bit here. Mostly fine, S-man, but in fact there is an increasingly off-the-wall trend on many campuses towards what can only be characterized as absurd restrictions on speech that is viewed as constituting "microagressions." One of the more notorious was issued earlier this year for the entire U of California system by system President Janet Napolitano. Examples of forbidden speech include<br /><br />"America is a melting pot."<br /><br />"I believe the most qualified person should get the job."<br /><br />"America is the land of opportunity."<br /><br />"I hit that."<br /><br />I could provide a link to a discussion of this on Daily Beast a few months ago, but am lazy, but there are plenty of other examples and cases from around the country.<br /><br />Now, one might well argue thta any of those lines may be questionable, but to say that they should not be allowed to be said? A bit too much as far as I am concerned. I do support freedome of speech and academic freedom, and this stuff is just idiotic.rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-18016555762221221622015-09-01T12:25:08.726-04:002015-09-01T12:25:08.726-04:00NiceNiceAhsanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04195428454313772881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-70820505798939231132015-08-31T01:06:56.247-04:002015-08-31T01:06:56.247-04:00Hey, if they keep repeating it, it must be true, r...<i>Hey, if they keep repeating it, it must be true, right?</i><br /><br />You have to keep repeating things to catapult the propaganda.Bruce Wilderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09631065564839959376noreply@blogger.com