Interesting piece by James Piereson in the Oct 3 Weekly Standard examining the growth of Leftism in the academy (a topic addressed here on many occasions). From “The Left University”:
The left university, according to its self-understanding, is devoted to the exposure of the oppression of the various groups that have been the West’s victims–women, blacks, Hispanics, gays, and others that have been officially designated as oppressed groups–and to those groups’ representation. This is the so-called “diversity” ideology to which every academic dean, provost, and president must pledge obedience and devotion.
As it happens, the contemporary university is diverse only as a matter of definition and ideology, but not in practice or reality. A recent national survey of college faculty by Stanley Rothman, Robert Lichter, and Neil Nevitte showed that over 72 percent held liberal and left of center views, while some 15 percent held conservative views. The survey also found that, over time, and especially since 1980, academic opinion has moved steadily leftward as the generation shaped by the 1960s has taken control of academe. In the humanities and social sciences, where political views are more closely related to academic subject matter, the distribution of opinion is even more skewed to the left. Unlike professors in the past, moreover, many contemporary teachers believe it is their duty to incorporate their political views into classroom instruction. Thus students at leading colleges report that they are subjected to a steady drumbeat of political propaganda in their courses in the humanities and social sciences.
Of course, the good news here is that, in my experience, students tend to resist the doctrinaire—which means, in terms of learning the actual rote content of leftist narratives, students’ memories extend only so far as the mid-term and final. Where the trouble lies—as I’ve been at pains to argue lately—is in the grounding assumptions that animate the “progressive” social agenda, assumptions that are often difficult for students to spot, and so resist: eg., how interpretation works, how the diversity project is at odds with individualism and individual rights, how “authenticity” of voice is often tied to membership in a particular group that we are told is, at once, socially constructed, and yet somehow (incoherently) exclusionary.
Instead, students are gulled with sanctimonious bromides and easy, “empowering” philosophies that help to entrench the “progressive” agenda—from the promotion of diversity as anti-racist (who doesn’t want to be anti-racist?) to the idea that meaning, even in instances dependent upon an exchange between subjects (or, for frameone, between “subjectivities”—however previously “inscribed” by the cultural dialogic), is the sole province of the receiver / reader, which has the practical effect of relativizing all discourse.
Anyway, read the whole thing, if only to get some idea of the scope of progressive insinuation into the very fabric of the university culture.
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(h/t Terry Hastings)
related: Victor Davis Hanson on higher ed. Reynolds, on gender and higher ed. And further thoughts from Ann Althouse (h/t IP)
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update: Homework assignment. Tell me how this post by Random Fate’s Jack Grant ties in to all of our discussions over the last several weeks about meaning, interpretation, personal responsibility, and ownership of language.
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update 2: Mr Grant has written a second post decrying the horrific comments he’s received from wingnuts, presumably ones visiting from my site:
The nature of the comments I have received (and chosen not to approve) with respect to what I felt was a relatively innocuous post regarding the unacceptability of calling someone “GAY PORN COCK OF LIES!†on a right-wing weblog has shown that the right-wing is just as despicable as the left-wing.
OK, boys and girls, you tell me, how is the left-wing so much worse?
Perhaps you should clean your own house first before you start calling the left wing out for being so idiotic?
Unfortunately, because Mr Grant won’t post any of these supposedly offensive comments showing just how bad rightwingers are, we have to take his word for it.
And that is difficult, considering this entire mini-dustup is the result of his having misinterpreted the wingnuts to begin with.
Clearly, Mr Grant is determined to express outrage—and to find both the left and the right guilty of engendering it.
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update 3: Mr Grant has penned a third post. This time, he despairs for humanity, but particularly for those like me who are intellectually-challenged and who just can’t seem to accept what to him is perfectly clear: that a signifier that he doesn’t like is “patently offensive” and must mean what he insists it means. Any attempt to disabuse him of this notion is an “excuse.” Any suggestion that he needs to consider intention and context if he wishes to interpret the comments accurately, is a dodge. To Mr Grant, the signifier IS the offense.
Can I rest my case now?
My wife, while watching the Dylan thing on PBS last night, was wondering “when will the f**king ‘60s die?” Nice to see from a Gen Xer and someone who went to school with a bunch of hippies in Santa Cruz.
I swore I wouldn’t come back. Just swore it, God help me. But, alas, I am weak. And here I am.
I am a straight up liberal and I’m currently a teaching associate at a major urban university. I am always careful to filter my lesson plans and comments for political bias because I know it’s there, always, but I don’t think the classroom is the appropriate place for my political views. But I do try to instill in my students the idea that they should not take things at face value. They should look at the larger contexts and structures in which meaning is made. It’s called critical thinking skills, Jeff. I assist with a film class and it doesn’t matter to me if a student thinks Hollywood is liberal or conservative, I just want them to back up their analysis of the films they see with examples from the films themselves, placed within the historical context in which they were made. To get the wheels turning I might ask questions like this: If the average Hollywood action romance of the 1930s always ended with a man and a woman together, why does Casablanca, made in the early 1940s, end with the hero going off with another man? How might this change in formula have impacted the message of the film for audiences at the time? What does it tell us about Hollywood as an American and historical institution?
Are these liberally-loaded questions? Is there a liberally correct answer? Please, tell me if my bias is showing.
Believe it or not the aim of the modern teaching university is not to promote a “liberal agenda” but produce better commodities, ie workers, for liberal democracies.
“… which has the practical effect of relativizing all discourse.”
Where do you get this paranoid shit from? No one ever said that anything can mean anything. What’s at stake here is who gets to participate in the discussion and who gets to define the terms.
For what it is worth, my liberal-leaning US History prof was just a buffoon teaching Gen Ed. Waste of everyone’s time. I don’t remember a dang thing from that class.
My gen-ed Poli Sci class is quite a bit more interesting. I didn’t even know his political affiliations until I saw the newspaper clippings on his door belie a dislike of our fair president.
But he teaches the class fair and well.
Frameone, I think the answer to the Casablanca question is that it was just a story that didn’t end happily ever after (Guy gets girl vs fairly dejected but stiff upper lip guy walks off with bartender, if memory serves.), but maybe I’m a little too short-sighted.
This sentence needed an adverb instead, let me fix it.
But he teaches the class fair and wellly.
Turing word congress, as in “Congress continues to increase education spending. KEKEKEKEKEKE”
Where do you get this paranoid shit from? No one ever said that anything can mean anything. What’s at stake here is who gets to participate in the discussion and who gets to define the terms.
When the receiver of communication can assign intent to that communication <i>contra<> to that clearly assigned by the original communicator and then argue that interpretation to third parties, the receiver is indeed trying to relatize the communicator’s message. To the extent that this communication stratagem becomes commonplace among a influential segment of intelligentia whose stock in trade is words and communication, this in fact does have the effect of relativizing all discourse. Not sure where you get the idea that anybody is arguing that “anything can mean anything”, though…
My livelihood doesn’t depend on uncovering the swirling subtext underlying American cinema, like uncovering the abomination towards Allah in a swirly cone picture adorning a Burger King ice cream cone, but my take is that sometimes a story is just a story and sometimes the boy doesn’t get the girl. Of course, my film criticism consists of bitching that my wife keeps bumping her films up our Netflix list so deeeeep thoughts don’t exactly come to mind when I consider American cinema.
My black neighbor says “anything can mean anything” all the time. You are clearly being racist in parodying him.
You racist bastard.
Ah, Frameone, you’re breaking my heart. I’m serious. I feel bad for you. What if I were to suggest that you are so deeply entrenched in your worldview that you might as well be Keanu Reeves in the Matrix–before he woke up?
The very idea that you’d ask your students that kind of stupid and, ultimately, meaningless question about Casablanca in the first place–and think it bore any merit whatever–is indicative of the brainwashed, po-mo, intellectual free-fall you’re in.
Frankly, I don’t know what might save you. I wish you well.
Because “average” doesn’t mean the same as “every”.
TW: “was”, ‘That was a stupid question.’
Couple of possible answers:
1 – Casablanca is not an average Hollywood action romance.
2 – Ummm … World War II?
3 – the ‘Hero’ in Casablanca is the French Resistance guy who is the husband of ‘The Woman’. He goes off with the Woman.
Rick is an anti-hero/survivor of sorts, he hangs back with the other survivor, the local guy who’s still in power even though the Nazis are around, so Louie’s a survivor, too.
The sure Rick and Louie’s beautiful friendship’ is a euphemism for ‘hot gay sex’ and they’re walking towards a gay bathhouse that was shown briefly in a prior scene, but that’s not relevant to your initial question.
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frameone:
why does Casablanca, made in the early 1940s, end with the hero going off with another man? How might this change in formula have impacted the message of the film for audiences at the time?
This may have been anwered in a previous post or two, but if I can add a pespective:
When I was in college, I would have thought that it meant that Rick and (Louie?) the Gendarmes have simply walked off together, after both made a decision that illustrated growth of character.
Until, that is, the professor asked that question. Thereafter I would have been struggling to insinuate into the scene something that probably was not there, just to acknowledge that the professor may be seeing something I did not.
That the professor (or teaching assistant) did not realize how that distorted the scene to mean something it did not, is emblematic of the problem we have in University today.
But would I be racist in calling Frameone “articulate”, OHNOES? Can anyone identify a communications framework within which conservative zealots could not be considered racists (or sexist, for that matter)? What if I said that Steel Magnolias touched my inner woman? Or that Dolomite touched my inner African? Or would I be accused of using race and sex to get cheap (and probably unjustified) laughs? I’m confused and just dontknowheretoturnforhelp!!!!!
Because Rick believed the lives of two people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world?
I don’t get it. Is this really an interesting question?
Turing Word: “Married”, as in “Rick wasn’t married to her.”
I never had any problems with left-wing faculty. This is probably because I went through an engineering program at a traditional engineering school. The fact that it is private might also help.
I suspect that most of the math department was part of that generation and probably thinks similarly, but there is really not enough room to inject ideology especially when the majority of the math program wasn’t even applied mathematics.
The department of my major is undergoing an overhaul, and as a result, most of my professors actually obtained their doctorates in the 90’s. One of my professors (who is nostalgic for the eighties) mused, in class, after I had stated that a way to raise public revenues was to raise taxes, “you must be a democrat”. My economics professor seemed to be an unapologetic supply-sider (I believe that the whole department worked from a Greg Mankiw text).
If I were to guess, I would say that most of the profs that I had (including math) were not left-wing ideologues. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t matter because there wasn’t a significant amount of ideology pushed on me by the faculty. The students were a different story though.
I guess I just don’t understand what your gripe is, frameone.
I once taught “Curious George” to an honors seminar on interpretive practice. As part of that class, I wrote up a number of fake lit crit pieces, each one arguing that “Curious George” could be interpreted to “mean” a different thing (eg, George as post-colonial narrative of domesticating the other; George as homoerotic narrative; George as a narrative that reinforces patriarchal thinking, etc.). And it was true: George, when pressured cleverly, could indeed be made to yield such interpretations—and confronted with that “evidence,” students would reluctantly surrender to semiotic drift.
Wrongly. Because, no matter what I could make the signifiers do, the story is, simply enough, about a man in a big yellow hat and his curious monkey.
All I really proved, then, is that, when it comes to interpreting symbols that require our aid to become signs, we are able to imbue those symbols with sets of signifieds other than those intended by the author. But so what? Is it really a surprise that such a process can yield some pretty interesting narratives of our own resignification?
The point being, that what I’m not doing, when I resignify with no desire to re-create the author’s intent, is is “interpreting.” I’m engaging in creative writing—only I’m starting with a set of pre-laid symbols rather than a blank page.
In theory, if I’m not interested in how the author meant the symbols to be re-signified by the receiver, I may as well take his pages and turn them into origami. This, from a pedagogical standpoint, would be the same as any “interpretation” that refuses to address authorial intent. It just does with creases what “open interpretation” (which is not interpretation at all) does with resignification untethered to original intent.
I’ve not said anything about whether or not this can be a useful activity; after all, it’s a creative exercise in thinking symbolically, which can, indeed, improve critical thinking skills. But what it’s not is interpretation. It is creative writing.
Back in March, Real Clear Politics posted an article by Mike Rosen of The Rocky Mountain News where he quoted Richard Rorty about the methods the left uses to indoctrinate college students and how they have made universities the “power base of the left.” Here’s the quote:
“Richard Rorty is a philosophy professor at the University of Virginia. He’s also editor of an unabashedly socialist magazine, Dissent, and a hero of the academic left. Here’s his political assessment of academe: “The power base of the Left in America is now in the universities, since the trade unions have largely been killed off. The universities have done a lot of good work by setting up, for example, African-American studies programs, Women’s Studies programs, and Gay and Lesbian Studies programs. They have created power bases for these movements.”
Essentially, frameone has been hoodwinked into believing in cultural historicism, which is nothing less than the force of the human imagination in thrall to marxian political goals. It’s like suffering brain damage after being held under water for ten minutes.
Come, come to the light….
Frameone, your suggested questions on Casablanca betray not so much a liberal bias as a liberal thought pattern: you have imbedded in your questions (framed them, one might say) your opinions of hidden meaning, cause and effect, relevancy, etc.
An assistant associate film teacher who was truly interested in imparting critical thinking skills might ask these questions instead:
1. Prior to Casablanca, did Hollywood adhere to any formulaic movie endings? If so, did Casablanca continue the formula or break it?
2. Did the historical context in which Casablanca was released influence the ending of the movie? If so, how?
3. Does the ending of Casablanca have any particular historical impact on Hollywood, or America? If so, what was the impact?
Today’s liberals are unable to compete in the marketplace of ideas, so they attempt to force their views on society through the courts. You are a caricature of today’s liberal, forcing your views on the hapless students unlucky enough to draw you as an assistant associate film teacher.
fwiw, Rhett, after not giving a damn, went off by himself, presumably to masturbate like a caged chimpanzee.
Jeff: Thanks for bringing more attention to this situation, but Frameone points to precisely the problem. He(?) “tr[ies] to instill in my students the idea that they should not take things at face value. They should look at the larger contexts and structures in which meaning is made.” What things? What structures? Let me guess from my experience at my “major urban university.” The things should be questioned are conservative–not only in their politics, but in their methodology. This is the “status quo” while anything liberal is the “avant guarde.” Such professors do not see their own bias because it is shared by 90% of their colleagues–and they can console themselves that they’re not even remotely as biased as so-and-so down the hall, so it’s okay.
Newsflash: Yes, your bias shows.
If Condi Rice doesn’t run for president in ‘08, I hope she becomes a major university president and shakes this situation up.
Maybe I’m just dumb here, but wouldn’t a fair response to the whole Casablanca question might be that not all movies need to adhere strictly to formula? Perhaps the fact that the guy didn’t get the girl means just that – not that the guy got the other guy.
I dunno. Just me.
Sometimes it really is just about a man and his monkey.
Man. That should be my catchphrase.
You all should check out Evan Coyne Maloney’s documentary, Brainwashing 101. You can download it for free here:
http://academicbias.com/bw101.html
Maloney has been called the conservative Michael Moore, and it’s to his unending credit that he doesn’t crotch-kick everyone who calls him that.
If the average Hollywood action romance of the 1930s always ended with a man and a woman together, why does Casablanca, made in the early 1940s, end with the hero going off with another man? How might this change in formula have impacted the message of the film for audiences at the time? What does it tell us about Hollywood as an American and historical institution?
frameone—Actually, I’m fascinated by your asking these particular questions. Maybe you can teach me something. Is your purpose with those questions to teach students a lesson on breaking formula? If so, is it necessary to throw in “going off with another man?” Or, from your perspective, is it enough to point out the man and woman don’t get together?
“A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.” Bob Dylan (take that Chrees.).
BTW, my university includes support of diversity as a separate item on annual performance evaluation for staff.
Homework is too easy, here is my comment to random fate:
Jeff- I posted my homework in the dude’s comments.
TW: “nothing”: If this weren’t the blogosphere, I would take the time here to make an insightful humorous comment, referential to other contexts. Not having the time to detail my assumptions and referants, however, I will forgo the oppotunity, knowing as I do that unforeseen lurkers in generations hence may see these words and misinterpret them to my undying shame.
While I’m certainly as interested in Bogey’s GAY PORN COCK OF LIES as the next guy, the real revelation for me here is that leftist bias can be suppressed by an act of will. Not because I find the idea implausible– quite the opposite– but because it raises the possibility that the same is true of Capt. Ed’s Unconscious Racism. With my luck it’ll probably turn out that the necessary ingredient is not will, but the bias-suppression rays emitted by lecterns in university lecture halls.
Being a critic isn’t necessarily something to be ashamed of—there’s plenty of places on the Web where people sound off about films, TV shows, and whatever. Most of them have the good grace to do it for free, though.
It’s kind of sad that some critics actually believe they’re adding something to the creative process.
Giving credit where it’s due, you certainly got the wheels turning, frameone. Though perhaps not in the direction you intended.
Believe it or not the aim of the modern teaching university is not to promote a “liberal agenda†but produce better commodities, ie workers, for liberal democracies.
Does this mean you see yourself not as creating better citizens who will benefit all society, but as producing interchangable workers for the state? Do you really consider your students drones, and yourself their queen bee? And is this worker bee narrative more valid than yours if I claim it fits your words more precisely, or does your intent overrule?
The dog ate my homework, Jeff. Or deleted it anyway, for my cowardly failure to provide him my email address, two pieces of picture ID and a urine sample. Frickin’ Nazi.*
*Note to future: Nazi–National Socialist party of Germany, led in WWII by Adolf Hitler, an Austrian of reputedly Jewish decent. (Maybe he killed himself. No one knows for sure.) Fascist totalitarian regime that sought “racial purity” through eradication of whole ethnic populations.” Used here sarcasticly as referant to hyperbolic usage of the term by opponents of conservatism, soup chefs, etc. Not intended as implication that immediate referant, Random Fate, has any history of, or present inclination to promote the eradication of Jews.
Goldstein is right, life is just a sad story about a lonely man and his monkey who requires occasional spanking.
WRT Casablanca and the loaded question from the prof in denile (first stage of senile)…
How about the moral of the story is that the struggle between Nazi’s and the Free World is bigger than the heart’s desire. Pretty hard concept for the self focused commie lib professor to swallow. The opposite of “if it feels good, do it”.
The non-technical college classwork is about reconstruction called deconstruction. Loaded questions, like the Curious George problem set, is just a test of the ability of a student to regurgitate racial, class or sexual spin. The appropriate and expected response is then labeled as “deep” and “open-minded”.
Like all newspeak, the real meaning is opposite:
Liberals are authoritarians
Progressives are Regressive
Diversity is Uniformity
Color-Blind is Color Sensitive
Intelligent is Moronic
Open-minded means “repeat after me… “
To a certain extent, frameone has a point: now that everyone needs must pass through the university to get a decent job – regardless of ability or interest – the university is churning out intellectual sausage.
But, frameone, no one is suggesting that the universities are conspiring to ‘make’ students liberal (er, Left). Actually, if the universities just gave equal air time to genuinely liberal ideas, and were – in fact – liberal, we’d all sleep more soundly.
No, what we’re suggesting is that after four years of rebreathing the dead, stale, unimaginative air of discredited marxism and postmodern absurdity, most students leave with their minds poisoned. And they don’t even know it.
That’s what we’re concerned about.
My most embarrassing college moment, (it’s always a disappointing answer when I’m asked the question at parties) was when I presented an independent study paper to my professors on the issue of official-language English.
I was marginally in favor of official English myself, but felt like I needed a “kicker” to give my analysis some rhetorical fire and substance. I got the feeling that a spirited argument in favor of official English would come across as trite, enthnocentric, racist etc. And I couldn’t think of any possible argument AGAINST official language English other than that it was just that–enthnocentric and racist. So I presented a paper baselessly smearing the whole official language English movement with racist intent.
To his credit and my embarrassment, my professor, a “moderate Democrat” whom I admired immensely, was deeply disappointed in the lack of any real analysis in my paper. He’s one of the good ones.
Grant’s diatribe is as supercilious as it is intellectually dishonest. Out of one side of his mouth, he claims that he’s desperately trying to avoid a blogwar, while creating an inflammatory post claiming great distress about an extremely petty issue that ultimately didn’t concern him. Gandelman’s a big boy; he can take care of himself. Does he really need Grant to stick up for him?
Is it really Grant’s conceit that Jeff’s responsible for every comment on Protein Wisdom? I take it, then, that Grant’s willing to take responsibility for fellow Moderate Voice blogger Michael Stickings’ relentless Bush-bashing, despite that that might screw up Grant’s “moderate” bona fides. Jeff’s personal responsibility on this site is to what he writes, and what he writes only. It actually seems rather passive-aggressive for Grant to bitch at Jeff over what mojo wrote instead of bitching at mojo himself. Jeff took Grant’s friend Gandelman to the woodshed, but rather than trying to refute Jeff’s arguments himself, Grant instead posts about how coarsened the dialogue has become on Jeff’s site by citing someone else’s words. Doesn’t seem very Type A to me, but we can’t all be up front with our resentments.
The worst part is that when Jeff attempted to explain the nature and context of mojo’s remark, Grant simply wrote it off as an excuse. This shows that Grant intended to be insulted on Gandelman’s behalf no matter what. Doesn’t sound like a way to avoid a blogwar to me, but I’m not a jaded moderate like Jack Grant.
Holy. Shit. Jeff.
I got absolutely dizzy from your reply above. I don’t think I understand a single damn thing in it, and I hoist a big glass of Guinness to you for it. Breathtakingly academic – way way way above my level.
TW surface – so dizzy, I’m not even sure what that means.
That’s correct, Jeff. If intentionality is bogus, so is interpretation–or examining the “larger context.” And why don’t we in film theory ever examine the sinister subtext of, say, Indian or Danish film?
Good news in the article about the turnaround beginning in higher ed. Maybe Jeff can be the new dean of reality thinking.
I personally think frameone is a troll. He can’t be serious.
re: Homework assignment
I think Mister Grant displays a lack of humor, though I’m sure he considers himself ‘teh funny’.
The examples given by Mister Grant of the rightwings ‘non-positive contributions to the overall niceness of the Blogosphere’ are humor-based.
That would indicate that Mister Grant is, for all practical purposes, color-blind with regard to humor. It’s something he knows about, but doesn’t ‘get’. The GAY COCK thing, there I said it, is an example. There’s no way to not take that in jest, unless you’ve got the societal awareness of the Amish, in which case what are you doing online?
While Americablog was suggesting that and its commentors were speculating, not in jest, that Jeff Gannon had sunk his throbbing man-meat into (insert various Republican official’s name here) it was decidely done not in jest, but rather as a plausible explanation of events.
After a point, that becomes ripe for satire, one along the lines of ‘Chimpy McHitlerburton’ – they’re serious, the rightwing – as such – is mocking them.
So, Mister Grant also fails to distinguish that which is satire from its source.
Well played, Jack … well, played.
What’s striking is that Gandelman has on his site the Award for the best blog ranked 2500-3000th. You’d think Joe’d appreciate the traffic.
this whole discussion confirms I made the right choice to pursue science rather than lib arts. although I might have done well in Jeff’s class when I stood up and screamed “it’s a kiddie story from 1950! It’s about a guy and his cute pet!” might have saved me when I insisted that Moby Dick and The Old Man and the Sea were just fishing stories, dammit. FISHING STORIES, NOTHING MORE AND NOTHING LESS DAMMIT
mind, as in lit crit folks have lost thiers
Mr. Grant now has third post wherein he all but threatens suicide based on his complaint that humanity fails to live up to his standards. If he turns up dead tomorrow, Jeff, you know there’s blood on your hands.
TW: party. Heh.
I posted an innocuous comment to the effect that Grant shouldn’t take things quite so seriously and he deleted it.(!!?) Apparently, he’s a tender flower, indeed.
See? This is the kind of doctrinaire attitude that gives idealists a bad name. Some idealism is truly open-minded and gallant and some–like Grant’s, apparently–is a closed system.
No, I don’t think frameone is by any means a troll–just someone who sounds exasperated. I hope s/he returns.
I love this comment posted over there:
Huh?
I mean, huh?
I just got back from watching PIG RACING OF LIES at the Virginia state fair, so my homework is turned in late.
Mr. Grant is obviously a remiss ass for not being aware he was stepping into strange territory and might not know the lay of the land ,or the people therein or the language they speak; not using the search function to find the origin of an old inside joke; or asking his host about it in a private email about it before making context-starved pronouncements dooming him to mockery.
All the same I recommend not shouting out GAY PORN COCK OF LIES in a room crowded with sweaty, pantless men high on meth with the VEEEAGGRY heaped in darling Reynaud Christobal bowls in the center of the room. Also not in church.
Or anywhere else no one is likely to understand you.
(ps. link not meant to be a blog whore, but your spamblocker misunderstood the direct link to the article)
Jeff
I take that comment to mean something along the lines of not only are you to give the federally funded cheese to those who want it, you are required to ensure they chew and swallow it with no mishaps. Or expect OUTRAGE.
Mr. Grant now has third post wherein he all but threatens suicide based on his complaint that humanity fails to live up to his standards.
Man, this is getting ridiculous. Grant’s third post practically shattered the glass on the melodrama scale. And all this about a blogpost comment meant as a sarcastic joke?!?! What a stunning waste of time and energy.
Aw, shit. Am I in trouble again?
Whatever.
Just wait unitl Geek, Esq. breezes in over there and accuses him of perjury. Then we’ll be treated to string of hysterical fainting spells.
It can be shown that these schools are lying about their diversity agenda. Every college, every company and every country is at maximum genetic diversity for its size, since each individual is genetically unique. The government schools need a very traumatic privatization, if they and their sponsoring officials, are not to be permitted to keep pushing for intercommunal war.
I mean, now, c’mon, people! All these straightlaced hypocrites, crying out about ”GAY PORN COCK OF LIES”, and no one points the possibility that maybe Rick had a thing for Frenchmen?
Especially after this yak yak about “intent” and “interpretation”, why can’t we just point out that Humphrey Bogart was the first American actor to portray a gay in Hollywood? Granted, it’s all symbolism and implications, but, hey, I’m sure not taking things at face value here. I’m thinking liberally, I am!
Query: Is it reasonable to ask “Hey, guys, ‘gay porn cock of lies?’ That’s a very… illustrious moniker. What’s the deal?” Just that Jeff makes it sound like a search function would solve everyone’s problem, but, frankly, if we found EVERY reference to gay porn etc., then he’d have to do a lot of work. Is it not reasonable that, in theory, if one were to simply ask that question, he could be granted leniency in the “YOU are responsible for finding the true intent” rule simply for showing that he is willing to find the intent rather than ascribe his own?
oh sure OHNOES, but he didn’t do that did he?
BECAUSE OF THE HIPPOCRACY!!!!
’Nother data point: when I went to college, we weren’t regaled by the political viewpoints of the professors because they were too busy trying to stuff our heads with calculus, differential equations, physics, circuit analysis theory, amplifier design, digital logic design, integrated circuit design and fabrication techniques, control systems design and analysis, complex variables, Fourier analysis, communications theory (no, not speaking and listening), and miscellaneous piddly other elective bits like how lasers work and optimization and symbolic logic. And English, freshman year only. I feel I have to bring that up for some reason.
So not only no time or context to introduce anything even distantly related to conservative or liberal points of view, but the class would’ve collectively wondered “huh?” if it were attempted. From the point of view of an Engineer, the softer side of education screwed up by naming itself Liberal Arts in the first place.
And no, that’s not contempt. I frequently regret that I didn’t learn how to think properly before learning how to analyze.
Has anyone ever seen Jack Grant and Andrew Sullivan in the same room? Just wondering.
Man, I love this place. Jeff, toungueboy, OHNOES, ss, Horst, ahem, Bumper, and you too mojo, you guys/gals are great. Serious thinking when it is called for, and hilarious satire whenever.
Pass on what you don’t know so it isn’t forgotten.
regarding that bit:
The first part is simply wrong. In any sort of transaction there are conditions that relate to a ‘reasonable person’ and their interpretation. As such, the question isn’t whether Jack Grant or people of his, I’ll say it, ilk understand – there’s no way of knowing whether Grant et al. are reasonable people or dyspeptic utopians or, for that matter, euphoric dystopians.
Also, anybody who’s bought from vendors knows that contracts are interpreted according to established industry practices (for example: FOB – destination or units of measure, for example, if you order a ‘truckload of product’, and the industry standard is a 50’ truck, you can’t claim “I only wanted a pickup truck load”)
Also, that comment changes gear at the end with the ‘You learn these things when you speak for a living’.
Really.
No shit.
If you are a professional communicator, then you are extremely interested in how your message gets through to the listener and, since you have a financial stake in the issue it’s in YOUR INTEREST to communicate in a way that’s effective for the listener.
That’s not US Law, that’s Salesmanship 101.
Whether or not it makes a difference in the blogosphere depends on what part of the blogosphere we’re talking about.
Andrew Sullivan makes a living in the blogosphere. I’d presume it’d be in his interest to worry *extensively* about framing his message and drawing readership.
Glenn Reynolds, otoh, has tenure as a law professor, writes books, has outside hobbies, and a wife that earns household income so is free to ‘heh’ and ‘indeed’ his way through the blogosphere with little concern over that, other than to clear up the confusion expressed by others.
Two examples of this are Glenn’s clarifications for Sullivan’s benefit and Glenn’s clarifications for ODubs’s benefit.
Sullivan, it can be presumed, is willfully being obtuse. ODubs just can’t help it.
And of course, no academic can leave a story alone and let the reader/viewer enjoy it. Nope, it has to be sliced and diced and microscopically analyzed until every last mote of enjoyment has been squeezed out of it.
And they wonder why people hate literature. Well, besides the crappy “woe is everything!” post-WWII writing styles.
Word: the. “A fit subject for any PhD thesis is a deconstructionist evaluation of the heuristic and patriarchical oppressive tendencies of the signifier ‘the’.”
My head asplode!
Part of the problem is that, once you’ve explained a work of art—Casablanca, David Copperfield, whatever—you have to keep rehashing the same old ideas every semester–unless you can figure out a different angle.
I mean, you can’t teach every student how to create (especially if you’re holed up in academia because you’re too cowardly or uncreative yourself), but you can always teach impressionable students how to stand on the sidelines and criticize. (Anyone can be a critic.) And the more abstruse and confusing the system of criticism, the better.
I’d submit that part of the reason that academia is such a breeding ground for dopey, half-assed ideas is that the academics themselves are just plain bored.
nobodyimportant: You’re a real card yourself.
Jeff, consider your case rested…
Wanna bet Grant and Gandelman got their lunch money taken from them a few times in grade school?
Grant deleted both of my comments, and they were very civil. What a piker. No need to even bother with his site anymore.
I may be simpilisme, but I always thought they were going off together to kill Nazis.
But that’s just me.
I disagree. I’m not going to agree to a contract for a “truckload of produce”, I’m going to say I want “X pounds of fresh tomatoes, Y pounds of fresh cantalope, and Z pounds of cabbage.”
And when I agree to the purchase, it’s going to be in set language, using commonly and clearly defined terms to clarify exactly what I what. If I say “fresh” and get “rotten”, that’s wrong. If I get “just barely ripe”, that’s acceptable. And so on.
But if I have a dispute with the vendor over the contract, and go to court, the first question that comes up is, “What was the intent of the contract?” What did the parties agree to in this business transaction.
That’s not Salesmanship. That’s contract law. Lawyers earn a lot of money on this one area alone, where clear communication always saves you a lot of time, hassle, and money.
This is one example where the use of clearly defined terminology, with no equivocation or redefining terms based on the receiver thinks it should mean, is required by law.
I, as the customer, has to make that the vendor understands what I want. The vendor might have to educate me in the terminology and selection, but that’s what happens when I order a custom color of paint.
we agree, Real Jeff.
The Salesmanship 101 part had to do with the specific instance of a professional communicator and their need to use language which places an emphasis on the audience’s existing perceptions.
After all, they did call him “Frenchie”.
Ah, good point, BumperStickerist. I misunderstood you somewhat, it appears.
AWG—
Has this joker never heard of Fark? ‘Cuz it’s been pretty obvious to me from the get-go that anything typed in ALL CAPS is functionally equivalent to Admiral Ackbar shouting IT’S A TRAP!
Of course, these idiots probably think Fark is a seething hotbed of anti-Calamari racism.
TW: attack—I swear that generator frightens me sometimes.
Jeff: Here’s my completed homework, as posted over there:
Jack: I think you need to lighten up a little. Yes, we could all do with a little more civility in this world, of course. Self-policing, sure. But I’m not certain we live in that world.
Our mass media and entertainment world overflows with pointed references to sexual congress. Our school sytems “teach†sex ed with all the moral clairity of brushing one’s teeth. So-called “social liberals†assert that homosexual acts are equally valid to that of heterosexual relationships.
You open your essay with a comment about one of the “seven deadly sins,†pride, as if that were a commonly held value in our culture–yet nowhere in our government run schools could any discussion of such sin ever take place. In fact, I would argue that the concept of pride–or in PC-speak, self-esteem–has become THE guiding principle for socializing children today, in our schools.
So when it comes to getting “our house†in order, I think you ought to set your sights a little higher than a running gag on a web log.
And of course, one could say, two wrongs don’t make a right. But the post-modernists of the “reality-based†community insist that it’s all relative, there are no right or wrong values. Yet, at the end of the day, we’ve got you preaching that we should police our neighbor’s behavior–on the premise that as my neighbor “insulted†someone, so I have “insulted†someone.
That your argument is so porous, based on a standard so subjective, I can only respond, “I am not my brother’s keeper.â€Â
But good luck in your effort to clean this world of alleged insults.
Not as articulate of your response, Jeff, but close enough, for me.
Pfft, that’s like saying “Well, my poker skills aren’t QUITE the level of Howard Lederer.”
Nothing to be ashamed of. The bar is just too high.
UUuuhh, not as literate, either.
Should say, “Not as articulate **as** your response,…
In the spirit of making a contribution to a blog that I have followed for a while, I submit this to you hoping that it may provide some insight to your readers.
Mr. Taleb came to my attention in my random readings across the field of Economics. The crux of his work explores how the general public is fooled by what appear to be patterns, trends, or insights in the world at large. He employs the findings of behavioral economists to reveal the fallacies of reasoning that people fall victim to in their dealings with their finances and beliefs about the future.
his web site is: http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/
– The Op-Ed of Terrorism is worthy of a quick read.
but there is a article written for http://www.edge.org that could provide some insight to your readers, if not fodder for discussion. “THE OPIATES OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES” (http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge169.html#taleb)
But then you’d be racist.
You racist bastard.
IT’S A TRAP!
Patently offensive? Moi?
I’d kinda like to see a citation on that patent, pal.
SB: aid
and abet. Means “encourage to offend”.
My head asplode!
Ditto.