I have two responses, but I’m separating them because they are two entirely different issues. The first is that I think the article is misrepresenting the background of racism in UCLA in this article.
I’m a UChicago undergrad. In the past few years:
People put up a confederate flag in the window of the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs.
People dressed up as a ‘cholo’ getting beaten up by a police officer for Halloween.
A group called the UChicago Electronic Army took over the website of an entirely unrelated group and threatened to rape an individual as well as telling people that they will “rape harder to show the class of 2016 who is boss.”
And these are just the ones that were big enough that I found out about it. Until the most recent incident happened, the University had not taken action or even said anything about any of these incidents. In the most recent one, people went to the media and 41 teachers sent a petition to the university to condemn these instances and make it clear that these issues would not be tolerated.
This article is construing actions taken to be issues SJ types are complaining about to be ones that are not serious or concerning, but it feels to me like they are cherry picking these examples while leaving out the more serious ones.
(It is possible that the ones outlined in the article are the only ones in the recent history of UCLA, and there is not a broader scope of racist actions that is being left out. But I place a pretty low prior on that being the case.)
Thanks, a very interesting response. But what do you mean by “SJ” types? Actually the whole sentence “This article is construing actions taken to be issues SJ types are complaining about to be ones that are not serious or concerning” is a bit hard to parse though I think I understand all but “SJ types”.
Sorry, I meant social justice types, as in those identifying with the social justice movement.
And sorry about the general lack of clarity, my mind’s been feeling weird today. Basically, that the author is making it seem like people are making a big deal of out little issues, and I was trying to say that regardless of how severe you think these incidents are, there are probably worse ones that the author is ignoring.
There’s no need to be “extra-charitable” but it is helpful to give unbiased definitions of a group. If you want to then say “and I think that what they really act like is X” that’s a distinct step, but actively defining a political movement to be something that they would not self-identify as is heavily in the mind-killing territory.
Becuause that’s not a definition, that’s a description, and it builds into the situation a No-True-Scotsman situation into any dispute. It is therefore far more useful to keep distinct the self-identity of a movement and then state descriptively what the people who self-identify as such in practice act like.
It is therefore far more useful to keep distinct the self-identity of a movement and then state descriptively what the people who self-identify as such in practice act like.
Oookay then. Let’s look at my post. Here it is in its entirety:
SJ = Social Justice, a framework of looking at the world as a fight against omnipresent oppression, mostly by white men of everyone else.
Oh! You said “it is therefore far more useful to keep distinct the self-identity of a movement” and here it is:
SJ = Social Justice
and then you said “and then state descriptively what the people who self-identify as such in practice act like” and here it is:
a framework of looking at the world as a fight against omnipresent oppression, mostly by white men of everyone else.
So, remind me again what are you complaining about?
The objection is the phrasing of social justice as a ” framework of looking at the world as a fight against omnipresent oppression, mostly by white men of everyone else.” I’m in agreement that to a large extent that isn’t an inaccurate descriptor for much of passes for SJ. The mind-killing problem is to use that as the definition.
The fact that you even refer to things that occurred “in the past few years” is enough to conclude that what follows is seriously cherry-picked evidence. Any incident may obviously be concerning as far as it goes, but is there any real evidence that racial prejudice and animus are getting out of control? The point is, any situation where multiple cultures and social groups interact (and yes, races in the U.S. are social groups too, as we all know) is going to involve some amount of friction and conflict—particularly in a youthful environment, such as college. It’s not something unrealistic or out of the ordinary. One can hope that such things will improve over time, but I’m not going to hold my breath for that.
I’m 62 and have seen a lot, but what falenas108 describes sounds kind of horrific to me. Also I don’t see “cherry picking” in part because he/she’s just giving a couple of points of data, not using a couple of points of data to draw broad conclusions. If you haven’t looked at the link http://assets.feministing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Screen-Shot-2014-11-19-at-10.26.55-AM.png I suggest you do.
It seems to me many people’s fears and rages are being played on, and many people find themselves agreeable “echo chambers” where they goad each other into ever more extreme views. I remember in the 1970s working (as a nurses aid in a state mental hospital) with a guy who was as sure as he was of anything that the Moon Landing was a hoax (note—a fellow employee, not a patient) and that seemed pretty remarkable back then, but it seems pretty ordinary now.
I’ll unroll. “Word inflation” means that with time the intensity signaled by words decreases. Used to be you felt good on occasion, you felt excellent rarely, and you felt awesome maybe a few times in your life. Nowadays if you say “good” it means “pretty much sucks”, if you say “excellent” it means “OK”, and if you say “awesome” it means “I”m fine”.
4chan has pretty extreme word inflation. “I’m gonna rape you bitches” generally means “I will attempt to do something unpleasant to you” and the actual intent behind it might be something like kicking someone out of an IRC channel.
So all that vocabulary in the quote upthread doesn’t actually mean what it literally means. In reality it means “I want to make some status noises and that’s the only way I know how”.
By the way, is it really “bog-standard”? I thought it was “hog-standard”.
Evidently in your area the hogs are standard, and in my—bogs :-/
Don’t get me wrong, I also think the incidents are horrific, and I’m far from condoning those responsible. I’m just saying that expecting an environment that’s completely pristine and free of any kind of tension is entirely unrealistic, and we should not be assuming that as a sensible short-term goal. If there’s anything that can be done to help this situation, it’s expanding our notion of “cross-cultural competency and communication” to include personal strategies for being more resilient and assertive in the face of perceived slights to one’s status (what “microaggressions” seems to unpack to, AIUI). Because I don’t think you can have one without the other.
TW rape threats, racism.
I have two responses, but I’m separating them because they are two entirely different issues. The first is that I think the article is misrepresenting the background of racism in UCLA in this article.
I’m a UChicago undergrad. In the past few years:
People put up a confederate flag in the window of the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs.
People dressed up as a ‘cholo’ getting beaten up by a police officer for Halloween.
A group called the UChicago Electronic Army took over the website of an entirely unrelated group and threatened to rape an individual as well as telling people that they will “rape harder to show the class of 2016 who is boss.”
The same group hacked into a person’s facebook account who was speaking up against the Halloween costume, using slurs and threatening rape against another person. This was in response to a plan to show up to a study area and protest for 7 minutes. (http://assets.feministing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Screen-Shot-2014-11-19-at-10.26.55-AM.png)
And these are just the ones that were big enough that I found out about it. Until the most recent incident happened, the University had not taken action or even said anything about any of these incidents. In the most recent one, people went to the media and 41 teachers sent a petition to the university to condemn these instances and make it clear that these issues would not be tolerated.
This article is construing actions taken to be issues SJ types are complaining about to be ones that are not serious or concerning, but it feels to me like they are cherry picking these examples while leaving out the more serious ones.
(It is possible that the ones outlined in the article are the only ones in the recent history of UCLA, and there is not a broader scope of racist actions that is being left out. But I place a pretty low prior on that being the case.)
Thanks, a very interesting response. But what do you mean by “SJ” types? Actually the whole sentence “This article is construing actions taken to be issues SJ types are complaining about to be ones that are not serious or concerning” is a bit hard to parse though I think I understand all but “SJ types”.
Sorry, I meant social justice types, as in those identifying with the social justice movement.
And sorry about the general lack of clarity, my mind’s been feeling weird today. Basically, that the author is making it seem like people are making a big deal of out little issues, and I was trying to say that regardless of how severe you think these incidents are, there are probably worse ones that the author is ignoring.
SJ = Social Justice, a framework of looking at the world as a fight against omnipresent oppression, mostly by white men of everyone else.
It isn’t rationalism to to give the most uncharitable definition of a movement or group possible.
Oh, that’s not the “most uncharitable” definition by far. I can easily come up with much worse.
I happen to think my definition is correct and I don’t see any particular reason to be extra-charitable about it.
There’s no need to be “extra-charitable” but it is helpful to give unbiased definitions of a group. If you want to then say “and I think that what they really act like is X” that’s a distinct step, but actively defining a political movement to be something that they would not self-identify as is heavily in the mind-killing territory.
I disagree. I don’t see why a useful definition of a political movement has to match their self-identification.
Becuause that’s not a definition, that’s a description, and it builds into the situation a No-True-Scotsman situation into any dispute. It is therefore far more useful to keep distinct the self-identity of a movement and then state descriptively what the people who self-identify as such in practice act like.
Oookay then. Let’s look at my post. Here it is in its entirety:
Oh! You said “it is therefore far more useful to keep distinct the self-identity of a movement” and here it is:
and then you said “and then state descriptively what the people who self-identify as such in practice act like” and here it is:
So, remind me again what are you complaining about?
The objection is the phrasing of social justice as a ” framework of looking at the world as a fight against omnipresent oppression, mostly by white men of everyone else.” I’m in agreement that to a large extent that isn’t an inaccurate descriptor for much of passes for SJ. The mind-killing problem is to use that as the definition.
It’s not a definition, it’s an explanation in the context of someone asking “What does SJ mean?”
The fact that you even refer to things that occurred “in the past few years” is enough to conclude that what follows is seriously cherry-picked evidence. Any incident may obviously be concerning as far as it goes, but is there any real evidence that racial prejudice and animus are getting out of control? The point is, any situation where multiple cultures and social groups interact (and yes, races in the U.S. are social groups too, as we all know) is going to involve some amount of friction and conflict—particularly in a youthful environment, such as college. It’s not something unrealistic or out of the ordinary. One can hope that such things will improve over time, but I’m not going to hold my breath for that.
I’m 62 and have seen a lot, but what falenas108 describes sounds kind of horrific to me. Also I don’t see “cherry picking” in part because he/she’s just giving a couple of points of data, not using a couple of points of data to draw broad conclusions. If you haven’t looked at the link http://assets.feministing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Screen-Shot-2014-11-19-at-10.26.55-AM.png I suggest you do. It seems to me many people’s fears and rages are being played on, and many people find themselves agreeable “echo chambers” where they goad each other into ever more extreme views. I remember in the 1970s working (as a nurses aid in a state mental hospital) with a guy who was as sure as he was of anything that the Moon Landing was a hoax (note—a fellow employee, not a patient) and that seemed pretty remarkable back then, but it seems pretty ordinary now.
This is entirely bog-standard garden-variety plain-vanilla 4chan fare.
No contradiction there, in my opinion.
No contradiction, but some implications. Implications mostly having to do with meaning behind the words and word inflation.
That was impressively opaque.
By the way, is it really “bog-standard”? I thought it was “hog-standard”.
I’ll unroll. “Word inflation” means that with time the intensity signaled by words decreases. Used to be you felt good on occasion, you felt excellent rarely, and you felt awesome maybe a few times in your life. Nowadays if you say “good” it means “pretty much sucks”, if you say “excellent” it means “OK”, and if you say “awesome” it means “I”m fine”.
4chan has pretty extreme word inflation. “I’m gonna rape you bitches” generally means “I will attempt to do something unpleasant to you” and the actual intent behind it might be something like kicking someone out of an IRC channel.
So all that vocabulary in the quote upthread doesn’t actually mean what it literally means. In reality it means “I want to make some status noises and that’s the only way I know how”.
Evidently in your area the hogs are standard, and in my—bogs :-/
Thanks for a good humored response.
Yeah, awesome is one that gets me.
Don’t get me wrong, I also think the incidents are horrific, and I’m far from condoning those responsible. I’m just saying that expecting an environment that’s completely pristine and free of any kind of tension is entirely unrealistic, and we should not be assuming that as a sensible short-term goal. If there’s anything that can be done to help this situation, it’s expanding our notion of “cross-cultural competency and communication” to include personal strategies for being more resilient and assertive in the face of perceived slights to one’s status (what “microaggressions” seems to unpack to, AIUI). Because I don’t think you can have one without the other.
I totally agree that we need that.