dagblog - Comments for "Some Bodies Matter More Than Others: The Judith Butler Thing"

Thanks, Doc.

Peter Schwartz — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 02:13:24 +0000

In reply to In my experience, Peter, no.

Thanks, Doc.

In my experience, Peter, no.

Doctor Cleveland — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 01:57:01 +0000

In reply to Hi Doc, I'm going to go off

In my experience, Peter, no. This is not a real problem. And it would take a lot to turn my students into fragile snowflakes: I teach at a public urban commuter school, and my students' lives, as a great Cleveland poet once said, ain't no crystal stair.

Generally, I think this is part of the conservative worrying-about-college industry, and is more about the writers than about anything much happening at colleges.

The trigger-warning thing is actually something that started on the internet. People marked blog posts, etc., with trigger warnings so that rape survivors, or child abuse survivors, or combat veterans, would know that they were about to read something that would bring up that trauma. Some of that practice has migrated over to colleges

For example, last semester I said to students, "You should know that Act Two of this play has a moment of non-consensual sex." I don't think that's making my students fragile. I think that's giving them information and treating them like adults. Fifteen years ago, I would have just handed out a story full of ugly military combat, like "The Things They Carried," and not said anything. Now I will let a class, which may have Iraq and/or Afghanistan veterans in it, have a heads-up. As a friend of mine who teaches community college puts it, "The point is for them not to have a panic attack in class."

Hi Doc, I'm going to go off

Peter Schwartz — Tue, 04 Sep 2018 13:30:19 +0000

In reply to Some Bodies Matter More Than Others: The Judith Butler Thing

Hi Doc, I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent here. Pardon me (I hope) if this doesn't quite fit or you've written about this elsewhere. In my "travels" among writers who might be placed along the right end of the political spectrum, there is a lot of worry about what has happened to academia and, even more, to university students.

Conservatives have complained about their lack of representation on humanities faculties for a long time, but the criticism has been taking a somewhat different turn for some time now. I'm sure you've heard it: Instead of being asked, or challenged, to deal with a wide range of ideas, many of which are difficult but important, students are being protected from these encounters through devices such as "trigger warnings." And "fragile" creatures that they are or have become, they are demanding "safe spaces" on campuses so they don't have to address other people with views they disagree with and find disturbing.

As a result, we're turning out a generation of fragile and frightened young adults who are unable to handle conflict or make their way in a world that isn't customized to meet their emotional needs, i.e., the real world. Perhaps worse, these kids demand intellectual conformity to a degree that contradicts the university's commitment to free intellectual inquiry and free speech, etc.

This general idea is connected to a lot of other issues, e.g., who gets to speak on campus; is there such a thing as objective truth or objective right and wrong; and even, are we coddling kids from a very young age by supervising their every move and not allowing any free (read "unsupervised and therefore dangerous") play long before they reach even the earliest grades. Haidt and a contributor have just written a book about this. And though they're talking about very young kids, I have a sense that their thesis dovetails with what other people claim is happening on campus.

I know I've covered a lot of territory here, but my first question is: Are these people accurately describing what is happening on campuses and to what degree? IOW, this phenomenon, assuming it's real, has conservatives very worried. My question is whether there's anything to worry about when one examines the reality on campus.

You work in academia; I don't. It's been over 40 years since I was a college student, and my campus was run by Catholics and unlikely to be overrun by post-modernism, structuralism or the various names "literary theory" seems to go by. (I'm not familiar with the terms, but have some sense they're all used interchangeably, at least by their opponents.) Thinking back, I can't recall any professor holding back or not discussing a topic because it might "trigger" a bad memory, and I can't even think of courses covering subjects that would've triggered such a memory. Rape? Murder? Suicide? Assuming I went to school during the good old days and at a school that could still tell "right from wrong," I can't remember any of my classes touching on, or being devoted to, subjects that might make any younger person flip out and destroy his learning experience.

So I'm looking for one person's reality check on this cluster of claims. Are we turning out a generation of fragile, helpless adults? Or is this just another variation on conservatives' constant complaint that they're being excluded from the club? Is this real or is it badly edited Memorex?

Hope I'm being clear here. If you've address this question elsewhere, or know someone else who has, I'd appreciate your pointing me to it. Thanks, Peter

P.s. a small correction to my

Quixote — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 03:14:13 +0000

In reply to Well, yes, it is not

P.s. a small correction to my comment above: well-known conservative Volokh tried to convince the Supreme Court that the Stolen Valor statute, which allowed the government to jail anyone who falsely claimed to have received a military medal, was constitutional. The Court rejected his argument and held that fraud can only be criminalized if it's engaged in to obtain a material benefit such as money, or to cause material harm such as loss of money.

Well, yes, it is not

Quixote — Mon, 03 Sep 2018 03:08:12 +0000

In reply to I have no idea what to make

Well, yes, it is not surprising that you would cite the views of Eugene Volokh, a well-known conservative law professor who has on numerous occasions argued in favor of limiting the scope of the First Amendment, and who believes that only a "clear" parody, or one that explicitly declares itself to be a parody, is entitled to protection. In fact, he even tried to convince the Supreme Court that the Stolen Valor statute was not protected by the First Amendment; fortunately he didn't succeed. That the "postmodernist" defenders of Avital Ronell would appear to share such a philosophy, even at the cost of a trial where "neither truth nor good faith is a defense," simply illustrates the well-known fact that the left and the right converge in their documented hostility towards free-speech causes. Let's build some more "safe spaces," and let's definitely require big trigger warnings everywhere, so we can protect our delicate college students, and of course our seasoned professors too, from unwanted speech.

As for the Wikipedia article you cite, it is obviously out of date, as it doesn't reflect the Second Circuit's decision that gutted the case even further (see the material I linked). Still no comment from the postmodernists on the Second Circuit's distinction between email impersonations that may be intended to "convey a message" and ones that are sufficiently "puerile" (all perfectly legal) and ones that must be intended to "damage a reputation" (not clearly unconstitutional enough for the federal court to reverse the state high court). In the end, this was all about doing whatever it took to protect the reputation of a single academic, just like the Ronell letter.

Peter, good to see you

artappraiser — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 20:16:18 +0000

In reply to Letting all this, all the

Peter, good to see you commenting! That is all.

Letting all this, all the

Peter Schwartz — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 20:07:10 +0000

In reply to Some Bodies Matter More Than Others: The Judith Butler Thing

Letting all this, all the responses, settle down to the bottom of my stomach, I feel a revulsion for academia. Not the good doctor Cleveland, but for so much of it. The ridiculous and twisted language of the theorists. The incestuous relationships. And the unspoken pretension that, somehow, whatever is going on inside academia is conducted at a higher, more refined level than what goes on outside the walls.

I'm no anti-intellectual, but if this is what one has to put up with to study...anything in the humanities...then count me out. At the time I graduated from college, I ruled out going for a higher degree. Years later, I regretted the decision. Now I think I made the right one.

What's wrong with this Butler chick and the others who signed the letter? Leopold and Loeb were smart guys, too. With all her thousands of hours of reading, reflection and writing does she really think that great accomplishment excuses wrongdoing? Even the cleaning ladies on my street who barely speak Spanish know that's bullshit.

What if Ronell had been a pickpocket? Would the problem then have been that the crime was too lumpen to excuse? And reading a few random quotes from Ronell, I'm tempted to ask: How much do they pay you to write that shit and why? Are your powers of self-reflection and abilities to gauge other peoples' responses so weak that you couldn't figure out that "he just wasn't that into you"? Or what?

Remember this old saying? A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Fire these fuckers and put them on the night shift.

I have no idea what to make

ocean-kat — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 20:35:17 +0000

In reply to Sure, and let's hope the new

I have no idea what to make of this bizarre rant. Suffice it to say that there is disagreement over this case among legal scholars. It was hotly debated. We happen to live in a country where people can disagree with court decisions. In fact even Supreme Court justices in the minority can publish their dissent. While the Supreme Court is reluctant to overturn precedent at times those minority dissents have later become the majority decision. I generally prefer to express my own thoughts and opinions when discussing issues and not rely on the words of others, even those with more expertise than I. I stand by my arguments but since you refuse to address them here is an article by Eugene Volokh who teaches free speech law and a First Amendment Amicus Brief Clinic at UCLA School of Law.

the evidence clearly established that defendant never intended any kind of parody. Instead, he only intended to convey the first message to the readers of the emails, that is, that the purported authors were the actual authors. It was equally clear that defendant intended that the recipients’ reliance on this deception would cause harm to the purported authors and benefits to defendant or his father.

Defendant was not prosecuted for the content of any of the emails, but only for giving the false impression that his victims were the actual authors of the emails. The First Amendment protects the right to criticize another person, but it does not permit anyone to give an intentionally false impression that the source of the message is that other person

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Golb

People v. Golb is an extensively litigated New York case in which Raphael Golb was convicted for sock puppetry conduct relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls. His conviction was partially reversed on constitutional law grounds, but was substantially affirmed.

Golb was a member of the New York Bar. The Appellate Division held that because he "was convicted, after a jury trial, of identity theft in the second degree (two counts) in violation of Penal Law § 190.79 (3), a class E felony," he should be disbarred.

P.s. I forgot to mention that

Quixote — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:19:05 +0000

In reply to Sure, and let's hope the new

P.s. I forgot to mention that the whole idea that people should only be put in jail for endangering public safety or for financial crime is also just based on arbitrary authority and should be discarded. And above all, the idea that "identity theft" is a misnomer and actually means the use of another's personal information to steal money is based on authority and has no application in view of new technologies. The findings of the courts that Golb did not seek to make a thousand dollars or falsify the business records of NYU, and so did not commit identity theft, is again just based on authority and can safely be ignored.. On the other hand, the claims made by Judith Butler and Catherine Stimpson have a special status that allows us to believe them. That's got nothing to do with authority, so it's all good.

Sure, and let's hope the new

Quixote — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 12:44:40 +0000

In reply to Your appeals to authority

Sure, and let's hope the new laws cut back on "civil liberties," which after all are only established by authority. In China and Russia and Thailand, they put people in jail for online satire, because they see how obviously damaging it is to reputations, especially given the new technologies out there. The American legal notion that satire is a form of protected speech is just based on authority. The Supreme Court's decisions over the years that new technologies don't change basic First Amendment principles is also just a matter of arbitrary authority, so let's rest assured that this will change too with the times. Annoying speech can obviously even lead people to commit suicide, so the notion that for some reason it's protected by a "constitution" is also just a matter of authority. Annoying speech was criminalized for decades in New York, and is becoming even more of a problem now with the new technologies, so this Golb decision holding the contrary and declaring a useful statute unconstitutional was clearly a mistake and hopefully we will soon again be able to imprison people who annoy others (especially members of our academic power elite) with speech. Come to think of it, the whole idea of "facts" is also just an appeal to authority. It's obvious that the immigrants aren't Americans and are just bringing crime into the country, so why give them rights? That "human rights" stuff is just based on authority, so let's separate the families and make sure they stop coming here. Have a good day, and yes, I'll agree to leave it there and disagree.