dagblog - Comments for "Heating Up Culture Wars, France to Scour Universities for Ideas That ‘Corrupt Society’"

new related op-ed in NYTimes:

artappraiser — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 20:39:29 +0000

In reply to Heating Up Culture Wars, France to Scour Universities for Ideas That ‘Corrupt Society’

new related op-ed in NYTimes:

Is This the End of French Intellectual Life? Christopher Caldwell | New York Times Opinion@nytopinion https://t.co/KoAgMeOO6p
— Kontekst (@Kontekst015) March 5, 2021

Sorry, when was the break?

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 05:41:45 +0000

In reply to wait a sec, I guess I have to

Sorry, when was the break?

wait a sec, I guess I have to

artappraiser — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 05:32:14 +0000

In reply to kinda related?

wait a sec, on second thought, I guess I have to differ with Yang, as it's not exactly a new thing for China to call the white west and its allies "imperialist/colonialist running dogs", they just took a short break from it is all?

kinda related?

artappraiser — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 05:27:30 +0000

In reply to Heating Up Culture Wars, France to Scour Universities for Ideas That ‘Corrupt Society’

kinda related?

When you make a term refer to everything from the Christchurch massacre to knitting appropriation, well, it's gonna end up in wide circulation like this https://t.co/iaVZYdJbGP
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) March 1, 2021

oh Bill you sound so French

artappraiser — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 05:00:36 +0000

In reply to Heating Up Culture Wars, France to Scour Universities for Ideas That ‘Corrupt Society’

oh Bill you and Mona sound so French sometimes:

"Progressives have a tendency to anathematize. But...big swaths of the right are practicing their own form of wokeness. So perhaps sane people can agree both of these tendencies are stupid, narrow-minded, and antithetical to the values of a free society?"https://t.co/zeGc3JcjxL
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) February 24, 2021

beginning excerpt, my

artappraiser — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 04:13:00 +0000

In reply to Heating Up Culture Wars, France to Scour Universities for Ideas That ‘Corrupt Society’

beginning excerpt, my highlighting at the end:

By Norimitsu Onishi and Constant Méheut Updated Feb. 21, 2021

PARIS — Stepping up its attacks on social science theories that it says threaten France, the French government announced this week that it would launch an investigation into academic research that it says feeds “Islamo-leftist’’ tendencies that “corrupt society.’’

News of the investigation immediately caused a fierce backlash among university presidents and scholars, deepening fears of a crackdown on academic freedom — especially on studies of race, gender, post-colonial studies and other fields that the French government says have been imported from American universities and contribute to undermining French society.

While President Emmanuel Macron and some of his top ministers have spoken out forcefully against what they see as a destabilizing influence from American campuses in recent months, the announcement marked the first time that the government has moved to take action.

It came as France’s lower house of Parliament passed a draft law against Islamism, an ideology it views as encouraging terrorist attacks, and as Mr. Macron tilts further to the right, anticipating nationalist challenges ahead of elections next year.

Frédérique Vidal, the minister of higher education, said in Parliament on Tuesday that the state-run National Center for Scientific Research would oversee an investigation into the “totality of research underway in our country,’’ singling out post-colonialism.

In an earlier television interview, Ms. Vidal said the investigation would focus on “Islamo-leftism’’ — a controversial term embraced by some of Mr. Macron’s leading ministers to accuse left-leaning intellectuals of justifying Islamism and even terrorism.

“Islamo-leftism corrupts all of society and universities are not impervious,’’ Ms. Vidal said, adding that some scholars were advancing “radical” and “activist” ideas. Referring also to scholars of race and gender, Ms. Vidal accused them of “always looking at everything through the prism of their will to divide, to fracture, to pinpoint the enemy.’’

France has since early last century defined itself as a secular state devoted to the ideal that all of its citizens are the same under the law, to the extent that the government keeps no statistics on ethnicity and religion.

A newly diversifying society, and the lasting marginalization of immigrants mostly from its former colonies, has tested those precepts. Calls for greater awareness of discrimination have met opposition from a political establishment that often views them as an invitation to American multiculturalism and as a threat to France’s identity and social cohesion [....]