The radicalization of Professor Weinstein: the Evergreen backstory
You probably saw the video about the ruckus at Evergreen. You read the articles and the posts, including mine. You may have watched the interview between Tucker Carlson and Bret Weinstein, the professor whose letter protesting the idea that whites should leave the campus for a day started the whole thing.
I don’t know about you, but it made me wonder. Not about the protestors—their motives are pretty clear—but about what prompted Professor Weinstein to take the stand he did. After all, he seems to be a man of the left, and it was a brave act for which he must have known there would be powerful repercussions. What’s more, although he’s a biology professor, his letter and interview were both extremely articulate and showed that he’d thought a great deal about the issues involved. I wondered what his story was—that is, what prompted him to take this stand at this time, in a situation in which most professors who might have agreed with him probably decided it was best to keep a low profile.
I don’t have a complete answer. But Professor Weinstein has written an op-ed for the WSJ that sheds some light on the backstory. It’s an insightful account of a conflict between two groups of faculty at the college that has been ongoing for years—and even for decades—at universities and colleges all over the country:
…[T]he protests resulted from a tension that has existed throughout the entire American academy for decades: The button-down empirical and deductive fields, including all the hard sciences, have lived side by side with “critical theory,” postmodernism and its perception-based relatives…For decades, the uneasy separation held, with the factions enduring an unhappy marriage for the good of the (college) kids.
Things began to change at Evergreen in 2015, when the school hired a new president, George Bridges. His vision as an administrator involved reducing professorial autonomy, increasing the size of his administration, and breaking apart Evergreen’s full-time programs. But the faculty, which plays a central role in the college’s governance, would never have agreed to these changes. So Mr. Bridges tampered with the delicate balance between the sciences and humanities by, in effect, arming the postmoderns.
The particular mechanism was arcane, but it involved an Equity Council established in 2016. The council advanced a plan that few seem to have read, even now””but that faculty were nonetheless told we must accept without discussion. It would shift the college “from a diversity agenda” to an “equity agenda” by, among other things, requiring an “equity justification” for every faculty hire.
The plan and the way it is being forced on the college are both deeply authoritarian, and the attempt to mandate equality of outcome is unwise in the extreme. Equality of outcome is a discredited concept, failing on both logical and historical grounds, as anyone knows who has studied the misery of the 20th century. It wouldn’t have withstood 20 minutes of reasoned discussion.
This presented traditional independent academic minds with a choice: Accept the plan and let the intellectual descendants of Critical Race Theory dictate the bounds of permissible thought to the sciences and the rest of the college, or insist on discussing the plan’s shortcomings and be branded as racists. Most of my colleagues chose the former, and the protesters are in the process of articulating the terms. I dissented and ended up teaching in the park.
Aha! I knew there was a story there, and this one appears to have been brewing for Bret Weinstein for several years. I’m a bit puzzled as to why he still identifies as a self-described “progressive” (as he stated in the Tucker Carlson interview), because to think that “equality of outcome is a discredited concept” is to be at least edging towards being a conservative, if not already there.
Professor Weinstein appears to have decided to take his stand at Evergreen knowing full well what the stakes were, and knowing that “most of his colleagues” would indeed chose to remain silent and accept whatever was shoved down their throats rather than risk exactly what Weinstein risked and be branded as racists. Weinstein seems fully ready for the consequences of his actions. And he’s very correct about the conflict between the sciences and the “postmoderns,” and where universities are headed if this trend is not reversed.
A brave man, and I applaud him.
Soon the universities will be teaching this in the physics department.
http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/feminist-researcher-invents-intersectional-quantum-physics-combat-newtons-oppression
I’m very impressed by him too, but I must say I’ve known a number of “principled leftists” who seem to be approaching the brink of self-contradiction by hanging on to their leftist sympathies. They think of themselves as serving a corrective function, steering the left away from its excesses. But the left is too far gone. I suspect that these people just can’t let go of a primitive emotional loyalty. Where would they be without membership in the tribe?
Yes. A man of principle regardless of how misguided his allegiance. He’s an idealist, having naively bought into the left’s deepest lie, that altruistic ideals are their motivation.
There is no room on the left for such as he. In taking this stand, he’s already declared his unwillingness to go along to get along. So, if he persists and becomes too troublesome, they will find a means of ‘crucifying’ him. That is how power always handles its ‘troublemakers’.
At base for the hard core left, it’s all about the acquisition of power by any means necessary. People are either tools to be used or obstacles to be overcome with both disposed of as suits the left’s purpose.
The left’s death toll in the 20th century is not accidental. It’s an inherent feature of the left’s ‘operating system’ not a bug. Insisting it’s a bug, as in ‘if only Chavez had not elevated Maduro, Venezuala wouldn’t be enduring these difficulties!’ is how they keep the useful idiots distracted from “the man behind the curtain”.
mizpants,
Yes. Alan Dershowitz is a prime example of your point.
Why don’t the teachers just teach?
I guess you also missed the one that asked whites to quit their jobs and the Mathematical society blog taht says similar in that all men have to go and only gay and women of color are ok
i have nothing to fight for in this
neither do most of the men
the ladies are marrying themselves
they call it sologamy
which is great as they wanted a “room of their own”
but anyone going to remember the feminsit that started this race stuff? who told you to unpack the invisable knapsack?
about what prompted Professor Weinstein to take the stand he did. After all, he seems to be a man of the left, and it was a brave act for which he must have known there would be powerful repercussions.
they act like nazis and you wonder why a man torn between two histories and the facts of the lefts hate of jews even if not observant?
hey!! it was all fun and games till they wanted you to line up for the showers!!!!!!!!!!!
ie. you wake up and gfind what you support doesnt actually support what you thought it did!!!
i laid out a great line of changers for you to read about
not idiot professors side swiped by their ideological complicity to join the collective…(cause inside the herd, the beta mails who want socialism feel safe!!! and yes, a study came out, beta males want communism)
Utley was for it till they murdered her beloved Arcady
The history of commnism is so full of peopel who changes sides once their beloved ideology decided to face them and call them out for its games and they discover, they are innocent, how could this be? how could i be part of the red terror? if only stalin knew
but you see, these academics did NOT stand up for Watson (of crick and DNA fame), nor did they stand up for the economist that once he caved got a nice place with obama
your sitting in a lysengo era of american science and colleges just like germany youth with willi munsenberg!!! i told you to read about the prior histories
basically, once the academy went after men, the white men went after them… just as jews in germany like soros went after jews… then they knocked out the men… go ahead, look to the 1967 census… nearly 50 50 men and women in college..
the men are not there any more
now the men ar enot there to gight against racial games
and now, the racial games are about to kick out the white ladies
and it wont make a difference.
these have all been divided amongst themselves and without the united front that makes their numbers, cant oppose what they made and cant stop
I’ll say it again. TESC is a public university. How they are allowed to get away with some of this is just outrageous. If a private institution wants to do some of this crazy discriminatory behavior then OK I guess but this school is government funded.
Isn’t using a de facto mob to try and drive out whites for a day discrimination? Is it even necessary to ask what the reaction would be if the reverse were attempted?
[class] diversity is a relic of a progressive age with liberal mores.
“increasing the size of his administration”
It’s about the Benjamins. It’s always about the Benjamins. When they say, “It’s not about the money,” It’s about the money. The administrators have got hold of the throttle and won’t let go.
Washington State is loony left anyway so they won’t object to this craziness.
This is the college that Rachel Corrie came from. Nothing new.
The fact that this guy is apparently the only professor willing to publically speak up about this blatant discriminatory behavior says a lot about the faculty at this university. These people are government employees and they are at least tacitly endorsing discrimination.
liberalism is unprincipled. perceived as tolerant.
progressivism is a monotonic process.
progressive liberalism or generational liberalism is degenerative.
they need a conservation of principles.
Fortunately, each individual is characterized by a constellation of principles, so that short of an overwhelming cause, people are in practice self-moderating, responsible individuals. The prerequisite for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (American conservatism).
yes, and it was all put in place by feminsim and the race hucksters and others…
of course since you guys dont actually follow actual history but the zeitgeist history that is all wrong over and over… (there was no nazi pope, the aids virus was not from US labs but the anthrax did come from vilating arms treaty in russua, russians burned down the reichstag, and more…tons more… and its very odd hearing you people talk about events that never actually happened as if they are critical!!!!)
ONLY the women could do this!!!
Moving Towards a Feminist Epistemology of Mathematics
Another Breakthrough in Feminist Mathematics
Feminist PhD Candidate: Science Is Sexist Because It’s Not Subjective
What Could Feminist Physics Possibly Mean? — William M. Briggs
University of Arizona Scholar Creates a Feminist Brand of Physics
Feminist researcher invents ‘intersectional quantum physics’
and [you have 30 years of stuff to catch up to to understand the arguments so that you dont rehash what they already proven wrong 20 years ago, and so they wont listen to you unless you know the history and stuff like they do]
National SEED Project – White Privilege: Unpacking….
Peggy McIntosh is an American feminist, anti-racism activist, scholar, speaker, and Senior Research Associate of the Wellesley Centers for Women. She is the founder of the National SEED Project on Inclusive Curriculum (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity).[1] She and Emily Style co-directed SEED for thirty years. She has written on curricular revision, feelings of fraudulence, and professional development of teachers.
In 1988, she published the ground-breaking article White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work on Women’s Studies.[2] This analysis, and its 1989 shorter form White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,[2] pioneered putting the dimension of privilege into discussions of power, gender, race, class and sexuality in the United States. The papers rely on personal examples of unearned advantage as McIntosh says she experienced in the 1970s and 1980s. McIntosh encourages individuals to reflect on and recognize their own unearned advantages and disadvantages as parts of immense and overlapping systems of power. Her better known works include Feeling Like a Fraud Parts I-III (1985, 1989, 2000); Interactive Phases of Curricular Re-Vision: A Feminist Perspective (1983); Interactive Phases of Curricular and Personal Re-Vision with Regard to Race (1990).
now tell me this isnt women too.
or is it they, like dems destroying southern history
dont want you to know what they actuallys tand for and do?
Cornhead,
They’re not there to teach. As you well know, they are there to indoctrinate waves of cannon fodder to change the world. To make it a better place where the coming ‘new man’ may finally emerge, freed from the obsolete superstitions of a religious past. “If there is no God, everything is permissible”…
Geoffrey Britain: Yes, Dershowitz is a good example, but he parted with the left because the left turned on Israel. He was quite right to do so, but with him, it may not go any farther than that. Weinstein’s differences with the left seem deeper and more thought-out.
n.n
progressives are communists..
even communists said so
feminists are now communists
the only ones that think not are the innocents!
In 1993 Hanusiak celebrated his 80th birthday. Gus Hall, head of the CPUSA, wrote him, “On this special occasion we want to congratulate you on your many years of outstanding contributions in the leadership of the Communist Party, USA, as well as other progressive organizations.”
how many here would know these key people and what they did or didnt do, and how they changed your life and you dont know it..
the CPUSA and other progressive organizations.
oh, so the CPUSA is progressive..
the innocents clubs are hard at work, antifa is back, and even the ladies think they know and cant be used when EVERYTHING in this literature from the 1800s onwards when war was becoming too damaging as a means of settle and take over and other means were desired… the US went with neutraon bombs, the russians and communists went with slow change to build their cathedral..
they realize that hitlers mistake was going so fast
IF he did his stuff slowly, the world would nto have refused him… and stalin together..
IF he spent 50 years preparing the people to be fascist racialists wanting original lands for the original owners and more room from their old countries into the new lands of prosperity, the germans would have resisted lass like the american women of today..
the big time nazi social justice warriors who forgt the nazi part and who dont listen anyway…
and they are using similar people to do it!!!
in germany with Sanger here, it was Ernst Rudin that did all the serious academic work… but not one person other than me metions him here!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_R%C3%BCdin
they mention all manner of nazis, but forget they learned from the soviets!!! cause they cant remember what they never knew!!!
you speak of the big lie today
and then you get the idea it came from germany
then you can find lenin and stalin say it
but in truth, they learned from willi munsenberg
The Origins of “Privilege”
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-origins-of-privilege
“The fact that this guy is apparently the only professor willing to publicly speak up about this blatant discriminatory behavior says a lot about the faculty at this university.”
No, it is very common in my experience. Most of the faculty don’t want the blowback from the radicals even if they agree with the person putting their neck on the line. Academics are cowards by nature.
On Weinstein’s comment on the the uneasy alliance of STEM and the humanities/social studies: that’s also a common feature today in academia. What’s happened at ESC is the progressives have won and now wish to take over all the disciplines. My college completely redesigned our GE 2 years ago. One aspect, that has yet to be implemented, is exactly what Weinstein is talking about: bringing “diversity and equity” into the sciences. This is a cover story for the progressives to force the sciences away from teaching science and instead teach about the inequities and past discrimination that exist/existed in science. They know science is the last place where a student has to deal directly with reality, pure reason, and logic. That has to be destroyed. Just Google how math, physics, and logic are an invention of the white patriarchy designed to keep the color minorities in their place. If they can force us to teach sociology and history of science rather than the actual science, then they have won.
It’s coming people. ESC is just the canary in the coal mine. It will be interesting to see if it keels over in its cage.
because to think that “equality of outcome is a discredited concept” is to be at least edging towards being a conservative, if not already there.
they dont change they wake up and find out that the lair been telling them what they want to hear, eventually there is this moment of revelation…
he never changed..
in his eyes they did
but not really
he juist didnt have EXPERIENCE
and those wtihout experience learn the hard way
ie. soviets have experience, and will avoid, americans dont and tell them to shut up they know nothing, and so, will HAVE to learn the hard way by becomgin state slaves.
Remember that for all the news, there are actually very few students or faculty on the really progressive majors (women’s studies etc). Many professors in other areas are progressive but not real activists. Most students even at hotbeds of lefty behavior like Yale want to go into business or politics so they major in History, Economics, Poly Sci etc. The lefty groups know that by making a public outrage they make themselves untouchable in a current university environment.
“What’s more, although he’s a biology professor, his letter and interview were both extremely articulate and showed that he’d thought a great deal about the issues involved.
Umm, cuz sciencey tipes don’t normally think or tok gud?
Really??? Yes, that hit a nerve.
It would help if everybody remembered that everybody knows that accusations of racism are bogus manipulative scams. The accusers know it. The accusation only has juju as long as the accused thinks third parties believe it.
But, even those ranting or approving of the ranting know it’s bogus.
So do all third parties.
So, if accused, the response should be…”next question”.
Sonny Wayze:
What I meant was that he isn’t a poli sci or government or history professor, in which case you would imagine he would have thought about the issues for decades because it would be his JOB to do so. There’s no implication that people in other fields wouldn’t or couldn’t have thought long and hard about the issues.
Hi Neo,
Thanks for the reply. As I said, that hit a nerve.
Without divulging too much [cough, any] personal info, I’ve been condescended to by “well *I* studied history” types far too often. It’s especially annoying when that is presumed to end the discussion, because, really, how astute can a mere gearhead be?
Thanks, also, for this forum.
mizpants,
Dershowitz has extended his disagreement with the left beyond Israel but I do think he remains a committed liberal, as does Weinstein. “Alan Dershowitz: Russia Probe Sounds Like Stalin’s Secret Police”
I suspect he and Weinstein occupy a similar point in political outlook.
Neo,
I suspect things will be brewing in California State government as well. Just my thoughts.
They are injecting social justice into every department by bringing in “x” justice people at the deputy director level. Like “Environmental Justice” at the environmental department.
I have to be vague on purpose but the position I just listed is an actual position they installed 2 years ago.
“If they can force us to teach sociology and history of science rather than the actual science, then they have won.”
Some of this is now appearing in medical schools. I taught medical students for 15 years until a year ago. A year before I quit I attended a session with the “Diversity Dean.” That was interesting because medial schools now have a minority of Caucasian students, at least where I taught for 40 years.
The majority of my black students were NOT American born and find it hard to understand American blacks.
I don’t think the people here realize that wacko is mainstream, not rare
and Thus the future is woman, and they will force them to give noble prizes in physics or they are just misogynists… and if you have a hundred examples of this and how its top of the cutting edge of future thinking, you would easily understand the situation of Weinstein.
next post, the abstract..
It gets worse…
https://angrywoodchucksblog.com/2017/05/31/what-happens-when-liberals-completely-take-over-a-college-evergreen-state-college/
I’m not sure if TESC is the best example for people to use about the left taking over a college because they have had this one for decades. I remember how nutty this place was when my brother’s crazy friend went their 35 years ago. Now it may be getting crazier but it’s only by matters of degree.
U of Arizona has been full of whackos for years. My youngest daughter went there and was taught that “The Silent Majority of the 1960s” consisted of white people who rejected the Civil Rights Act of 1964. No mention of Nixon or of Vietnam. It was in her study guide for “US History since 1877.” It wasn’t the only lie.
Fortunately, once she got to her major most of the BS went away.
http://minnesotareview.dukejournals.org/content/2017/88/69.short?rss=1
Whitney Stark Abstract
In this semimanifesto, I approach how understandings of quantum physics and cyborgian bodies can (or always already do) ally with feminist anti-oppression practices long in use. The idea of the body (whether biological, social, or of work) is not stagnant, and new materialist feminisms help to recognize how multiple phenomena work together to behave in what can become legible at any given moment as a body. By utilizing the materiality of conceptions about connectivity often thought to be merely theoretical, by taking a critical look at the noncentralized and multiple movements of quantum physics, and by dehierarchizing the necessity of linear bodies through time, it becomes possible to reconfigure structures of value, longevity, and subjectivity in ways explicitly aligned with anti-oppression practices and identity politics. Combining intersectionality and quantum physics can provide for differing perspectives on organizing practices long used by marginalized people, for enabling apparatuses that allow for new possibilities of safer spaces, and for practices of accountability.
and no, this is not something written by the PoMo paper generator…
Mike K: Tucson has been full of leftist wackos for decades, not just the U of A. It is an excellent example of how broad the umbrella of leftists is, close to blotting out the sun.
Neo: Sonny Wayze beat me to it. Your evaluation of Weinstein’s remarks was condescending. You do not retreat but try instead to explain away your very clear meaning. An implication is indeed there. I have reread several times, and it is there. STEM people do think, deliberate, reflect too, for decades even. That it comes as a surprise to you, that you somehow doubt they possess and use these qualities often and persistently, is disappointing.
As to Prof. Weinstein, I heard him talk with Tucker Carlson. Not only is he an adamant Progressive, he termed himself a radical Prog or some word to that effect. When he cites the “button-down” empirical sciences, is that a compliment? Button-down is not a compliment in leftist land. He is noble insofar as he goes, but cannot go far enough.
Geoffrey Britain & mizpants:
Dershowitz and other “mugged” liberals (some of them still aren’t yet hardcore Leftists) have the dilemma of realizing that they no longer march in lock-step with their party, but aren’t willing to jump to the other side, because of the long-time deep-seated antipathies to what they perceive to be “wrong-headed” if not actually evil principles.
When Reagan changed parties, the differences were not so stark, nor the chasm so deep, as now. He could switch labels without jettisoning any core principles that didn’t carry over to the new tribe.
http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/
“The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. And ideological thinking is now much more closely aligned with partisanship than in the past. As a result, ideological overlap between the two parties has diminished: Today, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.
Partisan animosity has increased substantially over the same period. In each party, the share with a highly negative view of the opposing party has more than doubled since 1994. Most of these intense partisans believe the opposing party’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being.””
Frog:
You can imagine whatever you want. But it’s what you imagine and read into my words. “Mind reader” is not one of your most salient characteristics.
I told you what I meant. Not only do I think scientists are fully capable of deep thought on any subject on earth, but I certainly don’t think that historians and social scientists are always capable of it.
As I wrote earlier, I expect social scientists and historians to be able to speak and write at length about the politics of the campus and the politics of politics—whether I happen to agree with what they say or not. Most of them tend to be on the left, so obviously I don’t agree with them. But they can jaw off at length about it. Scientists, on the other hand, are less likely as a group to take an interest in these things, and/or to speak at length about them or write op-ed pieces about them in the WSJ. There is absolutely no reason, however, why any scientist who does take an interest in these subjects and wants to write about them shouldn’t write coherently and insightfully on the subject. And since scientists have more of a tendency than historians and poli scientists to be on the right, as well, I probably would have more likelihood of agreeing with the opinions of the scientists.
Frog Says:
May 31st, 2017 at 10:35 pm
Neo: Sonny Wayze beat me to it. Your evaluation of Weinstein’s remarks was condescending. You do not retreat but try instead to explain away your very clear meaning. An implication is indeed there. I have reread several times, and it is there. STEM people do think, deliberate, reflect too, for decades even. That it comes as a surprise to you, that you somehow doubt they possess and use these qualities often and persistently, is disappointing.
* * *
Last yeer I kudn’t spel Enjuneer. Now I are won.
“What’s more, although he’s a biology professor, his letter and interview were both extremely articulate and showed that he’d thought a great deal about the issues involved.”
I bet he’s bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, too.
Which only goes to show that everyone lives in some kind of bubble, and that we all can perceive microaggressions that offend us personally.
The idea that STEM thinkers are different from Liberal Arts thinkers goes way back; in my university in the 70s, there was a long-standing and continual joshing between the Engi’s and the Academ’s — acceptable because (at least in that day) all of them were above average, and the Academic departments still had high standards, which have in most cases now been dispensed with because the students (and faculty) realized that they were dispensable in pursuit of loftier aims than the mere pursuit of knowledge.
Being a substandard sociology major hasn’t killed anyone yet (although some of said majors may eventually engage in homicide themselves).
Engineering departments have to have high standards, or the buildings fall down
Griffin Says:
May 31st, 2017 at 3:46 pm
The fact that this guy is apparently the only professor willing to publically speak up about this blatant discriminatory behavior says a lot about the faculty at this university. These people are government employees and they are at least tacitly endorsing discrimination.
* * *
Ah, but it’s not discrimination discrimination.
It’s not like they refused to decorate a cake for a SS wedding or something awful like that.
Why would a radical progressive write such an expose for the Wall Street Journal? The answer is in what he wrote:
Equality of outcome is a discredited concept, failing on both logical and historical grounds, as anyone knows who has studied the misery of the 20th century.
The misery of the 20th century included reeducation camps, gulags, forced marches, starvation, and ovens. No matter what his professed past beliefs, that statement shows that he understands where this is leading if left unchecked. That he wrote such a piece for the premier capitalist newspaper is all you need to know about his intentions and his courage.
“I bet he’s bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, too.”
Then again, maybe not.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2017/05/28/unattractive-better-scientists/#.WS69GhPytsZ
“Good looking, sociable people don’t make good scientists, according to popular stereotypes. …Gheorghiu et al. took 616 pictures of scientists, which they downloaded from the faculty pages at various universities. They gave the portraits to two sets of raters. The first group were asked to rate the attractiveness of the portraits and to say whether they appeared competent, intelligent, etc. A second set of raters were asked whether they thought the person pictured was a good scientist.
This figure shows which variables predicted “good scientist” judgments:
…
The strongest predictor of being seen as a good scientist was perceived competence, but the second-strongest was attractiveness and it was negatively associated with perceived scientific aptitude. This is a striking result, given that people generally view attractive people as having favourable characteristics.
So what can explain this ‘ugly Einstein’ effect? Gheorghiu et al. have little to say about it. They remark that “the stereotypical scientist may be an impartial truth seeker with limited personal appeal”, but I’ve been thinking about this, and I wonder if these results reflect a deeper phenomenon: a kind of cultural Cartesian dualism.
In terms of popular stereotypes, it seems that you can either be strong and beautiful in body, or be brilliant in mind, but not both. Think of some “good body” stereotypes — athletes, jocks, models, bodybuilders, blondes. Most of them are, stereotypically, unintelligent. Think of how the big, muscular villains in videogames and movies also tend to be the stupid ones.
“Good mind” stereotypes, on the other hand, tend to be unattractive and unathletic: think of the nerd (either overweight or too skinny), the professor (old, physically frail), the wizard in fantasy tropes (low strength and stamina). Intellectual strength and physical weakness seem to go naturally together.
All is not lost for aesthetically-pleasing scientists, however. While they may be perceived as being less able, Gheorghiu et al. also found that attractiveness was a strong, positive predictor of whether scientists were seen as interesting…”
The key of course is the ranking was done according to stereotype, and the attractive people in the study were, in fact, also scientists.
Which just goes back to the “bubble” meme – we most often judge people we don’t know personally by the stereotypes we have been trained to use.
There is precedent for these “kids” on campus. The earlier generation went on to implement the Final Solution and staff up the Stasi. We might speculate which sociopath will gain control of today’s “youth”.
“In the decade preceding the First World War Germany, the country most advanced on the path toward bureaucratic regimentation, witnessed the appearance of a phenomenon hitherto unheard of: the youth movement. Turbulent gangs of untidy boys and girls roamed the country, making much noise and shirking their school lessons. In bombastic words they announced the gospel of a golden age. All preceding generations, they emphasized, were simply idiotic; their incapacity has converted the earth into a hell. But the rising generation is no longer willing to endure gerontocracy, the supremacy of impotent and imbecile senility. Henceforth the brilliant youths will rule. They will destroy everything that is old and useless, they will reject all that was dear to their parents, they will substitute new real and substantial values and ideologies for the antiquated and false ones of capitalist and bourgeois civilization, and they will build a new society of giants and supermen.
“The inflated verbiage of these adolescents was only a poor disguise for their lack of any ideas and of any definite program. They had nothing to say but this: We are young and therefore chosen; we are ingenious because we are young; we are the carriers of the future; we are the deadly foes of the rotten bourgeois and Philistines. And if somebody was not afraid to ask them what their plans were, they knew only one answer: Our leaders will solve all problems.
“It has always been the task of the new generation to provoke changes. But the characteristic feature of the youth movement was that they had neither new ideas nor plans. They called their action the youth movement precisely because they lacked any program which they could use to give a name to their endeavors. In fact they espoused entirely the program of their parents. They did not oppose the trend toward government omnipotence and bureaucratization. Their revolutionary radicalism was nothing but the impudence of the years between boyhood and manhood; it was a phenomenon of a protracted puberty. It was void of any ideological content.
“The chiefs of the youth movement were mentally unbalanced neurotics. Many of them were affected by a morbid sexuality, they were either profligate or homosexual. None of them excelled in any field of activity or contributed anything to human progress. Their names are long since forgotten; the only trace they left were some books and poems preaching sexual perversity. But the bulk of their followers were quite different. They had one aim only: to get a job as soon as possible with the government. Those who were not killed in the wars and revolutions are today pedantic and timid bureaucrats in the innumerable offices of the German Zwangswirtschaft. They are obedient and faithful slaves of Hitler. But they will be no less obedient and faithful handy men of Hitler’s successor, whether he is a German nationalist or a puppet of Stalin.”
von Mises, Ludwig (1945). Bureaucracy
Neos: “What’s more, although he’s a biology professor, his letter and interview were both extremely articulate”. Although. Your word. I don’t have to imagine anything in this sentence.
You gild your lilly with “Scientists, on the other hand, are less likely as a group to take an interest in these [political] things”. Less likely to to take an interest.
I rest my case. I respond to your written words, with which I usually agree, but you wrote these and cannot take them back.
Touchy, touchy Dr. Frog. These great scientists and doctors who you insist are so articulate are at the same time so timid. And when one, a single biology teacher speaks up all you have to say is that he cannot go far enough. Where are all the other scholarly hard science professionals, in hiding? Maybe condescension is in order.
JK Brown,
an excellent quote from Mises that mirrors the current situation.
Are Artfldgr and I the only ones who see the main point of what Weinstein was saying: the attack upon science by the SJW’s?
Art’s quote of that piece of nonsense about quantum physics just reveals the tip of the iceberg. The sciences are the last castle the progressive hoards have not stormed in academia, and they are gathering their forces.
And just to chime in on the other little kerfluffle here: yes I was taken aback by Neo’s comment on the thinking/writing of scientists. I let it slide as I know she really doesn’t think that way. But I do think she got a bit over defensive about it.
Frog:
That word “although” doesn’t mean what you think it means.
All it tells you is that there is some factor that may make it less likely that something will happen. It doesn’t tell you what the writer thinks that factor is. You are filling in that blank in a way that makes sense, but it turns out you were incorrect about my intended meaning. It’s one thing for you to think I meant “A” when you read the words—your interpretation is certainly a possible one. But not a necessary one. I give you an alternate explanation, “B”, that I say is what I meant, and you essentially call me a liar. That is what I find offensive.
You also gave a truncated quote of what I actually wrote. I did not simply write “What’s more, although he’s a biology professor, his letter and interview were both extremely articulate.” I actually wrote “What’s more, although he’s a biology professor, his letter and interview were both extremely articulate and showed that he’d thought a great deal about the issues involved.” That is the sentence as I originally wrote it, and it’s that second part of the sentence (the part you left out) that helped to explain the first.
The “although” there meant—as I’ve already explained—that although professors of social sciences such as history and sociology and political science would be expected to have a fluid, fluent, and pointed defense written, all ready and waiting to be printed, because this is their field and they are “word” people who’ve been thinking about these issues and discussing them for their jobs, a professor in the hard sciences would be less likely to have that sort of thing at hand. In other words, Weinstein’s op-ed in the WSJ read to me as though these were issues he’d thought about for years and perhaps even written about or given speeches about before.
I write articles every day, and I’m a writer. But it usually takes me a long time and a lot of effort to make something fluid and articulate, and I don’t always succeed. People who do a great deal of political writing or speaking are more fluent and articulate at that sort of thing, as are people who crunch words for a living (wordsmiths). It certainly doesn’t mean they are smarter, more insightful, more anything except more ready to go at the drop of a hat with a fluent and articulate op-ed piece.
That is what I was referring to. But as Karl Popper said, it’s impossible to speak in such a way that you won’t be misunderstood.
There is a center mall at Evergreen, made with red bricks. It is known as Red Square, which is highly (Boy, is it HIGHLY) appropriate.
As the guy who touched off the tangential, um…, discussion and watched it play out here, I realized something. It seems to me that the STEM-ish sorts have been condescended to (or think they have been) for some time. A sort of implied “Yes, very nice, now run along and do your sums, and let the wiser sorts run the show.”
That may be how Trump came to be president
Sonny Wayze:
Well, I have no history whatsoever of condescending to scientists. I suppose if you’re used to people who do, though, that could explain the misunderstanding, because I can see how my words in this post could have been interpreted that way.
Neo,
Again, thanks for the reply. As I said earlier, that hit a nerve.
I suppose the liberal arts types are tired of of being told that they can’t even balance a checkbook. Maybe we should all just try to get along…
physicsguy Says:
June 1st, 2017 at 12:46 pm
Are Artfldgr and I the only ones who see the main point of what Weinstein was saying: the attack upon science by the SJW’s?
No, you’re not the only ones.
This may be part of a long-standing conflict, but–as I’ve said elsewhere–things have really changed in the last ten years or so.
The SJWs have not only taken over the Humanities and Social Science departments, they’ve corrupted many science and engineering departments. This is especially true of female scientists and engineers, who often ally themselves with the SJWs and with politicized administrators. University administrators are demanding that racial and gender quotas be met. They’re demanding equality of outcome, under the guise of retention standards. They’re demanding that course content and research topics be bent to the ideologies of sustainability, diversity, and other left-wing buzzwords. Political corruption has also affected the federal grant-funding agencies like NIH and NSF.
This politicization of science, and even engineering, has already gone pretty far down the road to ruin. Credibility is already eroded. Complaints are written off as the unsophisticated foolishness of dumb rednecks, or as the thought crimes of old white men. I don’t see the leadership required to change the course, but I hope I’m wrong. Unfortunately, lately I hear myself saying that all too often.
neo-neocon Says:
June 1st, 2017 at 4:59 pm
Sonny Wayze:
Well, I have no history whatsoever of condescending to scientists. I suppose if you’re used to people who do, though, that could explain the misunderstanding, because I can see how my words in this post could have been interpreted that way.
Sonny Wayze Says:
June 1st, 2017 at 5:07 pm
Neo,
Again, thanks for the reply. As I said earlier, that hit a nerve.
I suppose the liberal arts types are tired of of being told that they can’t even balance a checkbook. Maybe we should all just try to get along…
* * *
This exchange demonstrates what ought to be happening between people who feel they have been dissed and people who certainly didn’t mean to sound that way.
Perspective informs interpretation and always has.
I have sympathy for the “SJWs” who genuinely perceive condescension even where none is intended, because sometimes it IS intended; I have no sympathy for rioting in lieu of discussion to determine which of the two is correct.
As a lover of education this story has intriqued me like no Trump story ever really has.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq4Y87idawk
I watched this at 1.5 speed because its long. At the 18 minute mark is the point where Weinstein discusses the changes the President made to the college.
By the way. The college has been shut down and evacuated.
55 minute mark he delves into solutions. 3 steps…
ugh. These leftists delve into denouncing capitalism at 1:10 mark
Illinois DCFS has also jumped ship. In their updated policy it states: social workers must fully support “the self-determination” of LGBT kids when it comes to foster care, especially those with transgender thoughts. Social workers cannot guide them in any decision.
Wait, isn’t supporting them in a way guiding them?
AesopFan says, “I have sympathy for the “SJWs” who genuinely perceive condescension even where none is intended, because sometimes it IS intended”
Well in my mind there shouldn’t be any sympathy. By the way they act it seems like they have faced injustice after injustice. They may have, but most likely they haven’t. They haven’t brought forth any persuasive arguments or evidence for their case. Have sympathy for them because they’re mostly delusional and suffer from some sort of psychological disorder, probably paranoia disorder. You show me the incidences where condescension is real by those they intimidate for demands and then I’ll start to sympathize. I do not sympathize with people who act like the college students at Evergreen College, Yale, Dartmouth, Notre Dame etc. Understand their feelings, sure. Sympathize? That’s reserved and is used sparingly.