What he's describing is a customer service model, "The customer is always right."
I would prefer that the professor be the grown-up in the room helping to train young minds to think. But thinking is hard. And some people are better at it than others. So we get this muck of feelings mixed with a world-class level of whining. And at the end everybody gets a diploma.

So, I wonder if he has the cognitive ability to recognize he is a coward of the worst sort, and his culpability in creating the very system he now fears.

Just as the Inquisition eventually ran out of non believers and had to start cannibalizing their own "heretics" so to has liberal academia run out of a convenient supply of conservatives and must seek out new sources to blame for their own shortcomings.

Cry me a river asshole, you deserve to live in fear

Ed Schlosser can fuck himself. He's a worse coward than luj says he is, because not only did he create the system he fears may target him, but he still has his thumb on the scale.

This is what he quoted Kelly tweeting in his article:

> when ppl go off on evo psych, its always some shady colonizer white man theory that ignores nonwhite human history. but "science". ok

> most "scientific thought" as u know it isnt that scientific but shaped by white patriarchal bias of ppl who claimed authority on it.

What he didn't feel important to report to us was this tweet of hers:

https://twitter.com/bad_dominicana/status/533640214200078338

> got scientist negros like neil degrasse tyson spewing ahistorical anti-native, antiblack shit in the name of science coz white science said

Instead to let all the vox readers know what a good guy he was he wrote this

> Kelly is intelligent. Her voice is important.

Fuck this asshole. He's speaking up now out of fear but I'm a Jew and they already came for me.

Hope they nail him.

"... the worry that we've turned our analysis so completely inward that our judgment of a person's speech hinges more upon their identity signifiers than on their ideas.

... Of course someone's social standing affects whether their ideas are considered offensive, or righteous, or even worth listening to. How can you think otherwise?"

He has seen the problem and it is himself and his peers. They bought it, they own it, and they are not happy that their students own it more.

I saw it growing in the early '70s and am not surprised. It's seductive in that it is a simple concept (blame whitey), nurturing ("you are important"), and non-critical ("Kelly is intelligent. Her voice is important.")

Real life is complex, not nurturing by design (human kindness is a blessing), and what you bring to the table is what you are "worth" regardless of skin color, sexual orientation, and age. Real-life problems do not get solved otherwise.

He's getting schooled by the rules he developed.

Bob in Texas Says:

"I saw it growing in the early '70s and am not surprised."

"He's getting schooled by the rules he developed."

Bob... do you happen to see any sort of disconnect between your two claims here when talking about a person who started teaching at the college level in 2006?

This person was not even in elementary school in the 70's when you claim this was first growing and yet you hold them accountable for "developing" these rules???

Like the vast majority of the issues currently being faced by people in their late 20s and early 30s... the rules were set in place by people in their 50s and 60s (that would be the administration).

If you saw this developing in the 70s why didn't your generation do anything about it?

Instead the whole system has gone to shit and the general attitude of those here seems to be to lay the blame entirely at the feet at the people who just walked in the door.

Good grief, the least you folks who noticed this developing in the 70s and 80s could have done was fix it before it got to this point.

If it was too difficult to remedy when it was first developing, think how difficult it must be to resolve now that it has become entrenched over the decades.

Can we at least acknowledge the reality of who makes and enforces the rules on college campuses?... it isn't the 26-34 year old adjunct professor (i.e., non-tenure track). It is the university board of trustees, presidents, provosts, and deans who were at least all present in the system back in the 70s when you say this was initiated.

Artemis,
No disconnect at all.

The admins are just older versions of the this guy and the problem has its roots in the political battles of WWII.

HIS OLDER PEERS WON! Period. Dot. F. Period. Thus they got to write the rules then and now.

My degree was not in a teaching/administrative field so I gritted my teeth, graduated, and moved into my own battlefield of problems.

HE is bringing the problem to light and has started the fight to take make changes. Although by his own words he does not seem to want anything other having the "grownup" back in charge.

Bob,

If you acknowledge that this fellow is basically new to the scene... and that he is speaking out about these issues and trying to do something about it, then why is it necessary to piss all over him by saying something like this:

"He's getting schooled by the rules he developed."

He is getting schooled by the rules developed by previous generations and he is trying to speak out about it.

That is something I would think would be commendable, but when I read most of the comments here (and I do not hold you responsible for the words of others) the general feeling seems to be one of:

"he made his bed now he can lie in it"

That kind of response would be reasonable in my opinion if this guy was in some way attached to creating this environment, but this guy claims to be an adjunct for 9 years... adjuncts have virtually no pull or clout to make policy changes.

Even with essentially zero authority he is one of the only voices I see talking about these issues.

It's not like we have examples of university presidents putting together essays talking about how to address this problem.

I am fine with an appraisal that maybe this persons perspective isn't 100% on the mark... but we cannot become so ideological that if someone is in the 85-90% range that we throw them under the bus and act like they had it coming.

Artemis,

This guy was part of creating this culture of intolerance as a student. Now it is turning on him and he still can't understand what the problem is. The reason to 'throw him under the bus' is he drove that bus over plenty of other people and his only real objection is that the bus may hit him now. It is clear if the bus wasn't aimed right at him he would happily continue driving over others.

If you want to discuss the roots of the left wing takeover of US universities that does start post WW2 as Bob mentioned. But this guy doesn't get a pass. His isn't in the 85-90% percent range. He is the 100% mark.

Ben Says:

"This guy was part of creating this culture of intolerance as a student."

Where do you get this from???

Were you ever a student?... if so were you a part of creating this culture of intolerance?

If so, why didn't you do something about it?

If not, what made you so special that you didn't contribute to this culture but this guy did?

You do realize that it is entirely possible to have gone to university and not contributed to anything more than your own education, right???

You are acting like this fellow was out on the campus agitating for these policies when he was a student. How can you do that when you don't even know who this guy is?

I suppose you are one of those guilty until proven innocent folks after all.

Ben,

One last point because I don't think you are getting it when you say this:

"It is clear if the bus wasn't aimed right at him he would happily continue driving over others."

You really need to actually read the article.

One of the primary reason this guy is speaking up is because the bus ran someone else over:

"As Northwestern University professor Laura Kipnis writes, "Emotional discomfort is [now] regarded as equivalent to material injury, and all injuries have to be remediated." Hurting a student's feelings, even in the course of instruction that is absolutely appropriate and respectful, can now get a teacher into serious trouble."

That professor recently got hit by the bus and this fellow is writing a follow up article supporting her contention that things have gone off the rails.

It doesn't appear like you understand what is going on with this story and are creating your own narrative.

As you sow, so shall you reap.

Progressives do not tolerate dissent.

And these people believe themselves to be our betters, and believe that they can run our lives better than we can. Pray, very hard, that they never get their hands on actual levers of political power.

If they do? well, the zampolit will see you now about your treasonous blog, Ms. Alkon.

That professor recently got hit by the bus and this fellow is writing a follow up article supporting her contention that things have gone off the rails.

The left is eating itself. In the olden days of Stalin, this would be called a purge. They didn't start this particular ball rolling down the hill, but they shaped the battlefield, as it were, to allow such to happen.

As you sow, so shall you reap. Unintended consequences and all. This is the fruit of the gender and ethnic studies degree plans that are just warmed over Marxism. Which were established by the Eviiiiiiiil Koch Brothers to destroy the left. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Mike Adams got hit by a bus a while back. Did any of these types of people write in support of him? I don't know, but, I'll guess the answer is not so much.

Wow... some of the folks here appear to be of the exact same mentality that they claim to be railing against.

On the one hand we have an issue of people on campus being subjected to kangaroo tribunals where they are presumed guilty and have to essentially prove their themselves innocent against accusations that are based entirely about how someone feels.

Yet within this very blog, most of the people presume this fellow to be deserving of the environment he is speaking out against because they "feel" that he has reaped what is being sown.

They have no evidence to back up this claim with regard to this specific person of course... but he is guilty anyway.

Maybe this problem goes a bit deeper than college campus' because it seems to be present in full force here as well.

There is definitely too much emphasis on what people "feel" to be true and what they can demonstrate to be true.

They have no evidence to back up this claim with regard to this specific person of course

Well, she is safely anonymous, so...maybe she teaches economics, and the students are terrified when she puts up the Laffer Curve. Or maybe she's one of the gender studies types and is a social justice worrier on Twitter and was a gleeful participant in many a Twitter lynching.

No way to tell.

But this shit didn't just start, or just happen in the last 9 years. It may have become painfully obvious, but it started long ago, and has been gaining momentum. It may have finally reached a tipping point, but keep in mind that academia has become a mostly liberal/leftist/marxist/progressive enterprise. It is a tipping point of their own creation, especially now that the powers that be have handed students the +5 Title IX blunt force weapon.

Zero sympathy. Live by PC, die by PC.

"Somebody on campus -- or some group of somebodies -- needs to start standing up..."

As long as it's not him. I get that he has to hide behind pseudonyms to write this stuff and keep his job. But to change that requires a battle to be fought, with the clear knowledge that there will be casualties.

Somebody on campus -- or some group of somebodies -- needs to start standing up against all this squashing of learning, free inquiry, and freedom of speech.

Maybe the best way is for profs to speak up through the Academic Senate (if they have one. Do all universities have one?).

Back in the early '90s, when I was in college, a professor disagreed w/ the university's new Diversity Hiring Plan, and was accused of racial harassment. The prof filed a freedom of speech thing, and the university changed their tone.

The Hiring Plan was eventually scrapped because faculty in the Academic Senate voted against it in committee. I don't really know how it works, but that's what happened and junk.

The reason to 'throw him under the bus' is he drove that bus over plenty of other people and his only real objection is that the bus may hit him now. It is clear if the bus wasn't aimed right at him he would happily continue driving over others.

The Revolution always eats it own.

Yet within this very blog, most of the people presume this fellow to be deserving of the environment he is speaking out against because they "feel" that he has reaped what is being sown.

They have no evidence to back up this claim with regard to this specific person of course... but he is guilty anyway.

This particular leftist's own PC attitudes are very much on display in the article. For example, he sees the main problem with a lot of this is that it's an impediment for his abortion rights advocacy. He enjoys getting conservative students to "challenge their beliefs". He has no quarrel with the substance of the PC complaints, only in how they affect his potential employment.

For example, he sees the main problem with a lot of this is that it's an impediment for his abortion rights advocacy

Eh. At least he speaks up for the group silenced for arguing against abortion. Not really that PC.

The title of the piece is 'Liberal Professor Terrified of Liberal Students' or something.

I'm sure ISIS will spare their feelings while dropping them on their pointed little heads.

I saw it growing in the early '70s and am not surprised. It's seductive in that it is a simple concept (blame whitey), nurturing ("you are important"), and non-critical ("Kelly is intelligent. Her voice is important.") ~ Posted by: Bob in Texas at June 4, 2015 4:00 AM

If you saw this developing in the 70s why didn't your generation do anything about it? ~ Posted by: Artemis at June 4, 2015 4:43 AM

It was probably very difficult for those in the 70s to truly appreciate how ridiculously far this would go.

When feminists complained about the masculine dominance of words in the language - using "he" as a non-gender-specific pronoun and and a gender-specific pronoun, the assumption of masculine in everyday words: human, woman, fireman, chairman, history, mankind, their opponents used reductio ad absurdum to ask if they wanted it changed to herstory. Litte did anyone know how ridiculous things would get: womyn. And recently, its president stating that there are innate differences in the genders actually traumatized a tenured Harvard professor.

And could anyone have predicted that the self-esteem movement would sink to such lows as it has? The idea that "I am somebody" was a bad thing was alien to those trying to imbue poor and disadvantaged minority children with a sense of self-worth.

Finally, who could have predicted that letting each person have a say meant idiotic ideas would be given a pedastal of respect in the national debate [Jenny McCarthy]?

Or that, because of out-of-control self-esteem, celebrity would become its own reward [Kim Kardashian]?

I don't know if you can hold someone responsible who "saw it growing" and did not mobilize his [or her - gotta be PC] generation to nip it in the bud.

The question is not "who did it?" but "how do we stop it and reverse the damage?"

"I don't know if you can hold someone responsible who "saw it growing" and did not mobilize his [or her - gotta be PC] generation to nip it in the bud."

This.
Just because I saw the potential disaster in 2008 that the Obama presidency turned into, doesn't mean, that I as a solitary voter in a state with three electoral votes, really had the ability to do anything about it.

wrong post earlier

Artemis,

All he is trying to change here is having the students not being in charge of his agenda.

His agenda is still

"Of course someone's social standing affects whether their ideas are considered offensive, or righteous, or even worth listening to. How can you think otherwise?"

He agrees w/the premise that your race determines how valuable your thoughts are and thus how valuable you are.

Thus he is not fighting the good fight.

Artemis,

The dude is a writing professor and gave us the best evidence he in particular could ever hope to provide, his own writing sample.

The judgment is that the case he presents is thinner than he believes. His writing sample is not persuasive, in fact, it leaves the reader the distinct feeling the protagonist is unreliable as an authority and in particular, a huge weenie.

If you want to get more technical, the woman whose voice he believes is important is spouting standard black supremacist junk science mashed in with female supremacist junk science.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Black_supremacy
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Female_supremacy#Pseudo-evolutionary_and_biological_arguments

Professor dude won't call it by what it is, seemingly can't even recognize it, and validates it by letting us know he thinks the author is intelligent and her voice important.

Who has the lynch mob caught in the past that he apparently never stood up for? His students, mostly powerless against the lynch mob and against the administration that empowered them.

He only speaks, anonymously, when the target swings to point at him.

If we seem pleased he now fears a student led liberal lynch mob to ejecting him from academia, that's not just schadenfreude, it's our appreciation of irony.

This happened a long time ago on Maple Street. How come our writing professor forgot what he learned in The Twilight Zone?

Somebody on campus -- or some group of somebodies -- needs to start standing up against all this squashing of learning, free inquiry, and freedom of speech.

Ain't gonna happen to any meaningful extent, because the present cadre in charge will never change their views.

Large organizations only respond to pain. So the practical solution is the failure of the university gulag, and the rise of alternative educational pathways, especially for men. The universities will come around when able competitors arise to deplete their student bodies, siphon off public funding, and provide a creditable resource of expertise.

This process is already underway. The collapse of the law bubble and shrinking of law school enrollments and professoriates shows how rapidly change can crash through even the most entrenched, self-protecting bastions.

Artemis,

I'm not making up my own narrative. Everything you need is in his own work. Also, he isn't a student. The title was "I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me" It says professor right there in the title.

And everything he wrote about is quite old . . . if you were a conservative professor. People like Schlosser (yes I know it is a fake name) forced all conservative views out of the university. And now he fears having the exact same tactics used against him. Cry me a river.

Just because I saw the potential disaster in 2008 that the Obama presidency turned into, doesn't mean, that I as a solitary voter in a state with three electoral votes, really had the ability to do anything about it.

Depends, did you see the disaster yet vote for Obama anyway and encourage other to vote for him and call anyone who openly warned anyone a racist?

"This person was not even in elementary school in the 70's when you claim this was first growing and yet you hold them accountable for "developing" these rules???"

I am not without sympathy. To an extent the Millennials are really getting screwed. But on the other hand, they have been complicit in their own destruction. You do realize how many of them voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, right? Had they just stayed home in 2012, Romney would have won.

"Like the vast majority of the issues currently being faced by people in their late 20s and early 30s... the rules were set in place by people in their 50s and 60s (that would be the administration)."

But many of the people in their 20s and 30s have been willing, eager synchophants. You did see those tweets above.

"If you saw this developing in the 70s why didn't your generation do anything about it?"

My generation did try. We elected Reagan, twice. We called BS on the '70s. We cut our hair and went out and got jobs. We tore down the Berlin Wall and brought down the Soviet Union. We had a big part in creating the economic boom that went from 1982 to 1999. But there were never enough of us. It was inevitable that the lefitsts in the generations surrounding us would crush us eventually. They have now pretty much succeeded in wiping the memories of our culture from existence. Almost no one under 40 knows what happened in the 1980s, and what they think they do know is mostly spoon-fed falsehoods.

For the record, I was not even in elementary school

When the Magna Carta was signed.
During the Enlightenment.
When the Federalist Papers were written.
When the US Constitution was signed.
When the Civil War broke out.
When the slaves were freed.
When the 14th Amendment was passed.
When many of our free speech cases were decided.
When Niemoller wrote First They Came
For Brown V. Board of Education

I was in elementary school during the civil rights movement, and had just entered it when Miranda v. Arizona was decided.

Please tell me more about the pass I need to give a phd professor because he is so young?

Depends, did you see the disaster yet vote for Obama anyway and encourage other to vote for him and call anyone who openly warned anyone a racist?

Posted by: lujlp at June 4, 2015 12:56 PM

Didn't vote for him. Didn't encourage anyone to vote for him. If you want to check back on these boards from 2008, I believe my descriptive term was *empty suit*.

But I totally underestimated the damage he could do, because I didn't think his end run around congress was possible.

We didn't start the fire. It has always been burning since the world's been turning. Sing it.

Something something something, I can't remember the lyrics. I can't remember very many lyrics. Something something about Truman?

We didn't start the fire. It's always turning since the world was burning. Woo hoo.

Didn't vote for him. Didn't encourage anyone to vote for him. If you want to check back on these boards from 2008, I believe my descriptive term was *empty suit*.

Course you didnt, it was a rhetorical question. The point I was making is this liberal prof wasnt innocent of what was happening around him.

How do I know? His other writing, his consternation that the far more deserving conservatives havent been run out on rail before the mob began to turn on him, the fact that even now he doesnt really protest the state of affairs, but only that he might be purged

"How do I know? His other writing, his consternation that the far more deserving conservatives havent been run out on rail before the mob began to turn on him, the fact that even now he doesnt really protest the state of affairs, but only that he might be purged."

Right. He was all for the bus running down people, until it turned towards him.

I R A Darth Aggie Says:

"Well, she is safely anonymous, so...maybe she teaches economics, and the students are terrified when she puts up the Laffer Curve. Or maybe she's one of the gender studies types and is a social justice worrier on Twitter and was a gleeful participant in many a Twitter lynching.

No way to tell."

Exactly, we have precisely zero evidence that suggests that this person was ever really on board with any of this nonsense.

Yet this has not stopped the majority of posters in this thread from assuming this person is guilty sans any tangible evidence.

My point is that some of the people here are engaging in the very same witch-hunting mentality that they claim to be against.

It is really kind of pathetic because it demonstrates quite clearly that this type of "feeling-based" thinking isn't dominated by the far left on college campuses... it is dominated by political/religious ideologues from every end of the spectrum.

The really sad part is that everyone seems to be able to see it in the other group, yet they seem entirely incapable of noticing when they are engaging in the exact same behavior.

Conan the Grammarian Says:

"It was probably very difficult for those in the 70s to truly appreciate how ridiculously far this would go."

Bob indicated that he saw it and recognized it for what it was during the 70s.

I agree with you that it was probably too subtle to notice at the earliest stages... but I have to take someone at their word when they tell me they saw it coming.

If you want to call Bob a liar that is up to you, but I'm not going to take part in a debate of whether or not what someone tells me they noticed 40 years ago is true or not because it is something for which I can gather no proof to demonstrate one way or the other.

My point is that it is not reasonable to hold someone responsible for the creation of a system that they believe started to become entrenched 30 years before the guy entered the system.

What exactly was he supposed to do, start protesting things while he was in 2nd grade?

If people who were in college in the 70s and claim to have watched it happen want a free pass for what has occurred... then the reasonable thing to do would be to give a pass to people who were in diapers in the 80s.

"The question is not "who did it?" but "how do we stop it and reverse the damage?""

Perfect... I agree with you.

That is why I am objecting to all of this nonsense where the majority of the posters in this thread are trash talking someone who is trying to identify and fix the problem.

I get the sense that the main reason they don't like this person is because they suspect that this person is a liberal or a democrat. They come to this conclusion because the individual in question is a lecturer somewhere in the arts or social sciences.

You ask the question of how do we reverse or stop the damage?... you engage with the people who seem to be receptive to your ideas (even if they are a bit late to the party).

This person is now on the record that something is wrong, there is no reason to burn them at the stake because their level of ideological purity isn't what some people would prefer.

I am getting the distinct impression that some posters here would prefer the issue to persist if it means catching some people they believe are liberals in the net as opposed to actually fixing the problem that they have been complaining about.

If they were really interested in a solution they would get on board with this person.

I don't believe for one second that Amy for example agrees 100% with this professor on all issues... but at least she is clever enough to realize that even if they are 80% of the way there that is movement in the right direction.

I don't agree with 100% of what this person wrote either by the way... but they managed to get enough right not to shit all over them.

Ben Says:

"People like Schlosser (yes I know it is a fake name) forced all conservative views out of the university. And now he fears having the exact same tactics used against him. Cry me a river."

Right... so you acknowledge that it wasn't Schlosser who did it.

It was people who you presume were "like" Schlosser.

Therefore the fact that Schlosser is speaking up about it doesn't get him off the hook?

Did it ever occur to you that the very fact that Schlosser is speaking up about it means that he isn't actually "like" those other folks?

You are holding this person guilty by association, not because you have evidence that they did anything.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you are doing the exact same thing as the people you are complaining about. You aren't really any different than the people on those college campuses... you are just irritated that you lost the culture war.

Let me spell it out for you, if you want to see your views expressed on college campuses, the first step would be to support those on college campuses who are speaking out about the nonsense that is going on (even if you don't feel they are on the same side of the political spectrum as you are).

If you can't do that you should only expect things to shift to more and more radical points of view that you apparently find distasteful.

Jerry Says:

"If we seem pleased he now fears a student led liberal lynch mob to ejecting him from academia, that's not just schadenfreude, it's our appreciation of irony."

Nowhere in the article does it suggest that this person is in any danger of being ejected from academia.

This person isn't speaking out to save their own neck in the midst of a series of allegations.

If that were the case I would understand the backlash.

This person is speaking out on behalf of other people (who incidentally have also been speaking out).

They are just the latest in a series of people who have been speaking out against this nonsense.

Stop trying to act like the only reason they wrote this was to save their own skin... they could have just as easily remained silent and done nothing and they wouldn't have had any consequences against them.

I really can't seem to wrap my head around the attitude of some of the people here.

The people on this board are notorious for bitching and moaning about the state of academia and how there are kangaroo courts, that free speech is stifled, and that the students sometimes act like coddled children.

You finally see evidence that professors are taking a stand and discussing these issues to try and maybe fix them... and you are unhappy about that too.

I guess some people just like to whine about the fact that they may in fact lose something to whine about.

There seems to be no pleasing some people. It is like a child throwing a crying for years that they want a new bike... and then when they finally get one they throw a tantrum because it is the wrong shade of blue.

"That is why I am objecting to all of this nonsense where the majority of the posters in this thread are trash talking someone who is trying to identify and fix the problem."

Okay. Let's review. We know from the Vox article that "Edward Schlosser" is a college professor and that he (assuming it's a he) teaches in the liberal arts. We know that hs'e been teaching there for at least six years, since he mentions something that happened to a colleague in 2009. Based on that, there is a very high probability that he is a doctrinaire leftist, for the simple reason that there are only a handful of unversities in the U.S. where the school of liberal arts will admit or tolerate anyone with any other point of view in the faculty. And presumably, if he taught at one of those universities, he would not find it necessary to write this article under a pseudonym. And we know, because commenter Jerry (whom I'm pretty sure is not an arch-conservative) demonstrated it in the third post in the thread, that Schlosser offers praise for the words of a bigoted Stalinist.

From this evidence, it is quite reasonable to conclude that he supports the philosophy behind the phenomonen that he writes of. He has no objection to the cannon being loose; his only concern is that it is now pointed at him.

I'll add this caveat: there is a possibility that he is sincere. However, said sincerity can stem from one of only two threads of thought: (1) he is still dedicated to leftism but is trying to get leftism to live up to the values it claims to stand for, or (2) he has had a change of thought and is turning away from leftism.

If it's the former, he will quickly run up against the inherent contradiction, which is that "peace and love" was never anything more than the proverbial camel's nose. It was a recruiting slogan in the 1960s that the movement's leaders used with complete cynicism. (We know this from David Horowitz.) Leftism does not and never has had any intention of living up to those values. Schlosser will either be forced to prostrate himself to get back in the good graces of the tribe, or he'll spend the rest of his career tilting at windmills and being ignored.

If it's the latter, the university will be rid of him shortly. Then maybe he'll be another Horowitz.

More info about recent activity in the local university's Academic Senate, where faculty can affect change in administration.

http://www.chicoer.com/sports/20140925/chico-state-university-academic-senate-calls-for-independent-review

Per usual, I make the most informed and helpful comment. It's hard to be humble sometimes.

Let him go Cousin Dave. It is clear Artemis has no interest in reality on this topic.

You also missed the third option which is what 'Schlosser' really wants. He wants traditional liberal values for those in his group (modern liberals) and illiberal tactics used to oppress those he disagrees with (everyone else).

While such two-rules systems are possible they are especially problematic for political groups. You can't tell definitively who is in and who is out, so you can't accurately apply them like Schlosser would like.

Probably too late in the discussion but ...

Artemis, you are certainly missing the irony of a liberal teacher now finding "... my students sometimes scare me — particularly the liberal ones".

He sees now that "... boat-rocking isn't just dangerous — it's suicidal" and is "frightened sometimes by the thought that a student would complain".

You want to give him a pass I believe because he did not create this system and is simply caught up in (but not against) it.

I do not sympathize with him because his reasons to complain reflect on him and not on the faults of the system.

Irony: As he states, his students (like himself) are special, intelligent, and unlike some*, deserve for their opinions to be heard and considered.

[*NOTE: "some" = "Of course someone's social standing affects whether their ideas are ... even worth listening to. How can you think otherwise?]

Irony: He is upset that NOW his students may decide that he is part of those "some" whose social standing is such that his ideas may not be worth listening to.

His plea is not one of frustration of trying to fight the entrenched system and failing. It is simply "Why me?"

My point is that it is not reasonable to hold someone responsible for the creation of a system that they believe started to become entrenched 30 years before the guy entered the system.

What exactly was he supposed to do, start protesting things while he was in 2nd grade? ~ Posted by: Artemis at June 5, 2015 5:12 AM

Artemis/Orion,

The problem folks here are having with the pseudonymous professor is not that he was part of creating the system, being a child at its inception - it's that he was part of buttressing it in his adulthood - at least until it turned on him.

He claims to have been open-minded - but in the anecdote he provides, he admonishes a student for bringing up the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the economic collapse during a class in which he was preaching the progressivist doctrine that holds that government agencies had no culpability in the economic collapse, it was all Wall Street greed.

I'd direct him to read Reckless Endangerment by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner for a fairly non-partisan view of the situation leading up to the bubble collapsing. Fannie and Freddie were hip-deep in causing the crisis; and Wall Street (especially Golman-Sachs) is equally taken to task by the authors.

He silenced a student for speaking doctrine he did not want to hear and now complains that students are silencing him. The irony in that is delicious to some of the posters here. Hence, the feeding frenzy.

I took a class from a professor like that in college. It was billed a an examination of the effect of politics on economics, but it was Communism Indoctrination. The professor swung wildly from praising the old USSR for being "purely communist" to denouncing it for not "doing communism right." Red Emma would have been proud of him and his anti-capitalist screeds.

He brooked no dissent and failed students who challenged him, failed to regurgitate his lecture points on quizzes or in discussions, or who pointed out flaws in his logic (and there were many - students and flaws). He did not receive a good student evaluation and by the next term, the class was not longer offered.

This professor is trying to make himself out ot be a victim of the same free-speech-stifling political correctness he supported as a professor - and Amy's eagle-eyed forum posters are not buying it.

Conan the Grammarian Says:

"The problem folks here are having with the pseudonymous professor is not that he was part of creating the system, being a child at its inception - it's that he was part of buttressing it in his adulthood - at least until it turned on him."

Except they have zero evidence that this particular individual was part of buttressing this system.

They do not know who this person is and as a result cannot demonstrate that they supported this system at any point.

As Ben pointed out earlier:

"People like Schlosser (yes I know it is a fake name) forced all conservative views out of the university."

The "eagle-eyed forum posters" as you generously put it are pissed off because they assume this fellow is SIMILAR to the people who caused this.

To these "eagle-eyed forum posters" Schlosser is guilty by association... not because they actually have any evidence that this person did anything.

They are really acting no better than the kangaroo tribunal system they they constantly bitch and complain about.

Sometimes I am left to wonder if the real issue these people have isn't that there is a kangaroo court system in place... it is that they aren't the ones sitting in the seat of power and making the decisions based upon loose associations and poor reasoning instead of actual evidence.

Cousin Dave Says:

"Based on that, there is a very high probability that he is a doctrinaire leftist"

Who the fuck cares???

You have concluded that this person is probably on the political left... therefore they are guilty?

How is that substantively different than these systems assuming young men are guilty simply because they are male?

"From this evidence, it is quite reasonable to conclude that he supports the philosophy behind the phenomonen that he writes of."

Except for the fact that he just wrote an entire essay denouncing the phenomenon.

You have demonstrated that you are an ideological purist... even if someone puts forth an argument you generally agree with, if you suspect they are from the political left they are trash.

Good grief, the level of irony here is almost comical.

Ben Says:

"Let him go Cousin Dave. It is clear Artemis has no interest in reality on this topic."

Actually I fear that I am one of the only people in this conversation interested in reality instead of fabricating stories out of whole cloth.

Here is a simplified version of the argument Cousin Dave put forth:

Premise 1 - "Edward Schlosser" is a college professor in a liberal arts department.

Premise 2 - Only a handful of Universities in the U.S. where the school of liberal arts will tolerate anyone on the faculty who isn't a doctrinaire leftist.

Premise 3 - Doctrinaire leftists support and bolster the system that Schlosser is arguing against.

Ok... then Cousin Dave goes on to form the following conclusion:

Conclusion 1 - Because Schlosser is a professor in a liberal arts department, he is most likely a doctrinaire leftist because otherwise he wouldn't be in the department.

Conclusion 2 - Because we have concluded that Schlosser is probably a doctrinaire leftist on the basis that he is a professor... we must further conclude that he supports the current system doctrinaire leftists tend to support this system.

This line of reasoning is not only wrong... it exhibits the properly of fractal wrongness. It is wrong at every level of consideration.

What Cousin Dave requires us to believe is that despite the fact that this guy wrote an entire essay arguing against this system... because he nevertheless supports it by virtue of the fact that he is a professor in a liberal arts department.

That is profoundly stupid thinking that defies proper logic.

According to Cousin Dave it is impossible for any liberal arts Professor to express genuine disagreement with the current system... even if they write a articles that expresses their disagreements with the current system.

I think I need to provide an equivalently stupid argument to get anyone to really comprehend what is wrong with the type of reasoning going on here.

Let's assume that a very young child has just been diagnosed by a medical professional with osteoporosis. Here is how the analogous argument would work (I have streamlined things a bit to make the fallacy more obvious):

Premise 1 - John Doe is a very young child.

Premise 2 - Only a small handful of cases of osteoporosis will occur within very young children as this is a disease that is most commonly associated with old age.

Conclusion 1 - John Doe doesn't have osteoporosis because he is a very young child and hence it would be highly unlikely for them to contract this disease as it is generally associated with old age.

The fundamental flaw with this argument is that while it may be true that osteoporosis is rare in the very young... the fact that you have medical evidence that demonstrates that this specific child does have osteoporosis makes premise 2 irrelevant.

Similarly, Cousin Dave's Premise 2 and Premise 3 are irrelevant because "Edward Schlosser" demonstrated that they are not a doctrinaire leftist by virtue of the fact that they wrote an article criticizing these policies and the culture that has developed on the college campus.

Conan,

One last thing because you continually demonstrate that you are either illiterate or lazy. Here is what you said:

"He claims to have been open-minded - but in the anecdote he provides, he admonishes a student for bringing up the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the economic collapse during a class in which he was preaching the progressivist doctrine that holds that government agencies had no culpability in the economic collapse, it was all Wall Street greed."

That isn't what the anecdote describes... here is the direct quote from the article:

"The video stopped, and I asked whether the students thought it was effective. An older student raised his hand.

"What about Fannie and Freddie?" he asked. "Government kept giving homes to black people, to help out black people, white people didn't get anything, and then they couldn't pay for them. What about that?"

I gave a quick response about how most experts would disagree with that assumption, that it was actually an oversimplification, and pretty dishonest, and isn't it good that someone made the video we just watched to try to clear things up? And, hey, let's talk about whether that was effective, okay? If you don't think it was, how could it have been?"

Exactly where do you see the professor "warning" the student of anything?

What I see is a student attempting to open up a racially charged discussion in the middle of the classroom that the professor wasn't interested in engaging in when his purpose was to discuss the contents of the video.

As per usual though you gloss over things and have cherry picked your argument acting as if the student was merely bringing up Fannie and Freddy and the professor just shut him down.

I don't think for one second that this professor would have avoided a discussion of the role of Fannie and Freddy.

What the professor was obviously trying to avoid an argument about was a the part where the student was suggesting that the government was giving homes to black people while screwing white people over.

Somehow you managed to miss all of that in your analysis of the story when you say the professor refused to discuss the roll of Fannie and Freddy in the housing crisis.

Perhaps if the students question had stopped at "What about Fannie and Freddie?" the results would have been different.

Instead the student made an attempt to frame everything in terms of race, which as the professor aptly pointed out is a gross oversimplification and pretty dishonest.

The housing crisis was not primarily an issue with the government giving black people homes.

...you say the professor refused to discuss the roll of Fannie and Freddy in the housing crisis.

It's "role."

The housing crisis was not primarily an issue with the government giving black people homes. ~ Posted by: Artemis at June 6, 2015 5:36 AM

This might be the only thing on which we agree.

However, Fannie and Freddie and lending to people (white and black) without the ability to repay the loan were big issues. And the lending practices that drove that were themselves driven by claims of redlining and CRA considerations.

And, before you tell me how much you know about every subject and therefore I'm wrong because you're always right, I worked in the mortgage industry during that time and saw firsthand what was driving things. I saw "liar loans" getting made by underwriters who rolled their eyes when the applicant reported an annual income of $200,000 as a lawn care specialist while $200 in the bank and a 1976 Toyota Corolla were their only assets. I watched as the bank I worked for sold the loans as quickly as possible to avoid having bad loans in the portfolio. I watched as mortgage origination companies sprang up like weeds to take advantage of the fact that Fannie and Freddie (and Wall Street) would buy almost any paper in order to bundle it, securitize it, and sell it as a mortgage investment instrument. In fact, my former boss left the bank and started one of those origination companies to take advantage of the free money.

Sometimes I am left to wonder if the real issue these people have isn't that there is a kangaroo court system in place... it is that they aren't the ones sitting in the seat of power and making the decisions based upon loose associations and poor reasoning instead of actual evidence. ~ Posted by: Artemis at June 6, 2015 1:42 AM

Well, then Artemis/Orion, I guess it's a good thing that we have people like you who know everything to constantly correct us and harangue us about our lack of knowledge.

Conan,

The only reason I "harangue" you about your lack of knowledge is that you have a terribly habit about jumping in half cocked without having actually done your homework.

I have little doubt that you are capable of understanding these things if you put the effort in... but you are way to quick to jump to judgment without reading the relevant material.

Before I get into where you went wrong, let's first acknowledge something that you are right about:

"Fannie and Freddie and lending to people (white and black) without the ability to repay the loan were big issues."

Yes... these were big issues. On this point you are not wrong.

Now let's talk about where you did go wrong. This is the relevant quote from the essay:

""What about Fannie and Freddie?" he asked. "Government kept giving homes to black people, to help out black people, white people didn't get anything, and then they couldn't pay for them. What about that?""

That is a direct quote of what the professor claims the student asked. Now assuming the professors account is accurate (and we have no reason to suspect that he made it up) when I read this, what I see is a student trying to inject a racially charged and inaccurate claim into a classroom discussion.

On that basis I honestly can't fault the professor for trying to shut that conversation down before things got out of hand. I wouldn't exactly want to be the person in charge of a classroom who actively engaged in a detailed analysis of whether or not black people caused the financial crash of 2008.

Some ideas are simply too stupid to seriously entertain on the college level. The claim that the housing crisis was primarily caused by black families happens to be one of those ideas.

For the record, I wouldn't expect a college geology professor to seriously entertain a discussion about whether or not the earth was 6000 years old either because a young earth creationist happened to be one of the students.

And yet here is how you portrayed what occurred:

"He claims to have been open-minded - but in the anecdote he provides, he admonishes a student for bringing up the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the economic collapse during a class"

That is kind of stretching the truth of what the professor reported, don't you think?

Somehow you managed to miss the entire part where the student claimed that Fannie and Freddy kept giving black people homes while they gave white people nothing.

That was kind of an important detail for you to overlook.

It isn't that I know "every subject"... it isn't that I am smart and you are stupid... it is that you have a nasty habit of skimming through the source material and leaving about important details. In other cases you simply get your facts completely wrong.

The only reason I have to constantly correct you is because you don't seem to bother to actually read the material under discussion and just start arguing before you have digested and considered the facts.

If you had carefully read the professors essay you wouldn't have jumped to the conclusions you jumped to.

The moment you stop thinking that you can have a debate/discussion with me where you don't even bother to read what we are talking about is the moment you and I can have an intelligent conversation where I don't have to constantly correct all of your errors.

I'm certainly not perfect as demonstrated by the fact that I do have typos in my writing, I've said before that I don't bother to go back and proof read what I write on blogs for typos.

One thing I do make sure to do though before I start commenting on a subject is make sure that I have carefully read what is under discussion.

Amy, Conan, Artemis, you have all hurt my feelings, I'm issuing a trigger alert and putting you all on report.

Goodbye Artemis/Orion. Tell your ward attendants hello and remind them not to overmedicate you.

"One thing I do make sure to do though before I start commenting on a subject is make sure that I have carefully read what is under discussion."

You are a funny funny person! It was worth scanning the wall'o'text for that gem.

Conan,

Yes... as always the problem is never that you characterized the facts completely wrong.

The real problem is that I pointed it out to you.

You really are quite delicate.

Only a moron or a liar turns this:

""What about Fannie and Freddie?" he asked. "Government kept giving homes to black people, to help out black people, white people didn't get anything, and then they couldn't pay for them. What about that?""

Into this:

"He claims to have been open-minded - but in the anecdote he provides, he admonishes a student for bringing up the role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the economic collapse during a class"

Exactly what was the professor supposed to be "open-minded" about Conan?

About the claim that the economic collapse was caused by poor black families?

You acknowledge that this claim is fundamentally wrong... and yet you criticize the professor for informing the student that they were wrong and they there portrayal of the events was inaccurate and moving on with the focus of the class.

You are a real piece of work.

I look forward to the next time we converse as you always manage to pull something new out of your ass.

I think I'll start calling you Conan the Magician since you have a propensity to make "facts" appear from out of thin air.

Ben,

You are another person who clearly didn't read the essay before you started commenting.

Let me present evidence to demonstrate what I am talking about. This is what you said at June 4, 2015 5:48 AM:

"This guy was part of creating this culture of intolerance as a student."

And here is what you said at June 4, 2015 11:51 AM

"I'm not making up my own narrative. Everything you need is in his own work. Also, he isn't a student."

In the course of 5 hours you went from claiming that this guy was responsible for creating this culture when he was a student... to correcting me when I called you on making this up by saying that he wasn't a student.

That was your claim Ben. You were the one who was talking about his behavior as a student for which we have ZERO evidence.

When I explained to you that you had no evidence to back up that claim and were therefore making up your own narrative, you argued back that you weren't making up a narrative and then told me that I was wrong about the whole student thing.

All of that happened in the course of one morning.

Apparently you cannot be bothered to actually read the source material ahead of time... but it is too much for you to even remember the claims you made earlier in the day.

I stand by my contention that the main problem here is with people who don't bother to read and don't feel it is necessary to be logically consistent. The evidence shows that the people displaying this behavior are on the other side of the argument (i.e., I have my facts straight and my arguments have been consistent).

Artemis,

I need another wall of text no one will read and which completely misses the point. You've provided so faithfully in the past please do so again.

Thanks.

"This line of reasoning is not only wrong... it exhibits the properly of fractal wrongness. It is wrong at every level of consideration."

Insult is not reason.

"Actually I fear that I am one of the only people in this conversation interested in reality instead of fabricating stories out of whole cloth."

Simply labeling arguments as "wrong", without offering any counterveiling evidence, does not constitute a rational argument. Dismissing the arguments of others out of hand, based on their own belief in their inherent superiority, is a defining characteristic of today's Left.

Don't dig yourself in there Cousin Dave. There is no reason to reason with, as you handily point out. Simply ridicule the ridiculous. When he chooses to stop being ridiculous maybe a real discussion can start.

Okay, Artemis/Orion, let's continue quoting from the professor's rant.

I gave a quick response about how most experts would disagree with that assumption, that it was actually an oversimplification, and pretty dishonest, and isn’t it good that someone made the video we just watched to try to clear things up? And, hey, let’s talk about whether that was effective, okay? If you don’t think it was, how could it have been?

The professor didn't engage the student to show him he was wrong, he "gave a quick response," called him dishonest, and basically shut him down, forcing him back to the conversation the way the professor wanted to have it - and demanding the student adopt the viewpoint the professor held (and accept without comment the content of the video the professor had just shown the class).

Which experts would disagree with the student? Oh, "most" experts. Well then, that settles it.

No wonder you like this guy, Artemis/Orion, he argues just like you do. "'Most experts' would agree with me, and if they don't, then they're wrong ... and liars ... and morons."

This guy teaches writing and is presenting himself to the class as an expert on economics, stifling dissent on subjects about which he knows nothing.

Kinda like you do, Artemis/Orion - less wordy, though.

I'm amazed by how much thought this pathetic article engendered. There’s a simple solution – all speech in all academic settings should be acceptable, unless advocating violence. Yes, even deeply offensive speech by a dimwitted racialist or white supremacist should be tolerated. The age old answer to such ignorant expression is more communication – rational, fact based, dispassionate speech. The culture of extreme oversensitivity, and the migroaggression lobby that has emerged, are as corrosive and destructive as any concepts dreamt up by us evil white males.

Arteims, if he was never a student how did he get his degree?