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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33253 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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by Musa al-Gharbi, a sociologist from Columbia University that focuses on "how we think about, talk about, and produce knowledge about social phenomena including race, inequality, social movements, extremism, policing, national security, foreign policy and domestic U.S. political contests." (With that broad a scope of inquiry, I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't a fellow mottizen).

there are fewer woke-related cancellation events, fewer research papers are published related to woke ideology, newspapers are writing less often about race/racism/racists, and companies--including media companies--are not only pushing back more strongly against the demands of social justice warriors, but also closing their purses and defunding both internal DEI departments as well as financial pledges they made to the bankrupt ideals of equity just a few years ago.

Musa al-Gharbi again? These events have always been sorta uncommon despite all the hype/attention they get on twitter when they happen. Right now, without deferring to Google, name at least four major campus protests or cancellations. Evergreen, but that a long tom ago. Middlebury, again, a long time ago. Berkeley protests over Milo? Three. Top Universities like Brown, Stanford, Harvard seem to go a long time washout any major problems despite the largely left-wing student body . For most of the year campus life is mostly uneventful, such as students going to classes , writing papers, taking exams, etc. , not protesting.

They are uncommon because cancelling an important person or even low-ranking academic always incurs a risk of backlash and defection, because of the media attention it gets (like regarding the rewriting of Roald Dahl books, which hardly anyone on the left supports even) . Cancelling someone or something important is like a nuclear weapon. Firing one is ok, fire too many and you destroy yourself in the process, too.

Rather, it's much worse in the private sector, stuff like DEI , social media censorship, being banned from platforms, etc., which is far bigger than academia and affects more people for most of their lives more so than academia or school, which is just 20-30% of one's life, and also is unseen and in the background, except occasionally when it does blow up (like the James Damore memo). The risk of being banned on Facebook, Reddit, etc. for committing 'bad speak', or even on twitter still, is still pretty bad and has not peaked. Gatekeepers on social media still command considerable power.

If you're claiming that they've stopped hammering down nails that stick up, and as evidence show that there's not much hammering happening, you also need to show that there's still nails sticking up.

  1. they cannot hammer all of them down. it's an optimalization problem. Hammering down too many would mean losing legitimacy and support, like the backlash to re-writing/censoring Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl books.

  2. they are still hammering nails but in the private sector , like social media or work, stuff which gets less media attention than highly visible targets. Going after highly visible targets incurs risk, so they cannot do it that often.

like the backlash to re-writing/censoring Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl books.

But this is a backlash that occurred primarily on Twitter, lasted about 48 hours, and resulted in no changes. No firings, no policy changes, not even an apology. Pretty weak tea I think.

they cannot hammer all of them down.

...We're talking about academia specifically, right? Which academic nails are sticking up, currently?

My assumption is that within academia, within the corporate world, most places run on procedure and the manipulation of procedural outcomes, they absolutely can hammer down every nail there is. I've seen pretty much nothing that leads me to think otherwise in the last seven or so years. And sure, they get pushback sometimes, on specific issues. Usually this pushback doesn't even stop them on the specific issue in question, much less roll back previous wins; most commonly, there's simply a week or two of grumbling and then people give up. Seuss and Dahl are still censored. The "pushback" lacked any meaningful substance.

they are still hammering nails but in the private sector , like social media or work, stuff which gets less media attention than highly visible targets. Going after highly visible targets incurs risk, so they cannot do it that often.

"that often" is a flexible term. it seems to me that they can do it often enough to consolidate their gains in preparation for the next push. Again, the policy/procedure/rules changes aren't rolling back. What they got, they keep, what they failed to get, they'll be back for soon enough.

Harvard canceled a Law School dean for representing Weinstein. There was also the Christakises at Yale. Then there's MITs cancellation of Sabatini for a MeTooing, and NYUs refusal to hire him. MIT also cancelled Stallman.

I suggest that if there are fewer events, it's because so many witches have already been burnt, and the remaining witches are keeping their heads down. We're not seeing a blossoming of intellectual freedom.

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