After being a decades-long subscriber to the Times, this entire sordid incident with McNeil was the straw that caused me to cancel my subscription. I recently wrote a letter to the Washington Post, whose new editor has very noticeably made the paper more "woke," and said I would be cancelling that subscription as well if the paper continued to overtly push an agenda.
I feel like I am in a vise between two horrible extremes. Where do people get their news?
In case anyone wonders what mass hysteria and subsequent witch hunts is like to live through - here you go. The idea that any white person is already a racist and waiting to be discovered/unmasked is the panic. We went through the same thing during the Me Too era only people could not recognize it. Suddenly every man seemed like a rapist. Every gesture, evidence of it. Now, it's about racism - which has all but consumed the entire left of this country because they are deathly afraid of being called a racist. I can only put this down to the idea that we were building a utopian vision of America under Obama (Miranda's Hamilton for example) and that was disrupted by Trump who not only refused to obey the new rules of the utopia (no one should ever be offended, no person is marginalized for any reason) but spat in its face. Now, however, we are destroying ourselves. It won't end until enough people start speaking out against it. You can feel the tide turning but it's not turning fast enough. The fear is still there.
Woke is broke. But it is a struggling, drowning, dangerous beast as it slips slowly beneath the waves of history, and it will drag any near it down with it as it disappears. The engine of woke is not at all to eliminate American racism, in fact by their own definition woke and CRT are racism. Woke is a manifestation of the need of white assistant professors to remain relevant by publishing what is now the only thing white untenured academics are allowed to publish. Woke and CRT are "things," not because they help defeat our racist heritage, but because young white ambitious assistant professors want tenure in an academic environment where tenure is becoming more rare, and woke is the gauntlet they are required to run. If you do not do a little sincere "woking" you do not get tenure. If you are untenured and do not at least give a believable nod to woke, you will lose your teaching post. Period. So my recommendation is "wake up" my tenured colleagues, model courage, and help our children survive the woke gauntlet. It will not last. Be wise, but also be brave.
Reading between the lines, I suspect you have a somewhat arrogant, somewhat grumpy, old-school guy who thinks students should be humble in the presence of their teachers/mentors, and somewhat arrogant, somewhat touchy students who think they should be applauded when questioning and challenging expertise. The mentor-student relationships went south on this particular trip, and they spent too much time together. McNeil is probably not good with kids, and the students were savvy enough to pick out some things he said that (in and out of context) seem inappropriate. But, instead of leaving it there and taking the reasonable action of not choosing to send McNeil on any more field trips, the NYT staff mob, driven by a sense of moral superiority, felt justified to stick it to McNeil. Even though they weren’t a party to the happenings, they saw an opening to be outraged and pounced. The NYT Times leadership took the path of least resistance and kicked McNeil out. The fact that they stood up for him with the Pulitzer committee when they could benefit is not surprising – his dismissal was all about calming the mob not about any real consternation with his behavior or character.
The lesson learned is that (a) you should be very careful about what you say in informal contexts, especially if you might be talking to people who don’t like you and (b) if you want to “get someone”, organize a mob and signify your actions are for a higher purpose (e.g., to make the workplace a safe place for everyone!).
A warning to those who join in or tolerate the mob approach to personnel decisions, remember the same tactics can be used against you or someone you love in the future. When it happens, your pleas that “This is really not a good way to handle conflicts and workplace employment decisions” will be met with the same level of sympathy that was received by McNeil. Administrators and supervisors are not going to protect you in the current environment– they are going to protect themselves and their organization.
Nice piece. We should treat the NYTs as an ideological organ, nothing more. The fact that some good journalists still work there does not absolve them. As for Pulitzers, they have become meaningless as well. Nikole Hannah-Jones just won one.
I was a little appalled when the Times ran their piece on page 2 yesterday about how many hands it takes to produce Pulitzer prize winning journalism -- patting yourself on the back for being a big family after having pushed out one of the main contributors is not a good look. And it seems like the fact that McNeil was someone who was apt to win Pulitzers made him a bigger target for younger writers, and that makes that newsroom seem a little too Hunger Gamesish in orientation.
I am reminded of an old Lenny Bruce routine whereby he used every racial slur against blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Italians, etc in an attempt to show that by using them more we can take away their power. While I don't think I am totally comfortable with that, we have certainly gone the other way where the use of certain words even in an educational manner is too much. What a species...
We had a similar situation happen here in Canada with the National Post and two opinion writers, Rex Murphy and Barbra Kay. Thankfully the paper backed both writers but for how long. More and more of the media is going woke. Into the void has stepped the Post Millennial, TNC and Rebel News. Each has foind an audience for a conservative point of view!
I'm not at all surprised.
After being a decades-long subscriber to the Times, this entire sordid incident with McNeil was the straw that caused me to cancel my subscription. I recently wrote a letter to the Washington Post, whose new editor has very noticeably made the paper more "woke," and said I would be cancelling that subscription as well if the paper continued to overtly push an agenda.
I feel like I am in a vise between two horrible extremes. Where do people get their news?
In case anyone wonders what mass hysteria and subsequent witch hunts is like to live through - here you go. The idea that any white person is already a racist and waiting to be discovered/unmasked is the panic. We went through the same thing during the Me Too era only people could not recognize it. Suddenly every man seemed like a rapist. Every gesture, evidence of it. Now, it's about racism - which has all but consumed the entire left of this country because they are deathly afraid of being called a racist. I can only put this down to the idea that we were building a utopian vision of America under Obama (Miranda's Hamilton for example) and that was disrupted by Trump who not only refused to obey the new rules of the utopia (no one should ever be offended, no person is marginalized for any reason) but spat in its face. Now, however, we are destroying ourselves. It won't end until enough people start speaking out against it. You can feel the tide turning but it's not turning fast enough. The fear is still there.
Woke is broke. But it is a struggling, drowning, dangerous beast as it slips slowly beneath the waves of history, and it will drag any near it down with it as it disappears. The engine of woke is not at all to eliminate American racism, in fact by their own definition woke and CRT are racism. Woke is a manifestation of the need of white assistant professors to remain relevant by publishing what is now the only thing white untenured academics are allowed to publish. Woke and CRT are "things," not because they help defeat our racist heritage, but because young white ambitious assistant professors want tenure in an academic environment where tenure is becoming more rare, and woke is the gauntlet they are required to run. If you do not do a little sincere "woking" you do not get tenure. If you are untenured and do not at least give a believable nod to woke, you will lose your teaching post. Period. So my recommendation is "wake up" my tenured colleagues, model courage, and help our children survive the woke gauntlet. It will not last. Be wise, but also be brave.
Reading between the lines, I suspect you have a somewhat arrogant, somewhat grumpy, old-school guy who thinks students should be humble in the presence of their teachers/mentors, and somewhat arrogant, somewhat touchy students who think they should be applauded when questioning and challenging expertise. The mentor-student relationships went south on this particular trip, and they spent too much time together. McNeil is probably not good with kids, and the students were savvy enough to pick out some things he said that (in and out of context) seem inappropriate. But, instead of leaving it there and taking the reasonable action of not choosing to send McNeil on any more field trips, the NYT staff mob, driven by a sense of moral superiority, felt justified to stick it to McNeil. Even though they weren’t a party to the happenings, they saw an opening to be outraged and pounced. The NYT Times leadership took the path of least resistance and kicked McNeil out. The fact that they stood up for him with the Pulitzer committee when they could benefit is not surprising – his dismissal was all about calming the mob not about any real consternation with his behavior or character.
The lesson learned is that (a) you should be very careful about what you say in informal contexts, especially if you might be talking to people who don’t like you and (b) if you want to “get someone”, organize a mob and signify your actions are for a higher purpose (e.g., to make the workplace a safe place for everyone!).
A warning to those who join in or tolerate the mob approach to personnel decisions, remember the same tactics can be used against you or someone you love in the future. When it happens, your pleas that “This is really not a good way to handle conflicts and workplace employment decisions” will be met with the same level of sympathy that was received by McNeil. Administrators and supervisors are not going to protect you in the current environment– they are going to protect themselves and their organization.
Nice piece. We should treat the NYTs as an ideological organ, nothing more. The fact that some good journalists still work there does not absolve them. As for Pulitzers, they have become meaningless as well. Nikole Hannah-Jones just won one.
I was a little appalled when the Times ran their piece on page 2 yesterday about how many hands it takes to produce Pulitzer prize winning journalism -- patting yourself on the back for being a big family after having pushed out one of the main contributors is not a good look. And it seems like the fact that McNeil was someone who was apt to win Pulitzers made him a bigger target for younger writers, and that makes that newsroom seem a little too Hunger Gamesish in orientation.
I am reminded of an old Lenny Bruce routine whereby he used every racial slur against blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Italians, etc in an attempt to show that by using them more we can take away their power. While I don't think I am totally comfortable with that, we have certainly gone the other way where the use of certain words even in an educational manner is too much. What a species...
We had a similar situation happen here in Canada with the National Post and two opinion writers, Rex Murphy and Barbra Kay. Thankfully the paper backed both writers but for how long. More and more of the media is going woke. Into the void has stepped the Post Millennial, TNC and Rebel News. Each has foind an audience for a conservative point of view!