I found it hard to listen to this because I couldn't get past the opening in which Yascha Mounk critiques the practice of separating school children by race because grouping "white" children together, and thereby fostering "whiteness," apparently risks developing white supremacists. The latter term I didn't put in quotation marks because those people exist, although they are a small fraction of the population. If reasonably defined, that is defined as people who actually hold the view that the white race is superior to other races. I put the term "white" in quotation marks, as I often put "American," to indicate an ironic distance, a refusal to accept labels that now, as far as I can tell, are entirely negative in connotation. Among right-thinking, left-leaning people, to be sure. And at least for the latter label, Europeans. (Mounk plays the European superiority card a bit too often here.) As for "whiteness," someone invented that term. Other than that it's a bad thing, it's hard to figure out what it means. A tendency to be on time for meetings gets frequent mention. (Anyone irritated by the whole concept should listen to Glenn Loury do a riff on what would happen if someone told an ordinary black person he didn't have to be on time to a meeting because he was black.) The theme of a "problematic" reaction to all this negativity (to what Mounk calls the "identity synthesis") returns at the end of the conversation, stated more indirectly, at least as far as what the problems might be. What it boils down to seems to be "white" people getting in touch with their inner Klansman. To say that I find this analysis problematic, this assumption that white Americans are inherently racist, or will be ineluctably drawn to racism, or that "white" people should do more than hang their heads in shame for existing--thereby earning contempt as "guilty white liberals" under the crooked rules of this game--is to understate a level of anger that, no, doesn't lead to white supremacy. Just to cynicism, alienation and bitterness that this is what the left--except for thinkers like Adolph Reed, who has his feet on the ground--has become.
The reaction feared, from support for Donald Trump to the ham-fisted intrusions of Ron DeSantis, is worth fearing and needs qualification. One cannot honestly lump all supporters of Trump in 2016 or 2020 into Hilary Clinton's famous "basket of deplorables." Obama-Trump voters, the percentage of Hispanics who voted for Trump in both elections, the number of Trump supporters who were quoted as saying, "I don't like everything he says" suggest that the progressive assumption that all Trump voters were and are "haters" is inaccurate. Likewise, it is perfectly possible to teach the history of this country honestly, with full and nuanced discussion of slavery and its aftermath, without conflating that history with slavery and without reference to Critical Race Theory. So while the assumptions about reaction stated here seem overdetermined and overstated, that reaction is still real. The question is how to handle it. One suggestion would be to consider the immediate consequences of racialisation for the people assigned the role of "oppressor": white children who are taught that they are bad, at risk of becoming what their ancestors are said to have been: racist oppressors. White people in general, especially those of northern European Protestant ancestry--my guess as to the "whites" held responsible for "whiteness"--who likewise are expected to see themselves and their ancestors in the direst possible terms, responsible for what Mounk calls the "terrible" history of this country. A whole transatlantic culture, the continued and continuing exchange of both high culture and popular culture between this country and Europe, threatened with reduction to a set of critical/theoretical talking points. This is serious stuff that threatens the fabric of this society. It matters intellectually. It matters morally. It matters politically, and not just as fuel to the fire of the Trump bonfire.
"One is that she wasn't able to actually set out the case for that academic freedom, to explain why it is that it shouldn't be against the rules and why we don't want university presidents to pick and choose between the kind of speech that students are able to engage in".
Ironically, she did, it's the same reason Jurists refuse to define Fraud under Equity jurisdiction..
I thought I was one of the 1st to have been subject to the Clinton era anti "Hate Speech" policies adopted by SUNY. Andy Cuomo then NYS AG ordered the Federal courts to dismiss my 42 USC action on ground of 11th A. US Const. immunity. I was banned from College radio. The FCC license held by the SUNY campus board who owns the station and pays the President and staff - I'm saying this because the district court added to Andy's jurisdictional bar that the radio station is a private property enterprise. The 2nd Circuit took my money and denied my appeal without briefing as devoid of law and fact the USSCt denied cert.
In researching the case there were other incidents of this going on prior to my own one of which involved Amiri Baraka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiri_Baraka at Stony Brook regarding similar subject matter as that discussed in the podcast. In reading that case the university position was that they'd lose a significant part of tuition from Jews.
The irony in my case was that I informed the station that I intended to broadcast "Howl" on the 50th Anniversary. At the time, the President of the station was a Jew and so were various staff members so unknown to me they started screening my shows all of which were broadcast inside the FCC safe harbor zone. So I started playing Lenny Bruce. No issue. It was when I played Lou Reed ... so was it "The original Wrapper" ? No it was "The Raven" and I had my broadcast privileges removed but under the SPM version of Due Process (yeah ok you get to talk are you done yet?) I was allowed to make an argument of why I should not be permanently banned and then I was. So I came back as a guest DJ on another show and two state security guards escorted me off campus
The other irony was that I was on the President's circle Edgar Bronfman Jr. of the World Jewish Congress and was the person that reported problems at the University purportedly involving Black Students and Jews and he went to the campus to check it out
It was later revealed that a white student that happened to be a Jew was going around carving swastikas into buildings on windows &c and Black students were being blamed for it.
But mostly it's all about tuition and assimilation. Be a good Jew, pay double for protection or move to Israel.
The fact that the political opposition pointed out the plagiarism is why we _need_ political oppositions, _whoever_ is in charge. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Is the subtext to this discussion that American universities have moved too far in treating students like "customers"? Perhaps a better model, albeit simplistic, would be to treat students more like "clients" in a professional relationship. A professional knows how to convince a client, a form of education, to change strategy or behavior. If the client is dissatisfied, then the client may move on to another professional.
I found it hard to listen to this because I couldn't get past the opening in which Yascha Mounk critiques the practice of separating school children by race because grouping "white" children together, and thereby fostering "whiteness," apparently risks developing white supremacists. The latter term I didn't put in quotation marks because those people exist, although they are a small fraction of the population. If reasonably defined, that is defined as people who actually hold the view that the white race is superior to other races. I put the term "white" in quotation marks, as I often put "American," to indicate an ironic distance, a refusal to accept labels that now, as far as I can tell, are entirely negative in connotation. Among right-thinking, left-leaning people, to be sure. And at least for the latter label, Europeans. (Mounk plays the European superiority card a bit too often here.) As for "whiteness," someone invented that term. Other than that it's a bad thing, it's hard to figure out what it means. A tendency to be on time for meetings gets frequent mention. (Anyone irritated by the whole concept should listen to Glenn Loury do a riff on what would happen if someone told an ordinary black person he didn't have to be on time to a meeting because he was black.) The theme of a "problematic" reaction to all this negativity (to what Mounk calls the "identity synthesis") returns at the end of the conversation, stated more indirectly, at least as far as what the problems might be. What it boils down to seems to be "white" people getting in touch with their inner Klansman. To say that I find this analysis problematic, this assumption that white Americans are inherently racist, or will be ineluctably drawn to racism, or that "white" people should do more than hang their heads in shame for existing--thereby earning contempt as "guilty white liberals" under the crooked rules of this game--is to understate a level of anger that, no, doesn't lead to white supremacy. Just to cynicism, alienation and bitterness that this is what the left--except for thinkers like Adolph Reed, who has his feet on the ground--has become.
The reaction feared, from support for Donald Trump to the ham-fisted intrusions of Ron DeSantis, is worth fearing and needs qualification. One cannot honestly lump all supporters of Trump in 2016 or 2020 into Hilary Clinton's famous "basket of deplorables." Obama-Trump voters, the percentage of Hispanics who voted for Trump in both elections, the number of Trump supporters who were quoted as saying, "I don't like everything he says" suggest that the progressive assumption that all Trump voters were and are "haters" is inaccurate. Likewise, it is perfectly possible to teach the history of this country honestly, with full and nuanced discussion of slavery and its aftermath, without conflating that history with slavery and without reference to Critical Race Theory. So while the assumptions about reaction stated here seem overdetermined and overstated, that reaction is still real. The question is how to handle it. One suggestion would be to consider the immediate consequences of racialisation for the people assigned the role of "oppressor": white children who are taught that they are bad, at risk of becoming what their ancestors are said to have been: racist oppressors. White people in general, especially those of northern European Protestant ancestry--my guess as to the "whites" held responsible for "whiteness"--who likewise are expected to see themselves and their ancestors in the direst possible terms, responsible for what Mounk calls the "terrible" history of this country. A whole transatlantic culture, the continued and continuing exchange of both high culture and popular culture between this country and Europe, threatened with reduction to a set of critical/theoretical talking points. This is serious stuff that threatens the fabric of this society. It matters intellectually. It matters morally. It matters politically, and not just as fuel to the fire of the Trump bonfire.
"One is that she wasn't able to actually set out the case for that academic freedom, to explain why it is that it shouldn't be against the rules and why we don't want university presidents to pick and choose between the kind of speech that students are able to engage in".
Ironically, she did, it's the same reason Jurists refuse to define Fraud under Equity jurisdiction..
I thought I was one of the 1st to have been subject to the Clinton era anti "Hate Speech" policies adopted by SUNY. Andy Cuomo then NYS AG ordered the Federal courts to dismiss my 42 USC action on ground of 11th A. US Const. immunity. I was banned from College radio. The FCC license held by the SUNY campus board who owns the station and pays the President and staff - I'm saying this because the district court added to Andy's jurisdictional bar that the radio station is a private property enterprise. The 2nd Circuit took my money and denied my appeal without briefing as devoid of law and fact the USSCt denied cert.
In researching the case there were other incidents of this going on prior to my own one of which involved Amiri Baraka https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiri_Baraka at Stony Brook regarding similar subject matter as that discussed in the podcast. In reading that case the university position was that they'd lose a significant part of tuition from Jews.
The irony in my case was that I informed the station that I intended to broadcast "Howl" on the 50th Anniversary. At the time, the President of the station was a Jew and so were various staff members so unknown to me they started screening my shows all of which were broadcast inside the FCC safe harbor zone. So I started playing Lenny Bruce. No issue. It was when I played Lou Reed ... so was it "The original Wrapper" ? No it was "The Raven" and I had my broadcast privileges removed but under the SPM version of Due Process (yeah ok you get to talk are you done yet?) I was allowed to make an argument of why I should not be permanently banned and then I was. So I came back as a guest DJ on another show and two state security guards escorted me off campus
The other irony was that I was on the President's circle Edgar Bronfman Jr. of the World Jewish Congress and was the person that reported problems at the University purportedly involving Black Students and Jews and he went to the campus to check it out
It was later revealed that a white student that happened to be a Jew was going around carving swastikas into buildings on windows &c and Black students were being blamed for it.
But mostly it's all about tuition and assimilation. Be a good Jew, pay double for protection or move to Israel.
P.S. Dershowitz refused to take my case. he had "other commitments".
The fact that the political opposition pointed out the plagiarism is why we _need_ political oppositions, _whoever_ is in charge. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Is the subtext to this discussion that American universities have moved too far in treating students like "customers"? Perhaps a better model, albeit simplistic, would be to treat students more like "clients" in a professional relationship. A professional knows how to convince a client, a form of education, to change strategy or behavior. If the client is dissatisfied, then the client may move on to another professional.