What happened when I challenged the PC campus culture at NYU

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/03/campus-pc-culture-is-so-rampant-that-nyu-is-paying-to-silence-me/

by pmiller2 • 10 years ago

50 39 10 years ago

washingtonpost.com

riverside4• 10 years ago

For those who don't want to read the article, "What happened when I challenged the PC campus culture at NYU" really means "What happened when I tweeted a bunch of right-wing garbage and associated it with my employer, by name":

What if Trump triggers a few hundred thousand liberal totalitarians to jump out of their dorm windows? one can only hope. #TriggerWarning https://twitter.com/antipcnyuprof/status/780573017382481920

The answer is that you're asked to take a leave of absence because you're embarrassing everyone.

Shed no tears though, I'm sure Professor Edgelord will do just fine in the conservative talk circuit for years to come.

danhak• 10 years ago

Somewhere along the line, being "anti-pc" became synonymous with being deliberately obnoxious and antagonistic.

sushisource• 10 years ago

It did, somehow. This guy also went about it in a fairly petty way, but his fundamental point I think holds water.

The hypocrisy of "you can't state your views because you're biased/bigoted/whatever" is extreme. Just two sides of the same coin.

phyzome• 10 years ago

Yeah, when I read the phrase "thought experiment", I thought "here we go again".

Somehow people think that they can do their trolling behind that label and be protected from all criticism.

rocqua• 10 years ago

So should the response to a troll be to ban and chastise him?

I'd argue its better to start offering counter arguments. If they engage reasonably, have discourse. Otherwise, start ignoring / saying 'here's that guy again'.

Yes, someone who remains reasonable and yet seeks to defend racism is probably slightly harmful. As he might move a few people, and keep others on the fence. And yet, I'd give most people more credit than that. I also care more about free expression of ideas. Finally, I care about convincing those on the other side, rather than confirming those who are on my side.

If you start dismissing everyone with a non-progressive view point, that won't convince them. Heck, it'll probably make them think all progressive are oversensitive people; people who defend their believes because they can't stand the very though of disagreement. Instead, we should look to express confidence truth seeking and reason. That is a lot more likely to get them to consider us.

Moreover, if the non-progressives are essentially unwelcome in progressive circles, we are just strengthening the divide and increasing tribalism on both sides. Heck, non-progressives basically aren't welcome in higher education. That can't be good and isn't what we should want.

ppod• 10 years ago

I think the mention of suicide was wrong, but it sounds like you're saying that a University should fire any employees that express right-wing views. You actually said 'right wing garbage', but I didn't see any fact-checking on either side.

riverside4• 10 years ago

My critique of his actions starts and ends with this: If you're posting a bunch of trollbait just to see if your peers and students will react poorly, and then they do, and you get in trouble for it, good.

mturmon• 10 years ago

That characterization ("right wing garbage") is pretty much correct. Read the referenced twitter feed, which includes threats to divulge "dirt" about his workplace if he gets 500 followers.

There is a case to be made for free speech on campus, but this professor is not making it. Sad!

tdb78934• 10 years ago

If you read the tweets this guy wasn't trying to create a discourse with pepole but to make a group of people angry at him, which makes sense why the university would be against that

0xdeadbeefbabe• 10 years ago

Yeah they are his employer, but they're supposed to behave more intelligently than typical employers.

They also have a reporting hotline for Halloween costumes and bias. Seems like a bad idea.

ChrisNorstrom• 10 years ago

I can't find the "right-wing garbage" twitter posts? Where did you get that from?

riverside4• 10 years ago

his twitter feed, linked in the article: https://twitter.com/antipcnyuprof

chinese_dan• 10 years ago

"For those who don't want to read the article, "What happened when I challenged the PC campus culture at NYU" really means "What happened when I tweeted a bunch of right-wing garbage and associated it with my employer, by name":"

This idea (that companies have the ultimate power over your lives) seems to change when it involves left-leaning opinions. Would you be fine if I fired anyone saying anything bad about traditional marriage?

Weed legalization seems to be really popular in the tech community. Your body in your own time, right?

How is free speech any different? It's just as representitive of your employer.

"The answer is that you're asked to take a leave of absence because you're embarrassing everyone."

Weaklings in academia can't take a differing opinion are now creating students with this same weak mindset. It's a disgrace to intellectualism..if you can even call it that anymore.

"Shed no tears though, I'm sure Professor Edgelord will do just fine in the conservative talk circuit for years to come."

You can revel in people with differing opinions getting their livelihood destroyed and their opinions silenced, but when it happens to you, I won't be shedding a tear either.

cmdrfred2• 10 years ago

I grew up with Rage Against The Machine and have never trusted a political party. If you are able to take an objective look the utter hypocrisy from both sides is staggering. Clinton supporters will tell you to ignore her scandals because it has not yet been adjudicated but anything said about Trump should be treated as fact and vice versa. Frankly I don't think they can handle the cognitive dissonance as the real world collides with their rhetoric.

mixedCase• 10 years ago

Full disclaimer: I am right wing, far right by some standards. I find Trump to be a brilliant man in many areas, with flaws like every human being has. I am fiercely against the modern "PC" bs and fully agree with this professor's stance on Milo Yiannopoulos' censoring, even when I find Milo to be a hypocrite that tiptoes around hard-right concepts for publicity.

With that said, I fully agree that this is nothing but a piece to try to undo the major fuck-up that was his Twitter trolling account linked to himself and his employer.

He's now trying to use the force of our movement to shield himself from the fair consequences of his actions using the inevitable PC-overreaction as an excuse.

ScottBurson• 10 years ago

No, that's not what happened at all. Check out this passage from an interview he gave:

MR: I don’t support Trump at all. I hate him — I think he’s horrible. I’m hiding amongst the alt-right, alright? And the point is, this character is meant to exhibit and illustrate the notion that it’s this crazy social-justice-warrior-knee-jerk-reaction-triggered-happy-safe-space-seeking-blah, blah, blah, blah culture that it’s producing this alt-right. Now, I’m not dumb enough to go there. And my own politics are very strong — I’m a left communist. But I think that in fact, the crazier and crazier that this left gets, this version of the left, the more the more the alt-right is going to be laughing their asses off plus getting more pissed. Every time a speaker is booed off campus or shooed off campus because they might say something that bothers someone, that just feeds the notion that the left is totalitarian, and they have a point. [0]

[0] http://www.nyunews.com/2016/10/24/qa-with-a-deplorable-nyu-p...

tdb78934• 10 years ago

That might have been with his intent but the fact of the matter is that he created a twitter account that is explicitly connected to his employer and then didn't even meet the incredibly low bar of being either civil or academic with it. It's like the youtubers that prank people and wonder why people get mad because "it's just a prank, bro!" It being a social experiment doesn't shield you from all of the consequences of you actions.

norea-armozel2• 10 years ago

The fact the man conflates institutional blackballing with mockery or blocking online shows how thin skinned he really is. Next he'll say not getting invited to some private organization's cookout is censorship.

ryao• 10 years ago

Am I the only person who thought this was an article by a Mac OS X user upon reading the title?

dllthomas• 10 years ago

Nope.

heisenbit• 10 years ago

He created an EXPERIMENTAL twitter account and played alt-right troll. And then showed that nobody engaged constructively with him.

If he had researched the topic he should have known that anyone who engages with trolls looses. So anyone who is half sane will steer clear. And he gets the left wing trolls feasting on his bait.

Scientific value: Likely close to zero.

But the question here is more: Experimental personas in social media and impact back on real life. Where should the line be drawn?

bradknowles• 10 years ago

When I read the title of the article, I thought he was talking about publicly supporting Apple and macOS against Microsoft and Windows, and how that had come back to haunt him.

Sigh....

FrancoDiaz3• 10 years ago

when the university implemented a bias reporting hotline, by which students can anonymously report professors and classmates for any number of viewpoint transgressions related to race, gender and orientation, real or perceived

Sounds very east german to me.

The cause of Professor Rectenwald’s guilt is certainly not, in our view, his identity as a cis, white, straight male. The cause of his guilt is the content and structure of his thinking.”

These people think they're part of some Soviet kangaroo court.

All these SJWs are just evil as far as I'm concerned. If they ever get real power, there would be a civil war.

actuallyalys• 10 years ago

Sounds very east german to me.

They are not even remotely comparable. The East German government created a network of hundreds of thousands of informants, maintained a separate penal system for political prisoners, prevented citizens from leaving the country, and used information gathered from surveillance to systematically destroy dissidents' lives.

The author of the article was put on paid leave for the remainder of the semester. It's unlikely that professors and classmates reported to the hotline would face even that.

cmdrfred2• 10 years ago

I don't think the political prisons were built overnight. It was likely small, well meaning laws that slowly over time became corrupted. I can see the grandparents point. Reporting hotlines for things that are essentially thought crimes worry me.

tdb78934• 10 years ago

Any instances where people abuse this rule and use it to attack people that don't agree with them is a huge problem but in general trying to combat biases would seem to be a good thing for the institution. If you look at it this person seems to be trying to combat biases against conservatives so it seems weird to me that he seems to view the universities attempts to combat other biases as so nefarious. Also, civil or academic discourse should always have a place in college campuses but what this person said is definitely neither of those things.

FrancoDiaz3• 10 years ago

..combat biases

Think about the implications of that at a deeper, rather than superficial, level. There's consequences for everything.

throwaway274739• 10 years ago

It's very interesting that in these predictable "oh no, the PC culture is oppressing me" stories, the hapless victim is inevitably a white male of extraordinary privilege and power.

I put forward that this is not a coincidence. We tend not to see these stories written by, say, a trans Woman of Color who works as a cleaner. Why is that? Do you think she faces less oppression and discrimination in her day to day life than this privileged white male who works at NYU? Of course not!

What we see here is one of the subtleties of privilege, power structures and white supremacy in this country. White people, upon encountering even the slightest challenge to their power, will lash out with extraordinary anger and self righteousness (exhibit A: the Trump campaign).

In contrast, trans people, People of Color, undocumented immigrants, and pretty anyone whose not a straight white Christian male is expected to endure any number of indignities at the hands of the white power structure.

What we are seeing now is People of Color, LBGTQs, and other oppressed groups saying to white men like the author is we've had enough. I commend them for it and hope everyone can see past his crocodile tears.

dikdik• 10 years ago

Didn't lil Wayne just face some internet backlash for saying he "hasn't experience racism" and that BLM is a bunch of bullshit?

The so called "oppressed minorities" that do speak out against the PC culture are framed as Uncle Tom's and brushed under the rug.

maverick_iceman2• 10 years ago

Yes, having right wing thoughts is a crime. They should not only be fired from jobs but sent to labor camps for reeducation and publicly purged in show trials. George Orwell would have been so happy to see his fiction becoming reality.

maverick_iceman2• 10 years ago

The cause of Professor Rectenwald’s guilt is certainly not, in our view, his identity as a cis, white, straight male. The cause of his guilt is the content and structure of his thinking.

And here I imagined thoughtcrime is something from George Orwell's fiction, never expected to someone actually get punished for this crime. Winds of change, I guess.

kapauldo• 10 years ago

This guy belongs at an art school, not a serious university. Get back to work educating young people not play time trying to provoke people.

Shanea93• 10 years ago

He's a professor of liberal studies, you could say that this sort of action is entirely within the remit of his profession.

norea-armozel2• 10 years ago

"...while drawing out the predictable, censorious responses of so-called progressives, self-appointed thought police at NYU and elsewhere who have..."

So let me get this straight. If I block you, mock you, ban you from my site, or otherwise not associate with you I'm magically blackballing you the same way a university can? Sorry, but I'm not buying this bull. This is why I really, really hate intellectuals of this stripe. They claim that it's "censorious" to do what we already do in person. I don't talk to Trump supporters in real life. Are they censored by me not engaging them? Am I magically impeding their freedom to protest, write articles, publish articles, or otherwise make their message heard by the mere act of not listening as an individual? Michael Rectenwald and company need to stop conflating the legitimate concern of institutional censorship with the non-issue of free association. So how about he and his fellow trolls get a clue and stop whining cause people don't talk to each other on Twitter or Facebook.

What happened when I challenged the PC campus culture at NYU

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