A personal account of how call out culture has harmed teaching

http://whitehotharlots.tumblr.com/post/114067452180/a-personal-account-of-how-call-out-culture-has

by platz • 11 years ago

50 15 11 years ago

whitehotharlots.tumblr.com

gumby• 11 years ago

No way in hell would I assign that today. Not even to grad students.

If this is not hyperbole, then it is shocking. I mean OK, I can imagine undergrads being hysterical one way or another -- that's part of being that age. And frankly we are all still working out millennia of screwed up attitudes, so some reasonable positions can seem crazy, and vice versa.

But a grad student in German history should be able to read, and carry around, Mein Kampf; if that is reasonable than why shouldn't a grad student in English, Indian, or African colonial history be able to read an account of an equally dreadful past?

If you can't cut an animal apart don't become a medicinal chemist. Likewise if you are squeamish about history, don't become a historian.

esrauch2• 11 years ago

I'm pretty skeptical of the claim that liberal students will be "triggered" by teaching out of a book that calls some colonial slaughter "genocide" leading to the professor's career being impacted.

It's hard to say for sure, but this reads like someone who is very conservative that is overstating or overestimating what is probably a real (but much less severe) problem.

zaphar• 11 years ago

What does this term "triggered" mean? I feel like I'm missing a crucial piece of context when reading the article.

falcolas3• 11 years ago

I hesitate to point these out to you, but Reddit has several examples of these kinds of attitudes having negative effects on folks' real lives, on both sides.

Gamergate, "tumbler in action", social justice warriors, these are the names a few of these online conflicts have taken.

beerbajay• 11 years ago

The author seems to hate both liberals and conservatives equally, but his rhetoric is pure college republican; playing the victim when one is in fact in a position of power and status and privilege, and a willful misunderstanding of what is objectionable to these people they call "liberals".

It is a fantasy of being a victim when the author claims that they couldn't assign a book on genocide because of liberal students; this is exactly the kind of reading done in feminist and postcolonial studies programs. Also telling is the author's worry that "one bougie, liberal student" would complain about "texts about climate change" which "indicted our consumption-based lifestyles"; this is the position of the left/liberals; it is conservative students which object to these kinds of texts; so again, a victim fantasy.

macho_pikachu• 11 years ago

I rarely see these, "playing the victim" arguments shut down. I'll frequently see them deconstructed, explained away, dismissed, but not forcefully and cunningly defused.

Here's my attempt: Academic environments have historically been places of cultural experimentation diametrically opposed to the stifling culture of the workplace.

How desperate and bereft of sensitivity and creativity must you be to emulate the corporate model of HR in your classroom?

platz• 11 years ago

very insightful, I wish I could spot these arguments myself more easily, but most of the time they escape me.

ajuc• 11 years ago

If it's true (seems improbable, but then I live in PC-free society, how would I know) it's very sad, and funny at the same time. Shows that every idea, no matter how well-intentioned, can and will be abused eventually.

Another example - the outrage about the shirt of Rosetta misstion scientist. It was unreal.

def_illiterate• 11 years ago

Same thing, same groups.

Same groups behind Donglegate (or Donglewater, however you prefer to call your scandals.)

A personal account of how call out culture has harmed teaching

Related Stories