But as we saw in an earlier discussion, it's not clear stereotype threat in the gender case is even real (there have been failures to replicate, and worries about publication bias in the results that are out there); implicit bias, by contrast, is real, but the scope of the effect is also quite unclear. It seems well-established that implicit bias influences superficial evaluations (e.g., skimming CVs and evaluating them), less clear that it influences careful reading and scholarly assessment. That some philosophers have effectively misrepresented the state of the psychological research is now fairly clear...
... and then he goes on to say that harassment is an actual problem. Though we still haven't seen if it's anything to do specifically with philosophy. Anyway, Leiter started championing the sexual harassment cause to hit a (former) colleague of his at UT Austin who is a serial harasser. He now must regret enabling the FP monster.
4:34, congratulations. I looked up self-congratulatory idiot in the new edition of the dictionary, and saw a picture of you!
Do you honestly not see that you are a living caricature of the sort of falsification-proof cardboard cutout we present to freshman on day one so that they know what a philosopher is not? Have you learned nothing in all the months you've been here?
What's pretty creepy is that if 4:44 saw a picture of 4:34 in the dictionary then 4:44 must know what 4:34 looks like. What did you do, 4:44? Track down 34's IP then stalk them on Facebook? Weirdo.
What's this mean when Leiter says it: "I can not resist noting, for the annals of the New Infantilism, that instead of linking to this post directly, Prof. Yap uses something called "do not link" to link to it." I don't see any link at all, whether not linked or conventional.
The FP blog did not link to BL at all (he remarked on this in the past, they apparently will not link to him since he broke ranks), but Yap linked to him from that disability blog. I assume BL is referring to the latter, which did use do not link.
I was intrigued to read that AJJ is now less glad than she was about the fact that the post was the product of an effort to respond very civilly. I have no idea what it means (just for starters, what is the referent of 'the post'?), but it's always an interesting experience to peruse an AJJ comment.
It was an interesting exchange for sociological reasons. But the most dismissive statement is her own
"Western philosophy in general has too much in the way of “me” studies, namely straight, upper-middle-class, cis, heterosexual white men studying other straight, upper-middle-class, cis, heterosexual white men. This, as far as I can tell, has narrowed the discipline in general, much to its detriment.:
Kant, Hume and people that studied them (Quine, Mill, Carnap and just about everyone else) have 'narrowed the discipline' (and how wide was it before these boring men?) If that isn't gross dismissal then I don't know what is
Yap, Saul, and Jacobson would have been better served by giving Heath's position more credence. He's nailed the dynamic at Feminist Philosophers.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met, who specialize in some form or another of “critical studies,” who are among the worst critical thinkers I’ve met. It’s because they lack the most important skill in critical thinking, which is self-criticism – the capacity to question one’s own view, and correct one’s own biases. And the reason that they’re so bad at it is that they have never had their views seriously challenged....
The problem is that, when you’re studying your own oppression, and you’re obviously a member of the oppressed group in question, people who are basically sympathetic to your situation, but who disagree with your specific claims, are going to be extremely hesitant to challenge you, because they don’t want to appear unsympathetic.....So you are only going to hear from two types of people – those who are sympathetic but want to take a more radical stance, and those who we might label, for convenience, “jerks,” which is to say, people who are both unsympathetic and who are, for one reason or another, immune to any consideration of what others think of them....
I don’t know how many talks I’ve been to where the question period goes this way. Someone presents a view that a solid majority of people in the room think is totally wrong-headed. But no one is willing to say things like: “I don’t think that what you are saying makes any sense” or “you have no evidence to support this contention” or “the policies you are promoting are excessively self-serving.” The questions that will be asked come in only two flavours: “I’m concerned that your analysis is unable to sustain a truly emancipatory social praxis” (i.e. “I don’t think you’re left-wing enough”), or else “you people are always whingeing about your problems” (i.e. “I’m a huge, insensitive jerk”).
Then of course, out in the hallway after the talk, people say what they really thought of the presentation – at this point, a whole bunch of entirely reasonable criticisms will get made, points that probably would have been really helpful to the presenter had they been communicated. The end result is a perfect example of what Timur Kuran refers to as belief falsification (not a great term, but Kuran’s work on this is very interesting). So basically, practitioners of “me” studies suffer from a huge handicap, when it comes to improving the quality of their work, which is that only people who are extremists of one sort or another are willing to give them honest feedback....
This dynamic may help to explain why the reaction that so many “me” studies practitioners have to criticism becomes so highly moralized. They begin to think that all criticism of their views arises from some morally suspect motive. This is what then gets referred to as “political correctness,” namely, the tendency to moralize all disagreement, so that, instead of engaging with intellectual criticism intellectually, they respond to it punitively.
I would take the Identity Politicians much more seriously if they didn't always seem to work on themselves. Women who do feminism (and who systematically confuse support for women with support of feminism); people of color who do critical race theory (and who systematically confuse support for people of color with support of critical race theory); gay philosophers who do queer theory (and who systematically confuse support for people of color with support of critical race theory), etc. etc. The impression one gets is something like this: "What a bunch of narcissists!"
The standard reply (that Yap seems to at least partly endorse) is that all the white heterosexual men in philosophy are similarly narcissistic; they, too, are doing "me studies". But that only really works for the white heterosexual men in philosophy who do history of philosophy (white men who work on Hume, for example). But what about the epistemologists, ethicists, logicians, and metaphysicians? Is a white heterosexual man doing "me studies" when he works out the logical consequences of some version of utilitarianism? When he proves an incompleteness theorem? When he argues that modal realism is incompatible with determinism? When he argues that knowledge is a primary concept? Affirmative answers seem extremely dubious!
There's a lot more to philosophy than "me studies". Let's keep it that way.
You are right; but hey what is is so wrong with white straight guys working on Hume? Of course we are going to get into the whole story about a possible alternative history of philosophy which has made a splash in the media. But what difference does it make? Astell and Mshhman made some criticisms of other philosophers- fine. We should take that into into account (and of course no one ever read her or anyone else before 2010 - oh sorry didn't read her PROPERLY). But we have the most naked grab for power I have ever seen in 'rethinking the cannon' bulshit
Nothing wrong with working on Hume (even if you're a white hetero cis able-bodied dude!). But there's much more to philosophy than its history, and the "everyone is doing 'me studies' anyways" line ignores that key fact. Those of us who work topically (and not on figures) have more to think about than the social identity of some dead person or other.
I say this not to denigrate the history of philosophy, by the way; some of my best friends are historians of philosophy and I dabble in the field myself!
"But what about the epistemologists, ethicists, logicians, and metaphysicians? Is a white heterosexual man doing "me studies" when he...argues that knowledge is a primary concept?"
Maybe you think that it's dubious to answer 'yes', but I take it that at least part of the point is that men working on certain issues in epistemology, for example, are doing 'me' studies to exactly the same extent that feminist epistemologists are doing 'me' studies.
As an aside, one problem that happens when people talk about feminism in these contexts is this: it's not clear what we mean. For example, sometimes by 'feminist philosophy' people mean writing on topics traditionally of interest to feminists, like abortion, rape, etc. But I don't see why it is 'narcissistic' for a woman to be interested in writing about ethical issues like abortion (any more than it is narcissistic for a man to be interested in the ethics of warfare).
Or we might take feminism to be a theory, akin to Marxism, or Social Contract Theory But again, it's not clear why it's narcissistic to be interested in a certain political theory (and the implications of it). And given feminist critcisim of, for example, Rawls, the point seems to be that it's exactly as narcissistic for a woman to be interested in this kind of feminism as it is for a man to be interested in Rawls.
Or we might take it to be a certain methodology or approach (for example, feminist epistemology). But again, it's not clear why it is narcissistic to be interested in a particular methodology (and again, that it's at least no more narcissistic for a woman to be interested in feminist epistemology, etc.)
Yes of course we can take it to have the same standing. But then it should be treated as having the same standing and not assumed as a political orthodoxy at the get go, And it also should be responsive to criticism that is able to consider its own political ideology especially since it it so prevalent. There is a huge difference between studying marxist ideology and being a marxist ideologue. Right now its feminist ideologue and no interrogation of its ideology
5:38 here. Good points, 6:22 PM. The kind of narcissism I have in mind does not extend to all topics within feminist philosophy (it need not extend, for example, to JJ Thomson's classic abortion papers). I take issue, instead with the narcissism on display when philosophers mostly or exclusively study or talk about their own identities and oppression.
I agree with the third paragraph. But I don't agree that men working on certain issues in epistemology, for example, are doing 'me' studies to exactly the same extent that feminist epistemologists are doing 'me' studies.
Suppose men studying Descartes or David Lewis's theory of counterfactuals, to name just two, really are doing "me" studies. That means women who study those topics are poking around in an area they really aren't qualified to talk about. So Gillian Russell and Margaret Wilson have work we should really ignore.
@6:22: please give us a reason for thinking most or all of the topics 5:38 mentions in para.2 are actually "me studies." I suspect you can't and are talking through your hat. Understand that when people like you do this (i.e. making these claims sans reasons) it puts us on guard.
Next, nobody (except you) suggests writing about abortion makes you a narcissist. We are talking about "victimology." JJT is not a vicitmologist. Neither is Marcus. Nor Rawls. Nor Cohen. Certainly some Marxist writings count as victimology. Probably much "applied ethics" too. And we all know it when we see it (whole journals and blogs are devotees).
Enjoy the sight of somebody who clearly studies Nietzsche because he would like to be Nietzsche saying that "me studies" is just those other people over there...
It may be that BL studies Nietzsche at least in part because he identifies with Nietzsche to some degree. But the analogy with 'me studies' would require that Nietzsche scholars rely on the perception that they are oppressed to protect the Sacred Cows of their perceived oppression by moralizing rational disputation and obstructing critical reflection on their work. The problem of 'me studies' is a problem plaguing disciplines like critical race theory, women's studies and feminist philosophy. It is not a problem the Nietzsche scholars face.
Anyone else sense that the FP blog is going the way of New APPS: sinking into self-caricature and irrelevance, with but one or two of the relatively more unhinged contributors still left at the helm?
I think some important senior people are finally beginning to understand that the FPs's power grab threatenes even then. So this is the time to hit back. Turn the power grab into just an insular circle jerk. Don't let them change the discipline forever. They're trying to make it the norm that every department must have a feminist philosophy specialist. This is atrocious and it needs to be stopped. Tenure lines are a dwindling commodity and we cannot sacrifice them in this way to appease our guilt and some vociferous, self-interested fake social justice warriors.
This isn't "Jason Stanley bashing". It's critical interaction with his published work, not his private action (however bad it may be). That's fair game.
Agree in part: definitely interaction with his published work. But the interaction is absent any argumentative claims. It's all about who Jason is, who he cites.
Some suspect JS had a surprisingly rapid conversion to the "appropriate" side of debates surrounding the culture of professional philosophy. Bharath seems to have a more personal beef with Jason, stemming from who knows what as detailed in the lengthy posts on his blog.
I think that's right, 8:07. Jason Stanley got wind of the times that are 'a changin' just in time to join the indignant ranks of SJWs. This about-face annoys onlookers (and, I suspect, his hard-partying lad culture buddies who failed to read the tea-leaves as well as Jason did).
Stanley converted when he had a Black son. Barnes when her disability became burdensome. Cameron when his wife told him to. They all used to be mindless cheerleaders for aggressive Lemming world-domination. Now their personal interest turned them into social justice warriors. Not that their causes aren't defensible otherwise, but people who know them see through their self-righteousness.
First, Stanley is a social justice true believer. It might be a pragmatic decision to step away from his hard-partying ways but ideologically it's not a pragmatic switch, he really does believe in the white male oppressor and the suffering virtuous epistemically privileged oppressed. (Disagree with 3:52 that having a biracial son is enough to explain it, there are lots of ways to respond to that, like for example pointing to the man on the TV and telling him that he can be president).
Second, Vallabha's criticism of his Stanley's book is legit, the book has plenty of internal contradictions, some of which BV is picking up on. His reading clearly comes from a thoughtful engagement with the book. Of course everything BV writes is situated and colored by his feelings about leaving academia. But it's equally true that everything professional philosophers write is situated and colored by their ambition to place themselves professionally. That's definitely true of that Propaganda book which is explicitly and not unreasonably intended to set Stanley up as a 'public intellectual' of sorts.
And also a feeling of appropriation. JS might have been interested in these topics privately, but was he publicly working away to make them fashionable in the profession? No. They become fashionable. And he simply slides over, and is proclaimed the great, white, hope...
The appropriations of popular modes of race talk and subsequent denials of privilege probably also annoy. Agreed, it can suck to be Jewish, but being Jewish doesn't give one license to deny being white (in New York, of all places).
How are they "pulling up the ladder"? Also, 2:35, are you saying that one of them denies being white on the grounds that they're Jewish? Where does this happen?
Though we've met, I haven't spent enough time around Jason Stanley to know if he's the type who maintains that Jewishness excludes or reduces whiteness. But suppose he was the type. Would there be something wrong with that?
Well, I think black people have the worst time of it in the states, so talking about ones Jewishness as if it were on a par with that seems dismissive. But I'm not hating on JS. He's a nice guy. I'd rather people stick to criticizing his arguments than his character (which seems pretty good).
Jason does make being Jewish and black equivalent, although he does (reasonably) cite his family's holocaust history in the context of the history of racism. He's pretty open about the changes in his outlook, and about the success he's had from working within a paradigm he now considers limited (but not useless, it should be added). His critics on this blog seem to know a lot about him. I suspect from his prolific facebook presence. And that means, they are nominally his "friends" while at the same time slagging him anonymously and behind his back. That's pretty lame.
I was wondering when and how the philosophy facebook bubble would burst and leave us all super-soaked like soulja boy's 2006 ex girlfriend. Anyway, I like to think things will improve for black people within the next 65 years as much as things have improved for Jewish people since the WW2. And I was gonna present that as a reason to think the analogy between blackness now and Jewishness now isn't apt. But then I figured the haulocaust was worse than institutionalized racism. And then I don't know anymore.... Except that in 2015 NYC, it's easier to be Jewish than black. In other news, there are two new episodes of Rick & Morty.
The holocaust was not worse than institutionalized racism (including slavery, the most concentrated form). It just happened over a shorter period of time. 13 million vs 6 million
Well when read with suspicion, as BV recommends, given all his gripes with and about JS...it hardly seems a fair, purely scholarly and rationally motivated critique
The new UCI job posting includes the following statement:
UCI asks all applicants to submit a separate statement addressing how their “past and/or potential contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion will advance UCI’s commitment to inclusive excellence.” Please note that such contributions are conceived of quite broadly, as encompassing teaching, mentorship, and service activities, as well as the content of one’s own academic research, while diversity itself is understood as a variety of personal experiences, values, and worldviews that arise from differences of culture and circumstance, including race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, language abilities/disabilities, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geographic region, and more. Such a statement might indicate awareness of inequities and challenges faced by historically underrepresented or economically disadvantaged groups, demonstrate a track record of engagement in such activities, and/or articulate any specific plans for further contributions to them.
As if going on the market wasn't onerous enough already, now we're apparently expected to pull this statement out our ass, presumably to satisfy some useless deanlet of diversity, or whatever. Serious question, what happens if I just refuse to do this? Does my application just go in the trash, or what?
Now all you job marketeers, start preparing your research statement, your teaching statement, and your diversity statement. Also, all you beginning grad student, start working on your research profile, your teaching profile, and your diversity profile.
Perhaps 10:33's advice is sound, but, still, this phenomenon is pernicious. Job candidates are burdened with so much other nonsense that we should categorically refuse to participate in these exercises of ideological policing by idiots in HR departments. Indeed, even the candidates these exercises are ostensibly designed to help can be (and I suspect usually are) negatively impacted by them. For an example of the latter sort, see this essay: http://www.bioethics.net/2015/01/how-are-you-diverse-how-the-academic-job-market-aggravated-my-racial-insecurities/
If you are in a department that requires candidates to submit a diversity statement for the sake of placating some sub-literate dean-let you have a clear responsibility: find a way to clearly indicate to candidates, in a plausibly deniable way, that such statements will have no bearing on the evaluation of their dossiers.
I was wondering when this post would come to wider awareness. That's good advice for committee members, Lysias. 59 interviews is insane. Since she didn't get a single TT job, it's hard to believe they were serious about her as a candidate, and only wanted her in the pool to fulfill some diversity requirement. So while you might first think she was lucky to get that many interviews, I feel bad for her since they were wasting her time. I suppose it might have been in her interest to cancel 80% of those interviews in the absence of strong reassurances that she was a front-runner.
Who is this S. Wallerstein? Whoever s/he is, s/he right:
"It just suits Wall St. fine that the paradigm of oppression is no longer the guy or woman working for the minimum wage, but a disabled lesbian philosopher who didn't get tenure at an elite university."
Neither. Wallerstein isn't a professional philosopher at all. He's an old-school feminist, lives in South America (Chile, I think), posts to Feminist Philosophers every once in a while. Interesting guy, interesting perspective. He gets a lot of respect at FP (rightly so), despite his unwillingness to follow the party line.
The irony is this is the bunch for whom "intersectionality" is such a fashionable word.
In principle, intersectionality would show us that many people who are, e.g., disabled, non-heterosexual, or non-cis are nonetheless, all things considered, very priveleged, thanks to their cultural or economic status.
In practice, it means that people who are in most respects very privileged get to not only pretend they are the priority in matters of social justice, but also grant themselves the right to speak self-righteously on behalf of all victims of injustice.
What are the most fashionable forms of oppression to focus on today? Sex, gender, orientation, disability, and mental illness.
What do they all have in common? They allow privileged people, usually wealthy and more often than not white, to be victims.
I would add something else. This is that the _way_ these forms of oppression are discussed focuses almost exclusively on the problems of the upper crust. To take one example, in talk about feminism, I'm not hearing a whole lot about many of the issues non-elite women face at much higher rates. I'm actually a woman who has faced some serious gender shit earlier in life, and analytic feminism really bothers me for this reason. I don't give much of a shit about "micro-aggressions" or whatever: there are much harder and uglier problems to be thinking about, but because they don't effect the kinds of women who tend to be at the top of academia, we never hear about them.
FPs descending further into Onion territory: there's nothing wrong about empathizing with Cecil the Lion and not with murdered Black teenagers because justice isn't a zero-sum game. Alright then. I suppose that means that giving jobs to rich white privileged women over poor men doesn't amount to injustice.
Anne Jacobson actually wrote: "Anonymous, As I have said here a number of times, I learned from my days in faculty governance that (many/most) white men do believe that those best able to study oppression or marginalization are those without experience of it. I had thought this idea was utterly exploded, but I do see Heath coming very close to endorsing it, at least to the point of not according those with the experience any privilege compared to their non-oppressd, non-marginlized debaters."
Yes, insofar as "A is not better than B" means the same thing as "B is better than A", Heath expressed the view those who haven't been oppressed are better than those who have at studying oppression.
How, and in what sense, are these people philosophers?
The BSPC encapsulates nearly everything rotten about the profession these days (don't get me started). So if this is indeed the last of its kind, good riddance.
I have mixed feelings about what you say, 12:13. (Oh, and like 12:36, I *would* like you to get started!).
On the one hand, the BSPC is cliquey and inbred. There's a core group of "regulars" who aren't entirely nice to "non-regulars", in my experience (I've only been in the latter group). And you have to take part in the recreational activities to really get the most out of the conference; but these are organized without much regard for those of us who aren't particularly athletic (I'm not screaming "ableism!!" here; I just found it annoying).
On the other, the color card system is marvelous, the philosophy that happens there is top-notch, WWU has a lovely campus, and many of the WWU faculty are just lovely people too.
I like the BSPC card system. The primary benefit I've seen is that it prevents senior blowhards from dominating Q&As. A secondary benefit is that it's sort of fun.
I'd worry more about dating (and eventually marrying) a graduate student in her department. That sort of behavior would get most (male) philosophers crucified these days.
Gilbert Harman says [about an in-crowd volume containing a paper by his daughter]: To John Hawthorne: Pay no attention to this thread. The ethics volume is terrific! — It’s a great collection that philosophers will use and refer to for years to come.
The Bellingham conference shows everything that's wrong with the New Consensus crowd: all sorts of attention to disability, childcare, power structures, but then the people invited are a bunch of privileged elitist snobs.
^ yeah, fixate on the precise wording of a post, ignore the issue: highly privileged women continue to reinforce the narrative that all women are victims in philosophy. Anyone who knows LH knows that she's active in building and reinforcing this narrative. It may help with her self esteem actually, as she must be embarrassed for being hired and tenured in her father's department with a mediocre record.
@7:52: It may help with her self esteem actually, as she must be embarrassed for being hired and tenured in her father's department with a mediocre record.
You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? In reality, your resentful tears are like sweet wine to Elizabeth Harman, and she happily laughs as she drinks them down.
I hate when this happens. Why do we have to talk about particular individuals like this? Why can't we just stick to anonymously annoying each other and talking about other blogs. Personally, I prefer the former activity, but the latter is okay too sometimes.
It is weird, though, how this one time (well, only one recently) that Angry Rage Guy fixates on a particular person, it turns out the whole thing is just an invention. (Either that or it's quite a coincidence that he cannot come up with even one checkable example.)
Wait, no it's not. Why did I think that was weird? Never mind.
Hear, hear, 11:51. And let's remember, the proprietors of the metablogs have warned us of people that attack others and cry foul from the same ip address. 7:52 slips up and refers to Harmon as LH. This error was made by her apparent interlocutor at 7:11 as well. Either way, let's not feed the pathos.
New poster here. This blog was founded to critique the new infantilism. I am distinct from all other posters saying "new infantilism," but everyone here agrees with me! It's a falsifiable claim and I just learned how counterexamples work' ROAR!!!!! Go back to your me-studies, you femtroll moron!
2:29: I don't think referring to Elizabeth Harman as LH is any kind of a slip up -- I couldn't be further removed from her circle, but doesn't she also go by Liz?
I have no idea what's going on there. It seems to be a (perhaps overlapping) combination of people who actually have jobs in philosophy and drooling idiots..
Many of those posts, if not all of them, sound like they were written by the same person. And some of them have a kind of prose-y feel that suggests to me that they are not sincere comments.
Why does prose-iness indicate a lack of sincerity, 7:43? And obviously there are drooling idiots who have jobs in philosophy, and non-idiots who don't, 7:42. But I don't know what's going on there either....
Evidence that something strange is afoot? Well, the weird and jarringly colorful page formatting for one. And the weird comments for two. It's like a joke that is... not funny. Or maybe I'm missing something?
So amazing. This looks exactly as insane and ugly and stupid as the profession feels. The fake comments are surreal and hilarious, like a game of philosophy blog mad libs. I don't know if the creator is seriously ill or a genius, but I love it and want to read more. I can't remember the last time I experienced so much actual joy over something related to this profession. Oh, wait, I can: never.
We often talk about the permissibility of faculty dating graduate students and people fairly strongly on both sides. But could anyone seriously object to a "3-strikes and you're out" rule? If you're now onto your 3rd grad student, doesn't this indicate that we are in less innocent territory?
That's pretty close to what I think the right approach is. Sometimes people do happen to fall in love with people they work with closely. And sometimes it works out and it all ends in tears. But if you're repeatedly having relationships with grad students in your dept, and this is repeatedly having negative effects on their careers, then there's a problem.
I see. If something is a one-off, it's ok. But thrice (or maybe twice, or whatever) it isn't. Also, something something negative feelings or whatever. Gold. Write that shit up and send it to Hypatia.
So your way of summing up my point that if you repeatedly do something that repeatedly has negative affects on people's careers then there's a problem was "something something negative feelings or whatever"?
I look forward to more of your summaries. I'm sure your summary of utilitarianism "blah blah pain or whatever" will be a useful contribution to the literature.
As a general rule, I agree that it's generally innocent for a faculty member to have a relationship with a graduate student, but a bit suspicious if that's your modus operandi. Formalizing this as a university-level policy wouldn't fly.
Gosh, 4:05. How surprising that someone on metablog found it funny that some dickhead completely mischarecterized a comment and pretended it had something to do with feminist philosophy when it didn't and turned it into a chance to make an irrelevant dig at a journal. I would never have expected that!
This is ridiculous. You're talking as if the women have no responsibility for their own actions and as if women don't tell one another of the reputations of men they are thinking of screwing. No one makes them screw their professors, they choose to do it for whatever reasons they choose to do it for, including whatever benefits they extract for their own careers, or whatever benefits they expect to extract for their own careers. If those benefits don't materialise, or they get dumped, that's just life and doesn't mean they were exploited in any way. In fact, they are frequently the ones doing the exploiting by pretending that maybe they'll screw to get the attention and other benefits they want (e.g. naive McGinn and handgirl), or screwing and pretending they might marry to get the attention and other benefits they want (Ludlow and vague accusation girl) etc etc etc. Women trade their sexual market value (looks, youth, fertility) for men's sexual market value (social status, money, resources) and are equally responsible for the outcome as the men. But you talk about women as if they were little girls helplessly under the power of nasty big professor. No, falling in love does not make you a little girl not responsible for her actions and it going a different way from how you hoped is just life. Feminist's attempt to make more of it is in some cases anti-sex anti-male puritanism and in others an attempt to cartelize the market. Cartels always fail because they make it so worthwhile to cheat on the cartel, hence feminist fury at women who break the cartel.
Well said, 3:50. The women-as-hapless-victims and men-as-predators default position is a pernicious, anti-male lie. Maybe feminist would actually be embarrassed to promote this bullshit if it wasn't so conveniently self-serving.
If one of your wives dies in a house fire, it's tragic. If five of them die that way, you look a bit suspicious. "Ohh, but it was fine when the first one died, huh?" Well, yeah. Back then we thought it just happened that way. Now we think you do it intentionally.
Old reader here checking in after a summer break... oh PMMB, and your obsessive/single-minded focus on identity politics and all that jazz... never change, ok?
Drabek got hired doing test prep stuff somewhere, was on the DN non-academic hiring thread. Bowman is weird--he always complains about being an adjunct, but has no publications and a ubiquitous blog presence. If he'd spend half that time trying to write something, he might have a job.
I miss Drabek, Kazarian, Protevi, McKinnon...Bowman and Weinberg are not quite that good, and Vallabha is sometimes actually perceptive. The folks at NewApps post just weird stuff that no one seems to care about either philosophically or gossip-wise.
This. A golden age of trolling, ruled by Matt Drabek and Rachel McKinnon, has passed into the twilight, and we are left only with the ruins of the BL Empire... and this shitty blog. It would be worse for the profession if the trolls returned or if new trolls emerged... but I admit it would be sort of fun to see happen. =P
Part of the NewApps problem is those people just don't know what's going on; they're mostly third-tier philosophers at third-tier institutions. Of course they don't have any salacious gossip about top philosophers because they're too far removed from that scene. So I just think that site comes off as lame and parochial. At least JW has some spunk and firepower. But I seriously have to Google those NA people to even see who they are; never heard of hardly any of them.
9:51 is your view that, to have a blog, you need to either be at a top 10 program or else have graduated from one? Or top 20 or top 50 or something? I can't say I disagree, but seems a little elitist.
Maybe the argument is supposed to be that you're just not likely to know what we want to know about if you're not in those circles. Idk, depends if we're doing blogs for gossip or insights into what it's like to be X, where X is some race, gender, sexuality, or disability status.
You know how you're trying to pour drinks at some absurd private G-Unit concert for NYC advertising executives, but you can't because one of your coworkers is going to knock your extremely injured shoulders out, so you just text on your phone until your boss agrees to let you go home and you can't tell if they're mad, but since you don't want to get more injured, you don't really, really care? But you stay and watch tony yayo anyway?
Kudos to Brian Leiter for telling it like it is: the FPs are misrepresenting empirical findings in psychology to advance their power grab.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely:
DeleteBut as we saw in an earlier discussion, it's not clear stereotype threat in the gender case is even real (there have been failures to replicate, and worries about publication bias in the results that are out there); implicit bias, by contrast, is real, but the scope of the effect is also quite unclear. It seems well-established that implicit bias influences superficial evaluations (e.g., skimming CVs and evaluating them), less clear that it influences careful reading and scholarly assessment. That some philosophers have effectively misrepresented the state of the psychological research is now fairly clear...
He's an asshole but he's our asshole.
... and then he goes on to say that harassment is an actual problem. Though we still haven't seen if it's anything to do specifically with philosophy. Anyway, Leiter started championing the sexual harassment cause to hit a (former) colleague of his at UT Austin who is a serial harasser. He now must regret enabling the FP monster.
Delete4:39: why asshole? For BL, this was a quite restrained criticism.
Delete5:20--it's not "former colleague," singular.
Delete^ yeah, coupla bad boys at UT Austin. Still there AFAIK. I wonder how they're managing not to get exposed actually.
DeleteName those fuckers!
Deletejust check out some of the photos on the website of one....
Delete8:05 PM,
DeleteI took a look, but was in a bit of a tie trying to figure out who it is.
i was going to say good one but then i checked and the pic in question has been removed
DeleteIndeed! You see the tie I was in, don't you?
DeleteI spy, I spy with my little eye a guy named
DeleteLeiter = THE angry rage guy?
DeleteNo.
DeleteLeiter is the biggest troll in academia, FWIW
Delete7:04 AM,
DeleteHi, Brian!
4:34, congratulations. I looked up self-congratulatory idiot in the new edition of the dictionary, and saw a picture of you!
DeleteDo you honestly not see that you are a living caricature of the sort of falsification-proof cardboard cutout we present to freshman on day one so that they know what a philosopher is not? Have you learned nothing in all the months you've been here?
4:44 PM,
DeleteJesus Christ, learn to take a joke!
What's pretty creepy is that if 4:44 saw a picture of 4:34 in the dictionary then 4:44 must know what 4:34 looks like. What did you do, 4:44? Track down 34's IP then stalk them on Facebook? Weirdo.
DeleteYou're all singularly unhinged morons! I'm a new poster here, and everyone agrees with me! ROOOAAAAR!
DeleteEvidence 5:11?
DeleteSo why hasn't anyone done anything about such clearly-a-problem philosophers?
DeleteBecause shenanigans, duh.
DeleteCheck out the latest at the FP blog!
ReplyDeleteWhat's this mean when Leiter says it: "I can not resist noting, for the annals of the New Infantilism, that instead of linking to this post directly, Prof. Yap uses something called "do not link" to link to it." I don't see any link at all, whether not linked or conventional.
ReplyDeleteThe FP blog did not link to BL at all (he remarked on this in the past, they apparently will not link to him since he broke ranks), but Yap linked to him from that disability blog. I assume BL is referring to the latter, which did use do not link.
ReplyDeleteHow petty can they be in not linking to him... Also how narcissistic; as if their traffic would generate enough click-throughs to matter.
DeleteThank goodness they've called out unproductive adversariality [sic].
DeleteLIKE!
DeleteI was intrigued to read that AJJ is now less glad than she was about the fact that the post was the product of an effort to respond very civilly.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what it means (just for starters, what is the referent of 'the post'?), but it's always an interesting experience to peruse an AJJ comment.
Do you think that FP should have a discussion about unproductive bullshit?
ReplyDeleteIt was an interesting exchange for sociological reasons. But the most dismissive statement is her own
ReplyDelete"Western philosophy in general has too much in the way of “me” studies, namely straight, upper-middle-class, cis, heterosexual white men studying other straight, upper-middle-class, cis, heterosexual white men. This, as far as I can tell, has narrowed the discipline in general, much to its detriment.:
Kant, Hume and people that studied them (Quine, Mill, Carnap and just about everyone else) have 'narrowed the discipline' (and how wide was it before these boring men?) If that isn't gross dismissal then I don't know what is
Yap, Saul, and Jacobson would have been better served by giving Heath's position more credence. He's nailed the dynamic at Feminist Philosophers.
ReplyDeleteI can’t tell you how many people I’ve met, who specialize in some form or another of “critical studies,” who are among the worst critical thinkers I’ve met. It’s because they lack the most important skill in critical thinking, which is self-criticism – the capacity to question one’s own view, and correct one’s own biases. And the reason that they’re so bad at it is that they have never had their views seriously challenged....
The problem is that, when you’re studying your own oppression, and you’re obviously a member of the oppressed group in question, people who are basically sympathetic to your situation, but who disagree with your specific claims, are going to be extremely hesitant to challenge you, because they don’t want to appear unsympathetic.....So you are only going to hear from two types of people – those who are sympathetic but want to take a more radical stance, and those who we might label, for convenience, “jerks,” which is to say, people who are both unsympathetic and who are, for one reason or another, immune to any consideration of what others think of them....
I don’t know how many talks I’ve been to where the question period goes this way. Someone presents a view that a solid majority of people in the room think is totally wrong-headed. But no one is willing to say things like: “I don’t think that what you are saying makes any sense” or “you have no evidence to support this contention” or “the policies you are promoting are excessively self-serving.” The questions that will be asked come in only two flavours: “I’m concerned that your analysis is unable to sustain a truly emancipatory social praxis” (i.e. “I don’t think you’re left-wing enough”), or else “you people are always whingeing about your problems” (i.e. “I’m a huge, insensitive jerk”).
Then of course, out in the hallway after the talk, people say what they really thought of the presentation – at this point, a whole bunch of entirely reasonable criticisms will get made, points that probably would have been really helpful to the presenter had they been communicated. The end result is a perfect example of what Timur Kuran refers to as belief falsification (not a great term, but Kuran’s work on this is very interesting). So basically, practitioners of “me” studies suffer from a huge handicap, when it comes to improving the quality of their work, which is that only people who are extremists of one sort or another are willing to give them honest feedback....
This dynamic may help to explain why the reaction that so many “me” studies practitioners have to criticism becomes so highly moralized. They begin to think that all criticism of their views arises from some morally suspect motive. This is what then gets referred to as “political correctness,” namely, the tendency to moralize all disagreement, so that, instead of engaging with intellectual criticism intellectually, they respond to it punitively.
I would take the Identity Politicians much more seriously if they didn't always seem to work on themselves. Women who do feminism (and who systematically confuse support for women with support of feminism); people of color who do critical race theory (and who systematically confuse support for people of color with support of critical race theory); gay philosophers who do queer theory (and who systematically confuse support for people of color with support of critical race theory), etc. etc. The impression one gets is something like this: "What a bunch of narcissists!"
ReplyDeleteThe standard reply (that Yap seems to at least partly endorse) is that all the white heterosexual men in philosophy are similarly narcissistic; they, too, are doing "me studies". But that only really works for the white heterosexual men in philosophy who do history of philosophy (white men who work on Hume, for example). But what about the epistemologists, ethicists, logicians, and metaphysicians? Is a white heterosexual man doing "me studies" when he works out the logical consequences of some version of utilitarianism? When he proves an incompleteness theorem? When he argues that modal realism is incompatible with determinism? When he argues that knowledge is a primary concept? Affirmative answers seem extremely dubious!
There's a lot more to philosophy than "me studies". Let's keep it that way.
You are right; but hey what is is so wrong with white straight guys working on Hume? Of course we are going to get into the whole story about a possible alternative history of philosophy which has made a splash in the media. But what difference does it make? Astell and Mshhman made some criticisms of other philosophers- fine. We should take that into into account (and of course no one ever read her or anyone else before 2010 - oh sorry didn't read her PROPERLY). But we have the most naked grab for power I have ever seen in 'rethinking the cannon' bulshit
DeleteNothing wrong with working on Hume (even if you're a white hetero cis able-bodied dude!). But there's much more to philosophy than its history, and the "everyone is doing 'me studies' anyways" line ignores that key fact. Those of us who work topically (and not on figures) have more to think about than the social identity of some dead person or other.
DeleteI say this not to denigrate the history of philosophy, by the way; some of my best friends are historians of philosophy and I dabble in the field myself!
Dude, dudesses or whatever you call yourself - with you!
Delete"But what about the epistemologists, ethicists, logicians, and metaphysicians? Is a white heterosexual man doing "me studies" when he...argues that knowledge is a primary concept?"
DeleteMaybe you think that it's dubious to answer 'yes', but I take it that at least part of the point is that men working on certain issues in epistemology, for example, are doing 'me' studies to exactly the same extent that feminist epistemologists are doing 'me' studies.
As an aside, one problem that happens when people talk about feminism in these contexts is this: it's not clear what we mean. For example, sometimes by 'feminist philosophy' people mean writing on topics traditionally of interest to feminists, like abortion, rape, etc. But I don't see why it is 'narcissistic' for a woman to be interested in writing about ethical issues like abortion (any more than it is narcissistic for a man to be interested in the ethics of warfare).
Or we might take feminism to be a theory, akin to Marxism, or Social Contract Theory But again, it's not clear why it's narcissistic to be interested in a certain political theory (and the implications of it). And given feminist critcisim of, for example, Rawls, the point seems to be that it's exactly as narcissistic for a woman to be interested in this kind of feminism as it is for a man to be interested in Rawls.
Or we might take it to be a certain methodology or approach (for example, feminist epistemology). But again, it's not clear why it is narcissistic to be interested in a particular methodology (and again, that it's at least no more narcissistic for a woman to be interested in feminist epistemology, etc.)
Yes of course we can take it to have the same standing. But then it should be treated as having the same standing and not assumed as a political orthodoxy at the get go, And it also should be responsive to criticism that is able to consider its own political ideology especially since it it so prevalent. There is a huge difference between studying marxist ideology and being a marxist ideologue. Right now its feminist ideologue and no interrogation of its ideology
Delete5:38 here. Good points, 6:22 PM. The kind of narcissism I have in mind does not extend to all topics within feminist philosophy (it need not extend, for example, to JJ Thomson's classic abortion papers). I take issue, instead with the narcissism on display when philosophers mostly or exclusively study or talk about their own identities and oppression.
Delete6:22,
DeleteI agree with the third paragraph. But I don't agree that men working on certain issues in epistemology, for example, are doing 'me' studies to exactly the same extent that feminist epistemologists are doing 'me' studies.
Suppose men studying Descartes or David Lewis's theory of counterfactuals, to name just two, really are doing "me" studies. That means women who study those topics are poking around in an area they really aren't qualified to talk about. So Gillian Russell and Margaret Wilson have work we should really ignore.
But that's a reductio on the supposition.
@6:22: please give us a reason for thinking most or all of the topics 5:38 mentions in para.2 are actually "me studies." I suspect you can't and are talking through your hat. Understand that when people like you do this (i.e. making these claims sans reasons) it puts us on guard.
DeleteNext, nobody (except you) suggests writing about abortion makes you a narcissist. We are talking about "victimology." JJT is not a vicitmologist. Neither is Marcus. Nor Rawls. Nor Cohen. Certainly some Marxist writings count as victimology. Probably much "applied ethics" too. And we all know it when we see it (whole journals and blogs are devotees).
Can you give an example of the kind of philosophers you have in mind, 6:36?
DeleteNarcissism, lol.
Delete"Someone didn't agree with what I said. This serves as a useful illustration of what my friend calls 'a nasty man'"
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the sight of somebody who clearly studies Nietzsche because he would like to be Nietzsche saying that "me studies" is just those other people over there...
ReplyDeleteIt may be that BL studies Nietzsche at least in part because he identifies with Nietzsche to some degree. But the analogy with 'me studies' would require that Nietzsche scholars rely on the perception that they are oppressed to protect the Sacred Cows of their perceived oppression by moralizing rational disputation and obstructing critical reflection on their work. The problem of 'me studies' is a problem plaguing disciplines like critical race theory, women's studies and feminist philosophy. It is not a problem the Nietzsche scholars face.
DeleteInciden
Anyone else sense that the FP blog is going the way of New APPS: sinking into self-caricature and irrelevance, with but one or two of the relatively more unhinged contributors still left at the helm?
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking that.
DeleteI think some important senior people are finally beginning to understand that the FPs's power grab threatenes even then. So this is the time to hit back. Turn the power grab into just an insular circle jerk. Don't let them change the discipline forever. They're trying to make it the norm that every department must have a feminist philosophy specialist. This is atrocious and it needs to be stopped. Tenure lines are a dwindling commodity and we cannot sacrifice them in this way to appease our guilt and some vociferous, self-interested fake social justice warriors.
ReplyDeleteJason Stanley bashing continues:
ReplyDeletehttp://insearchofanideal.com/2015/07/29/1184/#comments
This isn't "Jason Stanley bashing". It's critical interaction with his published work, not his private action (however bad it may be). That's fair game.
DeleteAgree in part: definitely interaction with his published work. But the interaction is absent any argumentative claims. It's all about who Jason is, who he cites.
DeleteLEAVE JASON ALONE!
DeleteStanley seems to have a lot of enemies, esp. on this blog. What's going on?
DeleteHave you met the guy?
DeleteI only hear good things about him (personally, not his philosophy), but these opinions are coming from established, senior folk....
Delete* sorry, that should be (philosophically, not personally)
DeleteOh, he's definitely annoying.
DeleteBut that doesn't explain the bizarre antipathy. Lots (and lots) of philosophers are approximately as annoying as Jason.
No.
DeleteI don't see why that's relevant, 7:07.
Some suspect JS had a surprisingly rapid conversion to the "appropriate" side of debates surrounding the culture of professional philosophy. Bharath seems to have a more personal beef with Jason, stemming from who knows what as detailed in the lengthy posts on his blog.
DeleteIsn't a lad allowed to grow up? Can't people change?
DeleteI think that's right, 8:07. Jason Stanley got wind of the times that are 'a changin' just in time to join the indignant ranks of SJWs. This about-face annoys onlookers (and, I suspect, his hard-partying lad culture buddies who failed to read the tea-leaves as well as Jason did).
DeleteStanley converted when he had a Black son. Barnes when her disability became burdensome. Cameron when his wife told him to. They all used to be mindless cheerleaders for aggressive Lemming world-domination. Now their personal interest turned them into social justice warriors. Not that their causes aren't defensible otherwise, but people who know them see through their self-righteousness.
DeleteFirst, Stanley is a social justice true believer. It might be a pragmatic decision to step away from his hard-partying ways but ideologically it's not a pragmatic switch, he really does believe in the white male oppressor and the suffering virtuous epistemically privileged oppressed. (Disagree with 3:52 that having a biracial son is enough to explain it, there are lots of ways to respond to that, like for example pointing to the man on the TV and telling him that he can be president).
DeleteSecond, Vallabha's criticism of his Stanley's book is legit, the book has plenty of internal contradictions, some of which BV is picking up on. His reading clearly comes from a thoughtful engagement with the book. Of course everything BV writes is situated and colored by his feelings about leaving academia. But it's equally true that everything professional philosophers write is situated and colored by their ambition to place themselves professionally. That's definitely true of that Propaganda book which is explicitly and not unreasonably intended to set Stanley up as a 'public intellectual' of sorts.
Here's another way to look at it: people are annoyed at Stanley and Barnes because they are pulling up the ladder they climbed.
DeleteAnd also a feeling of appropriation. JS might have been interested in these topics privately, but was he publicly working away to make them fashionable in the profession? No. They become fashionable. And he simply slides over, and is proclaimed the great, white, hope...
DeleteThe appropriations of popular modes of race talk and subsequent denials of privilege probably also annoy. Agreed, it can suck to be Jewish, but being Jewish doesn't give one license to deny being white (in New York, of all places).
DeleteHow are they "pulling up the ladder"?
DeleteAlso, 2:35, are you saying that one of them denies being white on the grounds that they're Jewish? Where does this happen?
Though we've met, I haven't spent enough time around Jason Stanley to know if he's the type who maintains that Jewishness excludes or reduces whiteness. But suppose he was the type. Would there be something wrong with that?
DeleteWell, I think black people have the worst time of it in the states, so talking about ones Jewishness as if it were on a par with that seems dismissive. But I'm not hating on JS. He's a nice guy. I'd rather people stick to criticizing his arguments than his character (which seems pretty good).
DeleteJason does make being Jewish and black equivalent, although he does (reasonably) cite his family's holocaust history in the context of the history of racism. He's pretty open about the changes in his outlook, and about the success he's had from working within a paradigm he now considers limited (but not useless, it should be added). His critics on this blog seem to know a lot about him. I suspect from his prolific facebook presence. And that means, they are nominally his "friends" while at the same time slagging him anonymously and behind his back. That's pretty lame.
DeleteSorry, this is 9:19 AM, I meant to say, "does not make."
DeleteI was wondering when and how the philosophy facebook bubble would burst and leave us all super-soaked like soulja boy's 2006 ex girlfriend. Anyway, I like to think things will improve for black people within the next 65 years as much as things have improved for Jewish people since the WW2. And I was gonna present that as a reason to think the analogy between blackness now and Jewishness now isn't apt. But then I figured the haulocaust was worse than institutionalized racism. And then I don't know anymore.... Except that in 2015 NYC, it's easier to be Jewish than black. In other news, there are two new episodes of Rick & Morty.
Delete*the analogy between blackness now and Jewishness then.
DeleteThe holocaust was not worse than institutionalized racism (including slavery, the most concentrated form). It just happened over a shorter period of time. 13 million vs 6 million
DeleteThat's why I changed my mind, 4:34. Thanks for the info.
DeleteWell when read with suspicion, as BV recommends, given all his gripes with and about JS...it hardly seems a fair, purely scholarly and rationally motivated critique
ReplyDeleteThe new UCI job posting includes the following statement:
ReplyDeleteUCI asks all applicants to submit a separate statement addressing how their “past and/or potential contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion will advance UCI’s commitment to inclusive excellence.” Please note that such contributions are conceived of quite broadly, as encompassing teaching, mentorship, and service activities, as well as the content of one’s own academic research, while diversity itself is understood as a variety of personal experiences, values, and worldviews that arise from differences of culture and circumstance, including race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, language abilities/disabilities, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geographic region, and more. Such a statement might indicate awareness of inequities and challenges faced by historically underrepresented or economically disadvantaged groups, demonstrate a track record of engagement in such activities, and/or articulate any specific plans for further contributions to them.
As if going on the market wasn't onerous enough already, now we're apparently expected to pull this statement out our ass, presumably to satisfy some useless deanlet of diversity, or whatever. Serious question, what happens if I just refuse to do this? Does my application just go in the trash, or what?
Now all you job marketeers, start preparing your research statement, your teaching statement, and your diversity statement. Also, all you beginning grad student, start working on your research profile, your teaching profile, and your diversity profile.
DeleteGet used to it; that's required at every UC school.
DeletePerhaps 10:33's advice is sound, but, still, this phenomenon is pernicious. Job candidates are burdened with so much other nonsense that we should categorically refuse to participate in these exercises of ideological policing by idiots in HR departments. Indeed, even the candidates these exercises are ostensibly designed to help can be (and I suspect usually are) negatively impacted by them. For an example of the latter sort, see this essay: http://www.bioethics.net/2015/01/how-are-you-diverse-how-the-academic-job-market-aggravated-my-racial-insecurities/
DeleteIf you are in a department that requires candidates to submit a diversity statement for the sake of placating some sub-literate dean-let you have a clear responsibility: find a way to clearly indicate to candidates, in a plausibly deniable way, that such statements will have no bearing on the evaluation of their dossiers.
I was wondering when this post would come to wider awareness. That's good advice for committee members, Lysias. 59 interviews is insane. Since she didn't get a single TT job, it's hard to believe they were serious about her as a candidate, and only wanted her in the pool to fulfill some diversity requirement. So while you might first think she was lucky to get that many interviews, I feel bad for her since they were wasting her time. I suppose it might have been in her interest to cancel 80% of those interviews in the absence of strong reassurances that she was a front-runner.
DeleteWho is this S. Wallerstein? Whoever s/he is, s/he right:
ReplyDelete"It just suits Wall St. fine that the paradigm of oppression is no longer the guy or woman working for the minimum wage, but a disabled lesbian philosopher who didn't get tenure at an elite university."
It seems almost transparently a Leiter alter-ego. But I could be wrong.
DeleteOr, you know, a highly regarded legal philosopher at Oxford. But I could be wrong.
DeleteNeither.
DeleteWallerstein isn't a professional philosopher at all. He's an old-school feminist, lives in South America (Chile, I think), posts to Feminist Philosophers every once in a while. Interesting guy, interesting perspective. He gets a lot of respect at FP (rightly so), despite his unwillingness to follow the party line.
The irony is this is the bunch for whom "intersectionality" is such a fashionable word.
ReplyDeleteIn principle, intersectionality would show us that many people who are, e.g., disabled, non-heterosexual, or non-cis are nonetheless, all things considered, very priveleged, thanks to their cultural or economic status.
In practice, it means that people who are in most respects very privileged get to not only pretend they are the priority in matters of social justice, but also grant themselves the right to speak self-righteously on behalf of all victims of injustice.
What are the most fashionable forms of oppression to focus on today? Sex, gender, orientation, disability, and mental illness.
What do they all have in common? They allow privileged people, usually wealthy and more often than not white, to be victims.
The new left is a new right.
I would add something else. This is that the _way_ these forms of oppression are discussed focuses almost exclusively on the problems of the upper crust. To take one example, in talk about feminism, I'm not hearing a whole lot about many of the issues non-elite women face at much higher rates. I'm actually a woman who has faced some serious gender shit earlier in life, and analytic feminism really bothers me for this reason. I don't give much of a shit about "micro-aggressions" or whatever: there are much harder and uglier problems to be thinking about, but because they don't effect the kinds of women who tend to be at the top of academia, we never hear about them.
DeleteYour butt has an upper crust.
DeleteFPs descending further into Onion territory: there's nothing wrong about empathizing with Cecil the Lion and not with murdered Black teenagers because justice isn't a zero-sum game. Alright then. I suppose that means that giving jobs to rich white privileged women over poor men doesn't amount to injustice.
ReplyDeleteAnne Jacobson actually wrote: "Anonymous, As I have said here a number of times, I learned from my days in faculty governance that (many/most) white men do believe that those best able to study oppression or marginalization are those without experience of it. I had thought this idea was utterly exploded, but I do see Heath coming very close to endorsing it, at least to the point of not according those with the experience any privilege compared to their non-oppressd, non-marginlized debaters."
ReplyDeleteYes, insofar as "A is not better than B" means the same thing as "B is better than A", Heath expressed the view those who haven't been oppressed are better than those who have at studying oppression.
How, and in what sense, are these people philosophers?
In name only, 7:43. In name only.
DeletePINOs.
DeleteTo philosophers attending the last BSPC-of-its-kind: see you all at the brewery or tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteSomehow I don't think the BSPC in-crowd will be the sort to read the PMMB (or better, admit to reading it).
DeleteThe BSPC encapsulates nearly everything rotten about the profession these days (don't get me started). So if this is indeed the last of its kind, good riddance.
DeleteOh, but 12:13. I do want to get you started.
DeleteI have mixed feelings about what you say, 12:13. (Oh, and like 12:36, I *would* like you to get started!).
DeleteOn the one hand, the BSPC is cliquey and inbred. There's a core group of "regulars" who aren't entirely nice to "non-regulars", in my experience (I've only been in the latter group). And you have to take part in the recreational activities to really get the most out of the conference; but these are organized without much regard for those of us who aren't particularly athletic (I'm not screaming "ableism!!" here; I just found it annoying).
On the other, the color card system is marvelous, the philosophy that happens there is top-notch, WWU has a lovely campus, and many of the WWU faculty are just lovely people too.
What are your thoughts on the matter?
This South Park clip -- "SMUG ALERT!" -- summarizes one of the main problems with the BSPC.
Deletehttp://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/nmarkos/BSPC/BSPC2014/BSPC_2014/The_BSPC_Card_System.html
DeleteAny data on this, or is the point summed up by 3:06?
I like the BSPC card system. The primary benefit I've seen is that it prevents senior blowhards from dominating Q&As. A secondary benefit is that it's sort of fun.
Delete0-1, but thanks for playing. Any other takers?
DeleteThe card system is horrible. One of the most infantilizing systems of rules I've ever encountered.
DeleteRecreation Day Chair: Elizabeth Harman
ReplyDeleteScion of privilege, tenured with mediocre record in daddy's top department, constantly banging on about what a victim of sexism she is?
DeleteI'd worry more about dating (and eventually marrying) a graduate student in her department. That sort of behavior would get most (male) philosophers crucified these days.
DeleteLEAVE LIZ ALONE!
DeleteYeah, 5:41. Though some FPs seem to subscribe to a puritanical shotgun wedding view on grad student relationships.
DeleteAnd lest we forget:
DeleteGilbert Harman says [about an in-crowd volume containing a paper by his daughter]:
To John Hawthorne: Pay no attention to this thread. The ethics volume is terrific! — It’s a great collection that philosophers will use and refer to for years to come.
Source: http://tar.weatherson.org/2004/12/07/philosophical-perspectives/
Where does EH "bang on" about being a victim?
DeleteOnline here and there, FB, discriminating against male prospective grads, and so on.
Delete@11:32. Uh huh, sure. Show me the links.
Delete^ I'm not the above poster but there was lots of damning material on LH in the original Pogge scandal thread.
DeleteThe Bellingham conference shows everything that's wrong with the New Consensus crowd: all sorts of attention to disability, childcare, power structures, but then the people invited are a bunch of privileged elitist snobs.
DeleteOkay, so it's pretty clear that LH doesn't "bang on" about being a victim. If she did, surely someone would have an actual example.
DeleteWhat kind of person makes up shit like that to post about someone? Now I get why this place is called a "cesspool".
^ yeah, fixate on the precise wording of a post, ignore the issue: highly privileged women continue to reinforce the narrative that all women are victims in philosophy. Anyone who knows LH knows that she's active in building and reinforcing this narrative. It may help with her self esteem actually, as she must be embarrassed for being hired and tenured in her father's department with a mediocre record.
Delete@7:52: It may help with her self esteem actually, as she must be embarrassed for being hired and tenured in her father's department with a mediocre record.
DeleteYou'd like to think that, wouldn't you? In reality, your resentful tears are like sweet wine to Elizabeth Harman, and she happily laughs as she drinks them down.
I hate when this happens. Why do we have to talk about particular individuals like this? Why can't we just stick to anonymously annoying each other and talking about other blogs. Personally, I prefer the former activity, but the latter is okay too sometimes.
DeleteIt is weird, though, how this one time (well, only one recently) that Angry Rage Guy fixates on a particular person, it turns out the whole thing is just an invention. (Either that or it's quite a coincidence that he cannot come up with even one checkable example.)
DeleteWait, no it's not. Why did I think that was weird? Never mind.
Hear, hear, 11:51. And let's remember, the proprietors of the metablogs have warned us of people that attack others and cry foul from the same ip address. 7:52 slips up and refers to Harmon as LH. This error was made by her apparent interlocutor at 7:11 as well. Either way, let's not feed the pathos.
DeleteNew poster here. This blog was founded to critique the new infantilism. I am distinct from all other posters saying "new infantilism," but everyone here agrees with me! It's a falsifiable claim and I just learned how counterexamples work' ROAR!!!!! Go back to your me-studies, you femtroll moron!
DeleteRoooooooaaaaaaaaaaaar!
DeleteI'm a woman and I agree with 2:33 and I am distinct from 2:33!
DeleteI am neither 2:41 not 2:33, but I have a disability and I love putting the femtroll in her place! Thank you for speaking truth to power, 2:33!
DeleteI was doing an impression of ARG. Sorry if I was too convincing.
DeleteI am offended by 2:33.
Delete#notallmetabros
2:29: I don't think referring to Elizabeth Harman as LH is any kind of a slip up -- I couldn't be further removed from her circle, but doesn't she also go by Liz?
DeleteAngry rage guy, to the extent that there is such a person, has not hitherto commented on this thread. I should know. You blew it as usual, 2:04.
DeleteYou mad, bro?
DeleteInteresting comments appearing at the weird, new Philosophy Metablog, not sure if it's sockpuppetry but either way it's ... food for thought?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what's going on there. It seems to be a (perhaps overlapping) combination of people who actually have jobs in philosophy and drooling idiots..
DeleteMany of those posts, if not all of them, sound like they were written by the same person. And some of them have a kind of prose-y feel that suggests to me that they are not sincere comments.
Deleteomg my eyes hurt.
DeleteWhy does prose-iness indicate a lack of sincerity, 7:43? And obviously there are drooling idiots who have jobs in philosophy, and non-idiots who don't, 7:42. But I don't know what's going on there either....
DeleteHow strange. What in the world is going on there? Any conspiracy theories?
DeleteEvidence, 7:05?
DeleteEvidence that something strange is afoot? Well, the weird and jarringly colorful page formatting for one. And the weird comments for two. It's like a joke that is... not funny. Or maybe I'm missing something?
DeleteSomeone you look up to made it, 7:57. Now what!?
DeleteMaybe they got hacked, or maybe we're getting trolled. Hope it's the latter.
Delete4:07, are you 7:57?
DeleteSo amazing. This looks exactly as insane and ugly and stupid as the profession feels. The fake comments are surreal and hilarious, like a game of philosophy blog mad libs. I don't know if the creator is seriously ill or a genius, but I love it and want to read more. I can't remember the last time I experienced so much actual joy over something related to this profession. Oh, wait, I can: never.
Delete"I don't know if the creator is seriously ill or a genius."
Delete:(
We often talk about the permissibility of faculty dating graduate students and people fairly strongly on both sides. But could anyone seriously object to a "3-strikes and you're out" rule? If you're now onto your 3rd grad student, doesn't this indicate that we are in less innocent territory?
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty close to what I think the right approach is. Sometimes people do happen to fall in love with people they work with closely. And sometimes it works out and it all ends in tears. But if you're repeatedly having relationships with grad students in your dept, and this is repeatedly having negative effects on their careers, then there's a problem.
DeleteI see. If something is a one-off, it's ok. But thrice (or maybe twice, or whatever) it isn't. Also, something something negative feelings or whatever. Gold. Write that shit up and send it to Hypatia.
DeleteSo your way of summing up my point that if you repeatedly do something that repeatedly has negative affects on people's careers then there's a problem was "something something negative feelings or whatever"?
DeleteI look forward to more of your summaries. I'm sure your summary of utilitarianism "blah blah pain or whatever" will be a useful contribution to the literature.
As a general rule, I agree that it's generally innocent for a faculty member to have a relationship with a graduate student, but a bit suspicious if that's your modus operandi. Formalizing this as a university-level policy wouldn't fly.
DeleteI lol'd: "Write that shit up and send it to Hypatia."
DeleteGosh, 4:05. How surprising that someone on metablog found it funny that some dickhead completely mischarecterized a comment and pretended it had something to do with feminist philosophy when it didn't and turned it into a chance to make an irrelevant dig at a journal. I would never have expected that!
DeleteThis is ridiculous. You're talking as if the women have no responsibility for their own actions and as if women don't tell one another of the reputations of men they are thinking of screwing. No one makes them screw their professors, they choose to do it for whatever reasons they choose to do it for, including whatever benefits they extract for their own careers, or whatever benefits they expect to extract for their own careers. If those benefits don't materialise, or they get dumped, that's just life and doesn't mean they were exploited in any way. In fact, they are frequently the ones doing the exploiting by pretending that maybe they'll screw to get the attention and other benefits they want (e.g. naive McGinn and handgirl), or screwing and pretending they might marry to get the attention and other benefits they want (Ludlow and vague accusation girl) etc etc etc. Women trade their sexual market value (looks, youth, fertility) for men's sexual market value (social status, money, resources) and are equally responsible for the outcome as the men. But you talk about women as if they were little girls helplessly under the power of nasty big professor. No, falling in love does not make you a little girl not responsible for her actions and it going a different way from how you hoped is just life. Feminist's attempt to make more of it is in some cases anti-sex anti-male puritanism and in others an attempt to cartelize the market. Cartels always fail because they make it so worthwhile to cheat on the cartel, hence feminist fury at women who break the cartel.
DeleteHey 3:50, how do counterexamples work?
DeleteWell said, 3:50. The women-as-hapless-victims and men-as-predators default position is a pernicious, anti-male lie. Maybe feminist would actually be embarrassed to promote this bullshit if it wasn't so conveniently self-serving.
Delete9:07, the first person on this thread to make any assumptions about women and men was 3:50.
DeleteIf one of your wives dies in a house fire, it's tragic. If five of them die that way, you look a bit suspicious. "Ohh, but it was fine when the first one died, huh?" Well, yeah. Back then we thought it just happened that way. Now we think you do it intentionally.
ReplyDeleteHey, what's wrong with dating 5 graduate students, possibly simultaneously? Isn't it damn sexy?
DeleteWe haven't been looking at the same conference photos.
DeleteLinks plz, 9:39.
Delete10:31 is in response to 9:45 in the thread above.
ReplyDeleteOld reader here checking in after a summer break... oh PMMB, and your obsessive/single-minded focus on identity politics and all that jazz... never change, ok?
ReplyDeleteIt's FP, NewApps and the like who're obsessed with identity politics. PMMB is just obsessed with the obsession.
DeleteWell-said and accurate, 1:11.
DeleteWhere'd Matt Drabek go? Is Derek Bowman the best blog troll now?
ReplyDeleteDrabek got hired doing test prep stuff somewhere, was on the DN non-academic hiring thread. Bowman is weird--he always complains about being an adjunct, but has no publications and a ubiquitous blog presence. If he'd spend half that time trying to write something, he might have a job.
DeleteI miss Drabek, Kazarian, Protevi, McKinnon...Bowman and Weinberg are not quite that good, and Vallabha is sometimes actually perceptive. The folks at NewApps post just weird stuff that no one seems to care about either philosophically or gossip-wise.
DeleteThis. A golden age of trolling, ruled by Matt Drabek and Rachel McKinnon, has passed into the twilight, and we are left only with the ruins of the BL Empire... and this shitty blog. It would be worse for the profession if the trolls returned or if new trolls emerged... but I admit it would be sort of fun to see happen. =P
Deleteit was so open and beautiful to watch -- the golden age of blogs in philosophy i think
DeletePart of the NewApps problem is those people just don't know what's going on; they're mostly third-tier philosophers at third-tier institutions. Of course they don't have any salacious gossip about top philosophers because they're too far removed from that scene. So I just think that site comes off as lame and parochial. At least JW has some spunk and firepower. But I seriously have to Google those NA people to even see who they are; never heard of hardly any of them.
DeleteI hope I get to be a third tier philosopher at a third tier institution one day....
Delete9:51 is your view that, to have a blog, you need to either be at a top 10 program or else have graduated from one? Or top 20 or top 50 or something? I can't say I disagree, but seems a little elitist.
DeleteMaybe the argument is supposed to be that you're just not likely to know what we want to know about if you're not in those circles. Idk, depends if we're doing blogs for gossip or insights into what it's like to be X, where X is some race, gender, sexuality, or disability status.
You'll get there 10:02. I like your style and think your hard work will ultimately pay off.
Delete4th tier philosopher at a 6th tier institution, and let me tell you I remind my colleagues about it. Every. Goddamn. Day.
DeleteIt's often better to be a big fish in a small pond than to get eaten by all the sharks. So good on you 12:01, way to dominate.
DeleteHow do you know how hard I've been working?
DeleteYou know how you're trying to pour drinks at some absurd private G-Unit concert for NYC advertising executives, but you can't because one of your coworkers is going to knock your extremely injured shoulders out, so you just text on your phone until your boss agrees to let you go home and you can't tell if they're mad, but since you don't want to get more injured, you don't really, really care? But you stay and watch tony yayo anyway?
DeleteAnd your best work friend got to work backstage for 50 cuz she's hotter than you? Yeah philosophers, I know you do!
DeleteTo paraphrase Urban VIII, we are fortunate to be alive in the time of their artistry.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it like to be a professional woman in Pakistan?
ReplyDeleteLudlow continues to shape the discipline by voting on best papers
ReplyDelete