If Mort Divine ruled the world

[CiG]

Like I said, she's not that interesting, I merely shared her video as it related to my comment about higher education.

Let me know when you make some videos or write some articles though.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't really see how fireman falls into this description. It's an overwhelmingly male job and women overwhelmingly can't do it.

For some reason you and Dak place a lot of importance on this fact. For me, if even just one woman joins the profession, then we can just say "firefighter" - I don't see the big deal.

Saying "firefighter" isn't suddenly going to create a mad dash of women to become firefighters; but it might make actual women firefighters feel on more even footing. Is this really that big of an inconvenience?

Which part do you disagree with? That it exists or that it's a bad thing that dissenting views in many of these classes are treated like shit?

There are definitely some teachers who are hostile in the classroom, and that's unfortunate and regrettable. But many teachers are not hostile toward opinions such as the kind you're talking about; they're simply trying to educate students about alternative perspectives depending on how you frame the issue.

There's a growing attitude toward academia today that any opinion about something is legitimate; but there is such a thing as an ignorant position, and students need to have their ignorant opinions challenged. You guys are always criticizing the whole "safe space" thing, so stop defending safe spaces for people with opinions like this. If they're taking them into the classroom they're going to be challenged on them. That's not hostility or foreclosing of discussion, that's called teaching.

There's a built-in assumption, going into the classroom, that students can learn something from their professors. This assumption is being challenged in the atmosphere of the past several years, and it's undermining the entire premise of education.

If you're in college and you take a gender and women's studies class, then don't fucking complain when you have to listen to these kinds of ideas. It doesn't mean you need to believe them after you complete the class, but it does mean you need to treat the parameters of the class as a student who doesn't magically know more than his or her teacher.

I think you're grossly underestimating the fragility of the multilayered, interconnected levels of complexity in modern techbology/existence, with each level at a minimum adding points of critical failure of not multiplying them. You take for granted both the presence and the advance of technology, assumptions that are ever present in the SciFi you like.

Just to go back to this, I also find it really amusing that you accuse me of underestimating the fragility of technology and relating my position to that of science fiction.

Treating technology as a kind of evolutionary adaptation isn't science fiction. It's a legitimate practice as demonstrated by numerous writings in the field of media studies. Surveys have been conducted that show how human thought patterns have changed since the coming of the internet.

In no way was anything I said suggesting that technology will continue after some hypothetical human extinction. All I was saying is that technology can be construed as an adaption, and to resist such a view would be akin to resisting that evolutionary development of opposable thumbs, or vocal cords.

 

[CiG]

For some reason you and Dak place a lot of importance on this fact. For me, if even just one woman joins the profession, then we can just say "firefighter" - I don't see the big deal.

Saying "firefighter" isn't suddenly going to create a mad dash of women to become firefighters; but it might make actual women firefighters feel on more even footing. Is this really that big of an inconvenience?

Actually I don't care if that term changes to something neutral, but to suggest it's a sexist term is just ridiculous. Fireman exists because it's an overwhelmingly male profession and to call it a sexist term is to imply it exists specifically to aggrieve women or something.

I don't use the term actress myself, something that stuck from my days as a pro-active feminist. It really doesn't matter whether it exists, but my disagreement is to do with calling these terms sexist which has implications.

Though I think it should be said that if a term like fireman keeps you out of the fire department, I probably don't want you putting the lives of other people in your hands. Leave it to people with some grit and guts maybe.

There's a growing attitude toward academia today that any opinion about something is legitimate; but students need to have their illegitimate opinions challenged. You guys are always criticizing the whole "safe space" thing, so stop defending safe spaces for people with opinions like this. If they're taking them into the classroom they're going to be challenged on them. That's not hostility or foreclosing of discussion, that's called teaching.

Wow, this is a very dishonest response. I'm definitely not saying that these people should have safe spaces. Also how could you conflate me and others saying that discussion being trampled on and cut short at the point of disagreement in a classroom by either majority of the class or the teachers is a bad thing with having separate rooms designed for people who can dismiss themselves for whatever reason, go there and remove themselves from the class etc?

They're quite obviously and blatantly very different.

 

[Einherjar86]

Actually I don't care if that term changes to something neutral, but to suggest it's a sexist term is just ridiculous. Fireman exists because it's an overwhelmingly male profession and to call it a sexist term is to imply it exists specifically to aggrieve women or something.

I don't use the term actress myself, something that stuck from my days as a pro-active feminist. It really doesn't matter whether it exists, but my disagreement is to do with calling these terms sexist which has implications.

Though I think it should be said that if a term like fireman keeps you out of the fire department, I probably don't want you putting the lives of other people in your hands. Leave it to people with some grit and guts maybe.

Actually, "fireman" as a term doesn't exist because it's an overwhelmingly male profession (although it is); it exists because at one point women were actually prohibited from becoming firefighters.

Of course, there are women firefighters who are perfectly capable of carrying out the job, even if most women might not be.

I wouldn't call the term sexist, but I would call it hierarchical. So I suppose I don't have too much beef here.

Wow, this is a very dishonest response. I'm definitely not saying that these people should have safe spaces. Also how could you conflate me and others saying that discussion being trampled on and cut short at the point of disagreement in a classroom by either majority of the class or the teachers is a bad thing with having separate rooms designed for people who can dismiss themselves for whatever reason, go there and remove themselves from the class etc?

They're quite obviously and blatantly very different.

Okay, let me be clearer here. First, I'll say that it's a rash comparison. So if an apology is to be made, I'll say I'm sorry for doing so without explaining more.

Basically, this is why I made the comparison. In the cultural atmosphere of the past several years, which has increased in the past election cycle, there has been a growing resentment of educators, particularly those in certain fields within the humanities - to the extent that the entire premise of a class like Gender and Women's Studies seems ludicrous and unnecessary. Students who hold this belief enter the classroom with a predisposed sense of righteousness and correctness, in addition to the belief that they are in fact more enlightened on the matter than their educator is.

Now, the last thing these students want is a "safe space" like you're describing, I agree; but what they do is perceive every single potential response from their educator as an automatic rejection of their opinion because their opinion is already antithetical to the subject matter of the class. So then they react harshly and claim they're being trampled or shut out. What this reaction implies is that they want a safe space in which their opinion cannot be challenged.

That's why I made the safe space comparison. Granted, it's not exactly the same thing.

 

[CiG]

Not buying it.

I don't think they want a space wherein their opinion is never challenged, they want a space wherein the power of the majority and the power of the teacher's position doesn't dictate expression. If every time you disagree, the entire class jumps on you and the teacher either lets it play out naturally or worst case scenario basically wants it to happen, it's pretty disingenuous to suggest that the person disagreeing wants a safe space.

I know people, specifically a woman I know named Naomi from America, who was almost expelled from college because she disagreed with something in her [insert humanities course here] and one of the students was upset by it and reported the incident. I wouldn't believe half of this stuff if it wasn't constantly coming up from people of very different backgrounds.

It's clearly not a wave of contrarian students taking humanities classes for the lolz.

 

[Einherjar86]

That's fine, I won't try and convince you of it beyond sharing my experience.

The day after the election, I opened my class up to discussion about Trump's victory and basically just let them talk. Most of them were upset, some vehemently so. One student ventured a comment that he understood why a lot of people felt the way they did, but that the entire election atmosphere was confusing and disorienting because of how much doubt had been cast on the media, and that a lot of journalists seem to unabashedly favor Clinton. I told him that was a good point and that ultimately the media falls victim to the same ideological tendencies we all exhibit.

After that class I received an email from him thanking me for opening the class to discussion and making it a calm, level environment in which to talk about those issues.

Being familiar with my colleagues and their mentality, within and beyond Boston, I don't really think I'm in a minority over here.

 

[rms]

Let me know when you make some videos or write some articles though.

see, that's the problem. it's all been said. it's just down to your worldview. keep feeding into these twitter and youtube trolls just trying to use you for a buck/notoreity if you think anything noteworthy has been said about gender in the last couple years

 

[Dak]

Just to go back to this, I also find it really amusing that you accuse me of underestimating the fragility of technology and relating my position to that of science fiction.

Treating technology as a kind of evolutionary adaptation isn't science fiction. It's a legitimate practice as demonstrated by numerous writings in the field of media studies. Surveys have been conducted that show how human thought patterns have changed since the coming of the internet.

In no way was anything I said suggesting that technology will continue after some hypothetical human extinction. All I was saying is that technology can be construed as an adaption, and to resist such a view would be akin to resisting that evolutionary development of opposable thumbs, or vocal cords.

I never suggested technology can't be perceived as evolutionary. But you did imply that threats to humanity and threats to technology can be mutually exclusive and I disagree with that. Mankind or some approximation survived for tens to hundreds of thousands of years without the stuff that is increasingly taken for granted - stuff that requires a very complex web of support to exist and further develop, and a relatively brittle web at that.

This is one of the reasons I'm very interested in things like infrastructure and being realistic about things like health and education at both the individual and systemic levels. Once things start moving in the wrong direction, it can snowball and I know neither one of us wants to live an Amish lifestyle, but it's not outside the realm of possibility that ourselves or descendants will be forced into that lifestyle because it is no longer a quaint option but the human condition once again.

 

[Einherjar86]

I never suggested technology can't be perceived as evolutionary. But you did imply that threats to humanity and threats to technology can be mutually exclusive and I disagree with that.

If anything, I implied that there are foreseeable environmental conditions that could be handled by technological developments and not necessarily by physiological traits. That's not mutual exclusivity - in other words, just because a particular environmental condition threatens us on a physiological level doesn't mean it automatically doesn't threaten us on a technological level. I'm not drawing any logical equivalence between physiological threat and technological salvation, or vice versa.

You're displacing survival in this conversation from biological entity to evolutionary trait. This is why it seems ridiculous to you for me to say that technology is no more fragile than physiology. You're treating technology as an entity that wants to survive. I'm treating it as an evolutionary adaptation on par with physiological traits. If humans go extinct, then our technological and our physiological adaptations are under equal threat (at least, as of our current historical period). Likewise, both technological and physiological adaptations have the same potential for extending the evolutionary span of human existence.

There's nowhere else to go from there, in my opinion. You can keep repeating your belief all you want, but it feels like you're putting words in my mouth and retreating from previous claims you've made.

 

[Dak]

You're treating technology as an entity that wants to survive. I'm treating it as an evolutionary adaptation on par with physiological traits. If humans go extinct, then our technological and our physiological adaptations are under equal threat (at least, as of our current historical period). Likewise, both technological and physiological adaptations have the same potential for extending the evolutionary span of human existence.

I don't know what I've said that suggests that I think technology is an entity that wants to survive. On the contrary, if "it wants" anything it wants to fail at every turn! I see no contradiction in agreeing that technology can extend human existence while also holding it as being far more vulnerable/fragile than our collective basic biology.

 

[Einherjar86]

It's not a contradiction, it's just entirely baseless. There's no way you can measure that, and ultimately - from the perspective of pure contingency - they're equally vulnerable. Privileging one over the other is an ideological move, not a critical one.

 

[Dak]

I could counter that if one were to adopt a sort of noncommittal position, that perspective of "pure" contingency and "equality of vulnerability" also sounds like an uncritical, ideological maneuver.

 

[Einherjar86]

That's weak. The way I see it, the evidence is scarce for either position. Lacking enough support, I think it makes more sense to treat both physiological and technological adaptations on an equal footing, rather than arbitrarily privilege one over the other.

 

[CiG]

That's fine, I won't try and convince you of it beyond sharing my experience.

The day after the election, I opened my class up to discussion about Trump's victory and basically just let them talk. Most of them were upset, some vehemently so. One student ventured a comment that he understood why a lot of people felt the way they did, but that the entire election atmosphere was confusing and disorienting because of how much doubt had been cast on the media, and that a lot of journalists seem to unabashedly favor Clinton. I told him that was a good point and that ultimately the media falls victim to the same ideological tendencies we all exhibit.

After that class I received an email from him thanking me for opening the class to discussion and making it a calm, level environment in which to talk about those issues.

Being familiar with my colleagues and their mentality, within and beyond Boston, I don't really think I'm in a minority over here.

How do you think it would have went if someone expressed happiness for Trump winning? Did anybody?

see, that's the problem. it's all been said. it's just down to your worldview. keep feeding into these twitter and youtube trolls just trying to use you for a buck/notoreity if you think anything noteworthy has been said about gender in the last couple years

I don't even use Twitter and the only Youtube account I follow with any regularity is Vernaculis.

It's not a matter of saying something noteworthy on gender to begin with. You're lost.

 

[Einherjar86]

How do you think it would have went if someone expressed happiness for Trump winning? Did anybody?

Nobody did. And I'm sure that others would have expressed their distaste.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

 

[no country for old wainds]

holy shit, our worst fears realised

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

 

[CiG]

LGBTQMARX+

 

[Baroque]

not gonna lie I lol'd at this.

I get where these people are coming from but they need to stop being babies about it.