If Mort Divine ruled the world

[HamburgerBoy]

None of this contradicts anything I've said or rebuts my criticism toward your comments, which specified some such nonsense about Chomsky being irrelevant by the '70s (hilariously incorrect) and about his not relying on data.

Prior to Chomsky and Herman's book, no one had developed such an extensive model of media manipulation (in the West, at least)--which has, of course, now been given its own name: the "propaganda model" of media bias.

Then you do a side shuffle and change the topic--"Okay, he used data to discuss the use of 'genocide,' but he has no problem ignoring genocide!!!"

We can play this game all day, but you'll always be on the run.

He's irrelevant to reality beyond the 70s. He's very relevant to the people with fringe beliefs that need a token smart guy to back them up, which is how he has been able to amass such a nice following. The data provided in virtually all of his works that I've seen and all of his speeches that I've heard amounts to large compilations of anecdotes in the form of a nicely-cited argument, but only the most basic rigorous analysis at best. Anyone can paste together a hundred examples of news stories calling X a genocide and Y something else. Ask Chomsky to do it along multiple axes of metrics, e.g. correlating the numbers killed in a violent political incident to the number of times said incident is referred to as a genocide, and you'll always come up blank. He has a long history of poor scholarship regardless, making his ability to merely cite things and regurgitate facts questionable without extra scrutiny.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm deleting the text of this comment because I really don't want to pursue, of all things, a debate over Noam Chomsky's relevance. It's astounding to me that it's even up for discussion.

 

[Draehl]

I rather enjoyed this interview. It's extensive, but I'm finding I get a lot more out of long form/low pressure formats like this or Joe Rogan's where folks can elaborate their views without constantly being interrupted by some far-left or far-right host trying for a "gotcha!" moment soundbite. Perhaps it's just what I've been watching, but it seems like a lot of folks are being driven from the left not out of any broad ideological rift, but simply for not agreeing 100% with the increasingly illiberal Democratic party. I've noticed this in my personal life even, with previously very left/liberal friends seemingly going apolitical. They still hate Trump, but can't stomach toeing the Democrat party line any more. There's definitely a want for both sides to come to the center.

Anyway, the video:

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

The Other Whisper Network
How Twitter feminism is bad for women

Good to know that Roiphe is still pissing the right people off. The stuff she wrote in the 90's is still as relevant as ever.

 

[Einherjar86]

Not that long, whole thing is worth reading:

http://induecourse.ca/the-problem-with-critical-studies/

Reading through these books, I discovered a whole new set of cryptonormative terms that I had perhaps been vaguely aware of, but had not realized how important they were. There is obvious stuff like “neocolonial” and “racializing” (always bad), but there is also the term “stigmatizing.” Stigmatization is, apparently, always bad. Anything that stigmatizes anyone else is bad. In some cases, entire bodies of empirical research, which might introduce a bit of moral complexity to the analysis of a particular situation, were swept aside on the grounds that they are “potentially stigmatizing” to oppressed groups. Thus the potential for “stigmatization” served as all-purpose license to ignore inconvenient facts (an egregious display of normative confusion).

In any case, it seems to me fairly obvious why these books are written in the way they are. The authors feel a passionate moral commitment to the improvement of society – this is what animates their entire project, compels them to write a book – but they have no idea how to defend these commitments intellectually, and they have also read a great deal of once-fashionable theory that is essentially skeptical about the foundations of these moral commitments (i.e. Foucault, Bourdieu). As a result, they are basically moral noncognitivists, and perhaps even skeptics. So they turn to using rhetoric and techniques of social control, such as audience limitation, as a way of securing agreement on their normative agenda.

This is – perhaps needless to say – not how critical theory was supposed to be done.

 

[Dak]

My favorite portion was the the usage of "bafflegab".

 

[Einherjar86]

I feel like that piece illustrates some issues that many of my colleagues and I have with contemporary academic criticism, and probably some issues that don't come forward in most of my comments here. Obscurantism and "bafflegab" really are problems in some scholarly writing, and I've felt personally privileged to work in a department where that kind of writing does not fly. It's been ingrained in me to define terms and specify what the object of my analysis is (which also is not always a political topic), and the professors here are very critical of politicized buzzwords. That's not to say one can't use them, but one needs to define them and specify their application.

Because of this development, my relation to older theorists is conflicted, especially since I find Foucault to be a wonderful and mostly lucid writer (no doubt because I've spent years reading his work). But I am suspicious of his later work, which is when he began focusing on neoliberalism. This word is really misused, I think, among contemporary scholars. I've pointed out before that according to some definitions, neoliberalism describes Clintonian politics, yet the same people who decry neoliberalism probably voted for the Clintons.

 

[Dak]

 

[rms]

I guess this is getting attention (and short, only 9 minutes), and I think I mostly agree with JP about men and women in the workplace but his demeanor and speech is so serial killy it makes me scared

 

[Dak]

Well one of the things Peterson asserts is that you can't be effective or good until you recognize and understand your dangerous side (Jungian shadow). Maybe that's his dangerous side.

 

[Einherjar86]

Man, where would psychoanalysis be without Nietzsche? I'll tell you where. Nowhere.

 

[Dak]

Man, where would psychoanalysis be without Nietzsche? I'll tell you where. Nowhere.

Probably the reason Peterson mentions him a lot.

 

[Einherjar86]

Oh I'm sure he does.

Freud claimed to have never read Nietzsche. That was almost certainly untrue.

 

[rms]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligence...e=tw&utm_medium=s3&utm_campaign=sharebutton-t

Context, the writer recently got blasted over an article on twitter and recently did a podcast with Harris the same day it happened. Good article, half way through.

 

[Dak]

Decent oped except for positioning Trump as impetus rather than reaction.

 

[Satanstoenail]

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment...er-former-managers-death-20180209-h0vtny.html

Interesing. #metoo - Empowering women - unless your recollection of events differs from the pack.

 

[CiG]

I saw a video of Rose McGowan on a stage ranting like a maniac at a transwoman in her crowd. Nothing really surprises me about her anymore, she seems unhinged.

 

[Satanstoenail]

Totally. Gleefully foaming at the mouth at every new sexual harassment accusation.

 

[CiG]

Kinda like an inquisitor who actually gets a sick pleasure from discovering heretics.

 

[Dak]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...etoo-push-is-accused-of-groping-male-staffer/

A California lawmaker who has gained national recognition for fighting against sexual misconduct in the state Capitol is accused of groping a former legislative staffer.

The staffer, Daniel Fierro, told The Washington Post on Thursday that Democratic Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, who has become a prominent figure in the #MeToo movement, approached him alone after an assembly softball game in 2014, squeezed his buttocks and tried to touch his crotch. He said Garcia was visibly intoxicated.

Fierro, who was 25 at the time, did not report the incident because he worried about the long-term consequences that could come with accusing the powerful lawmaker, who chairs the Legislative Women’s Caucus and the Natural Resources Committee. But in January he told his former boss, Democratic Assemblyman Ian Calderon, who referred the matter to an assembly panel that is now investigating Garcia.

Politico was the first to report on Fierro’s allegations. The story also included sexual misconduct allegations against Garcia from an anonymous male lobbyist that The Post was not able to independently verify.

No surprise here.