[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Specifically, it dealt with a university asking people not to put together hallowe'en costumes that might be considered racially insensitive, followed by someone raising a series of thoughtful points about whether that policy should be followed or at least to what degree, followed by... mobs of students pulling their hair out and demanding she be fired and removed from campus for rather soberly expressing her point of view. Here's the letter:



I'm not saying any of that is right. I'm saying it was (or looks to me to be) a genuine, intellectually honest expression of a point of view. The appropriate response is to either agree or disagree, not send a demand to the powers that be that someone be for all intents and purposes run out of town on a rail. The fact that this is the response, on a goddamned ivy league college campus where debating all ideas, including (er, especially) those deemed outside the box or extreme, should always be encouraged.

Hell, this is one of the most important functions that academia can serve - the pursuits on campus are often completely impractical, and other than educating people their greatest social utility might be progressing human knowledge and culture by breaching new intellectual ground.

If she's wrong, tell her why. Nope, can't have that, burn the witch instead.

Yeah, THAT's what's patronizing.

And your option, or at least the option of these college kids which you appear to be defending - correct me if you're not - is to simply deny anyone the ability to make any statement deemed to be offensive. Or any statement that can be spun as such, really. Any sort of policy that brings to mind Orwellian distinctions like truefact and goodfact, and the sorts of things that people aren't allowed to have debates about, is a bad one. It's basically well-intentioned McCarthyism.

To be clear, I don't think she should be railroaded or fired or anything. That's ridiculous. I also don't agree it's a strong intellectual argument, as it's pretty heavy on sentiment, and I can see why that particular sentiment would be offensive to some students.