From a Johns Hopkins professor, “Why the Latest Campus Cancellation Is Different” (Atlantic):
Following a Twitter outcry, a scientist was stopped from giving a lecture at MIT for reasons that had nothing to do with the lecture itself.
For although most outlets have covered [Dorian] Abbot’s disinvitation as but the latest example of an illiberal culture on campus, it is qualitatively different from other recent instances in which invitations have been rescinded—and suggests that the scope of censorship is continuing to morph and expand.
Is Abbot a climate-change denier? Or has he committed some terrible crime? No, he simply expressed his views about the way universities should admit students and hire faculty in the pages of a national magazine.
In other words, cancellation is often a good idea. Suppose, for example, Professor Dr. Dorian Abbot, Ph.D. (colleague of Professor Dr. Jill Biden, M.D., Ph.D.) had expressed skepticism about the latest 100-year simulations. Perhaps Dr. Professor Dorian Abbot, Ph.D., might have noted that his field is one in which the experts rejected plate tectonics and continental drift until the late 1960s. That would have been tantamount to climate-change denial and, therefore, it would make sense to nail Dr. Dorian, Ph.D. to a cross of #FollowTheScience.
On the other hand, the Corpus Juris Canonici does not provide for cancellation, at least according to this Hopkins professor, for the particular infraction of which Professor Dr. Abbot, Ph.D. was guilty (questioning the skin-color-based university admissions systems that have been implemented across the U.S.).
The subtleties are fascinating!
Related:
- “The Diversity Problem on Campus” (Newsweek), the hate-filled article that generated the Tweetstorm leading up to MIT’s cancellation: The new regime is titled “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” or DEI, and is enforced by a large bureaucracy of administrators. Nearly every decision taken on campus, from admissions, to faculty hiring, to course content, to teaching methods, is made through the lens of DEI. This regime was imposed from the top and has never been adequately debated. In the current climate it cannot be openly debated: … [MIT proved Abbot right on that last point!] … DEI compromises the university’s mission. The core business of the university is the search for truth. [??? Harvard spent all of its time searching for truth and just incidentally acquired $42 billion?] We propose an alternative framework called Merit, Fairness, and Equality (MFE) whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone. Crucially, this would mean an end to legacy and athletic admission advantages, which significantly favor white applicants, … [an athlete does not have more “merit” than someone who watches TV all day?] Viewed objectively, American universities already are incredibly diverse. [because all possible human ages are represented in the range from 18 to 22?]
I don’t have a lot of time at the moment (I’ll be back to this later) but the truly obscene thing about this *fetish* of cancellation that Universities find themselves transfixed by is almost always compelled by a recently-conjured mob mentality insanity over words and actions that *absolutely PALE in comparison* to the internal, never-heard-about, truly disgusting SHIT that goes on behind the scenes in academe. And nobody ever hears about those things because those people are *protected*. Sorry for the run-on sentence, I’m in a BAD mood right now.
I have held my tongue about things that I personally witnessed among academics tenured and untenured that were *abhorrent* by any standard and should have resulted, at least in some cases, in criminal charges and worse. The wagons were circled, the damage control was done, deals were made, and those problems just *disappeared.* It’s disgusting beyond comprehension.
Also, I’m a little confused about the fact that this Johns Hopkins University professor in the Atlantic doesn’t appear to understand the history of their own University, which was deliberately modeled after the best German research universities of the time, and as such was one of the first (if not the first) in the United States. So there’s a lot to unpack there.
https://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-History-Johns-Hopkins-University/dp/0801869331
Ever wonder why we haven’t made contact with alien civilizations in a universe with trillions of Earth-like planets? Maybe its because life only evolves until it invents social media, then it self-destructs and kills each other. Maybe the invention of Twitter marks peak civilization for Earth, and social-media powered cancel-culture is the beginning of the end.
Atlantic just tries to stay relevant. It tries to publish a though – provoking article once in a while to entrap a casual reader to immerse him or her into into ocean of lefty nonsense. But they forgot how because of disuse of reasoning skills and lefty nonsense permeates they thought-provoking honeytrap staff as well
Apparently Princeton decided to put the guy’s lecture on.
https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/1445108465744191507
In accordance with Practica Nova Woka Inquisitionis Haereticae Pravitatis (yet unpublished), the racist botanist Carl Linnaeus has been cancelled posthumously by Inquisitoribus Generalibus at the fine Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota.
https://apnews.com/article/science-lifestyle-minnesota-education-00629526e6ffd3ccc260a87fa29614a1?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP&utm_campaign=SocialFlow
I wonder how come Gustavus Adolphus ipse got so lucky and escaped Linnaeus’ fate ? Surely, he was racist on multiple occasions what with his role in Thirty Years’ War, Russia, Poland fighting and all? Killed more people too than poor Carl.