Not challenging but bullying
I saw this
Written by someone with a PhD: "I urge you to…demonstrate public support for Prof. Rambukkana and his brave stance against hate speech in the classroom."
These people have lost their minds.https://t.co/4JmITn6BDQ via @torontostar
— Lindsay Shepherd (@NewWorldHominin) November 26, 2017
So I read the letter. It does indeed show a mind gone astray.
Under the guise of protecting free speech, you published content that bullied Prof. Rambukkana, as well as the university at large, into apologizing for an act of intervention that was neither unfair nor unwarranted. Instead of taking a stand against hate speech, you have given dangerous credence to the views of (University of Toronto Prof.) Jordan Peterson and his supporters, flying in the face of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Professor Rambukkana’s intervention was neither unfair nor unwarranted? Really? Haling Shepherd before a panel of three stern interrogators simply for giving an example of a point of view in a classroom? And there’s a clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that says Jordan Peterson=hate speech and must never be mentioned, even (say) as an example of hate speech?
I don’t believe any of that. It’s hyperbole at best.
As the leaked recording of their meeting shows, Prof. Rambukkana did not attack or endanger Shepherd’s right to hold an opinion. Rather, he challenged her decision to represent that opinion in class without a critical acknowledgment of its social impact.
Along with two other people, accusing her of all sorts of evils, refusing to tell her even the number of complaints. That goes well beyond “challenging” her decision, even if you think his challenge had merit, which I don’t.
As recognized by federal law and nearly all progressive social institutions, gender pronouns are a basic site of self-representation.
God almighty.
Just for one thing – in English gender pronouns can’t be “a basic site of self-representation” for the very simple reason that first-person pronouns are not gendered. What other people call us is not our self-representation. It can be all kinds of things, including threatening (cunt, nigger, faggot, kike, etc), but it is not self-representation.
And then there’s the triviality and absurdity, which is too obvious to belabor.
Peterson’s brazen disdain for these protections is a violation of the human rights of students with non-normative identities.
No, it really isn’t. It may be rude or unkind or both, but it’s not a violation of anyone’s human rights. All this hyperbole and overreaching is just going to turn people off rather than convincing them of anything.
When Shepherd was reported for showing the video, Prof. Rambukkana acted as he should have: by challenging her pedagogy and working to make his classroom safer.
Spoken like a true authoritarian. She wasn’t “reported” because there was nothing to report. Someone emailed a complaint, which is a different thing. And again, Rambukkana didn’t just challenge her pedagogy, he hauled her before a tribunal to chastise her.
These people have lost their minds.
And then there’s the assertion that Shepherd’s airing of Peterson’s opinions made (some of) her students unsafe. Annoyed, insulted, offended, pissed off, sad? Maybe. Unsafe? How?
I think you can make an argument in extreme cases that [genuine] hate speech in the classroom could make some students less safe. It would have to be very extreme, but that may be theoretically possible. A really rabid instructor could work students up to such a point that fights would break out, say.
But that’s very far-fetched. I don’t have a recording of Shepherd’s class (nor does anyone), but I think it’s clear that she wasn’t doing anything like that. From the reports and what she’s said herself she wasn’t making an argument against trans-friendly pronoun use, she was making an argument that items like pronoun usage can shape discourse.
Let the record show how prescient that argument was, to the nth degree.
It’s also weird to ignore that Rambukkana apologised for his behaviour, in order to defend it. Rambukkana changed his mind. It’s completely disrespectful to him to hold him up as a symbol for something he has already somewhat repudiated and disowned.
There is no human right to force everyone else to use your preferred pronouns when speaking to or about you.
Compelling others’ speech in that way is anti-human rights. It is authoritarian.
And the backlash will be to label all trans people as Special Snowflakes, and who exactly is thatgoing to help? Prof. Peterson referred to the phenomenon of the activist who focuses on their own ostentatious heroism, even damaging the goals they supposedly serve.
And it’s doubly stupid, because there’s an easy fix: just flip the logic! From “I have a right to my own pronoun!” to “I have a right not to be addressed by an incorrect pronoun!”
It’s hard for people to argue against this while claiming the right for themselves. It won’t change the mind of die-hards, but look who just got all the middle-of-the-roaders into their tent…)
The actual language solution …. anything gender-neutral that isn’t a slur. Some term will win, and nobody should really care which.
Cheers,
Lurker #753
Ah, but there are problems with that. In an ideal world, yes, but this world is not ideal.
If you had addressed my mother by a gender neutral pronoun, she would have knocked you on your ass. Same with all my sisters, and my brothers. Many people WANT to be gendered, and believe in the gender dichotomy. Should we tromple over their rights to be addressed by a preferred pronoun?
This pronoun argument is getting tiresome. I am not fond of pronouns at all, because people overuse them, and I finally had to tell my students to regard pronouns as poison in their writing because it was all pronouns, all the time, without a proper noun anywhere. Who is they? I would ask. What is it? So, maybe the proper answer is to purge pronouns (though I will admit, they do have some merit to keep the language from getting too clunky – and see, I just used a pronoun here, so I am not totally against the limited use of pronouns).
As the other side of this argument, a grammar school in Kent, England has set up an “unsafe space” curriculum that, looked at charitably, will examine unpopular and extreme views – “the most beautifully disturbed and disturbing ideas, all of them presented without trigger warnings” in a rational manner. I’m inclined to be less charitable due to another quote describing the content as “an antidote to the poison of political correctness” – though I don’t have any context for either quote, nor an attribution. This course would be for the A level students, so a bunch of academically able 17 – 18 year olds.
The Guardian is critical, The Telegraph approving, so no surprise there.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/20/kent-grammar-school-announces-plans-for-unsafe-space-including-mein-kampf
Some of the girls (it’s a boys school that allows girls entry to the sixth form… yes, it’s a mad system) are unsure about the content. They seem to feel the boys (and male teachers) don’t need any extra permission to be anti-feminist. They’ve had Milo Yiannopoulos to speak there, as well as female anti-feminist speakers. There’s been a debate on the “pros and cons” of James Damore’s Google memo.
I’m torn. On the one hand, when I was at a Grammar school aged 17, I would have leapt at the chance to look at this kind of material. On the other hand, the way it’s handled is important. Is the school tacitly supporting any of the views presented? Does counterspeech get a good look in? Are they being truly critical about the subjects, or is the teaching quietly reinforcing previously held views?
And all of these are valid questions to ask about Shepherd’s class as well. So, you get a complaint, you ask those questions, before you decide if a reprimand is necessary you look at the context of the whole course, you talk courteously to the lecturer about what she is trying to achieve, you maybe put in an observer – all teachers and lecturers get observed as a matter of course as part of professional development – and only then do you decide if the lecturer is out of line. And, of course, all this is – or should be – confidential.
@Steamshovelmama #8
That might work, IF it is not used as a sneaky attempt to push a particular point of view. There are extreme views on all sides of any given issue; taking a look at them could be interesting and valuable.
I’ve read all sorts of awfulness; I’m interested in peoples’ beliefs, including the darker ones. But there have been times in my life when I was too emotionally fragile to explore that darker side. Caveat emptor.
@LadyMondegreen #09
Yes, that’s my feeling exactly. Done properly, fully critiquing and exploring the real world consequences of the ideas, presenting voices from both sides – then I’d fully support that and consider it a valuable strand of “Personal Development” or “Personal and Social Health” or whatever they call it at that school (it’s a universal topic in UK secondary schools – a catch all for stuff like sex ed, drug information and the other off-curriculum subjects that schools are required to cover these days and it goes by various names).
But I have my doubts about their commitment to all that. All their reported speakers are from the far right, and while it may be possible that they’re tearing those ideas to shreds – or that the more mainstream speakers aren’t being reported because that’s dull – I’d like to know more about how the opposing viewpoints are being presented. It’s all very well giving a platform to a female anti-feminist speaker but critiquing that idea adequately requires a proper knowledge of what feminism actually is, as opposed to the straw-man version that so many people – especially boys – grow up with. That’s equally true of the other viewpoints referenced.
Maybe they’re just trying to engage teenage boys by making the course seem all edgy and controversial. If so, fair play to them. It’s the sort of think I’d have loved at 17/18. But, again, I have my doubts.