He’s writing in sadness rather than in anger
Another brave man brags on Twitter about sending another Letter to another Institution telling it not to “platform” a woman. In this case the man is one Olly Thorne who has a popular YouTube channel on philosophy.
I’ve just sent this letter to the Academic Director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, concerning their decision to platform Kathleen St*ck at their Annual Debate. Those of us working in philosophy must stand up for our trans colleagues and students.
That is, those of us men working in philosophy must silence our female colleagues and students.
I’m writing in sadness rather than in anger to caution you that the Royal Institute of Philosophy’s decision to host Kathleen Stock at the Annual Debate may irrevocably damage the Institute’s reputation.
Yeah right. He’s writing in self-righteous spite and misogyny, is what he’s writing in.
Blah blah blah her lamentable history of comments about transgender people, in particular comments smuggled in under the guise of celebrating polite academic disagreement. Blah blah blah condemned blah blah widely condemned blah. Her inclusion at the Annual Debate will no doubt tarnish the reputation of the Royal Institute of Philosophy in like manner.
He says, energetically going to work to make that happen. “Hey, Dr Baggini, if you platform Stock your reputation will be mud, which I know because I’m going to be throwing mud at it myself. See? I’m doing it now!”
It is of course Doctor Stock’s right blah blah but blah blah might I suggest as an alternate speaker blah Talia Bettcher blah To use a literary analogy blah arsonists blah arsonists blah arsonists
If nothing else, at least let me appeal to mercenary practicality by telling you that this decision will result in significant negative PR for the Royal Institute of Philosophy from which it may find it very difficult to recover.
“How do I know? Because I’ll see to it! As I am right now by writing this pile of shit and posting it on Twitter!”
The gall of it is absolutely breathtaking. The letter is badly, stupidly, crudely written. I kind of doubt that Dr Baggini will read it and nod solemnly and tell Kathleen Stock he is going to swap Talia Bettcher for her.
There’s a weird kind of homeopathic logic at work among the activists here. Kathleen Stock’s writings on trans activism have been some of the most even-handed, compassionate things to come from the gender-critical side. She’s gone to great lengths to try and see things from the other side and to try to bridge the divide and resolve misunderstandings. Which is exactly why she’s such a threat. I see this over and over again: the more we dilute our criticism with compassion and caring, the more potent our message appears to be; and therefore the more dangerous we are, and the more urgently we need to be attacked and deplatformed.
“Why should let her speak? Should we let Holocaust deniers speak?”
—comments on that tweet, paraphrased
So we’ve got philosophers (?) unable or unwilling to consider how this idea is similar to and different from that idea. Isn’t that part of what philosophy is? Are all opinions I disagree with the same? Are they all as self-evidently awful as outright racism or flat eartherism?
Philosophers actually think we shouldn’t ask questions about gender ideology, queer theory, what to do when rights are in conflict?
Warning: hella-long quote below (sorry), but honestly, how can anyone, let alone an academic philosopher, read this and conclude that the person who wrote it is a monstrous hatemonger who should have no platform to spew her hate?? It’s crystal clear there’s no hate here; the problem is that it makes too much sense. Any gender-identitarian who reads this would experience enormous cognitive dissonance, and she’d have to either question her beliefs or attack the source of distress. It never ceases to shock me that this ridiculous cult has taken over so much of society so quickly.
Yeah, this guy makes me feel uncomfortable. Like, I’ve known quite a few people who constantly try to ingratiate themselves with a given group. You can see it manifesting every time they pronounce a shibboleth, and when it lands with the audience, the feeling is like rancid oil poured down your lungs. I linked this before, but here’s his video on transphobia ( https://youtu.be/yCxqdhZkxCo ). The sleazy, slimy winks at the camera, the approval-fishing, the sexualized use of “daddy”, it makes the video unwatchable. I literally feel like I’m stepping into the middle of the beginning of a drunken one-night stand.
So skeezy.
But his vids are well produced, and approval-fishing is rewarded by YouTube’s algorithms, so they are popular. What we need is slickly produced philosophy content that is also sane. As things stand, the voices of reason do not have the production to capture attention.
Coupled with slickly produced biology content that is also sane to counter the likes of P.Z. Myers, who manages to put his field of study aside to gain woke points.
Nullius– Ew, that guy’s affect display screams “narcissist.”
I hope the RIP give him the attention he deserves.
Well, I just watched the video Nullius linked to in #4 and found it very enlightening. And frustrating. I kept wanting to stop it and say “wait, wait — you skipped something. And now maybe you threw several things together. Or jumped sideways. Seriously? And … isn’t that a fallacy? And doesn’t this part here negate your whole argument?”
If that was meant to inform, it did an excellent job. If it was meant to convince, it did a poor job.
@iknklast: Absolutely. The sad fact is that people are easily swayed by a well made video, regardless of how batshit insane its content may be.
@Lady Mondegreen: *shiver* Right? Total creepfest.
@Sastra: Oh, you watched the whole thing? I am so sorry. That video was one of the things I encountered months ago when I was just starting to investigate the whole gender identity thing. I had a similar reaction. I kept pausing to talk at my screen and rewind to double check what he said.