Donors are disgusted
Pippa Rogerson still dealing with blowback from her venomous attack on Helen Joyce:
Prof Rogerson joined Dr Andrew Spencer, the college’s senior tutor, in vowing to boycott the talk. They emailed all of the students stating Ms Joyce’s views were “offensive, insulting and hateful to members of our community who live and work here”.
…
The intervention by the college chiefs – before Ms Joyce spoke – led to donors telling The Telegraph they were “embarrassed, appalled and absolutely disgusted” and would not give any more without a retraction and apology.
Pardon me while I interrupt myself for a moment, because an idea about this has occurred to me. It’s about fragility, in particular fragility used as a cudgel. As I read what Spencer and Rogerson said, again, I wondered for the millionth time why there’s so much heavy breathing about offensive insulting n hateful in connection with this one set of people (aka “community”) when there never has been for other oppressed sets of people. Why are trans people talked about as if they were made of crystal or bone china? Why is it all so maudlin, why does it all depend so heavily on fragility? Millionth time, as I said, but the new bit is thinking feminism and anti-racism didn’t work that way, why is that? Well why is that? Because fragile is the last thing we want to be or appear to be or claim to be. It’s degrading. It pulls against equality and ordinary inclusion in public life. So…why is it so appealing to “the trans community”? Why do we hear so very very much about it?
I don’t know. I’d love to know. Is it for a kind of gotcha? Men are stronger than women therefore haha we’ll punish those pesky feminists by pretending men are more fragile?
End of interruption.
But in her letter, Prof Rogerson refused to apologise, instead telling alumni “we expressed our personal opinions – as is our right”.
Nonsense. They weren’t purely personal opinions, they were opinions in their roles at Cambridge University. They used their roles at Cambridge to get their opinions heard. They used their roles at Cambridge to bully and demonize Helen Joyce.
She said a cancellation of the event was not considered and “free speech is fundamental”, but added pointedly: “I hope it is possible for reasonable people to disagree and that freedom of expression is available to everyone, including me.”
Including freedom to use her Cambridge position to cast aspersions on a guest speaker? That’s not so much freedom as it is an abuse of power.
About fragility; it doesn’t appear to be just the trans that are fragile. These days, EVERYONE is fragile. I am urged to say and do nothing in my classes that might offend or hurt any group of people, including trans, LGB, veterans, youth, climate change deniers, farmers…the list goes on and on. One thing that is not on that list? Women.
Maybe people realize women are not fragile. We are persons, capable of fighting on our own behalf, and all we ask is a fair fight.
That’s interesting. Also, with a list that long, how are you supposed to teach at all???
I still think the closest parallell would be the people who blamed Salman Rushdie, Charlie Hebdo etc. for the threats, or even actual violence, against them for hurting the oh so fragile feelings of violent religious fanatics. The general idea seems to be that “hurt feelings”, “offense” etc. become especially worthy of sympathy and respect when coming from people who otherwise threaten to make your life Hell at best, and end it at worst.
I hope she recalls saying this when those donors are approached again and refuse to donate further. I hope she understands that those donors are reasonable people who disagree with her and are exercising their freedom of expression in choosing where to spend their money.
Should be fine and dandy. No hard feelings from her I’m sure.
It’s a faded memory for me to the point where I almost wonder if things where as bad as I remember but isn’t this similar to how it was back in the early days of the new Atheism? The idea that the religious, be they liberal or conservative, deserved to be treated with kid gloves, and people like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris etc were being highly disrespectful when they called religious beliefs silly, wrong, or worst of all, bad. The idea that the mainstream progressive liberal left would move on from defending conservative Islam to something like Transgenderism isn’t that far fetched to me, what’s bizarre is that the sceptics and atheists followed them on this.
I think part of it that campaigns against sexism and racism were eager to argue their position, to have the opportunity to present the facts of the matter to the court of public opinion, to win hearts and minds in order to win the rights that women and African Americans had been denied. Both movements were struggles for justice. Trans activism wants to skip the whole making their case bit and move right on to getting what they want. They want what they want handed to them without discussion or debate because their demands, and the justification for them, would not survive the encounter with reality. That’s why we are never told what trans “rights” are; what is it that they are being denied? What is the injustice they are fighting? A good argument might win them more support, but they don’t have any good arguments; their demands are not for rights but for privileges. They’re not being exploited or abused. In Western society, they have the same basic rights as everyone else. And that’s a problem. What they want is more. They want more cookies and ice cream and television. Quick, give them what they want before they faint dead away or kill themselves!.
Strange, given that “trigger warnings” were originally intended as WARNINGS about WHAT IS GOING TO BE TALKED ABOUT, and that prospective audience members should join in or stay away as they deemed appropriate for themselves. Like warnings about physical effects like smoke, strobe lights, gunshots etc. posted at theatres as a courtesy to those who might be adversely affected. These were warnings to NOT COME IN if you were prone to such negative reactions. Other warnings covering course language, nudity were, similarly, they were warnings to STAY AWAY if you were at risk of having your sensibilities offended. Now the warnings are going in the other direction, speakers themselves are to STAY AWAY from “offensive” material, at the risk of being shut down, fired, whatever.
Playing the easily triggered snowflake is a way of objecting to the presentation of information you object to without having to show why it’s wrong. Being told you are “hurtful” by someone is harder to argue against than being told you are “factually incorrect.” How can you argue against someone’s feelings?. You can’t. And that’s the point. Being accused of hatefulness puts you on the defensive. Claiming hurt is less work than having to argue your points, especially when you have no argument. Used in this way, it’s the rhetorical equivalent of stamping your foot, or holding your breath until you turn blue. Apparently too many adults are flummoxed when confronted with another adult engaging in this behaviour. They’re all too ready to hand over the cookies, ice cream and TV, along with the rights to safety and dignity of half the human population: women. Mustn’t argue; mustn’t offend.
Indeed. And feigning weakness and claiming to be the aggrieved party is good camouflage for the underlying threat if demands are not met. It also helps hide the fact that these demands are themselves offensive, intrusive, and illiberal. In the finest DARVO tradition, attacks (verbal or otherwise) on opponents can be presented as “self-defence.” The whole “marginalized community” bit lets those claiming “marginalization” to get away with a lot. It appeals to, and exploits, traditions of not exploiting the weak and vulnerable, of fairness, “sportsmanship”, and not “kicking a man while he’s down.” To oppose or question anything they want is deemed churlish and mean-spirited, when their own actions are churlish and mean-spirited to start with. Here we have a group that is exploiting the idea of weakness and vulnerability itself. Not a bad bit of jujutsu for a group consisting largely of straight, white males, one of the least weak and vulnerable “communities” on Earth.
That’s one reason I’m retiring in May. Several other instructors, some of the best we had, retired earlier than planned because it was becoming impossible to teach.
Yes, the fear was that roving bands of atheists would burst into hospital ICU wards to tell poor, terminal Grandma that her love of Jesus was a pointless, futile placebo, that her meaningless life had consisted of delusion, ignorance, and bigotry, and that her futile, empty, prayers went completely unheard by any God at all, loving or otherwise.
Good times, good times.
BAM. Target resoundingly hit.
They need the argumentum ad misericordiam. Their movement relies on it to garner support. Why are we subjected to a “Trans Day of Remembrance,” when it’s easy to demonstrate that trans people aren’t any more likely to be murdered than anybody else? Why are gender critics constantly told we’re responsible for trans suicide and violence against “the trans community”?
It’s a rhetorical trick that’s very useful when your argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Appeal to pity. OK, so, maybe, no matter how hard you try, you can’t make yourself really really believe that Rachel Levine is a woman. It doesn’t matter, don’t you see? It’s so hard, being trans, so dangerous, a lot of Bad People are hurting them–but you’re not a Bad Person, right? You’re a compassionate person who doesn’t want people to suffer. So, use the pronouns. (They’re just words, and it means so much.) Be inclusive. (There aren’t really that many trans people anyway, what difference does it make in the scheme of things?) Just BE KIND. (It’s easy!)
But remember, being trans has nothing to do with mental illness. “The trans community” wouldn’t be so fragile if the Bad People would just stop hurting them. It’s called minority stress. (I keep meaning to look up minority stress; I don’t recall any other liberation movement appealing to it. But there I go, thinking with my head instead of my heart, like a Bad Person.)
Argumentum ad misericordiam – that’s the one. I always forget about things like that.
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VanitysFiend wrote:
I used to call that the “Little People Argument “ — that being skeptical and honest was a position of power and that the religious were little people, not big people like us. They can’t handle the truth. They need comfort more. They can’t figure out how to be moral. That’s why we shouldn’t make rational arguments meant to persuade. The New Atheists jeered at this Accomodationism because we saw religion as power. But I noticed that enthusiasm for “Draw Mohammed Day” started waning when expecting Muslims to act like adults became increasingly associated with conservative views. Atheists who’ve primarily gotten into activism because they see it as a progressive social justice position are sometimes less wedded to epistemic integrity, I think. Prominent New Atheists started becoming charged with Islamophobia by other New Atheists who thus left the movement.
Back in the 80’s and 90’s rationalists started complaining about what was called Therapeutic Culture, a growing interest in getting therapy, giving therapy, recommending therapy, and applying therapeutic principles to everyday life. What in reasonable doses would be a good thing quickly started spiraling out of control, till resilience became identified with privilege. Wendy Kaminer’s 1992 I’m Dysfunctional, You’re Dysfunctional: the Recovery Movement and Other Self-Help Fashions was a favorite with skeptics. If we’re looking for the roots of the “fragility as virtue” meme, Therapeutic Culture is probably one of them.
I loved that Wendy Kaminer book back in the day (still do, just haven’t read it lately). It’s always been kind of a “pinch me, I’m dreaming” thing with me that she was a columnist at Free Inquiry and so was I.
I’ve always hated Therapeutic Culture, though I do see a therapist because of a long-standing diagnosis. But it seemed like everyone was adopting something- people declare themselves to be OCD because they have a habit. People wore their need for therapy on their sleeve.
I’m fortunate that I never got in with a therapist who treated me like I was fragile. They treated me like a strong, independent person who had a lot to offer, which surprised me because I didn’t see me as strong. Turns out, I am. And therapeutic culture just tries to make me one of them, when I am not. I WANTED to get better, not wallow in a trendy diagnosis.
YNnB @#6:
How about the ‘right’ to be recognised by the State, by organisations etc as women per se and as such to enter womens’ washrooms, public facilities reserved for women, etc, etc? That’s the nuts and bolts of it.
YNNB:
That’s the rather predictable result of trigger warnings’ proliferation. That a warning must be issued signals something about the subject and draws attention to it. Specifically, it draws pejorative attention. This acts as a disincentive for the status quo, pushing speakers, teachers, authors, whatever to avoid the topic so as to avoid the attention and the associated pejoration.
It’s the inverse phenomenon of, for example, cachet labels like “kosher” or “Non-GMO”. The label signals desirability, customers opt to purchase the desirable thing, and companies feel an incentive to acquire the label.
“Pejoration” – that’s a fine word.
Isn’t it? Picked it up when studying euphemisms.
Ah, euphemisms, what a good thing to study.
Nullius in Verba #17
“non-GMO”
I consider that label a reason *not* to buy the product because it is pandering to the lie that there is something bad about GMO.
Jim, I sort of feel that, too, though of course not all GMOs are equal. With proper care and use, they can help protect the environment that everyone is worried they are destroying. (By the way, I didn’t always think that. But because I am capable of changing my mind if the evidence warrants, or at least if I think the evidence warrants.)
Then there is “natural”! I ask my students which is more natural, arsenic or pepsi? They never thought about it that way.
And, of course, when you say GMO, you really mean altered by humans, which all of the so-called non-GMO food has been. It’s horrifying how many people believe corn grows in the wild, that cows, dogs, and cats all came into being in their current form, that humans never altered anything until we invented gene guns. Because they were created by artificial selection so long back in the history of our species, people assume they are naturally occurring.
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