Cancelling Dr. Seuss

[Parasaurolophus]

It's not whether you're pressured to like something so much as that it is taboo to called it what it is, trash and criminal culture glorified.

Oh, you mean country, pop, and classic rock. Got it!

[marshwiggle]

So: he's blatantly unqualified to teach the subject and in that department (and clearly does a bad job of it, given what he describes of his own pedagogy); despite that, his contract kept getting renewed every year and he was promoted. He just quit because his university was so committed to employing him that it wouldn't fire him. What a whiner.

How do his qualifications compare to Nikole Hannah-Jones?

Marshy, you understand that Hannah-Jones is a practitioner who teaches what she practices, right?

So should this apply to every discipline?

Should someone with a Master's degree in any subject (as I believe Hannah-Jones has in journalism) be able to get tenure in their filed as long as they've done something "notable"?

[dismalist]

So: he's blatantly unqualified to teach the subject and in that department (and clearly does a bad job of it, given what he describes of his own pedagogy); despite that, his contract kept getting renewed every year and he was promoted. He just quit because his university was so committed to employing him that it wouldn't fire him. What a whiner.

How do his qualifications compare to Nikole Hannah-Jones?

Marshy, you understand that Hannah-Jones is a practitioner who teaches what she practices, right?

So should this apply to every discipline?

Should someone with a Master's degree in any subject (as I believe Hannah-Jones has in journalism) be able to get tenure in their filed as long as they've done something "notable"?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We will never agree and we do not have to agree. Let each institution do what it pleases and see if it works.  À fortiori as most of college is not of substance vital to anything.

[mahagonny]

Marshy, you understand that Hannah-Jones is a practitioner who teaches what she practices, right?

that's what the problem is. she has one endgame in mind, apart from distorting America's history. That is 'reparations for slavery.' I suspect she is smart enough to know that black America will derive zero benefit for this if it ever happens, (though it means a gold mine for herself) one reason is that is already has happened, and has brought little but the substitution of government for a permanent husband and father in the home. and the other reason, obviously, prosperity is not something you can pass around like pieces of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. It's a process in which the health, attitude and effort of the worker are by far the strongest factor for success and sustainability.

Of course, if one likes communism, just look at the grand life in the Soviet Union in decades past.

I honestly can't remember the name of the novelist (Katherine Anne-Porter or Doris Lessing maybe?) who found academics funny because we are so concerned with credentialism over achievement. 

What they're really concerned with is winning, conformity, and the influence and wealth that aggrandizement through the tenure track brings. That's what this whole situation illustrates. When someone needs to be put in his place because he challenges the establishment, they pile on to say he was an undercredentialled, uncollegial companion in the workplace (Boghossian). When someone is a winner because they promise to bring visibility to a department and consolidation of the liberal fortress of academia, the ideas about what meaningful credentials are need to be adjusted to recognize the worth of that person, and instead of being uncollegial (here's a photo of me getting drunk; kiss my ass, UNC trustees) they are 'proudly defiant'. (Hannah-Jones)

It's not whether you're pressured to like something so much as that it is taboo to called it what it is, trash and criminal culture glorified.

Oh, you mean country, pop, and classic rock. Got it!

You have a point there. The debauchery that was a defining feature (no not all of it, certainly, but much) of the rock 'n' roll culture of the 1970's and 80's didn't do Americans any good and led to significant amount of wayward living and premature death. Liberals can take credit for that too. But hip hop culture brought the decline of values to a new level. It may have been black America's attempt to get parity with white America. See? We've got our own mindless noisy debauchery that repudiates America's greatest gift to the arts, jazz music, a crowning achievement of our race. On a par with the mayhem and nihilism of people like Led Zeppelin, only more powerful, because the performers don't just denigrate women (minors) in their spare time, they do it in their 'song' lyrics.

[dismalist]

If I don't like the music, then I don't listen to it. If I don't like the college, then I don't send my kids there.

Less meddling and more ignoring would be healthy.

[mahagonny]

If I don't like the music, then I don't listen to it. If I don't like the college, then I don't send my kids there.

Less meddling and more ignoring would be healthy.

Jes' sayin'

Do you get to ignore your school's diversity czar?

[dismalist]

If I don't like the music, then I don't listen to it. If I don't like the college, then I don't send my kids there.

Less meddling and more ignoring would be healthy.

Jes' sayin'

Do you get to ignore your school's diversity czar?

It's not about the employees, it's about the customers. One can send one's kids to places where the diversity czar is irrelevant.

[Parasaurolophus]

So: he's blatantly unqualified to teach the subject and in that department (and clearly does a bad job of it, given what he describes of his own pedagogy); despite that, his contract kept getting renewed every year and he was promoted. He just quit because his university was so committed to employing him that it wouldn't fire him. What a whiner.

How do his qualifications compare to Nikole Hannah-Jones?

Marshy, you understand that Hannah-Jones is a practitioner who teaches what she practices, right?

So should this apply to every discipline?

Should someone with a Master's degree in any subject (as I believe Hannah-Jones has in journalism) be able to get tenure in their filed as long as they've done something "notable"?

If you look up the faculty in Colimbia's journalism program, you won't find a lot of PhDs.

[mahagonny]

If I don't like the music, then I don't listen to it. If I don't like the college, then I don't send my kids there.

Less meddling and more ignoring would be healthy.

Jes' sayin'

Do you get to ignore your school's diversity czar?

It's not about the employees, it's about the customers. One can send one's kids to places where the diversity czar is irrelevant.

How about state universities? They have to fund them with their taxes even if they find the diversity czar is out of control. Also I think it's about the employees when the employees must pay those same taxes. You have an interesting idea though. We could begin to see colleges with no diversity staff whatsoever, like the college my brother attended in the 1960's. Yet somehow he had a good career and a productive life of working, family, paying taxes. (Although he's a racist because he skips 'difficult conversations.')

Well, no. He's proposing a watchdog organization--pretty standard, anodyne stuff. Not my friend, but he seems a good fellow. I do disagree strongly with him in one crucial area, though. Clearly, the Department of Anti-Racism should be called DOAR.

What would your DOAR do about the disproportionate rate at which white Americans are murdered by black Americans? It fits the definition of something that needs to be addressed. Homicide is equally illegal for all races, but the result that statistically any random black individual (most likely male) is more likely to kill a white person than any random white individual is to kill a black person, is a 'racist' outcome for which 'the system' is responsible. Who gets to decide what the remedy is? "Black Lives Matter"? A committee appointed by Kendi? Why not Richard Spencer, since what the 'Black Lives Matter' movement, whom the government will by then have officially endorsed, is actually promoting is tribalism. What would be a reasonable timetable for resolution of the problem?

[lightning]

So: he's blatantly unqualified to teach the subject and in that department (and clearly does a bad job of it, given what he describes of his own pedagogy); despite that, his contract kept getting renewed every year and he was promoted. He just quit because his university was so committed to employing him that it wouldn't fire him. What a whiner.

How do his qualifications compare to Nikole Hannah-Jones?

Marshy, you understand that Hannah-Jones is a practitioner who teaches what she practices, right?

So should this apply to every discipline?

Should someone with a Master's degree in any subject (as I believe Hannah-Jones has in journalism) be able to get tenure in their filed as long as they've done something "notable"?

Not for every discipline, but for some disciplines, yes.

There are some disciplines where traditional measures of research simply do not apply, and instead one can (and should) look to measures of truly outstanding practice as real professionals in their fields. Journalism is one. Fine Arts, Music, Dance, Theater/Film, & Creative Writing are others.

[mahagonny]

So: he's blatantly unqualified to teach the subject and in that department (and clearly does a bad job of it, given what he describes of his own pedagogy); despite that, his contract kept getting renewed every year and he was promoted. He just quit because his university was so committed to employing him that it wouldn't fire him. What a whiner.

How do his qualifications compare to Nikole Hannah-Jones?

Marshy, you understand that Hannah-Jones is a practitioner who teaches what she practices, right?

So should this apply to every discipline?

Should someone with a Master's degree in any subject (as I believe Hannah-Jones has in journalism) be able to get tenure in their filed as long as they've done something "notable"?

Not for every discipline, but for some disciplines, yes.

There are some disciplines where traditional measures of research simply do not apply, and instead one can (and should) look to measures of truly outstanding practice as real professionals in their fields. Journalism is one. Fine Arts, Music, Dance, Theater/Film, & Creative Writing are others.

The only way you'd get a job on the tenure track without PhD though would usually be because you are a celebrity. Phylicia Rashad, for example. So as far as being in the running simply because you are great at what you do, forget it. Adjunctsville for you.

[Parasaurolophus]

So: he's blatantly unqualified to teach the subject and in that department (and clearly does a bad job of it, given what he describes of his own pedagogy); despite that, his contract kept getting renewed every year and he was promoted. He just quit because his university was so committed to employing him that it wouldn't fire him. What a whiner.

How do his qualifications compare to Nikole Hannah-Jones?

Marshy, you understand that Hannah-Jones is a practitioner who teaches what she practices, right?

So should this apply to every discipline?

Should someone with a Master's degree in any subject (as I believe Hannah-Jones has in journalism) be able to get tenure in their filed as long as they've done something "notable"?

Not for every discipline, but for some disciplines, yes.

There are some disciplines where traditional measures of research simply do not apply, and instead one can (and should) look to measures of truly outstanding practice as real professionals in their fields. Journalism is one. Fine Arts, Music, Dance, Theater/Film, & Creative Writing are others.

The only way you'd get a job on the tenure track without PhD though would usually be because you are a celebrity. Phylicia Rashad, for example. So as far as being in the running simply because you are great at what you do, forget it. Adjunctsville for you.

As lightning explained, this simply isn't true in creative fields (for many of which the doctoral credential basically doesn't exist).

[little bongo]

Well, no. He's proposing a watchdog organization--pretty standard, anodyne stuff. Not my friend, but he seems a good fellow. I do disagree strongly with him in one crucial area, though. Clearly, the Department of Anti-Racism should be called DOAR.

What would your DOAR do about the disproportionate rate at which white Americans are murdered by black Americans? It fits the definition of something that needs to be addressed. Homicide is equally illegal for all races, but the result that statistically any random black individual (most likely male) is more likely to kill a white person than any random white individual is to kill a black person, is a 'racist' outcome for which 'the system' is responsible. Who gets to decide what the remedy is? "Black Lives Matter"? A committee appointed by Kendi? Why not Richard Spencer, since what the 'Black Lives Matter' movement, whom the government will by then have officially endorsed, is actually promoting is tribalism. What would be a reasonable timetable for resolution of the problem?
[/quote]

You have an interesting (troubling?) habit of assigning ownership and intimacy to those with whom you are in disagreement ("your" DOAR; "your" friend, etc.). Might want to look into that.

If a person or an agency effectively combats racism, everyone benefits. A happier society is probably less violent, yeah? I don't know if the problem can be RESOLVED, exactly, especially since we're probably talking about something as old as Ogg punching Krodak in a cave somewhere because Krodak's skin was darker or something. But the overall arc is toward improvement, I think. Dr. Kendi's plan is potentially as good (or as ineffective) as any I've encountered--might be worth trying.

[marshwiggle]

If a person or an agency effectively combats racism, everyone benefits.

Absolutely. However, the devil is in the details.

Ministry of Truth
Ministry of Love
etc.

Be careful what you wish for.

[Diogenes]

You have a point there. The debauchery that was a defining feature (no not all of it, certainly, but much) of the rock 'n' roll culture of the 1970's and 80's didn't do Americans any good and led to significant amount of wayward living and premature death. Liberals can take credit for that too. But hip hop culture brought the decline of values to a new level. It may have been black America's attempt to get parity with white America. See? We've got our own mindless noisy debauchery that repudiates America's greatest gift to the arts, jazz music, a crowning achievement of our race. On a par with the mayhem and nihilism of people like Led Zeppelin, only more powerful, because the performers don't just denigrate women (minors) in their spare time, they do it in their 'song' lyrics.

Tired old argument with no evidence to back it. Before that it was Elvis, then R&B, then jazz, and then even ragtime getting the grumpy old man moralistic rant. Go walk up a hill. Both ways. In the snow.