Another professor bites the dust

[ciao_yall]

The wailing and gnashing of teeth about "cancel culture" when someone says something offensive is pretty ironic considering those are the same a**clowns banning childrens' books and passing laws against teaching history.

[mahagonny]

And now, ridicule.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8CT_ecNMOw

And of course, Greg Gutfeld on the evening television.

[apl68]

There is no safe or acceptable way for a man to comment on a woman's appearance in today's culture.  I have been careful to avoid doing so for decades now, even in private.  It's one of several reasons why I have abandoned all efforts at initiating any sort of close personal relationship with a woman.  It's just no longer possible without courting disaster. 

As unjust and excessive as this reaction has been, the man was awfully foolish not to be aware of this reality and bow to it, and so I have limited sympathy for him.  It does get me, though, that men who seem guilty of nothing worse than a certain cluelessness occasionally get caught by excessive reactions like this, while genuinely ugly and hurtful and misogynist junk runs unchecked across so much of the internet.  It seems like a lot of anger at really nasty but hard-to-reach targets--anonymous internet trolls, or bosses and the like who have seemingly escaped all consequences for their slights--ends up getting directed against easier targets who have been guilty of far lesser offenses.

[mahagonny]

There is no safe or acceptable way for a man to comment on a woman's appearance in today's culture.  I have been careful to avoid doing so for decades now, even in private.  It's one of several reasons why I have abandoned all efforts at initiating any sort of close personal relationship with a woman.  It's just no longer possible without courting disaster. 

As unjust and excessive as this reaction has been, the man was awfully foolish not to be aware of this reality and bow to it, and so I have limited sympathy for him.  It does get me, though, that men who seem guilty of nothing worse than a certain cluelessness occasionally get caught by excessive reactions like this, while genuinely ugly and hurtful and misogynist junk runs unchecked across so much of the internet.  It seems like a lot of anger at really nasty but hard-to-reach targets--anonymous internet trolls, or bosses and the like who have seemingly escaped all consequences for their slights--ends up getting directed against easier targets who have been guilty of far lesser offenses.

As the number of things that may not be said increases, the status associated with the rare person who can get still get away with them goes up a notch. There will probably always be those special ones who are so esteemed they are non-challengeable.

[mamselle]

A deeper, underlying issue in all of this is surfaced in apl68's comments above.

The far-reaching roots of the problem may lie in secular culture, in particular, which--faut de mieux--has idolized romantic love to the extent that gaze, which objectifies its target--whether male or female, by the way--becomes a tool of colonialization, reducing the person to an entrapped possession, denied the rights to self-determination and self-identificatoon. C. S. Lewis' "The Four Loves," which does not reflect his later, regrettable anti-Semitism, is good on this.

(NOTE, apl68, I'm not saying you do this, but it's a constant component of the "Meat-market-think" most women--but also, many men--grow up with, and so become sensitized to). Those who have been abused, of whatever gender identification, often experience it as a bait-and-switch tactic, and so, a trigger for painful recollections of the treatment that followed. An innocently-meant appreciative comment may thus set off unanticipated responses that seem explicable to the individual recipient, but opaque to those who don't know their history.

Not completely fair to an unoffending bloke who wants to just add a positive comment into the world's messy stew of dialogue (safest is, "I like that color," or "those tones of blue go well together"), but it does help to lead to a potentially more productive avenue of appreciation, which is "how people are in the world."

Conduct, consideration of others, and interactive integrity are so much more important in relational situations, and, speaking as a female, the number of times I've seen those qualities overlooked, or their importance dismissed in favor of "a doll" who "looks good on my arm" (or words/mindsets to that effect) suggests that Madison Ave. and Sunset Blvd. have done their job too well. (Friedan's discussion of this at the end of "The Feminine Mystique" is useful.)

Even--maybe especially?--among persons of faith I've known, the visual presentation seems to override personal virtues, to the extent that one can understand the bristling of an individual (again, male or female: "cute guys" of any gender ID have the same problem, but do have social permission to fight off an attacker, if the infatuation goes off the rails, whereas women have not always had leave or the training to do so--there's always that veiled threat riding beneath the compliment, as well).

It's possible to defuse some of the issues, then, by re-focusing appreciation for the deeper aesthetic of "how people are" in the world, over and above the more superficial one of "what they look like," I think. And that doesn't mean, "How they cook and clean," or "Are they good with kids?" of course, but, "how they navigate challenge, difficulty, and opposition, as well as satisfaction in life?"

All of which you and most others probably know, but the widening gyre of the conversation sometimes needs to be brought back to its focal point, it seems to me.

Put another way--I never wanted to have to fill my closet of responses with baleful looks or snappy comebacks, but I found it was necessary, finally--as a survival mechanism.

M.

[marshwiggle]

There is no safe or acceptable way for a man to comment on a woman's appearance in today's culture.  I have been careful to avoid doing so for decades now, even in private.  It's one of several reasons why I have abandoned all efforts at initiating any sort of close personal relationship with a woman.  It's just no longer possible without courting disaster. 

I've heard that many young women in business have lamented that they get less mentoring than their young male colleagues from senior male colleagues. In the MeToo era, many of these men have chosen to avoid virtually all informal interaction with women to avoid any chance of accusations. (And of course mentoring often depends on those sorts of informal interactions.)

[mahagonny]

(again, male or female: "cute guys" of any gender ID have the same problem, but do have social permission to fight off an attacker, if the infatuation goes off the rails, whereas women have not always had leave or the training to do so--there's always that veiled threat riding beneath the compliment, as well).

But they don't have a way to get their job back if they weren't rehired by the woman who was coming on to them. Which is an interesting problem for the guy, whereas he is expected to be the primary breadwinner for the family.

[Parasaurolophus]

We academics look like hysterics when the controversy is this flimsy.

With a few exceptions, everyone here on the Fora is sane, and everyone here without exception wants to stamp out racism----this is the vast majority of academics everywhere. 

I would amend that to say "the vast majority of people everywhere". Yes, everyone has biases, (which, by definition, they are unaware of), but the proportion of people who actually believe that value depends on skin colour and/or *ethnicity is pretty small.

(*A clear distinction needs to be made between genetic factors and cultural factors; patterns of behaviour in different communities, like food preferences, are easy to see, but the number of people who will put this down to genetics would be very limited.)

It's probably true that most people wouldn't explicitly endorse explicitly racist propositions such as that "Black people are inferior to white people" any more. And that's nice. But that doesn't mean there's no racism, or that they aren't racist. Because not explicitly endorsing the proposition does not entail that the rest of your beliefs aren't racist canards, or that your behaviour towards Black people doesn't substantively diverge from your behaviour towards white people. So, for instance, you might not endorse the proposition that Black people are inferior to white people. But you believe that they're genetically predisposed towards less intelligence (a belief endorsed by some on this very forum, despite having been corrected several times by actual people in the know!), that they enjoy greater physical prowess, that they have larger penises and greater sexual appetites, that they're more violent, etc., well, that adds up to pretty much the same thing.

Imagine someone who denied the proposition that the earth is flat, but who behaved in all respects as though it was (e.g. by being afraid of sailing over the horizon). We would appropriately describe them as a flat-earther, even though they explicitly disavowed that particular belief. People aren't very good at seeing and understanding what their beliefs and actions entail.

Similarly, conservatives love to say they love women, and are quick to point to their wives, mothers, and daughters. And I'm sure they believe it. But the things they say about women, the things they do to women, and the policies they endorse towards women, say otherwise.

Bad people don't usually believe they're bad people. They see themselves from the inside, and so they focus on all the (supposedly) good reasons for their actions. But at the end of the day, they're still responsible for doing very bad things to other people. At the end of the day, it's other people who judge you for your actions, not you yourself.

[mahagonny]

We academics look like hysterics when the controversy is this flimsy.

With a few exceptions, everyone here on the Fora is sane, and everyone here without exception wants to stamp out racism----this is the vast majority of academics everywhere. 

I would amend that to say "the vast majority of people everywhere". Yes, everyone has biases, (which, by definition, they are unaware of), but the proportion of people who actually believe that value depends on skin colour and/or *ethnicity is pretty small.

(*A clear distinction needs to be made between genetic factors and cultural factors; patterns of behaviour in different communities, like food preferences, are easy to see, but the number of people who will put this down to genetics would be very limited.)

It's probably true that most people wouldn't explicitly endorse explicitly racist propositions such as that "Black people are inferior to white people" any more. And that's nice. But that doesn't mean there's no racism, or that they aren't racist. Because not explicitly endorsing the proposition does not entail that the rest of your beliefs aren't racist canards, or your behaviour towards Black people doesn't substantively diverges from your behaviour towards white people. So, for instance, you might not endorse the proposition that Black people are inferior to white people. But you believe that they're genetically predisposed towards less intelligence (a belief endorsed by some on this very forum, despite having been corrected several times by actual people in the know!), that they enjoy greater physical prowess, that they have larger penises and greater sexual appetites, that they're more violent, etc., well, that adds up to pretty much the same thing.

Imagine someone who denied the proposition that the earth is flat, but who behaved in all respects as though it was (e.g. by being afraid of sailing over the horizon). We would appropriately describe them as a flat-earther, even though they explicitly disavowed that particular belief. People aren't very good at seeing and understanding what their beliefs and actions entail.

Similarly, conservatives love to say they love women, and are quick to point to their wives, mothers, and daughters. And I'm sure they believe it. But the things they say about women, the things they do to women, and the policies they endorse towards women, say otherwise.

Bad people don't usually believe they're bad people. They see themselves from the inside, and so they focus on all the (supposedly) good reasons for their actions. But at the end of the day, they're still responsible for doing very bad things to other people. At the end of the day, it's other people who judge you for your actions, not you yourself.

I'm considering showing this around to motivate swing voters to vote red in November.

[Parasaurolophus]

I'm considering showing this around to motivate swing voters to vote red in November.

Like I said, most bad people don't believe they're bad. I suspect the same is true of stupid people, too.

[mahagonny]

...And perhaps people who are indoctrinating others may not believe they are doing that. But clearly some know it because they're obviously devious.

I believe if you join Scientology that at some point you are told who they believe the anti-social people are, by name. And you are expected to regard their list as an unchallengeable statement. But they don't tell you this the day you join. They groom you first.

Perhaps someone will come along with specially trained bad-people sniffing hounds.

[mamselle]

Related in a more general way: I just ran across this--can't believe I've never seen it before.

This individual leaves very little doubt about their opinions, and what they believe needs to be done about the situation...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNuPcf8L00

...always refreshing in this murky world of values uncertainty in which we live....

M.

[apl68]

A deeper, underlying issue in all of this is surfaced in apl68's comments above.

The far-reaching roots of the problem may lie in secular culture, in particular, which--faut de mieux--has idolized romantic love to the extent that gaze, which objectifies its target--whether male or female, by the way--becomes a tool of colonialization, reducing the person to an entrapped possession, denied the rights to self-determination and self-identificatoon. C. S. Lewis' "The Four Loves," which does not reflect his later, regrettable anti-Semitism, is good on this.

(NOTE, apl68, I'm not saying you do this, but it's a constant component of the "Meat-market-think" most women--but also, many men--grow up with, and so become sensitized to). Those who have been abused, of whatever gender identification, often experience it as a bait-and-switch tactic, and so, a trigger for painful recollections of the treatment that followed. An innocently-meant appreciative comment may thus set off unanticipated responses that seem explicable to the individual recipient, but opaque to those who don't know their history.

Not completely fair to an unoffending bloke who wants to just add a positive comment into the world's messy stew of dialogue (safest is, "I like that color," or "those tones of blue go well together"), but it does help to lead to a potentially more productive avenue of appreciation, which is "how people are in the world."

Conduct, consideration of others, and interactive integrity are so much more important in relational situations, and, speaking as a female, the number of times I've seen those qualities overlooked, or their importance dismissed in favor of "a doll" who "looks good on my arm" (or words/mindsets to that effect) suggests that Madison Ave. and Sunset Blvd. have done their job too well. (Friedan's discussion of this at the end of "The Feminine Mystique" is useful.)

Even--maybe especially?--among persons of faith I've known, the visual presentation seems to override personal virtues, to the extent that one can understand the bristling of an individual (again, male or female: "cute guys" of any gender ID have the same problem, but do have social permission to fight off an attacker, if the infatuation goes off the rails, whereas women have not always had leave or the training to do so--there's always that veiled threat riding beneath the compliment, as well).

It's possible to defuse some of the issues, then, by re-focusing appreciation for the deeper aesthetic of "how people are" in the world, over and above the more superficial one of "what they look like," I think. And that doesn't mean, "How they cook and clean," or "Are they good with kids?" of course, but, "how they navigate challenge, difficulty, and opposition, as well as satisfaction in life?"

All of which you and most others probably know, but the widening gyre of the conversation sometimes needs to be brought back to its focal point, it seems to me.

Put another way--I never wanted to have to fill my closet of responses with baleful looks or snappy comebacks, but I found it was necessary, finally--as a survival mechanism.

M.

Romance is, and always has been, mainly about objectification.  It's not for nothing that we speak of "the object of one's desire."  Pornography is only a cruder, less relationally-oriented form of that objectification than romance.  And there's a massive overlap between the two (There are times when I hate, as a public librarian, being obligated to furnish some of the forms of popular fiction that are much in demand).  The terrible irony is that in a society where romantic/pornographic fantasies become ever more available and unrestrained, we see less and less in terms of actual relationships between the sexes.  Japan's an extreme example of this; we seem to be catching up with them fast. 

There's more and more romance, and more uninhibited, on display, but less and less love.  It has poisoned relations between the sexes quite severely.  In such a poisoned climate, even persons of good will can be blindsided unless they tread very, very carefully. 

[smallcleanrat]

A deeper, underlying issue in all of this is surfaced in apl68's comments above.

The far-reaching roots of the problem may lie in secular culture, in particular, which--faut de mieux--has idolized romantic love to the extent that gaze, which objectifies its target--whether male or female, by the way--becomes a tool of colonialization, reducing the person to an entrapped possession, denied the rights to self-determination and self-identificatoon. C. S. Lewis' "The Four Loves," which does not reflect his later, regrettable anti-Semitism, is good on this.

[...]

Put another way--I never wanted to have to fill my closet of responses with baleful looks or snappy comebacks, but I found it was necessary, finally--as a survival mechanism.

M.

mamselle, thanks for adding your perspective here.

What I wish more people understood was the objectification angle. He may have had nothing but good intentions, but the wording coupled with the retweet of the "darkest skin on earth" claim is highly reminiscent of the types of dehumanizing things actual racists say.

Of course, someone who was just trying to pay a compliment is going to feel like the offended reaction came out of nowhere if they are not familiar with the sorts of objectifying comments frequently aimed at women or minorities from people who really are sexist or racist. But if what they say is pretty similar to such comments, there might be a real reason the good intentions are not obvious to other people who do not know them well.



If it had been up to me, nothing would have happened to this prof beyond the Twitter responses he received from other medical professionals carrying the basic message, "I know you probably didn't intend this, but this is how it comes across." No accusations of racism, no vitriol directed at him personally, and certainly no demands for punishment.

And if he weren't a chief psychiatrist I'm not sure I would have even cared for it to go that far.

To some people, even that level of response is ridiculous.

But maybe some of this is simply understandable defensiveness when the milder, less unreasonable responses are so outnumbered by the cacophony of 'he's a racist! get him!' responses.



What I wish were more common: (1) people's initial reaction to feeling offended was to give the benefit of the doubt that no offense was intended and (2) people who unintentionally offend were open to trying to understand the perspectives of the people who were offended.*

*with the stipulation that the person explaining why they were offended is doing so in good faith

[Parasaurolophus]

Romance is, and always has been, mainly about objectification.  It's not for nothing that we speak of "the object of one's desire."

FWIW I recently read a convincing (academic) article on Harlequin romances, and how the conventions of the genre actually preclude the objectification of their heroines. I'd be happy to share the reference, if it's of interest.