tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post5224474789617452012..comments2024-02-24T05:19:10.949-05:00Comments on Durham-in-Wonderland: The Group's Intellectual Originskcjohnson9http://www.blogger.com/profile/09625813296986996867noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-80731086309408805102007-03-11T17:31:00.000-04:002007-03-11T17:31:00.000-04:00The 88/87 should note what a wise man said.I prefe...The 88/87 should note what a wise man said.<BR/><BR/>I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.<BR/>- Frederick DouglassAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-13864683612889785812007-03-11T14:33:00.000-04:002007-03-11T14:33:00.000-04:00This reminded me of the preface to Windschuttle's ...This reminded me of the preface to Windschuttle's "The Killing of History":<BR/><BR/>"The uninitiated reader who opens a typical bok on postmodernism, hermeneutics, poststructuralism et al. must think he or she has stumbled onto a new foreign language, so obscure and dense is the prose. Now, this happens to be a very effective tactic to adopt in academic circles where there is always an expectation that things are never simple and that anyone who writes clearly is thereby being shallow. Obscurity is often assumed to equal profundity, a quality that signals a superiority over the thinking of the uneducated herd."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-85890304506024961362007-03-11T01:48:00.000-05:002007-03-11T01:48:00.000-05:00How ironic that the best way to "expatiate white g...How ironic that the best way to "expatiate white guilt" is not to join the Group of 88 but to stand against them.<BR/><BR/>Pointing the finger at them is our best defense against those who point theirs at us.<BR/><BR/>Duke Lacrosse changes everything.<BR/><BR/>"My children left Duke and UNC with stronger negative feelings toward blacks ..."<BR/><BR/>Wrong attitude.<BR/>Hate the people who call you racist, yes, hate them with the frightening intensity of the wrongfully accused, but hate them with the laserlike focus necessary to prove them wrong about you.<BR/>If you fail to focus your enemies win, as you really would be the racist they're so quick to accuse you of being. I could never give those self-righteous scum the pleasure. Could you?<BR/>It may help if you understand that this isn't about race. Does it really matter whether your accuser is black or white?<BR/>It never mattered to me -- accuse me without evidence and I'll call you a dirty liar. It's not about race; it's about self-respect.<BR/>Your kids' basic impulse to resist shows they have some self-respect, which is something at least, but they also need focus or they play right into the hands of those who are manipulating us.Laika's Last Woofhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17154089253378186942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-78545669305306601372007-03-11T01:36:00.000-05:002007-03-11T01:36:00.000-05:00Professor Johnson,Do you hate black people?Just wo...Professor Johnson,<BR/><BR/>Do you hate black people?<BR/><BR/>Just wondering,<BR/>A ReaderAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-2327977535030770582007-03-10T20:15:00.000-05:002007-03-10T20:15:00.000-05:00Mark Anthony -- Gail Dines consulant is as delusio...Mark Anthony -- Gail Dines consulant is as delusional as Niforg. I am sure he believes that we belive this c***. Who takes this guy's class? BTW, poor Samson makes a spelling error and now is immoralized for all of our lifetimes. Where is Josh when we need him>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-49421418375814796312007-03-10T17:52:00.000-05:002007-03-10T17:52:00.000-05:00Another thing the public can do is send your child...<I>Another thing the public can do is send your children to different schools. There are lots of relatively new religious or other private schools that are not dominated by PC</I><BR/><BR/>Actually, Gang88 and their ilk are hunting them down one by one. For example, a law school absolutely needs ABA qualifications in order to exist. ABA is controlled by Gang88 and their ilk and they have e.g. already ordered southern law schools to use race preferences or get disbelled from ABA (of course, there are no such requirements in ABA charter or in the law but Gang88 have the power to do so). I think one law school (in the south, I can't remember which) is now about to lose its ABA status (the school went to great lenghts to hire incompetenent students via race preferences, they admitted about 100% of those who have the race preference but ABA was still not satisfied).<BR/><BR/>Ending ABA's monopoly in law school qualifications would be crucial step regarding law schools in ending academic marxists/Gang88/PC dominance. Voting against them is another must.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-67638858316820908622007-03-10T17:20:00.000-05:002007-03-10T17:20:00.000-05:00"The themes explored by Spencer, of course, repres..."The themes explored by Spencer, of course, represent an aspect of Duke’s campus culture that seems shielded from any critical inquiry"<BR/><BR/>As well, KC, as being shielded from any opposition or need to even be addressed or corrected as part of the new CCI.<BR/><BR/>"Mark Anthony Neal’s claim that whenever he “rolls into the classroom on the first day of class,” there is always somebody “in the house quietly utter[ing] ‘who’s the nigger?’”<BR/><BR/>The people uttering "who's the nigger?"(if M.A.N’s claim were actually true) are probably uttering "who's the nigga?" and are most likely black. Certainly Mark Anthony Neal can’t mean that the word “nigger” bothers someone like himself, a self appointed “thugniggaintellectual”. <BR/><BR/>Why are we surprised by the antics of M.A.N. and his ilks? Their position as angry, unhappy Duke professors is just the culmination of a lifelong indoctrination of white hatred and victimhood. The “thugniggaintellctual” and gang seem to look at life through racially colored glasses framed in the 1960’s. They are puppets of social agitation and play their part as they’ve been taught throughout life. Their teachers, liberal professors, black role models and self loathing white leftist co-workers have prevented them from seeing outside the group box, which is just where they want them.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-7272227587015540842007-03-10T16:36:00.000-05:002007-03-10T16:36:00.000-05:00anon 2:07am wrote (italics added) --"These profess...anon 2:07am wrote (italics added) --<BR/><BR/>"<I>These</I> professors do not realize the harm <I>they</I> do to <I>their</I> own cause. The more <I>they</I> berate white males... the more <I>they</I> generate negative feelings toward <I>them</I>, <I>their race</I> and <I>their</I> ideologies."<BR/><BR/>The pronoun isn't a good fit because, as author Spencer notes, only a minority of the Group of 88 and allied faculty enablers are black.<BR/><BR/>The more interesting question is, "Why have so many white professors been so eager to condemn white students <I>on the basis of their race</I>?<BR/><BR/>This sort of behavior isn't evidence of self-hatred, it's a rational form of status competition. In their social and professional circles, these profs are earning valuable points by demonstrating the depth of their concern and activism. The 88's statements may be "incoherent, illogical, and generally poorly written," but they usefully telegraph the signatories' blanket support of Duke's aggrieved non-whites. <BR/><BR/>To appropriate a remark that blogger Steve Sailer made in the course of <A HREF="http://www.isteve.com/Film_Constant_Gardener.htm" REL="nofollow">a review of "The Constant Gardener"</A>:<BR/><BR/>"Don't assume that [white members of the Group of 88] are consumed by White Guilt. They're not blaming themselves, just white people they already hated. White culturati use black victims as props in their endless competition to win superior moral status over other whites, especially ones who make more money than they do."<BR/><BR/>So to the legal reasons why The Group of 88 is loath to admit to any errors, add their concerns about social standing.AMachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08872008617279528583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-58979465990965155432007-03-10T16:22:00.000-05:002007-03-10T16:22:00.000-05:00to anon @8)8:See the way the leftist feminists ref...to anon @8)8:<BR/>See the way the leftist feminists refuse to criticize the black rappers who refer to all women as "ho's" and "bitches" and sing (if you can call it that) the praises of demeaning women, and you will recognize the same abberation in G88's acceptance of "thugniggaintellectual" and his macho posturing. It also lays out their hypocrisy for all to see.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-50086129860911086392007-03-10T16:21:00.000-05:002007-03-10T16:21:00.000-05:00I'll try again. It's at:http://media.www.dukechro...I'll try again. It's at:<BR/><BR/>http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/ media/storage/paper884/ news/2007/03/08/Features/ They-Found.88.Problems.And.The.Dancer. Was.Just.One -2764970.shtml<BR/><BR/>The article is generally sympathetic to the 88 who, as usual, try to portray themselves as the real victims.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-81740070527035993762007-03-10T15:31:00.000-05:002007-03-10T15:31:00.000-05:00There's a new feature article about the 88 in the ...There's a new feature article about the 88 in the Chronicle at http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2007/03/08/Features/They-Found.88.Problems.And.The.Dancer.Was.Just.One-2764970.shtmlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-50449555299317616162007-03-10T15:24:00.000-05:002007-03-10T15:24:00.000-05:00CCI Item for considerationAnonymous 12:17:00 PM Sa...CCI Item for consideration<BR/><BR/>Anonymous 12:17:00 PM Said...<BR/><BR/>"I doubt that Neal means that he literally hears people calling him the n-word. I suspect that he is only talking about his anxiety that some students may be calling into question the appropriateness of having a black teacher." <BR/><BR/>Why not allow the CCI to deal with that issue 'of hearing' as a component of the undergraduate educational culture at Duke?<BR/><BR/>If he said he heard it ...then... he did! or perhaps he didn't. <BR/><BR/>I want to attend those meetigs so that I can 'gain a sense of the mentality that pervades academe today' as Bill Anderson said at 12.14.Gary Packwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05177986821224068759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-15048902255651682712007-03-10T15:07:00.000-05:002007-03-10T15:07:00.000-05:00As one who, well over a decade ago, taught for app...As one who, well over a decade ago, taught for approximately 5 years, as an adjunct, "First Amendment Rights" at an urban Law School, and who, for at least four of those years, read the circular for the organization that recruits law school professors which provided, quite blatantly, that white, heterosexual males need not apply, I applaud the article - but add: What do you expect?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-90339602364430552122007-03-10T15:05:00.000-05:002007-03-10T15:05:00.000-05:00Chafe’s infamous Chronicle op-ed, which argued tha...<I>Chafe’s infamous Chronicle op-ed, which argued that the whites who lynched Emmett Till provided the appropriate historical context through which to view the lacrosse players’ behavior, captured the sentiment.</I><BR/><BR/>That's a remarkably stupid assertion of historical context, especially from a professor of history. The whole "gang rape" claim was hugely implausible just from the context. Chafe is living in a fantasy world. Too bad his hateful fantasies are hurting real people.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-21123219059204208112007-03-10T15:00:00.000-05:002007-03-10T15:00:00.000-05:00Richard Spencer does present a compelling piece an...Richard Spencer does present a compelling piece and if nothing else culturally positions this Gang of 88. Spencer is very courageous because he is still in school and seeking his PhD and no one should doubt that these 88 thugs will attempt to deny him that. They have a very jaundiced view of academic freedom and free speech.<BR/><BR/>There is a very simple solution to this problem but Brodhead does not have the fortitude to do it. Every one of these 88 people has overstepped their fiduciary responsibilities according to the faculty guide. <BR/><BR/>Therefore they should be cited by the President, made to admit their mistakes, or be terminated. Then let them fight it in court. There is a difference between legitimate education and pure hate. And there is not place on any campus including Duke for pure hate. Fire them and make it an example.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-18472542533183555272007-03-10T14:56:00.000-05:002007-03-10T14:56:00.000-05:00JLS says... A few points:1. The author incorrectl...JLS says... <BR/><BR/>A few points:<BR/><BR/>1. The author incorrectly IDed the Chemistry Prof who wrote about this in the fall as an economist when it was the economics deparment that later wrote the letter welcoming all students in their classes regardless of races ie white, sex ie male, sports affliation etc.<BR/><BR/>2. The author probably generalized too much about the academic credentials of the signees based on race. I have not looked but I am sure there are some black members of the 88 gangsters with very solid intellectual contributions and some white signees who like some of the black signees try to politically justify their inclusion on the Duke faculty.<BR/><BR/>3. I really liked his assertion that the 88 gangsters or their official arm the CCI want to be Committee on Public Safety. I an certainly believe they would like the death penalty for heretics to the PC religion or at least to guillotine the academic careers of the heretics.<BR/><BR/>4. As for what the public can do. They can first and for most make Duke SUFFER until Duke reforms. That is suffer in donations and applications etc. I know for Duke alums and other with an emotional commitment to Duke this is tough particularly that there are similar faculty factions many other places, but this is the most outrageous high profile example of PC running amuck on campus and if it goes unsanctioned it will encourage worse behavior. <BR/><BR/>Another thing the public can do is send your children to different schools. There are lots of relatively new religious or other private schools that are not dominated by PC. Pick the one closest to your views and send your child there. <BR/><BR/>Alternatively send you child to a state school and monitor what they are taking. Even if you child is now at Duke and your best choice is for them to finish, take control of their schedule. Make sure they don't take angry studies or other classes that are EASY high grade in exchange for listenning to and spitting back the propoganda in them. That is the deal the average student makes. They take these worthless classes because they are easy, the lead to a high grade and a higher GPA and allow you to work harder in your serious courses.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-12613201936717927142007-03-10T13:36:00.000-05:002007-03-10T13:36:00.000-05:00I read the piece, and in part I agree with the com...I read the piece, and in part I agree with the commenter who noted the word-choice blooper (and there's another one in there) -- but clearly, whatever The American Conservative is paying its editors, it's too much. This is a problem in a piece that's trying to attack the 88 on the basis of intellectual respectability. (I think, by the way, KC, that a "PhD candidate" is strictly speaking an ABD -- sounds like this guy is more of an ordinary grad student, and probably on his way to being fed up and leaving the program!)<BR/><BR/>I think the piece actually starts to discuss the real problem just before it ends: the 88 feel able, irrespective of their scholarly qualifications, to bully their way to "enforcing" intellectual incoherence. The main problem, which the piece doesn't discuss, is the scholarly dilemma as we now see it -- professors simply expect to have their rear ends kissed, right cheek, left cheek, or smack dab in the center. I think this is the basic assumption under which the 88 (and most others) operate, that whatever they say, no matter how poorly prepared they may be for class or how incoherent their expression, their words will be respectfully regurgitated at the appropriate time. Thus the hysteria when they discover the public at large finds them ridiculous (as do the students, but they have the sense to keep their mouths shut for as long as the 88 or their cronies can give them a grade). "Terror"? Humm.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-73760223491546842112007-03-10T13:35:00.000-05:002007-03-10T13:35:00.000-05:00I join in those impressed that Spencer dared to wr...I join in those impressed that Spencer dared to write this, especially as a Ph.D. candidate who has yet to defend (in History, no less). I don't think I would have had the guts to do that. Sadly, I find his analysis spot-on.<BR/><BR/><I>By “critical thought” she seems to mean empathic nodding, endless “listening,” and the complete absence of criticism directed at professors.</I><BR/><BR/>Sadly, all too true. I can't remember the amount of times "critical discussion" in my seminar classes has consisted of exactly that.<BR/><BR/>I echo Bill Anderson in worrying about the state of higher education. I could hope that the Duke scandal would force universities across the country to start rethinking their ideological assumptions, but somehow I don't think that's going to happen. As it stands now, I will say that from my experience, you don't go to school in the humanities to learn to think. You go to learn how to parrot vague phrases like "hegemonic discourse" and "paradigm," etc. Will things ever get better in my lifetime? I honestly don't know....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-19785906881707718332007-03-10T13:17:00.000-05:002007-03-10T13:17:00.000-05:00I certtainly wouldn't have had the courage to ctic...I certtainly wouldn't have had the courage to cticize the Emperor's lack of clothing as a non tenured person-let alone someone who's not completed his degree.A possible apocryphal point.One of my younger brothers-a clinical psychologist wrote a paper as a grad student about"contrived uniquesness." He citerd people who alter the spelling of their names-such as Thom,Gregg,Robyn.Just wondering what's on Dr.W's birth certificate.<BR/>(Of course there's nothing wrong with being a pompous intellectual twit).<BR/> CorwinAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-12887484160547085712007-03-10T12:48:00.000-05:002007-03-10T12:48:00.000-05:00Has "thug-nigga-intellectual" written anything lat...Has "thug-nigga-intellectual" written anything lately? That is, perhaps, the great name ever created!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-3761153280207823432007-03-10T12:38:00.000-05:002007-03-10T12:38:00.000-05:00"Indeed, Spencer notes, the history professor “see..."Indeed, Spencer notes, the history professor “seems unable to view the lacrosse team’s hiring of a black stripper outside the ‘context’ of his gothic portrayal of miscegenation.”"<BR/><BR/>It's not unusual to use a particular framework to understand or analyze a situation. What's disconcerting is the thoughtless use of an clearly inappropriate one in analyzing the Lacrosse situation. That Chafe uses it implies a lack of intelllectual flexibility or a narrowness of thought. I think this is a partial result of having so many similar thinking (leftist) people on Humanities faculties. In the long run these faculties would be better served by having more intellectual diversity in addition to the usual diversities.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-89356235064486820562007-03-10T12:17:00.000-05:002007-03-10T12:17:00.000-05:00The post and the article by Spencer are very good ...The post and the article by Spencer are very good commentary on the group of 88. They describe a situation that is certainly not exclusive to Duke.<BR/><BR/>The public behavior of Mark Neal is quite bizarre. It seems he is involved in some kind of act that is part menace and part minstrel. It is hard to imagine why he is saying these things as his buffoonery clearly holds black people up to public ridicule. <BR/><BR/>Meeting a class for the first time is a bit anxiety producing even after decades of teaching. One wonders how he or she is going to be perceived by the sea of unfamiliar faces. That is part of the job. And it is not hard to imagine that for a minority professor there are understandable anxieties about how the collection of new peoples will respond to having a minority teacher. <BR/><BR/>I doubt that Neal means that he literally hears people calling him the n-word. I suspect that he is only talking about his anxiety that some students may be calling into question the appropriateness of having a black teacher. <BR/><BR/>What is disturbing is that he seems to have taken some combination of opening day jitters and minority vulnerability and publicly portrayed it as active hostile behavior towards him. This is a good metaphor for the whole lacrosse case.<BR/><BR/>Just as it doesn't matter to the group of 88 whether the lacrosse players actually did any of the things they are accused of, it doesn't matter to Neal whether his students actually made racist comments or even noticed that he was black. What matters to Neal is these are situations that give him anxiety. He has handled his anxieties by denying the humanity of his students just as so many have denied the humanity of the members of the lacrosse team. <BR/><BR/>The next question is why are there so many liberal enablers of this behavior. It seems that they come in two stripes. The first are the holier-than-thou types who seize upon incidents like the rape allegations to posture as somehow more righteous than others. The second are those that operate under an immense cloud of shame over the historic inequities of a distant past for which they could not possible bear any responsibility. Yet they feel diminished by this shame and incidents of alleged racial prejudice push them deeper into this humiliation. Their signing of the letters and the making of public statements about the lacrosse players is basically a plea to be separated from the general indictment for racism that have arisen from the accusations in this case. <BR/><BR/>What is clear about the enablers is that they are concerned primarily with themselves. If they were genuinely concerned with black people or real victims of sexual assault they would be telling the very vocal "listeners", the pot-bangers and the ad signing professors to back off. The facts in this case do not support their narratives and refusing to back down is insuring that in the future honest victims of racial prejudice or sexual violence will have a tougher time making their claims credible. <BR/><BR/>Finally there is the question of why the Duke administration including the President, the Board of Trustees and the members of the Academic Senate, have been so hesitant to confront even the most outrageous remarks of Baker or Neal. It certainly was not out of a respect for free speech since they had no problem condemning the lacrosse players in no uncertain terms. <BR/><BR/>There seems to be an unspoken consensus that members of the Duke community that can wrap themselves in the mantle of victimhood are somehow beyond accountability for their words or their actions. By granting minorities and women their own fiefdoms in the academic and administrative sections of the university, the administrators have abdicated their own role in insuring quality. In the end this is no favor to the groups they are allegedly trying to help. <BR/><BR/>By housing the study of women and minorities outside traditional disciplines, they have exempted these fields from the normal scrutiny to which the rest of the academic world is subject. In a real sense Mark Neal is the creation of this kind of negligence. Under this system he is rewarded for his posturing. <BR/><BR/>School's would be hard pressed to defend its integrity if it treated punk rock as a serious academic subject. But Mark Neal seems to be a professor of popular black culture. His taking on a thug personna is part of his academic self-portrayal. There is no way he could be doing that if the powers that be at the university had not exempted him from normal academic scrutiny. His act is a joke, a painful embarassment to all the blacks who have earned their academic credentials. And it is hard to imagine that the administrators who facilitate his spectacle really have the interests of black people at heart.<BR/><BR/>There is no easy way out of this mess for either Duke or most other colleges and universities with similar configurations. A start might be holding the group of 88 accountable for their actions.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-42930479894683652602007-03-10T12:05:00.000-05:002007-03-10T12:05:00.000-05:00I must confess that the sheer ineptitude evinced b...I must confess that the sheer ineptitude evinced by the Group of 88 bothers me more than the hate mongering and racism. One expects a certain amount of extremism from public intellectuals but the Group of 88 just seems so <I>bad</I> at it. <BR/><BR/>I have begun to think that in contemporary academia "academic freedom" means the freedom to be incompetent.Shannon Lovehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17912483436448082527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-76151921363800437182007-03-10T11:26:00.000-05:002007-03-10T11:26:00.000-05:0012:28amWhat can you do?Bombard the News & Observer...12:28am<BR/><BR/>What can you do?<BR/><BR/>Bombard the News & Observer with letters and complaints and demand that they cover this dogazz Group of 88 destructive maggots.<BR/>The N&O should be analyzing and weighing this situation and how these people were able to get away with what they did to harm these three innocent young men. And now with no apology at all.<BR/>Why are they still drawing a six figure salary when Duke alumni could do something about all of this?<BR/>Public pressure. Lights continually shining on this crowd of bums is the only way to change this mess.<BR/>Brodhead must be forced to do the right thing, for he surely will not on his own.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32542246.post-39700415944011946682007-03-10T11:17:00.000-05:002007-03-10T11:17:00.000-05:00Better to call this "The Group's ANTI-Intellectual...Better to call this "The Group's ANTI-Intellectual Origins".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com