If you google the name of beleaguered academic Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania, you will find much outraged condemnation of her racism and white supremacy. One petition to have her fired from her position as distinguished Professor of Law zeroed in on
Another embarrassment for universities in the U.S. The principle of freedom of speech is only relevant when people disagree with its content. Also, hurt feelings do not constitute grounds for dismissal, but rather an opportunity for discourse and conflict resolution. What better learning opportunity for any college? Instead, they condemn.
gracias for bringing this example forward. it seems so crazy that i suspect that we are near when this anti-speech anti-thinking anti-life baloney will begin to be recognised as the junk food of a poisoned mind and that it begins to fall even more quickly than it is to the ground under the instability of its own stupidity.
I signed and shared the petition. Professor Wax is eloquent in her articulation of the need for and the merits of a counternarrative to woke DEI. Unfortunately, she is seriously out of fashion, as can be seen from the relative numbers who have signed the petitions: 86000 against her, 110 for her.
We'll probably never get over the combination of the Civil Rights movement with woke socialism. The pipe dream of the DEI demons is that if you just take impoverished underachievers and install them in middle class housing, study programs and jobs that they can't really handle, and throw money at them they'll somehow absorb middle class life skills through immersion and osmosis. God only knows how long it's going to take for people to see that it doesn't work.
Thank you very much, Janice. I am very grateful to the University of Philadelphia, where Morton Benson worked and produced his iconic Serbo-Croatian-English and English-Serbo-Croatian dictionaries. It is a shame that it is now engaged in persecuting Amy Wax. I signed the petition. I must say though, that I also enjoyed Jon Haidt's column attacking her views.
The zealous emotional reactions to straw men is getting really tiresome. It's so....LOW IQ, ironically. I read somewhere that men, in general, seek truth. Women seek moral superiority. We're now being oppressed by this church lady idiocy everywhere we turn. Perhaps the hardest to stomach are men who fall prey to this hysterical rejection of truth.
It isn't just that they can't take the average intelligence assertion with equanimity. It's that the very mention that there are differing levels of intelligence sends them into spasms of moral outrage. Yet, shouldn't it be obvious to everyone that people shipped to North America from a continent that for the most part was primitive, with people living in a manner that Europeans had left behind centuries before, would say something about what those people value -- and what they don't? Shouldn't we all have observed that perhaps you can't speed-up the process of adapting from a primitive culture to one nurtured by people who sat around indoors half the year, writing philosophy? There are the languages too -- quite indicative of the intellect: fruits are not individually named. They are "tree fruit" or "bush fruit." Note the lack of specificity and word salad that is spoken (NOT ALL!!!!!) I've recognized this pattern -- just as I've recognized, from working with Asian students, that they excel at taking direction, but struggle to come up with an individual opinion, draw inferences, or make connections (despite the assertion that their IQ's are higher than whites.) Again, look at the culture. Whites kept moving. Asians retained the same or very similar culture for centuries until about the 19th century when the world opened up due to whites running around all over the place. Again, this difference should be OBVIOUS. Add to this the neanderthal DNA in Europeans, Denisovan in Asians, and neither in Africans. There is DNA difference that likely caused certain effects.
If we don't listen to people like Amy Wax, we won't be able to lift these people up. Burying the problem does not solve it. And worse -- standards are being lowered to accommodate them. This will bring disastrous effects on our society. It's also "racist."
In the past month, two church ladies fled clutching pearls. One who was misrepresenting the conservative perspective on climate change. Didn't I know it's been settled -- there's a consensus! since he was in third grade (in the 70s). It was nearly impossible to contain my bemused smirk, especially since I was citing a book by a former member of the Obama Administration ("Unsettled," by Stephen Koonin).
The next fainting church lady fled over the "Bloodbath" straw man, and my pointing out that the Times piece on it was irresponsible, that Bari Wiess left the Times due to anti-semitism, and that yes, there IS a problem with flooding "sanctuary cities" with criminals from Venezuela. It didn't seem to matter that my partner is Venezuelan, and that I was citing him when I said people drive armored cars and can't go out without a bodyguard due to the criminals running the show. And speaking of our THREATENED DEMOCRACY, I don't recall on any ballot the following: Defunding police, Men in women's bathrooms, Sanctuary cities, paying off the student loans of people making over 100 grand a year.
I'm going to play Devil's advocate for Wax's detractors. The idea that some groups are better than others has been used to justify terrible treatment of whole groups. Case in point: the idea that women are less violent has resulted in female abusers getting lenient treatment and male victims being discounted. So, yeah, her statements have some... troubling subtext that shouldn't be dismissed too easily. Though I still support her right to free speech - because her ideas should be exposed and challenged based on their merit (or lack thereof).
I am inclined to attribute the rage Prof Wax has encountered to her work constituting a narcissistic injury to the pathetic university collective ego. Decline & Fall meets Christopher Lasch.
Thank you for your essay. We need to take back pride in Western culture. Those advocating for her dismissal don't understand that it is the very culture they are deriding that allows their expression. I can't imagine China or other cultures firing academics for championing their culture. Of course, previously China did but that was the Cultural Revolution. We have just rebranded it CRT.
Another embarrassment for universities in the U.S. The principle of freedom of speech is only relevant when people disagree with its content. Also, hurt feelings do not constitute grounds for dismissal, but rather an opportunity for discourse and conflict resolution. What better learning opportunity for any college? Instead, they condemn.
gracias for bringing this example forward. it seems so crazy that i suspect that we are near when this anti-speech anti-thinking anti-life baloney will begin to be recognised as the junk food of a poisoned mind and that it begins to fall even more quickly than it is to the ground under the instability of its own stupidity.
I signed and shared the petition. Professor Wax is eloquent in her articulation of the need for and the merits of a counternarrative to woke DEI. Unfortunately, she is seriously out of fashion, as can be seen from the relative numbers who have signed the petitions: 86000 against her, 110 for her.
In defense of free speech we must reject and defend against the bullying, shaming, shunning efforts of cancel culture fueled by misandry.
Excellent post as always.
We'll probably never get over the combination of the Civil Rights movement with woke socialism. The pipe dream of the DEI demons is that if you just take impoverished underachievers and install them in middle class housing, study programs and jobs that they can't really handle, and throw money at them they'll somehow absorb middle class life skills through immersion and osmosis. God only knows how long it's going to take for people to see that it doesn't work.
Thank you very much, Janice. I am very grateful to the University of Philadelphia, where Morton Benson worked and produced his iconic Serbo-Croatian-English and English-Serbo-Croatian dictionaries. It is a shame that it is now engaged in persecuting Amy Wax. I signed the petition. I must say though, that I also enjoyed Jon Haidt's column attacking her views.
The zealous emotional reactions to straw men is getting really tiresome. It's so....LOW IQ, ironically. I read somewhere that men, in general, seek truth. Women seek moral superiority. We're now being oppressed by this church lady idiocy everywhere we turn. Perhaps the hardest to stomach are men who fall prey to this hysterical rejection of truth.
It isn't just that they can't take the average intelligence assertion with equanimity. It's that the very mention that there are differing levels of intelligence sends them into spasms of moral outrage. Yet, shouldn't it be obvious to everyone that people shipped to North America from a continent that for the most part was primitive, with people living in a manner that Europeans had left behind centuries before, would say something about what those people value -- and what they don't? Shouldn't we all have observed that perhaps you can't speed-up the process of adapting from a primitive culture to one nurtured by people who sat around indoors half the year, writing philosophy? There are the languages too -- quite indicative of the intellect: fruits are not individually named. They are "tree fruit" or "bush fruit." Note the lack of specificity and word salad that is spoken (NOT ALL!!!!!) I've recognized this pattern -- just as I've recognized, from working with Asian students, that they excel at taking direction, but struggle to come up with an individual opinion, draw inferences, or make connections (despite the assertion that their IQ's are higher than whites.) Again, look at the culture. Whites kept moving. Asians retained the same or very similar culture for centuries until about the 19th century when the world opened up due to whites running around all over the place. Again, this difference should be OBVIOUS. Add to this the neanderthal DNA in Europeans, Denisovan in Asians, and neither in Africans. There is DNA difference that likely caused certain effects.
If we don't listen to people like Amy Wax, we won't be able to lift these people up. Burying the problem does not solve it. And worse -- standards are being lowered to accommodate them. This will bring disastrous effects on our society. It's also "racist."
In the past month, two church ladies fled clutching pearls. One who was misrepresenting the conservative perspective on climate change. Didn't I know it's been settled -- there's a consensus! since he was in third grade (in the 70s). It was nearly impossible to contain my bemused smirk, especially since I was citing a book by a former member of the Obama Administration ("Unsettled," by Stephen Koonin).
The next fainting church lady fled over the "Bloodbath" straw man, and my pointing out that the Times piece on it was irresponsible, that Bari Wiess left the Times due to anti-semitism, and that yes, there IS a problem with flooding "sanctuary cities" with criminals from Venezuela. It didn't seem to matter that my partner is Venezuelan, and that I was citing him when I said people drive armored cars and can't go out without a bodyguard due to the criminals running the show. And speaking of our THREATENED DEMOCRACY, I don't recall on any ballot the following: Defunding police, Men in women's bathrooms, Sanctuary cities, paying off the student loans of people making over 100 grand a year.
Enough is enough. But how to get it to stop?
Great work Janice.
How despicable the universities are for collaborating in all this censorship.
I'm going to play Devil's advocate for Wax's detractors. The idea that some groups are better than others has been used to justify terrible treatment of whole groups. Case in point: the idea that women are less violent has resulted in female abusers getting lenient treatment and male victims being discounted. So, yeah, her statements have some... troubling subtext that shouldn't be dismissed too easily. Though I still support her right to free speech - because her ideas should be exposed and challenged based on their merit (or lack thereof).
Signed and tweeted. What a sham our universities have become. It is hard to believe the ignorance of these elites.
This is a spirited, energetic defense of real academic freedom. You’re courageous, and you’re correct.
A worthy initiative. Signed.
I am inclined to attribute the rage Prof Wax has encountered to her work constituting a narcissistic injury to the pathetic university collective ego. Decline & Fall meets Christopher Lasch.
Thank you for your essay. We need to take back pride in Western culture. Those advocating for her dismissal don't understand that it is the very culture they are deriding that allows their expression. I can't imagine China or other cultures firing academics for championing their culture. Of course, previously China did but that was the Cultural Revolution. We have just rebranded it CRT.
Terrifyingly reminiscent of struggle sessions during Mao's Cultural Revolution.
"would do well to ensure that America remain a white-majority country"
Is that the issue here?