An enormous number of academic philosophers, some seven hundred, signed a hilarious “open letter” supposedly condemning “transphobia in philosophy“, but in reality trying to slit the throat—metaphorically!—of a fellow academic who they falsely accused of a non-crime.
The prissy pack of professors went, torches in hand, after Kathleen Stock, a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sussex, accusing her of being “a prominent critic of trans-inclusive stances and policies” and being against the UK Gender Recognition Act.
Problem is, as Nathan Cofnas and many others pointed out, she isn’t: “Stock supports the UK Gender Recognition Act.”
When the mush-minded experts were informed of this, they decided their pride counted more than truth, and so let the false petition stand. They did not retract. They did not hide their blushing faces. Most importantly, they, academic philosophers all, did not rethink their position.
They instead, quietly, inserted a wee small footnote, buried in tiny print at the end of the false accusations:
Erratum: the original version of this letter incorrectly stated that Stock opposes the UK’s Gender Recognition Act. This was an error; it should have said that Stock is well-known for opposing amendments to the Gender Recognition Act that would have made it easier for people to self-identify their gender. The bracketed amendment in the text above was added subsequent to some of the signatures. We apologize for the error.
Opposing additional bureaucracy is not equivalent to not supporting people claiming to be, and having the government using force of arms and other threats to insist everybody else also agree, whatever people feel like.
Feelings, these academics evidently say, cause Reality itself to shift, to change as if by miracle, and they’re willing to use coercion, fines, and various forms of punishment, to make you say the same thing.
This is known as academic freedom.
Since Reality is indifferent to your feelings, and you can’t turn from a man to woman, and back again, as many do, on whims, Stock is a nut, and the academic philosophers who signed the letter are nuttier.
Incidentally, if feelings turn a man into a woman, and vice versa, why is it feelings cannot turn a man into a frog or a dog—as the furries insist? Why can you not turn into a Buick, or a salad, or whatever your heart delights in? Why is it only sexual perversion that knows the secret location of the Reality switching knobs?
Never mind. That’s just me blowing off steam. The questions are all rhetorical. Forget, too, that they’re trying to stop (while saying they’re not) people from discussing the philosophy while condemning “attacks on already marginalized people for courageous exercises of free speech.” Hypocrisy is unknown to academic philosophers.
I do not argue the philosophy here, which is pointless when dealing with zealots. Instead, let’s take a look at some of the institutions from those who signed the false accusations:
Cal State, University of Guelph, London School of Economics, University of Glasgow, Exeter University, University of Barcelona, MIT, University College London, Georgetown University, University of Vermont (and of many, many other states; any missing?), Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, Rutgers, Carnegie Mellon University, Villanova, Northeastern University, Vassar, Tufts, Boston, Princeton, York, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Osaka University (yes), National University of Singapore, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences.
On and on it goes. Near as I can figure (laziness stopped my looking), every university once considered “major” or “important” is on the list.
Which means this: the last place you want to go if you want to learn philosophy is a “major” or “important” university. Propaganda you will learn, not philosophy. They will instruct you in how to embrace your inner insanities. You will get to know all about fad and how it grips weak minds.
But about Truth you will not learn.
How many times have I insisted we need a new model of university if Truth and Reality are to survive? Who’s got the money? Not I.
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The only thing amazing is how fast and how worldwide the insanity hit. Within less than a decade, the entire world has mush for brains. My guess is electronic soma and social isolation, the destruction of the family unit, etc. The family unit destruction began in the 60’s but has reached the point where there is no such thing as family and zero commitment, allowing the social media to be the only thing a human has for “comfort” and “connection”. Legalizing marijuana helped, as drugged humans are compliant because they just don’t care. Brave New World is reality at this point, as are 1984 and the Matrix.
As for what we can do–NOTHING. This is a “nature smacks you down hard” scenario, with death and wailing and gnashing of teeth. One supposes we should have considered the outcome of the insanity, but historically, there are ZERO cases where we did and ZERO cases where nature did not smack us down. One day I hope to find the answer to why God made such stupid, flawed, horrible creatures in his image. If I were a logic student (and I was), that leads to a terrifying conclusion based on available evidence…….Here’s to hoping the explanation is better than logic supplies. Other than handing the creation over to evil…..
Oh, and God still owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology for what was done to them. They were amateurs compared to the evil and Godlessness of today.
“and you can’t turn from a man to woman, and back again, as many do, on whims, Stock is a nut”
But this is what Prof. Stock thinks, as well. She agrees with you. Is she a nut for doing so?
Really—her position on this is clear, public, and often repeated.
There were petitions like this in former Communist countries. For example “Against western imperialist subversion in visual arts”. The regime used them to separate the obedient (or the rare true believer) from the troublemakers.
Briggs, I agree with your comment made on Twitter.
It’s not the craziness that I object to. Knock yourself out if that’s what you want to think…. It’s the presumption and mandate that *everyone else* agree with the crazy and play along with it.
Incidentally, this is the whole point of “my pronouns”. You’ll notice that those particular pronouns are never first-person, which are the only ones that “belong” to an individual. It’s the third-person variety that they are always “sharing” with everyone else. Why? Because they want to control speech, and accordingly, just like IngSoc (i.e. Orwell), reality.
A conversation between two people about someone else belongs to those two people. The object of the discussion has no ownership in the discussion. This is the very definition of “third-person”. The two parties in the discussion are discussing a third party who isn’t there.
The crazy person wants to control the language of the other persons because they might admit they aren’t playing along with the craziness.
But the truth is, in a free society, the two conversing parties are – and should be – free to use whatever language they want to discuss that third person, including less kind terms, like “asshole” and “freak”. The third person may not like it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.
I checked some of the people from Central Europe (because that is my area) and noticed a few interesting details:
1) Lots of them do “philosophy of logic” – aside from being a bullshit topic, is this one of the big vectors through which this gender cancer is spreading?
2) There is a strong Anglo bias among the people: Gareth R. Pearce (Anglo-UK) and Grace Paterson (Scottish-UK) of University of Vienna? Andrew Tedder (Anglo-UK) and Berta Grimau (Spain?) of Czech Academy of Sciences? Joe Dewhurst (Scottish-UK) and John Dougherty (Irish-USA) of University of Munich? Etc etc.
3) All of them are young. Millenials and the odd late GenX-er (this one is less interesting)
Seeing a fellow “Van” on the list of signatories, a Professor Bryan W. Van Norden on the philosophy faculty at Vassar College, I took a brief excursion exploring his bona fides. As far as I could determine, Professor Norden espouses that Chinese Philosophy has been rashly excluded from college curriculums by western academics in favor of their “own” indigenous thinkers. His most significant justification for more inclusive curricula (pl. form) is that Chinese / Asian / Oriental thinkers are incommensurable with their Western counterparts and thus their study would contribute expansively (if not indispensably) to Philosophy pedagogy. Professor Norden is himself a Chinese philosophy scholar so his views on this subject do not surprise. However, his Great Leap Forward into The Pronoun Wars as signatory on Open Letter Concerning Transphobia in Philosophy suggest to me that his penchant for championing universal equivalencies may perhaps constitute pathological obsession with marginalization itself.
Do these people (this is questionable!) realise that collectively they have turned themselves into a fruitcake?
The wealthy in America are united in terms of ideology and their ideology is actualised through the courts which is why, despite the vast % of Americans opposed to gay right and gay marriage, both became the law of the land and it is why transsexualism in some legal form or another, will also be enacted via the Judiciary. IT is ineluctable.
Rosa Luxemburg was right that revolutionary tactics (in this case the unified ideology of the wealthy imposed via the Judiciary) is the road to majorities.
Prior to the Judiciary imposing gay rights/marriage on society there existed large percentage of citizens opposed to both but once the Judiciary imposed that malign ideology on them the voters, slowly but surely, came to make their peace with the revolution.
The same thing will happen with transsexualism despite one’s private idea that it is an scientific absurdity.
Is there any way to stop this?
Sure, all one has to do is find a politician willing to start a movement to repeal the second constitution that repealed the first one, The Civil Rights Acts.
One can identify Rand Paul as about the only national politician who knows The Civil Rights Act must be repealed but he does not have a national following nor is he possessed of the ocean of testosterone required to
even think about making that a public cause.
@Amateur Brain Surgeon
The only way to repeal the CRA is to win the hearts and minds of the kids. Once of the reasons the gay and transsexual population because so beloved is because they successfully convinced dumb people that their perverse behaviors were actually innate, therefore it was analogous to black skin and any restrictions thereon were just as illogical as Jim Crow and segregation.
Point being, kids are taught very early on to idolize MLK and the civil rights movement, so it wasn’t a far step to convince them of something else that was just a righteous and nice, even if it was completely unrelated.
Trying to repeal the CRA – even if it’s the right thing to do – will be a terribly hard thing to do, if only because people have been taught that it’s akin to the Bible as far as infallibility.
But I do agree with you. It’s the only way to fix this.
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To nobody’s surprise, the two Very Leftist Amsterdam Universities are there. But the equally Leftist Nijmegen is not, which is a bit weird. Maybe they are still old-fashioned Marxists or Trotstkyist, when the goal was to liberate the workers.
>> prissy pack of professors
Such a delightful phrase!
Given the wretched state of our current existence, just rolling that phrase (and the resulting mental images) around is enough to brighten the day all by itself!
It makes it virtually impossible for the rest of the article to live up to the opening though!
Alas, the harsh realities of wordsmithing.
Meetings in academia are pettier and more immature than a group of high school girls.
Well, I feel that God exists which means He does and these people need to watch out
Feelings, nothing more than feelings…….
It’s “Selma envy,” as was delightfully coined by an article on The Federalist. Championing of the socially downtrodden is the only moral purpose believed in any more by the educated elite, who ache that they were born too late to march with MLK, so the only way to feel relevant and important is to participate in such shame-mob exercises.
(Let it be stipulated for the record that there may be some among these denouncers whose indignation flows from genuine direct compassion, e.g. they have a personal friend or family member who has actually suffered for being gender dysphoric in a way they think such laws will prevent in future. But I do not think it is long odds to bet that this does not explain anywhere near the majority of seven hundred people.)
Sheri: What you say about the speed of transmission of present era´s madness is my main concern too.
I´ve tried to figure it out, but I am always left with the feeling that there´s something we all are missing.
Yes, I agree about the characteristics of modern, easy world as the main brain modeller. We usually talk about brain washing in universities, but it would not be possible at such high scale without serious damage previously done, and that´s where your “electronic soma and social isolation” come into play, and also other key factors as totally urban youngsters who take this planetary-sized human amusement park that we call civilized world for granted, and know nothing about what it takes to actually build it from point zero.
But there necessarily must be something else, so far from our thought frame that we don´t even consider it. I don´t want to sound like a nutcase, but there is no logical explanation, credible timeline or direct cause-effect in what is going on and the speed of transmission of this idiocy. because it Maybe we´ll know someday, but something weirder is going on here.
BTW, Mr. Briggs: I see you have Dr. Binder as a follower in Twitter. He´s been fighting like a lion every single day since Coronadoom beginning, with good reasoning and data, risking his status as a reportedly well-known cardiologist in Switzerland.
This stuff used to confuse me until I realized what the majority of these people want: they don’t actually believe that men (defined classically) can become women (defined classically), or vice versa. What they want is for the social definition of “man” and “woman” to be expanded to include people who identify as trans. Their goal is linguistic and, in the realm of natural languages, perfectly valid. A linguistic fight is currently going on in English as to how we will socially define the words “man” and “woman.”
James, this is a rebellion against a God they want deny.
“He created them, man and woman ” and so, they can have none of that..
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