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There is a disturbing trend over the past few years of using social activism as a pretense for outright harassment and bullying. The most disturbing part is th

• thaumasiotes 11y ago
  > The harassers will gladly sign their own name to the actions, with the implication that if anyone should question them then their detractors will be the next target. > Welcome to the New McCarthyism. New? How does this differ from the Old McCarthyism?
  • MCRed 11y ago
    It's a resurgence. The old McCarthyism died out after awhile, and he is saying this is it coming back, and thus "new" to distinguish it from the people who were going after "commies".
  • avn2109 11y ago
    >> "New? How does this differ from the Old McCarthyism?" I'm not the OP, but I think the OP's claim is that this McCarthyism pretends to be about social issues instead of pretending to be about communism.
    • thaumasiotes 11y ago
      Communism, as presented and as applied, was and is nothing but a social issue.
      • avn2109 11y ago
        Undoubtedly true in one sense of the word. But "social issues" for today's Yale undergrad probably pertain more to The Patriarchy and racist microaggressions than to the things that most self-professed communists discuss.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • morgante 11y ago
    It's of the "left" rather than the right.
  • tptacek 11y ago
    Well for one thing, in the Old McCarthyism, you could be called to testify before HUAC about your communist links, and there were industry-wide blacklists running.
    • talmand 11y ago
      Some of this current mindset want employment blacklists now. In some cases, they don't wait for a blacklist to take effect. They attack a person's employment directly to send a message.
      • arprocter 11y ago
        'Are you now or have you ever been overheard joking about dongles?'
        • talmand 11y ago
          I remember that episode, but I was thinking of the more recent shenanigans done against Sir Tim Hunt and others.
          • arprocter 11y ago
            You can really take your pick - there have been so many incidences. Comet guy's 'offensive' shirt was a big one
      • tptacek 11y ago
        Arguments about what people "want" aren't very interesting, since they mostly involve us trying to read other people's minds and then debating the meaningless results we get from doing that. Does some rando wants blacklists for everyone who likes Mulan? I'm sure. I don't care. To repeat: If you think even an incident like this Yale thing are reminiscent of McCarthyism, you should read more about the actual history of McCarthyism.
        • tedunangst 11y ago
  • michaelbuddy 11y ago
    because there's no mccarthy now and nobody is being asked or nearly blackmailed to identify their colleagues at work as communists so they can be brought to a hearing to make admissions or even answer questions at all. So
• MCRed 11y ago
  This is how I feel when I see the "codes of conduct" that are popping up. I know that, even though I am a minority of one type, being a white male means that if I am harassed nothing will happen, but if I disagree with my harasser they will claim that I am harassing them. The code of conduct doesn't say it (though at least one version did) but the atmosphere currently is that it's impossible for a woman or ethnic minority to be the perpetrator. The idea that there's some overarching patriarchy or power structure that, due to your gender or race, you are part of, and therefore you are fair game for abuse... is appalling.
  • erics32 11y ago
    >The code of conduct doesn't say it (though at least one version did) but the atmosphere currently is that it's impossible for a woman or ethnic minority to be the perpetrator. It's funny you mention that - the code of conduct Github tried to adopt actually did specifically say it through their 'reverse racism/sexism' clause, aka It doesn't count as racism or sexism if your target is a straight white guy. https://github.com/todogroup/opencodeofconduct/issues/84 https://github.com/todogroup/opencodeofconduct/issues/84
  • tptacek 11y ago
    That idea is nowhere in evidence here.
    • talmand 11y ago
      I'm confused, what do you mean by "here"?
      • MCRed 11y ago
        He's just signaling to his following the it's ok to down vote me, and the brigading has begun. This is how the politically correct work these days. He's PC Bro and pointing out that I'm not. Which is all the more appropriate when you consider that I'm, according to the "bros" a "queer" and this is effectively a virtual game of "smear the queer".
  • 11y ago
• bduerst 11y ago
  It's cognitive dissonance. People have always sought out ideas and philosophies to justify actions that they knew were wrong and were uncomfortable with. The scary part is sometimes they're not even aware of it or the harm they're causing.
  • gozo 11y ago
    How does this not apply to article and most of the comments to this page? The way to differentiate an unfounded opinion from a qualified one is to examine it's arguments. That requires a level of quality that neither the article, which is nearly incoherent, nor most of the comments do.
    • bduerst 11y ago
      It could apply to any number of people, situations, contexts, etc. I was referring to it in the context of the comment I was replying to.
    • Jtsummers 11y ago
      I have to ask, how is this article "nearly incoherent"? I mean, I would've liked the original letter to be posted in its entirety a bit higher up in the article, but the details on the events and various parties involved came across clearly to me.
      • gozo 11y ago
        It's not necessarily that it lacks what happened (or at least what the author says happened), but that it's hidden under rhetorical fluff and opinion. The author spends his time coming up with adjectives rather than explaining why you should agree with him or actually discussing the heart of the issue. Maybe incoherent isn't so much the right word as embellished. Take this example... > With world-altering research to support, graduates who assume positions of extraordinary power, and a $24.9 billion endowment to marshal for better or worse, Yale administrators face huge opportunity costs as they parcel out their days. or the text surrounding the e-mail > Erika Christakis reflected on the frustrations of the students, drew on her scholarship and career experience, and composed an email inviting the community to think about the controversy through an intellectual lens that few if any had considered. Her message was a model of relevant, thoughtful, civil engagement. > It’s hard to imagine a more deferential way to begin voicing her alternative view. And having shown her interlocutors that she*respects them and shares their ends, she explained her misgivings about the means of telling college kids what to wear on Halloween. It's weird how much someone supposedly advocating having an open-mind are telling you what to think without explaining why. Then you get HN comments saying how respectful her e-mail was, without talking about the issues themselves. It's written for someone that agrees with the premise of the article and won't question all the embellishments. It's apparent even by the title.
• matthewmacleod 11y ago
  What I find baffling is the lack of adult conversations about such issues. The writing I saw attributed to Erika Christakis was thoughtful, constructive, and polite. It didn't attack anybody, but promoted a viewpoint that talked about inclusion and the difficultly that can be experienced when attempting to understand the viewpoints of other groups. It's not at all combative. I guess it just seems plainly self-evident to me that sensible discussion would be far more constructive towards solving the issues at hand. Harassment achieves almost nothing.
  • nailer 11y ago
    The loud people get the attention. A 'strident voice' who openly wants to kill all men and talks about gay people as a single entity gets more attention and exposure than the more reasonable folks because they're louder, won't stop, will use their followers to attack dissenting viewpoints and because more reasonable people still see them as being on the same 'side'.
    • emily-c 11y ago
      It's interesting that the particular way these sorts of people are loud is enabled by the proliferation of social media. A side effect of society being more connected.
  • CountSessine 11y ago
    What I find baffling is the lack of adult conversations about such issues. Perhaps because the conversation is being dominated by teenagers? The 'catastrophism' that the article cites is actually a normal psychological trait shared by teenagers. What's really at fault here I think is our binary definition of adulthood - none of the students excoriating their dorm 'master' here should really be considered psychological adults.
• calibraxis 11y ago
  > Welcome to the New McCarthyism. Students getting rid of their own obnoxious house "Masters" is McCarthyism? Is getting rid of racist police is a "lynching" too? Fighting misogynist twitter death threats is a "witch hunt"? People always trot out these ridiculous metaphors to posture as the attacked ones. People on this right-wing forum don't bat an eyelid when those in power fire subordinates. They recommend it all the time. But the other way around? Horrors! Of course, Yale did get rid of the now well-known Occupy activist and anthropolist David Graeber, who possibly got blacklisted in the US. He could get zillions of jobs outside the US (he's now at London School of Economics), but not even on the long-list when applying in the US. (http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/05/13/without-cause-yale-fires-an-acclaimed-anarchist-scholar/ http://www.counterpunch.org/2005/05/13/without-cause-yale-fi...) But that's punching down, which is the mainstream order of things. Punching up is taboo.
  • Zikes 11y ago
    You're conflating unrelated issues in order to bolster your arguments and justify vigilantism.
• protonfish 11y ago
  There has been a cultural trend in America, for the past several decades at least, to believe that how you feel is the most important thing, regardless if those feelings have any rational justification. I feel it is just another manifestation of anti-intellectualism. Seeing a display such as this from students at Yale is especially disturbing.
  • dudul 11y ago
    The "right to never be offended" is pretty much accepted as being part of the bill of rights :)
• ryandrake 11y ago
  Every time I come back to this thread I have to remind myself that all this outrage is (incredibly) over an E-mail about Halloween costumes. Just when I'm sure we've all run out of more things to get offended over...