7 ms·

These intellectually bankrupt movements horrify me. Perfectly-well-meaning people, while supposedly building a bright tomorrow, create hell. Just like the 1950s

by rdancer 11y ago

These intellectually bankrupt movements horrify me. Perfectly-well-meaning people, while supposedly building a bright tomorrow, create hell. Just like the 1950s Czechoslovakia. University execs scared not to cater to idiotic demands, public shaming, double-speak, government-sanctioned kangaroo courts. It's like Lord of the Flies II: The College Years. I would like to know if the Hitler Jugend were like this, too?

richmarr 11y ago
Not disagreeing, I find this whole situation bizarre, but do you mind sharing some of your reasoning?
- rdancer 11y ago
  > Perfectly-well-meaning people, while supposedly building a bright tomorrow, create hell. Just like the 1950s Czechoslovakia. University execs scared not to cater to idiotic demands, public shaming, double-speak, government-sanctioned kangaroo courts. After WWII, the Czechoslovak communists were faced with the problem of replacing the management of literally the whole country's public sector, as well as the newly nationalized formerly private sector, with people loyal to the new Republic. This meant no Nazi or Western collaborators, this meant purges. A lot of good people were chewed up, some died in prison or were executed. In the universities that had been closed since shortly after the beginning of the war, the students were allowed to take over, and run the administration, and later conduct the purges. This gave tremendous responsibility to people who had no qualification, no training, no life experience; and also tremendous power to people who by bribery or false testimony leveraged the system for personal gain or revenge. These drumhead hearings were not dissimilar to the Title IX hearings that take place on the campuses today. Here also are people with inappropriate training, perjury is rampant, the verdict is swift, but can it really be called just? Read Kundera's The Joke[1] (also a 1968 movie), for a good illustration of the absurdity of it all. The protagonist sends a letter to his girlfriend with a joke regarding something or other. She finds the joke offensive, shares her concern with some of her colleagues, a hearing is called, and our protagonist finds himself kicked out of the university, and branded politically unreliable. This means he can barely get the worst of jobs, and will in fact be forced to work in a penal colony for a few years. Never having been convicted of a crime, never having been given the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law. Because of a joke. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joke_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joke_(novel)
  - defen 11y ago
    Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. Since this is the internet I'll note that I'm being sarcastic, and attempting to demonstrate the intellectual bankruptcy of such a statement, which we hear all the time when these sorts of things happen.
    - gliese1337 11y ago
      Uh, yeah, actually it does. Not all consequences, but some very specific and very important ones. That's the entire legal definition of "freedom of speech"- that actions actions cannot be taken against you to restrict your freedom to say what you want, nor to punish you after the fact. When such restrictions or punishments are in place, you are not, in fact, free to speak. Now private universities, for example, not being governmental institutions, are not required by the constitution to guarantee free speech rights within their domain. But there are good reasons why that right was encoded in the constitution to limit the power of our national government, and they apply just as well to the governing bodies of universities and other private institutions.
      - dmix 11y ago
        Universities and private institutions lack the check on that power that the government has with the judicial system. So even a policy of ardent free speech in these institutions would be on weak ground without a system to accuse or appeal misjudgment by the power holders. The best system they have is public discourse... the media or internet, But modern corporate media, much like University administrators, have demonstrated to be extremely unwilling to offend anybody. They rarely take a strong stances towards freedom of speech, preferring to appease via resignations and public apologies. Additionally if Reddit is any indication the internet is not a great place for thoughtful political discussion.
    - rdancer 11y ago
      I'm afraid sarcasm is often lost on our more zealous comrades.
randomname2 11y ago
Indeed history repeating itself. Book burning started on college campuses as well. Not necessarily the Hitler Jugend, but Fascism was also considered an "intellectual movement" in its heydays, very popular on college campuses with perfectly well-meaning people.
- _delirium 11y ago
  I don't think you're correct on that point historically. Fascism was mainly a lower-class phenomenon, not really rooted in universities or intellectuals. There were certainly a handful of intellectuals who did align with it (esoteric pagan types in the Völkisch movement, some racial theorists, and a handful of philosophers), but it wasn't their main base. For one thing, German universities at the time had a quite large proportion of Jewish faculty and students, who for obvious reasons were not sympathetic to the Nazis. And even the right-wing part of the intellectual milieu mostly aligned with the older conservative parties, not with the Nazis, who they saw as uncouth rabble. As a result, the Nazis had to impose themselves on universities against considerable resistance, and to do so had to fire a large proportion of the faculty, and then appoint a bunch of its own functionaries to replace them. There's a reason Hitler gave speeches in places like beer halls, not the University of Munich.
  - vlehto 11y ago
    Fascism and Nazism are not the same thing. Nazism is subset of Fascism. Which is lot more international phenomena. And it has had limited support in various places. My home country fostered few Fascists movements before and during WWII. One of them included lots of people from academia. While curiously there is no mention anywhere that they would have persecuted domestic ethnic minorities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_People's_Movement_%28Finland%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_People's_Movement_%2...

by rdancer 11y ago

richmarr 11y ago

Not disagreeing, I find this whole situation bizarre, but do you mind sharing some of your reasoning?

rdancer 11y ago
> Perfectly-well-meaning people, while supposedly building a bright tomorrow, create hell. Just like the 1950s Czechoslovakia. University execs scared not to cater to idiotic demands, public shaming, double-speak, government-sanctioned kangaroo courts. After WWII, the Czechoslovak communists were faced with the problem of replacing the management of literally the whole country's public sector, as well as the newly nationalized formerly private sector, with people loyal to the new Republic. This meant no Nazi or Western collaborators, this meant purges. A lot of good people were chewed up, some died in prison or were executed. In the universities that had been closed since shortly after the beginning of the war, the students were allowed to take over, and run the administration, and later conduct the purges. This gave tremendous responsibility to people who had no qualification, no training, no life experience; and also tremendous power to people who by bribery or false testimony leveraged the system for personal gain or revenge. These drumhead hearings were not dissimilar to the Title IX hearings that take place on the campuses today. Here also are people with inappropriate training, perjury is rampant, the verdict is swift, but can it really be called just? Read Kundera's The Joke[1] (also a 1968 movie), for a good illustration of the absurdity of it all. The protagonist sends a letter to his girlfriend with a joke regarding something or other. She finds the joke offensive, shares her concern with some of her colleagues, a hearing is called, and our protagonist finds himself kicked out of the university, and branded politically unreliable. This means he can barely get the worst of jobs, and will in fact be forced to work in a penal colony for a few years. Never having been convicted of a crime, never having been given the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law. Because of a joke. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joke_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joke_(novel)
- defen 11y ago
  Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. Since this is the internet I'll note that I'm being sarcastic, and attempting to demonstrate the intellectual bankruptcy of such a statement, which we hear all the time when these sorts of things happen.
  - gliese1337 11y ago
    Uh, yeah, actually it does. Not all consequences, but some very specific and very important ones. That's the entire legal definition of "freedom of speech"- that actions actions cannot be taken against you to restrict your freedom to say what you want, nor to punish you after the fact. When such restrictions or punishments are in place, you are not, in fact, free to speak. Now private universities, for example, not being governmental institutions, are not required by the constitution to guarantee free speech rights within their domain. But there are good reasons why that right was encoded in the constitution to limit the power of our national government, and they apply just as well to the governing bodies of universities and other private institutions.
    - dmix 11y ago
      Universities and private institutions lack the check on that power that the government has with the judicial system. So even a policy of ardent free speech in these institutions would be on weak ground without a system to accuse or appeal misjudgment by the power holders. The best system they have is public discourse... the media or internet, But modern corporate media, much like University administrators, have demonstrated to be extremely unwilling to offend anybody. They rarely take a strong stances towards freedom of speech, preferring to appease via resignations and public apologies. Additionally if Reddit is any indication the internet is not a great place for thoughtful political discussion.
  - rdancer 11y ago
    I'm afraid sarcasm is often lost on our more zealous comrades.

randomname2 11y ago

Indeed history repeating itself. Book burning started on college campuses as well. Not necessarily the Hitler Jugend, but Fascism was also considered an "intellectual movement" in its heydays, very popular on college campuses with perfectly well-meaning people.

_delirium 11y ago
I don't think you're correct on that point historically. Fascism was mainly a lower-class phenomenon, not really rooted in universities or intellectuals. There were certainly a handful of intellectuals who did align with it (esoteric pagan types in the Völkisch movement, some racial theorists, and a handful of philosophers), but it wasn't their main base. For one thing, German universities at the time had a quite large proportion of Jewish faculty and students, who for obvious reasons were not sympathetic to the Nazis. And even the right-wing part of the intellectual milieu mostly aligned with the older conservative parties, not with the Nazis, who they saw as uncouth rabble. As a result, the Nazis had to impose themselves on universities against considerable resistance, and to do so had to fire a large proportion of the faculty, and then appoint a bunch of its own functionaries to replace them. There's a reason Hitler gave speeches in places like beer halls, not the University of Munich.
- vlehto 11y ago
  Fascism and Nazism are not the same thing. Nazism is subset of Fascism. Which is lot more international phenomena. And it has had limited support in various places. My home country fostered few Fascists movements before and during WWII. One of them included lots of people from academia. While curiously there is no mention anywhere that they would have persecuted domestic ethnic minorities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_People's_Movement_%28Finland%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriotic_People's_Movement_%2...