3 ms·

My college Writing teacher carried an agenda too. Completely turned me off to a very useful subject.

ggm 8y ago
Is it possible you didn't like them and project this into the use of politics in writing class, or that you disliked their politics? Or is it just that you disliked politics at all? I imagine I'd have felt the same about religion. (Although there is a lot of good writing in religious texts, proselytizing needs style)
- gjsman-1000 8y ago
  No, like, this was overt politics and a shameful reminder of some campuses today. Examples: 1. I was one of three male students in the class of 25. She then goes on to bash white male privilege. (Oddly, she is married to a white male.) I can feel the eyeballs on me. 2. A TED talk about abusive behavior against women online. Critical topic, sure, but it began with 5 minutes of the woman reciting out-loud the worst examples against herself with extremely colorful language, then going on to partially blame... white men. (Again, I can feel the eyeballs!) 3. This was REALLY offensive in my book: She forced us to read a 10-page-long (fictional) story, in class, about someone wrote about a man showing up at somebody's door and trying to coerce the girl to leave the house so as to rape her. No joke. I could go on. I am not going anywhere near her office again.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    > Oddly, she is married to a white male. This implies you don't understand what privilege is. It's very literal. There is no blame in having it. It's not an "us vs. them" thing. > reciting out-loud the worst examples against herself with extremely colorful language So? > then going on to partially blame... white men Partially sounds fair if they did a lot of it. What's the problem? > This was REALLY offensive in my book: She forced us to read a 10-page-long (fictional) story, in class, about someone wrote about a man showing up at somebody's door and trying to coerce the girl to leave the house so as to rape her. No joke. That's political? It sounds like a reasonable example of emotional writing.
    - zorga 8y ago
      > This implies you don't understand what privilege is. It's very literal. There is no blame in having it. It's not an "us vs. them" thing. And that implies you don't allow for those who reject the very political and racist concept of white privilege to reject this presupposition. It's not a matter of "understanding"; he's not failing to understand privilege, he's rejecting it and thus doesn't like her pushing those politics on him. > So? So he doesn't want to hear her whining about how white men are to blame for bad things that happened to her because he probably doesn't like listening to racist drivel. > Partially sounds fair if they did a lot of it. What's the problem? The problem is such thinking is fallacious. Just because bad things happened to her, and white men did it, in no way implies they did it because they're white. They probably all had hair to, does she blame all men with hair? Or to put it more scientifically, correlation isn't caution. What people call white privilege, generally isn't; usually it's just majority privilege which has nothing to do with whiteness and more importantly is not a bad thing at all. > That's political? Yes, it was; you don't think it was because you don't accept your own beliefs as political beliefs but rather as reality.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        > he's not failing to understand privilege, he's rejecting it and thus doesn't like her pushing those politics on him. If he understands it then why does he think it's "odd" for her to have a white male husband? > So he doesn't want to hear her whining about how white men are to blame for bad things that happened to her because he probably doesn't like listening to racist drivel. When you're talking about abusive behavior online, and you describe the individuals that leveled the most abusive behavior at you, that's not "whining" or "racist". > What people call white privilege, generally isn't; usually it's just majority privilege which has nothing to do with whiteness and more importantly is not a bad thing at all. I'm happy to call it "majority privilege" if you want. I'm not sure how you think it's not a bad thing for certain races to get treated better than others, though. (Different ones depending on what area you're in.) > Yes, it was; you don't think it was because you don't accept your own beliefs as political beliefs but rather as reality. What beliefs? "The story had to have some kind of genders for the characters"? "It's not a horrible choice to pick the most common genders involved in adult sexual abuse[0]"? "It's possible to design a character with non-political motives"? [0] Honestly, I think any gender combo would have been fine here. Which ones would you find "non-political"? (Unless you think rape itself is political which would be weird.) And I know there are under-reporting issues for rape against males, that's why I used the term "sexual assault" to avoid miscategorization problems. It's an unfortunate fact that men commit more sexual assaults, and when they are not against children assaulters usually go for the gender they are attracted to. Here's some statistics: https://richardfelson.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/sex-assault-archives_onlinepdf.pdf https://richardfelson.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/sex-assaul...
  - bushin 8y ago
    It's probably in top 100 American short stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Are_You_Going,_Where_Have_You_Been https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Are_You_Going,_Where_Hav...

ggm 8y ago

Is it possible you didn't like them and project this into the use of politics in writing class, or that you disliked their politics? Or is it just that you disliked politics at all? I imagine I'd have felt the same about religion. (Although there is a lot of good writing in religious texts, proselytizing needs style)

gjsman-1000 8y ago
No, like, this was overt politics and a shameful reminder of some campuses today. Examples: 1. I was one of three male students in the class of 25. She then goes on to bash white male privilege. (Oddly, she is married to a white male.) I can feel the eyeballs on me. 2. A TED talk about abusive behavior against women online. Critical topic, sure, but it began with 5 minutes of the woman reciting out-loud the worst examples against herself with extremely colorful language, then going on to partially blame... white men. (Again, I can feel the eyeballs!) 3. This was REALLY offensive in my book: She forced us to read a 10-page-long (fictional) story, in class, about someone wrote about a man showing up at somebody's door and trying to coerce the girl to leave the house so as to rape her. No joke. I could go on. I am not going anywhere near her office again.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  > Oddly, she is married to a white male. This implies you don't understand what privilege is. It's very literal. There is no blame in having it. It's not an "us vs. them" thing. > reciting out-loud the worst examples against herself with extremely colorful language So? > then going on to partially blame... white men Partially sounds fair if they did a lot of it. What's the problem? > This was REALLY offensive in my book: She forced us to read a 10-page-long (fictional) story, in class, about someone wrote about a man showing up at somebody's door and trying to coerce the girl to leave the house so as to rape her. No joke. That's political? It sounds like a reasonable example of emotional writing.
  - zorga 8y ago
    > This implies you don't understand what privilege is. It's very literal. There is no blame in having it. It's not an "us vs. them" thing. And that implies you don't allow for those who reject the very political and racist concept of white privilege to reject this presupposition. It's not a matter of "understanding"; he's not failing to understand privilege, he's rejecting it and thus doesn't like her pushing those politics on him. > So? So he doesn't want to hear her whining about how white men are to blame for bad things that happened to her because he probably doesn't like listening to racist drivel. > Partially sounds fair if they did a lot of it. What's the problem? The problem is such thinking is fallacious. Just because bad things happened to her, and white men did it, in no way implies they did it because they're white. They probably all had hair to, does she blame all men with hair? Or to put it more scientifically, correlation isn't caution. What people call white privilege, generally isn't; usually it's just majority privilege which has nothing to do with whiteness and more importantly is not a bad thing at all. > That's political? Yes, it was; you don't think it was because you don't accept your own beliefs as political beliefs but rather as reality.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      > he's not failing to understand privilege, he's rejecting it and thus doesn't like her pushing those politics on him. If he understands it then why does he think it's "odd" for her to have a white male husband? > So he doesn't want to hear her whining about how white men are to blame for bad things that happened to her because he probably doesn't like listening to racist drivel. When you're talking about abusive behavior online, and you describe the individuals that leveled the most abusive behavior at you, that's not "whining" or "racist". > What people call white privilege, generally isn't; usually it's just majority privilege which has nothing to do with whiteness and more importantly is not a bad thing at all. I'm happy to call it "majority privilege" if you want. I'm not sure how you think it's not a bad thing for certain races to get treated better than others, though. (Different ones depending on what area you're in.) > Yes, it was; you don't think it was because you don't accept your own beliefs as political beliefs but rather as reality. What beliefs? "The story had to have some kind of genders for the characters"? "It's not a horrible choice to pick the most common genders involved in adult sexual abuse[0]"? "It's possible to design a character with non-political motives"? [0] Honestly, I think any gender combo would have been fine here. Which ones would you find "non-political"? (Unless you think rape itself is political which would be weird.) And I know there are under-reporting issues for rape against males, that's why I used the term "sexual assault" to avoid miscategorization problems. It's an unfortunate fact that men commit more sexual assaults, and when they are not against children assaulters usually go for the gender they are attracted to. Here's some statistics: https://richardfelson.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/sex-assault-archives_onlinepdf.pdf https://richardfelson.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/sex-assaul...
- bushin 8y ago
  It's probably in top 100 American short stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Are_You_Going,_Where_Have_You_Been https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Are_You_Going,_Where_Hav...