5 ms·

Honestly, I'm shocked everytime I read this stuff from american universities. Why is this happening? Because it's not the first nor second time that I read abo

Honestly, I'm shocked everytime I read this stuff from american universities. Why is this happening? Because it's not the first nor second time that I read about events similar to this one.

nix23 6y ago
Probably because the Students are the paying Customers and not Students in a Government sponsored Institution, you don't want to loose customers so you fire the employee (just a theory)
gadders 6y ago
>>Why is this happening? Cancel Culture.
- undecisive 6y ago
  As much as I totally understand the downvoting of this comment, it unfortunately isn't entirely wrong. I desperately want to be an all-in liberal person, and I would rather not have stock phrases in existence that can be misappropriated by the Donald Trump / Katie Hopkins' of the world, but with any knee-jerk reaction from humans there are people who take them to extremes, and this story is one of an increasing number of examples. Thankfully, we have a media source that is willing to call out stupid examples of suffocating over-liberalism. Most other people don't, all their news is being filtered by traditional (and clickbait) media, and fewer and fewer people are actually looking to get the real story from the primary sources. That said, I don't think this particular moniker is going to help much. It's already been polluted.
  - gadders 6y ago
    Well I think the phrase has been used by people whose views you may or may not agree with, the phenomenon itself has conditioned companies/organisations to immediately roll over at any whiff of a controversy or face a twitter/social media hate mob.
    - undecisive 6y ago
      Yep... I didn't mean so much "it's been associated with certain people" as it's been demonized from the start. I think there's a difference between honest people saying honest things - even if those things are incorrect or not fully justified - and people with a history of dog-whistling and flat-out repugnant behaviour using it as a get-out-of-jail-free card. And there is language on both sides that get this treatment - for example "gaslighting" or "racist", both can be used by vile individuals who would use their power to divert from lies and bad behaviour. But if the term has a good head-start, before its more controversial uses, it's more likely to have benevolent connotations in people's heads, and is less likely to be labelled a "hate-word" from the start. So while I think that cancel-culture may make a genuine point, unfortunately that word was saddled with baggage from the start, and may never mean what you want it to mean again. As is often the case, we need not just better words, but words with a better history.
      - gadders 6y ago
        That is one point of view. The other point of view is that when you give an organisation (government/large company/ngo/whatever) power to enforce controls on speech, that power could be used for good as well as ill.
bonoboTP 6y ago
The leadership is afraid of getting canceled themselves by not acting concerned enough, so they try to save their asses by running in front. Just a way to hold on to one's job in the current environment. I don't think they are true believers.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Cancel culture's greatest achievement is creating just enough fear that non-believers will volunteer to do their dirty work - even without being asked.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  I think this is the right answer. The previous dean was fired due to having a high number of discrimination complaints in the business school while he was in charge. Even though IIRC something like 95% of the complaints were deemed to be unwarranted
mariuolo 6y ago
> Why is this happening? One word: lawsuits. And the unpredictability of juries.
- gruez 6y ago
  >lawsuits on what grounds? >And the unpredictability of juries. AFAIK if you're the defendant you can opt for trial by judge rather than trial by jury.
  - mariuolo 6y ago
    > on what grounds? Discriminations, of various genres. > AFAIK if you're the defendant you can opt for trial by judge rather than trial by jury. And in a civil trial you're going to need the other party to agree.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Why is this happening? This specific case, I would bet dollars to donuts, happened because: (1) The administration is hypersensitive in light of the wave of race related protests and associated two-sided violence occurring in the country. (2) Someone aware of the likelihood of that deliberately trolled the administration, probably under a false flag, to produce an incident. Possibly just for lulz, more likely than that in the hopes of benefiting a particular domestic political faction, but even money it was done on behalf of (though not necessarily at the direction of) a foreign power.
- neonate 6y ago
  I also thought it might have been trolling, but this article makes that seem unlikely: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-05/usc-business-professor-controversy-chinese-word-english-slur https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-05/usc-busi... To some students, the word sounded like the N-word in English. The next day a group of Black master’s candidates in the class of 2022 wrote a letter to Marshall Dean Geoffrey Garrett. “There are over 10,000 characters in the Chinese written language and to use this phrase ... is hurtful and unacceptable to our USC Marshall community,” the letter said. “The negligence and disregard displayed by our professor was very clear.”
- frabbit 6y ago
  even money it was done on behalf of (though not necessarily at the direction of) a foreign power. Why on earth would you assume that? What are the relatively likelihoods of it being Satanists, alien mind-worms or Marxist-Feminists versus an agent of a foreign power?
Simulacra 6y ago
It is happening because of power. Students have found that they can bully professors and administrators, and bend them to their personal beliefs. It's a sense of power that, like most forms of power, becomes very intoxicating.
- hn_acc_2 6y ago
  Just like a two-year old enjoys their newfound power over their parents by screaming in public until they are appeased. So too do students with authority issues enjoy exerting newfound power over the authorities they oppose by complaining to their risk-averse boss.
apta 6y ago
Because you have a wave of far leftest SJW activity that is sheltering people from any critical thinking, making "safe spaces" where people become too fragile to engage with anyone of differing or opposing ideologies. Disengaging the context of words and giving them absolute meanings (e.g. the entire master/slave fiasco, as if the words "master" and "slave" or others have inherent evil, as opposed to the context they're used in, or the case with the Chinese word used here in the article).
tootie 6y ago
How many times have you read a story like this? Like 5 times in the last 10 years? It gets a lot of headlines because it's ridiculous, but it isn't common.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
starky 6y ago
The thing that gets me is that a university is a place for learning and exploration of the world. If everyone at a university is afraid of getting reprimanded for what at most was a misunderstanding, then where exactly can we expect to tackle the hard challenges of racism and sexism? Obviously we shouldn't accept people being racist or sexist at these places, but we need to provide the space to allow for the difficult conversations without the risk of being "cancelled" for making a mistake. If you cannot, then the concept of academia is pretty much dead.

Honestly, I'm shocked everytime I read this stuff from american universities. Why is this happening? Because it's not the first nor second time that I read about events similar to this one.

nix23 6y ago

Probably because the Students are the paying Customers and not Students in a Government sponsored Institution, you don't want to loose customers so you fire the employee (just a theory)

gadders 6y ago

>>Why is this happening? Cancel Culture.

undecisive 6y ago
As much as I totally understand the downvoting of this comment, it unfortunately isn't entirely wrong. I desperately want to be an all-in liberal person, and I would rather not have stock phrases in existence that can be misappropriated by the Donald Trump / Katie Hopkins' of the world, but with any knee-jerk reaction from humans there are people who take them to extremes, and this story is one of an increasing number of examples. Thankfully, we have a media source that is willing to call out stupid examples of suffocating over-liberalism. Most other people don't, all their news is being filtered by traditional (and clickbait) media, and fewer and fewer people are actually looking to get the real story from the primary sources. That said, I don't think this particular moniker is going to help much. It's already been polluted.
- gadders 6y ago
  Well I think the phrase has been used by people whose views you may or may not agree with, the phenomenon itself has conditioned companies/organisations to immediately roll over at any whiff of a controversy or face a twitter/social media hate mob.
  - undecisive 6y ago
    Yep... I didn't mean so much "it's been associated with certain people" as it's been demonized from the start. I think there's a difference between honest people saying honest things - even if those things are incorrect or not fully justified - and people with a history of dog-whistling and flat-out repugnant behaviour using it as a get-out-of-jail-free card. And there is language on both sides that get this treatment - for example "gaslighting" or "racist", both can be used by vile individuals who would use their power to divert from lies and bad behaviour. But if the term has a good head-start, before its more controversial uses, it's more likely to have benevolent connotations in people's heads, and is less likely to be labelled a "hate-word" from the start. So while I think that cancel-culture may make a genuine point, unfortunately that word was saddled with baggage from the start, and may never mean what you want it to mean again. As is often the case, we need not just better words, but words with a better history.
    - gadders 6y ago
      That is one point of view. The other point of view is that when you give an organisation (government/large company/ngo/whatever) power to enforce controls on speech, that power could be used for good as well as ill.

bonoboTP 6y ago

The leadership is afraid of getting canceled themselves by not acting concerned enough, so they try to save their asses by running in front. Just a way to hold on to one's job in the current environment. I don't think they are true believers.

koheripbal 6y ago
Cancel culture's greatest achievement is creating just enough fear that non-believers will volunteer to do their dirty work - even without being asked.
Rebelgecko 6y ago
I think this is the right answer. The previous dean was fired due to having a high number of discrimination complaints in the business school while he was in charge. Even though IIRC something like 95% of the complaints were deemed to be unwarranted

mariuolo 6y ago

> Why is this happening? One word: lawsuits. And the unpredictability of juries.

gruez 6y ago
>lawsuits on what grounds? >And the unpredictability of juries. AFAIK if you're the defendant you can opt for trial by judge rather than trial by jury.
- mariuolo 6y ago
  > on what grounds? Discriminations, of various genres. > AFAIK if you're the defendant you can opt for trial by judge rather than trial by jury. And in a civil trial you're going to need the other party to agree.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Why is this happening? This specific case, I would bet dollars to donuts, happened because: (1) The administration is hypersensitive in light of the wave of race related protests and associated two-sided violence occurring in the country. (2) Someone aware of the likelihood of that deliberately trolled the administration, probably under a false flag, to produce an incident. Possibly just for lulz, more likely than that in the hopes of benefiting a particular domestic political faction, but even money it was done on behalf of (though not necessarily at the direction of) a foreign power.

neonate 6y ago
I also thought it might have been trolling, but this article makes that seem unlikely: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-05/usc-business-professor-controversy-chinese-word-english-slur https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-05/usc-busi... To some students, the word sounded like the N-word in English. The next day a group of Black master’s candidates in the class of 2022 wrote a letter to Marshall Dean Geoffrey Garrett. “There are over 10,000 characters in the Chinese written language and to use this phrase ... is hurtful and unacceptable to our USC Marshall community,” the letter said. “The negligence and disregard displayed by our professor was very clear.”
frabbit 6y ago
even money it was done on behalf of (though not necessarily at the direction of) a foreign power. Why on earth would you assume that? What are the relatively likelihoods of it being Satanists, alien mind-worms or Marxist-Feminists versus an agent of a foreign power?

Simulacra 6y ago

It is happening because of power. Students have found that they can bully professors and administrators, and bend them to their personal beliefs. It's a sense of power that, like most forms of power, becomes very intoxicating.

hn_acc_2 6y ago
Just like a two-year old enjoys their newfound power over their parents by screaming in public until they are appeased. So too do students with authority issues enjoy exerting newfound power over the authorities they oppose by complaining to their risk-averse boss.

apta 6y ago

Because you have a wave of far leftest SJW activity that is sheltering people from any critical thinking, making "safe spaces" where people become too fragile to engage with anyone of differing or opposing ideologies. Disengaging the context of words and giving them absolute meanings (e.g. the entire master/slave fiasco, as if the words "master" and "slave" or others have inherent evil, as opposed to the context they're used in, or the case with the Chinese word used here in the article).

tootie 6y ago

How many times have you read a story like this? Like 5 times in the last 10 years? It gets a lot of headlines because it's ridiculous, but it isn't common.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

starky 6y ago

The thing that gets me is that a university is a place for learning and exploration of the world. If everyone at a university is afraid of getting reprimanded for what at most was a misunderstanding, then where exactly can we expect to tackle the hard challenges of racism and sexism? Obviously we shouldn't accept people being racist or sexist at these places, but we need to provide the space to allow for the difficult conversations without the risk of being "cancelled" for making a mistake. If you cannot, then the concept of academia is pretty much dead.