4 ms·
Framing things as one's right feels like a naively libertarian slant to what is not an issue of governance, but of getting along with others. I wholesomely supp
by klmadfejno 6y ago
Framing things as one's right feels like a naively libertarian slant to what is not an issue of governance, but of getting along with others. I wholesomely support this guy's right to express the view that black face is not objectively inappropriate regardless of all contexts. And yet I would be utterly unsurprised if many students came out of that conversation feeling like he had used obscure examples to argue that black face isn't universally bad and we should therefore just deal with it in the US. I wouldn't bat an eye to learn that he frequently undermined racial issues with technicalities. There are people saying he denied the concept of white privilege. He says he didn't do this. I doubt he thinks he did, but I'm betting a lot of people disagree.
Hanging around someone who frequently espouse technically defensible views that visibly make those around him uncomfortable is unpleasant. It is not difficult at all to imagine how a series of unpleasant encounters results in negative consequences. Especially if it trends into being seen as intentionally doing it to make others uncomfortable, which a lot of times it actually is when you're dealing with someone who revels in controversial pedantic details.
I don't see this as someone being held accountable for harming someone directly. I see this as a guy who caused people to repeatedly feel uncomfortable on trendy issues and an org get really nervous that he's a reputational liability.
- jariel 6y agoAll of these are assumptions are based on fabricated conjecture. Major Red Flags.
- klmadfejno 6y agoThis is a good example of the mechanism I was describing whereby someone is upset by someone else portraying a technically defensible point of view on an opinion they find harshly disagreeable. This user probably thinks I'm being annoying. Which is a good reason why I would try not to talk to them like this in a professional context, or really just at all on this issue if I felt it was going to exacerbate the issue.
- jariel 6y agoYou're fabricating a narrative based on speculation. Several times over in your post. You're not making a 'technical defence' you're just 'making it up'. In a reasoned post, you could have made the implication maybe once, with the caveat that it's 'a stretch', and then deferred to other lines of speculative reasoning from a different angle. Irrespective of the fact that there's a thin possibility that this narrative could be close to the truth ... it's still bad rhetoric. As to whether 'it's annoying' or not, I have nothing to say about that - I mean, I don't personally care. It just is what it is to me, 'annoying' is a personal inference, it's a discussion board, I don't presume anything is personal.
- lokar 6y agoI could imagine a situation like the one you describe, but I don't see any of that in the presented stories about this situation. From what I read, the student(s) brought up a subject (eg appropriation) and he explained why he thought their view was overly simplistic and absolute.
- klmadfejno 6y agoAnd I don't disagree. I can imagine a charitable way to handle that conversation and point of view, almost verbatim. My point is that reading his other words, I don't get the sense that he does so at all. His way of self-describing, especially the comment on being seen as an aspie, is very familiar. But hey I don't know this person.
- lokar 6y agoI don't think I would want to be friends with him, or socialize with him. But I think there has to be a different, higher, standard to run someone out of a profession.