4 ms·

I disagree. Bureaucracy as an institution is psychopathic and only cares about power. If the establishment was right wing (as it had been in the past and still

I disagree. Bureaucracy as an institution is psychopathic and only cares about power. If the establishment was right wing (as it had been in the past and still is in some places) the bureaucrats would line up behind it. It's about power, institutional power, not about ideology.

skissane 4y ago
Let me put it this way: assuming the current situation in which most university bureaucrats lean centre-left, I think they are far more likely to resist the demands of loud and radical right-leaning students than loud and radical left-leaning students. Now, if we are talking about a different situation, in which most university administrators were centre-right, then it could well be the other way around. Bureaucrats respond much better to activists who (in broad outline) agree with their ideology, but who claim they are failing to live up to it, than to activists who are promoting a very different ideology instead.
- WaxProlix 4y ago
  I'm having a hard time conjuring that - what sorts of demands would these right leaning students be making, in general? Under what pretenses?
  - skissane 4y ago
    Many of the demands which radical left-wing students make - such as cancellation of events, or that academics be fired - could also in principle be made by radical right students, just with different individual targets and justifications For example, right-wing students might demand an art exhibition at the university be cancelled because they believe it to be “blasphemous” or “obscene”. Or they might object to a Marxist being allowed to deliver a guest lecture on the grounds that it is insensitive to the victims of communism.
    - WaxProlix 4y ago
      I guess that makes sense. I don't think of there being a lot of prominent marxists or whatever in economics circles, but surely they're around somewhere.
      - skissane 4y ago
        There are some prominent Marxist academics – just off the top of my head, Adolph L. Reed Jr (professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania). Although he is probably one of the Marxist academics right-wingers are least likely to want to cancel, because he's actually very critical of the contemporary "social justice" left. Reed (who is African-American) attacks Black Lives Matter as making the fundamental mistake of viewing race-based oppression as more fundamental than class-based oppression, when in his view it is actually the other way around. https://daily.jstor.org/adolph-reed-jr-the-perils-of-race-reductionism/ https://daily.jstor.org/adolph-reed-jr-the-perils-of-race-re...
        WaxProlix 4y ago
        I knew of Reed but didn't know he was a Marxist. I guess it's not terribly surprising. The closest thing I could think of would have been David Graeber, but he's dead now.
        skissane 4y ago
        I don’t think Graeber identified as a Marxist. He identified as an anarchist, and Marx and the anarchists were opponents of each other. I’ve read an interview with him in which he expresses sympathy for some aspects of Marxism, but also says Marx and his later followers got some fundamental things wrong (which is pretty much what you’d expect a left-anarchist to say) Thinking of contemporary academic Marxists - how did I forget Slavoj Žižek. Another is the Marxist feminist Nina Power (although I’m not sure if she still identifies as a Marxist). Both, however, like Reed, are the kind of contrarian leftists who are probably more useful to the right uncancelled.

skissane 4y ago

Let me put it this way: assuming the current situation in which most university bureaucrats lean centre-left, I think they are far more likely to resist the demands of loud and radical right-leaning students than loud and radical left-leaning students. Now, if we are talking about a different situation, in which most university administrators were centre-right, then it could well be the other way around. Bureaucrats respond much better to activists who (in broad outline) agree with their ideology, but who claim they are failing to live up to it, than to activists who are promoting a very different ideology instead.

WaxProlix 4y ago
I'm having a hard time conjuring that - what sorts of demands would these right leaning students be making, in general? Under what pretenses?
- skissane 4y ago
  Many of the demands which radical left-wing students make - such as cancellation of events, or that academics be fired - could also in principle be made by radical right students, just with different individual targets and justifications For example, right-wing students might demand an art exhibition at the university be cancelled because they believe it to be “blasphemous” or “obscene”. Or they might object to a Marxist being allowed to deliver a guest lecture on the grounds that it is insensitive to the victims of communism.
  - WaxProlix 4y ago
    I guess that makes sense. I don't think of there being a lot of prominent marxists or whatever in economics circles, but surely they're around somewhere.
    - skissane 4y ago
      There are some prominent Marxist academics – just off the top of my head, Adolph L. Reed Jr (professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pennsylvania). Although he is probably one of the Marxist academics right-wingers are least likely to want to cancel, because he's actually very critical of the contemporary "social justice" left. Reed (who is African-American) attacks Black Lives Matter as making the fundamental mistake of viewing race-based oppression as more fundamental than class-based oppression, when in his view it is actually the other way around. https://daily.jstor.org/adolph-reed-jr-the-perils-of-race-reductionism/ https://daily.jstor.org/adolph-reed-jr-the-perils-of-race-re...
      - WaxProlix 4y ago
        I knew of Reed but didn't know he was a Marxist. I guess it's not terribly surprising. The closest thing I could think of would have been David Graeber, but he's dead now.
        skissane 4y ago
        I don’t think Graeber identified as a Marxist. He identified as an anarchist, and Marx and the anarchists were opponents of each other. I’ve read an interview with him in which he expresses sympathy for some aspects of Marxism, but also says Marx and his later followers got some fundamental things wrong (which is pretty much what you’d expect a left-anarchist to say) Thinking of contemporary academic Marxists - how did I forget Slavoj Žižek. Another is the Marxist feminist Nina Power (although I’m not sure if she still identifies as a Marxist). Both, however, like Reed, are the kind of contrarian leftists who are probably more useful to the right uncancelled.