Yeah, this is the worry. It’s very clear that the threat of state funding drying up will be the cudgel here.

A lot of us in higher ed have benefited from your work and it’s really appreciated

Yeah agreed. We had this chat internally: what do we do in our defense if something like this occurs? But none of that matters, as the things we’d use to defend ourselves—context, evidence, information—don’t matter at all at the moment.

In fairness I pretty rarely get good one of the feelings genre

It’s extraordinarily bad. (Well, kinda normally bad for its ilk.) And yet it will be defended. It’s fucking maddening. The evidence of its awfulness is right there on the page.

What also gets me is that pretty much every faculty member I know is eager to engage with different viewpoints. You brought real data and interpreted it differently? Hell yes. You’re thinking! It’s the empty baseless slop, all emotion and no thought, that we push back against. That’s the job.

This is what almost every one of my colleagues worries about. You can do everything right. Every bit. And if someone wants to end your career, they likely can. Evidence doesn’t matter. Empty rage fuels them and will keep doing so. As long as admins cower before the wolves, it’s the dark times.

The compassion required to read an essay that asserts your identity is a delusion and then engage with it generously and helpfully is worth noting. It’s exactly what should be done by a great teacher or prof. And now part of this person’s identity—and not proper pedagogy—will be what’s focused on.

Fucking hell, grad students have no power at all and now this poor person has been thrust into the national spotlight for doing their job (seemingly quite well, too) because some apparent asshole felt aggrieved and decided this powerless person was an easy target.

Noting you approve of teasing to enforce certain norms and then flipping the fuck out and crying discrimination when you are challenged in perhaps the most kind way possible is so much of their entire ethos in one distilled bit.

I mean, people are demeaning and judgmental in all sorts of other ways outside of that word, so it never really escapes you. But I can’t imagine being someone who’d revel in its apparent return, and all the scorn and neglect and ostracism its use implies.

Well, I’m logging off now

No no no no I didn’t mean that, sorry. I was just at a talk on the site (and looting in general) and that dude is a hero of mine and you ended up getting this vomited at you

I mean, that was a good one. But RIP to the absolute legend Khaled al-Asaad

Jesus

“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's” but it’s just a dude named Jim Caesar and Jesus borrowed a bunch of his stuff and needed to bring it back.

I wasn’t even trying to go there, directly at least! But “why is this major gun rights guy writing this piece this way” seems like a valid question and a basis for discourse. Turns out it is not.

Not really sure what to do when, after being asked if it’s worth it to consider the motivations of a piece’s author, a person just says “no.” How…how can you think this? Giant bummer today. Deleted my comment to him and am now venting here.

I’m glad my undergrads get why source scrutiny matters.