Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Recognizing Microagressions and the Messages They Send

A remarkable document.  Tell me what you think.

To understand the Left you must understand that central to their worldview is the hermeneutics of suspicion which is essentially a diluted amalgam of themes from Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud.

Thus nothing has the plain meaning that it has; every meaning must be deconstructed so as to lay bare its 'real meaning.'

Suppose I say, sincerely, "The most qualified person should get the job."  To a leftist that means:  "People of color are given extra unfair benefits because of their race."

Or suppose I describe a black malefactor as a thug.  What I have actually said, according to the hermeneutics of suspicion, is that the malefactor is a nigger.  But 'thug' does not mean 'nigger.'  'Thug' means thug.  There are thugs of all races.

Leftists often call for 'conversations' about this or that. Thus Eric Holder famously called for a 'conversation' about race.  But how can one have a conversation — no sneer quotes — about anything with people who refuse to take what one sincerely says at face value?

I now hand off to Dennis Prager, American Universities Begin to Implode.

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Bill Vallicella

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7 responses to “Recognizing Microagressions and the Messages They Send”

  1. Whitewall Avatar
    Whitewall

    Bill, nice of you to open the comment box for Thanksgiving. This post of yours plus Prager’s link is very timely around our house. My wife and I are at the stage where the ghouls working at our respective alma maters come calling with requests to “remember them in our estate planning”.
    On too many campuses, it seems this academic implosion is pitting liberals against more radicalized cultural Maoists, 21st century style. Normal students seem to stay away from the cameras and try to carry on with the business at hand. Let the factions of the Left have at each other, ultimately they always do. CPUSA- Communist Party USA has always torn itself apart over “ideological purity”.
    For my wife and me, we will deliver our response via the sound of a check book slamming shut. Why should normal law abiding conservatives bail out that which liberalism has spent decades corrupting?

    Reply
  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Excellent points, Bill. Yes, I’d seen that horrifying document a while ago. I’d add to what you’ve said that this increases the danger of speech being criminalized. If so much of what we say is “aggression” against others or even “violence” (a word that these campus radicals have been using in this way), then wouldn’t it be reasonable to treat it legally as assault?
    The Prager article is good, but I take issue with the claim that the university is “imploding”. The university isn’t imploding. It’s winning, dominating, and exerting enormous influence on our culture. When conservatives say things like “the university is imploding” they demonstrate a form of naïve wishful thinking that is dangerous at this point. The left is winning everywhere. They control all the major cultural institutions – education, entertainment, and the news media. None of those institutions is “imploding”. There is no “narrative collapse” as conservatives sometimes say when the left can’t back up it’s absurd claims. The narrative keeps going and keeps winning regardless of how disconnected it is from reality. And conservatives need to wake up and stop acting like all of a sudden the brainwashed drones that compose our country (and always have and always will in any country) are going to exercise some incredible, heroic act of critical thinking that sees through the propaganda that permeates and saturates almost every aspect of their existence.

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  3. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    You’re welcome, Whitewall.
    I think the university admin dumbasses will come to their senses when the alumni refuse to make contributions and explain their refusal.
    So I applaud you and your wife.
    We should all do our part in defunding the Left. For example, by not subscribing to the NYT. Just read it online for free.
    Mozilla Firefox has a good browser. They are currently asking for donations. To hell with them after what they did to Brendan Eich.

    Reply
  4. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Anon,
    Have you read John Henry Cardinal Newman, *The Idea of a University*?
    Charitably read, Prager is maintaining that the university is imploding in roughly that sense.
    It is an interesting question whether at some point people will wake up from their insanity or it will just get worse and worse. I am open to the possibility that I just don’t understand how desperately bad things are.

    Reply
  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Yes, Bill, I should say that my reading of that phrase in Prager probably wasn’t the most charitable interpretation. Given my concern about dangerous, naïve optimism in conservatives, I am sensitive to language that gives that impression.
    Can things be turned around? I’m admittedly not well-positioned to answer that question. (Is anyone?) I do think that the left is very much winning. As you have talked about before, they win on the plane of ideas. This isn’t because their ideas are better, but just because they operate on that plane and conservatives typically don’t. This is a devastating weakness for conservatism. No matter how bad the left’s policies are, because they control the very conceptual framework with which people understand the world, they have an immense advantage.

    Reply
  6. Greg Jackson Avatar
    Greg Jackson

    Bill, I have been reading your blog for some time now and I thoroughly enjoy it. To keep this short, I finished my undergraduate in Oriel College Oxford 3 years ago and there has recently been a controversy about the statue of Cecil Rhodes situated in the college. A certain segment of the population is trying to get it removed because it violates the university’s commitment to foster “an inclusive culture which promotes equality, values diversity and maintains a working, learning and social environment in which the rights and dignity of all its staff and students are respected.”
    I thought that this might be of interest to you…
    http://www.oriel.ox.ac.uk/content/statement-oriel-college-about-issues-raised-rhodes-must-fall-oxford-petition
    If you wish I can also forward you the email I (as an Orielensis) received from the Provost.

    Reply
  7. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Greg,
    Thanks for the comment, and for reading my blog. Yes, please do forward the e-mail. My address is billvallicellaATcs.com

    Reply

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