{"id":6073,"date":"2016-11-03T14:07:10","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T14:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/11\/03\/michael-rectenwald-on-the-origin-of-the-alt-right\/"},"modified":"2016-11-03T14:07:10","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T14:07:10","slug":"michael-rectenwald-on-the-origin-of-the-alt-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2016\/11\/03\/michael-rectenwald-on-the-origin-of-the-alt-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Rectenwald on ‘Trigger Warnings’ and the Origin of the Alt Right"},"content":{"rendered":"

For background, read this<\/a> Inside Higher Ed<\/em> article.<\/span><\/p>\n

As far as I can make out, NYU professor Michael Rectenwald  is a commie who takes issue with the trigger warning nonsense because it gives the Left a bad name.  The following from an interview<\/a> in the NYU student newspaper:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Michael Rectenwald:<\/strong> My contention is that this particular social-justice-warrior-left is producing the alt-right by virtue of its insanity. And because it\u2019s doing all these things that manifest to the world, the alt-right is just eating this stuff alive. That\u2019s why I adopted Nietzsche as the icon for the @antipcnyuprof and that\u2019s why I said \u201canti-pc.\u201d Frankly, I\u2019m not really anti-pc. My contention is that the trigger warning, safe spaces and bias hotline reporting is not politically correct. It is insane. This stuff is producing a culture of hypervigilance, self-surveillance and panopticism.<\/span><\/p>\n

WSN: Could you explain your feelings towards trigger warnings and safe spaces?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

MR: <\/strong>One of the major problems of a trigger warning is this: according to trauma psychology, nobody has any idea what can trigger somebody. It\u2019s completely arbitrary, and I don\u2019t want to be indelicate, but let\u2019s say a woman is raped while the guy happened to have this particular pack of gum on the table. So the woman would see this type of gum, and she\u2019s going to feel triggered by this. Who could possibly anticipate such a thing? There is no way to anticipate just what would trigger people. As for safe spaces, I\u2019m more ambiguous about it. I do think some people need safe spaces from different things, such as different beleaguered populations or groups who have been harassed or hounded \u2014 even murdered. People have their right to assemble as they wish. A safe space represents such an assembly. I do question their legality at some kind of state university for example, because it\u2019s exclusionary, and that\u2019s a public space.<\/span><\/p>\n

WSN: How does that manifest at NYU?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

MR: <\/strong>What happens is that the left presents its needs to the administration in universities, and the administration seizes on these opportunities to produce power and control to actually discipline the subjects under them. They don\u2019t care what ideologies \u2014 whether it\u2019s right, left, center. My dean two years ago \u2014 I mentioned the words trigger warning, and he snickered out loud, as if it was some foreign concept. Then last year, towards the end of the semester when we had a colloquium, he was floating the idea that they would be required on the syllabi. This is what happens. Once the administration gets it, it becomes a tool \u2014 an instrument \u2014 for them. Then they are able to compute to have more leverage and control over the curriculum, which should be faculty controlled in every university.<\/span><\/p>\n

WSN: How do students handle this?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

MR: <\/strong>Identity politics on campus have made an infirmary of the whole, damn campus. Let\u2019s face it: every room is like a hospital ward. What are we supposed to do? I can\u2019t deal with it \u2014 it\u2019s insane. Look at the rules about Halloween costumes now. There\u2019s a hoopla and hysteria surrounding Halloween. I tweeted something the other night about this self-surveillance \u2014 that they\u2019re calling on people to do as reference to their Halloween costumes. It literally says \u201ctrack your own online behavior\u201d \u2014 self-surveillance. Safe spaces are turning the whole campus into an infirmary. And what do hospitals require? They require certain containment. They require a certain restriction of movement. They require surveillance. They require all of these things that I\u2019m talking about, and that\u2019s the problem with having a hospital as a university.<\/span><\/p>\n

WSN: So how does this tie into Trump? Could you explain your support for him?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

MR: <\/strong>I don\u2019t support Trump at all. I hate him \u2014 I think he\u2019s horrible. I\u2019m hiding amongst the alt-right, alright? And the point is, this character is meant to exhibit and illustrate the notion that it\u2019s this crazy social-justice-warrior-knee-jerk-reaction-triggered-happy-safe-space-seeking-blah, blah, blah, blah culture that it\u2019s producing this alt-right. Now, I\u2019m not dumb enough to go there. And my own politics are very strong \u2014 I\u2019m a left communist. But I think that in fact, the crazier and crazier that this left gets, this version of the left, the more the more the alt-right is going to be laughing their asses off plus getting more pissed. Every time a speaker is booed off campus or shooed off campus because they might say something that bothers someone, that just feeds the notion that the left is totalitarian, and they have a point.<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
<\/a>More Liberal Insanity: 'Trigger Warning' for Kant's Critiques<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/a>College Encourages Lively Exchange of One Idea<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/a>The Decline of the Culture of Free Discussion and Debate<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/a>Student has cereal thrown at her for advertising anti-PC campus speech<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For background, read this Inside Higher Ed article. As far as I can make out, NYU professor Michael Rectenwald  is a commie who takes issue with the trigger warning nonsense because it gives the Left a bad name.  The following from an interview in the NYU student newspaper: Michael Rectenwald: My contention is that this … Continue reading “Michael Rectenwald on ‘Trigger Warnings’ and the Origin of the Alt Right”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-leftism-and-political-correctness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}