{"id":8075,"date":"2014-03-14T15:44:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-14T15:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/03\/14\/leiter-lambasted-a-case-of-the-left-eating-their-own\/"},"modified":"2014-03-14T15:44:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-14T15:44:00","slug":"leiter-lambasted-a-case-of-the-left-eating-their-own","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/03\/14\/leiter-lambasted-a-case-of-the-left-eating-their-own\/","title":{"rendered":"Leiter Lambasted: A Case of the Left Eating Their Own?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Leiter is known for his academic gossip site, Leiter Reports<\/em>.  He is also known for his careerism, thuggishness<\/a>, and political correctness.  Some call him Ladder Man<\/a> because of his obsession with rankings and status.  (One of the meanings of the German Leiter<\/em> is ladder; another is leader as in Gauleiter<\/em>.)  Others call him Brianus Climacus because he is a climber and careerist.  For others he is just the Academic Thug.  Recently, however,  some on the Left have been turning  on him. This from a reader:<\/span><\/p>\n

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I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve been watching all this develop, but some people are more and more willing to come out publically against Leiter (though I don\u2019t mean to suggest that I approve of the position they are siding with in order to do so). See the second paragraph in particular for background (with links):
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http:\/\/www.newappsblog.com\/2014\/03\/please-do-not-revise-your-tone.html#more<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

At the moment it does indeed seem that Leiter is being devoured by the world he created, the hyper-professionalized world of academic philosophy. The conception of philosophy as a \u201cprofession\u201d (and all the b.s. that entails) combined with the PC tendencies of academia at present have given birth to an ugly sort of monster, and Leiter has inadvertently stumbled into its labyrinth. But he does conceive himself as a sort of Theseus in this context, and he has promised a long reply to his critics. In this one specific instance I think he is in the right against many of those attacking him\u2014their attacks coming from an even more radical version of PC than his own. But still he\u2019s in the wrong overall (and your description of him is spot on), and this is what he gets. 
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I had asked: <\/span>Is pushback against Leiter  a case of the Left eating their own?  When do these feminists and their fellow travellers actually do philosophy?  Methinks too much of their time is occupied with issues of professional status and standing, 'diversity,' careerism, and the like.  That is what I can't stand in Leiter as well, that corpulent apparatchik of political correctness.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Brian<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Brian Leiter is known for his academic gossip site, Leiter Reports.  He is also known for his careerism, thuggishness, and political correctness.  Some call him Ladder Man because of his obsession with rankings and status.  (One of the meanings of the German Leiter is ladder; another is leader as in Gauleiter.)  Others call him Brianus … Continue reading “Leiter Lambasted: A Case of the Left Eating Their Own?”<\/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":[52,148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-brian-leiter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8075","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=8075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8075\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}