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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32159 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 23, 2023

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You might recall that an adjunct professor was let go from Hamline University after a Muslim student complained about a depiction of the prophet Muhammad shown in class. The immediate responses were not terribly surprising to me. Given past incidents, I assumed that college administrators would have an interest towards affirming the student's complaint, no matter how unreasonable it was. This panned out, with the university president issuing a very bizarre statement where she presented non-sequiturs like:

To suggest that the university does not respect academic freedom is absurd on its face. Hamline is a liberal arts institution, the oldest in Minnesota, the first to admit women, and now led by a woman of color. To deny the precepts upon which academic freedom is based would be to undermine our foundational principles.

What do the demographics of the university president have to do with academic freedom? Fuck if I know.

Similarly, I also assumed that non-profit organizations would have an interest to bolster their profile by seizing upon the incident. This too panned out, with the local Minnesota Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) chapter condemning the professor as Islamophobic. The local chapter's executive director even dismissed the fact that the professor went out of her way to add a content warning and said "In reality a trigger warning is an indication that you are going to do harm."

Since then, things have changed. First, the national CAIR organization felt the need to step in and rebuke the local chapter, and issued a (tepid) defense of the scorned professor. Then, Hamline University faculty just voted overwhelmingly (71-12) to ask the president to step down. For a defense of freedom of expression, the statement they issued is (at least on its face) pretty good.

Both of these developments surprised me, and it made me wonder whether this is a sign of a potential turning point on the topic of suppressed freedom of expression on campus.

Both of these developments surprised me, and it made me wonder whether this is a sign of a potential turning point on the topic of suppressed freedom of expression on campus.

It's better than the opposite happening for sure. Although I think the whole depicting the prophet, at least in the states, isn't an establish route of canceling. Or at least if you want to establish a pattern can you find a past successful canceling over something like this?

Although I think the whole depicting the prophet, at least in the states, isn't an establish route of canceling.

If not outright "cancelling," it's the source of extreme skittishness. There's the famous instance of South Park intentionally poking at this issue (https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/Muhammad) by including Muhammed amongst a group of superheroes. This episode cannot be found on HBOMax, Comedy Central or the official South Park website (run by Comedy Central).

My priors are that anyone who doesn’t vociferously apologize and try to make some costly signal of disowning the person who decided to depict Mohammed is laying a trap in some way.

I find this an incredibly confusing take. I just find those people to be cowards, it's a much simpler reasoning. What trap are the setting?

edit: It's impossible for me to believe the group of who broadly support piss Christ, which I support too in its being legal and allowed if not very artistically interesting, have some kind of hang up of unnecessarily offending religious people.

IDK anything about a trap (or really what that guy meant), but I don't see them as cowards. That's just not the hill they want to literally die on. Someone who cared more about free speech might well decide to risk death on that hill though, and that's commendable.

If you're in a land where it's illegal and surrounded by people who suspect you're with the guy whose depicting the big Moh, sure self preservation yourself. If you're in the united states and no one is even asking you, and your reasoning for doing it is to avoid offense, yeah, that's not the same situation.

Who are we talking about here? I think the college president can't come out and say "that's dangerous," but she doesn't want to risk her staff, so she instead says that it's offensive. Maybe she's good at doublethink and has even internalized that. In the end we probably agree but I think there's still an element of danger (if much smaller) here in the US as well.

but she doesn't want to risk her staff

However, the backdrop is that the State (and the local social majority) won't back her up. Which is why regime-aligned speakers who threaten her staff all the same do not get shut down when a threat comes in.

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