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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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A couple of weeks ago, in the week of Jan 16 thread, there was a discussion of the kerfuffle re Florida refusing to offer the pilot of AP African American Studies. There were a couple of minor developments last week. First, the course description is available here

Second, Florida specified its objections here

Now, I am not a fan of most "studies" courses, because, in my limited experience, they tend to lack rigor and often push a political viewpoint, which is both a disservice to students and, to the extent that students are required to parrot that viewpoint, a First Amendment violation when the course is taught in public schools (and in private schools as well, in California). I have not looked closely at the course description for the AP class, so I don't know if it has those flaws. That being said, this decision by Florida seems to be more a part of the DeSantis for President campaign than a principled objection. That is because the course description is not a curriculum, and the course description, like all AP course descriptions, says:

Individual teachers are responsible for designing their own curriculum for AP courses and selecting appropriate college-level readings, assignments, and resources. This publication presents the content and skills that are the focus of the corresponding college course and that appear on the AP Exam. It also organizes the content and skills into a series of units that represent a sequence found in widely adopted college syllabi. The intention of this publication is to respect teachers' time and expertise by providing a roadmap that they can modify and adapt to their local priorities and preferences.

I have attended several AP trainings in my day, and can attest that they make a big deal about individual teachers being given autonomy, as long as their syllabus addresses the content and skills set forth in the course description. So, none of the readings complained about are required, and teachers are free, as required by Florida's "Stop WOKE Act" to assign readings on all sides of the issues in question.

And, btw, the claims on the other side that Florida does not want to teach African American history is also nonsense, because teaching of African American history is mandated in FL schools

Edit: PS: There is a very odd complaint in the Florida DOE's list: It objects to a reading by one author in part because, "Kelley's first book was a study of Black communists in Alabama." Not, 'an adulatory study," but merely a "study." It is like objecting to a reading by Donald Horowitz because he wrote a study of ethnic riots.

So, none of the readings complained about are required, and teachers are free, as required by Florida's "Stop WOKE Act" to assign readings on all sides of the issues in question.

I think this is double standard, as many actions are criminalized separately several times by different laws. For example, consider the anti-lynching bills: nothing they make illegal was legal before, but they are still passed with only conservative objecting.

I don't understand what you are referring to. I was referring to the "Stop WOKE Act," which, contrary to what people on both sides have claimed, does not forbid the teaching of CRT-adjacent concepts "as part of a larger course of training or instruction, provided such training or instruction is given in an objective manner without endorsement of the concepts."

That being said, this decision by Florida seems to be more a part of the DeSantis for President campaign than a principled objection.

...

And, btw, the claims on the other side that Florida does not want to teach African American history is also nonsense, because teaching of African American history is mandated in FL schools

Or, in other words, the complaints against DeSantis seem to be more a part of the long-running "Defeat DeSantis" campaign than a principled objection? I don't think there's any question that DeSantis is angling for the White House, such that everything he does can be plausibly cast in that way. But asking politicians for principled objections seems to always and everywhere end up as an isolated demand for rigor.

The complaints from Florida seem perfectly reasonable to me; I regard so-called "intersectionality" as much more like a religion than a legitimate form of academic inquiry, and I don't see any value in teaching it in schools (beyond, perhaps, including it in a religious studies course as an example of a secular dogmatism that has emerged in response to the broad exclusion of deity-oriented faith from public debate). Of course, reasonable minds may differ on this point, and I'm comfortable with each state education system in the U.S. reaching its own conclusion through standard legislative processes, which Florida has done here.

But I am also broadly disinterested in having "standardized" education across the country, and would rather see states actively competing in that arena rather than outsourcing everything to monocultures like the College Board. Very few people seem to actually care about AP Black-Queer-Feminist-Communism, and most of the complaining I see is false claims (as you noted) about black history being removed from Florida schools. Given that no actual history is being excluded from Florida schools, only certain forms of political indoctrination, what complaint remains? The complaint that DeSantis is doing this for the votes?

I have a lot of problems with democracy, but ultimately "politician doing the things his voters want him to do" just isn't very high on my list of things to worry about.

ETA:

So, none of the readings complained about are required, and teachers are free, as required by Florida's "Stop WOKE Act" to assign readings on all sides of the issues in question.

This seems like a great way to get poor scores on the exam, though. "You are free to teach what you like" does not translate into "and your students will still do well on the exam." Students who are not closely able to at list imitate the dogmatic thinking from the objectionable readings seem unlikely to do well on the exam that is the ultimate point of any AP class. My own experience with AP exams is that failure to hew closely to the "suggested" readings will often leave your students swinging in the wind.

AP Black-Queer-Feminist-Communism

Was the end of this just a silly throwaway joke, or did I miss something in the syllabus? "Black-Queer-Feminist" seems to be thoroughly covered, but the closest thing I see to socialist or communist thought is the inclusion of "racial capitalism" in a list of forms of racism, and without looking deeper at the texts I can't tell whether this is a case of an adjective being used for association or just for categorization.

Reportedly, one of the concerns Florida expressed is that Robin D.G. Kelley, specifically, advocates for communism. But more broadly, "critical theory" is largely the new phrase people use to refer to theories that used to be called "cultural Marxism" before people decided that phrase referred to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories instead of, you know, the huge body of academic work by people who literally called themselves cultural Marxists.

Somewhat ironically, it is the critical notion of "intersectionality" that gave rise to the sense that people can't talk about e.g. feminism or racism without also being "allies" for every other "progressive" cause (or at least every other progressive cause with a stripe on the flag). But the moment Florida says "we really don't like communism" suddenly everyone is supposed to accept that Kelley's work on communism is just cleanly separable from the other stuff Kelley wrote. It's a classic motte-and-bailey--which makes sense, given that it is ultimately a postmodernist critique, and the motte-and-bailey doctrine was specifically identified to critique postmodernism.

But asking politicians for principled objections seems to always and everywhere end up as an isolated demand for rigor.

That seems an odd response to a post in which I explicitly criticized both sides.

Of course, reasonable minds may differ on this point, and I'm comfortable with each state education system in the U.S. reaching its own conclusion through standard legislative processes, which Florida has done here.

I agree; Florida is free to teach what it wants. But note that the standard legislative process in Florida has yielded a law, the Stop WOKE Act, which explicitly permits the teaching of "CRT"-related topics.

This seems like a great way to get poor scores on the exam, though. "You are free to teach what you like" does not translate into "and your students will still do well on the exam." Students who are not closely able to at list imitate the dogmatic thinking from the objectionable readings seem unlikely to do well on the exam that is the ultimate point of any AP class. My own experience with AP exams is that failure to hew closely to the "suggested" readings will often leave your students swinging in the wind.

  1. The quoted material does not say "you are free to teach what you like." It in fact says the exact opposite, as I noted: That teachers are required to "address[] the content and skills set forth in the course description." What it says is that teachers are free to teach the material how they like.

  2. IF the test requires students to "imitate the dogmatic thinking," then I will be the first to agree with you. But note that that would only happen in free response questions, and one cannot assume that there will be any free response questions on the topics at issue.

  3. I take issue with your statement that doing well on the exam is the ultimate point of any AP class. It wasn't when I taught an AP class, and any teacher who thinks it is the point should be reassigned, if not fired.

That seems an odd response to a post in which I explicitly criticized both sides.

Well, you (I think at least partly correctly!) identified the DeSantis administration's arguably unprincipled motivations, but you did not actually call out his opponents' straightforwardly equal-but-opposite arguably unprincipled motivations. Even the Twitter link you provided to Florida's specified objections is a Tweet deriding those objections as obvious wrongthink. All I did was make the hypocrisy explicit.

But note that the standard legislative process in Florida has yielded a law, the Stop WOKE Act, which explicitly permits the teaching of "CRT"-related topics.

To the best of my understanding, this is only if CRT topics are taught about, not if they are presented as correct. As far as I have seen, nothing in the AP readings seems to accommodate the possibility that any of these claims are wrong. There are not even readings from, say, black scholars like Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell. Not even a pretense of ideological neutrality is evident in the selection of materials.

But note that that would only happen in free response questions, and one cannot assume that there will be any free response questions on the topics at issue.

Presumably one cannot assume that there will not be any free response questions on the topics at issue, either, so this seems to be an obvious case of "the College Board should have been clearer, then, so the fault continues to lie with them."

I take issue with your statement that doing well on the exam is the ultimate point of any AP class. It wasn't when I taught an AP class, and any teacher who thinks it is the point should be reassigned, if not fired.

Look, I love to tell my own students how intrinsically valuable learning is, too, but I am not stupid. The vast majority of them take my classes because I am an obstacle imposed between them and where they want to be. Students who take AP classes out of nothing but inquiring interest are lovely and wonderful, but if you're not doing your best to help your students score well on their AP exams, then you are doing at least many, and probably most of them a grave disservice. They would not be doing the work that AP courses demand, if they did not anticipate a reward in the form of legible credit towards their upcoming university matriculation and education.

Even the Twitter link you provided to Florida's specified objections is a Tweet deriding those objections as obvious wrongthink. All I did was make the hypocrisy explicit.

As it happens, I did not read the Twitter thread. I posted that link because that is where I found the letter. It is not on the FL DOE's news page, nor does it come up when I search for "African American Studies" in their webpage.

To the best of my understanding, this is only if CRT topics are taught about, not if they are presented as correct. As far as I have seen, nothing in the AP readings seems to accommodate the possibility that any of these claims are wrong.

As I have pointed out repeatedly, the AP course description accommodates the possibility that they are wrong by leaving it up to the teacher to decide how to cover the material.

Presumably one cannot assume that there will not be any free response questions on the topics at issue

Obviously. The point is that your assumption that the test requires parroting of ideas re the topics is based on a mistaken premise.

Look, I love to tell my own students how intrinsically valuable learning is, too, but I am not stupid. The vast majority of them take my classes because I am an obstacle imposed between them and where they want to be. Students who take AP classes out of nothing but inquiring interest are lovely and wonderful, but if you're not doing your best to help your students score well on their AP exams, then you are doing at least many, and probably most of them a grave disservice. They would not be doing the work that AP courses demand, if they did not anticipate a reward in the form of legible credit towards their upcoming university matriculation and education.

Who said anything about "nothing but inquiring interest"? A course that improves the skills students will need to succeed in college is a course which provides rewards to students, even if it does not provide the more tangible, yet far less valuable, reward of college credit.

As it happens, I did not read the Twitter thread.

"I didn't read the stuff I linked everyone to" is certainly some kind of response, sure.

The point is that your assumption that the test requires parroting of ideas re the topics is based on a mistaken premise.

I didn't assume anything--I only identified an uneliminated possibility. The possibility itself was objectionable. The College Board's failure to eliminate the possibility is where the objection is grounded. Thus "it's merely possible, not certain" is no answer at all.

Who said anything about "nothing but inquiring interest"? A course that improves the skills students will need to succeed in college is a course which provides rewards to students, even if it does not provide the more tangible, yet far less valuable, reward of college credit.

Sorry, I charitably assumed there was an interesting point underneath what I took to be kind of a silly one (firing AP teachers for teaching toward success on the AP test). The putative intrinsic value of learning seems like at least a potentially interesting topic.

The idea that incrementally improving general study skills is somehow a more valuable reward than college credit seems odd to me, given that the point of success in college is, for most students, more college credit! In particular, AP courses are a chance to cut down on the number of years students need to spend paying university tuition. If our time is the most valuable thing we humans have, then helping your students secure credit in advance is surely at least as valuable as incrementally improving their study skills--which many will never use again after college, alas. (And if you do think that is tragic, then of course--see my point about the intrinsic value of learning.)

"I didn't read the stuff I linked everyone to" is certainly some kind of response, sure.

The link was to the FL DOE document posted there. Why would I read the idiot comments re the document on some Twitter feed, if the point was to provide the document itself? The real mystery is why you think it was some sort of "gotcha" to note the existence of said idiot comments. How are they relevant to the issue?

I didn't assume anything--I only identified an uneliminated possibility. The possibility itself was objectionable. The College Board's failure to eliminate the possibility is where the objection is grounded. Thus "it's merely possible, not certain" is no answer at all.

Except that my entire point is that the FL DOE claims that it is certain, and that they are wrong.

The idea that incrementally improving general study skills is somehow a more valuable reward than college credit seems odd to me, given that the point of success in college is, for most students, more college credit! In particular, AP courses are a chance to cut down on the number of years students need to spend paying university tuition. If our time is the most valuable thing we humans have, then helping your students secure credit in advance is surely at least as valuable as incrementally improving their study skills--which many will never use again after college, alas. (And if you do think that is tragic, then of course--see my point about the intrinsic value of learning.)

I didn't say that it is more valuable.* I simply noted that even a student has no intellectual interest in anything at all, but rather whose only goal is getting a college degree as easily as possible might well enroll in a class which improves academic skills even if it did not offer a chance to acquire college credit.

*In the eyes of the student, that is.

I find the autonomy listed a bit misleading for a couple reasons. First, they know exactly what kind of teacher is going to sign up for teaching this course. But more importantly they control the fundamental curriculum with the test design. AP teachers teach to the test, they'd be failing their students their valuable college credit if they didn't. We can pretend like the teachers get to pick the curriculum all we want but if critical theory is on the test critical theory will be taught, simple as that.

I know at least one AP biology teacher who gets away with teaching YEC, but overall you’re probably right that the vast majority teach to the test.

We need to distinguish teaching what is on the test from teaching with the purpose of passing the test. Eg: When I taught AP World History, every topic that I taught was one that was in the course description and might be on the test. However, instead of covering every topic that might be on the test -- as one would do if the purpose of the class was to pass the test -- I chose to cover fewer topics in greater depth, and particularly emphasized teaching skills (such as analytical writing) over content.

Similarly, at the end of the class, and before the test date, I had students write a research paper, instead of doing weeks of test review, as would someone whose goal was to have the students pass the test.

I guess this is part of why I hated teaching. My viewpoint would have been that (ethically) maximizing the students' chances of passing the test should be heavily prioritized. Even if the fun stuff is better for their psyches, they're paying for a leg up on the competition.

So the worry is that -- if one prioritizes passing the test at all -- the bare facts being tested militate strongly towards certain ideas, and that ethical use of class time does not allow room to introduce complementary material. This is compounded by the fact that so much of the test seems to be free response, and teachers need to be convinced that these would be rubric-ed tightly enough so as to not be graded on ideological parroting. Professionally, I've only seen how the AP grades calculus, so maybe you can tell if such a thing is even possible? My own high school experience was that one wants to approximate ChatGPT's response as well as possible, which is what we'd like to avoid here.

Finally, I found the sample questions to be interesting and challenging (IANA historian). Students would presumably find the course valuable, but (IMO) Florida would be right to claim that the Black experience is better understood with every bell hooks reading replaced by Tupac Shakur.

My viewpoint would have been that (ethically) maximizing the students' chances of passing the test should be heavily prioritized. Even if the fun stuff is better for their psyches, they're paying for a leg up on the competition.

Well, that is an unavoidable dilemma, as is the content v. skills dilemma, and breadth v depth dilemma. But, btw, I don't know that most of my students would call writing essays "fun stuff," though it is probably more fun than lots of rote memorization.

Professionally, I've only seen how the AP grades calculus, so maybe you can tell if such a thing is even possible? My own high school experience was that one wants to approximate ChatGPT's response as well as possible, which is what we'd like to avoid here.

There are obviously no scored tests yet for the new course, but scoring guidelines, sample responses, rubrics, etc for old AP World tests are here, and for old AP US History classes are here

Florida would be right to claim that the Black experience is better understood with every bell hooks reading replaced by Tupac Shakur.

Yes, Florida is free to offer or not offer whatever course it wants (and, as noted, it does in fact offer African American studies classes). But the "culture war" aspect is why Florida rejected this particular course.

But the "culture war" aspect is why Florida rejected this particular course.

Yes. It's also the reason this particular course exists.

Except that Florida high schools offer non-AP versions of the course already.

And, the course exists for one reason: to get more African American students to take AP courses.

And, the course exists for one reason: to get more African American students to take AP courses.

Is this because it is intended to be extremely non-rigorous so anyone with a pulse can get a 4 or 5?

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And, the course exists for one reason: to get more African American students to take AP courses.

That sounds both very counter-productive (see Goodhart's law) and extremely condescending. Like, since they can't take AP math, so we invent AP bullshit and pretend it's the same thing. Nobody would think it's the same thing.

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But the "culture war" aspect is why Florida rejected this particular course.

Did they explicitly say that?

Yes.

Did they? Iirc, the stated motive was an apparent lack of academic rigor.

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But you are confusing content and curriculum. Yes, it will be taught, but as I noted, Florida law explicitly allows it to be taught, as long as it is done objectively. In fact, perhaps the best way to learn about a topic is to criticize it.

Are there any course designs you would consider objectionable by this standard? AP race an IQ? AP Based altrightism? Especially if by teaching demographics data you know that nineteen out of twenty classrooms will be run by a rabid partisan of whichever side you oppose and the test at the end is designed by people you oppose.

I wouldn't be here if I didn't agree with the basic premise of your objection, that exposure to repugnant ideas is good and I'm even sympathetic to high school students getting a dose of this, but I think this is a maximally bad environment for it.

Well, as I think I made clear, any course that is taught with the purpose of pushing a political viewpoint is objectionable.

nineteen out of twenty classrooms will be run by a rabid partisan of whichever side you oppose ... the test at the end is designed by people you oppose

You are making a lot of assumptions there, I must say. Did you even look at the course description? The material that Florida has identified as objectionable are about four of 92 topics.

More importantly, your claim is not Florida's claim. Florida's claim was NOT that "the course seems OK as written, but will be implemented in a biased way." Rather, it was that the course** as written** is biased, which is a claim based on a misunderstanding (perhaps intentional, but perhaps not) on how AP classes work.

The material that Florida has identified as objectionable are about four of 92 topics.

"It's ok officer, for 90% of my drive I wasn't doing 30 over the speed limit"

You must be a big fan of banning gas stoves.

You must be a big fan of devoting 5% of biology class to Intelligent Design.

Nice try, but as it happens I have long advocated for including a unit in intro to biology that presents students with intelligent design and asks them to assess the evidence for and against it. As well as evidence for and against evolution by natural selection, and everything in between.

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as long as it is done objectively

So you fully support and expect such a course to include (given it is a matter that, though not fully settled, still has much objective evidence in its favor) the influence of the quite possibly genetically limited black average IQ on their history and current state of affairs? Since after all if you're studying blacks and black history, surely any genetic specifics of their race are objectively relevant, right?

Your reasoning reminds me of the classic "Just make your own Reddit if you don't like its moderation!" line, in that it retreats into the technicalities of what is formally not impossible to pretend that it is not so blatantly improbable, unwieldy, and unreasonably/unduly burdensome for their interlocutors to be worth seriously advancing as any sort of solution to them (a fallacy I am not quite sure of the name of, but perhaps you could call it "appeal to possibility" or the "akshually fallacy").

Sure, technically based on the written word of Floridan law if this course were to be taught in Florida then it should/could/would be fully objective, merely presenting the facts and allowing students to come to their own conclusions. In practice though, anyone with an ability to make predictions about the future based on empirical observations about the past greater than that of someone with Alzheimer's knows that the context and unavoidable partisanship (given that it's already happened) of the course's formulation and dissemination will inevitably influence its content and presentation in a non-objective direction.

The amount of resources it would take to actually realize a truly objective version of such a course (such as, for example, finding the hundreds of teachers required who would be interested in teaching "African-American Studies" and are also capable of being charitable enough to a right-wing view on the matter to be objective, while also rigorously excluding/avoiding the thousands who would almost certainly engage in any deception to become among those hundreds so as to have a bully pulpit for left-wing propaganda) is not even worth the intellectual/educational value even a truly fully objective version of such a course would provide, especially given how much blacks have tended to be the objects rather than subjects of history.

So you fully support and expect such a course to include (given it is a matter that, though not fully settled, still has much objective evidence in its favor) the influence of the quite possibly genetically limited black average IQ on their history and current state of affairs? Since after all if you're studying blacks and black history, surely any genetic specifics of their race are objectively relevant, right?

Yes, I support the right of a teacher to include that topic in a course on African American Studies, if it is done so in an objective and intellectually rigorous manner.

Okay but that's never going to happen. So even seriously advancing it as a possibility is naive.

LOL, why did you ask the question, if any answer is going to be wrong somehow?

You haven't heard of a rhetorical question? The point is phrased as a question to highlight the obvious absurdity of its own premises.

Your reasoning reminds me of the classic "Just make your own Reddit if you don't like its moderation!" line, in that it retreats into the technicalities of what is formally not impossible to pretend that it is not so blatantly improbable, unwieldy, and unreasonably/unduly burdensome for their interlocutors to be worth seriously advancing as any sort of solution to them

We are quite literally having this discussion on a “your own Reddit”! As Scott pointed out a while ago, any argument is made better with made up numbers, so let’s make some up!

I’ll claim that at least 10% of teachers would actually meet the criteria, which I believe to be an underestimate as some students will take those classes looking for trouble. Teachers would be aware of that; a few would probably aim for martyrdom… which brings us to avoiding a discussion in the concrete as shrewd politics. Allowing for an argument over the merits of “favorite teacher”, students rallied around, after the fact would be a strong and effective nucleation site for dissent. Canceling the class is comparatively easy - the courts could reinstate it, but they can’t turn back time to before the semester.

We are quite literally having this discussion on a “your own Reddit”!

Um, no. This is a forum formatted like Reddit. But it is still a fraction of the size and influence of Reddit. If I want to discuss 90% of the things I can discuss (albeit in an infuriatingly censored/muted fashion) on Reddit (hobby interests, etc.), this place is no alternative whatsoever. It's still better than having no alternatives at all certainly, but saying it is "your own Reddit" is like giving a 16 year old a Hot Wheels and telling them they don't need to be jealous of adults anymore because now they have their own car too.

perhaps the best way to learn about a topic is to criticize it

I'm struggling to think of examples of this being true. If you don't know a discipline, how can you accurately criticize it? If you don't know a topic, wouldn't you just be satisfied with counterarguments which someone conversant in the topic would know to be inaccurate? It's like people in favor of gun control, but who have never shot a gun in their lives or deigned to learn anything about how they work or how they're used. We know how that ends up - bans on purely cosmetic features which do nothing to actually limit gun proliferation or shootings.

I said the best way, not the perfect way. My point is simply that if student A were asked to read article X and summarize it, whereas student B is asked to read article X and criticize it, student B will probably* walk away with a better understanding of article X than will student A.

*note that I said, probably. Not every student, every time.

Edit: And, btw, I said the best way to learn about a topic. Not the best way to, as you said, 'accurately criticize it."

EDIT: disregard the below. I missed the course description link

You’ve got a slight problem in your post: a circular reference.

That is because the course description is not a curriculum, and the course description, like all AP course descriptions, says:

[no specifics about this AP class]

I have attended several AP trainings in my day, and can attest that they make a big deal about individual teachers being given autonomy, as long as their syllabus addresses the content and skills set forth in the course description.

From this, it looks like anything could be taught and match the course description. We should really look at the actual course description, and much more importantly What’s on the test??

No, no, no. The course description sets out the topics and skills to be covered. (As I noted in my post). HOW those topics are covered -- the curriculum -- is up to the individual teacher. It is simply not true that "anything" can be taught, and in fact the College Board requires AP teachers to submit their syllabi to the AP Course Audit to ensure that they are actually covering those topics and skills.

HOW those topics are covered -- the curriculum -- is up to the individual teacher.

in fact the College Board requires AP teachers to submit their syllabi to the AP Course Audit to ensure that they are actually covering those topics and skills.

So... it's not actually up to the individual teacher then? You seem to be proposing some sort of magic, inviolable barrier between "how" and "what" that I don't think exists here. In the realm of teaching, the how and the what influence each other heavily and are frequently just the same thing in different garb.

???? The TOPICS are required (to the extent, of course, that anyone can cover all of the topics, which they can't. But the point is that a course needs to cover those topics, not other topics. Eg: The AP Modern World History covers "the cultural, economic, political, and social developments that have shaped the world from c. 1200 CE to the present." So, a syllabus that spent weeks comparing the Roman and Han empires would be dinged).

But, there is no mandate re HOW the topics are covered. So, in a unit in AP Modern World on Mass Atrocities After 1900, I can focus on Rwanda and Cambodia, or on Germany and the Holodomor, or whatever. Similarly, in that unit I can assign readings by Scott Straus, or by Omar McDoom (yes, the real name of a guy who studies the topic), or Lee Ann Fujii, or people who claim all of those people are misguided.

So you realistically think some teacher is going to be able to get away with assigning Steve Sailer or Charles Murray to add the HBD context to such a course? (If I were the teacher of such a course and strictly striving to be objective, I would feel deficient in that regard to not do so, irrespective of my personal political leanings.) You think that's actually possible?

You're also ignoring that the whole point of AP courses is the test, meaning that the test inevitably dictates quite a bit by gravity even if not necessarily by fiat. You're, as I stated in my other response to you, appealing to possibility while ignoring probability. The fate of those who naively accept that reasoning from their opponents is the same fate of any other gambler who bets on bad odds: the house wins.

Why should those who oppose ideology X be willing to or care to bet on the small probability that a course with every reason to be biased in favor of ideology X might, with great effort on their part that they could expend elsewhere, not be? Why go to pains to try to stop your opponent from shooting you with a gun when you can just stop them from possessing it at all in the first place? Who benefits from this other than the bad actors who caused the issue in the first place? It's the equivalent of peeing on the floor (causing concerns over education being institutionally biased towards the left by, well, institutionally capturing education in a biased left-wing fashion) and demanding someone else clean it up (expend massive resources to try to allow you to still be able to teach your favorite pet subjects without taking advantage of that capture). Why should they?

So you realistically think some teacher is going to be able to get away with assigning Steve Sailer or Charles Murray to add the HBD context to such a course?

What teachers can "get away with" is a rather different issue, but the question is not whether they would get away with adding a new topic to the course, but whether they can get away with including a variety of views on the existing topics in the course.

You're also ignoring that the whole point of AP courses is the test,

As I discuss elsewhere, that is not the whole point of AP courses. The point of AP courses is to enhance student learning.

Hahaha. That might be what is written down about AP courses, but in practice, the point is to give smart kids some college credit through the public school system. And ‘no, we’re not going to spend state money getting kids college credit in some field invented by literal communists and ending in -studies’ is a perfectly reasonable view to take.

And ‘no, we’re not going to spend state money getting kids college credit in some field invented by literal communists and ending in -studies’ is a perfectly reasonable view to take.

And I never said otherwise. As I said, initially, I am generally skeptical of "studies" courses, and as I have said above, Florida is free to decide what courses to offer and not offer. And had they said, "we think "studies" courses are usually bullshit, so we don't want to offer them," that would be fine. But, that is not what they said.

Hahaha. That might be what is written down about AP courses, but in practice, the point is to give smart kids some college credit through the public school system.

It's right there in the name, "Advanced Placement". The College Board's own blurb about it:

AP gives students the chance to tackle college-level work while they're still in high school—whether they're learning online or in the classroom. And through taking AP Exams, students can earn college credit and placement.

As I discuss elsewhere, that is not the whole point of AP courses. The point of AP courses is to enhance student learning.

How many AP students have you polled about this?

Quite a few, actually. In the form of revealed preferences. And I have certainly had lengthy discussions with school policy makers and accreditors, and that is precisely why policy makers pushed to enhance AP offerings, and why accreditors pushed them to do so.

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As I discuss elsewhere, that is not the whole point of AP courses. The point of AP courses is to enhance student learning.

Is this a joke? Were you ever in AP courses? The point is to skip college classes and hopefully save money.

Once upon a time, but more importantly I taught an AP class for years.

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It's also to get higher weighted GPAs in schools that do that. Anyone in the top 10% or so of my highschool class had a GPA higher than could be achieved without taking APs, any non-AP class that took, even with a perfect score, would lower their weighted GPA.

Sorry, I missed your links. Let me review. I was responding to your text, trying to follow the argument, but I was premature in responding.

So, none of the readings complained about are required, and teachers are free, as required by Florida's "Stop WOKE Act" to assign readings on all sides of the issues in question.

This seems a little bit of a change in approach from the normal strict literalism you've been bringing recently. Stop WOKE does not require teachers to "assign readings on all sides of the issues", under the increasingly-reasonably-looking theory that progressives would consider their own racially-discriminatory texts as a legitimate side and conservative-leaning views (or classically anti-discriminatory ones!) as not. The relevant prong of the law is:

"It shall constitute discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or sex under this section to subject any student or employee to training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such student or employee to believe any of the following concepts:

  • Members of one race, color, national origin, or sex are morally superior to members of another race, color, national origin, or sex
  • A person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.
  • A person's moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, national origin, or sex.
  • Members of one race, color, national origin, or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race, color, national origin, or sex.
  • A person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex bears responsibility for, or should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of, actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex.243
  • A person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion.
  • A person, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex.
  • Such virtues as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular race, color, national origin, or sex to oppress members of another race, color, national origin, or sex."

((From a philosophical position I think this raises some serious free speech questions given that it is neither content- nor viewpoint-neutral, but from a legal one it'd just get smothered in the crib as government speech were it a progressive political program.))

Now, this statute does have one exception, but rather than a "all sides" one, it's :

Paragraph (a) may not be construed to prohibit discussion of the concepts listed therein as part of a larger course of training or instruction, provided such training or instruction is given in an objective manner without endorsement of the concepts.

Emphasis added. That is, it is neither sufficient nor necessary to cover "all sides", but instead a teacher must specifically avoid endorsement. There could be a fair argument that this syllabi could be customized in a way that matches this exception. Except, of course, you specifically admit:

"I have not looked closely at the course description for the AP class..."

Now, I'm not particularly interested in the question of whether this is political propaganda lacking rigor and requiring students to parrot a political viewpoint, because it's a school project on a politically valiant topic what do you expect the sort of question that immediately demands argument-by-definition whether this is happening and then, having admitted it, whether it's good. And there's a fair argument that this is not sufficiently precise enough to be a law, in that fun void-for-vagueness way (although, again, compare how government speech regs fair when used to further progressive political goals).

But it's a little hard to see that for this specific situation. A recommended text for "The Reparations Movement" is Coates' "The Case For Reparations". Even assuming that teachers could add a Sowellian counterargument, this remains an endorsement of racially discriminatory practices for the purpose of repairing the harms from actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or national origin (literally: "It is as though we have run up a credit-card bill and, having pledged to charge no more, remain befuddled that the balance does not disappear" and "Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole", in case you thought fiscal conservatives had a monopoly on bad debt metaphors), and one that's very likely to be on the not-adjustable test.

((And in practice, there's a complex auditing system that goes on, here; I think you're vastly overstating the degrees of freedom a state has to modify the syllabi.))

It's physically possible to discuss the material without endorsing it (although whether such discussion would prepare students for an AP exam...), but do you really expect the average classroom to manage it? We can barely manage to teach Brave New World without people missing the blatant racism and classism for the feelies and drugs and free love. And it's not exactly alone, here.

Yes, I suppose I misspoke slightly; Stop WOKE does not not technically require teachers to assign readings from both sides. Nevertheless, under the course description, teachers are free to do so, and are certainly free to teach the course in an objective manner. That is the main point: Florida seems to be claiming otherwise, which is incorrect.

A recommended text for "The Reparations Movement" is Coates' "The Case For Reparations".

The point is that it is a recommended text, not a required text, as Florida implies.

((And in practice, there's a complex auditing system that goes on, here; I think you're vastly overstating the degrees of freedom a state has to modify the syllabi.))

Yes, I have gone through the AP course audit. But, like many people here (as well as the Florida DOE), you are conflating the course description with the curriculum or the syllabus. Teachers are not free to modify** the course description** -- for example, they generally cannot teach units that are not included in the official description. But, they are free to develop their own syllabus: There is no official syllabus, and the course audit to which you refer is a review of each teacher's syllabus.

It's physically possible to discuss the material without endorsing it (although whether such discussion would prepare students for an AP exam...), but do you really expect the average classroom to manage it?

Yes! By assigning readings on both sides.

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I'm having intense flashbacks to culture wars of years past, with the polarities reversed. I'm of course talking about "creation science".

It's all the same arguments. The "both sides" arguments, the "this belongs in a social studies class, not science" arguments, the "you can't have an authority figure like a teacher showing preference for these ideas in an education setting" arguments. And we more or less saw how that culture war shook out. I see no reason this one shouldn't follow through to the same conclusion. AP African American Studies is not education. It's dogma masquerading as such. It's no different in substance, rigor or evidence as "creation science".

I have zero reason to ever give the people teaching this curriculum the benefit of the doubt. Every interview with African American Studies scholars I've seen lambasting the decision is full of all the mealy mouthed buzzwords and turns of phrase I've learned to interpret as massive red flags.

The insistence that they don't "teach kids what to think, but how to think". Which I've learned is actually far more pernicious when you teach people how to think incorrectly. To turn a phrase, throw someone's fish in the river, they'll go hungry for a day. Teach them the wrong way to fish, and they'll go hungry the rest of their life.

There is always the old classic that they teach kids to study history "through a critical lens", which rather gives the game away. The "critical lens" only ever points one direction.

And of course in the interview I saw on The Hill, the scholar further emphasized that MLK Jr's legacy needs to be placed in the proper context of MLK Jr's "Democratic Socialism and radical" beliefs, if you believed any of the red flags I listed above had a more benign interpretation.

Furthermore, DeSantis was elected almost specifically to do this. If he actually has the authority to do so, I'm all for it. I'm over arguing principle. This is naked power politics, that I've been on the receiving end of. Turn about is fair play.

Because in my local school district that has tripled down on far left policies, they just lie. They lie when they are caught. They lie when those lies are exposed. When a grand jury is empaneled to investigate them, they lie more. When the grand jury report is released, they tell even more lies. It's lies the whole way down. The process has taken 3 years and counting, and in the meantime, nothing has changed and they still have our children as a captive audience. These are institutions that have learned to obscure, confuse and obfuscate through extreme bureaucratic defense in depth, and they've repeatedly proven themselves to be utterly untrustworthy.

There is always the old classic that they teach kids to study history "through a critical lens", which rather gives the game away. The "critical lens" only ever points one direction.

Note that the syllabus never uses the term "critical lens". But it does use "lens" in that manner. It's like they were trying to avoid the trigger word while still getting the meaning across.

Let me attempt some kind of steelman here. First, like you, I am extremely skeptical of grievance study courses, and particularly CRT. Second, while I think it’s fine to study these phenomena at arm’s length, often high school students assume they are being taught the truth, not merely one perverse angle on it. In 99% of my high school classes, it was obvious I was meant to internalize and adopt the teachings presented. Only the most careful of teachers could approach truly controversial topics. I have little confidence this can be maintained across our public high school education system.

Nonetheless. The course description describes what to expect at college. This is an AP class after all. I can’t argue with the course description, which certainly covers a great deal of CRT, even if seemingly out of proportion with its influence and impact on ordinary African Americans.

Now, Florida DOE is faced with a course description that it has significant disagreement with. They could design a curriculum that sideskirts all the CRT stuff, but then its students will fare poorly on the AP test. Which failure is a greater disservice to its students? Failing to prepare them for a very important test, or breaking the ban on CRT?

It would be nice if the College Board could separate the most controversial, politically charged aspects of their African American History into a seperate module, perhaps Advanced African American History. It seems we are forced to throw the baby out for the bathwater.

"African-American Studies" (hereinafter "AAS" because I'm lazy) is not "African-American History." In fact, properly understood, a student isn't really able to engage fruitfully with AAS until they already have a reasonable familiarity with the relevant history, sociology, anthropology, music/cultural studies, etc. The whole point of the various "X Studies" programs is to be interdisciplinary - to take extant bodies of information, place them in dialogue with each other, and attempt to figure out what insights they may have to offer each other, and identify blind spots in prior, monodisciplinary analysis.

Oh gosh, good point. So maybe the distinction I propose is already there? It would make sense, to me, for Florida to offer AAH but maybe not AAS. I feel like much of “liberal” uproar assumed Florida was cutting out AAH. Is AAH generally a prereq for AAS?

Were that true, then college intro to Af Am Studies courses would have lengthy prerequisites. They don't. Nor does the major normally require basic intro coursework from any of those fields. See, eg, the UCLA major requirements here.

The major is certainly interdisciplinary, but the basic concepts of sociology, history, etc, are acquired through an African American lense.

Most college education still presumes a basic level of competency; after all, the aspirant already graduated high school with at least decent grades, and did decently well on the relevant college entrance exam.

Yes, of course. But that is an entirely different claim.

No it's not. Presumably someone taking a college-level interdisciplinary class at least has high-school level knowledge of the basics of the underlying history, civics, and literature. The college level course can draw on that background knowledge while presenting the information in a new context, or through a new frame.

The coursework under discussion in FL, by contrast, is a high-school level interdisciplinary course, which is putting the cart before the horse.

  1. You were clearly referring to college-level programs in your comment, since you referred to "the various "X Studies" programs"

  2. Regardless, why do you assume that the AP class will be taken by students who have not already completed HS history, etc? Most HS seniors have done so, for example.

They could design a curriculum that sideskirts all the CRT stuff

My entire point is that they don't have to do that. They need only include opposing views. And that would probably give their students a leg up on understanding the material.

Individual teachers are responsible for designing their own curriculum for AP courses and selecting appropriate college-level readings, assignments, and resources. This publication presents the content and skills that are the focus of the corresponding college course and that appear on the AP Exam. It also organizes the content and skills into a series of units that represent a sequence found in widely adopted college syllabi. The intention of this publication is to respect teachers' time and expertise by providing a roadmap that they can modify and adapt to their local priorities and preferences.

It's been a while since I took AP courses, but the history exams I took definitely had a mix of more open-ended questions where students had to be able to evaluate evidence and make arguments, and also a section of multiple-choice fact questions. In addition, some of the writing questions required you to know all of the relevant information already (FRQ). Even for the part that gave you primary sources and required you to evaluate them (DBQ), you would have to have at least some context and outside information in order to be able to do that evaluating. So although you could emphasize different themes, there was still quite a lot of factual information you had to have in order to get a decent grade on the AP exam.

The material need not be skipped*. It can be covered from opposing views.

*That being said, there are 90+ topics in the course description. Every teacher is going to skip some, as is common in AP History courses, which the College Board well knows (source: UC Berkeley prof who was a long-time member of the AP World History test committee).

There is a very odd complaint in the Florida DOE's list: It objects to a reading by one author in part because, "Kelley's first book was a study of Black communists in Alabama." Not, 'an adulatory study," but merely a "study." It is like objecting to a reading by Donald Horowitz because he wrote a study of ethnic riots.

It's not hard to look up.

It's not terrible as a book, as much as I'd take a lot of its summaries with mountain-sized pieces of salt (in particular, I remember being impressed by how poorly the book glosses around Soviet funding of the organizations while describing Soviet influence or organization as propaganda). But for however the reviewers call it a 'descriptive' study, it's very much a descriptive study from the perspective of someone that really fucking likes communists and communism. There's occasional recognition of faults and failures, but they're things like :

The little Red Scare had taken its toll by the middle of 1939, forcing liberals and labor into temporary retreat and ruining the Party's hopes for a Southern Democratic Front. As CIO and SCHW leaders geared up for their own internal investigations and expulsions, an unexpected event in Europe hastened their actions. In August 1939, the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with fascist Germany that cleared the way for the Nazi invasion of Poland and simultaneously enabled Russia to invade Finland. After an initial period of disbelief, two confusing months passed before the Comintern announced a substantive change in the Party line. The old antifascist slogans were dropped as the Central Committee launched a new campaign to keep America out of the "imperialist war." The era of the Democratic Front came to an inauspicious end.

or

The ILD's persistent mass campaign on Peterson's behalf proved to be a painful thorn in the side of the newly reconstituted NAACP. When the Birmingham Post published an article linking the two organizations as defenders of "Negro cases," the local NAACP branch responded with a patriotic letter distancing itself from the ILD and claiming no connection whatsoever with the Scottsboro case. In fact, distinguishing itself from the ILD seemed to be the whole point of the Peterson campaign, with respect to politics.

or

The case of white Birmingham Communist Fred Keith provides us with an instructive example. When three Birmingham Party members were invited to the Soviet Union in 1932 to study at the Lenin School, Keith wanted desperately to go, but Hosea Hudson's criticisms of his work among the white unemployed convinced other members of the district committee to reject his request. After three blacks were chosen over Keith, he turned informant and complained to authorities about the favoritism blacks allegedly received in the Party.

That is, Hammer and Hoe details a lot of ways communist groups were sometimes incompetent, occasionally became unintentional strawmen, and were often insufficiently communist; it has few places where it considers or even describes potential solutions to a given economic or social problem other than more Stalins communism except to consider these things conservative interlopers. The 25th Anniversary edition opens with a preface explicitly spelling out that "I'd be lying if I said Hammer and Hoe was conceived as a purely academic contribution, unburdened by presentist concerns", before highlighting perceived overlap with the 1990s South African revolution.

There's a fair criticism that the Stop WOKE Act doesn't actually have any rules about communism, and in that sense, yes: I don't think you could honestly say Kelley blamed people for the racism of their ancestors at any point, both because it's not the focus and also because he was too busy blaming them for the insufficient communism. In that sense, the inclusion on the list is pretty obviously and overtly a political moment (ed: and not even an especially competent one: the recommended authors for 4.1 and 4.2 are far more controversial in Stop WOKE-specific ways).

But even if I hadn't previously read the book, I don't think I'd have had to make really difficult calculations on its political position, or the political position of its inclusion on the Florida DOE's list.

Yes, I am sure the book is terrible, and horribly biased, etc. But the point is that the document doesn't claim that. It complains merely that he wrote a book on the topic.

"The courses are not rigorous." Maybe true, but many courses in school are not indented to be rigorous in an academic sense per say, like art, music, PE, etc. If rigor is the sole criterion, then this would mean many other courses would have to be removed. This would imply that 'European History', which is also an AP course, may also be lacking in rigour.

"The courses are biased." But what if they were made more objective/impartial?

These objections seem to be be an attempt to divert from the actual motive /reason, being that people do not want courses which single out African Americans, although European History already exists. Maybe rebrand it as "African History", which does not exist as an AP subject? There are no good answers it seems. My own opinion is just lump all ethnicities/races into a single course(s), without any obvious preference/favoritism. I don't think it's that big if a deal.

These objections seem to be be an attempt to divert from the actual motive /reason, being that people do not want courses which single out African Americans, although European History already exists. Maybe rebrand it as "African History", which does not exist as an AP subject? There are no good answers it seems. My own opinion is just lump all ethnicities/races into a single course(s), without any obvious preference/favoritism. I don't think it's that big if a deal.

Banish from your mind the notion that this course teaches history. I linked below to an African American Studies scholar who freely admits as much. The course is not about history. It's about "learning how to think" and "viewing things through a critical lens".

I'm really struggling to come up with anything that would be an apple to apples comparison to a course we'd be broadly familiar with. But these "XYZ Studies" degrees really are their own special thing. I can't think of a single other curriculum that isn't about teaching subject matter per say, and is instead about deconstructing, recontextualizing, or specifically countering other course work or cultural forces. Like a "math" class that attempts undermine your belief in validity mathematics.

viewing things through a critical lens

I have come to the opinion that critical is a terrible word choice (but possibly deliberately so). The different meanings of "heralded to critical acclaim", "critical decision to save the world", "in critical condition", and "overly critical diatribe" are so disparate that despite years of supposed education, I'm not sure which "critical thinking" refers to.

Naively, we should be teaching students to fairly evaluate ideas, and to make important decisions. But sometimes it seems like people lean into the criticism aspect to justify nihilism and tearing down everything without any thought to improving the human condition.

But sometimes it seems like people lean into the criticism aspect to justify nihilism and tearing down everything without any thought to improving the human condition.

Political as well as social revolutionaries often seek to destroy and delegitimize the dominant framework because chaos and confusion are fertile soil for planting the seeds of a new framework. That's the implicit goal of efforts to "attack structural whiteness" or whatever. Once "whiteness" has been made radioactive and repellent enough, activists can offer their CRT framework as a path to redemption for those benighted souls who had been ignorant enough to use the old framework to understand the world.

You can see this strategy play out in every leftist movement since the French Revolution. It's a good one, the right seems to have no defense against it.

The course is not about history. It's about "learning how to think" and "viewing things through a critical lens".

Those are not mutually exclusive. The CA history standards, for example, include both content standards and historical thinking and analysis standards. I assume other states do as well. And AP World, AP European and AP US History all include historical analysis and thinking as purposes of the course.

"The courses are not rigorous."

To be more clear, I meant that in a relative sense. Several years ago, I was talking to a former student of mine who was attending UC Berkeley. He mentioned he was taking a Women's Studies class. I said to him, "Let me guess -- it was by far the easiest class you have taken at Cal." He confirmed that my suspicion was very much correct.

being that people do not want courses which single out African Americans, although European History already exists

Do you think that there would be similar objections to an African history course?

This is an overly charitable take. The key to judging AP courses of this sort is to just skip to the recommended readings section. In this outline it starts on 70 with recommended textbooks. The first one listed, by Maulana Karenga clearly would be in violation of the FL statute if used. It is an openly race critical text that contains all forms of intersectional conspiracy theories. Its hard to imagine the majority of those textbooks (which are not mandatory, but in practice are more or less mandatory) are all that different. The other literature section contains a hodgepodge of works, I am not familiar with all of them, but at least 5 on the first page contain conspiratorial rants about whiteness, white supremacy, or some similar concept.

  1. Where does it say that the course requires a textbook at all? After all, it says that only 61% of college courses surveyed use a textbook.

  2. It is impossible for a textbook to violate the FL statute, because the FL law does not reference textbooks. It references courses, and permits the study of the concepts listed therein as long as it is done so objectively. It does not require that every resource be objective. Many teachers ask students to critique textbooks, and there is nothing to stop Florida teachers from doing so, if for some reason the State adopts one of the textbooks you find problematic.

  3. Speaking of textbook adoption, state funds can not generally be used to purchase textbooks that have not been adopted by the State or by the district, including AP textbooks. See, eg, this district's list of adopted books, including those for AP classes. hence, if those books are as problematic as you say, Florida will not permit districts to use state money to buy them, just as they did not permit districts to use state money to buy math textbooks which they found problematic.

Edit: Also, 4) The fact that the FL DOE did not take issue with the textbook list indicates that it is not as problematic as you suppose.

Where does it say that the course requires a textbook at all? After all, it says that only 61% of college courses surveyed use a textbook.

HS teachers rarely do this. I had very few HS courses without a textbook, and those were all ones with reading lists of books. Its a question of basic competency and effort.

It is impossible for a textbook to violate the FL statute, because the FL law does not reference textbooks. It references courses, and permits the study of the concepts listed therein as long as it is done so objectively. It does not require that every resource be objective. Many teachers ask students to critique textbooks, and there is nothing to stop Florida teachers from doing so, if for some reason the State adopts one of the textbooks you find problematic.

Obviously the text of the law is written to evade facial challenges and forum shopping to find a particularly left wing federal judge from striking it down on whatever spurious grounds she thinks up. In practicality, the DOE must holistically review a proposed course to see whether, in a large number of instances it will violate the law.

Speaking of textbook adoption, state funds can not generally be used to purchase textbooks that have not been adopted by the State or by the district, including AP textbooks. See, eg, this district's list of adopted books, including those for AP classes. hence, if those books are as problematic as you say, Florida will not permit districts to use state money to buy them, just as they did not permit districts to use state money to buy math textbooks which they found problematic.

There are likely ways for teachers to obtain them for free. They also can use the alternative readings list as a basis, which also would result in a course that is in violation of the law in nearly every iteration.

The fact that the FL DOE did not take issue with the textbook list indicates that it is not as problematic as you suppose.

DOE official statements need to be as measured as possible so as to survive hostile lawsuits.

Obviously the text of the law is written to evade facial challenges and forum shopping to find a particularly left wing federal judge from striking it down on whatever spurious grounds she thinks up. In practicality, the DOE must holistically review a proposed course to see whether, in a large number of instances it will violate the law.

You basically seem to be making this up. There is no way to make a facial challenge to the law regardless of that provision. The Court's govt speech cases in general, and their education cases in particular, make it very clear that govt can use schools to inculcate any values they want. And, the law says what it says, and in fact the very fact that it explicitly permits objective discussion renders the criticism of the law invalid.

There are likely ways for teachers to obtain them for free

Nope.

DOE official statements need to be as measured as possible so as to survive hostile lawsuits.

You obviously haven't read the statements that have been made.

On page 68 of the Course Framework document, we find that one of the "research takeaways" that "helped define the essential course topics" is that "Students should understand core concepts, including diaspora, Black feminism and intersectionality, the language of race and racism (e.g., structural racism, racial formation, racial capitalism) and be introduced to important approaches (e.g., Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism)."

These "core concepts" are mostly from CRT or the cluster of ideologies to which it belongs. Presumably all variants of a course must teach its "core concepts." We can assume students will need to be familiar with these concepts to pass the AP exam and that the College Board will decline to approve syllabi that don't teach these concepts.

Why would anyone who believes this ideology to be harmful ever agree to allow this course to be taught? You might equally well argue it would be unreasonable to object to the introduction of an "AP White Studies" course in which the "core concepts" are tenets of white nationalism, on the grounds that as long as you make sure students are conversant on the Great Replacement (which will definitely be on the test), there's no rule saying you can't include other perspectives too.

Why would anyone who believes this ideology to be harmful ever agree to allow this course to be taught?

As I have said several times, if Florida does not want to offer the course, that is their right. And as I also said, right up front, I tend to be skeptical of "studies" courses in general. The point is that being familiar with the concepts does not mean accepting them as true, and the College Board explicitly requires teachers to "design[] their own curriculum . . . [and] modify and adapt [it] to their local priorities and preferences."

And, your AP White Studies hypothetical is a perfect example: Yes, it absolutely would be unreasonable to object to the introduction of a course that includes the study of the tenets of white nationalism; that is an important ideology. Just as it would be unreasonable to object to the introduction of a course on Important Ideas of the 20th Century because it includes the study of the tenets of National Socialism, or Stalinism. And, just as it would be unreasonable to object to a African American Studies course because it includes discussion of ideas that were important to African Americans in 1920, such as Garveyism, it is unreasonable to object to that course because it includes discussion of ideas that are important to African Americans today. What IS objectionable is a course which advocates any of those ideas, be it white nationalism or Garveyism or Stalinism or "anti-racism." And, yes, I am sure that some teachers will teach the AP course precisely that way, but that does not mean that doing so is required, nor that the State of Florida can't teach it in, as the Stop WOKE Act says, "an objective manner without endorsement of the concepts."

Your hypothetical Important Ideas of the 20th Century course, and I think the way you're choosing to imagine the white nationalist course, aren't quite the same as what's happening here. You're ignoring the social and academic context in which this course is being introduced.

This isn't just the equivalent of a course having high school students learn the tenets of white nationalism — which most people would already find wildly objectionable, even if you don't — it's the equivalent of white nationalists themselves introducing such a course, in which students are not only taught about white nationalist beliefs but are presented with history interpreted through a white nationalist lens and taught how to perform such interpretation themselves. Also white nationalists get to write and grade the exam, can veto syllabi that deviate from their understanding of what the course should be, and know they can rely on most teachers interested in teaching the course either being white nationalists themselves or at least naively willing to accept white nationalist framing.

So, sure, in some extremely hypothetical sense a state where the consensus was against CRT could adapt this African American Studies course to "local priorities and preferences" by having students learn its CRT-derived "core concepts" via James Lindsey. Those students might even have a clearer picture of those concepts than they'd get from reading the often obfuscatory writings of their proponents! But in practice, no, you couldn't remotely do this. The College Board wouldn't approve your syllabus, on the contextually reasonable basis that it didn't represent African American Studies as taught in colleges. Your students wouldn't be able demonstrate "correct" (that is, politically correct) understanding on open-ended exam questions.

Almost certainly, the "local priorities and preferences" language just cashes out as "you can add some modules about local history," not "you can refocus the course on questioning the validity of the analytical framework that underpins the entire academic field it's situated within."

Almost certainly, the "local priorities and preferences" language just cashes out as "you can add some modules about local history,"

As mentioned previously, I have taken several AP trainings, and that is absolutely NOT what what that language means. They make a rather big deal about teacher autonomy.

Those students might even have a clearer picture of those concepts than they'd get from reading the often obfuscatory writings of their proponents!

Yes, they probably would, as I argued in another response.

The College Board wouldn't approve your syllabus, on the contextually reasonable basis that it didn't represent African American Studies as taught in colleges.

  1. That is conflating the TOPICS that are taught with HOW they are taught. The AP course audit looks at coverage, and at whether students are asked to use analytical skills, etc. It is of course possible that this course will be an exception, but a claim that it will be is based purely on the assumption that the course is intended to be indoctrination. As I said in my initial post, "studies" courses often are, in my very limited experience solely at the HS level. But that does not mean that they must be.

  2. The bigger problem with a James Lindsey-based course is that it would fall afoul of Florida's Stop WOKE Act, because it would be teaching the subject in a non-objective manner. You have inadvertently set up a strawman, since my point all along has been simply that a course which assigned students both Kimberle Crenshaw and her critics would meet the criteria of both the College Board and FL law.

You have inadvertently set up a strawman, since my point all along has been simply that a course which assigned students both Kimberle Crenshaw and her critics would meet the criteria of both the College Board and FL law.

I feel like I've addressed this already. Reading Crenshaw and her critics might be a reasonable basis for a class, but not if Crenshaw supporters get to define the "core concepts" of the class, the syllabus has to be approved by Crenshaw supporters, and the exam will be written and graded by Crenshaw supporters. It is entirely unreasonable to ask people who disagree with Crenshaw to accept this.

It is entirely unreasonable to ask people who disagree with Crenshaw to accept this.

Again, I think you are addressing an argument that I did not make. As I have said, if Florida doesn't want to offer the class, or any class, that discusses topic X, that is fine. So, I agree that there is nothing unreasonable about that. What is unreasonable is claiming that the College Board requires that the course be taught in a one-sided manner, which is what FL seems to be claiming.

The point is that being familiar with the concepts does not mean accepting them as true

This is sophistry; they will be taught from materials which assume and assert these concepts are true, and they will be required to use these concepts, as the first two bullets of "Learning Outcomes" make clear

  • Apply lenses from multiple disciplines to evaluate key concepts, historical developments, and processes that have shaped Black experiences and debates within the field of African American studies.
  • Identify the intersections of race, gender, and class, as well as connections between Black communities, in the United States and the broader African diaspora in the past and present.

Certainly one could remain an atheist while taking a course on Catholicism from the Bible and other Catholic theological material in which you are required to recite prayers and apply Catholic theological perspectives on the test. But such a course would still be way over the line for a public school.

they will be taught from materials which assume and assert these concepts are true,

Once again, Florida teachers are free to have students read materials on both sides of the issues.

"Apply lenses from multiple disciplines to evaluate . . ."

In education speak, "evaluate" means "presenting and defending opinions by making judgments about information, the validity of ideas, or quality of work based on a set of criteria."

Once again, Florida teachers are free to have students read materials on both sides of the issues.

In practice how do you think this will turn out though? I have a hard time believing you are being honest with this act of “Who knows, all the teachers of AP Af Am Studies might just turn out to be David Duke, Chris Rufo and Charles Murray!”

You know damn well 99% of teachers for this course will either be true believers or willing to parrot the true believers in presenting this stuff as uncritically true

Even if you had skeptical teachers, having them read materials on the other side of the issues -- that is, those which disparaged intersectionality and denigrated the various "lenses" -- would be a waste of time from the course perspective. It would not further the course's goals and it would actively harm the student's chances on the test. Basically it's saying that the course is forbidden by law but the violation can be cured by teaching the "anti-course" at the same time.

You know damn well 99% of teachers for this course will either be true believers or willing to parrot the true believers in presenting this stuff as uncritically true

Please review my initial post, in which I said:

Now, I am not a fan of most "studies" courses, because, in my limited experience, they tend to lack rigor and often push a political viewpoint, which is both a disservice to students and, to the extent that students are required to parrot that viewpoint, a First Amendment violation when the course is taught in public schools (and in private schools as well, in California).

I have also repeatedly said that Florida is free to decide what to offer and what not to offer, and have noted that it actually requires coverage of African American history.

You seem to be trying to argue the merits of the course. But that was not my point. My point is not that the course is good or bad, or should be taught or shouldn't be taught. The point is that Florida is inaccurately claiming that the course **must **be taught that way. If the state thinks that it will be unable to ensure that its teachers follow the law when teaching this course, then they shouldn't offer it. But that is a completely different argument than the one that they made.

New from me: In Defense of the New College Takeover, also published with my bosses' permission over at Blocked & Reported. In light of the recent news that Ron DeSantis appointed Chris Rufo and a number of other conservatives to the board of hyper-progressive New College of Florida, I felt compelled to write a response to criticisms of the move from a number of people in the "heterodox" sphere, including my own bosses. The full piece is quite long, so I'll quote the third section below (with some edits for brevity), in which I make the case for serious diversity of thought not only within institutions, but between them:

Many people I respect worry about the idea of one institutional bias being replaced by another sort of institutional bias in universities, and embrace the idea that every university should be a joyous hodgepodge of intellectual curiosity with no loyalty, implicit or explicit, to any one creed. This stance, more or less, is held by all those I cite in my intro as critics of this move: my employers, Young, Pinker, Haidt, and other principled and careful thinkers whose stances I take seriously.

I like and respect their position. Is it too impertinent, though, to say they might be wrong?

Before you crucify me, allow me to introduce another set of thinkers I respect: [Bryan Caplan, Tyler Cowen, Alex Tabarrok, and Robin Hanson].

Those of you who have heard of these men before already likely know what they have in common: they are all professors of economics at George Mason University. This is not a coincidence. Rather, it is the direct result of a conscious choice by George Mason, more than 50 years ago, to zig where other universities zagged, snapping up brilliant free-market economists while their ideas were unpopular in the broader academic market. Fittingly for an economics department, they found and exploited an niche that was undervalued by academia writ large, and were rewarded with a string of brilliant economists, including Nobel Prize winners, and a culture of contrarianism and intellectual curiosity that persists to the present.

The existence of the GMU economics department is a boon to academic and intellectual culture, and has provided serious benefits to me personally, even though I have never attended and most likely will never attend George Mason University, even though I stubbornly and resolutely reject many tenets of the libertarianism of so many of its finest thinkers. It did not spring up by chance. It sprang up out of a conscious, ideologically influenced decision to provide an alternative to the culture embraced by the great majority of universities around it.

In short, universities do not exist in isolation. Jonathan Haidt is absolutely correct about the value of viewpoint diversity in academia. Nobody, sincere or not, well-meaning or not, is free of bias. Nor should people be free of bias—or, in other words, they ought to have clear values. Much more important is to be aware of and explicit about their biases, and to open their work to examination by those with contrary biases. I’ve written before about the value of wrong opinions. If you more-or-less agree with something, it’s easy to brush over shared assumptions and nod along without close examination. Only those motivated to disagree are likely to put in the time and effort to give any intellectual work the serious critique it deserves.

What applies to individuals applies to institutions. Every institution has values: some implicit, some explicit. Every university department, and every university, evolves an overarching culture. When I dream of diversity in academia, I do not dream of a diversity that sees every university aiming to achieve a perfect 50/50 balance of people who fall on the left or the right of the American political spectrum. I do not dream of a diversity in which every economics department offers the same mix of Keynsian, Chicago, and Austrian economics. I dream of diversity between institutions: one in which George Mason economists argue with Harvard critical race theorists, where Chicago Law and Berkeley Law hash out serious disagreements, where to attend one university means to be immersed in its particular culture, with a range of cultures on offer between different universities that is as wide as productively possible.

This feels obvious and pressing in education, the domain I feel strongest about. It’s not as simple as progressive versus conservative in that domain—it rarely is. But schools of education are subject to a range of fads, struggling to adopt the lessons of cognitive science. The most well-publicized example recently has been the question of “The Reading Wars,” a fierce dispute between phonics and whole-language approaches. Other debates and forgotten episodes include “discovery learning” versus direct instruction, the spread of “learning styles” even as its evidence base crumbled, and the school district that threw unimaginable money at education problems with minimal effect. To dive into all of these properly would deserve an article of its own, but each question interacts with ideology in sometimes subtle ways, and our best instincts can lead us astray in a domain where what works is often, maddeningly, what feels worst. The field has been dominated like few others by progressives with progressive instincts, and many of its missteps are in precisely the places where those instincts lead intuition astray.

Right now, the most serious shortage I see in the broader culture of academia is that of serious traditionalist conservative intellectuals and universities. Liberals are well-represented. Libertarians make their showing, and not a half-bad one at that. Heaven knows there are plenty of Marxists. But conservatives have fled the Academy and the Academy has fled conservatives. In the social sciences and humanities—the domains I find most compelling—serious conservative thought is almost wholly absent, and with that absence comes real loss, especially for those who disagree with conservatism. Hiring conservative professors in overwhelmingly liberal humanities departments is part of the solution, but another serious part—and a responsibility that can only fall on conservatives themselves—is the cultivation of more intellectually serious humanities and social sciences departments, alongside liberal arts colleges, with sincere commitments to presenting conservative thought. [...]

Bluntly, I cannot picture a world where New College shifts to being dominated by conservatives. What I can picture, and what I hope for, is a world where it shifts to being open to conservatives, where young people eager to study the great works of history and to embrace a liberal arts education can do so in an environment that does not demand rigid adherence to progressive tenets. Perhaps that 12 to one ratio among faculty can shrink to, say, four to one. Stranger things have happened.

The answer to bias isn’t only a different kind of bias. But in an ecosystem where virtually every liberal arts college is overwhelmingly biased in much the same way, having a few to sing the counter-melody can help.

To be honest, diversity in bias versus unbiased institutions is an irrelevant question here; new college of Florida can be overseen by conservative political appointees, or it can have an extremely strong progressive bias, and there is no alternative.

Those of you who have heard of these men before already likely know what they have in common: they are all professors of economics at George Mason University. This is not a coincidence. Rather, it is the direct result of a conscious choice by George Mason, more than 50 years ago, to zig where other universities zagged, snapping up brilliant free-market economists while their ideas were unpopular in the broader academic market. Fittingly for an economics department, they found and exploited an niche that was undervalued by academia writ large, and were rewarded with a string of brilliant economists, including Nobel Prize winners, and a culture of contrarianism and intellectual curiosity that persists to the present.

The existence of the GMU economics department is a boon to academic and intellectual culture, and has provided serious benefits to me personally, even though I have never attended and most likely will never attend George Mason University, even though I stubbornly and resolutely reject many tenets of the libertarianism of so many of its finest thinkers. It did not spring up by chance. It sprang up out of a conscious, ideologically influenced decision to provide an alternative to the culture embraced by the great majority of universities around it.

Has there ever been a putatively left-wing economics department at any university? I think GMU is trying to copy the success of the Chicago School or models itself after it , which was/is a huge success. Neoclassical economic positions are more likely to attract funding and prestige compared to more heterodox alternatives. Many Nobel Prizes in economics were downstream of the ideas conceived or popularized by the Chicago School.

I dream of diversity between institutions: one in which George Mason economists argue with Harvard critical race theorists, where Chicago Law and Berkeley Law hash out serious disagreements, where to attend one university means to be immersed in its particular culture, with a range of cultures on offer between different universities that is as wide as productively possible.

This seems as productive as having mechanical engineers debate CRT. In the first example you're talking across fields/domains, whereas the law example is across the same domain. Diversity of viewpoints should not mean having to shoehorn diversity where it's unproductive.

Has there ever been a putatively left-wing economics department at any university?

You must be asking specifically about the US right? Because there's still a bunch of Marxians around in Europe and since they are "heterodox" they tend to to the exact same thing described here.

I suppose if you could ask Mises he would say that all economics departments are left wing, including his own.

The University of Utah's econ department has been called Marxist pretty often. I mean UofU's raison d'etre is to be the anti-BYU so it kind of makes sense:

https://dailyutahchronicle.com/2018/04/16/us-economics-department-marxist-or-diverse/

Hiring conservative professors in overwhelmingly liberal humanities departments is part of the solution, but another serious part—and a responsibility that can only fall on conservatives themselves—is the cultivation of more intellectually serious humanities and social sciences departments, alongside liberal arts colleges, with sincere commitments to presenting conservative thought.

How does this responsibility "fall on conservatives themselves?" Conservatives (of the type that I think you mean: classically liberal American Constitutional conservatives) hold as one of their values the free and robust exchange of ideas. They are already there. Progressives hold as their primary value the exclusion of these types of Conservatives from institutions and the toxification of all of their ideas -- and they've been successful! Without a change of heart or voluntary surrender from Progressives, what can Conservatives do except embrace conflict theory, take back institutions by force and block the entryists, forsaking the very mistake theory that you and I wish to have restored?

Yes, I don’t understand quite what Trace means by “the cultivation of more intellectually serious humanities and social sciences departments”. Cultivation sounds like grassroots, bottom up. Conservatives certainly can’t improve the intellectual seriousness of these departments from the top down. I’d say that’s a bigger responsibility, for those in charge.

So what can conservatives do for cultivation? Hillsdale and GMU, I guess. But aren’t they already doing this? What’s the actual prescription here?

Conservative universities exist and by do not get particularly used by American conservatives as part of their intellectual backing.

Conservative universities exist

Right, that's why I mentioned Hillsdale (and GMU, though less so)

do not get particularly used by American conservatives as part of their intellectual backing.

That's news to me. I think (e.g.) Hillsdale and GMU are part of the conservative intellectual backing.

This move from DeSantis/Rufo is an example of conflict theory in action, one that my article explicitly defends.

I do not mean only classical liberals, and what I am talking about is orthogonal to the free and robust exchange of ideas. A group can support their exchange all they want, but if nobody within it is willing to devote their study and their careers to the ideas themselves, that support only goes so far. To better explain what I mean, I'll use the example of police: if progressives want an institution that aligns with their values, at some point some of them actually have to bite the bullet and become police officers. If conservatives want a serious foothold in the humanities and social sciences, some have to bite the bullet, study, and make arguments within those disciplines.

Obviously, this cannot happen in environments where progressives take over and shut them out. But assume an academic institution that genuinely holds, as one of its values, the free and robust exchange of ideas, is hiring. What will be the proportion of progressives to conservatives among highly qualified people who apply for a humanities post? Conservative intellectuals talk a great deal about preserving and valuing intellectual heritage, but for all of that, it is (broadly speaking) liberals and progressives who take serious interest in these topics day to day.

I strictly oppose the freezing-out of conservatives in these institutions. Whether that happens or not, though, conservatives themselves have a great deal of building to do if they value the humanities, social sciences, and liberal arts more broadly. The most open-minded opponent is still not going to push your ideas for you. You need to bend down, get your hands dirty, and do some gardening for yourself.

That, more or less, is what I'm getting at. It applies to me no less than to conservatives; many of the ideas I would like to see flourish are currently struggling, and that's not going to change unless people like me make it change. So it goes.

assume an academic institution that genuinely holds, as one of its values, the free and robust exchange of ideas, is hiring. What will be the proportion of progressives to conservatives among highly qualified people who apply for a humanities post? Conservative intellectuals talk a great deal about preserving and valuing intellectual heritage, but for all of that, it is (broadly speaking) liberals and progressives who take serious interest in these topics day to day.

I'm not sure you're looking at this dynamic in its full context. There are a lot of Conservative scholars. They all work for think tanks or conservative press, or have normal jobs and do their thinking as a hobby. Why don't they apply for jobs at colleges and major media outlets, instead? Those markets have been largely closed to them, with a few exceptions, by a progressive stranglehold on hiring.

The problem with the conservative temperament is not that conservatives are naturally anti-intellectual (broadly; they are anti-a-certain-type-of-currently-dominant-'intellectual') or unambitious, but there is a practicality that often overpowers idealism: "If I need to work to feed my family, why would I waste my time applying to 99% of Universities, who will not hire me, when there are more immediately productive avenues for my efforts?"

It’s an appealing sentiment. I’d like to see academia operate more as the proverbial marketplace of ideas; compare Scott’s observations on colleges looking for one-sided trade-offs. Do DeSantis and Rufo actually have a chance to bring this about?

Institutions who don’t overlook the niche of vaguely principled young conservatives should get competent students for cheap. All else equal, students should accept less of a scholarship to go somewhere that doesn’t hate their guts. But as usual, all else is not equal.

Political theater is not conducive to maintaining an institution’s reputation. As long as conservative wins are framed as “owning the libs,” the spoils can’t retain their prestige. Not when they’ve been owned.

The long march through the institutions was insulated from that sort of feedback. Vastly increased college attendance limited employers’ ability to devalue schools. The overall level of information available was much lower. And there was no standout political figure crowing about his hand in each takeover.

Every press release by DeSantis is an excuse for supporters to rally. To exult in his theatrics, to cheer for “based Chris Rufo.” It’s great for the lib-owning narrative and, most likely, his presidential campaign. New College may even benefit. But it only hurts the link between New College and elite jobs that conservatives would need to exploit. DeSantis cannot, will not, cash in his popularity for a lasting conservative presence in academia. Not by “owning” a school or three.

Anything that can be dismissed as political grandstanding will be. His influence over the state curriculum is much more promising; employers cannot dismiss the entire state of Florida. Even so, every gain made by his personal campaign comes at some risk to the broader goal.

Do hillsdale university graduates have any difficulty finding employment?

I don’t actually know. None of its notable graduates seem familiar, but that’s not saying much.

There’s also the question of supply. I grew up relatively close to Bob Jones University. It’s best known for exporting theologians and evangelists, who aren’t exactly competing in the same markets as secular schools.

I tried to compare salaries as a proxy for ease of employment. BJU business: $31K, nursing $59K. U of Charleston, one of the best private schools in West Virginia: business $43K, nursing $59K. There aren’t a lot of public schools at this size; I grabbed Minot State in North Dakota. Business $38K, nursing $63K. Larger public schools like Clemson looked similar ($41K, $57K); elite schools didn’t post nearly as much info. I couldn’t find numbers for Hillsdale.

I’d conclude that the demand for a BJU-trained business degree is slightly lower, while nursing is apparently the same everywhere. Overall employment results are going to be heavily influenced by the kind of jobs sought, which are going to be different between religious schools and secular ones. But this is not great evidence either way.

BYU is Mormon AF and soft-republican. It has some of the best employment outcomes in the US.

But it only hurts the link between New College and elite jobs that conservatives would need to exploit.

You cannot make New College (or any college) more friendly to or even tolerant of conservatives without harming the link between the college and those elite jobs which right now exclude conservatives. Making a college more tolerant of conservatives ipso facto makes it less suitable for recruiting into those jobs.

True.

But advertising your takeover for political points has to be the fastest (legal) way to destroy that reputation. DeSantis is attaching his high-profile, intentionally controversial face to the subject. I believe that a more subtle approach would deal much less damage to the link, because the marginal elite job is going to be less closed.

Not a disagreement with you, but is this an effective move for conservative 'cultural power', i.e. rufo's goals? BYU is raised below as a successful religious conservative-leaning institution, with a student body of 30k undergraduates (or GMU's 20k) compared to New College's 600. Even if New College is a success, that extra 600 will mean nothing - it won't matter much unless it serves as a template for a (much) larger wave of public university takeovers ... which it probably won't. And a return to a more intellectually open or centrist university culture won't be that effective in rufo's goal of beating the left absent better non-woke ideas, given those better universities in the past gave us the current 'woke' ones.

The problem for conservatives is I'd bet the 2022 BYU class is more liberal than the same 22-year olds from the same communities who didn't go to BYU, at least in heavily Mormon areas. For what counts as 'liberalism' and 'conservatism' today, simply going to college, current college, even in a fairly mehly woke large state school, it's a machine where you meet up with lots of people doing wacky things you might not be comfortable with, turns you into a cringy normie center-left liberal, and this is true of left-wingers who show up to college as well

Sorry, minor nitpick, but I wouldn't include all of GMU in any list of conservative universities. I attended GMU and majored in Economics. The Econ department and law school were libertarian anomalies within a rather normal university that was mostly very liberal.

There were constantly left leaning groups trying to oust the GMU econ department. UnKoch My Campus was one of the more well known ones. But there were also attempts by other departments to take control of GMU econ department. One such instance was the faculty trying to create a rule where they would have oversight into other department's hiring practices. It likely would have failed to take control even if it was passed. Walter Williams had control of GMU econ financials and set it up in such a way that it was almost entirely independent from the wider university.


As a result of that minor nitpick I do think that this is an effective move for conservative cultural power. It is often the most obviously non-leftist educational institutions that get attacked the hardest. But there is a limit to attention spans and anger about a thing that doesn't actually effect you. New College has the potential to be a lightning rod for discontent, but other more moderate changes could be slipped in at institutions across the state and not receive as much push-back.

Yeah, was wrong on GMU, thanks. But there are other christian colleges with 10k+ student bodies, many of which have 'christian' or 'baptist' in the name and are fighting with their students over 'how okay are we with gay students' instead of 'should we purge the nonwoke' that I don't think it matters.

Louis C.K. was trending on Twitter because his Madison Square Garden concert was sold out, which some on the left are interpreting to mean that cancel culture is not real, or that it does not hurt people's careers. (link: https://archive.is/ryKrI )

What does it mean to be sufficiently canceled? I think Louis C.K. qualifies as having been sufficiently cancelled. If you look at his Wikipedia page, his sexual misconduct scandal, in 2017, killed off his TV and movie career. His filmography abruptly ends in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_C.K._filmography

Sure he's still able to sell out, but this reflects individual preferences for his comedy, not the approval of the media establishment, in which he is still damaged goods. Comedians are sorta like contractors in the sense that they have to hustle, not depend on a platform or the backing of a major media establishment. I think this is is what gives comedians an advantage over actors in regard to cancellation, because stand-up comedy can be inexpensively distributed at scale, such as digitally online, without needing the backing of an entire studio or publishing house.

Cancel culture regards the intent and attempt to end one’s career, reputation, and livelihood. Just like we did to the Nazis. It’s very real and very alive. That some Nazis escaped to South America does not change the Allies’ intent and attempt to hold them accountable.

What is risible is for ordinary people to try to give other ordinary people the Nazi treatment. Before social media, CK may have run into some small-time, inside baseball sanctions. Maybe FX and HBO get wind of allegations and fail to renew his hit series. And if the CK infractions are truly egregious and criminal, then maybe there is mainstream media coverage. But I believe the whispers here both started and were amplified by social media before mainstream media ran with it.

As mentioned by 2rafa, Louis would have if anything done worse under the old version of social punishments in more conservative societies. He would likely have been at a minimum ostracized, fired or run out of town(depending on his social position of course) and quite possibly been visited by a group of large lads (often the brothers and fathers of the girls involved) who would have had a somewhat violent word with the guy jerking off in front of the womenfolk.

Social media has expanded the reach, and social changes have made some changes as to what is actually tabooed (and why) but the underlying practices are thousands of years old and are intrinsic to social bonds and enforcing behavioral norms. We're not getting rid of them any time soon, and that's assuming we even should be trying to get rid of them.

guy jerking off in front of the womenfolk.

What is the difference between him jerking off in front of the womenfolk and the womenfolk giving him a handjob?

From all reasonable accounts, it seems to me that C.K had 'consent'. Unlike 2rafa, I think that is the crux of the matter as far as value judgments are concerned (I'm not very "trad"). With consent, the ladies had a weird sexual encounter, without consent they were victims of a sex crime. I understand that whether there was mutual consent or not is fuzzy and that's what makes this a scissor issue, but given the track record and incentives of other #MeToo victims, I would probably side with C.K's retelling of the story here.

Bill burr - No means no is a relevant video for this conversation. All I want to ask the ladies who supposedly regretted C.K. having done what he did is, why didn't you yell "NO!"? Doing that changes nothing, fair enough, but the fact you didn't do it is not normal human behavior towards a threat. If some lunatic is about to swing an axe at me, I will yell "stop don't kill me!", he might kill me anyways because he's a lunatic axe murderer, but me giving in without a semblance of a fight would be suspicious.

but given the track record and incentives of other #MeToo victims, I would probably side with C.K's retelling of the story here.

You might but then his (as you say) borderline pervy behavior would not have been accepted whether it was morally correct or not. Value judgments are subjective so as the people observing the behavior change, so to do the judgements and outcomes. In Woodstock he might have been ok, in a small rural town he might have been run out of town, in Northern Ireland back in the day he might have been kneecapped.

All of them are sub-judicial sanctions dished out by whatever community is involved. What Louis thinks is pretty much irrelevant in every case though, he isn't the one that is making the value judgement.

I think you are speaking past my point.

I am saying is, Were the women totally against what happened or not, in short, the angle I am pushing is that what if they were okay, or more than okay with him jerking off? But, claimed otherwise later for reasons.

What if it was a mutually agreed upon sexual activity?

I am saying is, Were the women totally against what happened or not, in short, the angle I am pushing is that what if they were okay, or more than okay with him jerking off? But, claimed otherwise later for reasons.

What if it was a mutually agreed upon sexual activity?

My point is that this doesn't matter. Cads who seduced women into sex didn't get let off because they said yes. If you breach behavioral norms, you're in trouble regardless. In this case jerking off in front of people in a work environment EVEN if those people said yes is seen as bad. If he had picked up women in a bar and had consent then he would have been in a safer position.

If my BDSM proclivities get released there is a good chance I get fired or ostracized despite the fact I am meticulous about consent. Consent isn't the driving factor here.

I keep on forgetting that consensual sexual acts between adults from the same workplace or career is Taboo in America, and in certain cases, the workplace is not a physical place but anywhere where you are with your coworkers, including a hotel room.

I'm being partially sarcastic.

Its not just the work part, the just jerking off part codes flasher in a park, not high status guy trying to fuck.

If he had asked them out to dinner, then taken them back to his hotel for sex, he looks more normal and less creepy.

Cads who seduced women into sex didn't get let off because they said yes. If you breach behavioral norms, you're in trouble regardless.

Maybe prior to the sexual revolution, when women expected to have their sexual opportunities managed by family gatekeeping and prudish societal mores. When the oppressive nature of that paradigm was rejected and women claimed to want first-hand control over their own sex lives, it became their responsibility. If they feel that they are inadequately equipped to exercise this responsiblity, it's up to them to call for a return to the old model, but they won't, so they must prefer greater vulnerability. Why is any of this the cad's fault now? They are keeping it simple, at least.

Why is any of this the cad's fault now? They are keeping it simple, at least.

Again its not about fault, it's about perception. Doesn't matter how hypocritical you think it is. You can have an oppressive paradigm and women's control, it can be entirely incoherent (not saying it is, but it can be). It doesn't have to make any sense whatsoever. I am not saying that is good, I am saying that is the situation.

All I want to ask the ladies who supposedly regretted C.K. having done what he did is, why didn't you yell "NO!"?

Perhaps uncharitably, in that instant they decided that there might be some advantage to them if they did not say "No!," and in retrospect realized that said advantage never materialized or wasn't worth the price they had paid for it. Seems to me like this is what is called "learning from experience," and calls for self-reflection rather than outward accusation.

As mentioned by 2rafa, Louis would have if anything done worse under the old version of social punishments in more conservative societies.

Either I'm missing something, or this critique does not seem thought-through. Prior to the sexual revolution, all sorts of sexual improprieties occurred in a whole variety of contexts. The world was not, in fact, one big Baptist church picnic. I think you're mistaking both how (uniformly(?)) repressive the old world was, and how permissive the new world is. There were places where the response you describe would happen; those places involve tight-knit communities. I see no reason to think the theatres of a major urban center would display such dynamics, given the theater's long-standing link to sexual license, often decried by those same conservatives in the olden days. Female entertainers would most likely not have male relatives on-hand to provide retribution, since if they were still enjoying such protection they wouldn't be working as female entertainers.

Social media has expanded the reach, and social changes have made some changes as to what is actually tabooed (and why) but the underlying practices are thousands of years old and are intrinsic to social bonds and enforcing behavioral norms.

I think this is wrong as well. You're correct that, faced with a moral vacuum, people are reinventing restrictive sexual ethics. Unfortunately, it's not the same sexual ethics, either in abstract principles or in the concrete methods of enforcement. These ethics aren't actually grounded on community, they aren't coherent, and their enforcement is both more capricious and less constrained than the old ways. The new method isn't long-term stable; the contradictions just thrash each other and everyone nearby endlessly.

I think this is wrong as well. You're correct that, faced with a moral vacuum, people are reinventing restrictive sexual ethics. Unfortunately, it's not the same sexual ethics, either in abstract principles or in the concrete methods of enforcement. These ethics aren't actually grounded on community, they aren't coherent, and their enforcement is both more capricious and less constrained than the old ways. The new method isn't long-term stable; the contradictions just thrash each other and everyone nearby endlessly.

What they are targeting may well be different, but the underlying practices of sub judicial social sanctions are pretty much identical. With the scope extended via easier communications and social media.

"Female entertainers would most likely not have male relatives on-hand to provide retribution, since if they were still enjoying such protection they wouldn't be working as female entertainers."

Yes but being an entertainer is high status now at least at the level they were interacting with C.K. (The Chris Rock Show and so on) so projected back they would be fairly low status in a fairly high status field themselves otherwise we are not controlling for social status in the comparison. This would of course be more constrained but perhaps they would be secretaries at a newspaper with C.K. the editor at another more influential paper or similar. And the fact it wasn't universal is moot because it isn't universal now either. There are surely many people who have masturbated in front of others in some mildly related work setting that we never hear about.

Whether the rules now are more capricious or coherent or whether their enforcement is stable doesn't mean it isn't the same phenomenon. Indeed the old version wasn't long term stable either as evidenced by it being overturned in many places.

You can certainly make an argument that the new version is worse or less understandable or more confusing I think, but so would the older version as you travel between locations and communities (as you yourself point out), the near instant communication we have now, means all those different versions are clashing all the time (online at least). My local hardware store still isn't going to fire someone using the rules of a progressive big city but according to his own local community.

I would certainly agree that a more stable version is definitely easier to navigate for everyone, but that would require (given the above) a very widespread one sided victory (including internal tribal variances) which I just don't see happening anytime soon.

I think you have things backwards. What the allies did to the nazis wasn't 'cancel culture'. It was just warfare. The enemy was the nazis and they hunted the enemy down and murdered them. That war was a total war. Not just in the economic sense but in every sense possible. That's why the allies executed Julius Streicher despite him not having fired a weapon or commanded any troops. Same goes for the monuments and art the allies intentionally destroyed due to the connections to nazi ideology.

What I don't understand is why you would say it's risible for 'ordinary people' to try and give other people the nazi treatment. It was always ordinary people who did these things. From the soldier and his rifle to the largest institutions in the world. It's all individual people.

If you don't live in an actual nation with a national ideology then I don't see why you would expect the society you live in to not devolve into a state of warfare.

What I don't understand is why you would say it's risible for 'ordinary people' to try and give other people the nazi treatment.

It's risible because ordinary people are assumed to have a responsibility to find a way to live in peace with each other within a country. Ordinary people refusing to do so in Russia and Germany are a big part of the reason WWII came about.

It's all individual people.

It's not. Groups matter. Russia, Germany, The American North and South in the Civil War and after, all were shaped far more by social dynamics than by atomic individual choice.

It's risible because ordinary people are assumed to have a responsibility to find a way to live in peace with each other within a country. Ordinary people refusing to do so in Russia and Germany are a big part of the reason WWII came about.

That's not an answer to the relevant follow up question pertaining to the lack of reasons people had to find ways to live in 'peace'. I mean, I can certainly understand why an impoverished Russian farmer didn't quite fancy the 'peace' of a perpetual state of starvation, which would lead to conditions which would ultimately bring about the Soviet Union. And I can also understand why a German might not like to live under Weimar conditions. I would, in fact, sympathize more with them than the person who considers those situations tolerable.

It's not. Groups matter. Russia, Germany, The American North and South in the Civil War and after, all were shaped far more by social dynamics than by atomic individual choice.

This statement is completely irrelevant to what you are replying to.

It's risible because ordinary people are assumed to have a responsibility to find a way to live in peace with each other within a country.

And what happens when a part of ordinary people refuses to live in peace with another part? Should the others submit to keep this Moldbuggean sort of peace?

Then it is war to the knife, and woe to those who cry out "Can't we all just get along?"

What the allies did to the nazis wasn't 'cancel culture'. It was just warfare. The enemy was the nazis and they hunted the enemy down and murdered them.

I'm talking about the de-nazification policies after the war. Not so much the end of war massacres and war crimes tribunals. Nazis got canceled.

What I don't understand is why you would say it's risible for 'ordinary people' to try and give other people the nazi treatment. It was always ordinary people who did these things. From the soldier and his rifle to the largest institutions in the world. It's all individual people.

I'm talking about social media accounts versus powerful organizations like US government. Twitter accounts that contact Justine Saccho's employer. That's cancel culture rather than realpolitik amongst Great Powers. Which yes, are all composed of individual people.

I'm talking about the de-nazification policies after the war. Not so much the end of war massacres and war crimes tribunals. Nazis got canceled.

That's not a relevant distinction. It would still fall under the definition I am giving of it just being warfare. The term 'cancel culture' is obfuscatory and redundant. It's just cultural warfare.

I'm talking about social media accounts versus powerful organizations like US government.

So am I. I still don't understand why you would say that it's risible for 'ordinary people' to engage in warfare when all warfare is enacted by ordinary people.

That's not a relevant distinction. It would still fall under the definition I am giving of it just being warfare. The term 'cancel culture' is obfuscatory and redundant. It's just cultural warfare.

I guess we'll have to leave this one here. Agree to disagree.

I still don't understand why you would say that it's risible for 'ordinary people' to engage in warfare when all warfare is enacted by ordinary people.

The most charitable I can be here is that this seems facile. Yes, I agree, all organizations are composed of individuals. But those responsible for the greatest losses of human life and dignity in warfare were very much not "ordinary people". Mostly, I mean ordinary people who are not instrumental to a large and powerful organization. I don't imagine this conversation bearing much more fruit, either. Cheers.

Relying on vague terms is obfuscatory to recognizing anything real. Calling something 'cancel culture' diminishes the impulses being acted upon. These are people looking to destroy the enemy. Trying to disassociate that process from normal people by acting as if these impulses are different than when acted upon by people in historically significant contexts only obfuscates the universality of the process and the depth of the cultural divide.

Relying on vague terms is obfuscatory to recognizing anything real.

To me, cultural warfare is vague, and cancel culture is much more concrete. They are not identical. I could be convinced that cancel culture is a specific form of cultural warfare. Thus, it has meaning and is useful.

The issue I would have with that is that it decouples the act from context.

When the term 'cancel culture' is allowed to sit as an individual entity it serves to diminish the nature of the act and its gravity. Which serves those who engage in it when they want to excuse it.

As an example, from a material perspective Louis CK getting 'cancelled' is stupid. Caring about it is stupid. The guy isn't going to starve on the street. He's made multiple lifetimes worth of money. And he has fans who actively seek out and pay to hear what he has to say. Same goes for nigh every single high profile example of 'cancel culture'. Often times the people getting 'cancelled' even have huge social media platforms to advertise their 'cancellation' to others. By becoming upset at someone like this being 'cancelled' you are being, at best, hyperbolic. It's completely nonsensical from a material perspective to care about 'cancel culture' in all but the vast minority of cases.

Yet these 'cancellings' still animate people. The reason for that, from my perspective, is obvious. It's a weapon of war being used against 'your side' and being angry that your side was attacked is a natural response. In that context it makes sense to me to get a little perturbed when some conservative talking head can't repeat their talking points to 100 students in some college and has to cry about it to their million followers on twitter.

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What makes you think that trad is at all something to be striven for here?

The question here is technical rather than moral. I have very little sympathy for Louis CK too, but there clearly was an attempt at canceling him, with usual techniques employed by the usual social justice coalition that successfully prosecutes the culture war most of the time by the same means. Why hasn't it worked well enough to remove him from entertainment? And indeed, if they had a more legitimate and broadly appealing case against him, that only makes this question more salient.

Of course, him not really being an outgroup is part of the answer. The story of a purity-spiraling circular firing squad is a bit of a misunderstanding; you get expelled and purged for true ideological conflicts with the Party Line, but not necessarily for behaviors that may seem to contradict it. A sinner, even unrepentant, is not yet a heretic.

Why hasn't it worked well enough to remove him from entertainment?

Because he is funny and can sell directly to people (who are defectors).

But there are no Netflix specials, movies, tv shows, guest appearances at SNL or cameos in sitcoms, no collaborations with other artists. And he has to date outside of the US (a French woman). The only reason he is not removed completely is because there are only a few extreme sanctions (not being able to rent a venue) against him left.

It is a culture war issue because of the selectiveness in cancellation.

  • There are rappers who have murdered people & are heroes of the music industry

  • Chris Brown pummeled Rihanna to within an inch of her life

  • Ezra Miller seems to be collecting a bingo card of cancellable stuff, but being they/them protects him

  • Drake has been openly being creepy towards 14yr olds while topping charts

culture where it’s socially acceptable

Do you want to pretend as if the entertainment industry suddenly grew a spine ? It has been ground zero for every kind of socially unacceptable thing for decades now.

old men

If the claims are to believed this was in his 30s. He was sexually approaching his coworkers when he was out of his marriage. The question is, how cancellable would this have been if he was an attractive man instead ?

Enough to get him fired from the job. Enough for women to think he's a creep. Enough to ruin his PR.

All 3 happened at a much bigger scale for Louis CK. So, the accusation of 'he was not cancelled enough' is clearly false.

You don't have to defend his actions to also think that punishments need to be fair.

To be clear, I always expected rappers to get a free pass on bad behavior, and they/thems to get a free pass on creepiness towards children. Louis CK is neither.

I think the bigger issue for CK's behavior is less than 'employees and coworkers' bit (afaict, most are pretty marginally within that category, either only sharing a stage for one show/pilot, or in the early Chris Rock Show example being on different sides of a set, and in one case a contracting agent/boss?!), and more the iffy-at-best consent which seems to have taken anything less than an immediate and explicit no as a yes, and that his manager threatened Goodman and Wolov's manager of potential 'business consequences' for reporting the bad behavior.

That said, there's a pretty big difference between "this isn't happening" and "this is happening, and that's good". I think there's a fair discussion about the propriety of romantic or sexual overtures within or around the workplace (albeit one with non-trivial tradeoffs people seem pretty prone to ignoring, and... somewhat complicated by the speedy rehabilitation of Jeffery Toobin), and a separate conversation about where this tool is acceptable or unacceptable to use, and they're both very hard to have if people aren't sure if a thing is happening.

Firstly, it wasn't in public, it was in a private hotel room; I'm not sure if you realised that as it might explain your reaction here. Secondly, the culture war angle here is nothing to do with sexual degeneracy; it was team sexual degeneracy that cancelled him, after all. Assuming you are OK with consenting adults doing whatever nasty sex stuff they like in private (which the executors of the #MeToo movement are), the question is whether #MeToo is a form of aggressive abuse, and in at least this case, it clearly is.

acceptable for old men to jerk off

CK is today an old man (56). But the jerk off revelations are from 2002-2005 when he was mid thirties.

I think its the epitome of culture war.

Louis CK was the biggest stand-up comedian before Chapelle came back. MSG was Louis CK's playground, with him doing sets there whenever he wished. He talks about how nervous he was about his MSG set, the amount of work that went into it and how different it felt.

For one, nothing Louis CK did was criminal. From the sounds of it, he never pulled his dick out unless the other person provided consent for it, and he was never in an explicit boss-employee relationship with women he approached. Yes, it was creepy, inept, unethical & sad. But it's amateur hour as far as showbiz goes. After Aziz, Louis CK was cancelled for the least egregious of the #metoo accusations.

Louis CK's entire persona was of a sad lonely dad in a tragic-comedy. If anything, this plays straight into it. If they/them Ezra Miller still gets to play a role model character after doing some actually criminal stuff, then CK's humble image would be expected to be resilient to accusations of being the person his comedy has portrayed him as for 30 years.

In the least woke profession, the greatest practitioner & the least egregious sexual creep, who never put himself on a pedestal can come back after a few years and have moderate success as along as he lives a now sin-free life and keeps performing at his GOAT best.

If that's the claim, then it sounds like the exception that proves the rule.

90s rappers killed people and were embraced by the institution. Now people are losing jobs over suspicions of being republican.


P.S : Just to be clear, no justifying his behavior. It was obviously degenerate. Don't idolize entertainers. IMO, his temporary banishment from institutions & public apology was appropriate punishment. It is probably fair for women actors to not want to work with him again too. It's their choice. But the global scale of bullying & still-continuing blackout are honestly a bit much.

From the sounds of it, he never pulled his dick out unless the other person provided consent for it

Really? Is that true? I didn't follow the story closely at all, so I'm only inferring details. But if he didn't do anything without them saying they were okay with it, then why was he cancelled at all?

Because they weren't actually okay with it.

From here (that article argues that it is still a problem, even if he asked):

CK opens his official statement by saying he was able to tell himself "it was OK to show women [his] dick" because he always asked them first. To people still wrestling with how consent works, simply asking might seem like all that's needed.

Really? Is that true? I didn't follow the story closely at all, so I'm only inferring details. But if he didn't do anything without them saying they were okay with it, then why was he cancelled at all?

CK's crime was taking old feminism at face value: treating women as equals who are capable of consenting to sexual interactions (which is how it ought to be, IMO).

What he didn't understand, as a good liberal, is that he was guilty of original sin before doing anything, and that new feminism's model posits that women are always weak victims who are trivially easy to manipulate and should therefore, paradoxically, hold more positions of governmental and corporate power.

new feminism's model posits that women are always weak victims who are trivially easy to manipulate and should therefore, paradoxically, hold more positions of governmental and corporate power

This is way too "boo outgroup"--you can certainly argue that this is what the model accomplishes, but simply saying so is inflammatory without evidence. Don't do this please.

From what I recall from the stories it was an almost childish form of 'seeking permission'. Basically he seemed to spring it fast and then, if no one immediately and vociferously objected, he...um, quickly followed through.

The image that comes to mind is an overeager kid going "umcanIkissyou" and then "but you didn't say no!".

My opinion is that it's the sort of defense ("but he asked!") that only seems acceptable when all norms except consent have been so eroded (by the sexual revolution and the same tribe now pushing #MeToo) that only the barest, hyper-literal contractionism counts.

At this point liberal feminism has so thoroughly corrupted shaped mores that it's fighting its own twisted children.

except consent

That doesn't matter either; the meta-rule is just "woman good, man bad".

An inherently sexist movement was always going to end badly, just as the racist ones do; this is why the only stable equilibrium (and what feminism originally started with) over time has been "people who can do the work good, people who can't do the work bad".

After all, the latter category already has levers they can pull to get their way; no need to give them any more than that.

At this point liberal feminism has so thoroughly corrupted shaped mores that it's fighting its own twisted children.

You could almost say that they have chosen the form of their destructor.

Louis would definitely cross the streams

Or that they called up that which they could not put down.

At this point liberal feminism has so thoroughly corrupted shaped mores that it's fighting its own twisted children.

Hmm, I guess I'd feel better about that if they ever took responsibility for what they've done, and actually blamed feminism, past or present, for any bad thing that happens, as opposed to just saying "it's patriarchy". Like Scott so eloquently put in his least favorite post for people to link to:

If patriarchy means everything in the world, then yes, it is the fault of patriarchy. But it’s the kind of patriarchy that feminism as a movement is working day in and day out to reinforce.

This piece says he asked Goodman and Wolov, who then "laughed it off"; the later summary doesn't really describe what that meant. In the unnamed Chris Rock Show actress's case, she "went along with his request" but was later disgusted. In Corry's case, she declined and he stopped. Schachner's phone call is described as "definitely wasn’t encouraging it". If accurately described, where Corry's case seems like evidence he'd take explicit nos as cause to stop, at least the Schachner call does not sound like provided consent.

There are some issues separate to consent related to masturbating at the office during work hours, and where there may have been disparities of power (although I dunno that Chris Rock's writing staff had that much power over actors and actresses). Separately and most seriously, CK's then-manager Dave Becky threatened Goodman and Wolov's then-manager about potential ramifications for disclosure.

I was recently at drinks with colleagues after a work event, when one of the senior directors suggested we all go to a strip club. Actually, two sr. drs were really leading the rally, I was very worried about the stability of my position, and actually wanted to work in one of those Directors' divisions.

Nobody was forced to go, but when I declined, it was public, I was alone, it was to clear disappointment / loss of esteem of people I really depended on being liked by for the sake of my career. It made me upset and uncomfortable that I was even put in that position in a supposedly professional scenario. And hell, I even chewed on just saying yes, and justifying it for 'career reasons'.

I'm mid thirties and a male. I would not have had the moral fortitude to say no in my early 20s.

I am no shrinking progressive, but Me Too was right to figure out that a binary statement of consent are not enough to classify sexual misconduct by. People defending that line looked like foolish idealistic hippy liberals.

Of course. And I'm not making a point about the objective morality of strip clubs or whether the folks I was among did anything wrong.

My story is simply an example of where 'they said yes, what's the problem' is far to binary to be a discussion ending heuristic.

Pressure to be liked / career advancement / social belonging (and yes drinks) , etc can all mitigate a yes enough that the person doing the asking should not have brought it up and did something wrong for some spectrum of degree.

If Louis says 'can I show you my penis'...

  • on a date after the girl invited him up vs

  • in a dressing room while on the road with an upcoming comedianne who wasn't expecting any sexual advances

  • vs to a young saleswomen on a call who just confessed that she needs his business to hit her quota.

These are three different scenarios where acting on a no is certainly worse than on a yes... But a yes doesn't blanket make them all the same and make it ok for Louis to ask in the first place.

And I'm not making a point about the objective morality of strip clubs or whether the folks I was among did anything wrong.

But surely that has to be part of the point, or else we are veering dangerously close to /r/antiwork "my boss is abusing me by threatening to fire me if I don't show up for work" territory.

I don't think so? For instance, if your boss asks you if he can give you $1000, it's still problematic. Getting financial support from a supervisor may be bad for you emotionally for various reasons, even though it's very hard to see it as morally bad. So I think there's a strong point that the argument holds regardless of the moral quality of the act in itself.

Hot take: you should've went to the strip club and your superiors were correct in losing esteem for you and being disappointing.

Same logic applies if they asked to go duck hunting or kayaking.

"Should", what he "should" have done depends rather heavily on desired outcomes.

Personally I think he did good by showing some spine, toadying is bad for the soul.

No one should be that pressured to go to shitty corporate social events that they have no interest in. I don't mean to say shame on any boss who wants to do something fun with their subordinates, but the expectation that you go, even if it's something you dislike? Or doing something you might have moral reservations against, as with strip clubs or hunting? And all this to the point of potentially facing genuine consequences to your future prospects if you have the balls to refuse?

As someone who hates alcohol and everything surrounding it, I'm glad this culture is dying, because these things sound like my personal idea of hell. For god's sake, just let me do my job instead of going to a bar during my own free time, please. These events aren't about everyone having a good time, they're about the boss having a good time, and everyone else is partaking in a brown-nosing competition if they don't coincidentally happen to enjoy whatever activity is settled upon.

My understanding is:

  1. On around 5 known occasions between 2000-2010, he approached women in private

  2. He asked them if he could pull his dick out and masturbate in front of them. In at least 3 cases, this is after he had invited them back to his hotel room.

  3. Some of them were people he had indirect professional relationships with. Afaik, it was never an explicit power dynamic. (they were trying to hire him, he worked with her boyfriend, they were rising comedians in the same industry)

  4. The women gave him some verbal form of consent. (ofc, I dunno if it was an enthusiastic "yes" or a "do whatever you want, you creep"). Louid CK claims he got consent in every situations. Some women say that they didn't say no, not that they said yes.

  5. On one occasion he talked about something sexual with another woman on the phone who was the girlfriend of a coworker who was trying to book him for a show. In this case, she did not give explicit consent to talking about sexual stuff on phone with him. He also started masturbating but afaik, the exchange was purely over phone.

I mean, it is bad. But is it that bad ?

Louis CK should've probably taken his own advice.

“At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true,” C.K. wrote. “But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.”

&

If you ever ask somebody, “May I jerk off in front of you,” and they say yes, just say, “Are you sure?” That’s the first part. And then if they say yes, just don’t fuckin’ do it

The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly.

This point highlights a cultural undercurrent I've noticed since the morality of power dynamics has taken center stage in the woke transformation of culture. It's the idea that its not OK for a man with social status to actually gain any benefit from that status, at least outside of vary narrow constraints. Wealth, leadership, talent, etc are all traits that are attractive to women. But there's a growing thought that a man with those traits should not use them for e.g. sexual advantage. The intent seems to be to put constraints on the scale of sexual success of men, in a way that is never analogously applied to women.

I'm reminded of a post on one of the relationship advice subreddits where a woman told of how her fiance found out that she was very sexually promiscuous in college. Aside from just having a large number of partners, she also fucked 4 guys at once, and her fiance was questioning the future of the relationship. The response was near universal support of the woman's behavior and that it was unconscionable that any man should have a problem with one's past sexual history, regardless of how extreme. But on the flip side, a guy with some trait that makes him hyper attractive is supposed to restrain himself for the sake of other women or society or whatever. Case-in-point, all the consternation over Leonardo DiCaprio's relationship history. Another example being all the hate Nick Cannon gets for having so many kids.

I certainly understand historical taboos against sexual promiscuity as it puts serious strain on social stability. But when only one side of this dynamic is being upheld (male sexual restraint) while the other side is being completely freed from all such constraints, it points towards a deeper motivation. Namely, that the trend is towards an anti-masculine, pro-feminine moral standard. To be charitable, perhaps this pro-feminine bias isn't the intent but rather the side effect. A moral standard that is biased towards empowering the weaker party in an exchange will systematically be biased towards women in any male-female interaction. The problem is that the standard ends up removing agency from women in the process. For example, you can't say that DiCaprio or Cannon is doing something immoral unless you also say their partners have reduced agency.

Namely, that the trend is towards an anti-masculine, pro-feminine moral standard.

Interestingly, this mimics another comment I just saw: the upper classes of Western countries have pivoted to be against labor and for capital.

Because men sociobiologically code as expendable labor (supply-side gender), and women as valuable capital (demand-side gender), and these conditions continue, we should expect this to persist until one of those change.

Why's it so bad now? You could say it's just a reaction to the sexual revolution, but I believe it's because the niche and social role of labor has shrunk massively since industrialization to the point some countries now consider themselves "post-industrial"; those countries also consider themselves "post-national" (immigrant and border stances- men logically care about this more than women because they're the labor gender and thus cheap replacements here threaten their position in a way they don't for women, and you can see this gender divide reflected in polling) and "post-men" (rampant inequality favoring women in what should ostensibly be equal partnerships- family courts, sex-based spoils systems, etc.).

In that light, maybe it's not that weird that current counter-culture is currently dominated by women becoming men? If "woman good", what better "fuck you exclusively-female authority figures" than "now I'm a man"?

It's also worth noting that between 1940 and 1970, the script was temporarily flipped due to the German (later American) sponsored total destruction of European industry. Which is... interesting that that's exactly what America has been doing to Europe and China now.

The intent seems to be to put constraints on the scale of sexual success of men, in a way that is never analogously applied to women.

I suppose the constraint was applied by biology: women have less reason to go for maximal competition because they have a limited number of potential total offspring. Men do not.

As others have said, he was absolutely manipulating consent. It's nothing men and women haven't done since they learned to court, but American morals have settled on the stance that manipulated consent doesn't count.

The most common manipulation is moving the relationship faster than the other party is comfortable with, but not that fast that they think they have a valid reason to oppose any single step: dinner date - offer to walk her home - kiss - invite yourself in for a coffee - ask for another kiss - ask for a tour - kiss her again in the bedroom - make out in the bedroom - move to the bed - undress - go down - have penetrative sex.

That's what "yes means yes" is about: you have zero obligations to take your relationship to the next step. Placing someone into a situation where they might have other reasons to do sex-adjacent activity X other than "I want to do X" is a move that will get you cancelled if it backfires.

And backfire on Louis it did.

Because no one actually believes in a consent-only sexual ethic. That's mostly a lie in order to gather political support for various deviancies. The constant haranguing over what exactly is actually actually ackshually consent is indicative of the keyhole by which every other aspect of their preferred sexual ethic is smuggled in.

The easiest way to internalize this, to know it in your bones, is to go to the professional ethicists who write serious scholarly works on the topic, like Westen/Wortheimer. If you are looking for it while you read them, you can see it plain as day, and then it becomes nearly impossible to not see it anymore.

I think the problem here is defining "cancellation" as a general, visible loss of social stature, obvious to anyone. What people mostly, in my experience, fear as cancellation is less that but a loss of specific social circles or life situation - typically having a circle of friends suddenly cold-shoulder you or losing a job, but might also be the breakup of a relationship or marriage, your kids starting to hate you etc.

ie. a prototypical non-political comparison might be that you're a Jehovah's Witness who suddenly starts asking questions like "Hey, maybe Russell's interpretion of the Bible isn't correct? Maybe this stuff is kind of heretical?" and, if you ask long enough, suddenly your fellow Witnesses will decide that you're too dangerous to keep in contact with any more and will shut you out of their circles, not only from the services but also generally from social occasions. For some acquaintance outside of the church this might not seem like that dire - who's going to miss weird Jehovah's Witness crap anyway - but for someone whose circle and social life has included fellow Witnesses for a long time this might cause considerable distress.

If you're a social person, an able worker etc. you'll find new social circles or a job after cancellation in no-time, but it's still not going to be pleasant and it's still going to leave a scar, and if this sort of a prospect already makes you kind of anxious before cancellation, your situation is not going to be improved if everything happens online now and some sort of an online mob might target you for reasons barely beyond your ken (again, the potential for distress is not from the mob of strangers itself, but from the idea that these strangers might actually cause your friends to desert you), or for comments you've made in the past, or so on.

(I'm not talking specifically about Louis CK here, I haven't followed this particular case that closely to really comment on it)

Culture is the key term here. Cancel culture is not defined or refuted by one particular instance, any more than Italian culture can be represented by a meatball.

Anyway, Louis CK is 'MeToo', not 'cancel culture', even if they are overlapping circles.

Celebrities receiving backlash for sexual misconduct is a fringe, non-central part of cancel culture. Louis CK, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby etc. are kind of part of this culture if you squint? mostly they are sex pests exposed in a period of changing social mores. Aziz Ansari straddles the line.

I'd call these things more typical, in descending order:

  • when a normal person's social media post or video, gets coordinated attention, to pressure real world consequences like being fire (see Bodega bro, or some random kid loses a college scholarship because they sung along to rap)

  • when an internet personality (large or small) is deplatformed, throttled, demonitized for holding or espousing views within the real-word overton window.

  • when a celebrity is pressured to disassociate with an unpopular person(s), ideology, or organization.

  • when a past offense of a celebrity is inorganically dug up and used to pressure a public groveling.

  • when an organization is pressured to cuts ties with or deplatforms an person holding an unpopular ideology (see cancelled speaking engagements).

  • when organizations, events, or physical objects are shut down, destroyed, renamed or removed.

And none of these things really has much to do with the eternal endurance of the cancellation, some expectation of being infinitely a persona non-grata across all demographics, or even the success of the campaign. Louis was thoroughly 'punished' by the culture and industry, and a years-later comeback is a non-sequitur objection anyway.

Aziz Ansari

A bit off topic perhaps, but let me just say that Aziz's me-tooing was the most ridiculous of all. He clearly stated what he wanted to do and stopped when he felt she was uncomfortable. He proactively questioned her about her comfort. He then sent her away when she said she wasn't comfortable.

What I really learned from that debacle is that Aziz is a gentleman.

I honestly thing the Ansari Incident was a turning point for Me Too—as in, that’s when it jumped the shark. For the briefest of recaps:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aziz_Ansari#Allegation_of_sexual_misconduct

I am woke. I am rather sensitive to lack of consent. But…girl, “Grace”, if you think that a date like that is the “worst night of my life”, then oh sweet summer child. That is nothing. He was a tad too forceful about wanting sex, and he chose a wine you don’t prefer. If you think that’s awful, if you think that’s misconduct by a man, oh my, we have such sights to show you.

Such vapid, trivializing stories like that made Me Too look like a tempest in a teapot, or a flake in a snow globe. That is the most comically candy-ass incident, that is nothing, nothing compared to what lurks out there in the dark, and what preys on truly disadvantaged women.

if you think that’s misconduct by a man

In online movie discussion circles, I've learned that the current "woke" ethic is that the old notion that a woman's resolve can be broken down by persistence is 'rape culture.' This is why the iconic scene of one of the most beloved romantic comedies of my youth, Say Anything, has been re-evaluated as stalker apologia. Not only does Lloyd not take "no" for an answer initially, but he has the temerity to attempt a grand romantic gesture rather than accepting her half-hearted refusals. This makes him "creepy."

Claims that "cancel culture doesn't exist because this particular, highly , highly talented and famous person escaped our wrath" are, imo, just obfuscation.

Akin to saying "homophobia doesn't exist cause this one rich gay Hollywood Jew in the 60s got away with it"; it changes absolutely nothing about the claim being made about society.

This is a common line of argument with JK Rowling and the bad faith is most evident there: trying and failing is not the same as not trying or being globally ineffective. They absolutely would have cancelled her if they could; she's simply a once-in-a-generation celebrity.

Ding ding ding.

People with talent have value that, from a purely economic point of view, is going to make it much easier for them to recover their position because, quite simply, a lot of people can make money off of them returning to action.

Another counter-example is Kanye West, who is a world-famous artist with massive following who currently cannot post to any social media site under his own identity. He's STILL got a decent chance of returning to former glory.

Meanwhile, a more average citizen who is inherently more replaceable is going to become potentially radioactive for a long time and this makes their position much more vulnerable.

The whole point of opposing cancel culture, to my view, is to protect persons who don't have the means to survive an attempt at mob justice, since mobs generally don't discriminate based on the wealth or prestige of their target.

One thing I noted when I was very young, probably 2nd or 3rd grade, that has stuck with me is the observation that artists don't have to be all that popular to be successful. This seems counterintuitive because they make money by being "popular". My mom was a big Pearl Jam fan, and I noted that their best-selling album still only sold like 9 million copies. That meant something like 3% of people in America bought an album. Not really all that popular! Even fewer people go to concerts. At 21k seats sold, Louis C.K. has pulled in... 0.25% of New York City's populace.

Power laws apply in industries like that.

And 21k seats sold out of how many who wanted seats? That would determine how much money he actually gets for his efforts.

As a Pearl Jam fan of 31 years, I don't really have anything to add to your post except I'm looking at you the way a post apocalyptic government guard in a quarantine zone might look at someone who seems like a stranger and might at any moment pose a threat.

LMAO, what?

My mom was a big Pearl Jam fan, and I noted that their best-selling album still only sold like 9 million copies. That meant something like 3% of people in America bought an album. Not really all that popular!

Albums have a high barrier; anyone who spends money is one of the more passionate fans (this gets worse the easier it is to acquire things without paying). Now consider how many people listened on the radio (or Youtube nowadays).

Of course! But the point really was that in music you make most of your money from those passionate fans. Like if you have 1 million zealots and no one else has heard of you (like that boogaloo band whos fans dress up) or really knows your music, thats still a banging career.

From a survival of the fittest perspective you convinced me cancel culture is actually good.

Not entirely sure that I'm kidding?

"Fitness" is an amoral sort of criteria. Don't need to bring 'good' or 'bad' into it.

Sure we can have a massive competition between everyone who operates in the social environment as to who is best at avoiding and/or surviving a cancellation attempt. Those who prosper get to pass on their 'genes' (i.e. tactics that work under heavy scrutiny) and everyone else just has to accept the status quo.

But what sort of people, do you think, will end up most successful and demonstrate the best 'fitness' for this environment?

Keep in mind this is basically already how it works in, e.g. the political sphere.

(Sociopaths, it's going to be sociopaths)

I would humbly suggest we don't want to create this sort of environment for ourselves if we can avoid it, there are so many things we could be optimizing for instead.

People with talent have value that, from a purely economic point of view, is going to make it much easier for them to recover their position because, quite simply, a lot of people can make money off of them returning to action.

CK had also started, a few years before #metoo threatened him, running his own business and cutting out middle-men. He did direct-subscription online comedy shows, he produced his own independent movies (he still got hit by distribution issues on this), but he more-or-less transitioned to owning his own shit. He made himself less-cancelable by prematurely withdrawing himself from the dominion of the gatekeepers.

Interesting given last week's discussion of Brandon Sanderson seemingly transitioning to a self-funding and publishing model.

You think Louis CK is highly highly talented? Go check out his first comeback special after he got cancelled. It fucking sucks. The middle of the set joke sequence starts with a Pascals wager joke about how it would suck to be wrong about god existing, then to "jesus wasnt christian he was jewish how would he feel about the cross?' and then finishing up with 72 virgins. After that it's "I hate being the only person in a small restaurant/store" and then jokes about how words like Retard used to be more socially acceptable. These would all be hack bits in like 2008, but in 2020? You can find most of it on youtube if you want to confirm how bad it is: https://youtube.com/watch?v=q_TZWxihabc

Lots of people clearly like his comedy, see: his show selling out. There's no such thing as a comedian who's universally popular. The only fair way to measure how funny someone is is to look at some combined metric of a) the number of people that like them, and b) the amplitude(passion?) of how much people who like them like them. Being able to sell out a large venue is an objective measure they score decently on both metrics.

He's no doubt the biggest and most successful comedian of the past decade (top 3 at least), I just take issue with the suggestion that only highly highly talented and famous people can evade the wrath of cancellation. In my estimation moderately talented people can fare just fine.

I guess it depends on your definition of highly talented then? I'd call just about anyone who can get thousands of people to show up live just for them highly talented. I'd call someone moderately talented if they peaked when they placed top 3 in their high school talent show.

The thing about the Louis CK incident is that it showed me how much power The NY Times has. Louis CK is a creepy weirdo. We knew that before 2017. Anyone who had ever listened to his comedy knew that he was a creepy weirdo. A third of his jokes were about him being a creepy weirdo. There were rumors floating around on the internet about him being a creepy weirdo in exactly the way described by the NYT article. No one cared. Then one day The NYT publishes a hit-piece about Louis CK being a creepy weirdo, and suddenly every respectable institution decides having a creepy weirdo around is NOT OKAY. The guy who had a stand up bit about wanting to go around in public shooting cum on everyone is kicked out of polite society because The NYT ran an article about him asking for consent to masturbate and then doing it.

I always assumed it was predetermined by multiple parties with leverage that CK was out. And then 'they' just executed 'their' hit as an excuse, taking advantage of convenient times.

That theory is evidenced by the fact that he was striking out a bit on his own prior to this more recent ad friendly comeback. Doing stand-up with even more crass jokes, hanging around outsiders like Shane Gillis and so on. Indicating that he was hanging out with a new crowd doing less cucked comedy(for his standards).

Considering the bottom barrel high school tier clique based social networks that seem to dominate the 'comedy crowd' in the US, and the rumors within that space that CK could be a socially deaf asshole that treated people with less clout than him with indignity, I'd wager CK managed to step on enough toes, or at least the wrong ones, and found himself with too few friends in higher places, and too many people who hated his guts.

I know this might sound a bit like far fetched fan fiction, but I'm always reminded of how Dane Cook managed to be treated like the worst comedian in the history of the universe whilst he was selling out tickets to his shows. Only because the 'comedy crowd' in the cities didn't like him. Presumably just because he coded red and wasn't doing the George Carlin 'nihilism' bit like most everyone else. Meaning that it doesn't necessarily take much to find yourself without any friends in the US comedy scene(gutter).

Dane Cook managed to be treated like the worst comedian in the history of the universe whilst he was selling out tickets to his shows. Only because the 'comedy crowd' in the cities didn't like him. Presumably just because he coded red and wasn't doing the George Carlin 'nihilism' bit like most everyone else

Wasn't he accused of stealing jokes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dane_Cook#Accusations_of_plagiarism), which makes one a pariah amongst other comedians even if the general audience never hears about it/doesn't care? Seems like that's worse and more substantial than just "coded red."

People hated him and it had very little to do with stealing jokes. Much more the fact that he was extremely successful along with the reasons I gave prior. I don't think it says that in his Wikipedia article, but it's lacking all relevant context anyway so I don't think you are in a position to make the argument you are making if you are also lacking the relevant context.

To put things in perspective, I don't think you can look over any recent interviews or people talking about Dane Cook of the past without them mentioning how hated he was.

The reason was his whole shtick was "talking about being a creepy weirdo, and not being that bad," and regardless of how terrible you think the NYT is, there's a difference between vague rumors and two comedians going on the record.

The thing about the Louis CK incident is that it showed me how much power The NY Times has.

To some extent. The NYTs has been trying since 2015 to disqualify Trump from public office. Same for The Atlantic, Wapo, etc. to no avail.

The NYTs and the entertainment industry are cut from the same cloth pretty much. Vice, twitter is for smaller targets. The biggest ones , especially in the entertainment industry, get the NYTs treatment. Which means a front page story.

Louis CK lost over 50 million dollars after being cancelled ... We ended up doing the math on it on the old board ... If that isn't cancelled, nothing is.

FdB weighs in

The argument is that, because someone has enjoyed personal or professional success after a public shaming, therefore “cancel culture” does not exist. This is all somewhat confused by the vague boundaries of cancel culture - boundaries that are vague, I think, for the benefit of both the cancelers and the anti-cancelers. I think “a culture where social norms are enforced with repeated and vociferous public shaming” is the most useful way to define the term. Regardless, there’s a couple different kinds of weirdness here.

The first is a point that many people have made: the fact that someone has endured or recovered from the repercussions of public shaming does not mean that there are no repercussions or that those repercussions are fair. Additionally, we could add that the survival of any particular public figure after a public shaming does not necessarily mean that there isn’t a prevalent culture of public shaming.

"Many people survived muggings, therefore mugging does not exist, and even if it does, it is not harmful and not something we should oppose or criminalize". Sure, makes sense, totally.