site banner
PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   32497 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 12, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I really admire how smoothly you were able to combine the implication "basically no one is doing this, who cares" with the implication "this happens all the time, who cares" in this comment. If that move hasn't got a fancy name like "motte and bailey doctrine" or "apophasia," then it should, and if it does have a name, I would like to learn it.

Well, if you can't understand the difference between an empirical claim about a general phenomenon and and empirical claim about a specific phenomenon, then I can't help you.

But to be more explicit, your post seems to me to be little more than "boo outgroup", and 1) your evidence that your outgroup is doing what you claim is incredibly weak; and 2) you have no evidence that what that handful of outgroup members has done is unique to your outgroup, so, yes, who cares?

And to be completely clear, those who cite Freire seem to me to almost always be full of shit. Especially some former colleagues of mine who literally argued that the fact that "teaching is inevitably political" gave them license to push their political views in class, when of course it actually means that they had a responsibility to present students with views they disagreed with.

  • -13

But to be more explicit, your post seems to me to be little more than "boo outgroup"

The "more" is really the important part, though. I admit these people are in my "outgroup" but the point was the sloppy scholarship (and my disbelief), not the outgroup per se.

your evidence that your outgroup is doing what you claim is incredibly weak

My evidence that the individual scholars I am directly complaining about are doing exactly what I am complaining about seems pretty ironclad to me, to the point where I doubt it could possibly be so straightforward, to the point where I asked a bunch of Internet strangers if they could maybe check the Portugese for me because surely these scholars aren't that stupid but--yes, these scholars are apparently at least that stupid. To the point where @netstack immediately identified a separate case of this same phenomenon happening in other articles referencing Freire.

you have no evidence that what that handful of outgroup members has done is unique to your outgroup, so, yes, who cares?

I care, as I believe I stated in my original comment. It's offensive to me, as a professional, when other professionals do shoddy work, especially when it costs me time. If that's not enough for you, like, okay! You should go talk to someone who counts in your eyes, instead of telling me that I shouldn't care about things that I care about.

And to be completely clear, those who cite Freire seem to me to almost always be full of shit.

This is how I feel about all critical theorists, but surely it helps matters to present the occasional clear case of academic malfeasance. I don't regard them to be full of shit because reasons, I regard them to be full of shit because look here are dozens of examples of easily-identified shitty scholarship on just one quotation.

surely it helps matters to present the occasional clear case of academic malfeasance. I don't regard them to be full of shit because reasons, I regard them to be full of shit because look here are dozens of examples of easily-identified shitty scholarship on just one quotation.

Except that you don't have any evidence of academic malfeasance nor shitty scholarship; as I noted, a search of google scholar turns up nothing.

And, surely, it is not sloppy quotation practices which make you deem them full of shit, is it? Surely it is stuff like this:

"For example, think about the Resident Assistant system, where you have to report these fellow undergrads, whom for whatever reason, are drunk. Rather than center care practices of holistic healing, or therapy, they’re disciplined before they can understand themselves in this way. That is not benefiting people of color. It's not benefiting folks going towards their true passions. But it's really going to maintain the status quo. So, policing looks like surveillance in and out of the classroom, and it looks like literal police, and it looks like all of the systems of control that we have at UC Santa Cruz: for example, to surveil our fellow students. So it looks like the regents, whom have nothing to do with education, but are overseeing us. Overseeing. Do I have to spell it out for you? "

Emphasis in original.

Except that you don't have any evidence of academic malfeasance nor shitty scholarship; as I noted, a search of google scholar turns up nothing.

Look, this is not really a fight I'm interested in having, but in my opinion Google Scholar is shit and I never use it for anything because it is shit and I don't know anyone who does use it for anything because it is shit. To my mind, by far the most useful academic tool to appear in the last, I'm going to say 20 years, is just Archive.org's online library. Probably some people love Google Scholar so this is just me having thoughts about a thing, but I haven't got any other response for you here. I've never seen anyone try to prove anything of worth by citing to "Google Scholar says" so I'm just kind of dumbfounded about it. Maybe I am just old, that is often a problem when matters of technology come into play, but there you have it. Google's front page search is orders of magnitude more valuable to my scholarship than Google Scholar has ever been.

But I don't do STEM, so, you know. YMMV.

And, surely, it is not sloppy quotation practices which make you deem them full of shit, is it?

See, this is where you misread me so completely I have to wonder about my communication skills. It's very much the sloppy quotation practices, for me. It's very much the bad scholarship that I hate. The weird culture war stuff is bad, too, but it might be helpful for me to suggest that when I refer to these scholars as my "outgoup," I am about 60% thinking about the fact that they work in colleges of education, rather than thinking about their political alignment qua outgroup. That is, these are education scholars, often with Ed.Ds, while I'm a philosopher who sometimes writes analytically on education.

It's hard to not launch into a rant about this, honestly. And it feels like a failure of professional courtesy to be like, "oh, those teaching academics are the worst" when I'm sure the engineers or the business professors or someone feels the same about me. But the scholarship that comes out of these colleges of education, like, it's just so bad, basically all the time. And it happens to have kind of played havoc on my day, today, and I thought others might find it interesting to see a specific case, about specific people, making a specific mistake, that is kind of emblematic of the larger criticisms leveled against them.

Google Scholar is shit and I never use it for anything because it is shit

I am sure it is incomplete. Nevertheless, if this specific phenomenon were at all common in the academic literature, more than 2 hits would show up. For example, when I search for Freire pedagogy, I get 385,000 hits.

You made a claim about academic malfeasance without any evidence apart from one person. When I pointed out that the most widely avaliable source of academic publications contains no evidence of others misusing the quote, I would think that someone whose primarily concern is intellectual integrity would either 1) demonstrate that other, more complete, sources include many examples; or 2) concede that perhaps he or she misspoke when referring to academic malfeasance? Can you see that your failure to do either might lead one to infer that you are less concerned with calling out sloppy quotation practices in principle than you are with denigrating your outgroup? Especially given that you posted your comment not on a culture war forum, and your one example of bad practices just so happened to be by an outgroup member?

You made a claim about academic malfeasance without any evidence apart from one person.

I'm done talking to you. Either you didn't read my post, or you didn't understand it, or you're flat-out trolling (which I often suspect you of doing, but I try to pretend that's not the most likely explanation for most of your participation here). I gave you a list of several people who did the same thing, I linked multiple examples including books from academic presses, and then I repeated that list to you when you ignored it the first time.

"Oh but Google Scholar only has two examples" is a non sequitur in that context.

Well, I apologize for not going back and looking at every one of your links to see who published them, but I am afraid that you are the one who is trolling. Because if you weren't, and instead were acting in good faith, when I said that you don't have any academic examples, you would have pointed to the books from academic presses, instead of simply denigrating Google Scholar.

And, your post linked to four books: Anti-Racism in Higher Education: An Action Guide for Change (published by Policy Press); Reframing Assessment to Center Equity: Theories, Models, and Practices (published by Stylus Publishing); Developing and Evaluating Quality Bilingual Practices in Higher Education (published by Multilingual Matters); and White Reign : Deploying Whiteness in America (published by St. Martin’s Press). None of those is self-evidently an academic press. St. Martin's certainly isn't. So, again, someone arguing in good faith would have said, "note that the books I cited are by academic presses; for example, Stylus Publishing is owned by Big State University Press." But, you didn't do that.

I gave you a list of several people who did the same thing, I linked multiple examples including books from academic presses, and then I repeated that list to you when you ignored it the first time.

Well, I apologize for not going back and looking at every one of your links to see who published them, but I am afraid that you are the one who is trolling. Because if you weren't, and instead were acting in good faith, when I said that you don't have any academic examples, you would have pointed to the books from academic presses, instead of simply denigrating Google Scholar.

lol what the fuck

More comments

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats