I can’t stop myself from thinking about what happened in 1933 in Germany. If you don’t know this history, you really should read about it. The analogies with what’s going on now are remarkable.He is not referring to the Columbia radicals who want to kill Jews, but the Trump administrations efforts to stop anti-semitism.
Scott Aaronson says:
Peter, your university’s antisemitism task force — formed with no Trump involvement — produced a harrowing report last year filled with specific incidents that added up to a pretty compelling case for Jewish and Israeli students (unless anti-Zionist) to want to steer clear of Columbia. If your position requires condemning all of your colleagues on that task force as liars, fanatics, and snitches, then that seems to me like an excellent way to lose this battle and alienate most of those who would otherwise be your allies. ...Woit repliesIf I’m unhinged and in need of psychiatric help, then so is the entire membership of Columbia’s antisemitism task force, as I’ve done nothing more extreme than try to balance my fear of Trump with my fear of what the task force concluded in its 120-page report.
The university has to somehow manage this, it’s a difficult problem. It’s being made a hundred times more difficult by people like Scott Aaronson who have no idea what’s going on here, but are so intent on joining the fight to destroy the other side that they will enthusiastically collaborate with the Fascists we’re trying to resist.So Woit and Aaronson question the sanity of each other. Aaronson is a Jew married to an Israeli, and Woit is a gentile from Eastern Europe.
The core of the problem is that Columbia and Harvard have become havens for left-wing crazies:
Last year, Harvard earned the worst score ever recorded in FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings: Zero. This year, the elite Ivy makes a repeat poor performance — and finds fresh company at the bottom, with NYU and Columbia joining the unenviable list of “abysmal” schools for free speech.So Columbia and Harvard do not allow free speech for right-wingers, but they do allow faculty and students to side with the Oct. 7 Gaza/Hamas attack on Israel and with generally attacking Jews.With scores ranging from zero to 100, NYU plummeted nearly 30 points this year, and Columbia fared even worse, becoming the second school after Harvard to ever receive a zero. And Columbia, like Harvard, actually received a negative score that we rounded up to zero. The only reason Columbia was spared from receiving the title of this year’s Worst College for Free Speech is that Harvard’s actual score was even worse, a full 21 points lower.
Another part of the problem is that federal spending is out of control, and Trump administration efforts to hold grant recipients accountable has brought howls of protest from universities.
Update: Dr. Bee comments on Woit, Aaronson, and others. She notes that many support what Trump is doing.
Last I heard (from the horses mouth at 'Not Even Wrong') Peter was stating that the whole little masked activists taking over parts of Columbia was a right wing exaggeration. There was one or two people on his own site who called him out, and told him things 'weren't fine', and they were promptly attacked by 'circle the wagons' academics.
ReplyDeletePeter of all people should know better.
A consensus of cowardly imbeciles worried about their PR is never a good answer to any kind of problem.