Scott,By "not collaborate", he means to allow disruptive anti-Israel demonstrations, and not cooperate with Trump administration demands to obey the law.
Besides the fact that your goals are delusional, what I’m criticizing is your choice to pursue them by collaborating with a Fascist dictatorship. I’m not going to further waste time trying to deal with your delusions about what is going on here.As for what universities should do now: they should fight in court, they should tell the truth, and they should not collaborate.
It is baffling to me how these men go so nuts over this.
Aaronson has typical liberal Jewish political opinions, and his wife is Israeli, so he is pro-Israel. No surprises there. He largely agrees with Trump administration efforts to support Israel and crack down on antisemitism, DEI, wokism, and disruptions on campus. But he is also a hard-core Trump-hater, and hopes Trump fails in in everything he does, even if he agrees with it.
Woit has been obsessively posting sympathies for the anti-Israel protesters, and for fanatical Trump hatred. Aaronson responds:
Let’s get this straight, Peter. You’re saying that you’re angry and miserable, not for any of the reasons that are immediately apparent, but instead, because a shadowy cabal of unnamed Jewish financial elites is pulling the strings behind the scenes for its own incomprehensibly nefarious purposes?Woit seems to think that Israel should be destroyed, or that Columbia is unduly influenced by Jewish donors. I am not sure. Woit is chicken to say. Most of the protesters seem to want to destroy Israel, and to celebrate terrorism against Israel.If that’s really what you think, don’t hold back! Say it loudly, clearly, and often, directly into the microphone.
We can have different opinions about Israel and the Jews. That does not bother me.
What I find bizarre is how both of these guys have total comtempt for the administrations of Columbia and other universities, and yet they are so vehemently opposed to any government accountability. Their one point of agreement is that Pres. Trump is a fascist dictator.
Trump is not a fascist dictator. He was popularly elected, and he is doing what he was elected to do. He is trying to cut government waste, and most federal academic grants go for wasted research.
These universtities do some good research, but I do not expect them to get much public sympathy. A lot of the research is garbage. They are overwhelmingly slanted to the political Left. They arrogantly oppose any accountability. They allows these stupid Gaza protests to disrupt everyone, when Gaza has nothing to do with the university mission.
The Jewish angle to this is weird, as the universities have lot of Jewish professors, students, and donors. They have a history of being pro-Jewish. Trump is also pro-Jewish in his policies. And yet the universities are overwhelmingly anti-Trump.
The universities do not need to be taking a stand on either Zionism or Trump. They get billions of dollars in aid, and they ought to comply with government demands to obey the law. And they ought to be willing to do sensible things like shutting down the Gaza protests, even if the request comes from Trump and they hate Trump.
Reading these blogs just further convinces me that academia has lost its way. Radical reform is needed, and you can sure of a lot more complaints.
It makes me very sad to admit this, but if you live long enough, you see your heroes of yesterday often become the villains of today.
ReplyDeleteSuch is the case with Peter Woit. The man is deranged to the point he doesn't seem to care what is actually going on right in front of him, or who did what and how, he only cares that 'X' (currently Trump) is struck down, is evil, fascist, dictator(ship), Oh! Think of the Children, ...blah blah blah. During Trump's first term, Peter was crying how Trump was an evil right winger who was Anti-Science(TM) and going to hurt/destroy/ruin/desecrate 'THE SCIENCE'(TM), and then that didn't even remotely happen, and Peter just pivoted, and pivoted, and pivoted. It just didn't matter what happened, as long as the narrative was 'Well, Trump is awful, vile, and bad, ...and he's ORANGE too!!! because reason DNC talking point #11457 v.3.
While I once supported what Peter was trying to do by bringing attention to the fact that String Theory was Not Even Wrong, I realized he still wanted ever so much to be a part of the mindset clique which perpetuated it, and was moving lock step in all things political with only one political party. Contest question: Name a democrat position or talking point he didn't agree with out loud. The man had the high expertise of a very small narrow esoteric field he was willing to be skeptical of, and yet was utterly unwilling to use this same intelligent skepticism to examine anything else that didn't go lockstep with the academic bubble he lived in. I believe he (like many academics) is terrified of being cancelled, which is probably a valid concern giving where he presently works and the bed he wants to lie in.
You would think the man who learned first hand what happens to those who question academic groupthink would be more observant than to literally ignore active terrorist groups on his own campus ...because he hates Trump...and republicans in general. He probably should not be teaching at this point.
If Peter had half a wit left in his skull, he might do some very basic research into why almost every middle eastern country eventually violently expels the Palestinian refugees, and systematically treats them far worse than Israel does. Hint: Everywhere the refugees went, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Lebanon, the PLO and it's young men followed, and death, violence, and rampant terrorism ensued. Anyone who wants to make Israel the sole whipping boy of this problem is simply not being remotely honest as NO ONE in the entire Arabic world want's these people and their chronic violence. This isn't a 'It's just the Jews' kind of issue, this is a 'It's the entire middle east' kind of issue.
That is truly tragic, but not fixable until the Palestinians make a choice and either fundamentally change their ways or go extinct.
The Jews LOVE all the "anti-semitic" activity on campus! This allows them to cry and play the victim and spin that for influence and profit. Aaronson knows this, that's why he behaves in seemingly incomprehensible contradictory ways
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