(np) The Neurodiversity Case for Free Speech

[Mark Thibodeau]

Quillette in general is a bunch of reactionary hyperventilating
alt-right crap spackled with a thin veneer of academic camouflage that
would only fool those who've never actually been to university, or who
did go, and yet somehow managed to learn not a blip about philosophy
or the history of ideas.

I've never seen so many people who haven't got a clue what they're
talking about talk about it with such obvious self-assured authority
(Cultural Marxism! Postmodernism! The Frankfurt School!). Most of them
think Jordan Peterson is an intellectual titan of this age, even
though he tells his readers "all you need to know about postmodernism
is found in Stephen Hicks' book Explaining Postmodernism!"

A quick perusal of Hicks' book (easily done, as PDFs are freely
available online, seeing as it, like Peterson's whole shtick, is part
of a massive public brainwashing campaign that's going on right now,
in case you've missed it) reveals that he knows next to nothing of
substance about the subject. A deeper look into Hicks' other published
work reveals a possible answer for that - he's a devoted Ayn Randroid.

So, yeah, college students behave badly sometimes. Sometimes they get
tangled up in bad ideas and start believing silly things. Sometimes
they do it just for the hell of it. And do you know why? Because
THAT'S WHAT COLLEGE HAS ALWAYS BEEN FOR, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!
Twas ever thus!

And all the hand-wringing crocodile tears about how "the left is
ruining" this and "the left is perverting" that... it's all fucking
bullshit distraction from the REAL problem facing the world right now.
That being the potentially planet-destroying ascendancy of a rogue
Deep State faction bringing together the postwar remnant "Underground
Reich" (as relentlessly documented by Dave Emory), the nascent
technofetishist Utopian billionaire class (with its access to
bottomless financial resources, increasingly powerful mass mind
control technologies, and deeply anti-democratic post-human "Dark
Enlightenment" worldview), as well as a handful of other, equally
poisonous partners of convenience, of which Trump is an unknowing
puppet.

I have taken to calling them the New Fascist International. I'd be
honored if some of y'all started doing so as well.

MOST Sincerely,
yer old pal Jerky
www.dailydirtdiaspora.blogspot.com

On Wed, Jul 26, 2017 at 2:45 AM, L E Bryan <lebryan at sonic.net> wrote:
> Republicans in academia are “oppressed” like creationists are “oppressed” in
> biology departments. At least the bulk of the current crop of religious
> neo-facists.
>
>
> On Jul 25, 2017, at 9:23 AM, Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think the writer creates a fallacy that men on the Autism/Aspergers scale
> (however loosely that's defined) are likely to be right-wing and/or
> Republican, leading to him to argue that right-wing men are an "oppressed"
> group in academia, and deserve the protections of other marginalized groups.
> Given the loose definition he uses (apparently any man who's a little crusty
> or socially awkward), I'd have to argue that almost 100% of the men I know
> who fall into that category are politically progressive and/or Democrats. So
> basically, he's just whining about how badly Republicans are treated in
> academia. The poor, oppressed, marginalized little dears.
>
> I agree with him that the current cultural obsession with micro-aggressions
> and triggers, amplified by crowd-shaming and the taking of statements and
> pictures out of context, is a serious threat to free expression. As a
> feminist, I find the sniveling about the need to protect women from even
> modest innuendo (I'm not talking about sexual assaults or serious threats or
> hazing campaigns) a throwback to Victorian times, with the emphasis on women
> as weaklings who need to be sheltered and protected, lest they ... faint.
> And I can't imagine that any psychologist would instruct someone suffering
> from PTSD to spend the rest of their life hiding from anything that triggers
> distressing memories.
>
> LK
>
> On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 3:53 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
> <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Having a daughter who's not only studying history and English but also
>> politically active in the fields of LGBT and migration, I'm often
>> shocked how little Free Speech counts among the young.
>>
>> http://quillette.com/2017/07/18/neurodiversity-case-free-speech/
>>
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l