Academic infighting point for discussion

A vague thread title, I know, but this early in the morning (in perfidious Albion), nothing better emerged from the haze. Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, there is currently a thread on ‘Should we refuse to cite the work of those accused of sexism or sexual harassment?’ The thought expressed below struck me as very perceptive regarding some wider issues. That person wrote:

I‘m sad to say that my own humanities fields have degenerated (at least in some areas) to the point where that last sentence rings very true.

 

If a person's contribution to a field is going to be dismissed because of their personal conduct, then, as the above quote alludes, how great of a contribution was that work to the field?

 

Isn't that like asking whether "we" (who is that, exactly? The Chronicle of Higher Education is a trade publication for university professors) should refuse to cite the work of females, homosexuals or blacks? The inevitable shriek would almost certainly be that sex, sexual preference, or race have nothing to do with the quality of academic work, which presumably stands or falls on its own merits. Well...

I have to say that I personally observed a bit of very ugly scientific history unfold. A very prominent scientist and his team of students and postdocs were perhaps the world leaders in their field for perhaps a decade. They were invited all over the world to give talks, won prestigious awards and appeared on the covers of magazines. This guy was actually being talked up as a potential Nobel Prize recipient. Then some "sexual harassment" allegations surfaced and he was allowed to resign from his academic appointment and take an early retirement. If you read histories of his field today, he and his team are nowhere to be found. They've been written out of the history of science and turned into non-persons.

That kind of shit makes me very skeptical about the objectivity of many of the products of today's academic world. How much of what academics insist is the truth can laypeople really believe? They don't seem to realize that precisely as they strive to turn themselves into Platonic-style "philosopher kings", the world's rightful rulers in some "tyranny of experts", they are simultaneously undercutting the credibility of their own claims to occupy that lofty position.

 

Keep in mind, many of these philosopher kings hold the position that DL programs are inherently bad. That you need the on-campus experience, and the immersion in their world, to truly be well rounded.

 

Did you just compare sex, race, and sexual orientation to committing a crime? When talking about sexual harassment and assault, why would females, black people, and homosexuals come to mind?

I don't think good science should be thrown away, but isn't this the same as not buying from a business if you disagree with the owner's values? Some people see it as unethical to enrich evil people. When it comes to researchers, much of your street cred comes from citations.

 

No.

You're the first person in this thread to use the word 'assault'.

The question of the thread would still stand even if we go there. Should the academic work of individuals subsequently convicted of crime be shunned and ignored because it's the work of a criminal? My answer would be 'no'. The work still stands on its own merits, regardless of what we think of its author. Anything else would seem to be ad-hominem.

Why did I mention females, blacks and homosexuals? I was drawing an analogy. Because particular individuals' work, no matter how important it is, might be willfully ignored by people who don't like the group the author belongs to. (The Nazis tried that with Jewish scholars.) My motivation there was to pick groups that SJWs can be expected to favor but still might experience a similar kind of prejudice. So the problem the SJWs face is why should arguments that supposedly fail with groups they favor succeed with groups they dislike?

How does that work? Can people still read the non-person's work? How will they ever find it if nobody ever cites it? Can readers be influenced by it and even think that it's important? If they are influenced by it, they mustn't credit the original author but should instead represent the other person's ideas as their own work?

When that kind of behavior works its way into the history of a subject, it falsifies the past and intentionally creates misconceptions of how the subject developed.

 

"SJW?"

 

"Social Justice Warrior"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior

 

I do not advocate scrubbing people from history in the first place, but I find it doubly appalling that the academic ‘community’, which is increasingly operating more like a frenzied mob, frequently levies immediate and ruinous punishment for the mere allegation of misconduct.

 

Comparing historically oppressed groups to sexual harassers and predators is not going to get "SJWs" to see your point. Sexual harassment is a behavior, and it's an illegal and immoral one. It's not a political ideology, religion, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, or anything else that should be protected from discrimination. You're not going to garner any sympathy for sexual predators by comparing them to women, black people, and homosexuals; you're going to do exactly the opposite.

Being born black or being born a woman is not inherently wrong, and it does not victimize other people. Your analogy is terrible. Discriminating against people's genes is not a similar kind of discrimination.

 

Wow . . . I guess that, once upon a time, I was an, um, SJW. But these days, I consider such a term, and its abbreviation, to be bullshit. Along with other abbreviations and terms that have popped up on the forum recently (like MRA and the rather dated squadistri).

In fact, I find most of the arguments in this thread to be bullshit.

Will I tell you why? Um, no.

Should you give a crap about what I think? Um, no.

Do I care if you don't give a crap about what I think? Of course not.

The only important thing is that I still laugh at all of you.