Post by neesken on Feb 24, 2019 19:10:47 GMT -4
It is going to be long, apologies but this is something serious and one I'm intimately familiar with.
1. PERSONAL INTRO (feel free to skip this part if you don't want the parental background and development psychology stuff):
I was raised by a single dad who was a professional officer and a lecturer at a military academy. It was a family setting, that I now recognize as very hardcore atheist, conservative, hobbesian and darwinist. The world was to me coded as a place where most people are selfish, driven by egoism and can be malevolent if it serves their ends. I was taught that to beat the system, one has to have thick skin, hard elbows and not be afraid to use these elbows.
It was a not a smooth easy childhood and I realize my dad gave me far too much independence too early, but that conservative, hobbesian pragmatist background is one that I actually see as great for someone who wants to pursue a career in academia and postmodern humanities in specific. Because within deconstructive postmodernism, the world is coded much in the same way: as a field of collectivist group conflict and structural hierarchies upheld through ruthless malevolence. There is no God and no reason to hope for a meaningful relationship with the infinite.
It was a not a smooth easy childhood and I realize my dad gave me far too much independence too early, but that conservative, hobbesian pragmatist background is one that I actually see as great for someone who wants to pursue a career in academia and postmodern humanities in specific. Because within deconstructive postmodernism, the world is coded much in the same way: as a field of collectivist group conflict and structural hierarchies upheld through ruthless malevolence. There is no God and no reason to hope for a meaningful relationship with the infinite.
2. The deconstructivist privilege within academia and what they do:
For people who come from a sheltered family situation (that does not mean rich necessarily, rather psychologically "comfy" and safe), the deconstructivist reality comes off as a shock. They come from a world of "padded walls" into a worldview that is all about "hard elbows".
Thus there arises a recurring temptation to strive not so much for change, but rather for security - going back to padded walls. And this is a huge problem, because security by its very essence is tied with stability and both are hierarchical patriarchal values.
"Security & Stability" (henceforth abbreviated to S&S) is nothing different from the Nixonian "Law & order". If you want security and stability, you need a structured system of rules and enforcement, which necessitates hierarchy. In academia, you already have ready-made hierarchical university template that you can use, but it is of course the patriarchal one in place. Yet people within deconstriuctivism and gender studies in specific very often do just that - use the structure.
There is also a gender and class identity within this S&S group, currently most of them are straight, white females from upper or middle class backgrounds. They seem to have the overwhelming desire for S&S in the university, but also within their own life. They achieve false empowerment, meaning empowerment of only themselves within academia (even if they at the same time also ruffle some male feathers on the way), at the cost of excluding the less privileged . The problem is that they don't use that newly gained position of power to challenge the hierarchies. They instead weaponize feminism to use against internal academic female opponents who sometimes are just disenfranchised people at the lower echelons.
Thus there arises a recurring temptation to strive not so much for change, but rather for security - going back to padded walls. And this is a huge problem, because security by its very essence is tied with stability and both are hierarchical patriarchal values.
"Security & Stability" (henceforth abbreviated to S&S) is nothing different from the Nixonian "Law & order". If you want security and stability, you need a structured system of rules and enforcement, which necessitates hierarchy. In academia, you already have ready-made hierarchical university template that you can use, but it is of course the patriarchal one in place. Yet people within deconstriuctivism and gender studies in specific very often do just that - use the structure.
There is also a gender and class identity within this S&S group, currently most of them are straight, white females from upper or middle class backgrounds. They seem to have the overwhelming desire for S&S in the university, but also within their own life. They achieve false empowerment, meaning empowerment of only themselves within academia (even if they at the same time also ruffle some male feathers on the way), at the cost of excluding the less privileged . The problem is that they don't use that newly gained position of power to challenge the hierarchies. They instead weaponize feminism to use against internal academic female opponents who sometimes are just disenfranchised people at the lower echelons.
That is bad enough, but the worst part is that they actively encourage the proliferation of the "padded walls" culture and code their narrative in such a way as to exclude the alternative interpretation. "It a sin to be offensive", "It is a sin to be aggressive and assertive", "it is a sin to speak out against academic dogmas and the people within the deconstructive authority (meaning us)", "it is a sin to strive from weakness to strength".
3. What this does to students:
This is a devastating message for young men, but far more devastating for young female students. Because the "padded walls", "be nice and inoffensive" mindset happens to click really well into the traditional patriarchal "good, soft little women" stereotype.
It can be especially bad within gender studies, because there are so many emotionally vulnerable young female students who strive with mental issues, gender identity, sexuality, depression and so on. The "padded walls" mindset can easily appeal to these women because of the safety and softness, but it makes them weaker not stronger and it comes with hierarchical S&S chained to it.
4. How the right reacts:
On the reactionary side, this produces a male stream of thought embodied by people like Jordan Peterson with his: "To hell with the safe spaces and girlie students! Men need to take up responsibility, courage, leadership and face the ugly world as it is!". We need to give the devil his due here, there is a kernel of truth in this reactionary philosophy, it is what makes it so hugely popular. It is the call to incremental (like behavioral therapy of phobias - Peterson is a psychologist after all) exposure to stressors and taking up larger and larger challenges. Not shying away from them.
5. CONCLUSION:
To sum it up: if we want to empower our female students, especially the nonwhite, nonstraight and nonbinary ones, we need to strike at S&S. This means striking not just at the white, conservative patriarchy in the academia, but rather at the straight, white privileged female oligarchy that developed within the deconstructive left.
We need to give our young women "hard elbows" instead of locking them inside rooms with "padded walls".
P.S.
If you think I'm biased against and overly critical of straight women in the deconstructivist movement, wait a bit. I will make threads about everything that is wrong within the lesbian community of that movement
If you think I'm biased against and overly critical of straight women in the deconstructivist movement, wait a bit. I will make threads about everything that is wrong within the lesbian community of that movement