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Reason is out of fashion: Our return(?) to a society regulated by outrage & shaming

#1
C C Offline
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/opini...aming.html

EXCERPT: As an openly bisexual woman who did not have a single female professor throughout my college and postgraduate education in any subject, and who faced harassment and abuse, as well as downright sabotage in graduate school, I am sympathetic to efforts on campuses to give voice and equal power to groups that have been historically excluded and silenced.

Now, as a philosophy professor, I am part of perhaps the most male-dominated (and arguably least feminist-friendly) discipline in the humanities, and have dedicated much of my career to mentoring women and students of color. I understand that injustice and inequality remain firmly in place, and in order to eliminate it, much more work remains to be done.

So it is with some trepidation that I admit that the current political climate in academia confuses me. The more I read about trigger warnings, safe spaces and petitions to retract scholarly articles, the more my head spins. On top of that confusion, I harbor a fear of expressing views that will offend other progressives, scholars and teachers who may also be fighting oppression. And I fear being subject to public shaming on social media, and receiving private hate mail (I still am, after my response in May to the controversy over Rebecca Tuvel’s article in the journal Hypatia). In short, I find myself in an educational environment in which outrage, censoring and public shaming has begun to replace critique, disagreement and debate.

Public shaming always has a purpose, whether it comes from the left or right, from progressives or conservatives, activists or armchair philosophers. It may be an effective way to close down discussion, or deter others from taking certain unwanted political positions. It may also be a way to circumvent the status quo in the academy and challenge the standards of academic publishing and career advancement.

But the problematic effects of public shaming are many — among them, silencing “allies,” blaming individuals rather than examining social context, fostering intolerance and divisiveness, creating a “with-us-or-against-us” ethos, and reducing identity politics to a version of “oppression Olympics.” In cases where pain and suffering are equated with moral authority, calling out injustice can operate as a form of signaling virtue.

Let’s face it, outrage sells. That’s why social media and mainstream news outlets are invested in promoting it; they can both fuel and produce desires by tailoring their content to suit individual tastes. The red and blue newsfeeds and the “click bait” that proliferate on them produce profits, but they have also helped to make our time one of deep divisions and reactionary hatred, with a radicalization of both sides in a culture war that risks deepening into a civil war, with militarized armies of fascists and anti-fascists fighting in the streets.

In a culture that increasingly values raw emotions uncontaminated by scholarly analysis, the uncritical legitimation of feelings as the basis for moral authority becomes a form of political leveling. If unexamined outrage is the new truth, then we are moving dangerously close to a form of reactionary politics that closes down difficult discussions and prevents us from distinguishing between sexism or racism and critical discussions of them....

MORE: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/opini...aming.html
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#2
RainbowUnicorn Offline
(Nov 12, 2017 01:35 AM)C C Wrote: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/opini...aming.html

EXCERPT: As an openly bisexual woman who did not have a single female professor throughout my college and postgraduate education in any subject, and who faced harassment and abuse, as well as downright sabotage in graduate school, I am sympathetic to efforts on campuses to give voice and equal power to groups that have been historically excluded and silenced.

Now, as a philosophy professor, I am part of perhaps the most male-dominated (and arguably least feminist-friendly) discipline in the humanities, and have dedicated much of my career to mentoring women and students of color. I understand that injustice and inequality remain firmly in place, and in order to eliminate it, much more work remains to be done.

So it is with some trepidation that I admit that the current political climate in academia confuses me. The more I read about trigger warnings, safe spaces and petitions to retract scholarly articles, the more my head spins. On top of that confusion, I harbor a fear of expressing views that will offend other progressives, scholars and teachers who may also be fighting oppression. And I fear being subject to public shaming on social media, and receiving private hate mail (I still am, after my response in May to the controversy over Rebecca Tuvel’s article in the journal Hypatia). In short, I find myself in an educational environment in which outrage, censoring and public shaming has begun to replace critique, disagreement and debate.

Public shaming always has a purpose, whether it comes from the left or right, from progressives or conservatives, activists or armchair philosophers. It may be an effective way to close down discussion, or deter others from taking certain unwanted political positions. It may also be a way to circumvent the status quo in the academy and challenge the standards of academic publishing and career advancement.

But the problematic effects of public shaming are many — among them, silencing “allies,” blaming individuals rather than examining social context, fostering intolerance and divisiveness, creating a “with-us-or-against-us” ethos, and reducing identity politics to a version of “oppression Olympics.” In cases where pain and suffering are equated with moral authority, calling out injustice can operate as a form of signaling virtue.

Let’s face it, outrage sells. That’s why social media and mainstream news outlets are invested in promoting it; they can both fuel and produce desires by tailoring their content to suit individual tastes. The red and blue newsfeeds and the “click bait” that proliferate on them produce profits, but they have also helped to make our time one of deep divisions and reactionary hatred, with a radicalization of both sides in a culture war that risks deepening into a civil war, with militarized armies of fascists and anti-fascists fighting in the streets.

In a culture that increasingly values raw emotions uncontaminated by scholarly analysis, the uncritical legitimation of feelings as the basis for moral authority becomes a form of political leveling. If unexamined outrage is the new truth, then we are moving dangerously close to a form of reactionary politics that closes down difficult discussions and prevents us from distinguishing between sexism or racism and critical discussions of them....

MORE: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/opini...aming.html

Quote:It may be an effective way to close down discussion, or deter others from taking certain unwanted political positions.

american nazi's ... 
im guessing WWII never happened for a majority of americans ?


Quote:In cases where pain and suffering are equated with moral authority

this is the difference that many seem to simply strole past like a voyear at a terrible road accident involving entire familys etc...

Quote:Let’s face it, outrage sells.
well... actually the real subject is outrage being used to victim shame victims as the bully gets accusations.
thats the real issue.

Quote:Let’s face it, outrage sells. That’s why social media and mainstream news outlets are invested in promoting it;

well actually...
my suspicion is that there is a growing level of qwasi sadistic voyerism that is taking up clicks which in turn fosters market generation.
i have been following this (casually)now for a few years.
it appears to be some type of social expansion from the east(mixed in with the reality TV facial expresion emotional respondant voyerism)
my personal suspicion is that it is flooding normalisation aversion proxy as a form of psychopathic self programming.

in the west it is a hyper redactive de-intellectualisation following body language as a facial emotional language of normalcy.

 the strong sadistic reality TV vein you get quite a considerable qauntity of cultural leaning.


examples of youtube video title name trending perameters collecting tens of millions of views...


You Will Laugh Till You FART - World's FUNNIEST Compilation

Try not to laugh or grin – Viral Girls Fail Compilation 2017
((sexual predator type video content))

post addition, i am not saying people who like these type of videos are inherantly bad.
my point was more along the lines of the symbolism of the main features of emotive drive for the content
women sexually dressed or in positions where they are accidentially semi naked
meanwhile the premis is laughing at them injuring themselves.

it is like a pre loaded construct that to a teenager developing sexual morality, has the potential to feed a personal perspective of objectifying the women to be non human while sexualising their attraction to them as a behaviour pattern reinforcing the lack of empathy for women whom they feel sexually attracted to
thus the concept of sexual self interest to feed off the victimisation of the misfortunate female.
ideally all the content is given legally by consent of the women, however i doubt any of it has been legally consented to.
it also flys close to the wind of up-skirting & other types of sexually predatory mind sets encouraging a feeding of narcissistic sexual self gain from exploiting the miss fortune.
hope that makes sense.



Animals Attack Kids - Funny Kids Fails!
Quote:A compilation of the Funny Animals Attack Kids - Cute Animals Attack Kids - Funny Kids Fails. Try not to laugh or grin while watching this!

FORGET CATS! Funny KIDS vs ZOO ANIMALS are WAY FUNNIER! - TRY NOT TO LAUGH
Quote:These videos are the best! What happened to these kids at zoo is soooo hilarious! Watch this and try not to laugh, impossible! Only the best and the funniest kid at zoo fail videos! What is your favorite clip?  Hope you like our compilation, please share it and SUBSCRIBE! Watch also our other videos!

LIVE: Best Attacks Of Wild Animals 2017 - Craziest Wild Animal Fights Caught On Camera

LIVE: Incredible Lions Show - Lion Attacks & Lion Hunting Fail & Lion Save Animals

etc etc etc... add nausium

Quote:In a culture that increasingly values raw emotions uncontaminated by scholarly analysis, the uncritical legitimation of feelings as the basis for moral authority becomes a form of political leveling. If unexamined outrage is the new truth, then we are moving dangerously close to a form of reactionary politics that closes down difficult discussions and prevents us from distinguishing between sexism or racism and critical discussions of them....
Quote:In a culture that increasingly values raw emotions uncontaminated by scholarly analysis


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ZkHSv8pkNXo


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/b44ZL3L1nfo

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

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonver...n#Emotions



https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/LeyofQK6tRw

and i LOVE bing bang theory & their cast love Jerry & really like a lot of pixar stuff. these are border line humour discussing the very topic.
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