That’s a disagreement on the mechanics not the reality. What if the argument was only white men can understand gravity. Wasn’t so long ago that was the imputed case. This is not about being wrong — Lord knows, we are all guilty of that — it’s a matter of insisting you are right against all the evidence that disproves the notion that All …
That’s a disagreement on the mechanics not the reality. What if the argument was only white men can understand gravity. Wasn’t so long ago that was the imputed case. This is not about being wrong — Lord knows, we are all guilty of that — it’s a matter of insisting you are right against all the evidence that disproves the notion that All whites are better than All Blacks or All whites are more patriotic and more deserving of liberty than All Asians because Asians are incapable of appreciating liberty and Blacks are unable to better themselves. Hardly the same as arguing the curvature of time space and force of objects on other objects. Professing differing theories — even those that might be seen as crackpot today — is one thing. Professing an unbending prejudice contrary to fact and experience is another.
You chose the metaphor, Grumpy. Ms. Haidery merely illustrated the limits of using it simplistically.
Once again, you are projecting onto Professor Wax your own extrapolations of her statements. She has, so far as I know, said none of the things you attribute to her. If you have to make your argument by exaggeration it's a signal that there's a weakness in those arguments.
More substantively, Wax has picked up ideas made popular by political scientist Charles Murray, the surviving co-author of "The Bell Curve," who is a complex and interesting man with some awful ideas. His research on underlying racial differences is flawed, but unfortunately the most prominent people who have debunked it have also relied on flawed research. Murray's ideas have been exploited by leaders of the "intellectual alt-right," white nationalists of various stripes, and the ideas are influential in a wide range of rightwing contexts, including some academic ones. If you want to go all Torquemada and attempt to expel those who adopt Murray's views from academics as heretics against our contemporary consensus, those views will become more attractive, as banned ideas always are, and those on the Left will be viewed with as much affection as Torquemada.
Charles Murray, author of Coming Apart: The State of White America (to demonstrate that the elite are more likely to drive foreign cars than domestic ones, Murray notes the makes of automobiles in a couple of mall parking lots. Now that's scholarship at it's finest)? Murray, who wound up at that bastion of American thought known as the American Enterprise Institute after academia would have nothing to do with him because his ideas weren't only outlandish and unproven but no more than manifestations of his mental unbalance? That Charles Murray? That's the peg you want to hang your hat on? That's the peg Wax wants to hang her hat on? Maybe she should follow Murray to the AEI where she can spout her racist nonsense without damaging any budding young scholars. Speaking of Torquemada -- big hero of the new integralists, right? Just ask Wax. I'm sure she'll know.
I'm not sure what peg you saw me hanging my hat on, Grumpy. I do wear a hat, but I was speaking of Professor Wax and the possible origins of her views. I don't know if she wears hats.
My understading is that Murray never sought an academic position, which as a student of Lucien Pye at MIT (a huge credential) he surely could have secured with ease. He has always worked with research think tanks: first the politically neutral AIR, which produces enormous amounts of essential, nonpartisan work, and later rightwing ones like AEI, which makes sense because his personal views moved to the right. (You do realize that half the country aligns towards the AEI side of the political spectrum, right? Trying to dismiss someone as academically ineligible because he is associated with AEI seems an argument with intrinsically limited appeal, like a rightist trying to discredit an academic because they are associated with Brookings.) I have never seen Murray as "mentally unbalanced." I think you are projecting your view of his ideas as crazy into a fact-free diagnosis.
I think we've made our views clear. Feel free to add: I'll read what you write, but I'm at the end of the line here.
Thanks for your time. Hat-wearing is a lost art. I hope your hat is not some baseball cap turned backward to expose that tiny rectangle of scalp and hair — or forelock, if one is so lucky — that a hat was intended to cover.
That’s a disagreement on the mechanics not the reality. What if the argument was only white men can understand gravity. Wasn’t so long ago that was the imputed case. This is not about being wrong — Lord knows, we are all guilty of that — it’s a matter of insisting you are right against all the evidence that disproves the notion that All whites are better than All Blacks or All whites are more patriotic and more deserving of liberty than All Asians because Asians are incapable of appreciating liberty and Blacks are unable to better themselves. Hardly the same as arguing the curvature of time space and force of objects on other objects. Professing differing theories — even those that might be seen as crackpot today — is one thing. Professing an unbending prejudice contrary to fact and experience is another.
You chose the metaphor, Grumpy. Ms. Haidery merely illustrated the limits of using it simplistically.
Once again, you are projecting onto Professor Wax your own extrapolations of her statements. She has, so far as I know, said none of the things you attribute to her. If you have to make your argument by exaggeration it's a signal that there's a weakness in those arguments.
More substantively, Wax has picked up ideas made popular by political scientist Charles Murray, the surviving co-author of "The Bell Curve," who is a complex and interesting man with some awful ideas. His research on underlying racial differences is flawed, but unfortunately the most prominent people who have debunked it have also relied on flawed research. Murray's ideas have been exploited by leaders of the "intellectual alt-right," white nationalists of various stripes, and the ideas are influential in a wide range of rightwing contexts, including some academic ones. If you want to go all Torquemada and attempt to expel those who adopt Murray's views from academics as heretics against our contemporary consensus, those views will become more attractive, as banned ideas always are, and those on the Left will be viewed with as much affection as Torquemada.
Charles Murray, author of Coming Apart: The State of White America (to demonstrate that the elite are more likely to drive foreign cars than domestic ones, Murray notes the makes of automobiles in a couple of mall parking lots. Now that's scholarship at it's finest)? Murray, who wound up at that bastion of American thought known as the American Enterprise Institute after academia would have nothing to do with him because his ideas weren't only outlandish and unproven but no more than manifestations of his mental unbalance? That Charles Murray? That's the peg you want to hang your hat on? That's the peg Wax wants to hang her hat on? Maybe she should follow Murray to the AEI where she can spout her racist nonsense without damaging any budding young scholars. Speaking of Torquemada -- big hero of the new integralists, right? Just ask Wax. I'm sure she'll know.
I'm not sure what peg you saw me hanging my hat on, Grumpy. I do wear a hat, but I was speaking of Professor Wax and the possible origins of her views. I don't know if she wears hats.
My understading is that Murray never sought an academic position, which as a student of Lucien Pye at MIT (a huge credential) he surely could have secured with ease. He has always worked with research think tanks: first the politically neutral AIR, which produces enormous amounts of essential, nonpartisan work, and later rightwing ones like AEI, which makes sense because his personal views moved to the right. (You do realize that half the country aligns towards the AEI side of the political spectrum, right? Trying to dismiss someone as academically ineligible because he is associated with AEI seems an argument with intrinsically limited appeal, like a rightist trying to discredit an academic because they are associated with Brookings.) I have never seen Murray as "mentally unbalanced." I think you are projecting your view of his ideas as crazy into a fact-free diagnosis.
I think we've made our views clear. Feel free to add: I'll read what you write, but I'm at the end of the line here.
Thanks for your time. Hat-wearing is a lost art. I hope your hat is not some baseball cap turned backward to expose that tiny rectangle of scalp and hair — or forelock, if one is so lucky — that a hat was intended to cover.
I can assure you that my hat in no way exposes any rectangles of hair. I only wish there were some to expose.