Good trouble

An important reminder to academics, in a time of creeping conformist orthodoxy and irrational authoritarianism. John was a maker of good trouble. He more than met the conditions of his employment.

"Tenure in universities and colleges was instituted largely to protect faculty members in their vital activity of offering unpopular possibilities to their students, to administrators, and to the public at large. Some may think that tenure confers a right to speak on faculty members and a collateral obligation on the institution not to fire them for the views they hold as professionals. This, however, is only part of the story. The right conferred carries with it a duty: faculty members are not only permitted to speak their minds without retaliation, they must do so. By extending tenure, an institution of higher education hires critics and pledges to pay them for the trouble they give. Those who do not present possibilities constituting at least tacit criticisms of the status quo fail to meet the conditions of their employment."

Stoic Pragmatism by John Lachs

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And that's why we have a Lyceum speakers series.

Unsurprisingly, our upcoming Lyceum about "cultural racism" (Friday 5 pm, COE 164) has generated a flurry of cultural racism on MTSU's Facebook page… making the speaker's point before she even speaks. https://www.facebook.com/share/1ESg3sR9uD/?mibextid=wwXIfr

     UPDATE, Apr 12: Linda Alcoff's Lyceum event yesterday afternoon, and the reception following, went off without a hitch. I asked her what she'd say to the trolls who made such indecorous noise online but didn't bother to show up and give her a fair hearing. She mildly and graciously pointed out that divisive rhetoric is not constructive, that we should all be listening to one another, and we have really only just begun to seriously study and try to understand the full impact and legacy of our country's troubled racial history. It's a shame so many who know so little are so quick to judge and dismiss unfamiliar and uncomfortable truths (and "untimely questions," as Agnes Callard put it two weeks ago at her Lyceum).

It's no joke, but Alcoff did evoke laughter when she noted that Pete Hegseth has banned one of her books (by what authority does the sec'y of defense presume to ban books?!). The punch-line (can't recall the precise set-up): "my mom's book was banned and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt")...

Civility and truth, not loudmouth know-nothing bigotry, were winners last night.

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An earlier rendition:

https://youtu.be/G8uJzeNpAyQ?si=6pgXP17F6g4edKQp

The Stone Feb 4, 2015Philosophy’s Lost Body and Soul
By George Yancy and Linda Martín Alcoff

This is the sixth in a series of interviews with philosophers on race that I am conducting for The Stone. This week’s conversation is with Linda Martín Alcoff, a professor of philosophy at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center. She was the president of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division, for 2012-13. She is the author of “Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self.” — George Yancy

George Yancy: What is the relationship between your identity as a Latina philosopher and the philosophical interrogation of race in your work?

Linda Martín Alcoff: Every single person has a racial identity, at least in Western societies, and so one might imagine that the topic of race is of universal interest. Yet for those of us who are not white — or less fully white, shall I say — the reality of race is shoved in our faces in particularly unsettling ways, often from an early age. This can spark reflection as well as nascent social critique.

Linda Martin Alcoff

The relationship between my identity and my philosophical interest in race is simply a continuation through the tools of philosophy the pursuit that I began as a kid, growing up in Florida in the 1960s, watching the civil rights movement as it was portrayed in the media and perceived by the various parts of my family, white and nonwhite. I experienced school desegregation, the end of Jim Crow, and the war in Indochina, a war that also made apparent the racial categories used to differentiate peoples, at enormous cost. It was clear to me from a young age that “we” were the ones with no value for life, at least the life of those who were not white. Read more…

The Stone Sep 3, 2013Sep 3, 2013
What’s Wrong With Philosophy?By Linda Martín Alcoff

This is the second of five posts this week on women in philosophy.

What is wrong with philosophy?

This is the question I was posed by journalists last year while I served as president of the American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division. Why is philosophy so far behind every other humanities department in the diversity of its faculty? Why are its percentages of women and people of color (an intersecting set) so out of tune with the country, even with higher education? What is wrong with philosophy?

The demographic challenges in philosophy should not be blamed on those it excludes.

And now our field has another newsworthy event: the claims of sexual harassment against the influential philosopher Colin McGinn and his subsequent resignation, a story that made the front page of The New York Times. Here is a leading philosopher of language unable to discern how sexual banter becomes sexual pressure when it is repetitively parlayed from a powerful professor to his young female assistant. It might lead one to wonder, what is wrong with the field of philosophy of language?

McGinn defended himself by deflecting blame. The student, he argued, simply did not understand enough philosophy of language to get the harmlessness of his jokes. He did not intend harm, nor did his statements logically entail harm; therefore, her sense of harm is on her.
Read more…

The Stone Apr 1, 2012Apr 1, 2012
In Arizona, Censoring Questions About RaceBy Linda Martín Alcoff

In recent weeks, the state of Arizona has intensified its attack in its schools on an entire branch of study — critical race theory. Books and literature that, in the state’s view, meet that definition have been said to violate a provision in the state’s law that prohibits lessons “promoting racial resentment.” Officials are currently bringing to bear all their influence in the public school curriculum, going so far as to enter classrooms to confiscate books and other materials and to oversee what can be taught. After decades of debate over whether we might be able to curtail ever so slightly the proliferation of violent pornography, the censors have managed a quick and thorough coup over educational materials in ethnic studies.

I have been teaching critical race theory for almost 20 years. The phrase signifies quite a sophisticated concept for this crowd to wield, coined as it was by a consortium of theorists across several disciplines to signify the new cutting edge scholarship about race. Why not simply call it “scholarship about race,” you might ask? Because, as the censors might be surprised to find, these theorists want to leave open the question of what race is — if there is such a thing — rather than assuming it as a natural object of inquiry. Far from championing a single-minded program for the purpose of propaganda, the point of critical race theory is to formulate questions about race.
Read more…

The Stone Jun 8, 2011Jun 8, 2011
When Culture, Power and Sex CollideBy Linda Martín Alcoff

The recent events swirling about the ex-next-president of France, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, have revived old tropes about how culture affects sex, including sexual violence. Before this scandal, many continued to believe that Americans are still infected by their Puritan past in matters sexuel, while the French are just chauds lapins: hot rabbits. The supposed difference consisted of not only a heightened sexual activity but an altered set of conventions about where to draw the line between benign sexual interaction and harassment. The French, many believed, drew that line differently.

One needs to be a cultural relativist to know when one is being hit upon.

The number of women speaking out in France post-scandal calls into question this easy embrace of relativism. French women, it appears, don’t appreciate groping any more than anyone else, at least not unwanted groping. A French journalist, Tristane Banon, who alleged that she was assaulted by Strauss-Kahn in 2002, described him as a “chimpanzee in rut,” which draws a much less sympathetic picture than anything to do with rabbits. Still, some continue to hold that the French have a higher level of tolerance for extramarital affairs and a greater respect for a politician’s right to privacy. But neither of these factors provide an excuse for harassment and rape. Read more…

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And this is why we must never stop acknowledging this country's history of "cultural racism"...

On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Ulysses S. Grant of the United States Army at Appomattox Court House in Virginia. Lee’s surrender did not end the war—there were still two major armies in the field—but everyone knew the surrender signaled that the American Civil War was coming to a close.

Soldiers and sailors of the United States had defeated the armies and the navy of the Confederate States of America across the country and the seas, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and almost $6 billion. To the northerners celebrating in the streets, it certainly looked like the South’s ideology had been thoroughly discredited.

Southern politicians had led their poorer neighbors to war to advance the idea that some people were better than others and had the right—and the duty—to rule. The Founders of the United States had made a terrible mistake when they declared, “All men are created equal,” southern leaders said. In place of that “fundamentally wrong” idea, they proposed “the great truth” that white men were a “superior race.” And within that superior race, some men were better than others... (continues)

HCR