Attending A Lecture Is Threatening The Lecturer
Anita Sarkeesian is terrible. I'm not saying she's wrong about everything--who's wrong about everything? But she's terrible. And this is one major reason why PC/SJ is terrible. I've only seen a few of Sargon's videos. They're ok, but not great. Perhaps there's something objectionable in them somewhere...but mostly, from what I've seen, his videos about Sarkeesian are pretty much right. She wrong, and she's basically a con artist. He's much righter than she is anyway.
But the main point: merely attending a panel discussion by someone you have criticized does not constitute harassment or intimidation of that person. One could do so in a threatening manner, I suppose...but that's not relevant, since it's not at all what happened.
But here's the really worrisome thing: we expect crazy nonsense from Sarkeesian. There is reason to believe she has exaggerated or fabricated claims of harassment in the past. (And I hereby apologize to Sarkeesian and to the universe if she hasn't.) But apparently the founders of VidCon publicly agreed with her that her Sargon sitting in the audience constituted harassment.
PCs saying insane things is one (insane) thing. It's the nature of the beast. But institutions accepting their insanity and adding an official or quasi-official layer of endorsement of those insane things...that's a whole additional level of crazy, IMO. That's what's happening at universities, at the Department of Education...and in many places the law and the government are on board as well. I don't see that VidCon needed to say anything about this dust-up. If it did, it should have said what's true: attending a lecture is not intimidating the lecturer. But that's not what happened.
This is a stupid thing to be interested in. But that's how we're going to be dragged to perdition: via a million little bits of insanity the normalize and endorse a batshit theory that attacks the heart of liberal society.
But the main point: merely attending a panel discussion by someone you have criticized does not constitute harassment or intimidation of that person. One could do so in a threatening manner, I suppose...but that's not relevant, since it's not at all what happened.
But here's the really worrisome thing: we expect crazy nonsense from Sarkeesian. There is reason to believe she has exaggerated or fabricated claims of harassment in the past. (And I hereby apologize to Sarkeesian and to the universe if she hasn't.) But apparently the founders of VidCon publicly agreed with her that her Sargon sitting in the audience constituted harassment.
PCs saying insane things is one (insane) thing. It's the nature of the beast. But institutions accepting their insanity and adding an official or quasi-official layer of endorsement of those insane things...that's a whole additional level of crazy, IMO. That's what's happening at universities, at the Department of Education...and in many places the law and the government are on board as well. I don't see that VidCon needed to say anything about this dust-up. If it did, it should have said what's true: attending a lecture is not intimidating the lecturer. But that's not what happened.
This is a stupid thing to be interested in. But that's how we're going to be dragged to perdition: via a million little bits of insanity the normalize and endorse a batshit theory that attacks the heart of liberal society.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:10 AM
5 Comments:
Exactly. For whatever reason, institutions in the US (and the West generally) have lost the ability to recognize PC as bullsh!t, which is really the most concerning thing about the last few year's developments in that area.
I'd add, it is not just concerning because of what SJWs would do if given authority. It is even more concerning because it implies that most of the decision-makers in those institutions are utter morons. The West really does have a problem with its elites, and SJ nuttiness puts it that problem into high definition.
Ugh.
I hadn't even thought about that part.
Also, Brett Weinstein (from Evergreen State) was interviewed on Bloggingheads by Glenn Loury. You really should check it out, because he goes into detail how messed up these protesters are. Here's a link to the real meat of it.
Sarkeesian started out with a reasonable plan way back when: investigate actual sexism in game design. Which she did. Then she tried to turn it into a career, so she ran into two problems:
1. Insufficient material. Most games don't show much sexism, so she started inflating cases up from nothing.
2. Lamppost statistics. She's missing actual cases in tech, because she's focusing so much on games. There was that egregious Uber case a couple months back. Now there's this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/technology/women-entrepreneurs-speak-out-sexual-harassment.html?_r=0
The result is: Sarkeesian has turned into a stopped clock.
As for when she's right...do a video search for Cindy the Mechanic in Final Fantasy. The thing is, it didn't take Sarkeesian to point it out. Female--and many male--gamers noticed it right out. (For starters, mechanics don't wear clothes like that because they'd get all covered in grease. They wear coveralls.)
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