Anyone up to speed with the Lindsay Shepherd case (the Canadian TA)?

[ConfessionsOfTeenageDramaQueen]

For those who aren't Lindsay is a 20-something TA at a Canadian University. Last November she was teaching a class on pronouns and, during the class, showed a 5 minute clip of a debate (that had been broadcast on Canadian TV) that featured a panel of speakers discussing gender pronouns in the context of trans issues.

The panel consisted of a few people including a trans-man, and Jordan Peterson.

After the class a student mentioned the clip to someone who reported it to the local LGBT group on campus who complained to the faculty who hauled her into a disciplinary meeting, which she had the presence of mind to record.

The meeting is 40 minutes long but I implore you to listen: not only does it give an insight into the Orwellian mindset of these two male professors, but their comments are absolutely dripping with sexism:

I'd be interested to know what others make of this case.

[speakingwoman]

:)

[kesstrel]

Speaking Thanks. Mine's a coffee.

[speakingwoman]

I'm sorry too! You do have a point.
cup of tea time.

[kesstrel]

Sorry, Speaking - I didn't mean to annoy you. Just trying to put another perspective forward.

[Dragoncake]

It's like they take a sackful of ideas and stick some in one bag and some in another and you are supposed to buy one entire bag and then fight to death to defend all the ideas contained in it.

Have to agree with you here.

[speakingwoman]

She only used valid because the man used it.

Next time you’re weeping in a room under attack by two men undergoing a bizarre extra judicial process check the recording of your attempted answers against a dictionary and judge yourself for accuracy.

[kesstrel]

Sorry, posted too soon.

So going by the definition, "all perspectives are valid" would be "all perspectives are reasonable, justifiable, supportable" which is what postmodernists teach.

Please don't get me wrong, though: I'm on Lindsay Shepherd's side here. She was probably only 22 when this happened to her, after four years at university being thoroughly indoctrinated with postmodernist viewpoints. It must have been a total shock to her to find herself under attack like this by her own academic supervisor.

[kesstrel]

Speakingwoman

As to all perspectives being valid in a uni - isn't that sort of what I pay my taxes for? I don't know or care about postmodernists but I do know people are supposed to disagree with each other in a University

The thing is, "all perspectives being valid" in a uni doesn't mean people disagreeing with each other. Here's the definition of "valid":

(of an argument or point) having a sound basis in logic or fact; reasonable or cogent.
"a valid criticism"
synonyms: well founded, sound, well grounded, reasonable, rational, logical, justifiable, defensible, defendable, supportable, sustainable, maintainable, workable, arguable, able to hold water, plausible, telling, viable, bona fide;
legally binding due to having been executed in compliance with the law.
"a valid contract correct, authentic,

And post-modernism is important because in humanities departments in universities, it is hugely influential, and has arguably taken the place of actually teaching students how to think, or how to consider evidence. Post-modernist scholars argue that science is just another biased way of looking at the world, for example, and should not be 'privileged' over other ways of seeing things.

This is a good book on the subject: www.amazon.co.uk/Higher-Superstition-Academic-Quarrels-Science/dp/0801857074/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&keywords=higher%20superstition&ie=UTF8&qid=1530168625&sr=1-1&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

[FlyTipper]

I basically agree with you FireFart and is why I feel the lecturers in the clip have a point (if not directly in relation to trans pronouns). Shepherd was not teaching critical thinking, not contextualising; she was presenting a videoed debate without comment in a tutorial with the vague notion of challenging preconceptions. That may be fine for many topics, but certain ones (like the Holocaust), there is a requirement that there be thought and preparation to how the subject is broached and dissected.
TransMRA - there is a problem with reason and critical thinking, in that you can use it to validate almost every position I haven't thought about this before and what you say makes complete sense. I'm especially reminded of the champions of 'critical thinking' on alt-right fora.

[Coyoacan]

I'm just shocked at the appalling ignorance of the lecturer who thought that grammar was laid down in law and not subject to debate. I presume it most be far away from his area of study, but still the level of ignorance is staggering.

Some forty odd years ago I was having a coffee in the University of Toronto and overheard some students raving about a professor who had said "the best way to deal with Marx is to ignore him". Maybe the best way to deal with universities is to realise that there are some appalling mediocre professors in them.

As for left and right, I'm totally given up on those terms. It's like they take a sackful of ideas and stick some in one bag and some in another and you are supposed to buy one entire bag and then fight to death to defend all the ideas contained in it.

[FireFartingDuck]

TransE undoubtedly it's not a silver bullet, and error will persist in some form whatever we do. But it is a hell of a lot better than people jettisoning it in favour of an anti-intellectual snobbery that encourages everyone to stick their fingers in their ears and go "lalalalala".

[speakingwoman]

Agree with both posts above

[TransExclusionaryMRA]

It’s worth pointing out there is a problem with reason and critical thinking, in that you can use it to validate almost every position. It all depends on what kind of premise you are starting with and what you think maybe axiomatic or not.

If it was just as simple as applying logic and reason we wouldn’t have a problem. Logic, reason and critical thinking can’t really prove truth in and of themselves, but they are invaluable tools in understanding everything with greater depth and accuracy.

[FireFartingDuck]

Flytipper, the existence of the internet is making it very easy to disseminate all kind of ridiculous ideas, without a doubt.
But for me, that's exactly the reason why people need to be trained to think, reason and debate. If you never come across these views in an arena where you are taught how to deal with stats, misrepresentation and all kinds of logical fallacies, you are very much at the mercy of a clever and charismatic internet personality. Holocaust denial exists, yes, and the internet is a powerful vehicle for promoting it. One does not have to give it credence, but unless you examine the tropes and lies it is based on, so that you can clearly show the errors, there will be people taken in by it.

My daughters like to tease me because they watch YouTube conspiracy videos, where all manner of David Ickeisms are presented as fact, and they know I waffle on about critical thinking. But plenty of their friends see this stuff and gobble it down whole. People need the tools to fight this, and the trend of waving a hand in dismissal rather than dealing with error head on is leaving a generation unprepared to fight against ideological tyranny.

[speakingwoman]

"I also have a problem with the logic that says when a topic is suppressed (for the record, I'm not saying any viewpoints should be suppressed) it gains power. "

I guess it depends on the suppression.

Banging the gavel on climate change and announcing the debate was over and anyone who hadn't understood yet was a "denier" was a catastrophic decision that our children and grandchildren will suffer for.

Whereas closing off debate on a husband's right to rape his wife seems to have worked rather well for some women at least.

It's a complicated world.

[FlyTipper]

FireFart If an ideology goes 'underground', it gains a power that it just won't have if it is exposed to the light and rational people show it for what it is.
I think this is the nub of the issue and one with which on balance I disagree. One of the things I hear 'needs discussion' is the Holocaust. Just bringing up the topic seems to get people grabbing out for minimisation - all for what goal? what is the goal? - I think the goal is often to try and absolve our collective guilt (fellow humans couldn't have been that bad), but, sometimes the goal is to feed something worse (the Nazis weren't that bad, the Jews are exaggerating). That is why, sometimes, other points of view are not always equally valid or should be given equal weighting.

I also have a problem with the logic that says when a topic is suppressed (for the record, I'm not saying any viewpoints should be suppressed) it gains power. David Irving's recent rise in popularity has come off the back of the internet which has acted as a very effective vehicle for disseminating his ideas to the world.

[speakingwoman]

I'm listening to the recording again.

Interrogator 2 attempts to compare Shepherd's teaching to a meteorology lecturer presenting climate change to undergraduates as a debate.

He gets very very muddled between:

1. A meteorology lecturer telling undergrads that there are two sides to the scientific debate about climate change.
   
2. A lecturer teaching students about the nature of the (rather important!) debate about climate change.
   

Then he mentions trans people having high suicide rates and stops without giving her a right to reply.
But not before he gives some ahistorical crap about the Nazis.

[speakingwoman]

Dragoncake, - yes I think that's what Shepherd meant.

[Dragoncake]

Did Shepherd mean that in a university the presentation of all perspectives for discussion is valid? Rather than that they all have equal value?

Flytipper a grammar lesson is one of the few times that gender is relevant!

[speakingwoman]

I think I agree with FireFarting Duck.

[FireFartingDuck]

I think we contextualise everything we discuss, tbh, so I'm not remotely concerned about people openly debating any ideas whatsoever. In fact, in the context of our current society, full of suspicion and mistrust, I think it's more important than ever to let everyone have their say openly and dissect the logical fallacies and mistruths in their thinking.
If an ideology goes 'underground', it gains a power that it just won't have if it is exposed to the light and rational people show it for what it is.

[speakingwoman]

Thank you for replying. To my mind, That’s not a definition of “no debate”. You are describing a result, not the practice itself.

Appreciate you have other things to do but would love it if someone could help me understand what this “ no debate” practice is.

[FlyTipper]

"No debate" means that in university departments around the developed world (with the exception, oddly, of the US), you are not going to find anyone in a biology department wasting their time debating man-made climate change or creation-based evolution. You are not going to find historians debating whether the Holocaust happened. You just aren't. These alternatives may be brought up, but never offered without context and peer-reviewed data. But you are completely right: all three are controversial topics in the world at large. They are talking points and things people take positions on. Is that reason for academics to bring them unchallenged into undergraduate courses? In that case, bring flat earth theory into geography and aliens into astronomy. What about a debate about whether gay men should undergo conversion therapy in social sciences? I would be shocked if, for example, people were 'debating' racial IQ differences in genetics - okay, I appreciate these things are in the news, but I wouldn't expect a debate along the lines 'what do you think?' I would expect a scientifically literate breakdown of why we do or do not study this, what are the shortcomings of the data, what the assumptions are, why this topic is controversial, all embedded into a wider perspective of the academic debate and historical significance i.e. CONTEXTUALISED exposition, not a student-led debate.

No topics should be off limits in and of themselves. Time constraints may mean not all avenues are explored (molecular drive or Lamarkism in evolution lectures). But care must be introduced with certain topics that come with cultural baggage. And some things are really just not debatable. I want to make clear however that I think 'gender' is not in the category of a spherical world or Darwinian evolution. It most certainly is up for debate (however, is a grammer lesson an appropriate place for this to occur?)

[speakingwoman]

"Actually, I agree with the lecturer. There are things that are basically no debate: climate change, evolution and the Holocaust being three. You can talk in general terms I suppose about other 'theories' but to present them as serious alternatives on an undergraduate course seems unprofessional to me."

What does no debate actually mean? I know it can't have a literal meaning because I have campaigned on the streets about climate change and I can assure you that it is hotly debated by debate-minded folk.

As to evolution - my auntie and uncle don't believe in it. Should I refuse to debate? Should I ignore what's going on? How will this "no debate" thing help me? Is it some kind of technical term?

And the Holocaust. Hasn't Poland just moved to deny involvement? How will it help not to debate with the next generation of Poles?

I'm annoyed but I do actually want to know what this "no debate" thing is.

As to all perspectives being valid in a uni - isn't that sort of what I pay my taxes for? I don't know or care about postmodernists but I do know people are supposed to disagree with each other in a University.

[kesstrel]

That sentence: "In a University, all perspectives are valid." struck me as being straight out of the postmodernist playbook, rather than a defense of free speech. And indeed, Shepherd's graduate studies program was in Cultural Analysis & Social Theory, so it seems pretty likely that that's where she go that idea from. When the lecturer (from the same department) said "That's not necessarily true", I doubt he was making a claim for the existence of objective truth; rather, he was up against the innate contradiction of postmodernist ideas: if there is no objective truth, and everyone's truth is valid for them, then you have a problem justifying your opposition to certain ideas. As I understand it, the way this is resolved by postmodernists is to say that the only thing that can be done amidst this absence of objective truth is to challenge those with institutional power, whose version of truth is unfairly influential, and that this must be done by promoting the alternate truths of the less powerful, while condemning the truths of the powerful.

The whole idea is garbled and innately incoherent, in my opinion, which is why it's not surprising that Shepherd's supervisors tripped themselves up in this way. This is the home page of one of them:

www.wlu.ca/academics/faculties/faculty-of-arts/faculty-profiles/nathan-rambukkana/index.html

It's full of postmodernist tropes, and note the phrase at the end: "speaking back to state, corporate and societal power and privilege", which is what postmodernist academics see themselves as being all about, rather than trying to determine objective truths.