Comedian refuses to sign "behaviour agreement" before performing at university

[Dermymc]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-46541002

"Universities used to be all about that, but now it seems they're places where students are being taught to be woke. I think it reflects a broader issue, where increasingly there are people who value safety, or what they perceive to be safety."

Oops! Saying “pray for me” is an affront to atheists

Knicknackpaddyflak In hindsight, think a term’s volunteering with SOAS SU might be a better punishment than the gulag

Did Owen Jones actually say that he didn't want to talk about it? What a fool he is!

Knock knock jokes?

Knock knock
who's there?
Boo
Boo-hoo....

Oh fgs I can't have 'triggered' you already..

intellectual standards of SOAS can be seen here, where they now use data protection to conceal the identities of the examiners who passed a thesis which had been repeatedly rejected.

I was just going to mention this! I have never, ever heard of this happening anywhere else, and it's an outrageous subversion of the eaxmining process for PhDs. The whole thing is really odd - I know some people who work in the relevant academic areas and none of them know who examined Page's PhD - I assume they got a couple of tame internals to do it.

Did Owen Jones actually say that he didn't want to talk about it?

He did. It was in the news review bit and he whinged that he'd said he didn't want to be the one to do that story. Honest! Stupid little Sanctimonious Morph. He grudgingly offered some waffle along the lines of if you don't approve, you don't have to buy a ticket.

room on the broom

That might be witchist.

Oh wait, that’s OK. They’ve probably got a gluten-free ducking stool and artisanal pyre ready.

I hope the comic in question makes up a decent routine about it..,

Seriously though, I know I’ve said this a hundred times but this is all contributing to decline of the ability to debate and resilience. when you stop debate, you stop people’s ability to debate and argue. Young people are not having the opportunity to argue - and to argue well you need to understand the situation, and be able to put together a reason why you disagree, with logic and data. If you no platform and stop this, you never develop those skills- thats what you’re at university to do, you prats.

Trigger warnings were originalybfor stuff like ‘this film contains loud bangs’ for people suffering from ptsd from war or conflict, or ‘this program contains scenes of sexual violence’. It was never intended to be ‘hey this is andofficult concept’.
When you give the students the idea that ideas can literally hurt them you do them a grave disservice. you are at uni to have your ideas challenged. you are there to learn to string an argument together whether that’s a mathematical proof or a critique of a social system. If that scares you, you’re in the wrong place.

When we coddle students like this we wreck their resilience. ideas cannot hurt you.

And god forbid they ever come up against a situation where they NEED to argue. Start a rebellion against a genuine tyrant. Deliver an eloquent speech on why a policy is harmful.

Who benefits when a whole generation is intellectually neutered like this? Anyone who wants to control them.

Somebody ought to sneak into their rooms and play Chubby Brown to them in their sleep to build up their resilience subliminally.

They list sexism in there but not misogyny. So you can tell jokes about women as long as they’re really hateful and nasty.

To me it's the next level of #nodebate.

I see the impact of (usually) men who's ideas go unchallenged daily. Education is rife with authoritarian leaders who implement policies with no thought beyond their tiny bubble. It seems like the whole of society is becoming less able to robustly challenge anything for fear of triggering.

It's another mainstream article exposing the "wokeness" of some university students and includes transphobia. The more the general public see and hear, the better.

Hecalledmecarrots said
"Our eldest has just started at Leeds University and, I swear, if he comes home for the holidays spouting woke bunkum like this, I’ll cancel Christmas and pack him off to the gulags."

Read in, The great University Con, by David Craig

"Leeds met at 97 courses in which you only needed 2x Es at A level to get to university"

"

I didn't turn down this gig because I'm some racist, homophobic, xenophobic, ableist comedian. I turned down this gig because if you sign a contract like that, you're exposing yourself to someone's bad interpretation
This is very true. He also has a point when he says anywhere seeking to impose such contracts is the sort of place where people seek to find offence.

It’s obedience training isn’t it?

Remove people’s ability to argue back.

‘But we are arguing!’ No you’re not. You’re ‘denouncing’ and there’s a huge difference.

There are times I wonder if this is all a gigantic excercise in social control.

Stage 1. Neuter population

• Keep people physically comfy but precarious (low job security, big mortgage and student debt, consumer lifestyle.)
• reduce people’s ability to debate
• reduce resilience to genuine hardship
• desensitise to gore, extreme porn and real suffering via media
• encourage trial by popularity (social media pile ins)
• 24 hour instant media reduces analysis in favour of novelty. ‘Facts’ become equal no matter how untrue.
• Experts and academics denounced. Must toe the orthodox line or denounced

Stage 2. Reduce social cohesion

• reduce parent child bond (confidential disclosure, named person legislation,
• denunciation culture
• encourage ‘othering’ by mixing population growth via rapid immigration and austerity

-asset strip public assets to the private purse

• reduce class analysis by promoting ID politics.
• neuter unions and reduce worker solidarity
• encourage inter generational conflict (endless boomer vs millennial shit in the media.)

Stage three - I suppose push the boundaries of what you can make people believe, or act as if they believe.

All a bit tinfoil hatty but everything on that list is happening. Nothing on there is too outré is it? I find it quite concerning.

SOAS have always been woke as a box of frogs. They were just as bad 20 years ago

Bowl I may be paranoid, but working in a university I agree with all you've said here. It reminds me a bit of that disturbing episode of Black Mirror, 15 million merits; the idea that reality shows can turn you into a star overnight...so why bother working hard? The lack of real critical thinking - even in some of the graduating students - astounds me.

Bowl, the only reason I am not sure it is a conspiracy is because I can't imagine the MRAs who profit most would be clever enough to consciously plan it.

It’s obedience training isn’t it?

Yes.

And yes to everything else you said.

It’s obedience training isn’t it?

Yep. I'm just not sure what this is a test run for.

The lack of real critical thinking - even in some of the graduating students - astounds me.

Forget the students, I’ve started to notice it in junior academics in the last couple of years.

They've been doing obedience training in schools for the past 10 years. Maybe not surprising that we've ended up with a generation who expect to live within authoritarian regimes

Take heart, you would be amazed at how little relevance the Student's Union has to most students' lives. At my place, they tend to roll their eyes whenever the worthies from the SU come to talk to them about something.

More than 10 years. Training children in schools in rightthink and very specific unquestioned political povs was New Labour's brainchild.

Comment column in The Times today:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/there-s-nothing-funny-about-student-censors-qhhxd5nz7?shareToken=6c1d6c18d83a78872e46479c08bc2e9b

One further thought re comedy not being 'safe' which I'm not sure has been stated - live comedy has never been a 'safe space' for the comedian, has it? Heckling, booing, 'dying' on stage...

They've been doing obedience training in schools for the past 10 years.

Haven't they just? Good little drone production is what we've been doing.

My kids have had more chance to air and dissect dissenting opinions and to challenge other opinions at home than they have ever had at either school or university.

It is not a healthy state of affairs, particularly when the country is deciding to leave a supra national trading bloc and will need domestic independent thinkers to drive it forward in the future.