ABTejana
1.6K posts
@MbProfesora People see what they want to see. Assuming they're being honest, which they often are not.
English
There was a clan rally in my town square in the early 2000s
David Shafer@DavidShafer
I am 60 years old and have lived virtually my entire life in the American South. I have never to my knowledge met a single member of the Ku Klux Klan. It is a ghost kept alive by millions of dollars in funding by the Southern Poverty Law Center to keep us divided.
English
ABTejana 已转推
As usual, Wilson doesn’t get it.
Peter draws his sword against the slave of the High Priest in John 18:10, and he cuts off the slave’s ear. Absolutely Peter is willing to kill for Jesus.
But just 17 verses later, Peter denies Jesus in the courtyard a third time.
So Peter is willing to kill for Jesus. But he’s absolutely *not* willing to die for Him.
Many. Such. Cases.
TRIGGERnometry@triggerpod
“Christianity was never a ‘be passive and get walked over’ religion.” Andrew Wilson @paleochristcon pushes back on the idea that Christianity is a pacifist religion. Forgive your enemies, yes, but that doesn’t mean allowing harm to continue. He points to Jesus forgiving on the cross, yet also cleansing the temple and speaking about the sword. What do you think? Where did the idea that Christianity = passivity actually come from?
English
ABTejana 已转推
Vermeule is a sick puppy - very, very weird & not in the good way. Rufo thinks ends justify the very worst means.
Kevin Vallier@kvallier
Vermeule knows this is not true of me. I have actively protected academics to my right and suffered for it. He has even befriended one of them. Usually, when Vermeule criticizes me, it isn't a manifest misrepresentation, but this time, I'm compelled to point it out. I am *not* some liberal policing conservatives. I have paid a high price to do the opposite.
English
I posted awhile ago about a short presentation I was going to give on Twin Peaks, Sexual Abuse and Nukes at Tarleton State University. I finally sat down yesterday and clipped out the parts I was in so I could share them. youtube.com/watch?v=bEkhw6…
YouTube
English
@titusfilm @PhilipDBunn “Scrappy warrior mom cuteness” is a way for you to not have to engage with her arguments. Maybe what convinced others to share their opinions is what she argued- you know, maybe she used the art of persuasion as a gifted interlocutor or something.
English
@PhilipDBunn You are. This week has been the first effort among conservative academics to discredit Rufo. Corey's "scrappy warrior" mommy cuteness has encouraged others -- & now you're popping up to criticize him while talking of your friends on the left.
At least be honest.
English
A few strange things. A number of academics are now attacking Rufo, who didn't start this fight. Here's another one here, again, completely unprovoked.
"Friends to my left" this guy says--Rufo, however, is implicitly treated like an enemy.
Corey has been attacking Rufo for about a month now in three different venues, eventually getting to the general public's attention in the WSJ. Rufo never said anything to her before these attacks became public on x. Rufo didn't want this drama--Corey did, as well as these other guys joining her. Corey says in so many words that she wants a kinder, milder DEI, that she wants a middle way, not something extreme like Rufo. She could save those misunderstood activists!
It looks like a major political fight will be needed to deal with problems among conservative intellectuals as well. These people don't support Rufo, in fact, they want to oppose him publicly. But Rufo is much milder than DeSantis or Trump or any other political options. So these intellectuals will take the side of the left as things get worse, never mind how destructive or illegal DEI is.
Philip Bunn@PhilipDBunn
I’ve spent many years trying to explain to my friends to my left what it feels like to be a conservative navigating academia. It certainly would have been easier not to be one. But based on current discourse, I guess the whole time I’ve been a secret lefty doing lefty things.
English
@PaulFairIII Jesus never lost the world. He was still Lord of all when he was hung on a cross by the most powerful empire of the time. But to earthly men who only understand earthly power, he was a loser and killed like a slave. The problem is Rufo et al think only like those earthly men
English
@MbProfesora Jesus did not lose. I think perhaps a re-read may be helpful. A summary is this:
Jesus created the world, he lost it temporarily, then he won it back.
If he had lost, evil would have reined over everyone, hence why losing is so reprehensible.
English
Whatever you think about any of this, it’s clear there’s a lack or morality in conservative academics: they’ve forgotten that winning itself is moral.
Winning is an end to itself that embodies goodness. Is there more to the story? Yes. But winning is not a trivial or secondary pursuit. It is the primary mission. In times of war, those who forget that are forgotten by history, as they should be.
Not only does the end justify the means, it defines them: you set the end, and then you work backward.
I appreciate that she is questioning, “To what end?” Because that is the ultimate question. And as long as that end is good and is accomplished, the means should be explored freely.
The problem is not when people use the wrong means to achieve an end. It’s when the end was misguided — if the end is well-defined, you will know what not to do (you don’t try win a war by going scorched Earth (unless you’re a lunatic), because you are smart enough to define the end well: the goal is not *simply* to win a war, but to have an existence).
Likewise, the goal is to have academic institutions that disseminate truth or at least don’t call truth by the most vile of names so that truth becomes verboten, and all of that is simply a sub-goal of the primary one: that our society will continue, as America is the greatest political force for good for Earth and its inhabitants. Some will argue, (many academics) and that shows how evil our institutions are, that basic facts are considered problematic.
Without our county existing as the political, scientific, technological, and defensive beacon, millions (or more), across the world, 2will return to the death, disease, and starvation that once reined across all continents. Winning the war in academia is not a trivial pursuit. The end goal is continued existence, so whatever achieves that, is not only justifiable, but righteous. A failure to win is in fact a moral failure.
ABTejana@MbProfesora
Rufo is missing the point, though, that there is a bigger horizon he rejects and these folks don’t. There are certain acts that when you do them change the nature of your heart and soul and make you become the thing you are fighting. 1/
English
@PaulFairIII It’s not me you have to take it up with. It’s Jesus, Socrates and any one who has “lost” in the terms the world uses for winning or losing.
English
Plato's argument portended primarily to self-mastery, and not winning *over others.* To the degree that Plato's philosophy been extrapolated to failing to defend society, it is incorrect: Winning is a moral good, and it's obvious, to me now, why the conservatives have lost in academics to this point:
Apparently, you all believe there is some virtue in losing. losing is not a moral good. Martyrs are not good because they lost, but because of what they gain. Cinderella is not celebrated simply because she was treated poorly, but because her virtues won, in the end, the throne. Doubtless, there were countless other women who were also mistreated. We don't celebrate them.
It would do well for you to remember, that cowards are not compared to second-rate citizens, but to murderers, and God permits neither the former coward nor the latter murderer in his kingdom, by his words. And therein we find the two guardrails: Do not kill another human, but be as bold as a lion.
English
@christopherrufo I don’t think even those who’d agree that “fighting left wing racialism” is right opinion would say that’s what your full intention is; “fighting left wing racialism by any means necessary” seems to be what some people are criticizing you for in the OP/article/back and forth
English
@MbProfesora Fighting against left-wing racialism is the "right opinion" and I can assure you that I have put my own life at risk to a much greater extent than all of my "conservative academic" critics combined.
English
Actually cultivating sufficient thumos to fight and win against those who would destroy your civilization is good for the soul. Shrinking, backbiting, enabling, and rationalizing one's own cowardice as the mark of the "beautiful loser" does immense damage to soul and society.
ABTejana@MbProfesora
Rufo is missing the point, though, that there is a bigger horizon he rejects and these folks don’t. There are certain acts that when you do them change the nature of your heart and soul and make you become the thing you are fighting. 1/
English
@youtwitface @rclu Have a great pickleball time, thanks for discussing with me!
English
@MbProfesora @rclu I'm off to play pickleball....pleasure chatting
English
Really nice thread from @MbProfesora. To which I would only add that my own recent experiences with Rufo don’t give me much confidence that attempts at measured, civil discourse would be fruitful.
He’s welcome to take a shot at disproving that theory.
ABTejana@MbProfesora
Rufo is missing the point, though, that there is a bigger horizon he rejects and these folks don’t. There are certain acts that when you do them change the nature of your heart and soul and make you become the thing you are fighting. 1/
English
@DavidRandallNAS @rclu But Prince Hamlet notoriously defies the two rules King Hamlet gives for his inquiry- to “Taint not thy mind” and to leave Gertrude alone. It’s not his inaction that’s the most fundamental issue, it’s the rules he contravenes
English
@rclu @MbProfesora Surrenders also form character.
I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous.
Et seq.
English
@ForeverModoc I’m certain there are litanies of what the right does in places they control. It’s silly and inaccurate to act like either one of these players are above any of this
English
@MbProfesora Rufo isn't the one running around burning down administration buildings and pogroming jews, whites and asians on campus.
you will never achieve justice of any kind if you passively let this happen.
English
To play with McLuhan, “the method is the message.” If you “fight” in terms of power with no mind to justice it doesn’t matter how just you think your ends are. What you did to get power turned you and your vision into something incapable of sustaining the good or just on earth
Wokal Distance@wokal_distance
This is not Rufo just aimlessly trying to be a dick. he is attempting to show that the methods of the Elizabeth Corey types have failed because they don't understand that the problem is not a matter of communication or persuasion. The right is having power politics done to them by the left, and Rufo's point is that you can't fight power politics with persuasion. It is impossible to reason with power politics for the exact same reason that it is impossible to reason with a punch in the face. You cannot appeal to the better nature and intellectual honesty of a person who thinks that all intellectual engagement is merely masks for power and all justifications are merely rhetorical moves in a discursive struggle for political position. Again, academics simply refuse to engage with Rufo's theory of change, what he is trying to do intellectually and politically, or his normative and strategic justifications for doing so. If academics want understanding, perhaps they could, you know, ask him (or me! we worked and work together!) about what is being done, why it is being done, and what the normative and strategic justifications for doing so are.
English
@youtwitface @rclu I don’t think it justifies it- but I think people think there is a time of merit in the system that we can return to and that AA ruined and removing that just solves any problem of discrimination and returns us to the pursuit of merit
English
@MbProfesora @rclu I suppose this is where we break ranks. Past discrimination doesn't justify present discrimination based on race. Now if the gov't wanted to disciminate and give preference to poor people over wealthy people, I'd be much more tolerant of that.
English
@ForeverModoc @JacobB75646 this just seems factually incorrect after everything we have learned from the email exchanges between Bannon and Epstein.
English
@MbProfesora @JacobB75646 They are the vast majority of them with insitutional power, and the ones who engage the the largest number of acts of public ritualistic degeneracy.
English
Rufo is missing the point, though, that there is a bigger horizon he rejects and these folks don’t. There are certain acts that when you do them change the nature of your heart and soul and make you become the thing you are fighting. 1/
Wokal Distance@wokal_distance
This is not Rufo just aimlessly trying to be a dick. he is attempting to show that the methods of the Elizabeth Corey types have failed because they don't understand that the problem is not a matter of communication or persuasion. The right is having power politics done to them by the left, and Rufo's point is that you can't fight power politics with persuasion. It is impossible to reason with power politics for the exact same reason that it is impossible to reason with a punch in the face. You cannot appeal to the better nature and intellectual honesty of a person who thinks that all intellectual engagement is merely masks for power and all justifications are merely rhetorical moves in a discursive struggle for political position. Again, academics simply refuse to engage with Rufo's theory of change, what he is trying to do intellectually and politically, or his normative and strategic justifications for doing so. If academics want understanding, perhaps they could, you know, ask him (or me! we worked and work together!) about what is being done, why it is being done, and what the normative and strategic justifications for doing so are.
English
@youtwitface @rclu inequality and the resulting uneven access to the things that help the human mind to expand and grow is selling a bill of false goods and no real solution to any problem in the present moment.
English
@youtwitface @rclu which isn't to say that your experience of CA was a good or just one, but it is to say that anyone who either can't a) accurately characterize previous eras of education/hiring practices and b) ask legitimate questions about what merit means in times of great socio-economic 3/
English