A Bitch-Slap Upside the Head

April 25, 2005,
     I was at the University of Wisconsin last week, doing Q and A after a lecture, when somebody asked me what it would take for the American public to start paying attention to the grave energy issues coming down at us. I answered, speaking figuratively, a bitch-slap upside the head. At once off to the side of the big room, a young woman thrust up her hand. I called on her and she said that she was offended by my remark. I was then duly upbraided for my choice of language and my attitude toward women.

     This is not the first time I have encountered a reaction like this. A similar thing happened to me at Princeton last month. I remarked that Modernism had succeeded in removing all feminine qualities from architecture, in particular ornament and curves, and a wrathful female student hastened to chastise me for expressing the idea -- to which, it seemed to me, any genuine feminist ought to be sympathetic.

     After much pondering and prayer, I conclude that the faculties of the America's great universities have forgotten what free speech means, namely that even if expressions make us feel uncomfortable we are obliged to tolerate them so as to assure our freedom to express ideas that might make somebody else uncomfortable.
    
     What's obvious is that these students have been carefully trained by their teachers to behave this way, conditioned to rise up on cue in censorious indignation to smack down ideas that "offend" them. Who are their teachers? A lot of the tenured ones are fellow members of my own Woodstock Generation (and many of them are women). It's awfully ironic that an intellectual trend that started with the Berkeley "Free Speech" movement in 1965 has now mutated into a widespread impulse to censor free speech on the grounds that it "offends."

      This was the case earlier this year when the president of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, remarked at a conference that in light of the overwhelming representation of males on the science faculty perhaps there was something innate in the difference between men and women to account for it. Summers was pilloried for his remarks. The faculty went so far as to organize a formal no confidence vote against him. He has refused to step down, though he has issued many obsequious apologies in the aftermath.

      What is most amazing about the Harvard incident is that it formally established the faculty's position as being officially against free inquiry and free expression -- and, of course, that it happened at the supposedly highest level of academia.

      I would go so far to say now that this has all happened precisely because of differences between men and women and the fact that women have come to dominate some college faculties, especially the so-called humanities (where expression is supposedly taught). They've implanted the idea that somebody's (anybody's) personal feelings are more important than the substance of any expression, and that somebody's (anybody's) hurt feelings are grounds for shutting down the expression, and the discussion that goes with it. The implicit narcissism is also fantastic.

     I regard this behavior on the campuses as pernicious fucking nonsense. It is just another thing (along with the widespread belief that it is possible to get something for nothing) that is turning America into a fourth-rate culture, a nation of cravens and cretins. And it will lead us right into the grip of the law of perverse outcomes, which states that people get what they deserve, not what they expect.

Comments

[Buddhist with an attitude]

I was called an «asshole» because I used the expression «grow some balls» in my comments about the Democrats in a so-called feminist website. Apparently, such an expression is demeaning to women.

[Rodrigo]

You're too smart to react to this so stupidly.
Bitch-slap is condoning of violence to women, it comes out of the hip-hop gansta rap culture which demeans women as a matter of course.

Do you mean to tell us you don't know this? Do you fail to see how it could be taken as an offense to women?

It was a stupid thing to say, but then you're not exactly a virgin in that territory.

[bitchslap]

Bzzzt. The reason Summers got a bitch-slap upside the head is because he gave a remarkably silly and uninformed speech (read the links at the bottom of that article for more info). This is not a crime, but as the President of Harvard he should damn well know his facts better before he spouts off about "innate differences". And I've got to laugh at how sensitive Summers' defenders are. You can dish it out, but you can't take it, apparently.

[bitchslap]

Ah, no href links in comments, I see. Apologies. Let's see if this works.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2113810/

[kd]

"...fellow members of my own Woodstock Generation..." Ironic indeed, Jim. I had the experience not long ago of going to a job interview where I was told (at its conclusion) that "Of course, women and minorities will be given first consideration." What was I, a white male of the Woodstock Generation, supposed to think? I grew up believing in "equal" rights for women and minorities. I followed with great interest the struggle (and suffering) of black people in the South. And the rise of feminism.
Later, I had friends in the SDS, respected the anger of the Black Panthers (I was near the steps of the Oakland County Courthouse shouting "Free Huey Motherfuckers!"), shared with my wife duites of home and child rearing in ways my father and grandfather would not have even considered.
What was I to think of being told, in essence, "You won't be hired because you're a white male"? Payback? I'm just getting what my race and gender deserve? Am I to say "Gee, that's okay; I understand it's the only way to "even things out"?

[Matt]

That's not even remotely how AA works though.

[BD]

i agree jim--

this is fucking nonsense...

seems like everything and everyone is so god damned politically correct and PUSSIFIED...

cheering for the law of perverse outcomes to take effect.....

[dimbulb]

America's energy consumption is a bitch right now. I'd defend your choice of words on lexographical rigor alone.

[Charles]

So let me get this straight. We are barreling headlong into a global oil catasrophe that is going to reduce us to a basically agrarian society, and James Kunstler is worried about PCism on college campuses? Am I the only one who finds the priorities here a little misplaced?

Sure there are leftist PC warriors who are overly sensitive and unwilling to laugh at themselves. But this isn't a problem with even remotely the same scale as our oil addiction, or many others. To discuss them side by side really demeans the most important points of his argument.

I went to school at an extremely liberal arts school. It was actually the model for the early 90s comedy PCU. And there is no question that PCism can get a little out of hand. At the same time, there is also no question that our history (and present for that matter) is full of racism, sexism, and oppression that cause far, FAR greater damage to society on an ongoing basis then people who are a little too sensistive to unPC terms. As a white males, it can be easy for people like James Kunstler and myself to forget that, but we would do well to keep it in mind.

Rather than responding to PCism so defensively, and therefore alienating and dividing the coalition that should be fighting to address our REAL problems, perhaps Mr. Kunstler could learn to be a little less sensitive himself. A brief apology and the ability to internally laugh at oversensitivity behooves and stregthens our cause, not weakens it.

[Andy R]

Wow Jim,
Looks like some of those angry feminists have followed you to your blog.
None of them have chosen yet to address your main point, which is "that these students have been carefully trained by their teachers to behave this way, conditioned to rise up on cue in censorious indignation to smack down ideas that "offend" them."

Does anyone think this is NOT happening in our universities?
Your perhaps unfortunate choice of words provided the cue they were looking for.
Imagine if you didn't have nominally left-of-center credentials - as a guest speaker, you wouldn't have been allowed to complete a sentence, offensive or otherwise - not because of what you said but because of what you were.

You may have even been treated to a pie or two:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1380508/posts

At least you were otherwise allowed to relate your ideas to an attentive audience before your verbal bitch-slapping at the hands of the "offended."

Hans Hermann Hoppe, economics prof at University of Nevada, got the brunt of such treatment for comments he made during a lecture about "time preferences"

He relates his story here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe15.html

Ward Churchill, the Pseudo-Native-American who teaches Ethnic Studies at the U of Colorado on the other hand, suffers no pains from within academe for his truly offensive comments:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0224-12.htm

Since he's only trashing white-bread Americans, he gets "leid" instead...

Make no mistake - I'm not saying that Churchill should be punished - but neither should Hoppe, Kunstler, or Horowitz or Coulter.
I am saying that free speech means free speech and the offended should take it as part of the deal.
Civility allows the free discussion of ideas. Reason separates the wheat from the chaff.
Sanctioned hyper-sensitivity tends to drive certain points of view underground, encourages the more extreme among them and is generally unhealthy for society.

[aj]

I do think that person was being oversensitive. But I wouldn't make sweeping generalizations about free speech or students out of it. It's likely that person would have been offended by any colourful metaphor you chose.

I also went to university at the peak of the 90s PC period. I don't think Jim's Junior Anti-Swearing League were indoctrinated by their professors -- quite the opposite. Young people are just caught up in their own identity issues at that age and many come to school with that politicized, hypersensitive attitude already in place -- they are hardly empty vessels.

On the other hand, there was (and still is) a class of crypto-hippie male professor roaming the campuses, an emphatically non-PC animal with a pathological need to relive their drug-addled Golden Sixties Moment -- "We were there, maaaan." They constantly trumpet their Boomer superiority over All Future Generations by purposefully shocking, offending, belittling, berating and browbeating their students into accepting their 'countercultural' view of the world, which as we all know now, is really just the leading edge of consumerism. Well, when they weren't trying to sleep with the cute ones.

I had classes with several of these Dennis Hopper-alikes and while I appreciate that they were trying to wake up a complacent suburbanized student population, they needed to use different methods to get their point across. Not necessarily gentler ones, but ones in tune to the audience.

To some extent the unPC profs were a victim of their own success; in their time they led the fight to institutionalize individual rights and respect for students, and now that their students demand respect in return, they don't want to give them any...

[Kevin]

I read this site all the time, but rarely leave feedback so here is my two cents:

I think what Mr. Kunstler wrote about today is very much related to energy issues and why understanding energy issues is not discussed much in public forums. People who should question and reflect upon the state of the world the most(scholars), are limiting their abilities to find the truth about the world through real research because they are the most PC.

This also could go hand in hand with why a college education is neearly worthless and may be even more worthless at the end of the cheap energy age. This is coming from someone working towards a masters degree writing this.

[Charles]

On Hans Hermann Hoppe and Ward Churchill:

Andy R quotes: "I am saying that free speech means free speech and the offended should take it as part of the deal.
Civility allows the free discussion of ideas. Reason separates the wheat from the chaff."

Noble sentiments, and ones that I wish were shared by conservatives. The example Andy R provides is illustrative. In one case, a professor, unfairly disiplined for his work, has the ACLU go to bat for him and has his name cleared. In the other case, the professor "received hundreds of death threats," and "prompted Hamilton College, in upstate New York, to cancel his planned speech. It led to thousands of negative e-mail messages, hundreds of newspaper articles, hours of talk-show ranting, and calls for his firing. More recently, Denver reporters have been investigating his Indian heritage, his scholarship, and how the professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder received tenure." The liberal organization defends Hoppe's right to free speech. The conservative hate machine threatens to kill Churchill. Such is the state of discourse in our country.

[Charles]

Kevin-

I think your contention is somewhat bizarre. How exactly, has PCism kept academics from studying peak oil? James Kunstler tells a story of a somewhat overly sensitive female student at one of his lectures, and you connect it to academia's failure to address national energy and urban planning policy? Please explain.

[Lisa]

True dat, Kevin,
and Right-On, Jim!

To me this is the same argument for free speech as is speaking out against the war and not being labeled "unpatriotic" or "anti-American."

And it is all absolutely related to the energy discussion, because why else am I not screaming about the end of oil every time I ride my bike down the street, if not for fear of being run over by some BITCH in an SUV!?!

Lisa,
a Bitchy Feminist since 1971

[si]

Jim 100% agree! I think the vast majority of college kids are taught not to think but are programed how to respond. And if you are a women or a minority you have every right to put your hand up at the very fisrt offensive thing...go figure...in that Clusterfuck land where rap music tell kids to kill, The Superbowl shows Sackson tit, violence and sex on near every movie made there anymore, internet porn in 50%+ of US homes...but dont say bitchslap that offence....
Well when her heating bills are 3X more , gas lines and rations form, wars being and the dollar collapse...maybe she will be happy if you call that a pat on the butt...instead of bitchslap...
YUP a CLUSTERFUCK Nation.

[William]

"Bitch-slap is condoning of violence to women, it comes out of the hip-hop gansta rap culture which demeans women as a matter of course." - Rodrigo

OH PLEASE! That's the most ridiculous thing I've read all day, and the same kind of drivel to which Jim is referring.

If someone said that the United States "shouldn't become a slave to oil", is that offensive to African Americans due to their years of oppression? Of course not! If anyone took offense to that, then he/she would be a complete moron.

A "bitch slap" is a slap that uses the back of the hand. The context in which Jim used it was not referring to women in any way whatsoever.

[Stranger]

Over stressing tolerance has led to intolerance.

[Weaseldog]

I think we should all become aware that there is no difference between men and women. That whole notion is just offensive attempt at applying gender roles to people.

That's why same sex marriages are really a non-issue. If you're properly PC, then you'll realize that all marriages are same-sex.

[Weaseldog]

I think we should all become aware that there is no difference between men and women. That whole notion is just offensive attempt at applying gender roles to people.

That's why same sex marriages are really a non-issue. If you're properly PC, then you'll realize that all marriages are same-sex.

[Weaseldog]

Ooops, sorry about the double post. Internet hiccup.

[Weaseldog]

"Bitch-slap is condoning of violence to women, it comes out of the hip-hop gansta rap culture which demeans women as a matter of course." - Rodrigo

I learn something new everyday. I thought it was a term used by those with an alternate orientation, long before gangsta rap.

Old farts like me need to learn to forget more stuff to keep up with what the kids don't know.

[Andy R]

Charles,
Your valid point illustrates exactly what I'm talking about - the suppression of ideas on college campuses surely has some bearing on the vehemence with which those outside academe go after people like Churchill.

From the perspective of an observer outside the academic environment, it must really pique those on the right side of the political spectrum to see people like Hoppe ostracized by his peers while Churchill is lionized by his. A clear illustration of the imbalance in political worldview that exists in the academic environment.

The questions I would raise: Who should we expect to behave more responsibly; the general public, who are ready to tar and feather Churchill, or the academics, who should be champions of free speech, however unpopular the views expressed?
Would more tolerance for differing political stripes in the education establishment translate to a more civil response from the general public re: the Churchills of the world?

As for the ACLU - while their interpretation of the Constitution is often way too left-leaning for me to stomach, they do sometimes get it right.

[Ken]

Maybe "Dope Slap" would have been more appropriate?

[Weaseldog]

Probably the most accurate answer would be that the public won't wake up. They'll just go on witch hunts instead.

Wait..., that won't work, witch rhymes with...