When institutions – like academic institutions and academic journals – become corrupted by ideologues of any political stripe, people can be left able to respect almost nothing and believe almost anything. Anyone need only glance at numerous fields of ‘academic studies’ today (gender ‘studies’, queer ‘studies’ and more) to realise that much of the humanities, and nearly all of the social sciences have become pulpits for frauds and megaphones for radical inadequates.This all begins with a corruption of language, which was starting to be evident even when I was in college, with papers characterized by sesquipedalian sentences featuring dubious jargon.
Wednesday, October 03, 2018
Hmm …
… Yes, the Grievance Studies hoax is hilarious – but it’s also rather worrying | Spectator USA. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
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Speaking of rape culture, and on the brachysyllabic side of language, I was just addressing this line of thinking late last night/early this morning, writing a letter to UMass officials about this: UMass football head coach Mark Whipple suspended for one week without pay following Ohio postgame comments. DC Ed Pinkham will serve as acting head coach.
ReplyDeleteHere's the email I wrote:
Dear Ryan Bamford,
CC: John McCarthy, Anna Branch
I do not know, never met, do not follow Coach Mark Whipple, but he was not insensitive in his use of the term "rape." He used the term properly.
The word comes from roots of acting hastily, so you can see how the crime of rape uses the term to indicate someone sexually forcing themselves on another person.
Here are non-obsolete usages of "rape" as a transitive verb:
To use force or threat of force to compel (another person) to submit to sexual intercourse or other sexual penetration.
To seize and carry off by force.
To plunder or pillage.
To treat improperly; abuse or spoil.
I am confident that he or others have attempted to correct you firmly. But I'll tell you something further, seeing kids on the news, it's like your action, instead of increasing their education, has instead made them dig into ignorance. It is learned ignorance, taught by your action.
Sports actually has the term "kill" in volleyball If instead of saying "rape", the coach had said, "The refs killed us," he would have been using a trope. This is not the same thing as using a word properly, for one of its defined meanings, in a sentence, which the coach did. In this sense, it would not be wrong, nor obsolete, not insensitive, that your action is raping Coach Whipple. You are plundering his reputation and his career. You have taken too much from him.
"To rob", as in, "The ref robbed us of the game," is similar. It has sports usage of taking the ball from an opponent, but it stems from what we know it to be in its roots and current definition, to take what belongs to someone else.
However, in the case of refs "robbing" a game, or "killing" a team with a bad call, as bad as the crimes are that those terms apply to, we would not arrest someone for these sports actions, nor ask a coach to be in sensitivity training for using them as tropes. You guys are killing me with your professional mistreatment of Coach Whipple.
The person who is wrong in this situation is you. This is why I am sending you this e-mail, to correct you, to make you sensitive to our great language.
Yes indeed, it is quite possible the the refs actually raped UMass of the game. Once a respected coach says this in earnest, the proper thing to do is to precipitate an investigation into the actions of the refs. I did not see the game, and the coach and I may disagree about that, but we would understand English.
You owe him an apology, and you owe the students at UMass to be educated on how to use the word "rape," and how you came about to fail them so.
In the mean time, you might want to tell the coach something Geothe said 300 years ago, that still applies:
Why look for conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much.
If the coach felt that the team was intentionally raped by the refs, it is highly likely that it was their stupidity instead of a conspiracy.
Yours,
Rus Bowden
The Grievance Studies Scandal: Five Academics Respond.
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