and one may point to analytic philosophy of race and feminist philosophy as exceptions, and yes they are; I'm of course talking about analytic philosophy as a social and institutional effect, a hegemonic institutional ideology, and fortunately the old guard of it seems to dwindle by the day.

It's clear if one has analytic partisans as professors how the dogma works—there is a clear limit to questioning, philosophy is restricted deeply. No questions of history, a hypocritical naive realism around style, no questioning how intuitions are mediated and how that is a problem of method, etc.

The folks who say there's no analytic-continental divide give off a disavowal akin to (in form, not social severity) those unaffected by race who deny continuing problems, despite a wealth of history showing the one-sided abuse (Oxford, Rorty's reception, the "science wars" libel & betrayal, etc.)/2

They're liberal in the sense of classical liberals like Locke, where the state is but a mediator for keeping a certain property owning class in charge, where liberty is meant just for property owners, and support for "democracy" is insofar as it's not so democratic that "the poors" can get any ideas

Sorta people who cope read Locke, wishing he's actually universalist in his use of terms like liberty, despite everything coming down to self-serving reasoning for the owning classes (which he's quite open about). This more or less applies for the entire early liberal tradition if not cherry-picking

Keeping out the English-American soft power of the internet frankly was genius particularly in hindsight. It is not hard to find people of smaller nations speaking of the cultural shock that English hegemony online has upon intergenerational social cohesion.

It seems the beatings will continue until morale improves (normalcy being cut out of today's political vernacular)

And people still diss psychoanalysis, as though reactionary meatheads don't vindicate it with every passing day

I suppose Sade takes the title for the exercise of deliberately worst ethics, but alas he just ended up avec Kant

idk maybe making the cult knowledge-shaping experience available everywhere all the time in your pocket instead of just at the compound of some wildeyed creep who chronically undersalts the food may just be one of those things it takes a couple generations to recover from

On the US military shooting protestors:

It is entirely plausible that the US military will shoot at protestors if given the order* This is not an indictment of individual personnel, but rather a structural critique of institutions.

*To discuss what "the order" is later in thread

The permeable, relativistic definition of "left" in this country, particularly given the cumulative rightward swing of American politics, simply operates as a discursive form of control very fitting to the neoliberal era, where a choice isn't so forbidden as it's framed out of the picture entirely.

Given the fellow is a polisci prof, and given but a cursory glance at things like Tonkin, Iraq, etc., the irony of the post is that it's an utter lie.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William J. Casey, CIA Director (1981)

Writing is thinking. We get students to write so that they learn how to think and use their brains. Using LLMs to do your work is like trying to be an athlete by getting someone else to do your training for you.

In the long run, I hope the field learns the right lessons from these things and brings back a more radical and holistic standard for therapeutic practice. Not to excuse or downplay anything, but there's a glimmer of hope and opportunity for therapists to realize a higher social potential.

The engagement dynamics on these platforms also make this sort of thing so predictable from the traditional left perspective, Marxist etc. — mere "anti-establishment" branding is resentful and reactive, its discourse is inherently parasitic and there're material incentive structures at play therein.

The thing about it anyway is, even if one has sociopathic traits that make cognizing such things difficult, that shouldn't be an excuse, but a prompt to find tools and principles that keep one acting ethically.

Yeah many problems are too loud to simply ignore, though I refer to the more objective institutional variables (also it's interesting that the 2nd red scare doesn't go as high as the tea party movement here). Granted, I don't tend toward liberalism and never did take American democracy seriously.

It'll be interesting seeing how political scientists handle the topic of these indexes — the events of late evidently show how worthless or misguided so much of that data is — autocracy doesn't just fall out of the sky and "democracies" don't just get brain aneurysms out of nowhere.

Applies to just about every "free speech absolutist" in my experience — naturally, speech is always curbed by power relations anyway.

Truly, can't the needle haters get some grace?

I think a lot of insidious and self-sabotaging bagagge inherited from the '60s and '70s New Left (which came directly from its libertarian assumptions) is finally being rejected.

"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive."

Have shared this before, but will share it again as it is related to this point (and it has been helpful for keeping me motivated in these times).

Brings to wonder those who get by being able to resolutely reject it — I personally find no temptation to entertain it, so it's an illusion I find puzzling.

And US academia is crumbling at the same time Chinese academia is rising with increased resources. Building new, international discourses is very important for academics and the good of humanity, and the trajectory is showing a shift proportionate with a shift in global centers of power.

If anything, I'd be curious to see ruthless subversion published: Foucaultian power applied to constructive theorizing of democratic centralism, Derrida's critique of Messianism turned in on itself and balanced w/ the non-messianic Chinese Marxism, Lacan's discourses are an obvious choice, etc.

Same, I appreciate Rockhill's emphasis against the imperial core and left-intelligencia sympathies therein, but I think plenty of the authors he throws aside are very useful under subversive readings. Too often disillusionment leads to split thinking that throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Well of course, y'know, China and their famous invisible hand