The Blogora: The Rhetoric Society of America

 

Brandeis, Still Right After All These Years


Submitted by Jim Aune on November 9, 2009 - 11:10am


Once again, the remedy for bad speech is . . . more speech.

Submitted by Jim Aune on November 9, 2009 - 6:26pm.

I haven't heard of this play/movie. Sounds pretty interesting. It occurred to me watching this (as well as reading about the blackface incident at Northwestern) that one way of reframing the critical discussion beyond procedural liberalism vs. critical race theory is ask what social function these periodic campus incidents serve--it's a kind of degradation ritual for the perpetrators, but also one that hardens the resolve of liberal legalists like myself, suggesting that it is also a kind of legitimation ritual as well. I yet again virtually got called a racist in an oral exam last week by a rather unreflective (no, sorry, stupid) sociologist, but rather than turning me rightward such incidents simply make me more stuck in my ways. The problem, as always, with the academic left is that by attacking liberals first they end up underestimating the power and threat from the right (if you smack Clark Kerr's liberalism you often forget that a knuckle-dragging
Reagan is lurking nearby to make things even worse).

Submitted by Adria on November 9, 2009 - 1:17pm.