The vandalism I am referring to happened in 1993 so I am not quite sure if my roommate reported it or not. You must remember that these people do NOT respect the police either...they will in fact say the police are "aiding the harasser" if the police investigate and conclude that the accusation has no evidence to support it...or is outright refuted by the available evidence.
I was recently retired when eight university student groups (most of which were Muslim and anti-Israel groups) demanded of my university that my emeritus status (which was earned) be revoked because they did not like what I wrote in an article on tribal politics in the Middle East. My colleagues, some of whom had been so for most of my fifty years as a professors, remained unanimously silent. No one of them ever contacted me. Only some members of the science faculty, most whom I had never met, stood up for me. In the end, my university, McGill University, which had stayed relatively sane among the almost universal madness of this century, decreed that differences of opinion are no cause for disciplinary action. No thanks to my erstwhile departmental colleagues.
The divide between totalitarian rule on the one hand and populism on the other is driven by a force that is identified by Prof. Mattias Desmet in the book that is entitled "The Psychology of Totalitarianism." This force is the thinking of the inhabitants of a country. Some mistakenly believe a "complex" physical system to be a "non-complex" physical system, where a system that is " complex" exhibits one or more "emergent properties," each of which is a property of the whole system and not of the separate parts of this system whereas a system that is "non-complex" exhibits no such property. Every physical system that is under the control of a person or automatic control system is "complex" as it exhibits the property of stability. Populism is the result of not mistaking "complex" for "complex" physical systems. Totalitarian rule is the result of making this mistake. Populism is the result of not making it.
Currently, the mistake of thinking Earth's climate system is a "non-complex" physical system is driving some countries toward totalitarian rule while not making this mistake is driving other countries toward totalitarian rule. Teaching people not to mistake "complex" for "complex" physical system would have the beneficial effect for mankind of stabilizing populism as the principle by which a country is ruled. Not teaching people to make this mistake, as is the case today has the disastrous effect of destabilizing populism.
Terry Oldberg Engineer/Scientist/Public Policy Researcher. terry_oldberg@yahoo.com. 1-650-941-0533. Los Altos Hills, California.
It is amazing how reading your story, without too many details, was like rereading a chapter in my own experience because the pattern is so similar. The technique of leaking private information from these "investigations" in strategic ways to undermine the target of their campaign is standard procedure. When dealing with such people assume that everything you say and do will end up released as needed to harm your right to a fair hearing and destroy you in the court of public opinion. Understand that the techniques of this "cultural revolution" have been put in place over the last 35 years and have a large army of practitioners acting in the role of self appointed kommisars to impose the collective will of the woke ideology. These people are not fair minded, well intended people who happen to be caught up in others foolishness. They are committed ideologues who would gladly send you to an actual gas chamber if they could. They have a mechanism is place usually via Title IX and Code of Conduct offices run by their ideologues to gradually collect information of unsubstantiated and often false allegations, statements taken out of context or actions in defense of due fairness and due process building secret files on anyone they perceive as a threat or potential threat. These files are then used against you when it is decided you have become an inconvenience to the narrative. The file of "claims" will be cited when an official complaint is brought as "evidence" of a pattern of behavior requiring immediate and draconian action but the "evidence" is never shared or open to cross examination to protect the "victims" involved behind the shield of anonymity. This technique is used to bully and silence anyone who might stand up for or assist the victim of the campaign of cancellation making it easier to take out their target. Too many craven academics (sorry for the redundancy) are more than willing to watch their good friend and colleague or students lives destroyed in the vain hope that they will be taken to the gallows last!
These tactics of bullying and cancellation are not limited to one's current employer but will be used to follow you and cancel you for years in any venue that they can access simply to make the point, as in Orwell's 1984, that any who resist will be made the walking dead. They will even resort to actual physical attacks on persons and property if they think they can get away with it (vandalism of target's car repeatedly even in their own driveway, throwing rocks through windows, etc. I have seen this conduct in my own life against those around me since graduate school in the early 1990's. It should be noted that the perpetrators of these crimes, and yes, these are CRIMES they are engaging in, are invariably progressive women fulfilling every negative stereotype of the "bitchy" high school girl bullying her rivals and very well earning the late Rush Limbaugh's accurate title Feminazis. While the targets of the Feminazis are mostly men, women who are inconvenient to their agenda are not immune to attack. Ironically, these same women will defend actual harassers against the targets of their harassment when the harasser is an ideological ally or asset useful to their agenda (hence the hostility to Bill Clinton's victims for example.) With control of the Title IX apparatus in academia, actual harassment victims often get no assistance while the resources of these organizations are directed on behalf of false accusers.So what can we do about it?
1. We need to recognize this as the cancer that it is. These people cannot be treated as misguided colleagues capable of being redeemed. They are mortal threats to those around them and should be treated as such.
2. When we see someone about to be railroaded in this way or being abused, we MUST warn them and provide them as much and as loud public support as possible. Tell them the truth about what is happening.
3. We need to return some of the favors the bullies practice on the innocent. Specifically, this means loudly and publicly announcing the truth of what is going on while naming names of those involved. That means accusers must be denied anonymity where possible. Where that is not possible, name those advocating on their behalf and bring legal action and public acrimony on them as the knowing proxy for the "hidden" evil.
4. Comply with all rules and processes, but do not invest much time and effort in them expecting justice to prevail. Make very clear when you are being harassed and that the behavior you are experiencing constitutes unwelcome harassment that you are officially asking to stop. When the behavior continues such notice helps you in actual courts of law which remain our best hope of defense.
5. Document everything for later publication and release of information and let them know you are doing that. This includes having a Go Pro charged up and ready to wear mounted like a police body cam in meetings and academic conferences. (Amazing how the kommisars fear being recorded in the act).
6. File legal action in a real court of law far from a Title IX office as soon as possible. Make your employer pay heavily in economic and reputational terms for allowing the perpetrators to use the institution's mechanisms unjustly.
7. For those in the sciences, file complaints with funding agencies like NSF, DOE, NASA, NIH, NOAA etc. as the kommisars have put rules in place to suspend funding for those being investigated for Title IX violations. Use this against those harassing you and the institutions that harbor them. (You will be amazed at how many craven academics develop a spine when they realize their funding is jeopardized by what the perpetrators are doing.)
8. Be prepared for a long battle with the reality that your life will never be the same. Friendships will be lost and opportunities will disappear forever. Try to have a back up system for your own financial and social support that is beyond the reach of those harassing you if possible. Recognize that the hardship you will experience, while unfair and unjust will also have positive effects. The "friends" you lose will be replaced with far better people that you would not have met otherwise. You will open doors to do good for the wider world than you ever imagined.
9. Do not lose faith in yourself. Remember that these types of harms have faced good people throughout history. Our duty remains the same today as it was thousands of years ago. Evil must be opposed and we will be judged both by what we do and that which we fail to do.
Been there. "And thou too, Brutus?" Is perfect. I spent the next two decades eschewing my treacherous colleagues and erstwhile friends after I was exonerated.
I assume you said something along the lines of gender being binary, given you are a biologist.
I prefer the Chinese system, which I work in here in China. At least here nobody pretends that we are in an open society, and the rationale for being canceled is “honest.” In the west the power and status game is wrapped up in the disguise of morality, where those with power and privilege seek to perpetuate it via the misappropriation of the social justice movement, either cosplaying as the oppressed, or as the saviours of the oppressed. The obvious moral hierarchy of “we the good vs evil other” is the absurdist self-contradiction of an ideology that preaches an aversion to such things.
There is some parallelism, however, the consequences are incomparable. Losing a job sucks, but it's still much better than getting arrested or "disappear". No matter what happens in the west, at least you can defend yourself on Substack. In China, depending on the severity of your thought crimes, the punishment ranges from disappearing from the Internet, disappearing from the public sphere, and physically disappearing.
Very unlikely in the current system here, unless you outright set out to attack the government. And even then you’d most likely just get the same kind of cancelation treatment as in the west. People would turn their backs on you and wouldn’t want to hire you.
Further, in China you can make good natured jokes about human differences and not have to worry about being reported by students. I even make jokes about the government. This isn’t Maoist China anymore. I didn’t even have to be vaccinated here, till politely asked to do so more than 2 years after Covid broke out. Don’t believe everything mainstream media in the west says about China. Much of it is BS.
I grew up there. You get treated much better than your average Chinese people, probably because you are white. Chinese people in China tend to be white supremacists, it's pretty weird.
This is 2024. No, we don’t get treated better than Chinese people. I am married into Chinese society, and have close relatives in the legal system here. The days of foreigner privilege are long gone - along with most of the foreigners, by the way. All the foreigners have been removed from positions of responsibility and power in my university, for example. I’m one of them. The highest ranking one was black American, by the way, Associate Dean. He was also removed. The highest ranking foreigner here is a mere course coordinator. He’s South American.
So they are just straight authoritarian and xenophobic. I get that they don't pretend, which can be a breath of fresh air in its own kind of way compared to the status game disguised as morality here in the west. However, I fail to see how it can be overall better than the Western universities where a large proportion of people still want democracy, free speech, and meritocracy.
If I think back to the reception that Barack Obama and Susan Rice had, during their last official visit to China, I remember it being more than slightly ugly. And there have been lots of high ranking Chinese officials who have been sabre-rattling and talking about destroying everyone else on the planet who is not "Han Chinese". So, perhaps you had a different experience growing up there.
But plenty of people are more than just slightly concerned about the tremendous risk that Chinese seems to pose to civilization, and all of humanity. China is on a very very dangerous path, indeed.
You do realize there are reportedly dozens, if not hundreds, of Chinese Secret Police stations all over the US, currently, right? And that 50,000 or more young military age Chinese men have been ushered into the US, right? For unknown purposes and everyone refuses to talk about it. And it is CCP official written policy to flood the US with fentanyl and parfentanyl and similar synthetic opiates in an attempt to weaken and destroy it. Does that sound neighborly?
Things might end up going REALLY badly. Do you remember what the US did to the Japanese in the US during WWII? Do you think that the American public, as welcoming as they are, will just ignore this nonsense? Particularly after the pandemic?
Dear Leigh, Your cancellation as a biologist may be a blessing in disguise...you have the abilty to write great literature (as well as to teach me a new word that characterizes the collegiality-less college professors). Thank you.
The vandalism I am referring to happened in 1993 so I am not quite sure if my roommate reported it or not. You must remember that these people do NOT respect the police either...they will in fact say the police are "aiding the harasser" if the police investigate and conclude that the accusation has no evidence to support it...or is outright refuted by the available evidence.
Maybe it makes more sense to think higher education as overpriced consumer goods rather than education.
I was recently retired when eight university student groups (most of which were Muslim and anti-Israel groups) demanded of my university that my emeritus status (which was earned) be revoked because they did not like what I wrote in an article on tribal politics in the Middle East. My colleagues, some of whom had been so for most of my fifty years as a professors, remained unanimously silent. No one of them ever contacted me. Only some members of the science faculty, most whom I had never met, stood up for me. In the end, my university, McGill University, which had stayed relatively sane among the almost universal madness of this century, decreed that differences of opinion are no cause for disciplinary action. No thanks to my erstwhile departmental colleagues.
The divide between totalitarian rule on the one hand and populism on the other is driven by a force that is identified by Prof. Mattias Desmet in the book that is entitled "The Psychology of Totalitarianism." This force is the thinking of the inhabitants of a country. Some mistakenly believe a "complex" physical system to be a "non-complex" physical system, where a system that is " complex" exhibits one or more "emergent properties," each of which is a property of the whole system and not of the separate parts of this system whereas a system that is "non-complex" exhibits no such property. Every physical system that is under the control of a person or automatic control system is "complex" as it exhibits the property of stability. Populism is the result of not mistaking "complex" for "complex" physical systems. Totalitarian rule is the result of making this mistake. Populism is the result of not making it.
Currently, the mistake of thinking Earth's climate system is a "non-complex" physical system is driving some countries toward totalitarian rule while not making this mistake is driving other countries toward totalitarian rule. Teaching people not to mistake "complex" for "complex" physical system would have the beneficial effect for mankind of stabilizing populism as the principle by which a country is ruled. Not teaching people to make this mistake, as is the case today has the disastrous effect of destabilizing populism.
Terry Oldberg Engineer/Scientist/Public Policy Researcher. terry_oldberg@yahoo.com. 1-650-941-0533. Los Altos Hills, California.
Leigh,
It is amazing how reading your story, without too many details, was like rereading a chapter in my own experience because the pattern is so similar. The technique of leaking private information from these "investigations" in strategic ways to undermine the target of their campaign is standard procedure. When dealing with such people assume that everything you say and do will end up released as needed to harm your right to a fair hearing and destroy you in the court of public opinion. Understand that the techniques of this "cultural revolution" have been put in place over the last 35 years and have a large army of practitioners acting in the role of self appointed kommisars to impose the collective will of the woke ideology. These people are not fair minded, well intended people who happen to be caught up in others foolishness. They are committed ideologues who would gladly send you to an actual gas chamber if they could. They have a mechanism is place usually via Title IX and Code of Conduct offices run by their ideologues to gradually collect information of unsubstantiated and often false allegations, statements taken out of context or actions in defense of due fairness and due process building secret files on anyone they perceive as a threat or potential threat. These files are then used against you when it is decided you have become an inconvenience to the narrative. The file of "claims" will be cited when an official complaint is brought as "evidence" of a pattern of behavior requiring immediate and draconian action but the "evidence" is never shared or open to cross examination to protect the "victims" involved behind the shield of anonymity. This technique is used to bully and silence anyone who might stand up for or assist the victim of the campaign of cancellation making it easier to take out their target. Too many craven academics (sorry for the redundancy) are more than willing to watch their good friend and colleague or students lives destroyed in the vain hope that they will be taken to the gallows last!
These tactics of bullying and cancellation are not limited to one's current employer but will be used to follow you and cancel you for years in any venue that they can access simply to make the point, as in Orwell's 1984, that any who resist will be made the walking dead. They will even resort to actual physical attacks on persons and property if they think they can get away with it (vandalism of target's car repeatedly even in their own driveway, throwing rocks through windows, etc. I have seen this conduct in my own life against those around me since graduate school in the early 1990's. It should be noted that the perpetrators of these crimes, and yes, these are CRIMES they are engaging in, are invariably progressive women fulfilling every negative stereotype of the "bitchy" high school girl bullying her rivals and very well earning the late Rush Limbaugh's accurate title Feminazis. While the targets of the Feminazis are mostly men, women who are inconvenient to their agenda are not immune to attack. Ironically, these same women will defend actual harassers against the targets of their harassment when the harasser is an ideological ally or asset useful to their agenda (hence the hostility to Bill Clinton's victims for example.) With control of the Title IX apparatus in academia, actual harassment victims often get no assistance while the resources of these organizations are directed on behalf of false accusers.So what can we do about it?
1. We need to recognize this as the cancer that it is. These people cannot be treated as misguided colleagues capable of being redeemed. They are mortal threats to those around them and should be treated as such.
2. When we see someone about to be railroaded in this way or being abused, we MUST warn them and provide them as much and as loud public support as possible. Tell them the truth about what is happening.
3. We need to return some of the favors the bullies practice on the innocent. Specifically, this means loudly and publicly announcing the truth of what is going on while naming names of those involved. That means accusers must be denied anonymity where possible. Where that is not possible, name those advocating on their behalf and bring legal action and public acrimony on them as the knowing proxy for the "hidden" evil.
4. Comply with all rules and processes, but do not invest much time and effort in them expecting justice to prevail. Make very clear when you are being harassed and that the behavior you are experiencing constitutes unwelcome harassment that you are officially asking to stop. When the behavior continues such notice helps you in actual courts of law which remain our best hope of defense.
5. Document everything for later publication and release of information and let them know you are doing that. This includes having a Go Pro charged up and ready to wear mounted like a police body cam in meetings and academic conferences. (Amazing how the kommisars fear being recorded in the act).
6. File legal action in a real court of law far from a Title IX office as soon as possible. Make your employer pay heavily in economic and reputational terms for allowing the perpetrators to use the institution's mechanisms unjustly.
7. For those in the sciences, file complaints with funding agencies like NSF, DOE, NASA, NIH, NOAA etc. as the kommisars have put rules in place to suspend funding for those being investigated for Title IX violations. Use this against those harassing you and the institutions that harbor them. (You will be amazed at how many craven academics develop a spine when they realize their funding is jeopardized by what the perpetrators are doing.)
8. Be prepared for a long battle with the reality that your life will never be the same. Friendships will be lost and opportunities will disappear forever. Try to have a back up system for your own financial and social support that is beyond the reach of those harassing you if possible. Recognize that the hardship you will experience, while unfair and unjust will also have positive effects. The "friends" you lose will be replaced with far better people that you would not have met otherwise. You will open doors to do good for the wider world than you ever imagined.
9. Do not lose faith in yourself. Remember that these types of harms have faced good people throughout history. Our duty remains the same today as it was thousands of years ago. Evil must be opposed and we will be judged both by what we do and that which we fail to do.
Have you reported the physical and property crimes to the police?
Been there. "And thou too, Brutus?" Is perfect. I spent the next two decades eschewing my treacherous colleagues and erstwhile friends after I was exonerated.
I assume you said something along the lines of gender being binary, given you are a biologist.
I prefer the Chinese system, which I work in here in China. At least here nobody pretends that we are in an open society, and the rationale for being canceled is “honest.” In the west the power and status game is wrapped up in the disguise of morality, where those with power and privilege seek to perpetuate it via the misappropriation of the social justice movement, either cosplaying as the oppressed, or as the saviours of the oppressed. The obvious moral hierarchy of “we the good vs evil other” is the absurdist self-contradiction of an ideology that preaches an aversion to such things.
There is some parallelism, however, the consequences are incomparable. Losing a job sucks, but it's still much better than getting arrested or "disappear". No matter what happens in the west, at least you can defend yourself on Substack. In China, depending on the severity of your thought crimes, the punishment ranges from disappearing from the Internet, disappearing from the public sphere, and physically disappearing.
Very unlikely in the current system here, unless you outright set out to attack the government. And even then you’d most likely just get the same kind of cancelation treatment as in the west. People would turn their backs on you and wouldn’t want to hire you.
Further, in China you can make good natured jokes about human differences and not have to worry about being reported by students. I even make jokes about the government. This isn’t Maoist China anymore. I didn’t even have to be vaccinated here, till politely asked to do so more than 2 years after Covid broke out. Don’t believe everything mainstream media in the west says about China. Much of it is BS.
I grew up there. You get treated much better than your average Chinese people, probably because you are white. Chinese people in China tend to be white supremacists, it's pretty weird.
This is 2024. No, we don’t get treated better than Chinese people. I am married into Chinese society, and have close relatives in the legal system here. The days of foreigner privilege are long gone - along with most of the foreigners, by the way. All the foreigners have been removed from positions of responsibility and power in my university, for example. I’m one of them. The highest ranking one was black American, by the way, Associate Dean. He was also removed. The highest ranking foreigner here is a mere course coordinator. He’s South American.
So they are just straight authoritarian and xenophobic. I get that they don't pretend, which can be a breath of fresh air in its own kind of way compared to the status game disguised as morality here in the west. However, I fail to see how it can be overall better than the Western universities where a large proportion of people still want democracy, free speech, and meritocracy.
If I think back to the reception that Barack Obama and Susan Rice had, during their last official visit to China, I remember it being more than slightly ugly. And there have been lots of high ranking Chinese officials who have been sabre-rattling and talking about destroying everyone else on the planet who is not "Han Chinese". So, perhaps you had a different experience growing up there.
But plenty of people are more than just slightly concerned about the tremendous risk that Chinese seems to pose to civilization, and all of humanity. China is on a very very dangerous path, indeed.
You do realize there are reportedly dozens, if not hundreds, of Chinese Secret Police stations all over the US, currently, right? And that 50,000 or more young military age Chinese men have been ushered into the US, right? For unknown purposes and everyone refuses to talk about it. And it is CCP official written policy to flood the US with fentanyl and parfentanyl and similar synthetic opiates in an attempt to weaken and destroy it. Does that sound neighborly?
Things might end up going REALLY badly. Do you remember what the US did to the Japanese in the US during WWII? Do you think that the American public, as welcoming as they are, will just ignore this nonsense? Particularly after the pandemic?
What would China do in similar circumstances?
It's an interesting story...
Pineapple belongs on pizza.
Oh heavens! I will be defenestrated certainly for my mispunctuation.
Pineapple belongs on pizza?
Statement becomes question, question turns into statement. Academics lie about their motives? Academics lie about their motives.
Dear Leigh, Your cancellation as a biologist may be a blessing in disguise...you have the abilty to write great literature (as well as to teach me a new word that characterizes the collegiality-less college professors). Thank you.
Randy