The young people ... no; some of the young people ... in this University are having a fine time emulating the Geheime Staatspolizei; or combining the Thought Police of 1984 with a dash of the spirit of the English Foxhunt. They have found a Professor of Sociology who has manifested a failure to believe in some currently prescribed Aeschrodoxies. Tally Ho is the order of the day!
This academic has actually written:
"Transphobia is a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons".
You could hardly be more succinct than that, could you? Here's a slightly longer piece from his pen:
"I treat students and colleagues with respect and so would never call a member of the University by a pronoun which he or she found objectionable. I do not, however, believe that gender identity supersedes sex, any more than I believe that Jesus was the son of God. Therefore I oppose any attempt by the University to establish an official doctrine on gender, just as I would oppose the imposition of a single religion or one particular position on Israel-Palestine. The enforcement of orthodoxy - often disguised as 'diversity' - would destroy the University's very foundation: academic freedom."
He just doesn't get it, does he?
Apparently, we have an 'Oxford University LGBTQ+ Society'; and it has a 'Vice Chair' [when I was an undergraduate, such terminology would have elicited adolescent jokes about vice and about people sitting on people ... ah, the child-like innocence of the 1960s!] who is a "trans woman". This person has commented " ... those views [cannot] be left completely outside of a lecture hall. I really worry for any trans students that have to work with him. I would be very uncomfortable around him knowing his views".
[Philological Notes: (1) why, nowadays, do we ... apparently ... have to say 'outside of ' rather than just 'outside'? Is it part of a common shift whereby more and more words are deemed to need previously unnecessary reinforcers, so that, ex gr, we are not now allowed to retreat; we can only retreat back.?
(2) I am curious about the phrase 'to be around ' somebody.]
We also have a 'Pro-vice chancellor for equality and diversity'.
Tyranny often leads to the multiplication of impressively, pathetically prolix ranks and titles, doesn't it? Obersturmbanfuehrer, and all that. Don't we just love it all! Bring it on, Herr Himmler!
But perhaps the children have already killed their fox, or run him to earth. Apparently, complaints were handed to the University in June and the 'account's' last activity was on July 1.
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6 comments:
aiskhrodoxeia ... ha, that is also a fine new word!
"created by fascists"
I think Il Duce is innocent on this one!
"be around" is arguably a variation on "be there" (dasein) intended to distinguish it from "be there" (dort sein)
FYI ~ the actual quotation is "Islamaphobia (not transphobia) is a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons" and was made by Christopher Hitchens.
Douglas: apparently even that is misattributed:
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2014/05/12/christopher-hitchens-never-said-that-memorable-line-about-islamophobia/
Of all the phobias which I am alleged to must have on account of being a white heterosexual cis-gendered Christian male of European ancestry, I do not lie awake at nights worried about Trans people. However I think that one can make a case that it is not unreasonable to be Islamophobic given current events not to mention the last 1400 years of history.
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