Hxstory

[NovaKart]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/07/the-college-that-wants-to-ban-history.html

The article was a bit long so I just posted the link. It's about the bizarre demands of some Western Washington University students to change the name of history to hxstory, police people's speech and to segregate students culturally among other things.

I googled hxstory and had a similar reaction to when I found out rumpology is really a thing if an unpopular one.

This has to be the craziest thing since the college that had those students screaming about a professor who defended non pc Halloween costumes and saying they felt unsafe, and then the college where the students complained about culturally insensitive food got in the news. If I remember right the first was Yale and the second Oberlin.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Early April fool? Or is it just a satirical website (not heard of it before). If true... well... "hxstory" is really good choice of replacement word. Really trips off the tongue.

 

[NovaKart]

It's a serious news site and fairly well known in USA at least.

 

[Nexlev]

Year Zero:
The idea behind Year Zero is that all culture and traditions within a society must be completely destroyed or discarded and a new revolutionary culture must replace it, starting from scratch. All history of a nation or people before Year Zero is deemed largely irrelevant, as it will ideally be purged and replaced from the ground up.

 

[Bootstoots]

Sounds like yet another stupid college protest thing. If we stop covering them and caving to their demands, they'll get discouraged and go back to tumblr where they came from. This sort of thing really isn't very popular no matter what institution you're at.

They have named themselves the Assembly for Power and Liberation, which sounds scarier than most student activist groups. +5 points for that.

 

[BvBPL]

It's great that students are getting involved in causes they feel strongly about.

Pity that those causes are things like how to spell history.

 

[Tee Kay]

Sounds like yet another stupid college protest thing. If we stop covering them and caving to their demands, they'll get discouraged and go back to tumblr where they came from. This sort of thing really isn't very popular no matter what institution you're at.

They have named themselves the Assembly for Power and Liberation, which sounds scarier than most student activist groups. +5 points for that.

I have to agree. It suits the agenda/confirmation bias of Some People to pretend that this is widespread and part of a broad assault on free speech of course.

 

[classical_hero]

There is a widespread assault on free speech, just look at our RDA 18c law. It is typical liberal talk of how speech "offends".

 

[Zkribbler]

Pity that those causes are things like how to spell history.

Way back when I was in college, the move was to change "history" to "herstory."

 

[Arakhor]

I have to agree. It suits the agenda/confirmation bias of Some People to pretend that this is widespread and part of a broad assault on free speech of course.

There is a widespread assault on free speech, just look at our RDA 18c law. It is typical liberal talk of how speech "offends".

Is this some sort of stealth joke or did that really happen?

 

[Funky]

I have to agree. It suits the agenda/confirmation bias of Some People to pretend that this is widespread and part of a broad assault on free speech of course.

This is what happens when regressivism is left unchecked and runs amok. While you are right that cases of such ridiculous extremes are rare, the regressive ideology is incredibly wide-spread. In the US there are countless hyper-regressive pseudo-journalistic outlets and social media websites like Salon, TYT, Tumblr, rawstory etc, which are frequented by millions. Beyond that you have strong regressive elements in the left mainstream media, which will promote the regressive narrative, invite people like Noam Chomsky to their shows, and prevent discussions from happening. Perhaps the most shocking and appalling assault on free speech was when after the Charlie Hebdo attacks not one single major news outlet showed the cartoons of Muhammed.

And that is just the US. In Western Europe regressivism is far wider spread, particularly in Germany and Sweden. While here we tend to not have to deal with such extreme cases as in the US, a moderate yet very detrimental and dangerous form of regressivism is not only very virulent, it actually constitutes the mainstream opinion, both in the media as in politics. Here it is simply impossible to have certain discussions in the public sphere, and anyone who dares to try will immediately be shouted down as "racist", "misogynist", "xenophobic", "Nazi" etc, depending on what the topic is.

When it comes to totalitarian ideologies, apart from Islam it is regressivism that is currently the most dangerous and the most corruptive to free speech.

 

[classical_hero]

Is this some sort of stealth joke or did that really happen?

I love this quote from a Radio interview, really shows what the left is up to.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/a_misuse_of_abc_power_to_settle_scores/

JON FAINE: What does it mean for the Victorian Liberal Party if they preselect a free speech zealot from the IPA over any of the more moderate, progressive, or indeed one must say, female candidates that were also on offer who have been dropped down the list?

JAMES PATERSON: Jon, it’s a sad thing that you think that supporting free speech is now zealotry. It was once the left that stood up and defended freedom of speech

Look how far the left have turned.

 

[Arakhor]

"The" left. Because all people who don't believe what you do are mindless group-thinking automata.

 

[Zkribbler]

This is what happens when regressivism is left unchecked and runs amok.

OMG, we get a discussion about the meaning of words!

Compare this to when conservatism goes unchecked. We get the Crashes of 1929, 1982, 1988, 2002, and 2008. We get a gap in the U.S. between rich and poor larger than is seen anywhere else outside of the 3rd world. We get wars of aggression in Granada, in Panama, and in Iraq. We get systematic torture being instituted. We get the civil police being militarized with an upsurge of blue-on-black killings. We get slavery being instituted in the Northern Marianas, under the protection of the GOP House. We get an CIA agent being outed for political purposes and then the perpetrator being granted a Presidential pardon. We get union busting. We get unrestrained swamping of the democratic process with the limitless cash of America's plutocrats. We get the words "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" being stricken from the Bill of Rights. We get Blacks being systematically purged from the voters rolls in Florida prior to the 2000 election. We get laws being passed to make voting more difficult for Blacks.

etc. etc. etc.

 

[Leoreth]

Sounds like yet another stupid college protest thing. If we stop covering them and caving to their demands, they'll get discouraged and go back to tumblr where they came from. This sort of thing really isn't very popular no matter what institution you're at.

They have named themselves the Assembly for Power and Liberation, which sounds scarier than most student activist groups. +5 points for that.

I agree. The only channel I learn about those stupid initiatives is when people complain about them and are quickly triggered by the perceived threat to their freedom of speech, and then go on to generalize their complaints to academics or millennials in general.

This is frankly quite annoying but minor annoyances don't cause me to start threads about them.

 

[Bugfatty300]

We get the words "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" being stricken from the Bill of Rights.

Err what?

 

[Lexicus]

I find this stuff hilarious, if only to see all the outrage it provokes from reactionaries.

OMG, we get a discussion about the meaning of words!

Compare this to when conservatism goes unchecked. We get the Crashes of 1929, 1982, 1988, 2002, and 2008. We get a gap in the U.S. between rich and poor larger than is seen anywhere else outside of the 3rd world. We get wars of aggression in Granada, in Panama, and in Iraq. We get systematic torture being instituted. We get the civil police being militarized with an upsurge of blue-on-black killings. We get slavery being instituted in the Northern Marianas, under the protection of the GOP House. We get an CIA agent being outed for political purposes and then the perpetrator being granted a Presidential pardon. We get union busting. We get unrestrained swamping of the democratic process with the limitless cash of America's plutocrats. We get the words "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State" being stricken from the Bill of Rights. We get Blacks being systematically purged from the voters rolls in Florida prior to the 2000 election. We get laws being passed to make voting more difficult for Blacks.

etc. etc. etc.

Spot on.

 

[Tee Kay]

Is this some sort of stealth joke or did that really happen?

He's talking about Section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act, the repeal of which became a sort of rallying cry for the Australian right-wing after Andrew Bolt (our equivalent of Sean Hannity, except vastly more popular) was prosecuted under it.

Here's what it says:

It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

(a) the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate another person or a group of people; and

(b) the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

Section 18d adds exemptions to 18c which reads as follows:

Section 18C does not render unlawful anything said or done reasonably and in good faith:

(a) in the performance, exhibition or distribution of an artistic work; or

(b) in the course of any statement, publication, discussion or debate made or held for any genuine academic, artistic or scientific purpose or any other genuine purpose in the public interest; or

(c) in making or publishing:

(i) a fair and accurate report of any event or matter of public interest; or

(ii) a fair comment on any event or matter of public interest if the comment is an expression of a genuine belief held by the person making the comment.

I'd say that's pretty reasonable. What do you think?

 

[warpus]

Other words the students want changed:

Mail -> Xail
Email -> Exail
Hotmail -> Warmxail
Female -> Fexale
Tamales -> Taxales
Man -> Goat
Manhole cover -> Goathole cover
Batman -> Batgoat
Almanac -> Alpersonac

Get a job or a hobby you idiots, stop wasting the university's time with this! I can't wait for these people to join the real world and have their hopes and dreams kicked to the curb and smashed into a million pieces. I mean pxeces (pies were invented by a man).

 

[Arakhor]

I'd say that's pretty reasonable. What do you think?

I think that's fine, yes, but I was actually referring to CH fulfilling your prophecy not even an hour later.