Well, well. Some long-time readers may remember when some of your humble scribes here at W4 were involved in opposing the homosexualist push to get the American Philosophical Association to flag ads from schools that "discriminate" on the basis of unmarried sexual activity. Heaven forbid that a Christian school should ask its professors to abide by traditional Christian sexual norms. Why, that would be discriminatory against LGBTQXYRDOPJ (okay, I'm just making up letters now) people. Or perhaps we should be careful to say "persons," as that sounds more respectful.
At the time there was plenty of sneering and sarcasm against us opponents over the fact that all that was being proposed was flagging ads from such schools, not removing them. How touchy, touchy we were to see this as a form of censure or a move in the direction of pushing Christian schools away from the APA. Never mind the fact that the flag was connected to a suspicion of "unethical" hiring behavior.
Do we get to say "I told you so" now?
The APA has, at the further urging of pro-homosexual activists, now gone to the next stage: Unless your department certifies that you will abide by the APA's policy, which includes not "discriminating" on the basis of sexual activity, you can't advertise in Jobs for Philosophers, period.
I think we can actually have some hope that the APA will continue to render itself more and more obsolete. Attending APA meetings to interview is costly, and Skype and conference calling provide other options for cash-strapped Philosophy departments.
Without knocking myself out too much I've already run to earth three alternative venues for advertising jobs in philosophy:
At first blush, at least, these venues do not seem to require institutions to verify anything special about their hiring practice; apparently that is left to state, federal, and local law, plus institutional protocols, which heaven knows (especially taken all together) are cumbersome enough.
Keep going, dinosaur leftists, in the direction of making yourselves ignorable. How teeth-grinding it must be for you that the Internet has broken your monopoly in so many areas--information, news, and job advertising.
But let's make no mistake. Back when a guest columnist here called the original APA censure mark an "attack" on Christians, he was spot-on.
Comments (6)
These leftists are so un-selfaware it is almost comical. Jonathan Haidt pegged it: they are an insular moral tribe and they operate as such. And because they think they have a monopoly on reason, they are blind to their true condition.
Like most progressions of liberal ideology, this evolution has taken the following form:
Stage 1: (liberals talking to us) "Stop being so paranoid you stupid right wing bigots, its just a mark on a piece of paper, it doesn't mean anything!"
Stage 2: (liberals talking amongst themselves) "Hey, why are we still letting these stupid right wing bigots advertise in the JFP at all?"
Stage 3: (liberals talking to us) "Stop being so paranoid you stupid right wing bigots, all we did was remove your ads from the JFP!"
Stage 4: (liberals talking amongst themselves) "Hey, why are allowing all these stupid right wing bigots to form their own colleges?" etc, and etc.
And so it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut might say.
Posted by Untenured | May 26, 2012 6:32 PM
This is the cue for someone to find Ed Feser's post on the Wayback machine from Right Reason on stages of liberal progress or something like that. I can't remember what it was called.
Posted by Lydia | May 26, 2012 6:39 PM
The internet being a tool of leftist subversion to begin with, I chalk this up to the law of unintended consequences. Seems we have little choice but to use their tools and live in the world they have made for us.
Posted by Jeff Culbreath | May 27, 2012 2:18 AM
Jeff, I've recently been re-reading Michael D. O'Brien's end-times novels, and it strikes me in them again and again that, despite their being written in the late 90's, O'Brien really had no idea of how important the Internet would be for allowing dissidents from liberalism to communicate--both with each other and with the world. The near-exclusive focus on mainstream media and the absolute ignorance of a phenomenon like the blogosphere (much less social media) gives the books a quaint, anachronistic feeling. Literally in _Fr. Elijah_ he portrays a situation toward the end where the Pope (the Pope!) and others faithful in the Vatican are _unable_ to get out what they want to say to the world at large because of sabotage, media blackout, and the like. At one point a faithful Cardinal is listing all the problems and says, in passing, "The computer net has been compromised as well." The "computer net"? And what does it mean for it to be "compromised"? O'Brien, bless his non-techno-savvy heart, clearly has no idea. Technology would practically have to collapse or the Pope be arrested directly and held incommunicado (neither of which has happened in the book) before it would be impossible to get out messages on the Internet.
Freedom is an amazing thing. I'm not saying the Internet hasn't had bad effects. It certainly has. But it's made totalitarianism and its control of information a lot harder. Something to think about.
Posted by Lydia | May 27, 2012 8:36 AM
This might be related to the post you asked for.
Posted by Tim | May 28, 2012 11:21 AM
Ah, yes, and I see he reposted it here at W4:
http://whatswrongwrongwiththeworld.net/2009/12/the_evolution_of_liberalism_an.html
Posted by Lydia | May 28, 2012 12:32 PM