The weird thing is that this prof and the SJWs attacking him are ostensibly fighting the same fight with different strategies. Let's take the analogy from poisons.
Poisons are bad for your health but they exist, how do you deal with them? One strategy is to remove poisons from your environment. If someone brings poisons into your environment you make them take the poison away and criticize the person for bringing it. Hopefully the person doesn't bring any more in the future.
Another strategy is to learn the procedures necessary for safe handling of poisons. You put on protective gear, you ensure proper ventilation, you put up warning signs, you make sure people who arn't trained don't get near the poisons.
Both of these strategies can work. For most people the former is the better strategy, for professionals the later may be necessary.
So if this prof and the SJWs agree that some points of view are bad how do you deal with those ideas? The prof wants to use the second strategy, and teach people how to safely handle potentially harmful ideas. The SJWs don't want anyone near the ideas, especially in public forums or around impressionable minds.
Personally I find the SJW proposition insulting, but then again I've had explicit training in critical thinking, persuasion, rhetoric, the propagation of ideas and sufficient life experience to be confident in my ability to wade into toxic environments and come out relatively unscathed. Still, I think of the SJWs as fundamentally (and ironically) paternalistic.
That said there are plenty of myopic professors who believe that people won't be influenced by exposure to ideas, or believe that you can provide a venue without conveying the impression of support. Naive ivory tower BS. They don't recognize, or believe in, the need for caution.
Then there are the counter-activists, and this prof could be one. They know how to influence people and recognize the power of providing a forum and are "teaching the controversy" in an intentional gambit to spread ideas with which they agree. There are enough of these that for the SJWs a few ivory tower casualties are acceptable losses. The reactionary intellectual is the enemy.
So how to judge the current mood, the current movement? As a fascinating and effective marriage of the ideological purification tactics long employed by the ultra conservative set, now wielded by a sufficiently powerful amalgam of historically marginalized groups. Continual harassment, slander, character assassination and public ridicule work. This prof is just another battle won.
Poisons are bad for your health but they exist, how do you deal with them? One strategy is to remove poisons from your environment. If someone brings poisons into your environment you make them take the poison away and criticize the person for bringing it. Hopefully the person doesn't bring any more in the future.
Another strategy is to learn the procedures necessary for safe handling of poisons. You put on protective gear, you ensure proper ventilation, you put up warning signs, you make sure people who arn't trained don't get near the poisons.
Both of these strategies can work. For most people the former is the better strategy, for professionals the later may be necessary.
So if this prof and the SJWs agree that some points of view are bad how do you deal with those ideas? The prof wants to use the second strategy, and teach people how to safely handle potentially harmful ideas. The SJWs don't want anyone near the ideas, especially in public forums or around impressionable minds.
Personally I find the SJW proposition insulting, but then again I've had explicit training in critical thinking, persuasion, rhetoric, the propagation of ideas and sufficient life experience to be confident in my ability to wade into toxic environments and come out relatively unscathed. Still, I think of the SJWs as fundamentally (and ironically) paternalistic.
That said there are plenty of myopic professors who believe that people won't be influenced by exposure to ideas, or believe that you can provide a venue without conveying the impression of support. Naive ivory tower BS. They don't recognize, or believe in, the need for caution.
Then there are the counter-activists, and this prof could be one. They know how to influence people and recognize the power of providing a forum and are "teaching the controversy" in an intentional gambit to spread ideas with which they agree. There are enough of these that for the SJWs a few ivory tower casualties are acceptable losses. The reactionary intellectual is the enemy.
So how to judge the current mood, the current movement? As a fascinating and effective marriage of the ideological purification tactics long employed by the ultra conservative set, now wielded by a sufficiently powerful amalgam of historically marginalized groups. Continual harassment, slander, character assassination and public ridicule work. This prof is just another battle won.