This story is full of people lacking in perspective and common sense. The students who were offended should have accepted his apology and moved on. Their obsession with the minor violation of norms is silly. In modern culture what he did was inappropriate, but no one is seriously making the case that this is part a desire of movement to demean black people or normalize their status as second class citizens.
The students are fortunate to have a professor this accomplished and should toughen up a slight amount. I have no idea if he was aware of how this would be received and didn’t care. Or if he was unaware and this was an honest mistake. Either way, his apology should end the matter.
The people asserting that this is in some meaningful way similar to Mao’s cultural revolution are equally deserving of scorn.They ways in which this differs from the cultural revolution so out number it’s similarities that that seriously making that comparison undercuts their credibility and robs force from the reasonable parts of their argument.
On the last point, I obviously disagree and I think my disagreement should be expressed at some length. Perhaps I will turn my thoughts into a new post or newsletter. The short answer is: of course this is not as serious as the Cultural Revolution, which I think my post makes clear — but in my view it certainly *does* display meaningful similarities, which I document clearly at the end of the post. I think we have a responsibility to identify worrying current trends and show how they relate to concerning historical events. (See: Trump’s attempts to reject elections as compared to Hitler’s rise to power.) We do so especially when the current situation is *not as bad* as the historical event, to *prevent* said historical events from happening again. There is a certain brand of lazy response to such concerns — and you’re not exactly doing this but you’re flirting with it — where the reader puts his hands on his hips and lectures the writer that the historical event was worse, so stop making the comparison! Well, yeah. Of course it was worse. That’s why we are trying to prevent it.
Thank you for the reply, especially given the many glaring typo’s in my comment. I understand what you’re saying about my comment bordering on dismissing a valid concern because it’s not the worst possible scenario. That wasn’t my intent and I’ll try to elaborate.
I’ve broken your section on the cultural revolution out by levels of similarities; Strongest, weak and not very similar.
More detail at the end but Here’s how i see it;
The strongest similarities are around adherennce to a defined belief system and making opposition that belief system an immoral act.
There are weak similarities around enforcement. The biggest difference being a complete lack of physical and governmental force in cancel culture. Cancel culture has mostly social consequences and in some cases economic consequences. In this case the consequences appear to be silly and overheated criticism, though I sure it was upsetting to the professor.
Obviously there isn’t much similarrity around the results, “ruin” was so different in the cultural revolution that I don’t think its similar at all.
The reason I think this comparison is silly is that the cultural revolution wasn’t notable for it’s adherence to a belief system or demonization of opponents. There are many examples of that behavior; small town church cultural, high end social clubs are some examples outside of politics. Within politics most movements do this. The cultural revolution was famous for sending vast numbers of people to prison farms for after show trials for crimes real and imagined. I think reaching for that comparison weakened what was an otherwise reasonable point.
Strongest Similarities
people were told that they must adhere to a particular set of beliefs, which emphasized the newly elevated nature of a formerly oppressed group.
The belief system was in many ways bizarre and at odds with common sense, but that didn’t matter.
Weak Similarities
Suspected offenders were hauled before secret tribunals and harangued until they were forced to confess to offenses that in many cases they had not committed.
Not Very Similar
Meanwhile, the citizenry was told to despise all members of the former ruling class—including many who were hardly elites, but who could be argued to have some distant relative who might tenuously be labeled elite in some way.
The citizens were told to believe it, or else.
Children were told to report to the authorities any adults failing to conform.
They were told that the confessions would save them from ruin, but in most cases the confessions actually cemented their removal from society.
The atmosphere in the air was thick and oppressive—filled with the paranoia of those who never know when their own time will come.
Small consolation to Mr. Sheng, but hopefully the tide will turn.
The other day an SF landlord who owns Brentwood Country Mart, a local Country Mart in Montecito was excoriated as racist for denying a lease extension to a Mexican style food restaurant owned by some very nice people some have characterized as "non-white" The SF landlord is Jewish and used to work for Ted Kennedy. He is an a**, but his racism remains ill-defined. The owners of the restaurant look and sound white to me, have white sounding sur names, but as long time local residents they have Mexican ancestors in their past, not that it should matter, but are 1/16 "non-white" for the purposes of this internecine squabble because some liberal people like the food and like the prices. The landlord is a racist because he owns commercial property and the lease is up on a restaurant that serves a type of food known as Mexican. Personally I think the food is guilty of cultural appropriation because, its mediocre food from a can.
At this point, apologies over nontroveries only fan the flames for these grievance mongering woke leftists, both students and faculty. No apology is ever sufficient for them. Professor Sheng is morally in a sound position to tell them to go pound sand. Maybe in the future, those who find themselves in the same position as Bright Sheng, can think twice before issuing a fruitless groveling apology to the mob.
This story is full of people lacking in perspective and common sense. The students who were offended should have accepted his apology and moved on. Their obsession with the minor violation of norms is silly. In modern culture what he did was inappropriate, but no one is seriously making the case that this is part a desire of movement to demean black people or normalize their status as second class citizens.
The students are fortunate to have a professor this accomplished and should toughen up a slight amount. I have no idea if he was aware of how this would be received and didn’t care. Or if he was unaware and this was an honest mistake. Either way, his apology should end the matter.
The people asserting that this is in some meaningful way similar to Mao’s cultural revolution are equally deserving of scorn.They ways in which this differs from the cultural revolution so out number it’s similarities that that seriously making that comparison undercuts their credibility and robs force from the reasonable parts of their argument.
On the last point, I obviously disagree and I think my disagreement should be expressed at some length. Perhaps I will turn my thoughts into a new post or newsletter. The short answer is: of course this is not as serious as the Cultural Revolution, which I think my post makes clear — but in my view it certainly *does* display meaningful similarities, which I document clearly at the end of the post. I think we have a responsibility to identify worrying current trends and show how they relate to concerning historical events. (See: Trump’s attempts to reject elections as compared to Hitler’s rise to power.) We do so especially when the current situation is *not as bad* as the historical event, to *prevent* said historical events from happening again. There is a certain brand of lazy response to such concerns — and you’re not exactly doing this but you’re flirting with it — where the reader puts his hands on his hips and lectures the writer that the historical event was worse, so stop making the comparison! Well, yeah. Of course it was worse. That’s why we are trying to prevent it.
Nick does a better job of making the point then I’ll be able to https://grossman.arcdigital.media/p/no-america-is-not-experiencing-a
Patterico,
Thank you for the reply, especially given the many glaring typo’s in my comment. I understand what you’re saying about my comment bordering on dismissing a valid concern because it’s not the worst possible scenario. That wasn’t my intent and I’ll try to elaborate.
I’ve broken your section on the cultural revolution out by levels of similarities; Strongest, weak and not very similar.
More detail at the end but Here’s how i see it;
The strongest similarities are around adherennce to a defined belief system and making opposition that belief system an immoral act.
There are weak similarities around enforcement. The biggest difference being a complete lack of physical and governmental force in cancel culture. Cancel culture has mostly social consequences and in some cases economic consequences. In this case the consequences appear to be silly and overheated criticism, though I sure it was upsetting to the professor.
Obviously there isn’t much similarrity around the results, “ruin” was so different in the cultural revolution that I don’t think its similar at all.
The reason I think this comparison is silly is that the cultural revolution wasn’t notable for it’s adherence to a belief system or demonization of opponents. There are many examples of that behavior; small town church cultural, high end social clubs are some examples outside of politics. Within politics most movements do this. The cultural revolution was famous for sending vast numbers of people to prison farms for after show trials for crimes real and imagined. I think reaching for that comparison weakened what was an otherwise reasonable point.
Strongest Similarities
people were told that they must adhere to a particular set of beliefs, which emphasized the newly elevated nature of a formerly oppressed group.
The belief system was in many ways bizarre and at odds with common sense, but that didn’t matter.
Weak Similarities
Suspected offenders were hauled before secret tribunals and harangued until they were forced to confess to offenses that in many cases they had not committed.
Not Very Similar
Meanwhile, the citizenry was told to despise all members of the former ruling class—including many who were hardly elites, but who could be argued to have some distant relative who might tenuously be labeled elite in some way.
The citizens were told to believe it, or else.
Children were told to report to the authorities any adults failing to conform.
They were told that the confessions would save them from ruin, but in most cases the confessions actually cemented their removal from society.
The atmosphere in the air was thick and oppressive—filled with the paranoia of those who never know when their own time will come.
Small consolation to Mr. Sheng, but hopefully the tide will turn.
The other day an SF landlord who owns Brentwood Country Mart, a local Country Mart in Montecito was excoriated as racist for denying a lease extension to a Mexican style food restaurant owned by some very nice people some have characterized as "non-white" The SF landlord is Jewish and used to work for Ted Kennedy. He is an a**, but his racism remains ill-defined. The owners of the restaurant look and sound white to me, have white sounding sur names, but as long time local residents they have Mexican ancestors in their past, not that it should matter, but are 1/16 "non-white" for the purposes of this internecine squabble because some liberal people like the food and like the prices. The landlord is a racist because he owns commercial property and the lease is up on a restaurant that serves a type of food known as Mexican. Personally I think the food is guilty of cultural appropriation because, its mediocre food from a can.
At this point, apologies over nontroveries only fan the flames for these grievance mongering woke leftists, both students and faculty. No apology is ever sufficient for them. Professor Sheng is morally in a sound position to tell them to go pound sand. Maybe in the future, those who find themselves in the same position as Bright Sheng, can think twice before issuing a fruitless groveling apology to the mob.