January 06, 2010

Under Their Tenure

I'm feeling like crap for a number of reasons, including complications of the surgery and a plain old cold, so I haven't been posting regularly, but this did catch my attention today. If you've followed the long slog through the IQ arguments on Quiche Moraine, Greg Laden's Blog and here, you've caught Bryan Pesta saying that intellectual dishonesty would get anyone canned from a tenured university position.

Um, maybe not.

It’s official. Cal State Long Beach psychology professor Kevin MacDonald has made the leap from academia to racist activism, signing on with the American Third Position (ATP), a white supremacist political party established in October “to represent the unique political interests of White Americans.” As excellently reported by the O.C. Weekly’s Gustavo Arellano, MacDonald is partnering with local racist skinheads “to create a new political party” that hopes to “oppose and deport non-whites.” MacDonald is listed as the group’s director.

Until October, when ATP was established, MacDonald was better known for his anti-Semitic “research” purportedly proving that Jews are driven by a genetically programmed group evolutionary strategy to undermine and harm Western civilization. (The idea is that they do so in order to weaken “host societies” that might otherwise oppress or act out against the Jews.) In his academic works, MacDonald has suggested taxing Jews or restricting their access to university as ways of protecting white society.

6 comments:

Greg Laden said...

Well, if you are going to write blog posts on stuff Bryan Pesta got wrong, you could make a career!

Dana Hunter said...

Can a case be made that MacDonald is driven by a genetically programmed evolutionary strategy to be an absolute ass?

Anonymous said...

Wow... Just... total vocabulary failure.

Wayne Kerr said...

Is this an example of intellectual dishonesty? MacDonald's views maybe offensive but where is the dishonesty here? His position is apparently that groups act to promote their interests?

Stephanie Zvan said...

Where is the intellectual dishonesty? In the notion that this is a "white society." In the idea that Jews have worked against this country. In calling scientific opposition to the race-IQ data a Jewish conspiracy. In claiming he shouldn't be assumed to support white supremacy at the same time his speaking schedule consisted of white supremacist groups. In claiming all of the "remedies" he was discussing up to this point were merely hypotheticals--nothing he endorsed, of course.

Joshua said...

I'm not sure there's any example of intellectual dishonesty here. Racism and bat-shit insanity are not the same thing.

Also, as much as I don't want to have to say it, but this is to some extent precisely the point of tenure. So people can advocate and investigate unpopular views without fear of reprisal. The point of tenure is to some extent to say that someone has done enough good research that we now want to give people that benefit. We should then be very careful about taking away tenure simply based on anti-semitic views.

Now pardon me, I need to go consult with my fellow Elders of Zion and see what we can do about this. A lot of people don't realize how weak a conspiracy we actually are. We'll probably need to call in the Bavarian Illuminati for assistance again. Sigh.