The new agenda of the "progressive" left appears to have moved away from the inclusiveness preached by civil rights activists in the 60s to today where the left wants to define people by their colour and historical background, and install a perverse apartheid.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/index.html?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a&mode=premium&dest=http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/regressive-left-puts-bigotry-and-militant-islam-on-a-pedestal/news-story/c42df8a48a1e2da5f33311f4a3303919&memtype=anonymous

"There is an article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy written by a sympathetic academic that expresses it thus: “ The demand is not for inclusion within the fold of ‘universal humankind’ on the basis of shared human attributes; nor is it for respect ‘in spite of’ one’s differences. Rather, what is demanded is respect for oneself as different.”

Note that when members of a particular identity group demand respect for “oneself as different” they are not talking about respecting each person’s individuality and agency. On the contrary, they insist that people accept being defined by their identity and that they stick to the accepted script, the particular narrative of victim-hood, that pertains to their group. Members of each victim group are urged to claim ownership of — indeed, to be extremely proprietorial about — all aspects of their culture, including ephemera such as clothing and cuisine. We must all stick to our own cultural reservation. To violate this tenet is to commit the high crime of “cultural appropriation”.

American writer Lionel Shriver delivered a brilliant critique of this mentality and its deadening effect on fiction writing at the Brisbane Writers Festival last weekend, to the horror of organisers, who immediately disavowed her remarks.

And woe betide anyone who breaches this cardinal rule, as dissenters from within Islamic culture such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali have found. They will be pilloried in progressive media and will face attempts to bar them from speaking on campuses and elsewhere, as when Hirsi Ali was barred from speaking recently at Brandeis University in the US at the behest of a coalition of “progressive” student groups."

If ever there was a case for re-education camps, they should start by rounding up the retards that masquerade as students at universities.
It's funny you know this upside-down world, I thought university was for people who weren't yet qualified to have an opinion, and that it was about learning, not preaching to others.

The over privileged subversive left students with their mentality of deserving everything for nothing should really be placed in work-camps instead.

AC,

Right on. Did you read Bolt's blog today? Yassmin Abdel-Magied, lady ABC presenter and Muslim, at Shriver's talk, told her mother (also there), that "... I can't sit here....I cannot legitimise this...".

She apparently did sit there, though.

I've only seen the lady twice on TV, and had no idea that she was Muslim. Easy on the eye, attractive in a cheeky way, snug jeans, and well-suited to the job. And I still think that. But it is certain that when the get hooked on identity politics, the individuality fades.

Of course the left and Islam are arm in arm. Their ABC said that Shriver veered from her remit, and they were caught unawares. Sooooo sorry, and all that.

Armchair Critic,

Is it the students, or even the university administrators, where there is this lurking in the background? See here,

"Triggs, HRC accused of ‘shameful conduct’ in 18c students case

Human Rights Commission staff and president Gillian Triggs were accused in a racial hatred case yesterday of “stooping” to a ­regrettable low in a desperate ­attempt to “avoid scrutiny of their shameful conduct” against university students.

In an escalating row between the students, indigenous staff member Cindy Prior, who ejected them from their Queensland University of Technology’s “culturally safe” computer lab ­because they were white, and the commission, the human rights body is coming under unprecedented scrutiny.

Disclosures of the commission’s internal workings in dozens of pages of documents, obtained under Freedom of Information and showing the handling of Ms Prior’s Racial Discrimination Act complaint against the students, were cited by Brisbane barrister Tony Morris QC in a scathing legal attack launched yesterday.

Professor Triggs last week urged independent barrister Angus Stewart SC to stop investigations into the complaints by students Calum Thwaites, Jackson Powell and Alex Wood that their human rights had been ­“flagrantly” breached by the ­commission.."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/triggs-hrc-accused-of-shameful-conduct-in-18c-students-case/news-story/54565410fa226b60b076ed25e8c62571

Any investigation into Triggs and her gang is welcome.

Of course the greens are the worst, with anti semitism rampant in their ranks.

The left wing of the labor party has just had to purge a few blatant cases of anti semitism, but with the idiot Jeremy Corbin calling Hamas and Hezbollah his friends, there is a long way to go.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Tried and true Abbott tactics my friend. When your side is absolutely dripping in unapologetic bigotry you decide the best form of defense is to confect some contorted drivel to label those you deem to be 'on the other side' as bigots.

All rather wearying.

SR,

Another erudite and cogent argument from the left? I should have seen it before, as a conservative I must be either lying or misinformed, should leave the interpretation of reality to the left whingers, and ignore the annoying facts that contradict them?

Tell me then that the left aren't dividing people into different race categories, that the nonsense about "cultural appropriation" isn't happening?

Just one eyed will do. The aboriginals said all of that before when some different culture that they did not understand arrived.

Says the entrenched bigotry of limited news. lol
Everyone knows murdochs rags are not even worthy of chip wrappings or budgie cages.
The bias and dishonesty just oozes out like slime from a cess pit with that lot of right wing crazies.

On the weekend over a couple of reds, I was trying to tease out what was commonly meant by the term 'bigot': I was toying with the hypothesis that it means a person who did not tolerate any views opposing his or her own, and couldn't stand to hear them without giving in to the base urge to insult, pillory, slag or otherwise hurt, and/or shut down, anybody with an opposing view. i.e. an adolescent in an adult's body.

And, of course, an anti-bigot was someone who was happy, more or less, with someone expressing a view opposing their own, and defending their right to it. Clearly, I'm an anti-bigot, therefore good.

A crude differentiation, you'll agree, but workable: for instance, if some moron like Mikk writes something like:

" .... the entrenched bigotry of limited news. lol
"Everyone knows murdochs rags are not even worthy of chip wrappings or budgie cages.
"The bias and dishonesty just oozes out like slime from a cess pit with that lot of right wing crazies.... "

we immediately know that we are reading the views of a bigot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing, to coin a phase, someone who would shut down discussion if it were possible, as it may well be in their chosen Utopia.

People like Mikk have a right to be bigots, don't get me wrong - I'll defend their right to express childish rubbish as much as they like, as long as it does not incite violence, and even if it clearly is intended to hurt and/or shut down discussion.

This one is pretty good too, if a bit self-referential:

"When your side is absolutely dripping in unapologetic bigotry you decide the best form of defense is to confect some contorted drivel to label those you deem to be 'on the other side' as bigots."

A mark of a bigot is that they will actually not say anything of substance, only insults. Rebuttal outrages them. I say 'let them speak and show us how empty they and their outraged stance really are'.

[TBC]

for the last 20 years the left has called for a plebiscite for ' gay' marriage. Now the bigots don't want the matter debated or for democracy to have its course. Left really means facist which shuts done free speech, pushes the sexualisation of kids and hates this nation. How did we ever let these people into power!

Hey ttbn,
No, I didn't see it, I tried looking but couldn't find it.
I've heard some people here mention his blogs before but don't know the web address.
Can you please post the link for me?

I had a spit about this already a few days back on the 'Integrity and Identity Politics' thread.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18516&page=0#329452
I've never seen Yassmin Abdel-Magied on TV myself though, I was just responding to the article.

Hey onthebeach,
I think you posted another article a few days back associated with Prof. Triggs.
- Not hiring men or something... She seems like a real piece of work.
Agree with ttbn, she needs to be investigated.
I'd love to see what an email leak would really tell us about her.
It seems like the left is completely entrenched into the University body.

I also had my 2 cents on the Cindy Prior matter on ttbn's 'Are We Already Losing Democracy' thread, from what I've read I think the lawsuit is frivolous.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=7457&page=0#229774
Given that I have a little indigenous in me (and even if I didn't) I'd stick up for Cindy Prior if I thought she had a genuine argument (within reason), but I honestly don't.
Maybe the accused said something she found offensive, but that's not for me to say.
As for demanding $250,000 plus - I think its ludicrous and proves how Americanised we are becoming.

The article I read did not state all of the accused comments, one may have been racially offensive.
But given the context of the incident, none of the other comments that I read would be considered altogether unreasonable given the circumstances.

[continued]

Substance, not just insults, although insults can be very satisfying.

Back to what Shriver implied: she was supporting the right of anyone to write about anything. One should be able to write about ancient Rome without actually being an ancient Roman, or include a French character in a composition without actually being French. Or to write about a young person without actually being young. She was opposing by implication the prohibition on, say, a Black writer, to ever write about whites, or include white characters in any composition.

By extension, where would mixed-'race' people fit in, such as my kids, and so many others ? They wouldn't be allowed to write about EITHER, not being 'fully' one or the other ?

Apartheid died more than twenty years ago in South Africa: who would have thought that the pseudo-Left would try to resurrect it, and give bigotry a new lease of life ?

I'm fascinated with the progress of Indigenous people at universities, i.e. what used to be called the 'masses' of Indigenous people: the equivalent of 22 % of an age-group graduating each year, and that rate growing at about 8 % p.a. I'm not Indigenous but I think that's wonderful.

True, I've got a lot of contempt for Indigenous elites, even at universities, who would be happy to claim some credit for what the people, the 'masses', the 'common people', are doing themselves, with no real help from the eternally-self-regarding elites.

But as a non-Indigenous person, am I allowed to have admiration for the masses of Indigenous people, even if I have some contempt for their self-chosen 'betters' ? I think so.

We don't have to love each other, or view each other completely uncritically, or even our 'selves' uncritically: otherwise, we could end up with a situation where nobody OUTSIDE can criticise (because they can't know), and nobody INSIDE can criticise (because it would be disloyal), so people could keep going up blind alleys with no danger warnings.

[TBC]

[continued]

The crippling of discussion by bigots means that we can't tease out complex issues, we're howled down as if pat formulas and slogans are self-evidently true.

For example, many people have trouble with reconciling 'equality' with 'difference' - surely, they think in their infantile way, that to be different means that somebody is, well, not the same as, and same means equal, so they can't be equal ?

But everybody - equal by virtue of their common humanity and the rights accruing from that - is different in some sway from everyone else. We each have different histories, different ancestries, different viewpoints. One important advance of the Enlightenment was to get past 'difference' (even our 'uniqueness') and recognise our common 'equality'.

Joan W. Scott wrote about this thirty years ago when early feminists were grappling with the same issue. Check it out on Google Scholar.

Joe
www.firstsources.info

I saw a video on the internet just a day or two ago about a white
student at a US university. He had his hair done in dreadlocks.
A black woman abused him for taking over what belongs to blacks.
She even tried to stop him leaving.
The regressive left has really lost the plot !

' The regressive left has really lost the plot !' what plot Bazz. They have always hated the white normal male.

AC,

Try heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrewbolt.

Loudmouth:

I think you are right to focus on the issue of bigotry. Labeling someone a bigot is the last resort of the intellectually decrepit. It is totally irrelevant whether someone is a bigot or phobic or anything else. Society decides what it needs to do based on logic and reason. We debate things and listen to arguments from each side. We refine our position and modify our stance until we are satisfied with our argument.

Eventually we would all hope that the soundest argument leads to the best course of action.

It is irrelevant to even introduce the issue of bigotry into the equation since we do not make judgements based on bigotry but on reason.

The minute that someone even mentions the word bigot they have turned away from the only things that matter in public discussion which is the arguments.