Speaking as someone who was at Caltech when the whole Christian Ott thing went down, it was honestly kind of stunning to see his name on this list. Like, I get that anti-wokes are going to anti-woke, but you’d think they would notice the disadvantages of supporting the guy who got fired after being so uncontrollably stupid in his manner of sexual harassment that he left a blatant textual trail of it.
I was at a little “women in science” chat, before Ott went totally mask-off, and one of his students mentioned that he was using her for emotional support, texting her at all hours. It brought the wishy-washy empowerment language to a complete stop. The visiting professor who was running the session went dead serious with “Okay, you’re going to need to be very careful…” followed by a bunch of barely-effective tactful deflection strategies.
It is SO easy to sexually harass people in the way that Ott (mostly) did and get away with it. Just act like a total shit, blame it on your misunderstood genius, and do not literally admit in writing to one of your targets that you fired someone because you had a crush on her. But no, he couldn’t manage even that. Yet people think they can support this guy and maintain their credibility?
I knew at least two professors who were like this and another one who was a little bit like this - I'm a guy of course so I didn't cop any of it first hand but my female friends knew. I really do wonder how much of it just goes unreported.
The Yale thing was not ‘both sides-ish’ really because when the students disagreed with Christakis, he sicced the media on them, and they ended up being harassed by the right. Sometimes the seemingly ‘both sides’ things turn to the students’ favor long term if you continue paying attention because the supposed innocent professor is later shown to be picking fights with students, intensely vindictive, or otherwise reveals themselves as a person who loves to pick fights, a la Bret Weinstein. So it’s always worth wondering what happens in the conversation between a 50 year old white man and an 18 year old Black woman that got the Black woman upset. (Unless you want to assume students’ having unworked out views is the cause of somebody becoming like Bret Weinstein, which I don’t think is very plausible.)
Not that students cannot ever be unreasonable (though in my experience its rare for them to be adamantly unreasonable and openly confrontational merely because of disagreement if they are treated with a modicum of genuine respect). It’s just a thing where it’s not a bad idea to ‘put a pin in it’ and not necessarily believe everything we read in The Atlantic right off the bat.
"Sometimes the seemingly ‘both sides’ things turn to the students’ favor long term if you continue paying attention because the supposed innocent professor is later shown to be picking fights with students, intensely vindictive, or otherwise reveals themselves as a person who loves to pick fights."
We had a professor at our local university who appeared to have targeted a Muslim woman repeatedly and in pretty vile ways. It was written up in the local paper. He sued for defamation.
I'm old enough to recall when Krauss was at Cleveland State; + was spoken of as a damn good Physics professor and one of the greatest communicators for that science in America.
Kinda hoping that's a different guy, bc it'd be depressing as hell if it ain't.
I didn't think I'd be able to make it through this list but thank goodness your hilarious writing made it digestable! YUM
GAD SAD is when my anxiety makes me depressed
Sometimes I get MAD SAD
Is that like if Strong Mad and Strong Sad became one?
Okay but the section on Jordan Peterson was pretty perfect.
I’ve encountered some YouTube reviews. You’re basically on the money.
Speaking as someone who was at Caltech when the whole Christian Ott thing went down, it was honestly kind of stunning to see his name on this list. Like, I get that anti-wokes are going to anti-woke, but you’d think they would notice the disadvantages of supporting the guy who got fired after being so uncontrollably stupid in his manner of sexual harassment that he left a blatant textual trail of it.
I was at a little “women in science” chat, before Ott went totally mask-off, and one of his students mentioned that he was using her for emotional support, texting her at all hours. It brought the wishy-washy empowerment language to a complete stop. The visiting professor who was running the session went dead serious with “Okay, you’re going to need to be very careful…” followed by a bunch of barely-effective tactful deflection strategies.
It is SO easy to sexually harass people in the way that Ott (mostly) did and get away with it. Just act like a total shit, blame it on your misunderstood genius, and do not literally admit in writing to one of your targets that you fired someone because you had a crush on her. But no, he couldn’t manage even that. Yet people think they can support this guy and maintain their credibility?
I knew at least two professors who were like this and another one who was a little bit like this - I'm a guy of course so I didn't cop any of it first hand but my female friends knew. I really do wonder how much of it just goes unreported.
I did make through the list because it was one of the most entertaining albeit depressing things I read lately. Looking forward to the book.
On Twitter, one could see that Chirstakis is not normal. On twitter he would tweet about how he didn’t believe in autism or food allergies.
I can’t find the tweet but I guess he has made this his cause…apparently it’s very important that people don’t take food allergies seriously.
Defending that moral ideal that nobody ever be inconvenienced unless they have the very specific needs of the rightist is very much a rightwing quest.
https://www.allergicliving.com/2010/07/02/food-allergy-backlash-grows-1/
The Yale thing was not ‘both sides-ish’ really because when the students disagreed with Christakis, he sicced the media on them, and they ended up being harassed by the right. Sometimes the seemingly ‘both sides’ things turn to the students’ favor long term if you continue paying attention because the supposed innocent professor is later shown to be picking fights with students, intensely vindictive, or otherwise reveals themselves as a person who loves to pick fights, a la Bret Weinstein. So it’s always worth wondering what happens in the conversation between a 50 year old white man and an 18 year old Black woman that got the Black woman upset. (Unless you want to assume students’ having unworked out views is the cause of somebody becoming like Bret Weinstein, which I don’t think is very plausible.)
Not that students cannot ever be unreasonable (though in my experience its rare for them to be adamantly unreasonable and openly confrontational merely because of disagreement if they are treated with a modicum of genuine respect). It’s just a thing where it’s not a bad idea to ‘put a pin in it’ and not necessarily believe everything we read in The Atlantic right off the bat.
"Sometimes the seemingly ‘both sides’ things turn to the students’ favor long term if you continue paying attention because the supposed innocent professor is later shown to be picking fights with students, intensely vindictive, or otherwise reveals themselves as a person who loves to pick fights."
We had a professor at our local university who appeared to have targeted a Muslim woman repeatedly and in pretty vile ways. It was written up in the local paper. He sued for defamation.
And won.
But then he died in an apparent suicide, so...
Thank you for your service. I’m sure this was not an enjoyable task!
It had its moments - discovering the ludicrous details of some of these characters!
Seconded. As my Southern in-laws would say, bless your heart.
I'm old enough to recall when Krauss was at Cleveland State; + was spoken of as a damn good Physics professor and one of the greatest communicators for that science in America.
Kinda hoping that's a different guy, bc it'd be depressing as hell if it ain't.