Maybe they should just rename it Trump University.
Doubtless they are courting favor with the Chinese government, which tends to demand such things. Ugh. Die Schweiz was never neutral. Just… strategic.
I have to say, as someone who has been on the opposite side of this argument about fascism since 2017, I really don’t understand this particular criticism of Snyder and Stanley. Most of their critics, as far as I can tell, are people who believe that Snyder and Stanley are correct about America: fascism has indeed come.
If you do believe that fascism is here, not just rhetorically or hypothetically but in actuality and in practice, how in the world can you criticize two people who’ve been quite outspoken in denouncing this turn; who, one could easily imagine, might have a target on their backs; and who have decided that for the safety and well being of themselves and their families, they must flee to a place of greater safety?
That other people don’t have that privilege, I will of course concede. But so what? Would we say to the great filmmakers and authors who fled Germany in 1933, well, there are other filmmakers and authors and journalists and auto-workers and civil servants and Jews and trade unionists, who aren’t as privileged or lionized as you, who don’t have your resources or knowledge of foreign languages, who don’t have your contacts in France or Britain or the United States or Denmark or Sweden, who can’t just up and go?
I think most people would think that whoever made such a comment was not really in touch with the reality and the danger that people are facing. And then I start wondering, despite my softening on the fascism question, whether I wasn’t right all along about the people who have been saying it’s fascism, namely, that they say the words, but they don’t really believe them. Again, if you really believe we’re living under a fascist regime, like the other fascist regimes of history, everything from Nazi Germany to Pinochet’s Chile, would you really condemn someone for fleeing the scene? I can’t imagine you would. Which makes me think you don’t really believe we’re living under a fascist regime.
I feel like this is one of those moments where the rubber hits the road for the left. Either you take your own analysis of fascism come to America seriously—and I say “your own” because it hasn’t been mine—or you revert back to the left’s often insipid privilege talk, where even the right to flee and go into exile becomes some kind of privilege that must be shared equally before it gets used at all. Which I just see as a secular version of Christianity, where sacrifice of self is the highest good, and if we can’t improve the lot of everyone, we can’t improve the lot of anyone, and if we can’t save everyone, we can’t save anyone.
Now there’s many criticisms one can make of Stanley’s position. To my mind, he’s not really always coherent or consistent. He says that universities should band together to fight fascism in the very same sentence that he says he’s leaving. He says he can’t raise his family in a fascist United States, but then says he’s not really fleeing fascism in the United States so much as joining the fight against fascism in Canada, which he says is being targeted by the United States in the same way Yale is being targeted by Trump, which sounds about as prudent as saying you’re leaving Nazi Germany in 1938 to fight fascism in Austria. So, as is so often the case when he talks about politics and fascism, I’m not really clear what Jason actually thinks. So that’s all fair game for criticism. But the basic line that fascism has come, and I’m out of here, that doesn’t really seem so outrageous to me, so I don’t understand the criticism people are making.
I don’t know… what do you think about that, @Millie_Fink. I do have a bit of a knee-jerk “they have some privilege and can flee” reaction to Stanley’s announcement (I had not heard about Snyder leaving). In the interview I posted in the “well, fuck” thread, he mentions that he has two young Black and Jewish boys to consider… I don’t think he’s wrong to try and protect them, even if he has some privilege to have an exit strategy…
But he makes a good point that they both have been very vocal on this issue for years now, and are probably in the cross-hairs as this thing plays out. Then again, when Stanley talks about the University banding together, doesn’t he play a role in what the “university” he works at, as a high profile individual from that institution? Isn’t an institution just really made up of a group of people working in a somewhat common direction? And doesn’t someone who semi-regularly appears on TV and in mainstream media in general, have a greater ability to shape that institution?
I dunno… thoughts?
I agree with you that it’s a muddled question. My inclination, the older I get, is to be less and less judgemental of people’s actions, especially in such a muddled case (of course many actions do more clearly merit condemnation). I don’t know everything about the circumstances and abilities of these two people. I do think that they’re already worthy of thanks for speaking out to the extent they have (and they can still do that from Canada), but I suppose I don’t ultimately blame them for not sticking their necks out even further. We don’t all have the extreme bravery of say, MLK, who seemed to know his days were numbered, yet continued speaking out in increasinglydangerous ways. Also, I think he he had a far larger and more influential bully pulpit than does a faculty member at Harvard on its practices; is there an example of a prof who managed to shame effectively such an institution, at such a perilous time (you the historianwould know better than I)? As for the privilege issue, well yes, they are more able to move than are many others, but like Robin, I don’t think that’s a valid reason to blame them for potentially saving themselves and their families. All that said, I do still feel muddled about these issues.
He’s not in administration, nor on the Board of Directors. Even a tenured professor is merely an employee with no clout when it comes to stuff like this.
All good points… I think I’m on the muddled side of it too.
Sure, but he has a lot more cultural and political capital than the vast majority of his colleagues in academia. But yeah, he can still be fired from his position (although, given his high profile, easily find another).
That being said, he’s not curbing his views in order to keep his position safe. He’s continuing to speak out while moving to protect his family.
I don’t think it’s muddled at all. IMHO, no one is in a position to demand that someone else put themselves or their children in harm’s way for whatever cause. A person may choose to do so for themselves, but if they decide that it is better for them to flee the field and live to fight another day, that’s cool too. Does it require a certain degree of privilege to do so? Of course. But it requires a certain amount of privilege to not do so also. I am not going to judge anyone for either choice. We all have to find our way in this morass.
Yeah I think that is where the privilege comes in and also why this is maybe such a dire warning. The most privileged among us have sussed out that free speech is over and any one of us can be unpersoned/financially ruined/hauled off to a black site at any point really and as such it’s best for those who intend to keep talking about it to be outside the country earlier.
Getting out in 33 was a hell of a lot different than 39 or whenever his grandmother left Germany. He’s leaving with a lot of lead time she got out by the skin of her teeth most likely. Could he be wrong? Well he’s also privileged enough to survive that. If everything turns out mostly ok all considered he’ll probably still be comfortable and happy in Canada.
The smart set kids we know are looking for or going into post-docs and phd programs that take them overseas with extreme prejudice. These people are not particularly ideologically motivated or leftist or anything… they just have grasped where the opportunity is and it isn’t here. There already is some demand for workers in other countries that can be tapped for people in the right fields. They can always resettle the land once the storm has passed I guess.
I can’t blame them. I’m the last person who should be judging that. If I hadn’t fucked it up/chosen a new adventure then I’d have been one of them too.
Oh God. Oh God.
Pediatric suicide rates have increased significantly in the U.S., nearly tripling between 2007 and 2017 among children ages 10 to 14 years.
We are likely to not get updated statistics for a while, but as the stress on kids increases, so do suicides. And the kids under the most stress, trans, gay, minority, girls, anyone in any sense nonconforming, are the most at risk. I don’t know the social pressures in Japan, but I am terribly familiar with those in the US. And it will get so much worse as the fascists tighten their grip.
That’s awful… 
The way we’ve made the modern world just isn’t working… something’s got to change.
Everything is so wrong these days.
Yep… And the solutions are difficult, and there are far too many people who’d rather burn the world and the people they dislike, so they can rake in a tidy profit, than try and work together to find a solution.
