A TPM Reader who is an academic and asks to remain anonymous sends along this note responding to the Kipnis story. I think the point about the demographic nature of the battle, though certainly far from the entirety of the battle, is an apt point.
I will say that I’m under no pressure at my own campus or in my own field.
But the broader tension– amplified by social media and blogs– is very real. A lot of hurt feelings, as the establishment figures like Kipnis are liberals, even leftists.
And needless to say, the fight is as demographic as it is ideological. The insurgents tend to be younger, gayer, browner, more female, etc. Conversely, establishment figures tend to be older, more male, and more Jewish.
And this is why sex and Israel are such hot-button issues.
And without going full Hofstadter, this is a fight for dominance. I think the progressives make some excellent points, but they expect white men to take their cues from subjected groups.
For instance, they truly feel that men should not speak about rape unless they do so in wholehearted support of the accusers. Enunciating basic principles of justice gets called “mansplaining.” Needless to say, this makes it hard to have a discussion.
I think a discussion is needful. Ninety percent of convicts are men. And the state inflicts immense violence on these men (imprisonment, torture, death). And it’s fair to say that there’s a long history of false rape accusations in the American South. The stereotype of the Jewish sex offender has an equally long history in parts of Europe.
But this is a discussion that will never occur.
