Hacker News Reader

Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

This article doesn’t mention the most ridiculous example: Affilia, a women’s studies journal, published a rewritten chapter from “Mein Kampf.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/fake-n...

View on HN

I think the most ridiculous example was the one where they advocated for "privileged students" (ie: white men) to sit on the floor chained in classes and not be allowed to speak, so that they can "experience reparations":

> I wonder if that ‘progressive stack’ in the news could be written into a paper that says white males in college shouldn’t be allowed to speak in class (or have their emails answered by the instructor), and, for good measure, be asked to sit in the floor in chains so they can ‘experience reparations. That was our “Progressive Stack” paper. The answer seems to be yes, and feminist philosophy titan Hypatia has been surprisingly warm to it.

That was mentioned in the Atlantic article, though they didn't mention that the journal rejected it conditionally because the proposed "reparations" of sitting chained on the floor and being spoken over weren't harsh enough for privileged students -- the author was offered acceptance upon revision.

Geez.

Source?

Not proof, but more commentary:

https://quillette.com/2018/10/01/the-grievance-studies-scand...

Poe's law in action?

> Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the parodied views.

Accepted, but not published, according to https://areomagazine.com/2018/10/02/academic-grievance-studi...

Where can I find this? Sounds like it would be funny to read.

I haven't read Mine Kampf and I don't like Nazis or Socialism for that matter. But are you certain that every single chapter of that book is 100% genocidal rubbish? Because I'm guessing that out of the ~15 or so chapters there is probably one that is palatable.

The German's didn't go in to WWII because they were just terrible people. They had a very long list of quite justifiable grievances after WWI. If they hadn't been proud supporters of eugenics they'd be just another entry in a long list of bloodthirsty European states.

EDIT So here is a selected paragraph (from 3 random candidates) from said text. It isn't exactly anti-factual.

"Thus, from a certain vanity, which is always a cousin of stupidity, the great mass of politicians will keep far removed from all really weighty plans for the future, in order not to lose the momentary sympathy of the great mob. The success and significance of such a politician lie then exclusively in the present, and do not exist for posterity. But small minds are little troubled by this; they are content."

There are WAY too many compelling thinkers in the world to read to justify any of my time sifting through Hitler's writings hoping to find some nuggets that are not "100% genocidal rubbish".

I'm imagine he advocated for exercise and a good diet at some point. Why we need to try to find something useful the man said is utterly beyond me.

The claim is that a journal published a rewritten chapter of Mein Kampf and that journal is therefore bad.

I don't think that is a reasonable argument. It depends on what the chapter was talking about. If it made a big point about Jewish conspiracies and keeping the American people ethnically pure then that is a problem. If it was 1,000 words complaining about vision-less politicians then what is the issue?

If we are talking in the context of submitting it as a paper to a journal, then a problem is plagiarism. If we are talking about "does hitler have some non-genocidal ideas?" then like I said, not sure I care. "How was hitler so persuasive?" Interesting. "How did hitler outmanuever his opposition domestic and foreign" . Interesting.

But yes you have a fair point that just because Hilter said X doesn't automatically invalidate X. The old "the nazis drank milk so dont drink milk" fallacy

Reply on news.ycombinator.com