A culture of fear has taken over at Edinburgh university | Hacker News Reader

A culture of fear has taken over at Edinburgh university

spectator.co.uk

3 pointsdgellow7 comments

Yawn… Predictable fake culture war stirring/clickbait from the specTrashy. What a waste the current obsession with empty, half-baked symbolic nonsense/gesture politics is of both sides’ time and mental energy, especially when there are obviously far more pressing problems (and exciting, positive developments) in the world to report on, discuss and deal with!

In what sense is this article fake, or concerned with empty gesture politics? It is essentially an emeritus professor at one of the world's top universities expressing concern about that university's failure to protect its own staff from targeted harassment.

I am not OP and we are actually conversing further down the thread but I might be able to answer?

The current UK Gov (right wing) has made a lot of noise about "freedom of speech" in regards to cases like this. There have been speeches, a Czar has been appointed, lots of comments critical of "woke culture" are being made etc.

I actually agree and really strongly support free speech.

However cynics among us (myself included) have noticed how this only seems to be being applied when politically convenient (to avoid discussing other issues or to attack the left). When real issues around free speech actually come up, ones that the government could rapidly act on, they suddenly go silent.

One example of this is that a teacher showed some of the Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons in a class recently [0].

He was suspended from his job and has received death threats. But for some reason no one can articulate, those deep free speech commitments don't extend to him. It would be the work of a moment to re-instate him and provide him with some security. But this hasn't happened.

It's almost as if "free speech" is being used as a stick to bash leftie students and the Spectator etc don't actually give a shit about it...

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-56524850

https://archive.is/HquiC

It's a little much to hear the right complain students Co spider themselves consumer's when it's spend 2 decades turning them into exactly that...

Whether or not this professor can be said to represent "the right", he makes no such complaint. He suggests that marketisation of education, and resultant focus on "student experience", might in part explain why universities are reluctant to take tougher action against student harassment of teaching staff.

I think the core issue here is that the university have sold 2 different people different things:

* The professor (who has my sympathy) has been sold on being a professor with academic freedom and the opportunity to have free and open debate.

* At least some students have been promised "student experience" (a nice euphemism for a safe space and an easy degree the cynic in me suspects...).

The wrong here is the university lying to (at least) one party. If you hire a Michelin star chef for your McDonalds franchise, he will complain about flipping burgers and customers might not want frogs-legs instead of chicken wings. Neither of them are wrong, it's management who have failed to "square the circle" IMHO.

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