House of Eratosthenes

The controversy over scholar Christina Hoff Sommers’ lecture at Georgetown University last week is not over.

Lauren Gagliardi, the school’s assistant director for the center for student engagement, emailed two members of the College Republicans to request they edit the video to remove students who did not agree to be videotaped.

In the email, provided to the Washington Examiner, Gagliardi tells the students that the “edited version needs to be released without students who did not give permission to be taped.” She also says that if the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, which sponsored the event, is “unwilling or unresponsive to the request, Georgetown will need to step in.”

The video that has Gagliardi so upset features feminist activists holding up signs accusing Hoff Sommers of being an anti-feminist or deny rape.

My opinion of their “protest” doesn’t even enter into it: I just can’t wrap my mind around “we demand the right to be seen & heard” this way, and “how dare you (accurately) show us to people” that way. I guess the closest correlation I can make to it, would involve the strumpets stepping out in public baring their pins, cleavages and rumps, and then discovering to their shock and horror that their supple appendages were visible to & appreciated by not only the muscular, sinewy, square-jawed prime-specimen men who might meet with their genetic-judging approval, but also the slovenly, rounder, older or more socially-awkward guys who might not make the cut. And then it’s all, How Dare They! Cosplay Is Not Consent! Like, somebody’s momma never taught ’em what “public view” means.

Cosplay Harem Is it like that? It seems to be. The more recent generations seem to have problems distinguishing between sending messages, versus dictating the finer constraints and details about how they are to be received. At the end of the day, everyone else gets to have opinions too. You don’t get to play “puppet master” and dictate; that is a purely mythical objective. You only get to send. Your control ends at the sending. Not only that, but the word “public” means you don’t get to choose your audience.

When my childhood years were winding down to a close, commercialized forces sought to revitalize my boyhood hometown. There were those who said this would be good for the local economy, the benefits were bound to outweigh whatever costs, and perhaps they were right. Dad was aghast, and so we attended town meetings. That was an education. Lots of people had lots of passionate things to say, on both sides of the issue, and so they had their chance to stand up and be heard. First words out of their mouths were: “My name is [blank], I live in [such-and-such a neighborhood]…”

It was just common courtesy. I don’t recall how obligatory it was, exactly; it didn’t matter much. That’s kind of the point, people just did it. You have an opinion that has you all agitated into action, a little bit anxious, interested enough to come down here, and you want your opinion to prevail knowing it’s going to impact lots and lots of people you don’t know, some of whom would prefer something else. But you want to win anyway. Say who the heck you are. It’s like paying for the spot you take when you park downtown. No, it’s more sacred than that, it’s more like taking the book back to the library. It’s owed.

Further proof (as if any were needed) that Liberalism is truly a mental disorder.
- bammit | 04/28/2015 @ 09:44
I wonder…it sounds a lot like the furor over the lesbians and their faked tweet pics from a few years ago. Originally, it started much like the “Bring Back our Girls” tweets, but with rape and assault stories that became more and more egregious and outrageous. At some point they realized that they were losing attention despite the stories reaching ludicrous speed, and then they hit upon an amazing idea. Pity, empathy, and most importantly, believability could be realized by substituting fat, angry, crew-cut lesbians in Doc Martins with small, cute models and actresses.
- P_Ang | 04/28/2015 @ 09:51
“Protesting” is just a live-action selfie for the Twitter generation, and this attempt to control their images in videos is just their way of pushing the “thumbs down” button — just as they’d block you on Twitter or unfriend you on Facebook if you expressed badthink. They can’t have the taint of being seen on social media with unpeople.

Call me a romantic if you must, but I’d like to think that previous generations of protesters — stuffed up to the eyeballs with self-righteousness though they were — would at least be able to discuss a few of their positions. With these kids…. well, put it this way: I’ve never yet gotten an answer to “Why on earth should I do that?” I ask this question of all the kids who march up to me, demanding my signature on some petition or other. “Why should I do that?”, I ask them, in a tone of sincere curiosity. They’re utterly stumped. It brings to mind the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade in Catch-22… a book these “college” students have never heard of, and couldn’t possibly understand.
- Severian | 04/28/2015 @ 14:19
“Lauren Gagliardi, the school’s assistant director for the center for student engagement…”
So I’m guessing the “director for the center for student engagement” just couldn’t do the “job” without an assistant?

*sigh* Shut up Meg. Your “engagement” is not solicited. NOR does it have “special protections” from consequence. Now be a good girl, run out to Whole Foods and buy me a turkey and cheese (with Russian dressing please)
Thanks sweetie.
Get their “permission”?
Doxx ’em! (Name, Age, School “status”, maybe even transcript, voting “domicile” state, “social media” history, group affiliation, tuition “abstract”)
Let the Streisand Effect begin.
Give them the “othering’ they crave, good and hard.
- CaptDMO | 04/29/2015 @ 04:38
mmm, turkey and cheese…
Although I like to use a tiny amount of Caesar salad dressing. If I have some kind of beef I like to use honey mustard salad dressing. Maybe that’s the problem here…not enough beef?
- P_Ang | 04/29/2015 @ 08:00
I just wanted to say, nice Protein World advert up there. Jabba is lookin’ real beach-body ready.
- nightfly | 04/29/2015 @ 08:18

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The Protesters Did Not Agree to Be SeenTuesday, April 28th, 2015

The Protesters Did Not Agree to Be Seen
Tuesday, April 28th, 2015