Uncomplicated

Here's something that's not complicated:  Justin Weinberg (South Carolina) has been a consistent opponent of academic freedom and freedom of speech, from the case of Laura Kipnis at Northwestern to the case of John McAdams at Marquette.   As the cyber-cheerleader for the New Infantilism, he consistently favors punishing people for speech offensive to the children, the law and principles be damned.  The Finnis case is only the latest in that series.

ANOTHER:   Justin Weinberg (South Carolina) responds all the time to my and others' criticisms of him, but he just usually does it passive-aggressively (without links, or mentioning the name of the person he is responding to), rather than directly.  Today he responds directly, although begins with the falsehood that he usually doesn't respond.  (Please go back to your passive-aggressive mode, Justin!)  It turns out he has once been on the right side of an academic freedom issue involving hurt feelings (the Tuvel case).  Readers can follow the links, above, to see Weinberg's normal practice as represented by the McAdams and Kipnis cases, and now Finnis.

To quote my correspondent, who started this:  "now that Justin Weinberg has described as 'morally and practically complicated' the question of whether an internationally respected scholar should be prohibited from teaching required courses on the grounds that he has described as "evil" certain things that people do in their private lives, the message needs to go out.  This is madness, and it is making a joke of the profession I've given my life to. Thank you for being one of the few philosophers out there with the courage to tell it like it is. Your blog has become for me, and for many others I know, a haven of escape from the hand-wringing wokeness that is eating our profession up from the inside."  It is madness, and Justin Weinberg, through his blog, has been a big player in nurturing and encouraging "hand-wringing wokeness" in this and many other cases in philosophy cyberspace.

A READER POINTS OUT THIS GEM from the "response" (I confess I just skimmed it since Justin is so rhetorically ponderous):  "As interesting as I may be to me and my dedicated critics, I don’t think I’m all that interesting to most of the thousands of philosophers who regularly visit Daily Nous."   I want to assure Justin that he, qua person and philosopher, is not at all interesting, that what's interesting and worth  commenting on is the cultural and professional problem his blog is too often symptomatic of.

ANOTHER TAKE:  Philosopher Daniel Kaufman (Missouri State) writes:

I have to add to the chorus of people sharing their experiences with Justin Weinberg and Daily Nous.

I used to be of the view that Justin was an honest broker, though doubtlessly ideologically invested in the Social Justice/Identitarian wing of the discipline.  Though our interactions over at the Daily Nous were often contentious, they were generally civil, at least for a while.  I even invited Justin onto my philosophy program, at BloggingHeads.TV, where I treated him with dignity and respect.  Anyone who doubts this can go watch it.  https://meaningoflife.tv/videos/40774

I no longer think Justin is an honest, though ideological broker. Indeed, I am quite convinced at this point that he is one of the most cynical, disingenuous, bad faith actors with such a high profile in our profession today.  

Others have noted Justin's penchant for passive aggressive engagements (which are themselves a form of disingenuousness).  Also indicative is his constant "move along, nothing to see here" drumbeating on issues like academic freedom and the identitarian attack on our capacity to critically discuss controversial issues on campus and in the larger public square.

But there were two things that really convinced me that Justin is playing dirty pool, while posing as a man playing an honest game. 

--First, Justin published a lengthy effort at dismantling my "What is it Like to be a Philosopher" interview.  He had never done this before with any other interview/interviewee.  And as if to grind the insult in my face, at the end of the post, he put a picture of an enormous sculpture of excrement.  When confronted on this by a number of people, he gave the least believable, demonstrably dishonest reply as to the reason for doing such an extraordinarily uncivil thing.

http://dailynous.com/2018/01/25/unquestionable-orthodoxies-philosophy/

--Second (and the incident that caused me to stop participating in discussion over at Daily Nous), pretty much out of the blue, Justin posted a really nasty attack in response to what can only be described as the most bland of comments.  The sole purpose of it was to try and humiliate me in the presence of those participating in the conversation.

I had written the following (http://dailynous.com/2018/10/26/demographic-diversity-good-philosophy/):

"I had no trouble at all understanding what he meant when he characterized them as “left wing.” I suspect most ordinary people wouldn’t either."

To which Justin replied:

"Dan, you really must stop talking as if you have any idea what goes on in the subfields of philosophy you dismiss. You pretend to, and help yourself to your pre-established conclusions, but no exchange I have ever been in with you, or witnessed you take part in online, has given any indication that you have kept up with these fields (apart from perhaps reading the works in them that make the news). It’s okay not to have kept up—it is impossible to keep up with everything. But enough with the bs."

I subsequently emailed Justin the following message:

"Justin, I think that little rant you posted on me was quite unfair.  I didn't deserve it, and it served little purpose other than to try and belittle me in public. 

It is, of course, your blog, and given your attitude towards me, the best thing, probably, is if I just stop commenting.  I have more than enough going on in my own respective platforms to keep me busy.

Best wishes to you in all of your endeavors,

--Dan K."

To which I received no response.

= = =

Beyond being a dirty player, Weinberg also isn't very smart.  That he manages such an influential, high-profile philosophy blog is a disaster for our profession.  And undoubtedly, Daily Nous has contributed significantly to the capture of our discipline by the social justice/identitarian gang, which is doing so much damage both to the quality of philosophical work, as well as to our reputation within the academy and beyond.

Weinberg's treatment of Kaufman's interview in that post from last year really was a nasty piece of work, which I'd forgotten about.  But it is par for the course:  as I said long ago, "Hypocrisy thy name is Justin."  I confess I still find his blog a useful resource, despite his lack of judgment, and while he does speak for a segment of the "profession" (the less grown-up segment, by and large), he doesn't speak for most of it happily.