In response to #Metoo, this year's Geneva Motor Show has replaced its "booth babes"

[Monty92]

Which just makes the questions to be who/what sets the agenda that drives the culture? Commerce, fashion, or powerful interest groups? You think commerce, I'm not so sure because academia has been very instrumental.

Anyway. Do you actually believe it or not? Their position which you have been sort-of defending, at least with some of their vocabulary.

Academia has been powerful in pushing post-modernist ideas, some of which complement the current women's movement, but equally some of which also come into direct conflict with it.

Do I believe what? All I really believe that puts me on "their" side is that a lot of men should treat women better than they do. Of course, a lot of women should also treat men better than they do, and a lot of women should treat other women better than they do.

But then we are into whataboutery territory, at which point you insist on silencing me

[Burney]

Academia has been powerful in pushing post-modernist ideas, some of which complement the current women's movement, but equally some of which also come into direct conflict with it.

Do I believe what? All I really believe that puts me on "their" side is that a lot of men should treat women better than they do. Of course, a lot of women should also treat men better than they do, and a lot of women should treat other women better than they do.

But then we are into whataboutery territory, at which point you insist on silencing me

Post-modernism is simply a catch-all term for the widespread inculcation of moral and qualitative relativism as credos. This has served to destroy several generations' capacity for critical or cultural appraisal, meaning they'll accept virtually anything because they lack the certitude to denounce it.

[Peter]

Academia has been powerful in pushing post-modernist ideas, some of which complement the current women's movement, but equally some of which also come into direct conflict with it.

Do I believe what? All I really believe that puts me on "their" side is that a lot of men should treat women better than they do. Of course, a lot of women should also treat men better than they do, and a lot of women should treat other women better than they do.

But then we are into whataboutery territory, at which point you insist on silencing me

Only one part of academia, and even then not wholesale. People studying engineering, accounting, medicine, optometry, geology, physics, biomedical science, law, architecture, computing, graphic design, podiatry, audiology- they tend to be fairly immune from the worst excesses of what B refers to as the identity politics-driven left.

What I see every day is a generation of students desperate to find something to be angry about, stripped of their birthright of outrage and feeling particularly inferior to their predecessors who fought civil rights, clause 28, burned their bras and banned the bomb.

Its a natural drive for the young generation to want to fight for change. Academia, in the social sciences and humanities, does a lot of pandering to this and of course modern academics feel the constant need to challenge something.

I dont really find any of this sinister. Just pathetic. It is potentially damaging though....

[Burney]

Only one part of academia, and even then not wholesale. People studying engineering, accounting, medicine, optometry, geology, physics, biomedical science, law, architecture, computing, graphic design, podiatry, audiology- they tend to be fairly immune from the worst excesses of what B refers to as the identity politics-driven left.

What I see every day is a generation of students desperate to find something to be angry about, stripped of their birthright of outrage and feeling particularly inferior to their predecessors who fought civil rights, clause 28, burned their bras and banned the bomb.

Its a natural drive for the young generation to want to fight for change. Academia, in the social sciences and humanities, does a lot of pandering to this and of course modern academics feel the constant need to challenge something.

I dont really find any of this sinister. Just pathetic. It is potentially damaging though....

But they aren't fighting for change or freedom. They're fighting for rigid intellectual orthodoxy and the silencing of those who disagree.

And the hard sciences are not immune to this stuff. We're already seeing scientific studies of certain hot potatoes (transgenderism and climate science for instance) being denied funding for fear they'll come to the 'wrong' conclusions. A couple of years back, we saw a man who had been intimately involved in the Rosetta space programme forced to make a grovelling, tearful apology on television because he had dared to wear a shirt with bare ladies on it. Nobody is safe from this stuff.

[redgunamo]

It is potentially damaging though....

No, everyone eventually grows up. Or dies childless, so no real harm done.

[Ash]

All I really believe that puts me on "their" side is that a lot of men should treat women better than they do. Of course, a lot of women should also treat men better than they do, and a lot of women should treat other women better than they do.

I believe all that too, but I don't think a bit of gratuitious glamour hurts at all.

And I'm not silencing you, we are engaging in a healthy exchange of ideas.

[Peter]

I believe all that too, but I don't think a bit of gratuitious glamour hurts at all.

And I'm not silencing you, we are engaging in a healthy exchange of ideas.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying looking at tits. Nobody should ever have to apologise for this.

[redgunamo]

There is nothing wrong with enjoying looking at tits. Nobody should ever have to apologise for this.

Yes. Objections can arise when one attempts to do this for free though, I gather #InternationalWomenDay

[Peter]

Yes. Objections can arise when one attempts to do this for free though, I gather #InternationalWomenDay

Its our Women's Conference tomorrow. I have the office to myself, no irritating chatter, no queue for a cup of tea while they **** about taking ****ing ages just to make a ****ing cup of coffee.

Lovely