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Comment by sonnyblarney | Hacker News Reader

The BBC's characterization I think is unfair, I suggest HN'ers actually read the presentation.

While controversial, I don't think it's poignantly offensive.

I'm wary of researchers getting into flame wars and I guess CERN does have the right to avoid such things, at the same time, he seems to be making some points with a lot of data - the best thing someone concerned with opinions could do is actually debunk them instead of having him silenced ... because the BBC's article trying to shut him down may in fact have the opposite effect.

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It's a formal presentation at a CERN workshop that invokes "Cultural Marxism". CERN had to apologize for the presentation after the workshop. Of course they're pissed.

a formal presentation in a 'women in physics' workshop, not a physics workshop. you're implying it was entirely out of context

A contrarian presentation about the lack of discrimination or progress towards fairness in physics? Sure. An insult-studded rant about "cultural marxism"? Not so much.

They had to apologize because some people were going to be offended, surely, it doesn't mean the presentation is intellectually offensive.

'PR' is different than 'Science'.

'Cultural Marxism' is just a popular term for Intersectionalism, and it's a real issue, particularly on campus.

People should be able to talk about issues that are a little bit uncomfortable.

He misled CERN to get his talk into the workshop, didn't provide materials a priori, deliberately gave his talk an obscurantist title, and attacked the workshop (and specific individual scientists and organizers) during the presentation. It was a stunt; he played the workshop. Nobody is going to congratulate him for that.

While I agree with your other points, I have yet to attend a physics conference where I'm asked to provide my slides a priori.

I'm not suggesting he had to, just that he in several ways went out of his way to make sure nobody knew what he was going to say. It's not like the workshop accepted his talk knowing he'd be presenting a contrarian view; had they know, they would not have accepted him.

Yes, but adding fictive ways to your "several ways" makes it disingenuous. The things he did different from the normal process (title, abstract etc.) are enough to show that he deceived CERN.

Sure! Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I thought you didn't have a point.

Seems like he'd be free to talk about his theories in an anthropology conference 1), but the presentation had no place in a physics research centre.

1) although it seems the sloppy research would've not been accepted by anthropology experts - just because he's a good physicist doesn't mean he's a good anthropologist, indeed he's not realised that he let his biases lead him to arguments made out of confirmation bias.

I'm not defending his talk.

I'm indicating that his firing isn't necessarily an objective measure of it's 'offensiveness', rather simply a measure of the political sensitivity of the situation.

Given that it was as other posters have indicated kind of a surprise 'gotcha' presentation etc. - it was obviously out of line.

I would probably have severed relationships as well were I in charge of the situation.

But an even better approach would be to address the information in the presentation, because it's going to 'get around' (i.e. the shock value of the presentation means it made the news cycle!).

'Cultural Marxism' is an overtly antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming a devious plot by certain Jewish academics a plot to subvert "western civilization" and attributing their influence as the cause of myriad social and political stances/events/developments that the advocates of this conspiracy theory disapprove of.

Even if you don't believe this (I think Jordan Peterson, who is fond of it, is a charlatan but not at all an anti-Semite), the term obviously occludes more than it clarifies, and was deliberately coined as a powerful negative emotional appeal; the choice to include it in a CERN physics workshop presentation is telling.

"Cultural Marxism" is neither about culture nor about Marxism. The term was coined by anti-Semite William Lind in a speech at a 2002 Holocaust denial conference: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/...

The fact that Peterson adopted the term does not necessarily imply that Peterson is an anti-Semite, but it definitely confirms that he is an idiot who cannot even be bothered to do basic research on the things he likes to rant about.

That's useful information, thanks.

I do agree it's important to basic research on the things one likes to rant about. Wikipedia in contemporary usage has become completely useless for controversial or social topics, but it used to be a reasonable source of information. This [1] is an archive of the Wiki page on Cultural Marxism providing some broad information and background. Suffice to say it was not coined in 2002 by anybody.

[1] - https://archive.fo/YzkIS

You are promoting a dog-whistle phrase that refers to an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory: https://www.salon.com/2018/11/04/how-far-right-conspiracy-th...

But that "cultural marxism" label might be neither very cultural nor particularly marxist does not mean that what it labels isn't for the most part senseless bunk either. Oh, and marxism does happen to be more popular in academia than it deserves, too.

What does a simple idea like "stop treating women as though they were all idiots" have to do with any particular culture? If you don't understand the difference between "stop insulting your female colleagues" and Marxist economics or politics, obviously the problem is that there is not too much, but too little Marxism being taught in academia.

Really, the sooner marxism is completely forgotten the better. And what is usually called "cultural marxism" would make Marx and any classic marxist spin in their graves.

I would like to see some references of which groups or individuals, exactly, "treat women as though they were all idiots". Makes for a nice strawman but not anything that Strumia claimed, is it?

How can someone possibly call Jordan Peterson a charlatan? Are we redefining that word now too? Also, describing something as “telling” is a pretty strong signal that one lacks any substantive rebuttals but cannot resist throwing shade. It’s cheap.

Hang on, 'charlatan' is being 'redefined' merely by someone's opinion but the elaborated-upon use of 'telling', a word with a straightforward literal meaning, is fecund with secret malicious bias? It's hard hard to see how both of these can be true.

Have you read Maps of Meaning? I haven’t, but Nathan Robinson did, and wrote a review of the whole Peterson gestalt, which I found wholly convincing and you should find with no trouble at all.

I feel that what I found “telling” about the use of a controversial, poorly defined, culture-war term like “cultural Marxism” was pretty obvious: that the talk wasn’t given in good faith or with an intent that was productive with respect to the attendees.

Read the presentation. If anything, BBC's characterization is restrained.

This idiot should have been fired sooner.

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