The Professor is big into Debate and always telling me all about the different debate strategies and methods that coaches are coming up with and the ongoing discussions about the usefulness and appropriateness of such methods. So, when I came upon this article in the Chronicle about a mooning incident at a recent debate tournament, of course I had to read it, to see (I’m sorry folks, I have to make this joke. I’m contractually bound.) if this is some new form of rebuttal.
Anyway, from what I can understand, a coach got pissed at a judge and mooned her. The incident ended up on YouTube and now the coach has been fired.
My favorite part of the story, though, is as follows:
Reached at his home on Friday, Mr. Shanahan said his biggest concern was the negative effect his “bad behavior” had had on his students and the university.
“I’m not a monster—I’m somebody who is committed to his students and his university,” he said. “I’m an ethical person, but I violated that code in the moment.” He said he now planned to write.
“I thought I was in a safe house,” he added. “I thought I was part of a community that recognized the importance of handling problems internally.”
Oh, how I laughed at this. Dude gets so pissed off at a judge that he basically does the most disrespectful thing he can come up with while still being, kind of, in the neighborhood of the realm of decorum–in other words in order to try to “win” his point, he tried to make the judge feel as unsafe in the argument as he possibly could–and he’s whining about how he thought he was in a “safe house.”?
Bwah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahhawaaa.
I know it’s going to seem like a stretch, but it reminded me of Rob Huddleston’s post from last week, regarding the school shooting over in Knoxville, when he said:
The shooter was Hispanic and apparently acted like some sort of gangster after pulling the trigger, walking calmly out of the school. He did not resist arrest when encountered by police about three blocks from the school.
As Mack pointed out, “Jamar Siler” isn’t exactly a common Hispanic name. And, it turns out that the kid was actually born Shannon Taylor. “Shannon Taylor” being an even less common name among Hispanic males.
John Lamb is unhappy about this. I’ve not talked directly to John about it, but I think one of John’s objections is this assumption on Huddleston’s part that the shooter was Hispanic, as if white kids never shoot anyone, never act gangster, as if “our” problems come from the outside.
And that, I think, is what reminds me of Shanahan. It seems like there’s this idea that we know how the world works and any corrupting influences must come from the outside, not from our own behavior.
Filed under: Random Things
Sorry, someone walking out of a school (anyplace, really) after a shooting screams psychopath more than it goes gangster. Although, I am not gangster AT ALL, so what would I know? Maybe that’s a gangster’s calling card? Or some kind of police rule? If a person is seen calmly exiting the place he or she just shot up, he or she is therefore deemed ‘gangster.’
Megan, I don’t know. It’s hard to tell with teenage boys. They do a lot of shit that seems like it’s designed to lead to their deaths or the deaths of others. I am not convinced that they always understand that their actions will result in something. It’s easy enough for me to believe that he calmly walked out of school simply because he had no idea what to do next.
I can see how he’d have gotten as far as “If someone gets in my face, I’m going to shoot him” and never thought beyond that. Teenagers can be idiots.
That’s not to excuse him at all, of course. But I think attributing anything more to it without knowing is probably giving him more credit than he deserves.
Well I agree that teenage boys can be idiots. But not understanding that when they shoot someone that could result in their target’s death? I don’t know that I agree with that. Why else would they walk in there with a gun and not a knife or crowbar or something?
I don’t want to analyze the situation because I don’t know what the kid was thinking. My original comment was just to point out my frustration with the kid being labeled as trying to act gangster when maybe he is just a piece of shit. I mean, no matter WHY he walked in the school and shot someone, who the hell does that??
Oh, no. I get what you’re saying. And I’m not saying that he didn’t know he could kill someone. I’m just saying that, I’m sure in his mind, when he was contemplating how this would go, he didn’t have a plan for “He’ll die and then I’ll…” and so he just left.
But, yeah, someone who does that is clearly fucked up. And it’s not acting like a gangster. So, your point stands.
The safe place stuff is funny too because one of the reasons the FHSU administration gave for also suspending the debate program was their lack of trust in the debate governing body (which has little to no authority over coaches on purpose, as that is the job of each university) because no one told the university that the professor had mooned the crowd. As if people are obligated, and not just permitted, to inform your boss every time you do something we dislike. Even the video took almost 5 months to be posted – and there were well over 100 people just in that room alone when it was happening and a few hundred others in other debates nearby. The community did keep it rather in-house. The governing body was trying to take some action – at least informing Bill that the behavior (and numerous previous incidents) were getting out of hand and drawing limits for the future. Keeping it private hurt him and his students more than it helped.
Also annoying is that such a claim is entirely antithetical to the revolution he has been attempting to enact in debate. It is precisely the fact that it is too often a game of strategy and not arguments about truth, meaning, and power that have driven him to teach debaters more post-modern philosophy and criticize assumptions underlying policy-making and international relations. So for him to think that what happens in a debate round doesn’t also happen in the wider world is just nuts.
Oh and, I’m not sure I’m exactly “big into Debate.” It just pays my rent.
“It is precisely the fact that it is too often a game of strategy and not arguments about truth, meaning, and power that have driven him to teach debaters more post-modern philosophy and criticize assumptions underlying policy-making and international relations.”i
The guy sounds like a classical example of the old Sophists of Socrates’ time.
Also, I believe somewhat related, whenever I hear someone without irony describe somethign as “post-modern” I assume that 90% of the time someone is either bullshitting or simply does not know what they are talking about.
I cannot think of a more fuzzy, nebulous word.
It’s fuzzy and nebulous precisely because everyone uses it to mean something different, depending on their needs, the time of day, and what discipline they’re in. I would assume, at this point, “post-modern” is just what comes after modern, so, I don’t know from 1945 to, say, Infinite Jest?
I like modernism, myself, but I understand how it’s become the Grouchy Grandpa of modern discourse–brilliant, but uncomfortable in some of it’s iterations.
But I just spent ten minutes watching the video and frankly he looks like an ass.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXwy2VuA2V4
And him saying he’s an asshole doesn’t make it okay.
I won’t defend him or his actions, but I will say that he really is an intelligent (but socially troubled) person and he, more so than many others, does know exactly what he means by post-modernism. And Nietzsche is his biggest influence anyhow, that and anti-objectivist philosophers of science.
He thinks that volume and intensity signals passion. But the unstated premise is that demonstrating passion is always good. I do not agree.
Oh and, part of the reason post-modernism is nebulous is disciplinary but it’s also because people signal modernism differently. And they signal the problems of modernity differently. So what it is to be post-modern depends on what parts of modernity one is rejecting.
I tend to understand post-modernism as a reaction to the modern attempt to discover truth – even about humanity – through science, understood as increasingly precise measurements (which itself was a reaction to finding truth through God via Church father).
B, didn’t you love though the “building bridges” moment at the end? Or maybe you need to know more what is happening in the debate community now – and in that room – to get what’s going on there. My boss, the hero. She kinda wanted to let Bill punch or push Shanara just once, to get it over with but she was afraid that the violence would spread throughout the room.
If you like this, remind me to tell you about the cream pie incidents. Oh the insanity.
You’re pretty darn close to where I was going with it. We live in an environment in which Hispanics are the subject of suspicion and scorn, and Christians should not be fueling those fires.