The_Space_Cowboy

Wow. Lots of hate here for Mount Pleasent. I'm on my phone, so I'll be brief but I can elaborate more if anybody wants it.

Spent 4 years in MP. For context, I grew up in Traverse City and have lived in Kentucky, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Georgia, California, Colorado, Iraq and South Korea.

Mount Pleasent is what you make of it. There is plenty to do if you look and the Student Activity Center is great. Get involved in local organizations. Go 'Up North' for the weekend and find ski hills an hour away. Enjoy the nature preserve 15 minutes north in Clare. Get Cabin Sticks at the Cabin (great pizza) or a microbrew downtown. Head to a football game and get in for free with your student ID. Rent camping gear from the RPL department or hit up the high ropes course or climbing wall in Finch.

As long as you don't expect to be catered to, you can find things to do. I enjoyed all four of my years there.

Where are you getting this impression?  Just as I wouldn't presume to be an expert in LGBT culture when discussing the issue with a gay or lesbian person, I wouldn't expect somebody who has never served to be able to relate better than a veteran or Active Duty member when discussing the military culture and values systems. I've found that, in my experience, some folks can seem to have an unjustified inferiority complex when dealing with servicemembers. I've heard that this is somewhat of a byproduct of America's "hero worship" (though I hate that term).  I, for one, respect everybody's individual career paths and professions and recognize the importance of the varied professions as part a well-functioning society. Not everybody can be a Soldier, nor should everybody be, and nobody should feel guilty for a chosen career. 
 
What is frustrating is seeing members of society adopt an ever-increasing sense of entitlement, something that is the antithesis of military service. My impression is that the ivory tower harbors and fosters some of these feelings with the mixture of liberal idealism and economic privilege from a good number of the attendees. I think danielewrites was cracking a joke that some of these members could benefit from some "good 'ol fashioned military hardship and discipline" while also making a casual statement about struggling to adjust to a culture that doesn't emphasize deference to persons of authority.  
 
 
tl;dr: Relax and don't be offended so easily. 

Congratulations!

Congrats Space_Cowboy! Anyone claiming the new WVU and Temple acceptances? Also, did any Rutgers' denials receive a letter or email discussing the decision?

Where are you getting this impression?  Just as I wouldn't presume to be an expert in LGBT culture when discussing the issue with a gay or lesbian person, I wouldn't expect somebody who has never served to be able to relate better than a veteran or Active Duty member when discussing the military culture and values systems. I've found that, in my experience, some folks can seem to have an unjustified inferiority complex when dealing with servicemembers. I've heard that this is somewhat of a byproduct of America's "hero worship" (though I hate that term).  I, for one, respect everybody's individual career paths and professions and recognize the importance of the varied professions as part a well-functioning society. Not everybody can be a Soldier, nor should everybody be, and nobody should feel guilty for a chosen career. 
 
What is frustrating is seeing members of society adopt an ever-increasing sense of entitlement, something that is the antithesis of military service. My impression is that the ivory tower harbors and fosters some of these feelings with the mixture of liberal idealism and economic privilege from a good number of the attendees. I think danielewrites was cracking a joke that some of these members could benefit from some "good 'ol fashioned military hardship and discipline" while also making a casual statement about struggling to adjust to a culture that doesn't emphasize deference to persons of authority.  
 
 
tl;dr: Relax and don't be offended so easily. 

I understand the culture just fine, I simply feel like saying that people in the academy need to do push ups to learn respect is both offensive and simplistic. I'm also a bit surprised that anyone pursuing an advanced degree would consider the term "butt hurt" appropriate in conversation.

Making beer!

Making beer!

Having obviously not partaken in graduate studies at this point, I feel that most of these initial dismassals of military ethics/attributes being valuable torwards the academic paradigm is really based on a skin-deep understanding of what the military is and the values they embrace. 
 
While you're correct that the military values and promotes outwardly confident leaders and discourages the outwards insubordination (or disagreement) of orders given, there is a distinct emphasis on establishing and displaying competence in one's job or career field. As an institution, I would argue that the military has done more with less than the general lot of academia in educating/training individuals to preform a job. Universities are able to establish their own admissions standards and be more selective with whom they choose to allow into their institutions than then the Army. As such, the Army has learned to train to the lowest common denominator, while simultaneously recognizing and promoting those more quickly that are able to establish competence and the ability to teach those skills to others. The ability to learn one's career AND the ability to develop others to learn it is HIGHLY prized in the military profession. I would argue that this emphasis would be hard to find in most undergraduate institutions. 
 
As an Officer, professional development for myself and others within the organization that I lead is actually evaluated. Once I graduate with my Bachelors degree (with a minor in Military Science), it is acknowledged that I have now met the bare minimum for commisioning. I'm then sent for another 4-12 months of schooling prior to actually executing my first assignment, and am expected to attend another 6-12 months of school for (almost) each subsequent promotion. In the mean time, I am expected to study the art of war and leadership and to teach these ethics to my subordinates. Additionally, I am expected to continue my civilian education in pursuit of a Masters Degree (a verifiable discriminator for promotions to the rank of Major and beyond). Most units have "book clubs" or reading programs that require the reading of a common book, an essay on some thoughts about the report, and a discussion of the applications to our profession. As a young Lieutenant, my Squadron Commander arranged for a Cambridge professor to come lead a week-long seminar on the ethics and implications of counter-insurgency warfare. I've listened to David Kilcullen preach and have written 30-page monographs during my military education courses. Presently, I've been selected for a program where the military fully-funds my attendance to earn a Masters Degree at a civilian education program while I retain all pay and benefits. I'm essentially being paid to earn a free graduate degree. 
 
This is all said to prove the point that while the formalities associated with the military may be not be appropiate in a civilian academic setting, the paradigm of military experience may very well be a great fit. 

There are so many subtle and overt things in what you said that just don't sit well with me. First off, touting one's education isn't useful to ending "discrimination" and it especially isn't useful to ending class-based oppression (which is always already complicated along racialized and gendered lines). Secondly, if you cannot recognize the very real material differences between a black person being called the n-word and a white person being called a cracker, then we will just have to stop the discussion now because I cannot abide that. Thirdly, I do not want to be part of your solution if it is characterized by a praxis of supposedly equity in which everyone always already deserves respect. Do people of color, queer folks, trans people, disabled folks, the poor and the ill get respect already? I am just not here for anyone centering white people's feelings or coddling us in order to talk about respect, or about ending discrimination, or anything at all really. We've always been coddled, why would it be useful to continue to do so if we were trying to imagine a world in which everyone is ~*equal*~?

yeah so like...there are indeed already white heterosexual men in women's studies. and half the time the ones that are "accepted" so to speak in my experience are trans guys who ID as straight. And like...I have a LOT of feelings about trans men in women's studies spaces (just like I have a lot of feels about cis straight white men in women's studies spaces). But honestly like this should be a non-issue. I think that the gender studies, the women's studies, the feminist studies, the whatever the hell studies should operate under the assumption that anyone who enrolls in the class is 1) interested and 2) willing to learn and 3) willing to UNLEARN (just as important). If anyone, regardless of who the person is via identity politics, does not do one or more of those three things...why are they there?
 
also i really need all my wonderbread cousins in here to stop getting so riled up about ~*slurs*~ like whitey and cracker. you're aware that whitey was created in direct response to terms like darkie and that cracker LITERALLY means the one who cracks the whip...a reference to being the MASTER in the context of chattel slavery...so...even if it is insulting what it calls you out on is your white guilt, not whatever parallel negative presuppositions there might be about BEING white. just saying y'all. just sayin. so calm it down.

On point post! 

I study intersectionality. What I reject is your notion that we should downplay any discrimination just because it’s happening to a majority group.

Discrimination toward any group of individuals should be approached with disgust. The goal here shouldn’t be to weigh what is more offensive and what is less offensive--it should be to treat everyone with respect and recognize that all discrimination is harmful to society. 

I am incredibly skeptical of cis men in my women's studies courses, but have been won over by some. Same as 2520s in Africa American studies, or any other person who is part of the supremacy entering into subjugated spaces. Talking about masculinism as if it were equatable to feminism is how you'll get some side-eye though. That shows you don't have a true understanding of the patriarchy or oppression, and also that you're stuck in a gender dichotomy. Understand your privileges (esp. when it comes to dominating classroom discussions) and make sure you know what your endgame really is in taking the course. Susan Bordo does some work on critical masculinities, and may be a great starting place for allies. 

2520 is slang, not a slur. The fact that you are comparing a WOC calling someone "whitey" to white supremacy or nazis, what?

'Whitey', a derogatory term for white people. Fits the definition of racist and perjorative.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs#W
 
I'm not implying that I'm upset that you've offended me. I never faced any type of systemic discrimination besides a very specific kind that I chose to accept, so I don't associate epithets regarding any superficial quality of mine with any kind of wrong being done to me; but you don't do yourself any favors by using language like that. It's considered disgusting in polite society, it's unprofessional, and you are being insulting to a great many people for no reason other than for self-satisfaction.

This term is absolutely derogatory in nature. How would you feel if I said “blacky” was slang, not a slur?
 
Racism works both ways. Speaking in a pejorative manner about any group is unacceptable--even those who you feel like are privileged.  
 
PS: I absolutely welcome male voices in Women’s Studies and Gender Studies. Anyone who doesn’t clearly doesn’t understand the intention of the field. 

I've never fully understood the desire to "carve out a space" for minority/oppressed groups to speak exclusively. Which is not to say that I don't understand the need or desire to seek out a safe space to express opinions which are otherwise marginalized. But if the only way I can share my voice is by creating a space where I refuse to let those from the dominant group participate at all, then what is the point? I've created a cute little echo chamber where the only thing I hear is my own voice bouncing off the walls.  
 
I believe that any dominant group member who wants to participate in the discussion should be constantly cognizant of their privilege and through practice can start to learn when it is best to silence themselves (although I think the same about anyone in any discipline). But having your voice shut down from an outside force doesn't help you learn anything. It just leads to a cycle of (structural) violence. I understand how it may be beneficial as an exercise in understanding how it feels to have your voice silenced, but as a general practice institutionalized by the entire discipline? I can't agree with that. 
 
As a woman of color, I don't want my own space to have a discussion. I want to participate in the dominant culture and engage in that discussion. And I also believe that means allowing people from the dominant culture to contribute. Anyone who genuinely cares about the subject should be generating relevant theory which is beneficial to the discipline anyway. How else would they get themselves recognized/hired by people within the same field?

One, Drill Sergeant....Two, Drill Sergeant...Three, Drill Sergeant... Active Duty Army here. I'm totally picking up what you're laying down. 
 
As a fellow servicemember, I understand what you mean. It's hard to think of professors or other academic folks in a position of authority as peers.