Yaegan Doran Falsely Accusing The Sys-Func Moderator Of Racism

Yaegan Doran wrote to sys-func on 18 Nov 2020 at 11:12:

At risk of being banned from sysfunc for criticising the moderator, I feel that in the context of a discussion about colonisation, however fiery, posting the ‘what have the romans ever done for us skit’ is not appropriate. The skit itself is of course very funny on its own, but in this context it feels insulting at best, and incredibly dismissive of another’s views, bordering on outright racism at worst. Chris, I think you should withdraw this and apologise.

Blogger Comments:

[1] Here Doran implies that the sys-func moderator would unsubscribe a member merely for criticising him, despite this never being the case for his entire 20 years as moderator. The truth of the matter is that the sys-func moderator was himself unsubscribed from the sysfling list by its (now former) moderator for presenting arguments that invalidate the theory she espouses. See here.

[2] The youtube video in question can be viewed here. The reason it is appropriate is because it satirises the political game being played by Doran's departmental colleague, Mahboob.* Other listmembers informed the sys-func moderator that it was entirely appropriate, and thanked him for posting it.

[3] Here Doran negatively judges the act of insulting while simultaneously engaging in the very same act himself; see [1] [4] [5] and [6].

[4] Here Doran falsely assumes that the sys-func moderator has dismissed the listmember's views without having first read them and critically evaluated them. To be clear, Mahboob's claim (see below) is that the reason people kill and exploit each other in the name of religion is that Europeans enacted socio-semiotic violence on non-Europeans by turning a verb into a noun for the purpose of dividing and subjugating them. For Doran, this absurdity, which discriminates negatively on the basis of race, warrants serious consideration.

[5] Here Doran falsely accuses the sys-func moderator of a racist act, and does so without providing the reasoning on which the claim is based. (The sys-func moderator has mixed European, Jewish and indigenous Australian ancestry.)

[6] Here Doran positions the sys-func moderator as his inferior. Doran is a junior academic, whereas the sys-func moderator is a retired academic who was excluded from lectureship positions by a neurological impairment he inherited from his father.

∞

* The following quotes from Mahboob's essay (here) condense its overall argument and demonstrate why it is an appropriate target for satire of this kind: 

Why is it that while religions teach peace, people kill and exploit each other in the name of religion?

A one-line answer to this question: The term religion leads to a confusion between two things: 1) practices (action/verb), and 2) a category (entity/noun).

The notion of religion as a category evolved during European colonisation as the colonisers, who travelled by sea, captured more lands and peoples, who had different practices. …

The nominalisation of religion as a noun and as a category was and is an act of socio-semiotic violence that divides populations and lead to conflict. …

If our exploiters turned practice into a category in order to divide and subjugate us, then, we can reduce and end this exploitation by turning the category back into practice. We can un-nominalise religion and relearn relegere: practice.

That is, according to Mahboob, the reason why people kill and exploit each other in the name of religion is because European colonisers committed an act of semiotic violence by turning a practice/action/verb (relegere) into a "category"/noun (religion) in order to divide, subjugate and exploit non-Europeans. That is, as far Mahboob is concerned, it is Europeans who are to blame for people killing and exploiting each other in the name of religion.

∞

When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.

— Jiddu Krishnamurti

∞

See also Yaegan Doran Failing To Recognise The Interpersonal Function In Mathematics

and The Purpose Of Martin & Doran (eds)

Jim Martin Negatively Judging His Reviewers

Jim Martin wrote to SYSFLING on 14 Nov 2020 at 10:54:

I was totally crushed when my paper for the recent special issue of Functions of Language dedicated to her was rejected by reviewers, but did send a draft to her and let her know later on when it was published elsewhere (still with its dedication to her). She communed by relaying her concern that we were indeed living in difficult times – times reminding her in fact of the 60s… but now with different strata and institutional struggles now in play.

Blogger Comments:

To be clear, here Martin accuses his original reviewers of rejecting his paper for political reasons, rather than because of the quality of the paper itself. For an example of a very poor paper by Martin that was initially rejected by reviewers but which he subsequently managed to get published in another journal, see the critical examination here.

Among the consequences of a siege mentality are black and white thinking, social conformity, and lack of trust, but also a preparedness for the worst and a strong sense of social cohesion.

David Rose Positively Judging Jim Martin's Empire Building

David Rose wrote to SYSFLING on 29 Sep 2020 at 17:39:

I know I should let Jim have the last word, but for the meaning of 'onwards; together’ we only need to read the Reference pages of his publications… everybody’s included, for or agin… how you a build a community that will last and grow into the future.

Blogger Comments:

Appraised	Appraisal
	Polarity	Attitude
Jim Martin building his own community	positive	judgement: propriety

Again, this is a model of academic institutions as social insect colonies, which, according to Halliday, are organised on the basis of value, not semiosis. What matters is the social group, not the quality of theorising it produces.

Postscript:

Martin subsequently put the lie to Rose's claim of Martin's inclusiveness when he decided, on October 19, to exclude the 840 world-wide members of the Sys-func list from weekly seminar announcements:

Hi all This is the final announcement I will make on sys-func. In future I’ll be using the new ASFLA mailing list – ASFLAnet. You’ll need to subscribe to receive further announcements.

David Rose Negatively Appreciating The Deployment Of Logic

 David Rose wrote to sys-func on 16 Jan 2020 at 16:58:

The problem is that the linguistic field is a not a hierarchical but a horizontal knowledge structure, in which theories continually threaten to replace each other. The insecurity this breeds feeds an impulse to boundary policing (that your younger staff have experienced). We also have this problem within our SFL sub-field, that would blow up occasionally on this list. (One reason it has gone so quiet in recent years.) My point was that SFL is institutionally vulnerable. For its survival, I think we need to find ways to work against the boundary policing impulse, no matter how logically it is framed.

Blogger Comments:

Appraised	Appraisal
	Polarity	Attitude
boundary policing	negative	judgement: propriety
the deployment of logic	negative	appreciation: reaction

Rose, of course, is himself the most zealous and energetic 'boundary policer' in the SFL community; see here.

[1] To be clear, this is a model of academic institutions as social insect colonies, which, according to Halliday, are organised on the basis of value, not semiosis.  Here all exchanges of meaning are reduced to merely boundary policing: soldier ants protecting their home colony (or attacking another). Reasoned argument has no place.



[2] This is misleading, because it is untrue, as an examination of the sys-func archives (here) demonstrates.  The sub-field Rose refers to is Martin's misunderstandings of SFL Theory. Evidence that they are misunderstandings is presented here (English Text) and here (Working With Discourse). There have been no "blow ups" with regard to the validity of Martin's models on the sys-func list, yet.

[3] Bertrand Russell, in his History Of Western Philosophy (pp 21-2), identifies those who are hostile to science and reason, and explains the motivations for their hostility:

Throughout this long development, from 600 BC to the present day, philosophers have been divided into those who wished to tighten social bonds and those who wished to relax them.  With this difference, others have been associated.  The disciplinarians have advocated some system of dogma, either old or new, and have therefore been compelled to be, in greater or lesser degree, hostile to science, since their dogmas could not be proved empirically.  They have almost invariably taught that happiness is not the good, but that ‘nobility’ or ‘heroism’ is to be preferred.  They have had a sympathy with irrational parts of human nature, since they have felt reason to be inimical to social cohesion.  The libertarians, on the other hand, with the exception of the extreme anarchists, have tended to be scientific, utilitarian, rationalistic, hostile to violent passion, and enemies of all the more profound forms of religion.  This conflict existed in Greece before the rise of we recognise as philosophy, and is already quite explicit in the earliest Greek thought.  In changing forms, it has persisted down to the present day, and no doubt will persist for many ages to come.