the reaction in France

From John Protevi (via Bob Vallier):

“Eric Alliez writes that Prof. Didier Deleule (Paris X Nanterre), President of the Société Française de Philosophie, just signed the petition: “La Société Française de Philosophie, que je préside, s’associe à cette protestation”. This is big news, so spread the word. The SFP was founded in 1901 and is a major voice in the French intellectual world: http://www.sofrphilo.fr/“

For the first time, I’m realistically beginning to think this might be reversed. These people are as human as we are, they don’t like to be reviled any more than we do, and eventually they’re probably going to have to reverse it under pressure– so keep the pressure going, because it is justified in this case.

It’s one thing if you’re an administrator and your own students start to hate you. That’s unpleasant enough, but you sort of expect it to happen from time to time in the job. But if a number of international societies start speaking out against you, it might be hard to keep your nerve.