If Mort Divine ruled the world

[rms]

I disagree with the whole "cooperate better" thing.

I'm not sure, I think they do 'cooperate' better only because the social mindset is tailored towards bringing women in and men have to adjust to that, women are inherently that.

patrice kills it here and I agree with it

Women are busy patting themselves on the back because muscle has been easier to automate than a "soft skills".

Yeah, the labor force is increasingly becoming less and less physical dependent. Yet, patriarchy.

They should watch out: the job fields mostly responsible for the boost in female workplace success are going to experience a contraction right when those getting degrees now hit middle age (ie nursing)

I think they already are, to be a pre-K style teacher requires 4 year degree and pays like 15$ an hour around here, that's ridiculous. And at Boulder I had some chicks argue that women going to nursing/teaching was a partiarchical move to keep women paid less and it just blew my fucking mind someone thinks at that level of man

 

[Einherjar86]

Ok, so attempts don't matter. That's why we don't have laws against attempted murder.

Of course they matter, just not in any way that seriously inhibits the functionality of legal immigration.

 

[Einherjar86]

Went and saw a lecture by Henry Louis Gates today at BU. Really excellent talk and presentation.

Also just thought I'd share two specific comments he made today: a) that he's anti-PC and that the protests shutting down conservative speakers on campus disgusts him, and b) that racial inequality is both structural and behavioral.

My only point here is to suggest that if Skip fucking Gates is calling these things out, then I hope it bursts the bubble of the conservative fantasy about liberal professors who want to take your free speech and forcibly distribute your tax monies to poor black mothers with fifteen babies.

 

[Dak]

Went and saw a lecture by Henry Louis Gates today at BU. Really excellent talk and presentation.

Also just thought I'd share two specific comments he made today: a) that he's anti-PC and that the protests shutting down conservative speakers on campus disgusts him, and b) that racial inequality is both structural and behavioral.

My only point here is to suggest that if Skip fucking Gates is calling these things out, then I hope it bursts the bubble of the conservative fantasy about liberal professors who want to take your free speech and forcibly distribute your tax monies to poor black mothers with fifteen babies.

Given Gates' history with standing against the groupthink on reparations, I'm interested in more details on what he considers the "structural and behavioral" nature of racial inequality. As soon as we get into behaviors it's in the territory of psychology.

 

[Einherjar86]

I think he's admitting that psychology (and also education, importantly) are as significant as any kind of structural reparations or affirmative action. He said this while answering a question during the Q&A about reparations, so it wasn't an aspect of his talk; but that's how I understood him.

 

[arg]

it is irrevocably ingrained in poor blacks' psyche that "more babies=more welfare" and they will never break out of it. we must literally allow their babies to starve to death and no matter how many they have, no government check should come. only then will they learn and their birth rates go down. same for illegals, refugees, and impoverished nations worldwide.

 

[Dak]

I think he's admitting that psychology (and also education, importantly) are as significant as any kind of structural reparations or affirmative action. He said this while answering a question during the Q&A about reparations, so it wasn't an aspect of his talk; but that's how I understood him.

Well that's far too vague. I could 100% agree and mean something 100% different than how that would be generally understood.

 

[CiG]

My only point here is to suggest that if Skip fucking Gates is calling these things out, then I hope it bursts the bubble of the conservative fantasy about liberal professors who want to take your free speech and forcibly distribute your tax monies to poor black mothers with fifteen babies.

Probably more succinct to suggest that if it's such a big deal for liberal professors to speak out against this stuff, the left might have a problem.

 

[Einherjar86]

Yeah, we do have a problem. Conservatives keep pushing this fantasy that we're all distributionist nutjobs who don't care about free speech.

 

[CiG]

Do you realise just how many people who used to lean left-wing have been driven right by the actions of the left? That isn't just some conspiracy, it's happening in real time. To some degree it happened to me.

The amount of people I considered friends who have told me directly that free speech is just a barrier to equality that needs to go, or that freedom of speech is overrated still shocks me. They were saying this when I still considered myself to be on the left.

You guys really need to wake up, you seem to be in denial as to what's actually happening around us. I wish the left was more Hitchensian than it is Sarkeesian but that's just not the case.

 

[Einherjar86]

The leftism that's driven people to the right isn't reducible to a few people in academia. It's the result of a cultural atmosphere that has demonized conservative values. This, by and large, has not happened in the classroom; it's happened because social media has intercepted a generation of humanities-educated young professionals (or young unprofessionals, whatever) who often misuse or misapply the tools given to them. They have all the catch-phrases and all the hot-button topics and none of the critical thinking skills; after all, it's easy when you can imitate a discourse. It's much harder to actually grasp the dynamics and internal logic of a discourse.

If we need to wake up, it's to how we've failed (not me personally, of course, as I wasn't teaching then) to properly communicate the tools and concepts we teach. To be entirely honest, we don't want to teach opinions or perspectives on explicit political topics. We want to teach critical thinking skills that allow people to assess political issues and come to their own conclusions.

People like Henry Louis Gates feel the need to make these clarifications because we live in an era in which a) most conservatives see the academy as something misguided, inbred, and dangerous, and b) most incoming students have been raised in a social media environment that has taught them a nonintellectual, firebrand version of academic thought. They come in with all the buzzwords and think they're good to go, hence the Berkeley protests shutting down conservative visitors.

What really frustrates me is that this isn't denial at all! If anything, most academics are disappointed and disturbed by the current political climate and their role in it.

Well that's far too vague. I could 100% agree and mean something 100% different than how that would be generally understood.

As I said, it was in the Q&A. He didn't mention psychology at all, I'm speculating.

 

[CiG]

We want to teach critical thinking skills that allow people to assess political issues and come to their own conclusions.

I'm 100% with you here.

But I was never turned away by the left's treatment of conservatism and the right more broadly speaking but rather their treatment of others in the left. The left (it gets rather tired always framing it as left and right because the moment it's uttered, my brain fills with exceptions on all sides) has for all intents and purposes become the side of the speech codes, self-censorship, killjoyism, moralism, witch-hunting and puritanism. Especially lately they're justifying racism (dismissing it by creating the power + prejudice = racism formula) and sexism.

I don't see how this same left could be the left of Billy Connolly, Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Monty Python, Salman Rushdie, the great tradition of mockery and irreverence and so on.

It's become what I grew up associating with the right. The ones who were in favour of government enforced politeness to be hyperbolic for a second here.

There are many horrible professors out there on the left, whipping up violence, bigotry and insanity and if the right dominated the education system, they'd be no different. But when the hell did the right become the side that protects free speech against pearl-clutching moralists? It's bizarro world to me.

I don't feel comfortable at all on the right, but it's a hell of a lot better than being anywhere near what the left is today and that's just me being honest. I'll take slightly bigoted patriotism over "lets tear down western civilization" any day and I think that reality and choice is not lost on many people today.

 

[Einherjar86]

I sympathize a lot with what you're saying, and I'll just offer a few (perhaps idealistic) impressions:

1. The Hicks/Carlin/Hitchens/et all left still exists, it's just not in the spotlight as much. Campus protests make for great media coverage, Dave Chappelle's newest stand-up routine... not so much (but it's hilarious).

2. There are some horrible professors, but not as many as you might think (I'm inclined to believe, anyway).

3. The left within the academia (i.e. professors and grad students, primarily) doesn't want to censor anything other than violence.

There's a problem with phrasing #3 delicately, however. For example, University of Chicago released a statement saying it doesn't believe in safe spaces. I actually agree with that statement, but I don't agree with how they phrased it, which came off as hostile and threatening. In effect, it read almost as though they were promoting unsafe spaces, as weird as that sounds.

Additionally, there is such a thing as speech intended merely to threaten/harm/etc; and on campuses today there is a legitimate concern over right-wing students who have co-opted the censorship debate in order to exercise a kind of speech that is purely inflammatory or controversial, and is intended to do nothing more than piss people off. There is a place for that kind of speech (stand-up comedy would be one platform for it), but in an academic setting it doesn't do anyone any good. So now academics are in the unenviable position of trying to reconcile the value of free speech with the value of promoting substantive/productive discourse.

There are, I'm afraid, many right-wing students complaining that their free speech is being restricted, when in fact all that's being restricted is their option to intentionally piss other people off.

 

[CiG]

In the same regard there are also many left-wing students who are claiming that they're unsafe or being threatened when really they just disagree with what right-wing students (and not always right-wing either) are saying. Its become a situation wherein, and I think this is politics in general right now, there is very little middle ground.

I don't even see this as left vs right, both sides are falling in on themselves. It's not like it's just the right-wing students that are complaining about a feeling of being suppressed by the left. Perhaps more accurately the far left, the activists and so on.

It's as if some insane cartoonish, caricaturistic version of politics has become reality.
And the centre is apparently filled with "fascist apologists" and "cucks."

I'm just severely cynical by this point.

Also, just in case anybody thinks I'm only irritated by the left, I'm not. So many friends who I considered sensible conservatives are now promoting nationalism and not just civic nationalism, but ethno-nationalism. I've never had more heated disagreements than I have over the past year with friends that are alt-right, "social justice warriors" are a fucking cakewalk.

Politics man... The perfect element to ruin your whole life and all you have to do is think about it a little too much.

 

[Einherjar86]

All good points.

I'm somewhat cynical too; but seeing as my career depends on practicing and managing some kind of middle ground, I'm trying to be optimistic.

 

[CiG]

You also have to be careful not to ruin the mentality of your students with that cynicism haha.

Sorry if my comments seemed a bit ranty/incoherent, I'm actually playing some Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as I type.

By the way, I agree and meant to say so when you say that in many cases right-wing students are intentionally inflaming situations by using this meme (though the meme is not far off from reality in my view) that the left is crushing free speech as an excuse to just be offensive. The Milo/Coulter effect one might say.

I think I would also say that this is why the alt-right is attracting many young people whereas conservatism is still rather niche among the young people, because its replaced what the left used to provide in youth culture: loud, obnoxious, anti-authoritarian, irreverence and being the outcast/underdog. That used to be the left and still somewhat is in the guise of the Bernie crowd.

What confuses me though is that its manifested as praising dipshits like Trump and dictators like Putin. Go figure.

 

[Dak]

Authoritarians are popular when things feel like they are spiraling out of control. Children want a parent.

 

[rms]

2. There are some horrible professors, but not as many as you might think (I'm inclined to believe, anyway).

I feel like you're distinguishing between full time and adjuncts, and if so would be faulty IMO. With adjunct professors being more sought, shitty (and for a variety of reasons) professors are going to rise by each given year. With NYS now being free, guess which profs are going to leave and which ones are going to teach at public universities now? =/

3. The left within the academia (i.e. professors and grad students, primarily) doesn't want to censor anything other than violence.

How you are framing the entire left and the some % past 50% left is peculiar. I have the opinion that soft sciences are more interested in censoring speech or at the very least putting preference to certain speakers over others than not-censoring. And I think I would say that putting value over certain speakers (women, non-whites, non-heteros, non-humans nah means speciest piece of shit) is a tactic of censorship

But again, English isn't a field that attacks these issues at an undergraduate level and history, from my own experiences, tends to reflect this depending on the institution. The discourse at CUBoulder and UB is so different and the only thing that comes to mind as the largest scapegoat is funding $ for profs in humanities. You seem to consistently conflate English within the humanities and I don't know why. We both agreed in a convo a few weeks ago that history and english are probably the best to counter bullshit.

I also think it's important to remember all students at universities are required to take 'humanities' courses, no matter your major. I've seen some opinions that suggest business schools are the congregation of conservative thought on campus, but what school forces you to take business classes let alone equivalents to SOCY/PSYCH/GENDER/RACE studies?

 

[arg]

So glad my economics professor was a hardcore fuck-the-fed, laissez-faire fiscal conservative

 

[Dak]

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...s_eerily_religious.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru

But there is very little indication that what happened on Saturday will counter these misconceptions. Instead, the march revealed the glaring dissonance of opposing that trough of ignorance by instead accepting a cringe-worthy hive-mind mentality that celebrates Science as a vague but wonderful entity, what Richard Feynman called “cargo cult science.” There was an uncomfortable dronelike fealty to the concept—an oxymoronic faith that information presented and packaged to us as Science need not be further scrutinized before being smugly celebrated en masse. That is not intellectually rigorous thought—instead, it’s another kind of religion, and it is perhaps as terrifying as the thing it is trying to fight.

Let’s face it: People like science when it supports their views.

Indeed much of the sentiment of the March for Science seemed to fall firmly in the camp of people espousing a gee-whiz attitude in which science is just great and beyond reproach. They feel that way because, so often, the science they’re exposed to feels that way—it’s cherry-picked. Cherry-picking scientific findings that support an already cherished and firmly held belief (while often ignoring equally if not more compelling data that contradicts it) is epidemic—in scientific journals and in the media.