If Mort Divine ruled the world

[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.

 

[Baroque]

^yeah wake up sheeple!

speakers from caltech are just "espousing a gee whiz attitude" right

you were totally there at all 200 country's marches for science so you can generalize them all of course

 

[Dak]

^yeah wake up sheeple!

speakers from caltech are just "espousing a gee whiz attitude" right

you were totally there at all 200 country's marches for science so you can generalize them all of course

Speakers maybe not. Attendees, it's certainly plausible. I'd like to point out the author is a highly esteemed emergency medical physician and academic, and is writing for a very left-leaning outlet here. You probably didn't read the whole article. The closing paragraph:

This does not render science deniers correct on any particular topic. Far from it. They indeed remain the primary enemy and are wrong on the issues a staggering majority of the time. But in the long run, the propagation of bad science that feels like good science—and the inability or unwillingness of well-meaning progressives to distinguish it from the truth—only strengthens the hand of the opposition.

This is can be summarized by Daniel Dennett's comment:

“There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view I hold dear.”

 

[Dak]

http://usmclife.com/2017/04/trump-taps-veteran-usmc-major-general-clean-us-secret-service/

So far it appears that Trump heavily depends on heuristics. It also appears he has at least one good one: When it's important and involves security, send/use the Marines. This is the 3rd Marine general tapped by Trump. Mattis, Kelly, and now Alles.

 

[Baroque]

Speakers maybe not. Attendees, it's certainly plausible. I'd like to point out the author is a highly esteemed emergency medical physician and academic, and is writing for a very left-leaning outlet here. You probably didn't read the whole article. The closing paragraph:



This is can be summarized by Daniel Dennett's comment:

Nah all I see is a guy too cranky and afraid of crowds and big cities who is jealous of more outgoing people who went out and had a good time in celebration of a cause he endorses. "I must be smarter than them for not going though, so I'll find a reason!" "They support my cause but they did it en masse, group think!" Sure go ahead put words in all of the marchers mouths to make them seem dumber than you so you can stay on your psychological high horse, it's very important for psychology majors to maintain this feeling of superiority.

The truth is there were hundreds of brilliant people out there scientists and doctors, and some followers yes, but who cares. Every good movement needs followers.

 

[CiG]

Science is a movement?

 

[rms]

Sure go ahead put words in all of the marchers mouths to make them seem dumber than you so you can stay on your psychological high horse, it's very important for psychology majors to maintain this feeling of superiority.

i did ask you about GMO's and it relates to this quite clearly.

The "science" march is an "ideological" march but for leftist politics, not objective (as humanly possible) science. don't be mad because you got duped on a saturday

 

[CiG]

Speaking of, apparently Bill Nye's new Netflix series is dripping with political bias, I was told by some left-wing friends who were hoping they could watch it with their kids.

 

[Dak]

Nah all I see is a guy too cranky and afraid of crowds and big cities who is jealous of more outgoing people who went out and had a good time in celebration of a cause he endorses.

If that guy hates big cities and crowds I think he could have found other placed to work and live than San Fran, NY, and now Boston.

The truth is there were hundreds of brilliant people

 

[Dak]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...bubble-real-journalism-jobs-east-coast-215048

Nearly 90 percent of all internet publishing employees work in a county where Clinton won, and 75 percent of them work in a county that she won by more than 30 percentage points. When you add in the shrinking number of newspaper jobs, 72 percent of all internet publishing or newspaper employees work in a county that Clinton won. By this measure, of course, Clinton was the national media’s candidate.


Resist—if you can—the conservative reflex to absorb this data and conclude that the media deliberately twists the news in favor of Democrats. Instead, take it the way a social scientist would take it: The people who report, edit, produce and publish news can’t help being affected—deeply affected—by the environment around them. Former New York Times public editor Daniel Okrent got at this when he analyzed the decidedly liberal bent of his newspaper’s staff in a 2004 column that rewards rereading today. The “heart, mind, and habits” of the Times, he wrote, cannot be divorced from the ethos of the cosmopolitan city where it is produced. On such subjects as abortion, gay rights, gun control and environmental regulation, the Times’ news reporting is a pretty good reflection of its region’s dominant predisposition. And yes, a Times-ian ethos flourishes in all of internet publishing’s major cities—Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and Washington. The Times thinks of itself as a centrist national newspaper, but it’s more accurate to say its politics are perfectly centered on the slices of America that look and think the most like Manhattan.

 

[rms]

that first paragraph, from the quote, is really flawed reasoning man

 

[Dak]

that first paragraph, from the quote, is really flawed reasoning man

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media...nt-of-reporters-identify-as-republican-188053

It's already well known both journalists and urban populations heavily lean democrat. The topic is the bubble though: "No one I know is voting for Trump" was partially true not because they just ignored the Trump voters around them. There simply aren't many in those areas.

 

[rms]

that's better use of reasoning, but asserting that democratic/repub counties lean entirely one way on journalism is pretty weak