The News Thread

[Dak]

It's a pretty radical position to say there's no ivory tower.

 

[Einherjar86]

I'm not saying there's no ivory tower; but the ivory tower is part of the real world, just like Wall Street is part of the real world, just like Silicon Valley is part of the real world.

It's fallacious to suggest that all of these sectors/demographics are just elitist enclaves sealed off from some "real-world" baseline of miners, construction workers, and truck drivers.

The ivory tower, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, etc. exist in feedback loops with other sectors of society. It's absurd to cordon them off from each other.

 

[Dak]

You're conflating all academia. STEM academics are intertwined with Silicon Valley, etc. It's the humanities professors or graduates in think tanks etc that tend to get the "ivory tower" label, and tend to be what people think of when they think "elitist intellectuals". Excluding psychology because of it's health profession status, the only contribution of note to broad society in recent times from the humanities has been social cancer in the form of manufactured outrage a variety of targets.

 

[Einherjar86]

You're obscuring the connections within academia.

Humanities and STEM do communicate with each other, and there's a recent initiative called STEAM that facilitates these interactions. Many schools offer interdisciplinary courses where faculty from the humanities and sciences team teach (I'm TA-ing one right now). You seem to have little to no knowledge of the extent of communication that takes place, probably because you've convinced yourself it's all bullshit and therefore seclude yourself from the environment without a second thought. You're so blinded by your distrust of political views that you can't see everything else that's going on around you.

The humanities have cultivated entire traditions of aesthetic curation and criticism, institutionalization, public policy and public works. People from the humanities serve on various boards and committees beyond their discipline because they care about interdisciplinary, collective discourse that filters throughout all social organization. It speaks to your narrow-mindedness that that doesn't mean anything to you.

 

[Dak]

https://theconversation.com/steam-not-stem-why-scientists-need-arts-training-89788

The professor advocating for STEAM thinks the divide is greater than ever as of January of this year, contra claims about extensive interdisciplinary integration. Of course, here and elsewhere the claim is that the Humanities need to be the moral steering for technological development. Such unearned moral arrogance. So yes, this is precisely a place where the politics matters.

Moving onto the more practical issues:

"Communication" doesn't mean a problem is solved, or that all voices contribute merely through existence (TAing is fine, but what are you solving? Statistics shown by Caplan suggests undergrads have poor retention). I'm a major proponent of interdisciplinary training, and the future of medicine further integration between traditional medicine, behavioral health, and technology. But not with English professors.

Taleb's main source of derision for "intellectuals" is the lack of "skin in the game". The contributions by the humanities for some time now have been a net negative, because intellectuals have no skin in the game, if not outright perverse incentives. If humanities professors want a proverbial seat at the table outside of their area of expertise, they need to be exposed to risk for when their inputs are shit.

https://www.nature.com/articles/palcomms201636

As per this article, one problem is that the languages, methodologies, and perspectives across disciplines are often near-unintelligible outside of each discipline. Communication requires understanding. Health psychology deals with this within the medical field, and that's where there's a clear shared interest (patient health) and compatible understanding of mechanisms (altering patient behaviors). Statistics have this divide internally, as statistics for, for example, business versus social sciences are very different.

 

[Einherjar86]

It's worthless arguing with someone who's already so deeply invested in the worthlessness of the humanities. Talk about unearned arrogance.

 

[CiG]

 

[The Ozzman]

Tower of Babel?

 

[Dak]

It's worthless arguing with someone who's already so deeply invested in the worthlessness of the humanities. Talk about unearned arrogance.

Maybe you shouldn't be so blindly tribal. I provided both research and the words of the STEAM proponent. I understand it's your livelihood at stake but you're acting like a Tumblrite right now. Grow up. The humanities aren't inherently worthless, but poor stewardship has rendered them less than effective.

 

[Matt]

Another accusation against Kavanaugh. He could probably rape somebody live on Fox and it still woudn't matter.

 

[Dak]

Another accusation against Kavanaugh. He could probably rape somebody live on Fox and it still woudn't matter.

I'm not really a fan of Kavanaugh but this guilty until proven innocent shit is the destruction of the rule of law we keep hearing Trump is responsible for. Kavanaugh was already a US Federal Judge and no one cared. Suddenly a SCOTUS appointment is pulling the supposed aggrieved out of the woodwork. All of this shit is far past the statute of limitations and the ability to effectively investigate. Even if Kavanaugh is 100% guilty A. It's not provable and B. It's past the expiration date.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

This is all part of "discourse"! It's a complex of moving parts that all impact one another. It doesn't reduce to the spoken, physical conversation between an engineer and surveyor, or some such. It also involves the written, discursive conversation that transcends bodies and speech. A professor might publish something in a journal that's read by a public policy professional or private expert for an independent contractor, and that information gets absorbed into the conversations happening physically on the ground level.

I'm tired of this hierarchy of "real world" problems over academic, "not-real-world" problems. They all speak to the same social world and they all intersect as part of a highly complex social discourse. Urban planners may be publishing articles in academic journals, but those ideas aren't hermetically sealed-off from the engineers on the ground floor. They make their way into the social atmosphere--same with academic publishing in political science, health, medicine, etc.

OK but by this logic academia has been involved of all facets of life since the existence of the first academician in history. Meaningless.

Another accusation against Kavanaugh. He could probably rape somebody live on Fox and it still woudn't matter.

The reality is that men that seek power are going to be disproportionately overrepresented in sexual crimes, which often have a power dynamic themselves. I didn't see many lefties disavowing Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, etc and all of their rapey behavior. Republicans already know that Trump is a rapist as well. Who gives a fuck? Wake me when politicians, particularly those on the left that often oppose such efforts, start supporting broad sousveillance laws and self-defense laws so that people can actually fight back against their rapists.

 

[King Richard]

Going back a couple pages: I thought hick and redneck were synonymous?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Without remembering/caring about the particular definition argument on previous pages, my personal definitions would be something like

hick: poor rural white male with minimal education, passive identity, just the way they are
redneck: rural-loving white male with less focus on education, active identity which usually overlaps with conservative and/or racist ideologies in addition to hobbies like guns, big trucks, etc

A wealthy city-born person could choose to live a redneck life if they wanted, but unless they're kicked out of accepted society, they're not hicks. Hicks certainly can be rednecks as well, though. But just my intuitive concept of the difference.

 

[King Richard]

Yeah, I don't think that's right. I'm pretty sure hicks and rednecks are simply rural loving folk. The lack of "higher education" is probably common but I don't think that matters much.

I think the gun loving, truck driving people is simply a huge portion of the American population and doesn't really have much to do with rural/suburban/urban living.

Now those nasty, sister fuckin Hillbillies are a different story.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

Kavanaugh was already a US Federal Judge and no one cared. Suddenly a SCOTUS appointment is pulling the supposed aggrieved out of the woodwork.

Not true. There was quite a bit of drama surrounding his appointment to the DC circuit because of his unusually partisan career path and potential involvement in Bush White House torture orders. The accusations are coming out now because the stakes are higher and people will listen when an accusation is brought up. You are also probably aware that it's not unusual for somebody to survive a sexual assault and go decades without informing anyone.

 

[Draehl]

Without remembering/caring about the particular definition argument on previous pages, my personal definitions would be something like

hick: poor rural white male with minimal education, passive identity, just the way they are
redneck: rural-loving white male with less focus on education, active identity which usually overlaps with conservative and/or racist ideologies in addition to hobbies like guns, big trucks, etc

A wealthy city-born person could choose to live a redneck life if they wanted, but unless they're kicked out of accepted society, they're not hicks. Hicks certainly can be rednecks as well, though. But just my intuitive concept of the difference.

I always saw redneck as a something of a southern cultural badge of honor while hick was actually derogatory. And then you've got hillbilly, but that's more geographical.

 

[CiG]

Where does race come in? I know a few black Americans who sometimes refer to themselves as hicks but is there such a thing as a black redneck?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I think of redneck as generally white, but in theory I could imagine a non-white person identifying as a redneck and adopting redneck culture. Like, I know if you google you can find the occasional black dude flying a Dixie flag while carrying a rifle or something. Or that Asian MAGA redneck that went full 14/88 on YouTube and eventually got arrested for making death threats or something.

I've just never heard of people self-identifying as hicks on any broad scale. Like I'm sure the occasional rural guy will self-deprecatingly call himself a hick, but I don't see "HICK PRIDE" bumper stickers or gymbro metal bands writing songs titled Hick.

EDIT: Arrested for gun charges apparently

During the hour-long interview, Yoo sounds regurgitates talking points for the racist alt-right, championing white supremacy, denigrating Black Lives Matter and Jewish people, pushing the superiority of the United States, eugenics and genetics.

“I personally don’t think we should be mixing with any people of color,” Yoo said. “I don’t consider myself a caucasoid, but I do consider myself white.”

“This is damned serious. I’m an American. I was raised in America,” Yoo said in the PillEater interview. “I called my own fucking parents gooks and told them to get the fuck out of my country.”

If a white-supremacist Korean identifies as white, who are we to deny his ethnic identity?

 

[Einherjar86]

OK but by this logic academia has been involved of all facets of life since the existence of the first academician in history. Meaningless.

I never argued or implied that academics have been involved in all facets of life since the first academician. What I'm saying is that in today's society--namely since the twentieth century--academia is a measurable part of the "real world" and has "real-world" consequences.

I never specified this because you actually specified it in one of your posts, so I simply thought this is what we were discussing.

I provided both research and the words of the STEAM proponent. I understand it's your livelihood at stake but you're acting like a Tumblrite right now. Grow up. The humanities aren't inherently worthless, but poor stewardship has rendered them less than effective.

I now see why you posted the STEAM link. I think that's a hyperholic claim. STEM and the humanities are far more in dialogue today than they were fifty years ago, when C.P. Snow's theory of the "two cultures" reigned supreme. At that point in time, the humanities had no need to be interdisciplinary. As they realized that necessity over time, they actually became more interdisciplinary. I'm not sure why that professor thinks they're more divided than ever before, when it's true that initiatives like STEAM and other efforts are seeing increased communication between fields.

Yes, communication doesn't always mean something is fixed. But the point of dialogue isn't necessarily to produce a single solution to a problem; it's to articulate a field in which problems may be solved. You say that humanities academics have no skin in the game, which isn't true at all. They have educational skin in the game, and in many ways their positions are more precarious than those in STEM (especially now that tenure is being awarded less and less frequently). Part of forming discourse is teaching students the language, arguments, and stakes of particular disciplines.

When humanities academics interact with city planners, there may not be consequences whose blame reaches directly back to the particular academics on particular boards. But over time, effects do have consequences. Your definition of "skin in the game" means some kind of direct, immediate consequence. But like teaching assessment, you can't do it in the span of a single year. It can only develop over time. The same is often true of complex issues being discussed in the abstract, whose effect filter through to others.

You play the rhetoric of the patronizing adult well. That language suggests that there's some kind of basic logic to your argument that I simply refuse to see. But your argument has no basic logic; it reflects your personal biases, which reflect a basic logic back to themselves. It makes perfect sense to you, and therefore should make perfect sense to everyone else. Instead of asking me to grow up, I think you should consider the assumptions built into your criticisms.

I'm not really a fan of Kavanaugh but this guilty until proven innocent shit is the destruction of the rule of law we keep hearing Trump is responsible for. Kavanaugh was already a US Federal Judge and no one cared. Suddenly a SCOTUS appointment is pulling the supposed aggrieved out of the woodwork. All of this shit is far past the statute of limitations and the ability to effectively investigate. Even if Kavanaugh is 100% guilty A. It's not provable and B. It's past the expiration date.

Innocent until proven guilty matters when someone is on trial for criminal acts. Kavanaugh isn't on trial in a criminal court; he's being considered for the supreme court. As long as accusations keep flying, it's a serious blow to his credibility as a judge. It's another thing entirely to say he deserves to be in jail.

If only we could keep track of all the possible harassers throughout the legal system. The supreme court is a narrow and very visible area. Furthermore, a supreme court judge wields significantly more power than a regular judge; and if we're going to assess who deserves more scrutiny, a supreme court judge makes sense.