At Oberlin, it started in December, when the temperatures ran high, although the weeping willows and the yellow poplars that had flared in the fall were bare already. Problems had a tendency to escalate. There was, to name one thing, the food fight: students had noted the inauthenticity of food at the school’s Afrikan Heritage House, and followed up with an on-site protest. (Some international students, meanwhile, complained that cafeteria dishes such as sushi and bánh mì were prepared with the wrong ingredients, making a mockery of cultural cuisine.) There was scrutiny of the curriculum: a student wanted trigger warnings on “Antigone.” ...
Weeks passed. Finals came and went. The media turned its attention to the approaching Iowa caucus, while on campus an unease spread like a cold front coming off the lake. In mid-December, a group of black students wrote a fourteen-page letter to the school’s board and president outlining fifty nonnegotiable demands for changes in Oberlin’s admissions and personnel policies, academic offerings, and the like. “You include Black and other students of color in the institution and mark them with the words ‘equity, inclusion and diversity,’ ” it said, “when in fact this institution functions on the premises of imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, and a cissexist heteropatriarchy.” |
I haven't been off campus for that long, just four years from grad school and thirteen from undergrad, but as an undergrad I at least understood the basic vocabulary, even if I lampooned it. This seems to have reached a level of insularity and esoterica that makes it inscrutable to any but the initiates, and recent initiates at that.
Link - (
New Window )
And, of course, a brave and lonely libertarian championing individual liberty and monarchism. God bless that intrepid young man!
So people leave not because they are being trolled or banned or denied the right to present their viewpoint but because the overall tone changed? I'm trying to understand this.
As for Moondwg's point about teachers, both from the left and right, having trouble under some of these new insurgencies - sure. But I've TA'd for and taught my own courses at a largely liberal university and haven't had issues. I've taught classes with entirely European thinkers, explained my thinking, and gave the class options to write on relevant, non-syllabus thinkers for a final paper too. Some of these students have no idea what they're doing, but I've also found that most juniors and seniors (surprise, surprise) are refreshingly sensible and fair-minded and are more than willing to respect your choices as a professor or instructor if you're willing to respect them as adults.
You teach at an Ivy though, do you not? Wouldn't you accept as a possibility that there might be a significant difference between your typical student, even your typical activist, and the sort of student activist you see at Oberlin, or at Mizzou? Isn't it possible that you're drawing generalizations out of a situation that does not lend itself well to them?
As to your wider point, the alumni and the parents are stakeholders. It does not mean that their views are the only ones that matter or even that their influence should be dispositive. But an institution that needs money to function should - indeed must - at least consider the impact of its decisions on its sources of funding.
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But this stuff is on a different level. It's one thing to protest, it's another thing to aggressively suppress speech.
Identity politics has always contained within it the seeds of this sort of outrage (PCU was about as prescient as Idiocracy). And in some ways it is extremely funny. But in others it is terrifying, because like it or these activists will eventually aspire to leadership roles in party politics, in interest groups and elsewhere. They'll moderate somewhat, but the idea that some of these ideas would really take root elsewhere is frightening.
People seem to be pushing the fringes on the opposite side to the extremes nowadays.
Individual liberty and monarchism?
Whatever was described in the OP doesn't seem like it takes up 100% of your time when you live on a campus. People can multi-task, you know. No matter what capacity you heard of the activities in the OP, you'd say the same exact thing you just mentioned about "school first".
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go to class, take the tests, etc. Activism, or anything else, comes second. Their priorities are backwards. Where are the parents? If this was my kid I would stop paying for this crap.
This is the worst comment in the thread. this is the same as how people were saying "what about the economic issues?" in the Redskins thread.
Whatever was described in the OP doesn't seem like it takes up 100% of your time when you live on a campus. People can multi-task, you know. No matter what capacity you heard of the activities in the OP, you'd say the same exact thing you just mentioned about "school first".
If you read the article, it suggests that some activists cannot.
In addition to Moons point about Marx offering one type of codified way of thinking, an orthodoxy, (in Marxism), to replace another (in Eastern Orthodoxy?? maybe), for his accolytes,
I would add that maybe early attempts to exchange a (perceived anyway) power imbalance with a more broad based open or pluralistic society (maybe an example would be early feminism) sometimes ends up being replaced with a simpler desire, the desire to build a new power imbalance, only now with new a different 'identity group' in the leadership role (late feminism?) due to perceptions of innate character defects of the perceived former leaders (men in that case, but it could be any perceived group) based on said identity concepts that they had formerly claimed that they were trying to escape from.
So, from being a border crosser and explorer on 'the inside' formerly, there, for example is, a hidden, yet deep hatred for: (in one example, against white protestants, you could list almost any 'identity' here as the wheel turns so to speak) that underlies some of this, such that pretend to be calls for plurality but may just be attempts to replace perceived top dogs with new top dogs,
So, that would be in addition to attempts to take advantage of said rhetorical orthodoxy, which I think Moon mentioned, and the opportunities to feed oneself via chatter that those can represent.
A gig, per se, in both cases, or a ticket, for others. As someone mentioned above-
Some would use said rhetoric (either 'side', left/right) to advance ones self, or relations, or, conversely, use people to advance ones 'cause' in ways that may have formerly been seen as outside of civic decency, and that could be on any perceived 'side.'
On some issues undoubtedly, but it is still predominately made up of northeasterners so someone arguing a conservative position on most social issues would be outnumbered very quickly.
"gender is just a construct AND MEN ARE EVIL"
or
"we demand equality and total personal safety ...but just LOOK at those ignorant rednecks, they must be genetically defective, lets fix that, eliminate them! "
How frequently do you see a call for limitations on new posters or waiting periods after registration. Eric rightly rejects these as they would grind new participation down even further. If a new person emerges, they either speak solely about football (which is fine) or have views which fall into the Overton window of BBI - Dissenting voices are usually called trolls or dupes and never seem to last long. This is unfortunate because the lifeblood keeping people here has always been the NFTs, and they've been in steep decline since the hey day.
I know there's a few posters here who think I have a hardon for hating my dad? or something when I get frustrated at their intransigence on many things and attribute it to their age and world view. I think in general people become more conservative and sure of their perspective as they age, naturally, I also think its a human condition to think your generation does things superior to parents and to your children in many ways. These are hardly relevatory or novel conclusions. It does manifest frustratingly in that you can click a thread here and know who's going to say what, and what the general tenor of the thread will be.
Thread about anything military? well to be sure we'll get contributions from BBI's sizeable veterans community, complete with jargon and high-handed 'I was there I know better' opinions dominating the thread. Something related to cops? well here's 10 pages of cop hate/cop defense. Thread about rap? Here's a few hip hop heads and some people that think calling it crap is the height of wit. Ensue slapfight. Thread about fat people? Piling on by most, a few tepid defenses and kicker's doctoral pontification about why fat people seek utility over health. Thread about aliens? dumb randy calling people cunts and so on.
I dunno, maybe I've been here too long - sometimes you can visit the forum and the BBI show will seem like a rerun. The only thing I think that prevents that is new cast members. I wished people would do more to ensure they stay.
It has declined, in part, to lack of action (off season) lower quality of sports related posts, and people finding other shit to do than explain political / social shit to newbs.
Freud was a cunt, but he slipped you up right there.
I think the "other resources" that Nitro pointed to above and how well the team is doing has much more to do with overall site traffic than does quality of football content or posters in general. The latter is more than likely the ever present "pining for the good old days" that we human folk can't seem to stop doing.
As far as the topic at hand, the most worrisome part for me is the impact it has had (directly or indirectly) on male opportunity in education. There are plenty of theories for why since the 90's female graduates have increasingly outnumbered males, but there is no argument that it has happened.
Unfortunately since all males supposedly benefit from being part of the patriarchy (in some minds) and have everything handed to them, it's next to impossible to do anything to address the issue. Arguing for boys or men's rights generally gets you at the least laughed out of the room and at worst accused of desperately trying to keep the patriarchy intact or just plain shot down because white males don't have the right to complain about anything.
It will be interesting to see how this impacts the culture moving forward.
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go to class, take the tests, etc. Activism, or anything else, comes second. Their priorities are backwards. Where are the parents? If this was my kid I would stop paying for this crap.
This is the worst comment in the thread. this is the same as how people were saying "what about the economic issues?" in the Redskins thread.
Whatever was described in the OP doesn't seem like it takes up 100% of your time when you live on a campus. People can multi-task, you know. No matter what capacity you heard of the activities in the OP, you'd say the same exact thing you just mentioned about "school first".
Why be so harsh about his point? It's reasonable to think that you go to college to learn, and extra curricular things come second. Is that so shocking? You read the original article, right, where they say the demands of the academic part of school is too much in relation to their wide-range of activities in support of their activism?
How frequently do you see a call for limitations on new posters or waiting periods after registration. Eric rightly rejects these as they would grind new participation down even further. If a new person emerges, they either speak solely about football (which is fine) or have views which fall into the Overton window of BBI - Dissenting voices are usually called trolls or dupes and never seem to last long. This is unfortunate because the lifeblood keeping people here has always been the NFTs, and they've been in steep decline since the hey day.
I know there's a few posters here who think I have a hardon for hating my dad? or something when I get frustrated at their intransigence on many things and attribute it to their age and world view. I think in general people become more conservative and sure of their perspective as they age, naturally, I also think its a human condition to think your generation does things superior to parents and to your children in many ways. These are hardly relevatory or novel conclusions. It does manifest frustratingly in that you can click a thread here and know who's going to say what, and what the general tenor of the thread will be.
Thread about anything military? well to be sure we'll get contributions from BBI's sizeable veterans community, complete with jargon and high-handed 'I was there I know better' opinions dominating the thread. Something related to cops? well here's 10 pages of cop hate/cop defense. Thread about rap? Here's a few hip hop heads and some people that think calling it crap is the height of wit. Ensue slapfight. Thread about fat people? Piling on by most, a few tepid defenses and kicker's doctoral pontification about why fat people seek utility over health. Thread about aliens? dumb randy calling people cunts and so on.
I dunno, maybe I've been here too long - sometimes you can visit the forum and the BBI show will seem like a rerun. The only thing I think that prevents that is new cast members. I wished people would do more to ensure they stay.
I actually agree with most of this, but what is your point? You said yourself the medium of the individual message board itself is fading. You said yourself the suggestions of posting limits would only hurt the site more. Are you offering a solution, or did you just want to vent because you decided whatever opinion you had on the OP wouldn't be received well?
And, of course, a brave and lonely libertarian championing individual liberty and monarchism. God bless that intrepid young man!
make that 2
They should have challenged him to a debate, that speaker has too much of an ego not to try and take them on. Make some valid points and maybe you sway some people or gain some sympathy to your side.
I don't know if students go on facebook to research their college choices, but I bet some do and they got hammered in that regards and rightly so. If the school allows a speaker, let them speak or don't have them there at all. The police and security were told not to do their jobs by campus officials.
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region in which the team is based. The majority has for the most part been moderate center-left Democrats, with a fair-sized minority reasonably called center-right Republicans, and a sprinkling of screaming lunatics on both the far left and far right fringes.
And, of course, a brave and lonely libertarian championing individual liberty and monarchism. God bless that intrepid young man!
make that 2
3.
And, of course, a brave and lonely libertarian championing individual liberty and monarchism. God bless that intrepid young man!
You've earned it, Greg!
I've questioned it's utility in that regard since the Boston Marathon Bombings.
How frequently do you see a call for limitations on new posters or waiting periods after registration. Eric rightly rejects these as they would grind new participation down even further. If a new person emerges, they either speak solely about football (which is fine) or have views which fall into the Overton window of BBI - Dissenting voices are usually called trolls or dupes and never seem to last long. This is unfortunate because the lifeblood keeping people here has always been the NFTs, and they've been in steep decline since the hey day.
I know there's a few posters here who think I have a hardon for hating my dad? or something when I get frustrated at their intransigence on many things and attribute it to their age and world view. I think in general people become more conservative and sure of their perspective as they age, naturally, I also think its a human condition to think your generation does things superior to parents and to your children in many ways. These are hardly relevatory or novel conclusions. It does manifest frustratingly in that you can click a thread here and know who's going to say what, and what the general tenor of the thread will be.
Thread about anything military? well to be sure we'll get contributions from BBI's sizeable veterans community, complete with jargon and high-handed 'I was there I know better' opinions dominating the thread. Something related to cops? well here's 10 pages of cop hate/cop defense. Thread about rap? Here's a few hip hop heads and some people that think calling it crap is the height of wit. Ensue slapfight. Thread about fat people? Piling on by most, a few tepid defenses and kicker's doctoral pontification about why fat people seek utility over health. Thread about aliens? dumb randy calling people cunts and so on.
I dunno, maybe I've been here too long - sometimes you can visit the forum and the BBI show will seem like a rerun. The only thing I think that prevents that is new cast members. I wished people would do more to ensure they stay.
Was this post written in Germany?!?!?!
I think Twitter's great if you're following the right people.
The very definition of irony.
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Reading bathroom stall graffiti is more enlightening than twitter, and, in any case, Twitter usage has been declining for a few years now. It's useful for breaking news, and nothing else.
I think Twitter's great if you're following the right people.
Exactly. Anyone who says Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or any other social network is crap just doesn't understand social media. The whole point is you follow who you want to. So yeah, if you follow the Kardashians then it's shit, which would explain Greg's disapproval.
I use Twitter largely for minor league baseball/prospect coverage, and it's very useful for that. It is a great way to aggregate data. But if you clog your feed with narcissists and jackasses it is of limited utility.
twitter is headline reading. It's when we're eating dinner and my wife will say did you hear about "X" and I say yes, then she discusses details and I say "oh, I didn't read past the headline".
though twitter is allegedly expanding the tweet size to 10,000 characters this year. It's a good medium the only problem for me is the redundancy of people I follow. I follow all the Giants beat writers, many NFL talking heads, and the same thing for all my sports teams.
I get every single thing that happens tweeted about 10 times. None of them are the total source for everything, but every now and then they each come out with something unique which makes them all worth following.
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As I mentioned earlier on this thread, the board's general political alignments correspond to the sorts of outrage expressed here. The political spectrum on the board has also narrowed significantly, as younger, previously more involved posters have left en masse or restricted most of their activity to sports or tv threads.
Why? There's a lot of back and forth, but outside of trolls like dust bin and his conservative equivalents I've never seen shouts for someone to be banned because of their beliefs or the positions they take.
Why would any reasonable person do so?
"gender is just a construct AND MEN ARE EVIL"
or
"we demand equality and total personal safety ...but just LOOK at those ignorant rednecks, they must be genetically defective, lets fix that, eliminate them! "
Lunacy of the first order. Eugenics; really?
I’m not sure that numbers wise one persuasion outweighs the other, it’s just that many of the cited center right voices have, for whatever reason, a sensational amount of time to spend on this website (although, to be fair, it’s mostly Greg skyrocketing that average). Hence they more often than not seem to dominate the back & forth.
Perhaps soon a lefty will retire or attain a sinecure in order to balance out the points of view.
RE: so, to translate my rant
BMac : 5:04 pm : link : reply
In comment 12972641 idiotsavant said:
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some shout:
"gender is just a construct AND MEN ARE EVIL"
(that's like saying 'I don't believe in dessert, pass the PIE mother fucker'..............
but its seems like millions live within these counter logical notions, to say gender is a social construct one moment then use -gender-. in. the. next. breath. to negate half of humanity, i.e. men)
or
"we demand equality and -total personal safety from words and deeds " - ...'but just LOOK at those ignorant rednecks, they must be genetically defective, lets fix that, eliminate them! "
(same here, ironic juxtaposition - I have old friends, many of them, who live in the 'get out of my way, don't touch me or you have violated my rights and I will sue the fuck out of you' space, (and as above, now it includes that spoken words are aggressions) who, in private (and some of them were doing this online in another venue just when this thread started) talk about 'how dumb everyone is who does not agree with them', how there must be some scientific basis or genetic basis, as if they could just get to their socialist utopia if we 'irregulars' were eliminated. Trust me, I have know these guys all my life )
As you say, lunacy, but, in my experience, its the same gang as the PC police, only in private or on different subjects.
''Lunacy of the first order. Eugenics; really?''
Lunacy is co-wrecked
I can understand first and second-wave feminism. I can of course understand civil rights, and gay rights (distinct from the cornucopia of gender identity issues). What I cannot understand is how the vast majority of these arcane squabbles translate into much of any tangible benefit for society. Even if you think BLM is onto something, is a kid as animated about the composition of his Banh Mi as he is about a police shooting really driving that train?
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an unabashed eugenicist, who directly stated her intention to lower the portion of society of 'negros.'
Early environmentalists and influential persons such as Charles Davenport (funder of the Eugenics Records Office) , E.H. Harriman (railroads), Alexander Graham Bell (telephone), Henry Osborn (President of Museum of Natural History here in NYC), Madison Grant (founder of the Bronx Zoo) were all eugenecists.
Progressivism was seen as a way of 'progressing society' via false ideas about 'science'.
Charles Darwins son (or grandson) Leonard, made the disastrous mistake of taking a complex study of nature (evolution) and suggesting that it be made into a tool to manage people and human society; one of the most evil concepts ever (eugenics).
Adolf Hitler called Madison Grants book his 'bible.'
Think about THAT the next time you visit the Bronx Zoo!
Even today, New York still HAS a "Department of Mental Hygene", which has a very eugenicist sound to it. Go figure, Progressivism gave rise to Nazi Fascism?
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was an unabashed eugenicist, who directly stated her intention to lower the portion of society of 'negros.'
Early environmentalists and influential persons such as Charles Davenport (funder of the Eugenics Records Office) , E.H. Harriman (railroads), Alexander Graham Bell (telephone), Henry Osborn (President of Museum of Natural History here in NYC), Madison Grant (founder of the Bronx Zoo) were all eugenecists.
Progressivism was seen as a way of 'progressing society' via false ideas about 'science'.
Charles Darwins son (or grandson) Leonard, made the disastrous mistake of taking a complex study of nature (evolution) and suggesting that it be made into a tool to manage people and human society; one of the most evil concepts ever (eugenics).
Adolf Hitler called Madison Grants book his 'bible.'
Think about THAT the next time you visit the Bronx Zoo!
Even today, New York still HAS a "Department of Mental Hygene", which has a very eugenicist sound to it. Go figure, Progressivism gave rise to Nazi Fascism?
As I've said in the past, you can write more and say less than any other 12 people on here. Your syntax sucks, and your logic is even worse. Most of what you put down appears to be stream of consciousness.
Don't bother responding, because I seldom read anything you contribute and, when I do, always regret wasting the time.
Go do some more Wiki copying and pasting.
untangling the past helps us understand aspects of what happens now.
feel free to debate the issue on its merits.
Nope. Spell check says it's not a word. Does such verbal creativity really need a safe space? Or is this a microaggression against Webster's? Oops. Microaggression fails as well.
I have to admit, just saying it gives me the Cams.