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.
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What's needed is some backbone in college presidents. Problem is they have to deal with faculty who are also pushing for as much as they can with scholarship now a secondary consideration.
It's Oberlin. Hard to be sympathetic to the kinds of people who breed this fascism of sensitivity. Let them realize what's its like for everyone else.
THe link below is maybe relevant to this thread and our ongoing discussion (and gripe-sessions) about SJW's.
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I'm sure for some that's true, for others it probably inspires them to try to outdemand the students.
What was his/her response? These days I would not be surprised if the stage was stormed, the microphone seized (or attempted to be seized with anyone trying to prevent it sent to the dean) and nonnegotiable demands on the president for your immediate expulsing from the university.
Link - ( New Window )
As with many topics, the pendulum for social justice, forced diversity, etc may have swung too far. What was first exposing and properly adjusting institutional deficiencies has no devolved into militarism and trolling for the sake of trolling.
I do wonder what the impact of the changing American demographics mean to the future of these movements and perceived injustice. In twenty years who will be seeking safe spaces?
We had a big debate over whether or not to bring Ann Coulter to campus, who was a celebrity at that time but didn't have anywhere near the level of notoriety she does now. Thankfully we resolved that in the negative, though we did invite Dinesh D'Souza.
UC Irvine President interview about banning the American Flag - ( New Window )
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while they might admire or empathize with the activism, some are undoubtedly terrified (and have said so) that they will somehow run afoul of the activists themselves.
It's Oberlin. Hard to be sympathetic to the kinds of people who breed this fascism of sensitivity. Let them realize what's its like for everyone else.
THe link below is maybe relevant to this thread and our ongoing discussion (and gripe-sessions) about SJW's. Link - ( New Window )
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.
To me, it is an example of how powerfully Marxism has won the cultural war in America, even as it has spectacularly lost the economic "war" in most of the world.
For Marx, rational discourse is unhelpful. Consciousness does not determine men's being; being determines consciousness. That is, it is folly to try to discuss things on the macro level of values. People's way of thinking changes by economic reconditioning.
Most philosophical argument is merely the clash of class values and is of no value. Indeed, it is an impediment to the kind of change that is required by his vision.
In other words, opposition to critical thinking is a feature, not a bug, of the SJW movement.And the fact that it has so deeply pervaded the American educational establishment is remarkable.
I'm in the humanities. I can't speak for the hard sciences, where, I bet, it's not really an issue.
Some of them have to actually go LOOK for professors that won't require them to take written exams. Can you imagine how utterly exhausting that must be? And people say kids aren't resilient these days.
But back then, except perhaps for 1968-1970, THEY were the ones worried about violence. Now they are the ones COMMITTING the violence (and expecting immunity).
The virtue signaling and public shaming that every now and again consumes Twitter and the internet is part and parcel of this. Someone says something, often something quite bad and deserving of disapprobation, and everyone piles on, trying to top each other in denouncing this particular heel. BBI has done it from time to time too.
We recognize it in this context because as non-initiates it all looks ridiculous to us (as my friend is fond of saying, "I reject your premise"), so we are some measure of amused and horrified to see them play 'can you top this' with identity politics and denunciations of speech, but where we don't reject the premise, where we understand and are involved in it, we can participate or at least put up with these sorts of witch hunts.
This strikes me as true. We are "metaphysical animals." I think I just made that up. But by nature we strive for an ultimate good that we think of as grounding morality, and maybe even reality itself.
This is why thinkers like Eric Vogelin spoke of Marx and others as neo-Gnostics. They had the same religious impulse, but directed it toward historical enlightenment (in a horizontal direction through time) and not religious enlightenment (in a vertical escape from time.) But both sets saw themselves as the anointed, and uniquely capable of sorting out the elect from the damned. Lenin did this, of course, with the kinds of brutality that is the final product of such hubris.
I'm not anti-ultimate goal, but human beings are sure confident in themselves when they are posessed of it.
Everybody should read John Locke's discussion of fanaticism in his Essay, the part "On Enthusiasm." Linked below.
Link - ( New Window )
[and for the record, I've been critical here of some of what is going on at campuses. Trigger warnings, the Emory "pain" etc.]
+1.
[and for the record, I've been critical here of some of what is going on at campuses. Trigger warnings, the Emory "pain" etc.]
I thought we were talking about university campuses, not all of society.
[and for the record, I've been critical here of some of what is going on at campuses. Trigger warnings, the Emory "pain" etc.]
The fact that the spoiled, entitled little shits happen to include people who aren't white (appearance or identification) men (biology or identification) doesn't make them something other than spoiled, entitled little shits. Once you buy that they are somehow more noble in their quest to silence or bully others into submission by virtue of a particular ascriptive characteristic or self-identification you're effectively enabling them.
[and for the record, I've been critical here of some of what is going on at campuses. Trigger warnings, the Emory "pain" etc.]
How many anti-LGBT speeches and assemblies are being disrupted? Any? Rather, the it's free speech rights of anyone and any group that does not strictly adhere to the BLM/Occupy orthodoxy that is under attack.
Is your belief in free speech selective?
Figured you meant "economists" by "our!"
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always insisting on where other people go to the bathroom and protecting the religious liberties of corporations over the medical needs of actual people. Oh, wait. Well at least we can comfort ourselves that minorities and LGBT people are making up the repression. It's not like a big swath of the white majority is currently, opening in the "we need to take back our country" camp. Oh, wait.
[and for the record, I've been critical here of some of what is going on at campuses. Trigger warnings, the Emory "pain" etc.]
The fact that the spoiled, entitled little shits happen to include people who aren't white (appearance or identification) men (biology or identification) doesn't make them something other than spoiled, entitled little shits. Once you buy that they are somehow more noble in their quest to silence or bully others into submission by virtue of a particular ascriptive characteristic or self-identification you're effectively enabling them.
I think you paint with too broad a brush. Some of the complaints/positions have a lot of merit. Some dont. Some tactics are just fine, whereas some I think go too far.
"No" means there is no calculable way for you to pass the class, and you should focus your energies elsewhere. I'm considering it.
We hear of grade inflation, but that's pretty common for a variety of reasons.
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always insisting on where other people go to the bathroom and protecting the religious liberties of corporations over the medical needs of actual people. Oh, wait. Well at least we can comfort ourselves that minorities and LGBT people are making up the repression. It's not like a big swath of the white majority is currently, opening in the "we need to take back our country" camp. Oh, wait.
[and for the record, I've been critical here of some of what is going on at campuses. Trigger warnings, the Emory "pain" etc.]
How many anti-LGBT speeches and assemblies are being disrupted? Any? Rather, the it's free speech rights of anyone and any group that does not strictly adhere to the BLM/Occupy orthodoxy that is under attack.
Is your belief in free speech selective?
Oh noes, a speech is disrupted. Will the Republic survive?
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always insisting on where other people go to the bathroom and protecting the religious liberties of corporations over the medical needs of actual people. Oh, wait. Well at least we can comfort ourselves that minorities and LGBT people are making up the repression. It's not like a big swath of the white majority is currently, opening in the "we need to take back our country" camp. Oh, wait.
[and for the record, I've been critical here of some of what is going on at campuses. Trigger warnings, the Emory "pain" etc.]
The fact that the spoiled, entitled little shits happen to include people who aren't white (appearance or identification) men (biology or identification) doesn't make them something other than spoiled, entitled little shits. Once you buy that they are somehow more noble in their quest to silence or bully others into submission by virtue of a particular ascriptive characteristic or self-identification you're effectively enabling them.
These students can be totally insufferable, but to suggest that now free speech tout court is under threat is just as much an exaggeration as the claims of oppression issuing from dining hall food.
And I don't find it surprising that non-violent and political immature protests from enthusiastic but still developing kids is what provokes the moral furor of this board's resident intellectuals.
I'm sure there are protests about worthwhile events and injustices by college students.
I find the idea that opposing voices shouldn't even be heard dangerous. Shutting those events down as a source of pride is perplexing. Just don't go or offer a rebuttal in a separate venue. Or ask to have someone from your group debate the 'opponent'.
Is your belief in free speech selective?
To answer this question for real: I take a narrow view of free speech. I think it is a right vis a vis the government.
If you give a speech and I shout you down, your free speech right hasnt been infringed on, in my opinion. The battle place of ideas is nasty and unregulated. Some speakers shout over others. Some trade primarily/exclusively in lies. It is an unregulated sphere, by necessity. The hope is that the listener can cut through the garbage. E.g. Im more convinced by the person who decimates the original speaker with facts and argument, and less convinced by the one who just shouts louder. I dont condone showing up to events and shouting down speakers; but given the amount of hateful rhetoric coming from speakers/candidates I see on TV, nor do I condemn it.
I've said this before, but one of the most powerful administrators in my university told me plainly that she saw the function of her office as "combating conservative thought." And since I teach logic including fallacies like threat of force, students often complain to me about professors who care more about making students think certain things, then helping them learn to be better thinkers.
And it's not a left/right thing. It just happens to be the case that the left has more power in most US campuses. But it's functionally akin to the way religious authority stifled critical thinking in the past.
Both are enemies to genuine philosophical growth and intellectual autonomy.
It's not just about being uncomfortable with change, it's about parents who fund education and alumni who have their own stake in the matter (the value of their degrees, their own role in funding education) asserting their views as stakeholders. Both have an interest in maintaining and increasing the value of a degree, and the parents who fund their children's education have an interest in seeing their children emerge with marketable job skills.
I keep in mind that at the same time we have more supposedly mature adults who have no sympathy for (or respect and recognition for) the causes these kids celebrate, and are similarly black and white in their thinking.
A ton of pretty shallow thinking, as I see it.
I know that some argue that free speech extends beyond the government/prior restraint angle. That is simply not how I think of it. Yes, you can suppress speech through purely private means. To me that doesnt invoke a free speech problem.
The market place of ideas is a battle ground. Society is not a debating society with fair rules. So you may bemoan Person X shouting over Person Y's lecture as "suppressing speech". Sure, it is. As is the employee who gets fired for publicly criticizing his employer. As is the campaign ad that takes words out of context. Such is the unfairness of it all.
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Is your belief in free speech selective?
To answer this question for real: I take a narrow view of free speech. I think it is a right vis a vis the government.
If you give a speech and I shout you down, your free speech right hasnt been infringed on, in my opinion. The battle place of ideas is nasty and unregulated. Some speakers shout over others. Some trade primarily/exclusively in lies. It is an unregulated sphere, by necessity. The hope is that the listener can cut through the garbage. E.g. Im more convinced by the person who decimates the original speaker with facts and argument, and less convinced by the one who just shouts louder. I dont condone showing up to events and shouting down speakers; but given the amount of hateful rhetoric coming from speakers/candidates I see on TV, nor do I condemn it.
I'll wait for your reaction the first time a LBGT advocate is shouted down on campus. Problem is I'll we waiting for a long, long time. Maybe I better add the first time a supporter of the recent guidelines for sexual assault is shouted down. There may be voices of disagreement with respect to that, but no proponent has been denied the right to speak unharassed.
Why can't a student do both? Do you just work, or are you also a parent, friend, husband and assorted other self-selected roles (e.g., volunteer)?
We had a big debate over whether or not to bring Ann Coulter to campus, who was a celebrity at that time but didn't have anywhere near the level of notoriety she does now. Thankfully we resolved that in the negative, though we did invite Dinesh D'Souza.
Of note is that in my college days the provocateurs were Dinesh D'Souza, Laura Ingraham - I went to Dartmouth with both - etc. who used mostly satire and trolling behavior (but also the occasional dirty tricks) to subvert their perceived adversaries on campus.
I see primarily a class struggle where those who have been 'disadvantaged', traditionally through race, gender, sexual identity etc. but now including an even broader group of 'allies' who have found methods to push back at institutions and cultural norms which they blame for their disadvantages and a general sense of systemic unfairness.
The problem arises when valid claims for change turn into axioms and tactics which create the same sorts of problems against which they struggle so that the injustice is no longer the main target but rather the perceived perpetrators themselves. It's the old story of our hero in his struggle to overcome his tyrannical master, becomes the new master himself. Late the hate flow through you indeed.
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on campuses about the diversification of curricula, the need for more representative faculty hiring, amendment of sexual harassment procedures, the pros and cons of graduate student unionization. None of these things, especially the civil and legal ways many students pursue these changes, is explosive enough to warrant exposure. The most absurd protests are since a) they make for more exciting news; b) are the most readily usable material for those already uncomfortable with change.
It's not just about being uncomfortable with change, it's about parents who fund education and alumni who have their own stake in the matter (the value of their degrees, their own role in funding education) asserting their views as stakeholders. Both have an interest in maintaining and increasing the value of a degree, and the parents who fund their children's education have an interest in seeing their children emerge with marketable job skills.
Then let's dump the idea of a university and a liberal arts education altogether. If the university is valuable only insofar as it produces employable adults, then let's simply build high-end vocational skills and be done with it.
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always insisting on where other people go to the bathroom and protecting the religious liberties of corporations over the medical needs of actual people. Oh, wait. Well at least we can comfort ourselves that minorities and LGBT people are making up the repression. It's not like a big swath of the white majority is currently, opening in the "we need to take back our country" camp. Oh, wait.
[and for the record, I've been critical here of some of what is going on at campuses. Trigger warnings, the Emory "pain" etc.]
I thought we were talking about university campuses, not all of society.
That was my point. The complaining about oversensitive college kids needs to be put in context. College kids demanding that they be taught X, be forwarned about Y in the coursework, and not wanting to live in a residence hall named after some dead racist may be over sensitive, it may not be. But also be sure to put it in the context of a pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions because of their religious liberty. Corporations refusing to buy insurance coverage because of their religious liberty. Or the inarguable we-hate-trannies bathroom segregation laws being promulgated and passed in some states/municipalities (being justified on the most trumped up of grounds).
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In comment 12972254 njm said:
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Is your belief in free speech selective?
To answer this question for real: I take a narrow view of free speech. I think it is a right vis a vis the government.
If you give a speech and I shout you down, your free speech right hasnt been infringed on, in my opinion. The battle place of ideas is nasty and unregulated. Some speakers shout over others. Some trade primarily/exclusively in lies. It is an unregulated sphere, by necessity. The hope is that the listener can cut through the garbage. E.g. Im more convinced by the person who decimates the original speaker with facts and argument, and less convinced by the one who just shouts louder. I dont condone showing up to events and shouting down speakers; but given the amount of hateful rhetoric coming from speakers/candidates I see on TV, nor do I condemn it.
I'll wait for your reaction the first time a LBGT advocate is shouted down on campus. Problem is I'll we waiting for a long, long time. Maybe I better add the first time a supporter of the recent guidelines for sexual assault is shouted down. There may be voices of disagreement with respect to that, but no proponent has been denied the right to speak unharassed.
My pity is for the trans kids being prohibited from going to the bathroom of their sex, rather than adults whose speeches got interrupted. where is the recurring BBI thread on that?
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In comment 12972284 Ash_3 said:
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on campuses about the diversification of curricula, the need for more representative faculty hiring, amendment of sexual harassment procedures, the pros and cons of graduate student unionization. None of these things, especially the civil and legal ways many students pursue these changes, is explosive enough to warrant exposure. The most absurd protests are since a) they make for more exciting news; b) are the most readily usable material for those already uncomfortable with change.
It's not just about being uncomfortable with change, it's about parents who fund education and alumni who have their own stake in the matter (the value of their degrees, their own role in funding education) asserting their views as stakeholders. Both have an interest in maintaining and increasing the value of a degree, and the parents who fund their children's education have an interest in seeing their children emerge with marketable job skills.
Then let's dump the idea of a university and a liberal arts education altogether. If the university is valuable only insofar as it produces employable adults, then let's simply build high-end vocational skills and be done with it.
If what you're saying is that a major part of a university education is learning to think rather than be trained at a skill then I wholeheartedly agree. But it's being trained to think and NOT being indoctrinated.
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.
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In comment 12972283 Deej said:
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In comment 12972254 njm said:
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Is your belief in free speech selective?
To answer this question for real: I take a narrow view of free speech. I think it is a right vis a vis the government.
If you give a speech and I shout you down, your free speech right hasnt been infringed on, in my opinion. The battle place of ideas is nasty and unregulated. Some speakers shout over others. Some trade primarily/exclusively in lies. It is an unregulated sphere, by necessity. The hope is that the listener can cut through the garbage. E.g. Im more convinced by the person who decimates the original speaker with facts and argument, and less convinced by the one who just shouts louder. I dont condone showing up to events and shouting down speakers; but given the amount of hateful rhetoric coming from speakers/candidates I see on TV, nor do I condemn it.
I'll wait for your reaction the first time a LBGT advocate is shouted down on campus. Problem is I'll we waiting for a long, long time. Maybe I better add the first time a supporter of the recent guidelines for sexual assault is shouted down. There may be voices of disagreement with respect to that, but no proponent has been denied the right to speak unharassed.
My pity is for the trans kids being prohibited from going to the bathroom of their sex, rather than adults whose speeches got interrupted. where is the recurring BBI thread on that?
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.
Students learn, and learn quickly, that my syllabus is fixed; alternative assignments are not given and not tolerated. There is latitude in topics for papers that they can write, but they are heavily scrutinized by me before they go even past the category of something more than a dream.
I wasn't around in the early days (I've only been registered 9 or 10 years) and even if I was I never spent time on political threads.
are you saying it's taking a more right wing view?
I still don't spend a lot of times on political threads, but when I do it seems pretty split to me.
Was it at one time more left leaning?
No, they’ll moderate a lot. Just like the hippies did. College is an extreme atmosphere – both good and bad – which engenders a concomitant extreme outlook. Take women: in college there are absurdly attractive, in their prime single women everywhere and getting laid takes little more than saying hi, a few beers, and finding an empty dorm room. As we age, do we encounter and get used to a similar dynamic? Of course not. Our outlook and expectations and so consequently our behavior change with our atmosphere.
Which is not to excuse these little monsters. They’re insufferable, though their ubiquity is overstated. Bloomberg’s recent speech to Wolverines garnered far more cheers than boos (anecdotal, I grant). For every Yale safe-spacer aghast at “offensive” Halloween costumes, there were 10 who merely wanted to dress up, pound some Natty Ice, and if they played their cards right go balls deep at 2am behind a dumpster (it was 1 time!)
But the vast majority will moderate as they age and need to earn a paycheck and pay the rent. Not all will and that’s fine because there is plenty of room for fiery inked up baristas hey hey and ho ho-ing. Now get me my coffee.
Frankly I’m more concerned with the degree to which young people are comfortable with out & out Socialism (as opposed to the tolerable hybrid version which has been at the fore for many decades in America). If the coddling endures, the egomaniacal safe-spacism may not moderate. For that I don’t necessarily find blame with them, but rather with those who have knowingly fostered an exclusionary oligarchy (ahem…) But that’s a different discussion.
I wasn't around in the early days (I've only been registered 9 or 10 years) and even if I was I never spent time on political threads.
are you saying it's taking a more right wing view?
I still don't spend a lot of times on political threads, but when I do it seems pretty split to me.
Was it at one time more left leaning?
pjcas - no worries, it's a good q.
The board has lost many extreme voices both right and left, for the better probably, but the majority of the board also clusters center-right. Those voices you could call center-left or left are not as prominent and a minority.
Moreover, the few de facto political threads that do go up - see the one on political correctness run amok - come from folks who could be called center right.
The NHL/NBA threads are still pretty good, especially the former. The NBA threads are good but miss MoM and Osi.
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.
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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.
There has been no need to ban.
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In comment 12972283 Deej said:
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In comment 12972254 njm said:
Quote:
Is your belief in free speech selective?
To answer this question for real: I take a narrow view of free speech. I think it is a right vis a vis the government.
If you give a speech and I shout you down, your free speech right hasnt been infringed on, in my opinion. The battle place of ideas is nasty and unregulated. Some speakers shout over others. Some trade primarily/exclusively in lies. It is an unregulated sphere, by necessity. The hope is that the listener can cut through the garbage. E.g. Im more convinced by the person who decimates the original speaker with facts and argument, and less convinced by the one who just shouts louder. I dont condone showing up to events and shouting down speakers; but given the amount of hateful rhetoric coming from speakers/candidates I see on TV, nor do I condemn it.
I'll wait for your reaction the first time a LBGT advocate is shouted down on campus. Problem is I'll we waiting for a long, long time. Maybe I better add the first time a supporter of the recent guidelines for sexual assault is shouted down. There may be voices of disagreement with respect to that, but no proponent has been denied the right to speak unharassed.
My pity is for the trans kids being prohibited from going to the bathroom of their sex, rather than adults whose speeches got interrupted. where is the recurring BBI thread on that?
Yale safe-spacer aghast at “offensive” Halloween costumes, there were 10 who merely wanted to dress up, pound some Natty Ice
Natty Ice? Well, it IS Yale.
As far as change after graduation, I didn't/don't see it so much on social issues. I DID/DO see it in economics once they start paying taxes.
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In comment 12972375 Ash_3 said:
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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.
There has been no need to ban.
Agreed, but that brings me back to my lead question. Why?
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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.
i have.
Who? And remember, I'm not talking about trolls of any stripe.
My pity is for the trans kids being prohibited from going to the bathroom of their sex, rather than adults whose speeches got interrupted. where is the recurring BBI thread on that?
Seen threads on both with both sides of the argument stated. Most people can have concerns about more than one thing at a time or have different concerns than yours. I find your kind off thought a subtle way of trying to shut up those you don't agree with (possibly a mini aggression).
You've seen threads on the trans bathroom issue with the frequency of this recurring "look at what is happening on campuses" thread we get every few months. My apologies if I missed them, but I havent seen that.
As for whether Im telling someone else to shut up, I was responding to a snotty post with a snotty post.
And of course hockey threads remain the best.
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i have.
Who? And remember, I'm not talking about trolls of any stripe.
You're welcome.
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My pity is for the trans kids being prohibited from going to the bathroom of their sex, rather than adults whose speeches got interrupted. where is the recurring BBI thread on that?
Seen threads on both with both sides of the argument stated. Most people can have concerns about more than one thing at a time or have different concerns than yours. I find your kind off thought a subtle way of trying to shut up those you don't agree with (possibly a mini aggression).
You've seen threads on the trans bathroom issue with the frequency of this recurring "look at what is happening on campuses" thread we get every few months. My apologies if I missed them, but I havent seen that.
As for whether Im telling someone else to shut up, I was responding to a snotty post with a snotty post.
Anyway, I walked away with my tail between my legs pretty quickly. He knew his stuff, and was like a dog on a bone if you questioned him.
I saw him get frustrated quite a bit. What was the final straw? His Cam Newton thread?
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This is certainly in your area of expertise, not mine, but it certainly seems that man truly is generally hardwired to religious thought. When they reject the concept of deities, they substitute something else - Marxism, Gaia worship-style environmentalism, identity politics, etc. They have their own dogma, their own commandments and sins, their own ethics and morality, all based on their chosen religion. They root our heresy with all the zeal of a 14th century inquisitor.
This strikes me as true. We are "metaphysical animals." I think I just made that up. But by nature we strive for an ultimate good that we think of as grounding morality, and maybe even reality itself.
This is why thinkers like Eric Vogelin spoke of Marx and others as neo-Gnostics. They had the same religious impulse, but directed it toward historical enlightenment (in a horizontal direction through time) and not religious enlightenment (in a vertical escape from time.) But both sets saw themselves as the anointed, and uniquely capable of sorting out the elect from the damned. Lenin did this, of course, with the kinds of brutality that is the final product of such hubris.
I'm not anti-ultimate goal, but human beings are sure confident in themselves when they are posessed of it.
Everybody should read John Locke's discussion of fanaticism in his Essay, the part "On Enthusiasm." Linked below.
Link - ( New Window )
Thanks for the link to the Locke piece -- an excellent, if wordy, response to what the New Yorker portrays as the state of affairs at Oberlin.
Those students, too, strive for what they see as an ultimate good, but each only in his or her own way, within a diminishing clutch of people who see things in that particular way, and unashamed of their show of intolerance toward those who do not. Fortunately, most of them will get over it sooner or later.
Was it this way on campus in the '60s? Actually, it was, even if for somewhat differently articulated reasons. Nothing really new here.
I laughed as soon as I saw the thread posted because I knew what would happen. it was like an avalanche coming down on him. He stood his ground for a while.
I don't take any of this seriously or I try not to but a lot of people do.
I disagreed with him a ton and found him prone to exaggeration, but he was a quality poster.
Far better than pj, at least.
Anyway, I walked away with my tail between my legs pretty quickly. He knew his stuff, and was like a dog on a bone if you questioned him.
I saw him get frustrated quite a bit. What was the final straw? His Cam Newton thread?
Last I've seen of him was protecting the Kevin Love trade and insisting that Wiggins is a well below average NBA player and hasn't shown anything of value. Haven't seen him on threads like these in an even longer time.
I disagreed with him a ton and found him prone to exaggeration, but he was a quality poster.
Far better than pj, at least.
That's a pretty low bar. wait, what?
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.