Unimpressive; the worst he has is that someone made a groundless complaint that was handled perfectly well in 2009, and he worries that someone will make another one one day (though it seems kind of telling that they haven't..?) and it will go differently.
Why not get someone who's actually been harmed by this change in culture to write about that?
> Unimpressive; the worst he has is that someone made a groundless complaint that was handled perfectly well in 2009
> the worst he has is that someone made a groundless complaint that was handled perfectly well in 2009, and he worries that someone will make another one one day
On top of that, also, the groundless complaint that went nowhere in 2009 was from a student accusing the professor of "communistical sympathies" for not validating right-wing talking points on the housing crisis, and the result is that the professor is especially scared of his liberal students.
The important point here is that he's changing his curriculum to avoid provocative works, so he doesn't get in trouble. If that becomes a widespread practice, we'll have a serious problem in higher education.
> The important point here is that he's changing his curriculum to avoid provocative works, so he doesn't get in trouble.
I think that the rather spurious grounds that he identifies for the fear motivating those changes is also important, particularly, it is important in identifying the source of the problem -- which is not, contrary to the headline, his liberal students, or even his students more generally.
No they are the other liberal students that got his colleagues in trouble. He's trying to avoid that so he can continue his career. But unfortunately he's stifled by a bunch of cry baby children who wish to take things away from everyone because feelingz.
I think the deeper point isn't just that it will go differently now, but that he has had to adjust his material and teaching style in fear of that bad reaction ruining his career. He points to a few examples of professors who were fired because of a single student's complaint and where universities have removed activities in deference to this outspoken social justice. The shame is that the discussions which should challenge and enrich a student's mind are now being silenced and therein lies to the harm.
So the university being paranoid about being sued is the students' fault?
> being silenced
Nobody is being silenced by the students. What the students want is for professors to stop being assholes towards anyone that's not just like them, and are (correctly) pointing out various kinds of systemic bias, subjective opinions masquerading as objectivity, and instances where you have material that is disturbing or emotionally difficult for absolutely no good reason other than "it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you either".
When confronted with that, this professor's response is basically denial, writing off these complaints as irrelevant, trivial, or "pandering" (ignorant of how much society in general panders to his own perspective).
So, given that bringing this up directly will result in either being ignored, or being belittled or insulted, and the conversation shut down immediately... students don't actually have any choice but to complain.
At that point, the university overreacts because they're paranoid about being sued. Which is part of a larger cultural issue that has nothing at all to do with the students.
Funny that student activism that happened decades ago is considered a good thing (now), but activism by today's students is considered to be some kind of scary monster that threatens the whole of society...
If anyone wants to get inside a liberal's mind, you got one right here, BlackAura I'd bet money you are. Weasel words are present and everything.
The young liberal-speak of concepts of 'systemic bias' and 'societal pandering' and of course the students as victims who 'have no choice' but to complain
Everyone is going to have an example of some bad professor. But if you're in college seeing a systemic bias, you've gone into it thinking that ahead of time, or somebody planted the idea and no surprise young students are impressionable as all get-out.
You'll find a good deal of variation among educators. The only systemic bias you'll find across a whole campus (or more with the administration) is an almost shocking and unrealistic unnecessary drive towards what might be called 'diversity' but really isn't. But if these SJWs / Liberals / feminists go in expecting some sort of bias, they are definitely going to find it. Just like once you buy a car, you see it everywhere on the road.
> "ignored, belittled, insulted" More weasel words. Nothing that can be checked up on specifically, no particular victim or perpetrator. Just a thing that we're supposed to believe is ever present, rampant etc.
>material that is disturbing or emotionally difficult for absolutely no good reason other than "it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you either"
You've got the SJW bug for sure. You need a dose of realism. The obvious symptom is making wild assumptions about somebody else's frame of mind or purposely narrowing their intent and stating it on their behalf in order to justify any and all reaction over them. Add on to that getting mad that others aren't on your side.
The reason society might be considering a lot of SJWs as scary is that they are young impressionable and have a lot of ignorant followers on twitter and will do anything and everything to weasel through a situation because their form of social justice must prevail. that includes, as we've seen in St. Louis and Baltimore, justifying illegal behavior for so-called systemic racism.
the other scary thing about SJWs is they attack in many ways our most important right, freedom of speech. Like here you insist it's not being attacked but it is. It's playing the victim card and projecting somebody's intent knowing full well that your feelings hurt don't justify somebody getting a write up or being forced out of a position because of the way you claim to have suffered.
The sad thing about all of it is it really doesn't get anyone anywhere. SJWs might get a statue taken down or a tradition removed, a speech cancelled, but they never really fix anything they just destroy things because they don't like them, so nobody else should either.
I'm not blinded by my own perspective. I actually happen to listen to people, hear their opinions, and want to try to understand them. I don't tell people that their opinions or point of view are wrong, and shouldn't be listened to, just because they disagree with my own.
> inside a liberal's mind
Use of "liberal" as a snarl word. Awesome way to start a conversation - just go straight for a veiled insult. Nice.
> Weasel words are present and everything.
You're being condescending. This is literally the first thing you've said that could be said to be an argument, rather than an insult, and you've already resorted to trying to trivialize and ignore what I've said, rather than attempting to engage in it.
Rather than claiming that I'm using "weasel words", how about actually engaging in discussion, rather than just dismissing things that you don't agree with?
> The young liberal-speak of concepts of 'systemic bias' and 'societal pandering' and of course the students as victims who 'have no choice' but to complain
I'm probably a lot older than you would assume, and seriously, "liberal" is not an insult, even though you keep trying to use it as one. And how would that invalidate anything?
Frankly, you're being hopelessly naive if you don't think those things exist. Systemic bias is a thing. It also happens to be a thing that's incredibly difficult for straight white men to actually see, because it (mostly) only benefits them. They certainly can't see all the ways it disadvantages others, and are very often unsympathetic. Unless, of course, they actually take the time to listen to others, and attempt to understand their point of view.
So, what do you expect students to do if their professor just ignores all their concerns, and acts like their opinions are worthless just because he disagrees with them? That attitude is obvious in the article. How else do you expect them to actually be heard?
> The only systemic bias you'll find across a whole campus
Is a reflection of wider culture. Which is wildly discriminatory in many different ways, including race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, country of origin, political or social status, class (even if that's invisible), religion, and a whole load more.
> Nothing that can be checked up on specifically, no particular victim or perpetrator. Just a thing that we're supposed to believe is ever present, rampant etc.
Did you read the same article as I did? This professor had nothing that can be checked up on, no victim, no perpetrator, no specific events... Just a thing that we're supposed to believe is ever present, rampant etc.
Do you seriously expect me to come up with more specific detail about something that happened to someone else, on the other side of the planet? Or even to put that much effort into an comment on some random website? The author of this article didn't. You sure didn't. Why should you be holding me to a more strict standard, unless it's just because you happen to disagree with me.
I will concede - I have not given specific cases. Fine. Neither have you, and you make a lot more allegations than I did.
> You've got the SJW bug for sure. You need a dose of realism.
Labeling someone is not an argument. Insulting someone is not an argument. Being dismissive is not an argument.
> making wild assumptions about somebody else's frame of mind
Implied in the original article. OK, I might have been reaching.
I've seen versions of this article from various college professors recently. They're all pretty much the same, and some of those were a lot more specific.
I can come up with a more specific example - a professor complaining that students wanted to be warned that a piece of literature contained a rape scene. Said professor's excuse was "it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you".
This professor had nothing that can be checked up on, no victim, no perpetrator, no specific events... Just a thing that we're supposed to believe is ever present, rampant etc.
Nope, try again.
As Judith Shulevitz wrote in the New York Times, these refusals can shut down discussion in genuinely contentious areas, such as when Oxford canceled an abortion debate.
More often, they affect surprisingly minor matters, as when Hamsphire College disinvited an Afrobeat band because their lineup had too many white people in it.
Consider that tweet I linked to earlier, from critic and artist Zahira Kelly, in which she implies that the whole of scientific inquiry is somehow invalid because it has been conducted mostly by white males.
In another instance, two female professors of library science publically outed and shamed a male colleague they accused of being creepy at conferences, going so far as to openly celebrate the prospect of ruining his career.
words like "systemic bias" are the epitome of weaselness. They sound authoritative and final. But they don't mean anything yet are easily thrown in, believed and then connected with victimhood and an impossible villain.
Huh? He gives at least one example as to why he is concerned:
> I once saw an adjunct not get his contract renewed after students complained that he exposed them to "offensive" texts written by Edward Said and Mark Twain. His response, that the texts were meant to be a little upsetting, only fueled the students' ire and sealed his fate.
Are we reading the same article? It isn't about him. He's complaining about general trends and he has several specific examples.
As Judith Shulevitz wrote in the New York Times, these refusals can shut down discussion in genuinely contentious areas, such as when Oxford canceled an abortion debate.
More often, they affect surprisingly minor matters, as when Hamsphire College disinvited an Afrobeat band because their lineup had too many white people in it.
He [Chait] cites an anonymous professor who says that "she and her fellow faculty members are terrified of facing accusations of triggering trauma."
Consider that tweet I linked to earlier, from critic and artist Zahira Kelly, in which she implies that the whole of scientific inquiry is somehow invalid because it has been conducted mostly by white males.
In another instance, two female professors of library science publically outed and shamed a male colleague they accused of being creepy at conferences, going so far as to openly celebrate the prospect of ruining his career.
By the way, you seem to be the sort of person that scares him.
Rebecca Reilly Cooper, a political philosopher at the University of Warwick, worries about the effectiveness of a politics in which "particular experiences can never legitimately speak for any one other than ourselves, and personal narrative and testimony are elevated to such a degree that there can be no objective standpoint from which to examine their veracity."
Why not get someone who's actually been harmed by this change in culture to write about that? -You
> Rebecca Reilly Cooper, a political philosopher at the University of Warwick, worries about the effectiveness of a politics in which "particular experiences can never legitimately speak for any one other than ourselves, and personal narrative and testimony are elevated to such a degree that there can be no objective standpoint from which to examine their veracity."
I see why you think I would do that, but when I say that I don't think his fears are justified by the evidence presented and we should seek better evidence of a problem (presumably from someone else), I'm doing the opposite of "elevating personal narrative and testimony".
But that's not what you said. You said someone "who's actually been harmed" should write about it. That would be elevating personal narrative and testimony.
As a self-proclaimed renegade, disruptive thinker, and stubbornly practiced argumentative individual with an English Literature degree, I think this write-up hits on several valid points. The framing of discourse is important, and actually quite relevant to notions of technological / software innovation as well. Placating feelings is akin to me like being a drug dealer. Pandering for profit is a real, viable business model.
Freemium gaming is one element. Aggregating and slanting news for a specific demographic is another. Giving a voice to ignorance in the case of vaccination discussion is yet another. I could go on and on, because these things are real, visible, and frankly horrible deviations from intellectual and societal progress.
This is why trolling has become such a bloodsport and, quite frankly, one of the counter-balances to the trend. In a primal sense, trolling online is akin to purposefully challenging a person's worldview through their feelings, using drastic / hyperbolic / inflammatory rhetoric. People like Mark Twain and Hunter S. Thompson were masters, and I've studied them extensively.
For those who think this article might be a non-starter, fine, go bury your head in the sand a little deeper. It will only be a matter of time before a co-worker, an underling, or a family member exhibits this contagious mental rot and throws you for a loop. After all, if you don't feel that it's a problem, then it's not a problem, right?
>In a primal sense, trolling online is akin to purposefully challenging a person's worldview through their feelings, using drastic / hyperbolic / inflammatory rhetoric.
No, The definition of trolling is attempting to get a reaction out of people by any means possible. Trolls aren't interested in having an actual conversation, educating, or changing anyone's view, in fact they thrive off of the opposite.
Is it trolling if you pick your targets ideologically and say what you mean? We need a new word, because trolling does seem to capture the method and the spirit, but not the goals.
Is it trolling if you pick your targets ideologically and say what you mean?
Depends very much on your intended and hoped for outcome for doing this? A genuine discussion and a meeting of minds or to laugh at the ignorant sheeple? If you find that you're getting more of the latter than the former, do you double down or change your approach?
I used to be a liberal. Then I realized that I cannot trust everyone who cries foul. I haven't turned conservative either. But I don't hold liberal views as correct by default anymore.
The problem with today's liberals is that they think political correctness is more important than factual data. Any rational argument requires dealing with cold hard facts, however brutal and hurtful they might be. There is no place for emotions in objective observation, exploration, research.
It's crazy how far left liberalism has been pushed these past few years. Just as crazy as how far right conservatism has moved over the past couple decades. This extreme polarization is very worrying. It's not stable, and it's going to lead to serious problems.
Meh. It's always been there. It's just that the internet has allowed us to see it better.
Also, this definition of 'far' left or right (at least here in the states) is not all that far, historically speaking. Far right would be a return to religious law, banning of contraception, a return to a theocracy, etc. There are countries like that, and we view them as nuts and places you dont want to live in. Far left would be a total communist state (I think) and we all know those are equally as bad. Yet, people do live, love, have families, die, fight for, and defend those countries. Something else must be going on, right?
Again, there is a trap of viewing politics as a 1-D continuum. Granted this is better than a 1-D binary, but politics has as many dimensions as there are people, if not more. We all have opinions, or have the idea that our ideas are not important.
What is most important is that we VOTE. If we think these people are too far right or left, the best way to do something about that is to VOTE and participate in your community.
So do you think calling Caitlyn Jenner by her current name is PC? How about pronouns for transgender individuals? What about gay couples who are married? Do you think it's okay to say they're not married?
I ask these questions because the more I see people throw the term PC on such issues, it's really the person who's offended is the person who basically wants to be rude or otherwise anti-social.
>> So do you think calling Caitlyn Jenner by her current name is PC?
The expectation that every single individual knows everything about her history and should call her by her first name (instead of who she is best identified with...a transgender) is PC.
In return, I'd ask you this. Why do you think I'm insulting her by calling her a transgender? I'm genuinely saying this in a respectful way. It is you who thinks that I am insulting her. You are the one at fault...I'm the genuine person here.
I would in fact call a person asking me to be PC as being deceptive. You are the one totally ignoring that person's individuality. I, on the other hand, am fully accepting of her being a transgender....accepting her as an individual.
> I'd ask you this. Why do you think I'm insulting her by calling her a transgender?
The use of adjectives like "transgender" as nouns to label people is fairly widely viewed as demeaning.
> I'm genuinely saying this in a respectful way.
Er, no. If you were saying it in a "respectful way", it wouldn't be followed by this:
> You are the one at fault...I'm the genuine person here.
Moving on,
> I would in fact call a person asking me to be PC as being deceptive.
No one has asked you to "be PC"; grandparent asked you several questions about what you considered to be PC, which you then responded to with several misrepresentations of what they asked.
> Who's the one at fault?
The one who is saying that someone else is "at fault" based on a number of things that were never actually said (leaving aside the question of whether or not, had they been said, they would have supported the assignment of fault.)
>> The use of adjectives like "transgender" as nouns to label people is fairly widely viewed as demeaning.
Exactly my point. In the quest for PC, we cannot speak the truth (the truth here being that she is a transgender) just because it is "widely perceived as hurtful". So, how do I do an objective study (say, census count of transgenders) without being "hurtful"?
(transgender = person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender....not one time was I being hurtful).
> In the quest for PC, we cannot speak the truth (the truth here being that she is a transgender)
No, the truth is she is a transgender person/woman/individual.
Its not the use of the adjective, in contexts where it is germane, that is demeaning, it is its use as a noun, separating the descriptor from the humanity of the person to whom it applies.
> So, how do I do an objective study (say, census count of transgenders) without being "hurtful"?
By using "transgender" as an adjective. Its not that hard to do.
>> Its not the use of the adjective, in contexts where it is germane, that is demeaning, it is its use as a noun, separating the descriptor from the humanity of the person to whom it applies.
Do you realize how stupid and trivial this argument is?
Any statistical analysis needs generalization. The generalization was not done in spite. It was for an objective study.
Trust me, misgendering is a big problem in itself due to the violence that often accompanies it. It make rub you the wrong way when people tell jerks to not calling Caitlyn Bruce or to call her a her and not a him. But this is all part of getting through thick heads that gender identity of one person is not theirs to decide.
> If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum, uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the perceived correctness of ideas.
I don't understand this. If ideas are judged in a vacuum, then by definition, their perceived correctness is not influenced by race and gender. If those ideas are perceived differently based on race or gender, then they're not being judged in a vacuum. Or am I missing something here?
The belief that ideas can be judged in a vacuum is a very different thing than ideas actually being judged in a vacuum.
Ideas are not judged in a vacuum - humans are rubbish at doing that. We allow various factors to influence how we evaluate ideas, even when those factors have nothing to do with the idea itself. Race and gender being very obvious ones.
Example: In a meeting, a woman comes up with an idea. Everyone ignores her. Thirty seconds later, a man says the exact same thing, and suddenly everyone is in awe about how amazing this idea is.
And yes, that does happen. A lot.
However, most of us believe that we aren't doing this. We believe that we're evaluating ideas on merit alone, and are therefore completely blind to the fact that we're not. Humans are rubbish at being objective, but very good at fooling ourselves into believing that we are.
The only way to approach evaluating ideas on merit is to be aware of one's own biases, one's own point of view, various power imbalances, systemic discrimination, and all that stuff. Once you're aware of what you're actually doing, you can try to factor that into how you evaluate ideas.
A defense I'm not sure I believe, but one worth being aware of, at least:
Could this simply be people exercising Bayesian reasoning? If we postulate that men come up with more out-of-band good ideas (which I don't find hard to believe, as they come up with more out-of-band everything, including bad ideas), then people's priors will change to reflect that.
What I am saying is that this may in fact be rational, whatever your (or my) opinions on its rightness.
I suspect that would be a post-hoc rationalization. One of the ways we fool ourselves into believing that we're being rational, when we really aren't.
Men are more likely to pipe up with ideas - good or bad - because they are culturally encouraged to do so. Women are discouraged from sharing their ideas, and are frequently either ignored, or possibly even punished for it.
In addition, people tend to interpret the same behavior differently between men and women. For example, I saw a debate recently with a few men and one woman. After the debate, people (both men and women) were complaining about the woman, claiming the kept interrupting, and that she was rude, and wasn't listening.
Funny thing - she interrupted once, out of sheer desperation because her opponent wouldn't allow her to speak, was polite, and listened to everything her opponent had to say. Her opponent, on the other hand, had been praised for being more mature and rational, despite constantly interrupting, talking over the top of his opponent, and being extremely condescending.
These kinds of biases actually color our perceptions, without us realizing.
That's what's insidious about these kinds of rationalzations. They superficially seem reasonable, but they pretty much just reduce to either "men are just better than women at X", or "that's just the way things are, deal with it", and they do not hold up to scrutiny. However, they are intuitively rational-feeling enough to convince people that there's not a problem anymore. There is, but they just don't want to confront it.
I guess that makes more sense, though I'd argue that not having the necessary information to make those biases could result in ideas actually being judged in a vacuum (how can you be biased against someone if your subconscious is incapable of knowing whether that someone is subject to its biases?). This is part of the reason why the "hacker" subculture (if the Jargon File is anything to go by) claims itself to be more egalitarian than other STEM-oriented subcultures; since a lot of collaboration is entirely text-based, it doesn't invoke gender/racial biases (or at least does so far less often).
Basically, in the scenario you've described, if the "meeting" is instead a discussion on, say, an IRC channel, then as long as the participants are anonymous, there shouldn't be any reason for bias to occur (and even when they aren't anonymous, I'd hypothesize that - due to the lack of stimuli reinforcing those biases, like visual confirmation of race or gender - bias will be significantly diminished).
> not having the necessary information to make those biases could result in ideas actually being judged in a vacuum
Potentially, yes. It certainly can happen, but it can also go horribly wrong for a whole variety of reasons.
In online discussions, people's ideas tend to be judged based on how well the person proposing them conforms to the norms of the group. Which is part of the reason most online communities tend to develop a kind of hive mind - everyone who sticks around shares the same opinions as the group, because the group chases off anyone who dissents, either by making the environment unwelcoming, or outright harassing people.
It's part of the reason the hacker subculture isn't as egalitarian as it likes to believe. Even if everyone's anonymous (or at least using a pseudonym), it's still composed almost entirely of nerdy, reasonably well off straight white guys, mostly from the US. The reason for that is a reflection of external social forces which don't exactly exist inside hacker subculture, but strongly influenced who was able to participate in it. That creates an extremely homogenous group, which is reflected in the way hacker culture developed.
It's not deliberate, but it can feel like a hostile environment to outsiders. Which can make outsiders avoid it like the plague. Since there are no outsiders, members of the group never hear their perspective, nor do they ever realize that there's a problem, because they assume that they're being egalitarian.
That's not universal, and it's much less common in groups that have always been diverse from the very beginning. If you have a group with significant numbers of women, for example, they will tend to object (much more loudly than in real life) when someone says something sexist. The group culture that develops tends to be one that does not tolerate sexism.
In that kind of environment, you tend to be able to have discussions where everyone is listened to, and their ideas judged on merit, for precisely the reasons you suggest. It's all text based, and there's no stimuli to re-enforce your biases that you carried with you from the outside world.
However, that can only be done if you don't allow the group's culture to become a reflection of the outside world's culture. Which is what happens if you just ignore it.
You don't seem to have a grasp of the real world here. What actually happens is that people will take credit or get credit from other's ideas regardless of gender. That's what happens a lot. It's only your own bias that you think it's noticeably women being the victims. Welcome to the world of equal opportunity.
I just asked my partner if this ever happened to her. She told me that it did once, but it was a female colleague who did it to her, not a man. I asked her if a man ever did it to her, she said she couldn't remember that ever occurring.
I didn't draw any conclusions, I just shared my partner's experiences without any further comment.
I don't doubt some women have had the experience BlackAura is referring to. But I don't believe it is universal either, since my partner does not report having that experience. As to what percentage of women have experienced this: I don't know, and no one in this conversation has produced an answer to that question.
The fact that your partner does not report having that experience does not literally mean that she has not had that experience. There are several possible reasons for this, and I do not want you to think I am passing judgement, but your statement is not convincing on its own.
I have watched this happen to women who were oblivious - who behave as though men stealing women's ideas is the proper way of reality, and yet they will loudly voice an objection when a woman does the same.
I shared with her your theory, and she does not believe it is true in her case. I don't doubt that it happened in the cases you observed, but that gives me no reason to doubt her statement that it didn't happen to her. I wasn't there for the vast majority of her working life, you weren't there for any of it, she was - I think she is a much more of an authority on her own life experiences than you or I are. And, who should I believe: you, or the mother of my son?
I always find it interesting, that the US seems to be all about conservatives (republicans) and liberals (democrats).
In Germany it seems to be more of a conservatives (CDU) and socialists (SPD) "battle". Interestingly I had the feeling the liberals (FDP) are more on the side of the conservatives (most of the time in german history FDP and CDU worked together). So when I read about US politics it feels like they are only debating on details. Like socialism isn't even an option.
Keep in mind that the word liberal has different meanings in the political context on both sides of the atlantic ocean.
Although it is always a question of one's own standpoint. Where I (a somewhat social-democratic german) stand, both CDU and SPD look like parties of the right today. :(
I suspect that the situations the author describes have more to do with office politics than personal politics, and have little or nothing to do with the students. Academia is a notoriously feudal environment; once someone has made enemies in their department, any transgression, however minor, is used as a tool to strip them of power or, in the extreme, get them fired. It's no different today than it has been historically, it's just that the particular choice of teapot for the tempest has changed through the years.
56 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadWhy not get someone who's actually been harmed by this change in culture to write about that?
Cynical answer: because anyone actually harmed will be told to check their privilege.
Suspicious, realistic answer: because authority figures are always more scared of disruptions to their power than is warranted by actual conditions.
On top of that, also, the groundless complaint that went nowhere in 2009 was from a student accusing the professor of "communistical sympathies" for not validating right-wing talking points on the housing crisis, and the result is that the professor is especially scared of his liberal students.
I think that the rather spurious grounds that he identifies for the fear motivating those changes is also important, particularly, it is important in identifying the source of the problem -- which is not, contrary to the headline, his liberal students, or even his students more generally.
> being silenced
Nobody is being silenced by the students. What the students want is for professors to stop being assholes towards anyone that's not just like them, and are (correctly) pointing out various kinds of systemic bias, subjective opinions masquerading as objectivity, and instances where you have material that is disturbing or emotionally difficult for absolutely no good reason other than "it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you either".
When confronted with that, this professor's response is basically denial, writing off these complaints as irrelevant, trivial, or "pandering" (ignorant of how much society in general panders to his own perspective).
So, given that bringing this up directly will result in either being ignored, or being belittled or insulted, and the conversation shut down immediately... students don't actually have any choice but to complain.
At that point, the university overreacts because they're paranoid about being sued. Which is part of a larger cultural issue that has nothing at all to do with the students.
Funny that student activism that happened decades ago is considered a good thing (now), but activism by today's students is considered to be some kind of scary monster that threatens the whole of society...
The young liberal-speak of concepts of 'systemic bias' and 'societal pandering' and of course the students as victims who 'have no choice' but to complain
Everyone is going to have an example of some bad professor. But if you're in college seeing a systemic bias, you've gone into it thinking that ahead of time, or somebody planted the idea and no surprise young students are impressionable as all get-out.
You'll find a good deal of variation among educators. The only systemic bias you'll find across a whole campus (or more with the administration) is an almost shocking and unrealistic unnecessary drive towards what might be called 'diversity' but really isn't. But if these SJWs / Liberals / feminists go in expecting some sort of bias, they are definitely going to find it. Just like once you buy a car, you see it everywhere on the road.
> "ignored, belittled, insulted" More weasel words. Nothing that can be checked up on specifically, no particular victim or perpetrator. Just a thing that we're supposed to believe is ever present, rampant etc.
>material that is disturbing or emotionally difficult for absolutely no good reason other than "it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you either"
You've got the SJW bug for sure. You need a dose of realism. The obvious symptom is making wild assumptions about somebody else's frame of mind or purposely narrowing their intent and stating it on their behalf in order to justify any and all reaction over them. Add on to that getting mad that others aren't on your side.
The reason society might be considering a lot of SJWs as scary is that they are young impressionable and have a lot of ignorant followers on twitter and will do anything and everything to weasel through a situation because their form of social justice must prevail. that includes, as we've seen in St. Louis and Baltimore, justifying illegal behavior for so-called systemic racism.
the other scary thing about SJWs is they attack in many ways our most important right, freedom of speech. Like here you insist it's not being attacked but it is. It's playing the victim card and projecting somebody's intent knowing full well that your feelings hurt don't justify somebody getting a write up or being forced out of a position because of the way you claim to have suffered.
The sad thing about all of it is it really doesn't get anyone anywhere. SJWs might get a statue taken down or a tradition removed, a speech cancelled, but they never really fix anything they just destroy things because they don't like them, so nobody else should either.
> inside a liberal's mind
Use of "liberal" as a snarl word. Awesome way to start a conversation - just go straight for a veiled insult. Nice.
> Weasel words are present and everything.
You're being condescending. This is literally the first thing you've said that could be said to be an argument, rather than an insult, and you've already resorted to trying to trivialize and ignore what I've said, rather than attempting to engage in it.
Rather than claiming that I'm using "weasel words", how about actually engaging in discussion, rather than just dismissing things that you don't agree with?
> The young liberal-speak of concepts of 'systemic bias' and 'societal pandering' and of course the students as victims who 'have no choice' but to complain
I'm probably a lot older than you would assume, and seriously, "liberal" is not an insult, even though you keep trying to use it as one. And how would that invalidate anything?
Frankly, you're being hopelessly naive if you don't think those things exist. Systemic bias is a thing. It also happens to be a thing that's incredibly difficult for straight white men to actually see, because it (mostly) only benefits them. They certainly can't see all the ways it disadvantages others, and are very often unsympathetic. Unless, of course, they actually take the time to listen to others, and attempt to understand their point of view.
So, what do you expect students to do if their professor just ignores all their concerns, and acts like their opinions are worthless just because he disagrees with them? That attitude is obvious in the article. How else do you expect them to actually be heard?
> The only systemic bias you'll find across a whole campus
Is a reflection of wider culture. Which is wildly discriminatory in many different ways, including race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, country of origin, political or social status, class (even if that's invisible), religion, and a whole load more.
> Nothing that can be checked up on specifically, no particular victim or perpetrator. Just a thing that we're supposed to believe is ever present, rampant etc.
Did you read the same article as I did? This professor had nothing that can be checked up on, no victim, no perpetrator, no specific events... Just a thing that we're supposed to believe is ever present, rampant etc.
Do you seriously expect me to come up with more specific detail about something that happened to someone else, on the other side of the planet? Or even to put that much effort into an comment on some random website? The author of this article didn't. You sure didn't. Why should you be holding me to a more strict standard, unless it's just because you happen to disagree with me.
I will concede - I have not given specific cases. Fine. Neither have you, and you make a lot more allegations than I did.
> You've got the SJW bug for sure. You need a dose of realism.
Labeling someone is not an argument. Insulting someone is not an argument. Being dismissive is not an argument.
> making wild assumptions about somebody else's frame of mind
Implied in the original article. OK, I might have been reaching.
I've seen versions of this article from various college professors recently. They're all pretty much the same, and some of those were a lot more specific.
I can come up with a more specific example - a professor complaining that students wanted to be warned that a piece of literature contained a rape scene. Said professor's excuse was "it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you".
Here...
Nope, try again.
As Judith Shulevitz wrote in the New York Times, these refusals can shut down discussion in genuinely contentious areas, such as when Oxford canceled an abortion debate.
More often, they affect surprisingly minor matters, as when Hamsphire College disinvited an Afrobeat band because their lineup had too many white people in it.
Consider that tweet I linked to earlier, from critic and artist Zahira Kelly, in which she implies that the whole of scientific inquiry is somehow invalid because it has been conducted mostly by white males.
In another instance, two female professors of library science publically outed and shamed a male colleague they accused of being creepy at conferences, going so far as to openly celebrate the prospect of ruining his career.
> You've got the SJW bug for sure
Clear violation of HN guidelines.
> I once saw an adjunct not get his contract renewed after students complained that he exposed them to "offensive" texts written by Edward Said and Mark Twain. His response, that the texts were meant to be a little upsetting, only fueled the students' ire and sealed his fate.
As Judith Shulevitz wrote in the New York Times, these refusals can shut down discussion in genuinely contentious areas, such as when Oxford canceled an abortion debate.
More often, they affect surprisingly minor matters, as when Hamsphire College disinvited an Afrobeat band because their lineup had too many white people in it.
He [Chait] cites an anonymous professor who says that "she and her fellow faculty members are terrified of facing accusations of triggering trauma."
Consider that tweet I linked to earlier, from critic and artist Zahira Kelly, in which she implies that the whole of scientific inquiry is somehow invalid because it has been conducted mostly by white males.
In another instance, two female professors of library science publically outed and shamed a male colleague they accused of being creepy at conferences, going so far as to openly celebrate the prospect of ruining his career.
By the way, you seem to be the sort of person that scares him.
Rebecca Reilly Cooper, a political philosopher at the University of Warwick, worries about the effectiveness of a politics in which "particular experiences can never legitimately speak for any one other than ourselves, and personal narrative and testimony are elevated to such a degree that there can be no objective standpoint from which to examine their veracity."
Why not get someone who's actually been harmed by this change in culture to write about that? -You
I see why you think I would do that, but when I say that I don't think his fears are justified by the evidence presented and we should seek better evidence of a problem (presumably from someone else), I'm doing the opposite of "elevating personal narrative and testimony".
Freemium gaming is one element. Aggregating and slanting news for a specific demographic is another. Giving a voice to ignorance in the case of vaccination discussion is yet another. I could go on and on, because these things are real, visible, and frankly horrible deviations from intellectual and societal progress.
This is why trolling has become such a bloodsport and, quite frankly, one of the counter-balances to the trend. In a primal sense, trolling online is akin to purposefully challenging a person's worldview through their feelings, using drastic / hyperbolic / inflammatory rhetoric. People like Mark Twain and Hunter S. Thompson were masters, and I've studied them extensively.
For those who think this article might be a non-starter, fine, go bury your head in the sand a little deeper. It will only be a matter of time before a co-worker, an underling, or a family member exhibits this contagious mental rot and throws you for a loop. After all, if you don't feel that it's a problem, then it's not a problem, right?
You're trolling, right?
No, The definition of trolling is attempting to get a reaction out of people by any means possible. Trolls aren't interested in having an actual conversation, educating, or changing anyone's view, in fact they thrive off of the opposite.
Depends very much on your intended and hoped for outcome for doing this? A genuine discussion and a meeting of minds or to laugh at the ignorant sheeple? If you find that you're getting more of the latter than the former, do you double down or change your approach?
The problem with today's liberals is that they think political correctness is more important than factual data. Any rational argument requires dealing with cold hard facts, however brutal and hurtful they might be. There is no place for emotions in objective observation, exploration, research.
For more info on this perspective watch this video: Why So Many Americans Don't Want Social Justice and Don't Trust Scientists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86dzTFJbkc
TL;DR: Political correctness...aka too many pussies in the real world.
Also, this definition of 'far' left or right (at least here in the states) is not all that far, historically speaking. Far right would be a return to religious law, banning of contraception, a return to a theocracy, etc. There are countries like that, and we view them as nuts and places you dont want to live in. Far left would be a total communist state (I think) and we all know those are equally as bad. Yet, people do live, love, have families, die, fight for, and defend those countries. Something else must be going on, right?
Again, there is a trap of viewing politics as a 1-D continuum. Granted this is better than a 1-D binary, but politics has as many dimensions as there are people, if not more. We all have opinions, or have the idea that our ideas are not important.
What is most important is that we VOTE. If we think these people are too far right or left, the best way to do something about that is to VOTE and participate in your community.
https://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup
http://www.civiced.org/resources/curriculum/lesson-plans/456...
https://www.gop.com/get-involved/
https://www.democrats.org/projects
and many more.
I ask these questions because the more I see people throw the term PC on such issues, it's really the person who's offended is the person who basically wants to be rude or otherwise anti-social.
The expectation that every single individual knows everything about her history and should call her by her first name (instead of who she is best identified with...a transgender) is PC.
In return, I'd ask you this. Why do you think I'm insulting her by calling her a transgender? I'm genuinely saying this in a respectful way. It is you who thinks that I am insulting her. You are the one at fault...I'm the genuine person here.
I would in fact call a person asking me to be PC as being deceptive. You are the one totally ignoring that person's individuality. I, on the other hand, am fully accepting of her being a transgender....accepting her as an individual.
Who's the one at fault?
The use of adjectives like "transgender" as nouns to label people is fairly widely viewed as demeaning.
> I'm genuinely saying this in a respectful way.
Er, no. If you were saying it in a "respectful way", it wouldn't be followed by this:
> You are the one at fault...I'm the genuine person here.
Moving on,
> I would in fact call a person asking me to be PC as being deceptive.
No one has asked you to "be PC"; grandparent asked you several questions about what you considered to be PC, which you then responded to with several misrepresentations of what they asked.
> Who's the one at fault?
The one who is saying that someone else is "at fault" based on a number of things that were never actually said (leaving aside the question of whether or not, had they been said, they would have supported the assignment of fault.)
Exactly my point. In the quest for PC, we cannot speak the truth (the truth here being that she is a transgender) just because it is "widely perceived as hurtful". So, how do I do an objective study (say, census count of transgenders) without being "hurtful"?
(transgender = person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender....not one time was I being hurtful).
No, the truth is she is a transgender person/woman/individual.
Its not the use of the adjective, in contexts where it is germane, that is demeaning, it is its use as a noun, separating the descriptor from the humanity of the person to whom it applies.
> So, how do I do an objective study (say, census count of transgenders) without being "hurtful"?
By using "transgender" as an adjective. Its not that hard to do.
Do you realize how stupid and trivial this argument is? Any statistical analysis needs generalization. The generalization was not done in spite. It was for an objective study.
People should stop trying to enforce something that does not seem to be a problem. Use that energy on things that are real problems.
I don't understand this. If ideas are judged in a vacuum, then by definition, their perceived correctness is not influenced by race and gender. If those ideas are perceived differently based on race or gender, then they're not being judged in a vacuum. Or am I missing something here?
Ideas are not judged in a vacuum - humans are rubbish at doing that. We allow various factors to influence how we evaluate ideas, even when those factors have nothing to do with the idea itself. Race and gender being very obvious ones.
Example: In a meeting, a woman comes up with an idea. Everyone ignores her. Thirty seconds later, a man says the exact same thing, and suddenly everyone is in awe about how amazing this idea is.
And yes, that does happen. A lot.
However, most of us believe that we aren't doing this. We believe that we're evaluating ideas on merit alone, and are therefore completely blind to the fact that we're not. Humans are rubbish at being objective, but very good at fooling ourselves into believing that we are.
The only way to approach evaluating ideas on merit is to be aware of one's own biases, one's own point of view, various power imbalances, systemic discrimination, and all that stuff. Once you're aware of what you're actually doing, you can try to factor that into how you evaluate ideas.
Could this simply be people exercising Bayesian reasoning? If we postulate that men come up with more out-of-band good ideas (which I don't find hard to believe, as they come up with more out-of-band everything, including bad ideas), then people's priors will change to reflect that.
What I am saying is that this may in fact be rational, whatever your (or my) opinions on its rightness.
Men are more likely to pipe up with ideas - good or bad - because they are culturally encouraged to do so. Women are discouraged from sharing their ideas, and are frequently either ignored, or possibly even punished for it.
In addition, people tend to interpret the same behavior differently between men and women. For example, I saw a debate recently with a few men and one woman. After the debate, people (both men and women) were complaining about the woman, claiming the kept interrupting, and that she was rude, and wasn't listening.
Funny thing - she interrupted once, out of sheer desperation because her opponent wouldn't allow her to speak, was polite, and listened to everything her opponent had to say. Her opponent, on the other hand, had been praised for being more mature and rational, despite constantly interrupting, talking over the top of his opponent, and being extremely condescending.
These kinds of biases actually color our perceptions, without us realizing.
That's what's insidious about these kinds of rationalzations. They superficially seem reasonable, but they pretty much just reduce to either "men are just better than women at X", or "that's just the way things are, deal with it", and they do not hold up to scrutiny. However, they are intuitively rational-feeling enough to convince people that there's not a problem anymore. There is, but they just don't want to confront it.
Basically, in the scenario you've described, if the "meeting" is instead a discussion on, say, an IRC channel, then as long as the participants are anonymous, there shouldn't be any reason for bias to occur (and even when they aren't anonymous, I'd hypothesize that - due to the lack of stimuli reinforcing those biases, like visual confirmation of race or gender - bias will be significantly diminished).
Potentially, yes. It certainly can happen, but it can also go horribly wrong for a whole variety of reasons.
In online discussions, people's ideas tend to be judged based on how well the person proposing them conforms to the norms of the group. Which is part of the reason most online communities tend to develop a kind of hive mind - everyone who sticks around shares the same opinions as the group, because the group chases off anyone who dissents, either by making the environment unwelcoming, or outright harassing people.
It's part of the reason the hacker subculture isn't as egalitarian as it likes to believe. Even if everyone's anonymous (or at least using a pseudonym), it's still composed almost entirely of nerdy, reasonably well off straight white guys, mostly from the US. The reason for that is a reflection of external social forces which don't exactly exist inside hacker subculture, but strongly influenced who was able to participate in it. That creates an extremely homogenous group, which is reflected in the way hacker culture developed.
It's not deliberate, but it can feel like a hostile environment to outsiders. Which can make outsiders avoid it like the plague. Since there are no outsiders, members of the group never hear their perspective, nor do they ever realize that there's a problem, because they assume that they're being egalitarian.
That's not universal, and it's much less common in groups that have always been diverse from the very beginning. If you have a group with significant numbers of women, for example, they will tend to object (much more loudly than in real life) when someone says something sexist. The group culture that develops tends to be one that does not tolerate sexism.
In that kind of environment, you tend to be able to have discussions where everyone is listened to, and their ideas judged on merit, for precisely the reasons you suggest. It's all text based, and there's no stimuli to re-enforce your biases that you carried with you from the outside world.
However, that can only be done if you don't allow the group's culture to become a reflection of the outside world's culture. Which is what happens if you just ignore it.
You don't seem to have a grasp of the real world here. What actually happens is that people will take credit or get credit from other's ideas regardless of gender. That's what happens a lot. It's only your own bias that you think it's noticeably women being the victims. Welcome to the world of equal opportunity.
I don't doubt some women have had the experience BlackAura is referring to. But I don't believe it is universal either, since my partner does not report having that experience. As to what percentage of women have experienced this: I don't know, and no one in this conversation has produced an answer to that question.
I have watched this happen to women who were oblivious - who behave as though men stealing women's ideas is the proper way of reality, and yet they will loudly voice an objection when a woman does the same.
In Germany it seems to be more of a conservatives (CDU) and socialists (SPD) "battle". Interestingly I had the feeling the liberals (FDP) are more on the side of the conservatives (most of the time in german history FDP and CDU worked together). So when I read about US politics it feels like they are only debating on details. Like socialism isn't even an option.
Although it is always a question of one's own standpoint. Where I (a somewhat social-democratic german) stand, both CDU and SPD look like parties of the right today. :(