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Comment by Reedx

5 years ago

"However, hard evidence points to a different reality. This year, the Heterodox Academy conducted an internal member survey of 445 academics. “Imagine expressing your views about a controversial issue while at work, at a time when faculty, staff, and/or other colleagues were present. To what extent would you worry about the following consequences?” To the hypothetical “My reputation would be tarnished,” 32.68 percent answered “very concerned” and 27.27 percent answered “extremely concerned.” To the hypothetical “My career would be hurt,” 24.75 percent answered “very concerned” and 28.68 percent answered “extremely concerned.”

In other words, more than half the respondents consider expressing views beyond a certain consensus in an academic setting quite dangerous to their career trajectory."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/academics-...

8 comments

Reedx

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542354234235  5 years ago

First, this says nothing about if this is different than it used to be "back in the day". Second, it has never been true anywhere that almost all people in a given field felt totally comfortable voicing controversial opinions around their colleges and did not worry about any consequences. Third, these are faculty, not students. Students are there to learn and expand their knowledge and try out different ideas. Teachers are there to do a job and openly talking about a crazy idea you had to anyone and everyone is not going to do you any favors.

kaitai  5 years ago

Well, in my corporate job, there are meetings where I don't espouse my controversial view about an architecture or modeling decision, because... the same thing?

I'm sure that's also true in the Church of Scientology and a lot of religious congregations. That is how people work. Creating spaces where robust discussion and dissent is respected and productive is actually hard work and requires good management (which Lord knows most academic departments don't have, since the Head Manager is just whoever got coerced into being chair this time).

  • inglor_cz  5 years ago

    The thing is, academia once served as an institution to protect unorthodox thinkers against external oppression. People who offended the Church or the King had to be protected there.

    Nowadays it seems that this role has been forgotten.

colinmhayes  5 years ago

Hard to trust an institution called the heterodox academy.

  • slg  5 years ago

    This was said in a glib manner, which may be the reason for the downvotes, but it is completely true. This is how the Heterodox Academy defines itself:

    >Heterodox Academy is a group of 4,100+ educators, administrators, & graduate students who believe diverse viewpoints & open inquiry are critical to research & learning. [1]

    Does anyone think that a person who joins a group focusing on promoting "diverse viewpoints" is going to have a representative view of sharing controversial opinions? This is a wildly biased population of people to be answering this question.

    [1] - https://heterodoxacademy.org/