Comment by TimTheTinker
6 days ago
I think the intent is to reduce the politically leftward trend in universities, as well as the fact that not all viewpoints are presented anymore. Universities used to be billed as a "marketplace of ideas".
Also, the hermeneutics used for interpreting literature on the fringes in the 1980s are now mainstream -- students aren't learning the methods of interpretation used everywhere in the west up until the turn of the century.
Or one can view it as the increasing intellectual vacuousness of ideas on the "right". (In quotes because the dividing line between left and right itself has shifted rightward over the years.)
As far as the "left", one need only consider the ideological rigidity around the topic of transvestites to see that specific, thoughtful, deep, data driven, and evidence based rhetoric is abandoned in favor of not hurting the feelings of a group of people prone to threaten harm to themselves for political and social gain.
Don't ever forget that the left cant clearly articulate what a woman is without resorting to circular reasoning.
This is probably pointless to reply to, but for anyone else reading this:
For starters, the current right-wing hate campaign is targeting transgender people, not transvestites since the latter simply means people who wear clothing associated with the opposite gender, which is quite common in right-wing circles.
Aside from that silliness, let's highlight the "specific, thoughtful, data driven, evidence based rhetoric" that is "not hurting the feelings of a group of people", as if "hurt feelings" were all that has happened.
Also, hurt feelings matter. Humans are our feelings. They're who we are and what we are. People be hurt in a large variety of ways and they're all bad. It's trivial to demonstrate that non-fatal gash on your body is considerably less worse than being, say, ostracized and outcast from the community you grew up in.
On a related note, why is "the right" so obsessed with defining what a woman is? What are the data driven and evidence based rhetorical reasons for coming up with a rigorous and definitive definition of woman?
The idea that evidence or logic is involved in any of this is laughable.
Edit: Nobody can come up with a good definition for what a planet it is either, but somehow we manage to stagger onwards.
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This isn’t new. Buckley is the best they could manage in the entire last century or so, and that’s… not a great high water mark.
What about Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton, Dorothy Sayer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or Josef Pieper?
These were in fact some of the intellectual greats of the 20th century. Like many today, they wouldn't necessarily closely identify with "the right" as much as they'd disagree with and argue against the current ideology of the left.
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I don't understand why "rightward" viewpoints need affirmative action in the form of government regulations?
That's very reasonable.
Viewpoints are essentially grounded in actions, and actions are grounded in values or ways of being.
Values are acted out by individuals and groups through a relative hierarchy, and generally guide which actions are taken.
People generally consider what's true to be what works, and what works is relative to what action is being taken, and what action is being taken depends on the persons underlying values.
Because almost all of the universities' leadership has shifted far to the left side of the US political spectrum over the last 50 years, there is now a hostile environment to many right leaning values. You can argue that this was natural and that right leaning values are worse, but that would be unwise. There is good and bad in everything, and it's not helpful to over generalize. The reality is that there are both "good" and "bad" values on both sides of the political bias, but even that is probably too generalized. What makes a value good or bad is contextual. Some values are more helpful in certain situations or environments than others.
Even more important is that values don't naturally exist on one spectrum... The idea of "right" and "left" values is artificial.
So while I agree that the constriction of values being supported within universities is unhealthy like a stool that's had three legs chopped off, the idea that top down authoritarian enforcement on these organizations is the solution is somewhat terrifying.
Scary times.
> Because almost all of the universities' leadership has shifted far to the left side of the US political spectrum over the last 50 years, there is now a hostile environment to many right leaning values. You can argue that this was natural and that right leaning values are worse, but that would be unwise. There is good and bad in everything, and it's not helpful to over generalize
Good lord that was a lot of words that said very little.
I'll try to be more concise and take an actual position: there's no such thing as a leftward shift, it's just people adopting the good ideas and abandoning the bad ideas.
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because they would otherwise fail in the "marketplace of ideas" among educated people
> not all viewpoints are presented anymore. Universities used to be billed as a "marketplace of ideas".
That's true. Universities no longer present the viewpoint that black people are inferior to whites and deserve to be slaves. They no longer present the viewpoint that human health comes from the balance of the four humours. They no longer present the viewpoint that women are the property of their fathers/husbands. They no longer present the viewpoint that nature is fundamentally made up of earth, aire, fire, and water. How dare they abandon these ideas and still call themselves a "marketplace of ideas"! Hypocrisy!
Indulging in your blatant straw man argument for a moment, what if discussing these ideas and the downsides of them to society helped the world transition away from them faster and minimized the chance of backslide?
There is nothing wrong with discussing bad ideas, especially with students that aren't familiar with them, if done responsibly, with respect for the student, and facilitation of critical thinking.
This attitude that certain topics or ideas are taboo and shouldn't ever be acknowledged or discussed because they are bad is a big part of what is increasing extremism and pushing America to the brink. It's authoritarian, and it makes the nation more fragile, not stronger.
You are free to discuss any idea you want. I'm also free to call you an idiot and ask you to leave my house.
Please stop arguing that ideas should be free from criticism.
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Is this an example of "one strawman deserves another"? You know that when GP talked about "presenting a viewpoint", he didn't mean "as an example of a bad idea that nobody should believe". He meant he wants alt-right talking points parroted to everyone because he's upset that reality has a liberal bias. You know this. You also know that I'm not suggesting outlawing the discussion of slavery in its historical context, but simply saying that universities have no obligation to make a case for failed and abhorrent ideas in the name of "diverse viewpoints". Why are you pretending like you don't know this already?
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how dare people slander the right like this. Are you saying you can’t make a right leaning argument without government help?
The right should have pride in their selves, and build their own universities, if not their own realities!
Sounds like "The soft bigotry of low expectations" to me!