[HN Gopher] "Roughly one-third of students are in favor of banni...
___________________________________________________________________
"Roughly one-third of students are in favor of banning
controversial books"
Author : throwkeep
Score : 68 points
Date : 2021-06-19 16:20 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| akomtu wrote:
| By "controversial books" they likely mean CRT - it's the number 1
| battleground in education facilities today. But banning the books
| is silly. We shouldn't ban knowledge, even if it's the infamous
| MeinCampf or CRT - only practicing of certain knowledge should be
| banned.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > it's the number 1 battleground in education facilities today
|
| In a university in Frankfurt, Germany?
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Please (not you in specific, but the general you), can everyone
| at least try to read the abstract before commenting (preferably
| the article).
|
| It's in Germany, and has nothing to do with CRT.
| akomtu wrote:
| Oh, my bad then. I've made the common mistake on HN - assumed
| that anything here is about the US.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Well I am in favor of banning misinformation, clickbait, and
| "studies" conducted against an extremely small sample size
| intended to promote outrage and justifying bad behavior.
| Little_John wrote:
| Any Book, any book is a valid book if the reader has a brain to
| process it.
| ramoz wrote:
| Wonder if that includes books about burning books, struggle
| sessions, or psychoanalysis within political sociology, and ...
|
| how radicalized progressive movements develop -- likely not a
| part of any curriculum anyway vs redefining them as new modern
| progressive study or hashtag.
| orwin wrote:
| Well, the fact that they did not ask questions about book on
| violence against property and space occupation as a mean of
| democratic manifestation (which is a far left position) but
| about books on how homosexuality is immoral and should be
| banned, i'd say this study will pretty much have the result the
| researchers want.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| My very least favorite horseshoe effect example is, as always,
| _Huck Finn_.
|
| It is an absolutely stellar novel. "All right then, I'll go to
| Hell" is one of the more courageous bits of writing that young
| Americans are exposed to about ourselves. How dare we try to
| pretend otherwise. It is beyond me.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| Well, the summary is of course extremely condensed, and it helps
| a lot to read the paper. Some very quick observations:
|
| - These are data from social science students in Frankfurt,
| Germany. The city and university is traditionally left-leaning,
| so not at all representative for anything (not for students, not
| for Germany, not internationally)
|
| - The total population is ~6600, and the sample is N=501, which
| is further reduced by some missing values. Note that very few
| people actually identify as political leanings, espeically hardly
| anyone on the conservative spectrum. So I would argue that this
| study _has not enough power to draw any serious conclusion_
| (power in the statistical sense as sensitivity to reject a H0
| given it is false)
|
| - The measured variables were many more than merely banning
| books. Some restrictive attitudes were not supported.
|
| Finally, it is immensenly important to remember that countries
| must pick one of roughly three approaches to dealing with harmful
| political attitudes (see Ziblatt's "How Democracies Die" for a
| longer review of this):
|
| - Have all attitudes compete equally (this is the US model of
| free speech)
|
| - Contain bad attitudes by shunning them and rendering them a
| taboo
|
| - Exclude bad attitudes by prohibiting them legally (this is the
| German model, which criminalizes expression of some opinions such
| as denial of the Holocaust).
| caslon wrote:
| Does pg get automatically recommended to all twitter users or
| something? The replies to his post are pretty low-quality; I'm
| guessing few people in it have read any of his books (technical
| or the essay compilation). Why'd he get cursed with such a
| following?
| adamors wrote:
| The tweet is really low quality clickbait so the replies are of
| same quality. If you actually read the study you'll find that
| PG's summary has little to do with it. It reads like anti-woke
| clickbait if anything.
| loeg wrote:
| He blocks the intelligent critics.
| sibeliuss wrote:
| It's the nature of banter constrained by a character count.
|
| Beyond that, PG is a public figured with a huge following, not
| some obscure academic.
| jahlove wrote:
| > Why'd he get cursed with such a following?
|
| My observation is that most twitter replies are pretty low
| quality across the board. Especially on politics twitter.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Apart from the poor methodology that others have commented on,
| pg's scare statistic appears to come from just one row of Table C
| on page 12 (numbered 482), related to one topic.
|
| Looking at all of the other topics paints a different picture:
| approximately 75% of student are consistently against banning
| books. But that's significantly less easy to hand-wring about.
| ummonk wrote:
| Well "from their university library" is a pretty important
| qualifier.
|
| Certainly, curating which books are placed in the university
| library is detrimental to diversity of thought and exposure to
| various views (even knowing what extreme views are out there is
| important if you wish to counter them). But it's not really the
| same as say a government ban of controversial books.
|
| Also, this survey was done in Germany, where you can already go
| to jail for claiming the holocaust didn't happen.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Universities are _supposed_ to be the place where you are
| introduced and exposed to controversial ideas. At least, that's
| what I was told when I enrolled.
|
| But maybe that sentiment has outlived its purpose now that
| higher education is so ideologically tilted towards one side.
| kwinten wrote:
| About 75% of students who were polled were against banning
| books pretty much across the board.
|
| Does that fit within the ideological narrative you've
| constructed here for yourself though?
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| It does, believe it or not. In fact, 75% of students being
| against banning books implies the other 25% is either
| accepting or endorsing censorship. One in four is pretty
| significant.
|
| It doesn't take a majority of a population to get changes
| made, just a persistent and vocal minority.
|
| But please, do go on about _my narrative_. Especially when
| you come to this thread with narratives like "The "extreme
| left" is not even a fraction as represented as even far
| right within popular consciousness and, more significantly,
| political representation."
|
| Which is farcical when you look at how mainstream and
| accepted ideas from the left are in the culture of the
| west. Unless you shift the definitions of what far-left and
| far-right are.
| orwin wrote:
| > Which is farcical when you look at how mainstream and
| accepted ideas from the left are in the culture of the
| west. Unless you shift the definitions of what far-left
| and far-right are
|
| OK. Far right idea are built on a simple idea. We (our
| group, nationalist, cultural, religious) are inherently
| better than the others. This can be proven by Y[0]. But
| right now, we are feeling inferior to (our neighbours,
| elites, educated people, [1]). The only rationnal
| explanation is that (the liberals/the communists/the
| jew/the illuminati/the deep state) are plotting against
| us from within. Once those are purged, we will get our
| rightfull place in the world.
|
| Far left: A class war exist. this can be proven because
| X[2]. The non-essential properties should be communal.
| The mean of production should be owned and paid for by
| the men and women who work them. The undemocratic
| republic is a tool for the bourgeoisie to keep people
| content with an illusion of choice and power. Police and
| armed forces are the other tools of the bourgeoisie to
| protect their property more than to protect lives[3]. The
| bourgeoisie must be purged for the working class to
| thrive again.
|
| I think both are pretty prevalent, one we talk much more
| about the former than about the later.
|
| Do you think i misrepresented one part? If so, don't
| hesitate to correct me.
|
| [0] often a racist sentence, hence its often left to the
| auditor understanding
|
| [1] French, Jews, Africans, mediterranean (including
| italian for the Nazi). The list was not the same for
| Fascist Italy/Spain/France, but close enough.
|
| [2] Warren buffet said so/worker are manipulated into de-
| unionizing/ transversal fights are a diversion by the
| bourgeoisie
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| I don't know what point you're trying to convey, to be
| honest.
|
| But in _my own experience_ all sorts of people who hold
| views on the Left tend to 1) distance themselves from
| "the left", 2) claim that what is perceived as left-wing
| is actually only _barely_ left wing, and 3) claim that
| the right has dramatically more power and influence than
| they really do.
|
| So I'm not really looking for a definition of what the
| left and the right are. I'm just noting how the person I
| was responding to must have a radically different
| definition that convention.
| orwin wrote:
| Also, the liberal left trying to close overton window
| while opening theirs is a poor response, but a response
| nonetheless.
|
| For people realy on the far left reading this: you are
| behind the fascists and the liberals in the culture war:
| go to your group and start opening overton windows about
| the far left culture: violence against property as a mean
| of expression, street occupation and guns right as a mean
| of self-defense (rememebr the Black Panthers? Go do the
| same thing! Or at least talk about it).
| orwin wrote:
| I've read a book -a pamphlet, really- about how killing heirs
| are the quickest and less expensive way of wealth
| redistribution. Several good point were made, not that clever
| though tbh, and with some provocativness and irony.
|
| I think a better writer could make a good book, less ironic,
| even more convincing and less upfront with the idea. If this
| book existed, would you let young people read it? I mean, you
| could argue back that heir add value by living and pushing
| their parent to earn even more money, and killing them would
| kill their motivation, but now, killing the 3rd generation
| should not have any influence on the early motivation, yes?
| pmorici wrote:
| Many if not most universities are publicly funded quasi
| governmental institutions.
| ummonk wrote:
| Yes, and? Are you arguing taxpayers should be forced to fund
| the dissemination of extreme views?
| JadeNB wrote:
| > Many if not most universities are publicly funded quasi
| governmental institutions.
|
| That sounds very much like someone whose only experience is
| with large public universities. I don't really know what
| "quasi-governmental" means, but any reasonable meaning I can
| assign it is far beyond my small university--and there are
| way more small universities than big ones.
| vidarh wrote:
| It's also worth looking at the context - the students were
| given four specific scenarios:
|
| 1. Someone who believes that Islam is incompatible with the
| Western way of life.
|
| 2. Someone who thought there are biological differences in
| talents between men and women.
|
| 3. Someone who is against all forms of immigration to this
| country.
|
| 4. Someone who thinks that homosexuality is immoral and
| dangerous.
|
| Only for #4 were as low as 66% _against_ removing their works
| from the university library. For 1, 78% were against, for 2,
| 81% were against, for 3, 74% were against.
|
| While that may still be troubling, it's clear peoples
| willingness to have them removed from the library depends
| significantly on the specific statement, and another way of
| presenting this is that the more clearly a statement was flat
| out expressing bigotry, the more willing people were to remove
| works by that person.
| [deleted]
| jimbob45 wrote:
| If you live in any moderately large sized city, you're just going
| to get your books from the public library anyway. No one used the
| school library at our school and we were fairly large and fairly
| successful.
|
| If it's in class, 99% of the kids were going to SparkNotes
| whatever book they ended up getting anyway.
| spiderice wrote:
| Not entirely sure you can claim that most university libraries
| go unused just because yours did.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Wait, I was talking about high school. Do universities ban
| books too? How does that make sense?
|
| And my point is that public libraries are simply better
| stocked than high school libraries to the point of making
| high school libraries obsolete.
| thayne wrote:
| The paper referenced in the original tweet was about
| banning books from a university library.
| kwinten wrote:
| It should come as no surprise that the right-leaning students who
| ideologically agree with the stated "controversial books" or
| ideological viewpoints of the hypothetical speakers do not want
| to remove them from the university library.
|
| Also, it's a third of SOCIAL SCIENCE students, not overall
| student population, and the study has a terrible response rate of
| 7.5% which they themselves admit in part 4.1. Also, because it
| seems like bad faith editorializing by the OP, it's about banning
| books from the university library, not in general.
|
| In other words, the study is awful and it doesn't prove any
| point, but because it's easy to spin it into an anti-woke
| censorship narrative, HN is going to eat this up.
| akomtu wrote:
| The statistical significance of the poll may be garbage, but
| the point it's trying to make is important. I'd personally ban
| CRT rhetorics in education, but banning CRT books would be a
| direct attack on 1A.
| kwinten wrote:
| You can't make a point based on garbage data.
| cracker-news wrote:
| > _because it 's easy to spin it into an anti-woke censorship
| narrative, HN is going to eat this up._
|
| It is the most tiring and mundane narrative -- that a group of
| people who are mostly young and relatively powerless somehow
| represent some grave existential threat by being too "woke".
|
| It's embarrassing for humanity that this is the issue that
| riles people up. We're killing off all life on the planet, but
| comparatively no one seems to care much.
| ramoz wrote:
| Im not a researcher, but why would any study of some social
| environment not be worth studying?
|
| Especially as it relates to present day & macro-scale social
| dilemmas, and more importantly a robust history to learn from
| vs repeat -- Though for this, I'd be more interested in
| historic psycho- analysis/profiling, present day, and how
| individual viewpoints evolve to large social disruptions in
| democratic societies.
| kwinten wrote:
| Never said it's not worth studying. The methodology,
| resulting samples, one-sided nature, and biased and
| opinionated narrative structure of the paper (I urge you to
| read through it) make it entirely uninteresting is all.
|
| It's clear that this is yet another piece to throw on the
| libertarian heap and to spin it into anti-woke agitprop just
| as the OP (and linked tweet, to a lesser extent) did with
| their heavy editorializing. Fuel for the fire for everyone
| who wants to read the title and extrapolate some greater
| social trends from this to fit their already established
| perspectives.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, I have some news from the future of that comment. HN is
| not eating it up. Almost every post is about how the study
| isn't great and the title doesn't reflect it.
| seventytwo wrote:
| > an anti-woke censorship narrative, HN is going to eat this
| up.
|
| Yup.
| swiley wrote:
| I tend to be right leaning and would flip out if the extreme
| left was censored. If you can't have a discussion you can't
| have democracy.
| kwinten wrote:
| The "extreme left" is not even a fraction as represented as
| even far right within popular consciousness and, more
| significantly, political representation. There's no Marxist-
| Leninist politicians of note in Germany (where the study was
| done). There are however plenty of popular politicians and
| parties with significant power who align with some of the
| statements and topics the students were asked about.
|
| What I'm trying to say with that is that it's not an equal
| comparison. There is no political mobilization for extreme
| left ideas that is even remotely comparable to the far-right
| that align with some narratives that the students obviously
| consider as dangerous, such as anti-Islam and anti-
| immigration, anti-LGBTQ, and pro gendered labor division.
|
| I am not in favor of flat out banning such books (even if I
| personally believe they have no place in an environment of
| science and learning such as a university), but it's easy to
| understand why the response of left-leaning students towards
| right-leaning topics is stronger than the inverse.
| swiley wrote:
| >The "extreme left" is not even a fraction as represented
|
| A good democratic country will swing between extreme polls
| but if you look around you'll see many strongly leftist
| ideas (extreme gun control, censorship, minors consenting
| to sex reassignment surgery etc.) getting quite a lot of
| support and becoming laws in many countries. I certainly
| wouldn't argue that they're being ignored.
| caslon wrote:
| Are any of those "strongly leftist" ideas in reality?
| When I think of the most famous book burnings and
| censorship, I think of this
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings), or
| this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism), or
| pretty much any case on this list:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_destroyed_libraries
|
| Something I notice is that, whether it's nationalist
| Italians burning Communist literature, Germany (WWI-era)
| burning Catholic writings, or the Nazis burning Soviet
| books, it's...almost exclusively the right-wing that
| supports censorship, at least on the list for destroying
| libraries. When I think of who's actually achieved anti-
| censorship in the United States, I think of people like
| Allen Ginsberg, the reason the First Amendment actually
| began to mean something in the US for the first time in
| its history. Now, I could be wrong, but I think Ginsberg
| was...a leftist going _against_ the right-wing?
|
| The left seem to have a certain libertarian bent if
| anything: They seem to want private enterprise to be able
| to host what they want. It makes sense from a free market
| perspective.
| swiley wrote:
| >The left seem to have a certain libertarian bent if
| anything
|
| My understanding was that the "left and right" is more or
| less orthogonal to the "authoritarian vs libertarian"
| dimension. The authoritarian forms of both are absolutely
| terrible, that's why we have democracy: so they can do
| their best to cancel each other out.
| opheliate wrote:
| Do you see why presenting "extreme gun control,
| censorship" (authoritarian ideas, not "leftist" ideas)
| might therefore not be considered a good argument for the
| idea that left-wing policy is gaining popular support?
| bitwize wrote:
| The first two are moderate positions. They are only
| "strongly leftist" in a far-right banana republic (i.e.,
| the USA). Giving people the right to physically match
| their gender identity is a human rights issue.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > They are only "strongly leftist" in a far-right banana
| republic (i.e., the USA).
|
| Even in the US, they are more prominent in the more
| centrist faction of the Democratic Party than even the
| Democratic "left", much less the actual (for the USA)
| "far left". Remember that one of the establishment
| arguments early on against Sanders was that he had a
| historically weak voting record on gun control.
|
| The American Right tends to confuse the degree to which a
| position is associated with the Democratic Party with how
| far "left" it is.
| kwinten wrote:
| Idk if you're still talking about Germany specifically or
| more global trends. Regarding Germany: gun control is a
| non-partisan issue and not even remotely part of the
| public discourse. Censorship of various degrees is
| written in German law especially when it pertains to
| racism, hate speech, and Nazi language and symbolism.
| Regarding the last, I'm not aware of the state of Germany
| on that point.
|
| However, none of the points you named are anywhere even
| remotely near "extreme left", even by US standards. Those
| are all Democrat party talking points, which is anywhere
| from slightly left of center to center-right.
|
| The "extreme left" (no, US Democrats are not socialists)
| has no political representation anywhere in the Western
| world and barely registers in public consciousness at
| all.
| camdenlock wrote:
| > I am not in favor of flat out banning such books (even if
| I personally believe they have no place in an environment
| of science and learning such as a university)
|
| In society's most important institutions of science and
| learning, ALL ideas must be open to scrutiny, especially
| unpopular ones.
|
| Shouldn't we want society to be built on the bedrock of
| truth via scrutiny, rather than on the mere sand of
| intellectual fashions?
| kwinten wrote:
| Ideally, sure.
|
| It is just my personal opinion that anti-science does not
| have equal value as science and should not be found right
| alongside it. Given the correct context and time and
| place, I don't fundamentally have an issue with the books
| existing or people being able to read them.
| camdenlock wrote:
| An idea is not "anti-science" merely because it makes you
| or anyone else feel uncomfortable.
| orwin wrote:
| 4. Someone who thinks that homosexuality is immoral and
| dangerous.
|
| I'd argue that this is anti-science. The biological
| theory "en vogue" is that homosexuality (not the sexual
| act, the falling in love part) is determined by hormonal
| balance during pregnancy. I don't think any theory argue
| that this is dangerous, and well, about immorality, it
| has nothing to do with science.
|
| So this idea is anti-science, and i don't think is
| interesting enough to take a spot on a shelf in a science
| university. Maybe in the reserve. Are you disagreeing
| with that?
| [deleted]
| handelaar wrote:
| "Roughly one third of 501 students at a single university in
| Frankfurt, in Germany where certain publications are required by
| the constitution to remain prohibited, are in favour of removing
| controversial books from a single named library" presumably --
| while rather more accurate -- didn't quite make the weaksauce
| point we were looking for.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > in Germany where certain publications are required by the
| constitution to remain prohibited
|
| This is false.
| jsiepkes wrote:
| For anyone reading this thinking: "huh?".
|
| This is presumably about Hitler's "Mein kampf". Which wasn't
| banned by law in Germany. The province of Bavaria simply
| inherited the ownership (copyright) of it and decided not to
| grant anyone permission to print it. Thats why it was not
| illegal to have the book but it was illegal to print it.
|
| I believe the copyright has now expired in Germany and it is
| in the public domain.
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| Why not link to the original paper?
| https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11577-020-007...
|
| > However, the actual net response rate dropped from 14% to 7.5%
| when we consider only those who completed at least 80% of the
| survey (n= 501), which is clearly poor and has to be kept in mind
| when drawing conclusions from the data. All analyses are based on
| pair-wise deletion of missing values.
|
| Divisive political issues attract people at the fringes of the
| political spectrum. If you're getting less than 10% of the sample
| filling the majority of the survey, it's likely that your sample
| is just those people interested enough to fill it out _because_
| they 're on the fringes.
|
| I am skeptical of the results, because in my experience at
| university (2007-2012, 2017-2020) I never observed "wokeness" or
| concern over microaggressions or many of the things right wing
| media reports on. It's a more likely explanation that
| Conservatives have victim complex, and "university wants to burn
| books and ban speakers" fills that complex well.
|
| Why? Politics is just business in disguise. My theory is that
| conservatives don't want government to pay for education, and in
| the US they are succeeding in this goal [1]. Saying universities
| are hypocritical is a good excuse.
|
| [1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/state-
| hig...
| thayne wrote:
| > The target population of our study are all current social
| science students at GoetheUniversity of Frankfurt
|
| > Participation was voluntary and incentivized with a lottery of
| three Amazon gift vouchers to the value of 50 euro each.
|
| > However, the actual net response rate dropped from 14% to 7.5%
| when we consider only those who completed at least80% of the
| survey (n= 501), which is clearly poor and has to be kept in mind
| whendrawing conclusions from the data.
|
| Not really a great sample. All participants are from a rather
| specific demographic, and a small sample size at that.
| akudha wrote:
| I have a request - can we add the sample size to studies like
| these, in the HN title?
|
| The sample size is so small that I don't think this study is of
| any use.
| barry27 wrote:
| Exactly. They say this in the study:
|
| ---
|
| Our empirical analysis is based on original survey data
| collected from social science students at Goethe University
| Frankfurt. We are certainly not under the im- pression that our
| sample is representative of university students in general (or
| the wider public, for that matter). On the contrary, we
| purposefully consider the social science studentship at
| Frankfurt as a most likely case (George and Bennett 2005;
| Gerring 2007)
|
| ---
|
| ..a fact that was obviously overlooked by the outraged masses
| on Twitter.
| Animats wrote:
| This is using the easiest sample.
|
| Here's another study. National, in the US, of fraternity and
| sorority members.[1] It's not primarily about censorship, more
| about Greek life and COVID issues.
|
| If a controversy over offensive speech were to occur on your
| campus, would the administration be more likely to...
|
| - Defend the speaker's right to express his/her views: 23% -
| Punish the speaker for making the statement: 38% - Not sure:
| 39%
|
| Have you personally ever felt that you could not express your
| opinion on a subject because of how students, a professor, or
| the administration would respond?
|
| - Yes: 50% - No: 42% - Not sure: 9%
|
| The sample self-identifies as 46% liberal, 33% conservative.
|
| Results differ widely among universities. Not along obvious
| lines.
|
| [1] https://assets.realclear.com/files/2021/04/1801_RealClear-
| Co...
| adamors wrote:
| > We were able to collect a total of n=932 responses in the
| period from 16 May to 2 July 2018. However, the actual net
| response rate dropped from 14% to 7.5% when we consider only
| those who completed at least 80% of the survey (n = 501), which
| is clearly poor and has to be kept in mind when drawing
| conclusions from the data
|
| So clickbait BS. Is nobody reading the linked study?
| krapp wrote:
| >Is nobody reading the linked study?
|
| This is hacker news... our time is too valuable to waste
| actually reading the article and making an informed opinion.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I know you must have some powerful evidence that only 7.5% or
| survey requests being responded to makes a survey invalid,
| right?
| kwinten wrote:
| Reading? A study?
|
| I'm just here to get angry at a misrepresentative editorialized
| title!
| heartbreak wrote:
| A misrepresentative, editorialized tweet written by the
| founder of this website.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Why would anyone ask students what their opinion on these matters
| are? The whole point of students is that they are still learning
| and studying. Should we ask a 2nd grader whether they should do
| their math homework or not?
| albanread wrote:
| Back in the day I joined evening classes just to get access to
| the technical college library. Reading books was a thing then. I
| do see some value in erasing human history and starting again. We
| have been so comprehensively vile to each other it might be
| better to erase it all.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-06-19 23:01 UTC)