[HN Gopher] Faculty group calls on Yale to make teaching 'distin...
___________________________________________________________________
Faculty group calls on Yale to make teaching 'distinct from
activism'
Author : crescit_eundo
Score : 117 points
Date : 2024-02-20 16:50 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (yaledailynews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (yaledailynews.com)
| mouse_ wrote:
| Education and VC/Hedge funds should be thoroughly isolated from
| each other.
| laidoffamazon wrote:
| It's funny how this doesn't happen at state schools (Evergreen
| State excepted) but apparently Yale students are supposed to be a
| more important class of human than the rest of us.
| finolex1 wrote:
| It happens at plenty of state schools (see UC Berkeley for the
| most prominent example). It just doesn't make it to national
| news.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Berkeley employs one of the more conservative faculties in
| the U.S. The activism is almost entirely student-driven, on
| _both_ sides.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Your comment gives the impression that the faculty at Cal
| is particularly conservative. Apparently it's about 10:1,
| in favor of democrats (Stanford is 7.6). [1]
|
| Cal (and Stanford) may have more conservative faculties
| than other elite institutions, but I'm sure there are many
| schools in other states that are not this democrat-heavy.
|
| A quick google shows that Princeton and Columbia are
| roughly also 10:1, so I'm not sure I'd say Berkeley's
| faculty is especially conservative for an elite
| institution.
|
| 1: https://swopec.hhs.se/ratioi/abs/ratioi0054.htm#:~:text=
| For%....
| pessimizer wrote:
| evidence: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/our-faculty/faculty-
| profiles/jo...
|
| That being said, these students are the most listened-to
| class on the planet. Their awful mass media-drenched
| suburban backgrounds along with the race for interesting
| opinions that they engage in to try to distinguish
| themselves from those backgrounds is lowering the quality
| of education in general.
| drawkward wrote:
| This isn't national news. It's the Yale school newspaper.
| lupusreal wrote:
| It's fine for faculty to demand this, but will their students
| permit it?
| newsclues wrote:
| Academics have for a long time been progressive activists at many
| schools.
| CivBase wrote:
| I think this quote from Julia Adams, one of the signers, is
| relevant:
|
| > "The concerns articulated in the FfY formation statement
| pertain to universities -- and not their members! -- as
| activists."
|
| There's no problem with individuals within academics being
| activists, but the institution itself should remain neutral.
| Its goal should be to foster an environment where ideas can be
| shared freely and considered by anyone.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > There's no problem with individuals within academics being
| activists, but the institution itself should remain neutral.
| Its goal should be to foster an environment where ideas can
| be shared freely and considered by anyone.
|
| Not all ideas are created equal. We have a long history of
| ideas, including sciences, that are discredited to a degree
| where they are, frankly, beneath consideration. Subjects like
| phrenology and eugenics, the creation theory for the origins
| of the universe, etc. IMO continuing to permit debate on some
| of these is not only harmful because the science itself _was,
| in itself, harmful,_ but it 's also a waste of an expensive
| institution's resources. At some point, further inquiry on a
| given subject just does not merit the time and energy of
| people who have far better work to be doing.
| CivBase wrote:
| I don't think anyone is asking institutions to spend
| resources on ideas which have been discredited. I believe
| the ask is for academic institutions to avoid creating an
| atmosphere where ideas are abandoned before they can be
| evaluated because they run counter to the activist ideas
| promoted by the institution.
|
| EDIT: or an atmosphere where certain ideas are favored
| because they support the activist ideas promoted by the
| institution.
| pradn wrote:
| Many academics lean left, but some of the biggest academic
| impacts on the real world came from conservatives. The Chicago-
| school economists were behind the Neoliberal turn -- directly
| causing the overthrow of Allende, the market shocks after the
| Cold War. And the NeoCon academics in foreign policy & history
| were behind interventionist wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and
| elsewhere.
| birdofhermes wrote:
| Not to mention the Federalist Society and their attack on
| constitutional law over the past twenty-some years.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Can you give some examples of the Federalist Society
| attacking Constitutional law? That seems antithetical to
| their mission statement.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> progressive activists at many schools.
|
| That is the general idea of modern education: progress through
| study and research. We can of course go back to the old model:
| preservation through study and repetition. But I like modern
| technology. I also like modern ideas. I like to vote, and that
| other people are allowed to vote too. We should continue that
| progression.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| The brilliance of naming an ideology "progressivism" is that
| it is forever associated with something people consider
| beneficial, progress.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> something people consider beneficial, progress.
|
| Lots of people don't want progress. Returning the country
| to a perceived previous state is a cornerstone of "make
| American great again". A large part of the country actively
| wants to undo progress and return to what they believe was
| a more simple and understandable world.
| newsclues wrote:
| I want progress, I hate when people call regression
| progress.
| newsclues wrote:
| It's a code word for communist which is a regressive
| ideology.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Nature is healing
|
| Given that we already have distinct forms of organizations for
| activism, corporations and other forms of non-profits should "use
| their platform" to tell activists to pound sand
| newaccount7g wrote:
| But if mainstream economic theory is anything close to being
| correct, denying Marx was correct is like denying gravity. It's
| just so clear based on the literature that the rate of return on
| investment exceeds the growth of the real economy. Anything else
| is conservative activism not grounded in experimental reality.
| gryzzly wrote:
| the modern university education lacks exactly the same thing
| that your 1 paragraph of letters does - nuance. "Anything else
| is ..." is the crap we need to see less of, if we are to
| respect academic research and publishing at all.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > the modern university education lacks exactly the same
| thing that your 1 paragraph of letters does - nuance
|
| Where do you get that? My experience is very much the
| opposite. What I see from university educations is far more
| nuanced and sophisticated than what I see anywhere else - far
| beyond HN, fwiw.
| gryzzly wrote:
| I'm not even going to take a specific stand or call out the
| specific things that make me loose hope for the future. But
| if you don't notice that activism and books praising
| activism (as opposed to seeking knowledge and revealing
| truth, or even just having deep knowledge of craft, like
| medicine), are a large part of modern academia, then we
| live in two different worlds.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| How do you define activism? I think activism is very much
| about the truth - it's a means of putting a challenging
| truth on the agenda when otherwise it would be ignored.
|
| MLK said that people don't change their minds (maybe not
| exactly his term) in the absence of tension. There's
| plenty of history that they will ignore things for
| generations if they can. Look at what's happening with
| climate change, for example - and instead of acting to
| stop the problem, many in power are acting to deny it and
| to suppress anyone who points out out.
|
| > if you don't notice that activism and books praising
| activism (as opposed to seeking knowledge and revealing
| truth, or even just having deep knowledge of craft, like
| medicine), are a large part of modern academia
|
| What in academia do you have experience with? Any at all?
| xyzelement wrote:
| // It's just so clear ...
|
| As one of the many millions of people that moved to the west to
| (successfully) elevate our lives compared to every place where
| Marxism has been attempted -- what?
|
| // ... based on the literature
|
| Oh, lol. People can't eat "literature."
| throwawa14223 wrote:
| If a science shows Marxism works it casts doubt on that area of
| science not rigor on Marxism.
| cpill wrote:
| which modern intellectual supports Marx these days?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I suspect they were just not clear about what they meant
| specifically. Distinct from political or economic marxism,
| dialectical materialism is a thoroughly mainstream technique
| in history and the philosophy of science and certainly other
| disciplines as well.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| >But if mainstream economic theory is anything close to being
| correct, denying Marx was correct is like denying gravity. It's
| just so clear based on the literature that the rate of return
| on investment exceeds the growth of the real economy.
|
| Putting aside that I quite like Marx and Marxism as objects of
| study, Pikkety's "r > g" is simply not any of Marx's empirical
| theses in _Capital_. You are perhaps thinking of the "tendency
| of the rate of profit to fall", which many people considered to
| hold empirically in the 19th century but which came into
| greater dispute through the 20th century:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...
| awaythrow999 wrote:
| This has been popping up like mad the past 10 days on all my
| feeds. In a nut-shell:
|
| "Right wing think tank argues against activism in academia ..."
|
| Rethinking the Plight of Conservatives in Higher Education
| https://www.aaup.org/article/rethinking-plight-conservatives...
|
| Culture wars are raging on US campuses. Will they affect
| research? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00393-1
|
| Special Issue: The Participatory University Between Policy and
| Activism: The conceit of activism in the illiberal university
| https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/147821032110034...
| simpletone wrote:
| What you choose to teach and how you choose to teach is innately
| a form of activism. It's impossible to separate teaching from
| activism. The problem with activism in universities isn't with
| the professors, it's with the administrative staff.
|
| What yale and other institutions need to do is adopt a neutral
| stance and protect freedom of speech. Which used to be the
| standard when I went to school.
|
| A neo-nazi, a zionist, a christian, an atheist, etc should have a
| right to study, teach, opine, etc in an american university.
| People need to feel free to be a 'devil's advocate' in any
| academic institution. The problem is that the lunatic fringe has
| coalesced together and taken power not only in academia, but
| corporate america and government.
|
| As for limiting donor influence, I think we can all agree on
| that. It's crazy how a few despicable billionaires were able to
| take out the leaders of harvard, penn, etc.
| gnicholas wrote:
| How do you suggest limiting donor influence, as a practical
| matter? How can they be forced to donate to organizations whose
| actions they oppose?
| simpletone wrote:
| > How do you suggest limiting donor influence, as a practical
| matter?
|
| Harvard, Penn, etc is far more important than bill ackman,
| trump, etc.
|
| > How can they be forced to donate to organizations whose
| actions they oppose.
|
| They don't have to donate. And their children don't get
| special privileges to these institutions. Besides, as I said,
| the organizations should take a neutral stance.
| kelnos wrote:
| I agree with your toplevel comment in general, but I'm not
| sure I understand how they should avoid the outsized
| influence of a few donors. Is the idea that institutions
| should adopt policies that ensure that no one donor (or a
| small group of donors) consists of too much of the
| donations pool? Or should they actively be rejecting
| donations based on some sort of subjective evaluation of
| the donor? The former seems reasonable, but the latter
| sounds like the opposite of an org taking a neutral stance.
|
| I do think there are some cases where orgs should be
| actively disqualifying specific donors; the Epstein junk
| seems to be a good example of why they should be picky.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> adopt a neutral stance and protect freedom of speech.
|
| Neutral stances sound all well and good, but in reality they
| are fraught with difficulties. What is the neutral stance on
| anthropomorphic climate change? What is the neutral stance on
| the age of the earth? Or its shape? Adopting pure neutrality
| means giving voice to the fringes. While students can certainly
| benefit in principal from hearing such voices, I would have
| walked out of Geology 101 had we been tested on "alternative"
| religious-based models of geology. I went to university to
| learn about reality. I can get enough of the non-reality from
| the internet.
| kelnos wrote:
| You're not actually arguing against what the GP said. The
| argument being made is that _administrative staff_ should
| stay out of these sorts of debates. They should have no
| position on climate change. That 's the faculty's job,
| especially faculty whose expertise is in climate science.
|
| If faculty is teaching religious-based versions of these
| sorts of topics, then students are free to either a) enroll
| elsewhere, or b) engage in activism with the goal of having
| these faculty members removed from teaching positions.
|
| The administrative staff should be responding to the wants
| and needs of students (and faculty, to some extent), not
| pushing their own views on them.
|
| Of course, there's usually some overlap. Some (many?)
| university departments will have dean positions that rotate
| among teaching faculty. But pure administrative positions
| should maybe sit back and listen rather than pushing their
| own agenda.
| collingreen wrote:
| I agree with some of the sentiment here but not the
| detail/presentation -- in particular I find it very frustrating
| to see an argument that we should embrace nazis as teachers
| built on the implication that that's the only way to have a
| "devil's advocate" perspective. I have met many many many
| people who can think critically and effectively consider/debate
| multiple angles of something without embracing nationalism or
| racist hatred as an identity.
|
| Yes let's ensure we have the best opportunity to learn from,
| debate, and critique each other. No let's not excuse or embrace
| outrageously hostile behavior.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Or simply the fact that in the normal course of my life I
| have encountered plenty of racists, neonazis, colonialists,
| IQ fetishists, wannabe eugenicists etc etc. I considered
| these ideas already.
|
| They all suck and there is no value in further consideration
| of them, either for me or for our society. These ideas need
| nothing more from us but to be pushed out of the main stream
| of intellectual discourse and the people who support and
| endorse them are offering nothing useful to us by doing it.
| norir wrote:
| Neutral is an ideal, not a practical reality.
| slater wrote:
| > A neo-nazi, a zionist, a christian, an atheist, etc should
| have a right to study, teach, opine, etc in an american
| university.
|
| Of course. But they're not free from the consequences of e.g.
| espousing neo-nazi nonsense.
|
| > The problem is that the lunatic fringe has coalesced together
| and taken power not only in academia, but corporate america and
| government
|
| But enough about Conservatives. /s
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Sorry, but all teaching[1] takes a position. Being fringe/widely
| accepted and taking a position are _orthogonal_ concepts. It
| sounds like Yale 's instead engaging in curriculum by controversy
| avoidance, which incidentally is one of the worst ways of
| designing a curriculum and most certainly "taking a position" -
| the position of trying to avoid controversy.
|
| 1. by virtue of being an interpersonal interaction
| smokel wrote:
| I started writing a similar comment at this, but then figured
| that the situation is not so black-and-white. Some activists
| are using disingenuous practices to undermine science.
| Undermining science by itself might be a noble cause in some
| areas, but please just use the legal or political systems to
| accomplish that. Do not attack individuals directly.
| jimbokun wrote:
| What would be an example of nobly undermining science?
|
| Do you mean undermining poorly done science with better
| science?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Maybe they mean "calling scientific method a form of
| racism?" Just a thought.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| I think they mean demanding the elimination of peer review.
|
| There is a movement afoot to eliminate the practice because
| if it is done the way intended, the bar is too high.
|
| The bar probably is too high, but that's not necessarily a
| problem. Rather that's the point.
|
| I agree, that particular movement does have at its root an
| assault on science.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Should go on peer review, and demand replication of
| results before accepting a paper's findings, in an ideal
| world.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _It sounds like Yale 's instead engaging in curriculum by
| controversy avoidance_
|
| This isn't my reading of the situation at all. They aren't
| seeking to avoid all controversy, but rather to allow students
| and faculty to discuss even controversial issues from multiple
| sides.
|
| Can you point to the language that makes you think they're
| trying to avoid teaching controversial subjects?
| jimbokun wrote:
| Bias may be unavoidable, but it should be rooted out to the
| greatest extent possible. This is a core principle central to
| human advancement. It is central to the scientific method, and
| liberal societies generally.
|
| Fringe positions can be revolutionary and important. More
| often, they are reactionary and not well thought out. There is
| nothing wrong with advocating for a fringe position. But you
| better have the intellectual goods, and not just win arguments
| by default by suppressing dissent.
|
| The latter is activism. Controversy should mean giving opposing
| view points a fair shake and judging between them by the
| strength of the data and arguments supporting them. Not by
| university administrations unilaterally deciding and declaring
| dissent as "unsafe" for the students who don't want to be
| exposed to anything that challenges their world views.
| shuntress wrote:
| The issue here is Overton Window.
| gnramires wrote:
| I think it's important to understand what bias _is_. Bias is
| not having an opinion. Bias is when several particulars to
| you influence your opinions in ways that don 't reflect
| certain values, like the common good, truth, accurate
| representations of the matter, or similar values. I also
| think conveying certainty when there is none is a form of
| bias (when advocating for change, for example), as is equally
| advocating for absolute ignorance where there are some
| principles we can have confidence is.
|
| That's different from neutrality, which for me is avoiding
| expressing opinions at all. I think neutrality is valuable if
| otherwise dialogue would be misinterpreted or cause conflict.
| Conversations need a well moderated (safe, welcoming, with
| vigilance for good-faith discussion) and freely exchanging
| environment to be productive, otherwise I think neutrality is
| the best option. Neutrality is also a good option when there
| are different cultural notions/opinions that can coexist
| without coming into conflict (this is a case where promoting
| uniformity and uniform agreement can be _harmful_ , I
| believe! -- like, we don't need to agree that basketball is
| superior to football or something like that).
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > Bias may be unavoidable, but it should be rooted out to the
| greatest extent possible
|
| That's not the way I'd phrase it. Bias should aim towards
| truth.
|
| Unbiased signal treats Young Earth Creationism and the
| geologically- and astronomically-rooted theory of long time
| as equivalently valid viewpoints.
|
| The bias should be, for hard sciences, on the scientific
| method and evidence-based reasoning.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| I don't know man?
|
| Maybe for math and science you can do this? But history,
| _is_ bias and indoctrination.
|
| What Germans learned about WWII during the 70's and 80's
| was significantly different than what, say, Russians or
| Americans learned about WWII during the 70's and 80's. And
| what Russians and Americans learned about WWII was slightly
| different from each other as well.
|
| Even within a nation. In Florida slavery will be taught
| more as a precursor to legal immigration, in Minnesota it
| will be taught as an evil and an affront to humanity.
|
| History all depends on what you want to indoctrinate the
| kids with. Which, in turn, all depends almost totally on
| your bias.
| jimbokun wrote:
| You do not need bias to win the case for the Earth being
| >6,000 years old. An unbiased presentation of the empirical
| data at our disposal is sufficient to make that case very
| strongly.
|
| > The bias should be, for hard sciences, on the scientific
| method and evidence-based reasoning.
|
| That is the opposite of bias.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There's an old saw in the AI community about Minsky
| talking to a student training a tic-tac-toe neural net.
| When he asked why the net was randomly-wired initially,
| the student responded that they didn't want it to have
| preconceptions of how to play. Minksy responded that it
| still had preconceptions; we just didn't know what they
| were.
|
| Eliminating bias is a _mu_ -goal. An unbiased electrical
| pin isn't a perfect signal; it's a floating input,
| passing along whatever radio flux slips through it. Our
| goal is always to seek out the _right_ biases.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I must be missing something; doesn't everyone already
| think their biases are the right biases?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Generally. But some people are correct in that opinion
| and some are incorrect.
|
| We can fool ourselves frequently. Nature cannot be
| fooled.
| silverquiet wrote:
| As others have said, we all have biases, but it seems that
| American Conservatives are tripped up by them more in an
| academic context than other groups.
|
| It is not controversial in academia that the Earth is on the
| order of billions of years old, animals change over time via
| evolution, or that carbon dioxide has a greenhouse effect.
| And yet within the American political context, they are
| controversial.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| To be fair, the way I read what Yale is trying to do, we
| would get rid of the deluge of nonsensical garbage that
| we've been subjected to for the past few decades. Peer
| review would be reinstituted in its original form. The bar
| gets wayyy higher. And your activities become activism when
| you don't have the independent replications to back up your
| assertions.
|
| This could be a Godsend with respect to stopping the
| assault on science. Conservatives would be very unlikely,
| for instance, to get their "studies" independently
| replicated by non conservatives.
| jimbokun wrote:
| That you cannot name any similar biases by people on the
| left...clearly shows where your biases lie.
| silverquiet wrote:
| Indeed, I am not aware of instances where the left
| disagrees so ardently with firmly established science.
| There are certainly some disputes where the science gets
| a bit more squishy, but frankly there's a reason that I
| was driven away from Christianity by right-wing
| ideologues who also denied science.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _I am not aware of instances where the left disagrees
| so ardently with firmly established science_
|
| Let me introduce you to the "lab leak hypothesis", which
| was decried as racist for years by prominent Democrats
| and scientists. It lost this reputation around the time
| that another prominent liberal (Jon Stewart) saw fit to
| mock its detractors on national TV a while back. This was
| not firmly established science at first, but those on the
| left made impossible to even discuss in mixed company,
| which shut down the conversation and any rational
| investigations.
|
| For other examples, check out Vinay Prasad's writings.
| He's a Bernie supporter, a UCSF professor, and the rare
| progressive who is willing to call out hypocrisy and
| graft even when it appears on the left.
| silverquiet wrote:
| Indeed, I do not think that there are firmly established
| facts as to the origin of Covid-19.
| gnicholas wrote:
| One firmly-established fact is that it was not
| unreasonable to consider the lab leak hypothesis. This
| fact was anathema in progressive circles.
|
| And to me, as a Chinese-American person, it was insulting
| (and a bit bizarre) to insist that it's "racist" to say
| the virus leaked from a lab, rather than having spread
| via an unsanitary wet market. But this was the party
| line, and many people toe'd it for years.
| jimbokun wrote:
| I have seen a number of pieces claiming that there are no
| biological differences between men and women that would
| lead to men having a clear cut advantage in athletic
| competitions.
| silverquiet wrote:
| I remember reading something like that in The Atlantic
| which was roundly criticized because it was stupid.
| August thought The Atlantic may be, I don't consider it a
| scientific publication; what articles are you referring
| to?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > But you better have the intellectual goods, and not just
| win arguments by default by suppressing dissent. / The latter
| is activism.
|
| Isn't that what conservatives are actively, openly doing
| everywhere - suppressing dissent in libraries, universities,
| business (ESG, DEI, etc.), society, courts, political
| protest, media - suppressing liberal dissent?
| throwawa14223 wrote:
| I'm having a hard time parsing this. Is your claim that
| ESG, DEI, etc are part of conservatives suppressing liberal
| dissent?
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I mean that the suppression of those things is part of
| conservatives suppressing liberal dissent.
|
| I see the problem; I'll fix it. Thanks!
| jimbokun wrote:
| Conservatives have very little control or influence over
| libraries, universities, business HR programs, or the broad
| media (excluding some notable explicitly conservative
| outlets).
|
| But yes, the ham fisted attempts by conservative
| politicians to combat purported progressive
| censorship...with conservative censorship...is equally bad.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Republican legislatures have been banning books from
| libraries. Libraries are government institutions. State
| universities are also government institutions. Florida
| has been forcing state schools, stifling the speech of
| the faculty on exactly what this article is about.
| norir wrote:
| This is one of those issues where I find myself both
| disagreeing and sympathizing with everyone involved. We
| desperately need collective truth, reconciliation and
| forgiveness on a societal level. Without that, these issues
| are just going to get worse and worse as all sides continue
| yelling at each other and we all retreat inside of our
| protective bubbles. The supposed woke mind virus has equally
| infected the left and the right, which increasingly mirror
| each other in their demonization of the other side and
| unwillingness to engage in good faith. No one is immune, not
| least those who claim to be above the fray.
| prof-dr-ir wrote:
| All teaching? So which position am I taking when I teach
| students how to compute the determinant of a matrix?
|
| Of course I can imagine that, say, constitutional law might
| currently be a bit more difficult to teach. But I still do not
| see what concretely the Yale administration is called upon to
| stop doing.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| This is a really good example of assuming that topics as
| things in themselves have the essential characteristic of
| neutrality. Which is itself a position. The opposite of which
| is that things _don 't_ have an essential characteristic of
| neutrality.[1]
|
| Sorry, but there's no escape hatch in the hard sciences;
| there's only one level of indirection.
|
| For any topic, I can generate a frame[2] in which it takes a
| non-neutral position. _That 's_ why neutrality doesn't exist.
|
| 1. teach the controversy, both sides! (in jest)
|
| 2. See Frame Analysis, Erving Goffman
| itishappy wrote:
| > So which position am I taking when I teach students how to
| compute the determinant of a matrix?
|
| You mean the wedge product? ;)
| lambertsimnel wrote:
| > So which position am I taking when I teach students how to
| compute the determinant of a matrix?
|
| That how to compute the determinant of a matrix is not only
| worth knowing, but worth prioritising over other things. It's
| an eminently reasonable position, but there's an opportunity
| cost to learning about determinants.
| tivert wrote:
| > It sounds like Yale's instead engaging in curriculum by
| controversy avoidance, which incidentally is one of the worst
| ways of designing a curriculum and most certainly "taking a
| position" - the position of trying to avoid controversy.
|
| I don't see the phrase "taking a position" in the OP, and your
| point seems to rest on that phrase.
|
| But to your point, you're interpreting "taking a position" to
| be so broadly that it's meaningless. There's definitely a
| phenomenon of activists trying to co-opt prestigious
| institutions to further their activist goals, but that has a
| way of debasing the institutions' other goals. It seems like
| these measures are meant to counter that problem.
|
| Activists tend to have a kind of monomania, where they're so
| focused on their activist goal that most other good things lose
| their value in comparison, so they're willing and eager to
| sacrifice those things. That's often a warped perspective, and
| the people who value those other good things need to labor to
| keep the activist impulse in check.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The educating someone on a topic can be distinct in both
| process and outcome from simply converting them to a position.
|
| conversion is a primary goal of activism, and education can be
| counterproductive to this goal.
|
| Selective information, misinformation, and intentional
| generation of bias are all ways to convert someone to a
| position. You can often see these tools utilized by activists
| of all types.
|
| Teachers will always have positions given that they are human.
| However, not all humans deploy the same intellectual honesty.
|
| For example, if someone is teaching about a subject where they
| have a position, they can present the strongest or weakest
| counter position, or none at all.
|
| A classic example of this is how basically every country depict
| their national history in schools.
| badgersnake wrote:
| I guess they didn't teach 'Hard Times'
|
| "Fact, Fact, Fact!"
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| Teaching has literally never been distinct from activism, but,
| good luck!
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| This is the correct move. Students need to learn math, science,
| history, philosophy, and generally grow in critical thinking.
| There is instead a lot of indoctrination being foisted onto their
| minds, and a lot of it is even anti-American. That is fine for
| someone to explore on their own time, but institutions of
| learning becoming centers of indoctrination is a huge no from me.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| How does one tell the difference between teaching and
| indoctrination?
|
| Every fundamental hard science started controversial. In some
| circles, they still are. Do we stop teaching heliocentrism
| because it's the devil's work? Who decides?
| subtra3t wrote:
| The topics that you or I consider to be "fundamental hard
| science" are significantly less controversial than the topics
| that would normally fall under the category of activism. I'm
| not saying that controversial ideas should be completely
| ignored, just that controversy may be an important factor, in
| the eyes of some, to draw the line between cold hard truths
| and up-and-coming divisive ideas.
| polski-g wrote:
| If you start talking about Palestine in your Differential
| Equations class, that is indoctrination. If you start talking
| about Jews in your CompSci 102 class, that is indoctrination.
|
| There is no reason to talk about anything besides the class,
| in the class.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Can you point to a curriculum or lecture where that has
| occurred?
| itishappy wrote:
| Can we mention economics in that differential equations
| class? What about hyperinflation? Specific instances of
| hyperinflation?
|
| Can we mention Einstein in physics 101? His faith and
| politics is too far, surely, but are they really entirely
| unrelated to his science? What about Heisenberg? Bohr?
| Oppenheimer?
| geodel wrote:
| Answer is pretty clear. You are bringing them as some
| sort of trick question. Economics, inflation,
| hyperinflation calculations can all be related and on
| topic of differential equations but bringing in *How
| neoliberal economics is causing hyperinflation does not
| belong to maths class.
|
| One could mention all above physicists and more in
| Physics class but talking about how Einstein was
| misogynist would not be topic for Physics class.
| itishappy wrote:
| I don't think it's a trick question at all... I think
| these are standard, everyday, run-of-the-mill questions.
| Progress is driven entirely by people, and people are
| often influenced by their messy personal histories.
| Conflicts, disagreements, and interpersonal relations are
| deeply entwined with even the hard sciences! Can you
| imagine the situation in, say, linguistics?
|
| Einstein as a misogynist might not be appropriate, but
| how about as a Jew in Nazi Germany? Is the phrase "God
| does not play dice with the universe" indoctrination? Can
| we discuss the Solvay conferences? The first Solvay
| conference is likely the most important gathering of
| scientists in modern history. The third? Indoctrination.
|
| What about Galileo and the church?
|
| I guess my point is that history is messy, and not
| scientific. Does this mean we should remove dates from
| science classes?
| sponaugle wrote:
| It is interesting that you referenced "God does not play
| dice with the universe". If you were to discuss it, I
| would suggest discussing what he actually said:
|
| "Die Quantenmechanik ist sehr achtung-gebietend. Aber
| eine innere Stimme sagt mir, dass das doch nicht der
| wahre Jakob ist. Die Theorie liefert viel, aber dem
| Geheimnis des Alten bringt sie uns kaum naher. Jedenfalls
| bin ich uberzeugt, dass der nicht wurfelt."
|
| There are a number of different translations, but one is:
|
| Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner
| voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The
| theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any
| closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am
| convinced that He does not throw dice.
|
| It is relatively easy to understand both the context and
| meaning of what Einstein said, especially if you read his
| numerous other works. The objection to some of the key
| underpinnings of Quantum Mechanics was something he
| mentioned a number of times.
|
| They key here is that you can explore and understand what
| Einstein was talking about without digging deep into the
| meaning of a god, or his view of religion. The concepts
| of Quantum Mechanics are complicated enough to keep any
| undergrad or grad student busy for a lifetime.
| rKarpinski wrote:
| Hot take, but I don't those 20th century modern
| physicists should be the focus of an intro to Newtonian
| mechanics survey course.
| itishappy wrote:
| Ha! I'll be honest, it's been over a decade since I took
| intro physics, and I work in the optics industry, so my
| perspective is certainly skewed! Fascinating what we take
| for granted...
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| 100% this. This should not be rocket science. Time to kick
| out faculty and problematic students that want to make math
| and comp sci and biology about these types of things. Leave
| those for politics and philosophy classes where real and
| meaningful debate can take place.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There was a time we thought of physics as just a
| discipline physicists do, detached from the use of the
| science.
|
| Then two cities got wiped off the map in intentional
| runaway nuclear reactions.
|
| A whole generation of physicists learned the hard way
| that if you don't make hard sciences at least _a little_
| like those types of things, you may lack the framework to
| realize when you 're being co-opted into a machine that
| kills... That "pure" science takes huge moral risks if it
| believes itself to be detachable from the world it is
| trying to explore.
|
| Credit where credit is due, they responded to the new
| challenge (https://pugwash.org/).
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| Those two cities getting wiped off the map is not an
| output of people thinking of physics as a discipline.
| There is no causal relationship between:
|
| p1 - treat physics as a discipline p2 - two cities get
| wiped off the map
|
| There are many more variables that are relevant here, and
| in times of justified war like WW2 things are different.
| Consider a war scenario where your physicists spent all
| their undergraduate study time learning about identity
| politics and writing political preambles on their papers
| in order to get their papers even looked at.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Reminds me of Oakland, CA schools doing a walkout protest
| march when their kids already don't get enough teaching,
| being one of the worst school districts in the country.
| What message are you even trying to send? The most history-
| illiterate has a message you should listen to?
| chongli wrote:
| Teaching is about encouraging students to ask questions. It's
| hard because the questions sprout like mushrooms on the
| forest floor and you may not have the answers, the time, or
| the patience for all of them.
|
| Indoctrination is the opposite: providing stock answers and
| refusing to elaborate. Using social pressure and authority to
| shame students and block their questions. Its purpose is to
| instil deference and obedience -- to enlist more soldiers for
| war -- not to enrich the spirit.
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| There is a huge amount of understood science, math, history,
| philosophy, and critical thinking to teach. It is being
| replaced with a lot of propaganda instead.
|
| When students are going to school and leaving with improved
| skills, life experiences, networks, and more critical
| thinking...it's teaching. When students leave with a chip on
| their shoulder to disrupt the United States and attack its
| institutions and reputation and even cause problems, without
| any actual skill acquisition or increase in critical
| thinking, it's indoctrination.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| What about when it's both, because they learned many things
| about the United States that make a desire for disruption
| of the current status quo justified?
|
| I think we're deluding ourselves if we think we can give
| people critical thinking and not have them question the
| consequences of colonialism, or slavery, or the industrial
| revolution, or manifest destiny, or homeland security, and
| which of those consequences should be kept and which should
| be torn down.
|
| (There's a pretty good book on this subject, actually:
| among other things it touches on, The Myth of the Rational
| Voter [2007, Bryan Caplan] notes the stark difference in
| voting habits among those with and without a college
| education. Does that mean all college education includes
| indoctrination, or does it mean learning critical thinking
| causes people to think critically to similar conclusions,
| or perhaps both? And at another level of abstraction: if
| you're a policymaker and you want people to vote in the way
| they tend to do when not college educated, aren't there
| incentives to cast education itself into doubt?)
| diggan wrote:
| "anti-American" is such an interesting term for me. It begs the
| question of what "American" means, which seems to change with
| each president.
|
| How do you decide what's anti-american and pro-american? The
| Iraq invasion for example, anti or pro-american?
| subtra3t wrote:
| I agreed with most of GP's comment, but their use of the word
| "anti-American" did put me off quite a bit.
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| Consider to what extent you're steeped in the mire
| accumulated from being very-online. If you agreed with
| everything else, then that should give you pause on why
| you're so hesitant or resistant to that usage.
| verve_rat wrote:
| Or maybe they are aware of pre-online history?
|
| The red scare didn't need Facebook to get started.
| rednerrus wrote:
| Why does anti-American put you off?
| scintill76 wrote:
| For myself, it reminds me of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-
| American_Activities_C...
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| If it is attacking American institutions and making it hard
| for an elite institution like Harvard to adequately address
| an extreme anti-semitism problem, it is anti-American. If it
| makes people feel worse about living in the United States and
| tries to impose any concept of original sin onto an American
| citizen, as is the case with a lot of "woke" propaganda, it
| is anti-American.
| archagon wrote:
| In my opinion, anyone who uses the term "woke propaganda"
| unironically is anti-American.
| gnicholas wrote:
| It's been interesting to watch as "woke" morphed from a
| word uttered with pride to an insult. I can't think of
| another word whose valence has changed so quickly and
| unambiguously.
|
| It would have been less surprising if the out-group
| started using it as an insult and the in-group still
| claimed it as a badge of honor. I wouldn't have guessed
| that the in-group would have abandoned it so readily.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > I can't think of another word whose valence has changed
| so quickly and unambiguously.
|
| maga
| gnicholas wrote:
| This acronym was always pro-Trump and has been
| simultaneously used pridefully and as an insult. I'm not
| aware of any pro-Trump folks attempting to dodge the MAGA
| label (which folks who previously claimed the mantel of
| "woke" now do). This is what I view as the difference --
| no one says they're "woke" anymore, even if they have the
| exact same views as before.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I would consider it as being opposed to the Constitution and
| the Declaration of Independence. Things like the Bill of
| Rights, separation of church and state, democracy, the
| President being a civilian, the notion of the inherent rights
| to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, etc.
| caslon wrote:
| On the other hand, if being anti-indoctrination is the
| goal, it might be a good idea to turn the same lens toward
| universities that see an oversized volume of alumni
| participating in the defense industry, something seen as
| pro-American (albeit against many of the criteria you list
| off). Historically, some universities have been _extremely_
| fond of propaganda in this regard, going as far as to
| creating direct pipelines from school to participation,
| like Caltech 's participation in the V-12 program, JPL, or
| Project Vista.
|
| If _that_ isn 't indoctrination, I'm not sure what is.
|
| Indoctrination isn't bad, and students should be able to
| have a choice between whether they want to get
| indoctrinated by the types of people who created the
| nuclear bomb, if they want to get indoctrinated by hippies,
| or if they want to get indoctrinated by a church-funded
| university.
|
| Education is inherently ideological, and the market is
| _really_ leaning toward hippie faculty at the moment.
| Allowing market forces to do what they will seems fine. It
| 'll come back around eventually, and in the meantime, state
| school kids are doing what prestigious university students
| are too good for. Look at Anduril, which is far more
| impressive a defense achievement than anything that's come
| out of Caltech since before you were a student.
| addicted wrote:
| Then how is suppressing activism, which in its peaceful
| form is the most threatened expression of the contents of
| the Bill of rights, as the Mar professors claim to want to
| do, not "anti-American".
|
| I'm sympathetic to the idea that the university as an
| institution should maintain neutrality. However, at the
| same time, individual professors, students, and even
| administrators should be protected by the university when
| engaging in speech.
| diggan wrote:
| Just for curiosities sake: So if being opposed to the
| constitution is anti-american, does that mean that people
| who submit and support amendments are anti-american too? As
| the amendment was proposed because a person didn't agree
| with what is in the constitution.
| mym1990 wrote:
| But one teacher's history is not another teacher's history, and
| the same for philosophy, and science in some parts of the
| country/world. Much of the private school system is run by
| money, and that money comes from people and places that have an
| interest at heart...it is not just a free giveaway like it may
| seem sometimes. Take the private funding away, and you have
| less bias, but now you have underpaid staff. Lose, lose.
| drawkward wrote:
| >one teacher's history is not another teacher's history,
|
| One would think that this is an important point to teach the
| students. That _all_ histories have bias, even the ones with
| which you agree.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Sure, this is a good step in allowing student to explore
| other teachings and points of view and learning to think
| for themselves. That is not how most of the education
| system is built though, it is built to spoon feed a
| curriculum, no questions asked. This is quite sad because
| kids and adolescents are naturally very curious.
| drawkward wrote:
| In my opinion, drawing on my past experience as a teacher
| in a very impoverished area, there has to be a sliding
| scale. Facts are facts; my middle school students were
| expect to learn long division, but many struggled with
| addition, some even still counting on their fingers.
|
| Phonics, math facts, sentence structure: some of these
| should be indoctrinated at an early age, so as to enable
| later on the higher levels of inquiry that represents
| true intellectual freedom.
|
| On the other hand, you have some people trying to sell
| "woke kindergarten" aaaand...its not going well for the
| students and their ability to reach academic goals
| consistent with early primary school.
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| > On the other hand, you have some people trying to sell
| "woke kindergarten" aaaand...its not going well for the
| students and their ability to reach academic goals
| consistent with early primary school.
|
| Because it's a psy-op to just foment division internally
| in the United States. They want to weaken the Melting
| Pot. Don't worry, strong men are going to put their foot
| down and ensure that American children (including
| DREAMERs) are receiving an actual education rather than
| the propaganda you referenced. It's fundamentally based
| on lies and contradictions. It only propagated so far
| because its purveyors succeeded in (temporarily) scaring
| the people who they are trying to silence. They tricked
| people with social media into thinking that the neutral
| and default American status quo position is wrong and
| unpopular. People saw some numbers on tweets and
| concluded that woke kindergarten is in session for
| everyone.
|
| But the reality of things is that this land is still
| fully occupied by a bunch of strong men who will be
| paying more attention to what their children are being
| taught and by who.
| mym1990 wrote:
| I'm not even sure you know what you're talking about :/
| mym1990 wrote:
| Of course, a strong foundation for rudimentary skills is
| a must, unfortunately not everyone is interested in
| building that and want to skip to the _insert crazy
| topic_ of the month. My view is that technology has
| outpaced the ability of teachers to keep up. A student
| will see 100 new things on TikTok before a teacher can
| even blink and address any of it, its an uphill battle
| and I don 't envy the teacher's job.
| bena wrote:
| Describe the indoctrination you think is taking place
| currently.
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| An entire generation is being taught to be passive and to
| ignore threats at the border or abroad. Elite institutions
| like Harvard are currently ousting some faculty members who
| foment anti-semitism in this modern age. It is more common to
| see hot takes against the SCOTUS and Constitution and secure
| borders from uninformed youth than any realistic takes. They
| learn these things from someone.
| uoaei wrote:
| > Ignore threats at the border or abroad
|
| Statistics published by federal agencies show miniscule
| levels of threats at the border compared to domestic
| threats. "Threats" abroad is and always has been a
| dogwhistle for Pentagon funding and expenditure, and that's
| not even addressing the question of how the US can
| reasonably expect to have jurisdiction in such cases rather
| than addressing these things diplomatically.
|
| > realistic takes
|
| Normative stance with absolutely zero authority. That is,
| until you make it clear what you consider "realistic".
| Dollars to donuts it's going to be cribbed directly from
| institutional (read: tautological) "common sense".
|
| This conversation has already happened millions of times
| before. You're not actually addressing things in a way that
| moves the conversation forward.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The obvious "threat" at the border is illegal
| immigration. If you don't think that illegal immigration,
| _in the numbers we 're experiencing it_, is at least some
| kind of threat, then at least say so. Address the GP's
| point, rather than trying to pretend he didn't have one,
| even if he stated it not absolutely directly.
| r14c wrote:
| American leaders have a pattern of creating a crisis and
| using it to manufacture consent. The immigrants didn't
| come out of nowhere, you might want to look into the US's
| history in the region.
| uoaei wrote:
| This is the issue with first-order thinking: if you
| assume all other factors as constant, then sure, increase
| in demand with no change in supply is a problem.
|
| Domestic policy, especially around jobs and employment,
| has been hostile to domestic workers. The US re:
| management of the economy does not correctly account for
| inevitable immigration, so the response is a reactionary
| one to conditions that could and should have been
| anticipated. We can make room in our economy for more
| workers because we know how to improve productivity:
| capital investment into productive enterprises.
|
| The way we do capital investment today is largely by
| incentivizing private investors to take ownership of
| shares in companies, but as we've seen that creates
| perverse incentives around maximizing shareholder value
| -- see: massive layoffs of late, commonly justified by
| the phrase "wages are up to half of expenditure". It's a
| direct consequence of fiscal policy and the way the
| economy is structured. This doesn't even address things
| like wealth and income inequality, which are for this
| discussion out of scope.
|
| What about a more holistic approach, with public money
| invested and public ownership of companies? This puts the
| companies in a context where they are measured not just
| by pure microcosmic profit measures, but by their
| contribution to GDP as well as exports. The government
| uses different functions for optimizing different metrics
| than private citizens. Free marketeers pretend that
| private investment can achieve the same macroscopic goals
| but we've seen exactly how and how often those
| assumptions, hopes, and dreams fail to be borne out in
| reality.
|
| With more public investment, and easier paths to
| citizenship, US productivity re: GDP and exports would
| skyrocket if implemented correctly. American
| exceptionalists would come full circle to the ideals of
| earlier times by creating strength through diversity on
| the shoulders of a "nation of immigrants". What's more
| American than that?
|
| All of this goes against institutional common sense, but
| even that's somewhat besides the point, because the point
| is that GP just assumes that their view on the matter is
| obviously and absolutely correct so the conversation
| ended before it ever began. To echo the pithy and trite
| tone of GP: know-it-alls and pooh-poohers are un-
| American.
| empyrrhicist wrote:
| Press X to doubt.
|
| "Secure borders" is such a vague phrase - in various
| courses you can learn about the history of borders, the
| political theories and history of nation states and
| concepts of human rights, the socioeconomic drivers of
| migration, etc. There's no "Open Borders 101 Class", and
| confidently proclaiming that "They learn these things from
| someone" is a huge red flag.
|
| You CAN hear about "Border security" from politicians of
| various persuasions, but as far as I can tell there's not a
| lot of ideological (or really any kind of) consistency to
| be had from them.
| bena wrote:
| There it is.
|
| You're not worried about indoctrination. You're worried you
| won't be able to be the one to indoctrinate.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| A lot of Bolshevism for one, and there's no "thinking" it's
| taking place, because it clearly is.
| prpl wrote:
| Like a similar comment - I don't know if I believe that an
| american can ever utter anti-american things - with some small
| exceptions for flat out treason.
|
| Freedom of speech is the first amendment, and even though it is
| counter intuitive, criticizing america, it's institutions, and
| especially capitalism is fundamentally american speech - quite
| possibly the most american thing you could possibly do in the
| eyes of the founders.
|
| Colleges of sciences and engineering rarely would have
| lecturers venture down that road anyway, except in courses
| about society, history, and philosophy embedded in those
| schools, so I don't think it's a problem in any case, and your
| characterizations are being overblown.
|
| Other research areas will be inherently fuzzy on that. That's
| almost tautological - the people teaching history, philosophy
| etc... are going to have an opinion _because_ they wouldn't
| even be teaching unless they were passionate about the field.
| wait_a_minute wrote:
| In one sense you are right. But the spirit of the times at
| some institutions is not to be an American so you can make a
| better America. It's to foment violence and division and
| outrage even levied at the reliability and strength of the
| highest institutions like the SCOTUS and the Constitution and
| secure borders.
|
| Furthermore, these types of things replace real learning on
| math and science and history and other things that have
| volumes of education available sans these ideas.
| hiddencost wrote:
| The American Right moves to silence critique of dismantling
| democracy....
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| It's hard to tell from this article what is at stake and who is
| calling for what. Whose free speech? Students, professors,
| administrators, donors? And the idea of "neutrality"? hmmm.
|
| Not directly related but much apropos is this video on "What's
| gone wrong with political journalism in the UK" featuring Armando
| Iannucci [0] .
|
| The key concept is that neutrality and integrity have nothing to
| do with each other.
|
| One can be a monster by feigning neutrality, as Howard Zinn says
| it [1] "on a Moving Train". What matters, at least in
| journalistic if not academic integrity, is the "360 degree
| scepticism" needed to make the choice of when neutrality is
| appropriate or not.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoBNU_lMjaM
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn:_You_Can%27t_Be_Ne...
| geodel wrote:
| Reading Howard Zinn's "People's history of united states" with
| its endless series of atrocities I just tend to not believe a
| single word from him.
|
| I liked this fact from Wikipedia article though:
|
| > "In 2008, the film was chosen by the Zinn Education Project
| (a collaboration of two national organizations, Rethinking
| Schools and Teaching for Change) to be included in an education
| package sent to 4000 high school and junior high school
| teachers across the country."
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > endless series of atrocities I just tend to not believe a
| single word
|
| The good news is that if you're susceptible to denial and
| percepticide it means you're a "nice person". TBH I had the
| same reactions reading Christopher Browning, Solzhenitsyn,
| Chomsky, Primo Levi. The bad news is that you grow out of it,
| and with the courage to face the world, realise that
| historians don't just make up stuff to scare people -
| otherwise they'd have more fun and money being fiction
| writers like Stephen King. Now I'm not a "nice" person I can
| tell you, the weird news is that the bad news is the good
| news.
| Jiro wrote:
| >historians don't just make up stuff to scare people -
| otherwise they'd have more fun and money being fiction
| writers like Stephen King
|
| Historians don't want to scare people as a terminal goal.
| They want to scare people as a means to an end--promoting
| their ideology. Being Stephen King might scare more people,
| but it would fail to accomplish that end.
|
| And most of it isn't literally making stuff up, it's
| failing to mention some things and overemphasizing others,
| making things sound more or less certain than they really
| are, implying connections which may not be true, etc. It's
| like journalists--they can mislead without actually telling
| literal lies.
|
| Also, some of it is motivated reasoning, not lying. They
| honestly believe some things, but they honestly believe
| them because it's convenient for themselves.
| quacked wrote:
| Education is indoctrination, no matter what form it takes. Even
| telling students raw "non-political" facts is indoctrination into
| the worldview "people born to your station ought to be
| knowledgeable". You cannot "learn" anything without being
| indoctrinated into whatever view of reality your teachers take,
| so the idea that you could teach without "activism" and only
| focus on "transmission of knowledge" seems unachievable to me.
|
| Many conservatives (a word which I call myself) seem to take this
| view that it's possible to "teach without activism". However,
| when you examine what is entailed as a part of "teaching without
| activism", they are almost always arguing that schools should
| teach according to a social or informational standard that was
| considered "radical activism" anywhere from five to fifty decades
| ago.
|
| I suppose my overall point is that a faculty group calling to
| "teach without activism" should drop its "apolitical" facade and
| instead openly advocate for teaching according to whichever
| principles they think are most desirable for good societal
| outcomes. In this case, it seems like the subtext is that they'd
| like to see more socially conservative or "right-wing" filters
| applied to what is taught and how it's taught, and these filters
| are out-of-alignment with the standard
| progressive/communist/leftist/etc. spirit which is quite common
| on college campuses (and has been for decades, if not centuries).
|
| I suppose this would result in many of them being publicly and
| embarrassingly fired by their overwhelmingly left-wing donors and
| students, but if their ideas are good enough they should be able
| to seek funding by right-wing donors and open competing
| universities dedicated to "instruction" over "activism", whatever
| that means to them. There is a demand for a service like this
| right now in the US that theoretically could be met by
| sufficiently motivated actors. I don't see this happening,
| though, as in the US the "right wing" is held in the pervasive
| grip of an anti-intellectual movement that started a long time
| ago.
| jimbokun wrote:
| The goal of "teaching without activism" should be to force
| students to assess ideas on their own and present good
| arguments for what they believe to be true. And to occasionally
| be persuaded and change their opinions.
|
| The ideal teacher would leave students at the end of the
| semester not knowing what their personal position on a
| controversial issue was, as they present arguments for
| different opinions and challenge all those opinions as well.
| shuntress wrote:
| Teachers aren't robots.
|
| Teachers are more effective when they can connect with
| students on a personal level.
| drawkward wrote:
| Reasonable, and as a former teache, I agree.
|
| Perhaps teachers shouldn't assign grades based on the
| student's correlation with the teacher's viewpoint.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Connecting on a personal level does not mean accepting
| everything that person says and never challenging their
| opinions or beliefs.
| brindlejim wrote:
| University faculty-activists are a perfect example of elite
| overproduction a la Turchin.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction
|
| We create small, smart cadres of people who watch power and
| wealth pass them by, and they advocate to overturn the system
| driving their envy.
| bena wrote:
| Both this article and the article on Turchin himself don't pass
| the smell test. They both read more like opinion pieces than
| informative articles. Like they were written by either Turchin
| himself or people who know him.
|
| Contrast the article on Turchin to the one on Tim Berners-Lee
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee).
|
| No wishy-washy weasel language. No vague claims of
| contributions, just straight up: He was here, he did this
| thing.
| pictureofabear wrote:
| I didn't get that same feeling from reading the two articles,
| but Turchin's article on Elite Overproduction is relatively
| new and the idea is only as old as 10 years. It's a theory
| that's very convenient for explaining the present but seems
| to be grounded in past political instability, so who knows...
| maybe it'll stand the test of time. It is interesting though.
| rKarpinski wrote:
| > University faculty-activists are a perfect example of elite
| overproduction a la Turchin.
|
| The faculty pushing back against "administrative encroachment"
| and seeking "the primacy of teaching, learning and research"
| are your perfect example of an over produced elite?
| tines wrote:
| No, the faculty-activists are the ones _being pushed back
| against_ by the faculty seeking the "primacy of teaching."
| rKarpinski wrote:
| But the only faculty-activists are the 'Faculty for Yale'
| mentioned in the article?
|
| Administrators (and students) are not faculty.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Mentioned in the article, maybe. But it's common
| knowledge that most faculty today are de facto activists,
| they just done self identify as such usually.
| rKarpinski wrote:
| Is it common knowledge? My understanding is that it's
| generally the administrators and students who are the
| main forces of activism on campus, not the faculty
| (outside of some departments).
| aaplok wrote:
| > it's common knowledge that most faculty today are de
| facto activists.
|
| Whose common knowledge? I have never heard the argument
| that _most_ faculties are activists.
|
| This argument is a classic ad populum fallacy [0]. Using
| it to characterise (and discredit) and entire group is
| not a honorable thing to do.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
| 2devnull wrote:
| Listen to the recent pinker mearsheimer debate. Pinker
| would be a good person to advocate for the triumph of
| enlightenment values and where else would those values be
| most evident than the academy, and yet Jewish students
| are made to cower in fear at the student mobs tolerated,
| if not in effect _manufactured_ by the educators at the
| nations' highest institutions, Harvard, Penn, MIT... I
| know people who were in forced out of grad school for not
| engaging in activism, let alone committing the ultimate
| sin, having heterodox views. Perhaps that's less common
| in STEM, where politics are non-essential, but it's de
| rigeur in social sciences and I'd imagine much of the
| humanities. It's common knowledge in many circles that
| you'll get different education at Claremont vs berkeley.
| rKarpinski wrote:
| > It's common knowledge in many circles that you'll get
| different education at Claremont vs berkeley.
|
| Out of curiosity, whats the difference? Both sound like
| disconnected ivory towers to me...
| aaplok wrote:
| From the article: "The concerns articulated in the FfY
| formation statement pertain to universities -- and not
| their members! -- as activists".
|
| They push back on institutions taking up activism, not
| individual faculties engaging in activism.
| aaplok wrote:
| > We create small, smart cadres of people who watch power and
| wealth pass them by, and they advocate to overturn the system
| driving their envy.
|
| "They're just jealous" forms of arguments are an ad-hominem
| fallacy, where characteristics of the opponent (here their
| supposed intent) are used to discredit their argument [0]. Not
| only is there no evidence that these activists aren't sincere
| (which doesn't mean that they are right) but even if they were
| driven by envy, that doesn't invalidate their criticism of
| those in power...
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
| solardev wrote:
| Do you really think people go into academia as faculty
| expecting to become rich, only to end up disillusioned? They
| can't be that smart then, lol. I don't think I've ever met a
| single faculty member who was there out of good business sense.
| nemo44x wrote:
| One of the problems with a lot of the liberal arts curriculum
| today is that every university tends to slant the same way with
| the same topics. They all come to same conclusions on non-
| deterministic, subjective ideas. There's a missing counterweight
| in may cases that exists to critique, ridicule, and otherwise
| keep in check opposing ideas.
|
| For each critical theory (race, gender, secuality, etc)
| department there should indeed be a neo-reactionary (or similar)
| one, for example. But not only is there not, any questioning or
| debate of the crits is stone walled as
| racist/misogynist/homophobic/white/etc. There's actually some
| good ideas there but not being allowed to or having the
| university platform to formalize opposing ideas and to challenge
| undermines them. This is how religion happens, not free inquiry.
|
| Let the ideas flow and let the strong ones prevail but certainly
| not become doctrine.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > One of the problems with a lot of the liberal arts curriculum
| today is that every university tends to slant the same way with
| the same topics. They all come to same conclusions on non-
| deterministic, subjective ideas. There's a missing
| counterweight in may cases that exists to critique, ridicule,
| and otherwise keep in check opposing ideas.
|
| What is that based on? People I know in universities are
| exposed to a very wide range of ideas.
|
| In the OP, isn't it the conservatives who are suppressing
| ideas?
| itishappy wrote:
| > There's actually some good ideas there...
|
| Have any in mind?
| jjkeddo199 wrote:
| Campus activism has been tainted by Marxism. "Critical
| [race|gender|disability] Theory" is just standard Marxism applied
| in the social science context. Since Marxism pre-requisitely
| requires framing everything in the world into a "oppressed vs
| oppressor, have vs have-not, good vs evil" binary, you will
| become a target for hostility/harm if you are perceived as
| somehow privileged.
|
| If isolating/targeting people based on on race/gender/ability
| bothers you, you should stand up against "Critical (Marxist)
| Theory" infiltration of activist circles in the social sciences.
| Activism should be about empowering the needy, not harming the
| need-nots.
| drawkward wrote:
| >Critical Race Theory axiomatically requires white people to be
| written off as evil and the enemy.
|
| For the sake of argument, lets grant your point about the
| Marxist framing oppressor vs oppressed stuff.
|
| Cannot the system itself be the oppressor, instead of "white
| people"?
| tristor wrote:
| > Cannot the system itself be the oppressor, instead of
| "white people"?
|
| Sure, and that begs the question "who created the system?",
| "who does the system benefit?", "why is the system structured
| this way?". All of which are /good/ questions to ask, that
| critical theory advocates are all too willing to provide easy
| non-nuanced answers to, answers that boil down to "white
| people". Unfortunately, it turns out that anti-racism (at
| least as currently implemented/advocated in the majority of
| colleges and universities) is just racism with a different
| label.
| drawkward wrote:
| >All of which are /good/ questions to ask, that critical
| theory advocates are all too willing to provide easy non-
| nuanced answers to, answers that boil down to "white
| people".
|
| Then the problem is the the advocates and not CRT, no?
|
| >Unfortunately, it turns out that anti-racism (at least as
| currently implemented/advocated in the majority of colleges
| and universities) is just racism with a different label.
|
| Speaking of answers without nuance...
| jjkeddo199 wrote:
| I apologize for editing my comment to remove that context in
| trying to create clarity about my point. I had actually meant
| to reply to a different (similar) thread. I will reply to
| your point while acknowledging I edited my original point
| hoping nobody replied yet.
|
| --
|
| Sure. There could be a racist judge, corrupt cop, or absurd
| law oppressing people in any government system ever. But that
| does not meet the bar required justify totally "tearing
| society down and rebuilding everything from scratch" as a
| Marxist might suggest.
|
| There is no evidence that any alternative system would be
| better. There is much evidence that alternative systems end
| up worse. Why not fix problems where you find them instead of
| throwing the baby away with the bathwater?
| drawkward wrote:
| >Sure. There could be a racist judge, corrupt cop, or
| absurd law oppressing people in any government system ever.
|
| That is not systemic racism. That is a racist in a system.
| Systemic racism is, for example, redlining.
| bitwize wrote:
| The discredited right-wing conspiracy theory is that Jewish
| scholars worked to substitute "people of color" and "white
| people" for "the proletariat" and "the bourgeoisie" in
| Marxist theory in order to make it more modern and appealing
| in postwar America.
| juujian wrote:
| Yes. Force them to be neutral. Teach both sides of climate change
| and the Panama papers. For sure...
| drawkward wrote:
| Doesn't seem like that's whats being advocated for.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| The argument is in the premise, a powerful tool used by people
| sophisticated in public messaging:
|
| The premise here is that the status quo beliefs are knowledge,
| ideas that disagree are 'activism' - political activity - and are
| not knowledge. It's fundementally a higly conservative framing
| that, obviously and intentionally, protects the status quo power.
|
| Once you accept the premise, everything else follows - assuming X
| is political activity, and school is for learning, not so much
| for political actitivty, then obviously .... The effective means
| is not to make an argument directly for the premise - that makes
| the premise an issue on the table, something to debate. Instead,
| assume it in your argument: _Stop this politicized liberal
| activism!_ See how that works? Even people who disagree have to
| figure out what they disagree about and construct an argument.
|
| In reality, neither idea is more political than the other, and
| the university, of all places, is where to explore and develop
| new ideas. Teaching the status quo idea is just as much
| indoctrination as any other idea - maybe more, because it doesn't
| raise the question of challenging itself. The real question is,
| how are they taught. And regardless, I trust the students at Yale
| are smart enough not to be so easily manipulated - just like the
| people on HN, of course, who know so well what's good for the
| students.
| kardianos wrote:
| So long as you recognize that there exists a material reality,
| the correspondence to which we call truth, there can be
| objectivity and a separation of activism from teaching.
|
| If there can be no reasonable way to get closer to an objective
| truth, the very foundations of universities are in question and
| the entire institution destroyed. In fact, that is exactly what
| Queer Theory promotes, in which papers describe that when Queer
| Theory becomes normal, it must deconstruct itself further.
|
| No. I reject that notion. There is objective reality, and there
| is a reasonably objective way to teach knowledge apart from
| activism. It is entirely possible to promote alternate
| viewpoints without activism, so long as your alternate
| viewpoint is not "there is no objectivity".
| wolverine876 wrote:
| There's objective reality IMHO, but humans have demonstrated
| that we fail to see it clearly, and that our view of reality
| is biased by our beliefs, drives, experiences, etc. This
| understanding of human nature extends back to Plato, at
| least.
|
| One strong bias is that we follow social norms; we follow the
| herd. Challenges to that norm are upsetting, disruptive. But
| norms are not privileged in truth; there have been endless
| evil and ignorant norms in history.
|
| > If there can be no reasonable way to get closer to an
| objective truth, the very foundations of universities are in
| question and the entire institution destroyed.
|
| Nobody said we can't get closer, but the way to get closer is
| not to accept one set of beliefs and supress the others; it's
| to innovate and improve. We know much more about economics
| than we did 50 years ago and 100 years ago and centuries ago,
| but we still have far to go.
|
| > that is exactly what Queer Theory promotes
|
| Could you give an example of that?
| kardianos wrote:
| You are joining a truth to a lie.
|
| Truth: Social normal and bias correlate.
|
| Lie: Engineering, History, Science, et al are strongly
| dependent on social norms.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Lie: Engineering, History, Science, et al are strongly
| dependent on social norms.
|
| I believe in the ideals you are talking about - I think
| they are essential. If we don't look at how we fail those
| ideals, how our biases have resulted in untruths,
| obviously we won't get closer to them.
|
| We need to face the cold, difficult truths: I encourage
| you to read histories of those fields; it is
| overwhelmingly the case that bias has affected them in
| significant ways. As simple examples, much of engineering
| has historically assumed male users; not only does that
| affect seatbelt usage or bulletproof vest usage in the
| military (a real thing!), but it also excludes women from
| doing certain jobs - the equipment is made for men but
| not for women.
|
| Much of medical research has been on males for male
| problems - for example, heart disease research for a long
| time used only male subjects, though the disease affects
| women differently. Part of the reason is the training
| (school) and hiring bias toward male researchers, as many
| studies have demonstrated (some simply by removing author
| names).
|
| It's self-perpetuating: We are biased, of course, to hire
| people like ourselves (an early lesson in business
| school) and to focus on problems we have experience with.
| You need someone to push to disrupt that cycle, force
| women, in these examples, into the system. Otherwise, it
| just keeps running on that way forever.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >Much of medical research has been on males for male
| problems
|
| Or even men for pills designed for women. e.g.
| https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/a-drug-for-women-
| test...
| kardianos wrote:
| ... None of those biases require anything remotely like
| "activism" found in today's environments. All of those
| can be addressed with ease in existing objective
| frameworks.
| archagon wrote:
| You think _history_ is independent of social norms? Our
| understanding of history changes _constantly_ , and has
| for as long as humans have been alive.
| kardianos wrote:
| No, our understanding of history has not fundamentally
| changed constantly. This is categorically false.
| archagon wrote:
| It's quite clear that you've never actually studied
| history.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| There are lots of topics being conflated here IMO.
|
| There are surely questions of subjectivity and bias, but I
| think they are distinct and perhaps secondary to the
| question of intellectual honesty and humility.
|
| My favorite thinkers with intellectual honesty and humility
| will not only admit, but _highlight_ the biggest challenges
| to what they believe. They can acknowledge counterpoints
| and tradeoffs.
|
| When someone intentionally dodges or avoids the weakness of
| their own opinions, they are practicing rhetoric and
| manipulation, not education and truth-seeking. This is not
| so much an act of internal bias, but proactively attempting
| to mislead and instill bias in others.
|
| How many people can or will identify and confront the
| strongest possible counterargument against what they think
| without changing the subject?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> school is for learning, not so much for political activity
|
| That is the radical idea imho. I cannot think of anywhere more
| associated with political activity than schools. From Harvard's
| impact on the forming of the US as a nation, through anti-
| slavery writings, Brown v. Board of Education, the Kent state
| shootings, through modern school shootings/gun control, to
| today's "culture war" ... schools have always been at the heart
| of every US political issue.
| arp242 wrote:
| > The premise here is that the status quo beliefs are
| knowledge, ideas that disagree are 'activism'
|
| This is not the premise at all; I don't think anyone signing
| this letter thinks that and it's an extreme interpretation - I
| have no idea how that is your take-away. The letter
| specifically calls for a broad inclusion of viewpoints.
|
| Recently (in Netherlands, not US) there was a case where a
| course description told students to stay away if they can't
| deal with the "fact" that Israel is an apartheid state.
|
| Of course there is nothing wrong with treating all sorts of
| different aspects of "Israel" and "apartheid state", but once
| you start describing these things as "facts" that "some people
| can't deal with" who should "stay away" then you're not
| starting any discussions or challenging anything: it's
| activism. And not even very good or effective activism at that.
|
| This is the type of thing people object to. There's been tons
| of incidents over the last few years (this just happens to be
| fresh in my memory). I don't know what specific incidents there
| have been at Yale, but I'm guessing they're of roughly the same
| shape as this.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| It's the students (and faculty) that cricitize Israel that
| are kicked off campus and suppressed. The idea that we need
| to protect the rights of the powerful majority to live
| without challenge is a brazen misuse of civil rights, which
| are there to protect the minority from the majority.
| arp242 wrote:
| > The idea that we need to protect the rights of the
| powerful majority to live without challenge is a brazen
| misuse of civil rights
|
| No one is argueing this. Certainly I didn't argue this, and
| I'm not reading it anywhere in this letter either.
|
| This conversation is turning unpleasant because for the
| second time now you're taking extremist interpretations of
| everything.
| almatabata wrote:
| > I don't know what specific incidents there have been at
| Yale, but I'm guessing they're of roughly the same shape as
| this.
|
| There was a case where a professor at Yale was apparently
| pressured into resigning because of a mail she sent about
| halloween costumes:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-
| point/wp/2015/11/1...
| bitwize wrote:
| There's just one problem.
|
| It _is_ a fact that Israel is an apartheid state.
|
| Not admitting it, facing up to it, and being outraged by it
| means that there's something wrong with _you_ , with _your_
| character. You would rather cling to your conservative
| phantasies than open your mind to the unpleasant truth. Such
| a person does indeed not belong in e.g., a serious academic
| course on history.
| slyrus wrote:
| Meanwhile, there's a pretty sizeable percentage of the
| educational world that has inextricably tied education to
| religion. How about getting religion out of higher (and lower)
| education?
| gnicholas wrote:
| How would you propose doing that in a way that is consistent
| with the First Amendment?
| slyrus wrote:
| The parent article is about decoupling activism from
| teaching. Surely religion is just a specific form of
| activism.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _Surely religion is just a specific form of activism._
|
| Even if this were true (a couple billion people would
| probably beg to differ), the First Amendment specifically
| protects the free exercise of religion. So any law that
| attempted to prevent religious-affiliated organizations
| from operating a university or school would be clearly
| unconstitutional.
| slyrus wrote:
| Fair enough. One's belief in creation myths, higher
| powers/beings, afterlives, etc... is not, per se,
| activism, but once you start gathering people on a
| regular basis to bring about societal/behavioral change
| (ya know, commandments, morals, laws based on religious
| ideas/notions/opinions, etc...), much less proselytizing,
| then, yeah, it's pretty much the definition (or at least
| the poster child) of activism.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| I have a very close friend pursuing an advanced degree in
| sociology. They're an excellent student, highly intelligent, from
| a well-off background having benefitted from extremely good
| schooling their entire life - yet seem barely capable of critical
| thinking. They often talk about how research is just "food for
| thought" and has little use in any endeavor the requires decision
| making or informing policy and that truth as a concept is
| "frowned upon". These are paraphrased points this person has made
| to me on several different occasions. I want to understand their
| perspective but it's frankly shocking the conversations we have.
| The farther I've explored what this person believes the more
| bleak it gets. They argue that all perspectives are valid yet
| have extremely specific beliefs and perspectives on all sorts of
| things. These beliefs and perspectives are also exactly in-line
| with what you'd expect from a sociology department at a major US
| university. Seeing these topics at least being broached gives me
| some small amount of hope.
| rKarpinski wrote:
| > They often talk about how research is just "food for thought"
| and has little use in any endeavor the requires decision making
| or informing policy and that truth as a concept is "frowned
| upon".
|
| Sounds like a reasonable perspective towards sociology
| research?
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| There are an inordinate number of people in sociology that
| undermine truth as a concept to reduce the possibility of
| ever being incorrect about anything. This is obviously
| completely anti-scientific. Almost miraculously, many of
| these people hold extremely specific viewpoints that
| inherently amount to truth claims. I'm all for "food for
| thought" research in complex fields where truth claims are
| tenuous at best - but what I'm referring to isn't that. It's
| rhetorical strategy to make implicit truth claims then fend
| off criticism by undermining the concept of truth itself.
| maxglute wrote:
| Isn't that the job of universitities... to shape minds. I
| remember being surprised in undergrand that it took merely 2
| semesters for architecture teachers to convert/indoctorinate
| most students from primarily enjoying traditional/classical
| designs to being fully being on the post/modern hype. Most
| people are passive recipients.
| cupcakecommons wrote:
| I think it's the job of universities to shape minds. Somehow
| all these universities seems to shape minds into the exact
| same dysfunctional shape. The seeming uniformity of shape is
| what's surprising.
| maxglute wrote:
| I think it's only natural, politics within department
| drives conformity/uniformity among faculties that filters
| down to student bodies. Usually a few "schools of thought"
| dictate the discussion, then networking between these
| groups spread ideology amount tertiary elites between
| generations. IMO same dynamic behind fandom culture, except
| winner takes all since winner gets to run the classrooms
| and set broader cultural agendas. Except when the agenda
| they set clashes with broader culture, people not getting
| "modern architecture" vs actively against controversial
| topics being taught in in socialogy is going to manifest in
| society in different ways.
| xk_id wrote:
| This sounds similar to the phd student in anthropology I had as
| a friend nearly two decades ago. It's been the dominant view in
| social sciences for a long time and it comes out of critical
| theory [0], which stipulates that truth is a function of power,
| rather than empirical observation. It was incredibly
| frustrating when I would mention basic scientific observations
| to my friend and he would respond with a kind of polite, but
| detached acknowledgment, as if I told him my preferred flavour
| of Skittles candy.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| >They often talk about how research is just "food for thought"
| and has little use in any endeavor the requires decision making
| or informing policy and that truth as a concept is "frowned
| upon".
|
| If this person really believed any such thing, they would of
| course never take any form of policy or political _action_
| themselves. After all, all those ideas are just for playing
| with, right? The concept that there exists a truth you could
| act upon to change things is frowned upon, no?
| 7402 wrote:
| Education is about helping students know more about a subject
| after they take a class than before. Activism is about convincing
| others of something, or, failing that, to punish them.
|
| Is it proper for an atheist to be able to earn an "A" in a
| religion course? Yes. The professor should say at the beginning
| of class, "You do not have to be a believer. I will not judge you
| or grade you on your beliefs or lack thereof. All you need to do
| is learn and accurately show that you know what it is that people
| who _do_ believe would say. "
|
| Is it proper for a creationist to be able to earn an "A" in an
| evolutionary biology course? Yes. The professor should say to
| such a student, "You do not have to change your beliefs about
| creation or evolution. I will not judge you or grade you on your
| beliefs or lack thereof. All you need to do is learn and
| accurately show that you know how biologists calculate and reason
| about evolution."
|
| It is certainly true that opinions and beliefs can change as a
| result of education. But if that goal becomes the _primary_
| purpose of a university (as opposed to a possibly-beneficial side
| effect) then that university has corrupted the ideal of higher
| education.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _Is it proper for a creationist to be able to earn an "A" in
| an evolutionary biology course? Yes. The professor should say
| to such a student, "You do not have to change your beliefs
| about creation or evolution. I will not judge you or grade you
| on your beliefs or lack thereof. All you need to do is learn
| and accurately show that you know how biologists calculate and
| reason about evolution."_
|
| My bio teacher took this tack. He said I don't care what you
| believe; on my test, I ask you what someone who believes in the
| big bang would say about the creation of the universe.
|
| > _Activism is about convincing others of something, or,
| failing that, to punish them._
|
| I have unfortunately had professors who took this tack. I was
| too naive at the time to understand that they would demand
| unadulterated ideological fealty, though perhaps it saved me
| the ethical dilemma of pretending to believe something I
| thought was wrong, for the sake of a grade.
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Direct link to the inciting document:
|
| https://facultyforyale.yale.edu/homepage
|
| Best read this closely first, before the article. At bottom, it's
| a demand that the administration cede power to faculty, on
| multiple fronts. Questions of national politics energize the
| dispute, but are secondary.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| >Best read this closely first, before the article. At bottom,
| it's a demand that the administration cede power to faculty, on
| multiple fronts.
|
| Sounds good. Administrators have often been the most petty of
| tyrants in academia, and faculty self-governance is a more
| original founding principle of university life than
| administrative ideological governance.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The rot in academia is closely tied to the rise of the public-
| private partnership and exclusive licensing of taxpayer-funded
| research to private interests - and of course, they've been
| indoctrinating their students and staff on this issue, because
| Lord forbid anyone starts demanding that university research
| results belong to the taxpayers who financed them, let alone any
| notions about 'open-source drug discovery'.
|
| E.g. "Yale's $1.5M Ketamine VA Settlement Spotlights Private-
| Public Partnership Complexities (2023)"
|
| https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/yales-million-ketamine-va-...
|
| Corporate Lysenkoism is the norm in American academic
| institutions these days, that's what all the students are being
| indoctrinated into - whatever hysteria is circulating around the
| social science-related culture war nonsense is jut a distraction,
| a misdirection away from the real core problems in American
| academia today.
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