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The attitude I'm detecting here is this: A University is an institution, and how dare its constituents feel like they have the right to determine its culture an

The attitude I'm detecting here is this: A University is an institution, and how dare its constituents feel like they have the right to determine its culture and how it accommodates them. Students must bow to professors. They must accept the diseased puritan work ethic that infects American culture at all levels, whose main political forces are conservatism and other reactionary politics. If you are suffering, it's your fault and no one owes you any consideration. Crush the individual because the institution, the society, the culture owes them nothing. This is an authoritarian reaction. People in power complaining that they are losing their power, their place in a hierarchy that places the student body as subordinate to them. How about this as an alternative point of view: University Students demand respect and a supportive environment. Professors balk at the idea of treating them like there is any merit to their opinions on how they should be treated; reduce them to disparaging caricatures.

lkozma 11y ago
The attitude of the prof you are detecting might be as you say. However, the "infantilization" described in the article (if indeed real) does not necessarily signal that students are gaining more power in matters of importance, it could even hint at the opposite. Think of how some companies offer foosball tables and allow all sorts of goofiness instead of money/stake in the company/vacation, etc.
- danharaj 11y ago
  I think this is a good observation. I would much, much prefer students to be radical than simply to bargain with the powers that be. Universities are transforming at breathtaking speed in how they are organized and commodified. Professors are losing not only their authority, but their leadership as educators. I would not mind the end of authority, but universities being led by profit and administration is bad, too. The only reasonable course is for students and professors to radicalize and support each other, and for the role of professors to be based on natural leadership, not on power established through hierarchy (the enforcement of which always reduces to implied violence). But I think that's out of scope.
danharaj 11y ago
As a follow-up, there is a massive lack of empathy in the attitude expressed by the author. How does anyone know what others are feeling, except when they tell us what they're feeling? This article isn't about how university students are acting like children. It's painting university students as children in order to dismiss their behavior. If you actually wanted to know what university students are doing and why, you'd talk to them. Instead, this article is condescending, patronizing, and (ironically) infantilizing. To give no trust is to get no trust. If you don't trust university students to act as adults with their own autonomy who can make the best decisions for themselves, which includes effecting the environment and social structures that benefit them most, then, congratulations, you're an authoritarian and have just discarded the basic tenets of liberalism, right libertarianism, left libertarianism (i.e. anarchism), communism, and socialism. After eradicating most post-enlightenment ideas of how to treat people as human beings, what are you left with? I reiterate: If you treat someone like a child, you're not engaging them. You are dismissing them. And if you treat someone like a child in order to justify a hierarchy and power structure above them, it is very, very clear what historical examples you are following.
- fleitz 11y ago
  " If you don't trust university students to act as adults with their own autonomy who can make the best decisions for themselves, which includes effecting the environment and social structures that benefit them most, then, congratulations, you're an authoritarian and have just discarded the basic tenets of liberalism, right libertarianism, left libertarianism (i.e. anarchism), communism, and socialism. After eradicating most post-enlightenment ideas of how to treat people as human beings, what are you left with?" Not really, many horrible governments have been democratically elected, don't you think it's a good thing that the north told the south that they don't have the right to decide what's good for them? Do you not feel that it's good that the 'free world' told Russia & Germany what is good for them? There are many example through history of one people telling another that they don't know what's good for them and it being regarded later as a good thing.
  - danharaj 11y ago
    I think you can disagree with people and come into conflict with them, even violent conflict, while still treating them as fully autonomous advocates for themselves. The issue I took was with the mentality that you can ascribe childish, or sub-autonomous agency to another person in order to discredit them and justify dominating them. Slavery, actually, is an example of such pernicious ideas applied to the relation of slave and slave owner. This sort of reasoning is only legitimate in authoritarian philosophies that treat people as at best illegitimately autonomous, needing some sort of patriarchal figure to dictate their lives to them. In your examples you are making the unspoken assumption, for example, that black slaves were part of the political body that kept them in slavery. Yes, if you look at it as an issue between North and South, it looks like the North telling the South what to do for itself, but that seems completely wrong because we are putting the lots of slaves and slave owners together as if they were one coherent entity. In a world where freedom of association holds, I believe my statement would hold to the limit that many, many actions we take that seem only to affect us also affect others, and to the limit that freedom of association, like all freedoms, is incoherent in its absolute limit.
m0dc 11y ago
The professor's attitude that you're talking about is perfectly valid - as is your own (opposite) attitude. The tension is a result of modern universities being dual-purpose. On one hand, the university is supposed to be a crucible where difficult problems are confronted, hard work is accomplished by making sacrifices, and mature professionals are forged through years of dedicated effort. On the other hand, it's also the students' home and living space for several years, and it should provide the comfortable and low-stress lifestyle that most adults need to be mentally healthy. Inflated tuition costs and degree commoditization have lead universities to adopt a "customer is always right" attitude, bringing the two purposes directly in contention in an attempt to please everyone. The solution is probably somewhere in between. There's a place for puppy rooms, and a place for strict educational standards - but the two shouldn't mix.
joesmo 11y ago
So you're saying we should bow down to these students, and we should stop teaching law students about rape law and not even use the word "violation" in terms of law to bow down to students' incredibly stupid wishes? Why not just abolish universities altogether? Hell, why not abolish laws and all of society while we're at it. Since it no longer matters that we're teaching students anything at all, only that they have a "supportive environment." What a load of shit.
- danharaj 11y ago
  How would we abolish universities? If universities are voluntary gatherings of professors and students transformed into cultural institutions that persist longer than any teacher-student relationship, then they are going to exist and the only way you could prevent it is through force. Authoritarian much? You seem to be incredibly enraged at the idea of freedom of association: The liberty to associate with other people or not on your own terms. It turns out that universities act as loci of power in the larger hierarchy of our society: Universities confer status and distinction, legitimize skillsets, and some act as hubs of commingling for people who belong to the ruling class. Students need to go to university in order to participate in society as dignified individuals. That is what is at stake here, and your anger is merely anxiety at the idea of an institution of power falling into the hands of powerless people. You would rather they degrade themselves in order to receive a piece of paper that says they are good enough to be respectable parts of modern society. I trust university students. There are two reasons to go to university: To go into debt so you can get a professional job, and to learn. I trust university students to transform universities in a way that benefits them most. I do not trust the powers that be to do anything but degrade universities into businesses for profit that hold individual legitimacy for ransom, or propaganda centers for the prevailing power structures that shape our society. If professors want to teach, they ought to lead, not bludgeon students with the authority granted to them by institutional forces. Unquestionable authority is a tumor in any healthy society. When it pervades the system, society itself is terribly ill.
  - hueving 11y ago
    Professors cannot lead though without walking through a landmine of political correctness that could lead to a title 9 inquisition. Students have reached a point where they are not interested in being intellectually challenged in any way that may upset them.

lkozma 11y ago

The attitude of the prof you are detecting might be as you say. However, the "infantilization" described in the article (if indeed real) does not necessarily signal that students are gaining more power in matters of importance, it could even hint at the opposite. Think of how some companies offer foosball tables and allow all sorts of goofiness instead of money/stake in the company/vacation, etc.

danharaj 11y ago
I think this is a good observation. I would much, much prefer students to be radical than simply to bargain with the powers that be. Universities are transforming at breathtaking speed in how they are organized and commodified. Professors are losing not only their authority, but their leadership as educators. I would not mind the end of authority, but universities being led by profit and administration is bad, too. The only reasonable course is for students and professors to radicalize and support each other, and for the role of professors to be based on natural leadership, not on power established through hierarchy (the enforcement of which always reduces to implied violence). But I think that's out of scope.

danharaj 11y ago

As a follow-up, there is a massive lack of empathy in the attitude expressed by the author. How does anyone know what others are feeling, except when they tell us what they're feeling? This article isn't about how university students are acting like children. It's painting university students as children in order to dismiss their behavior. If you actually wanted to know what university students are doing and why, you'd talk to them. Instead, this article is condescending, patronizing, and (ironically) infantilizing. To give no trust is to get no trust. If you don't trust university students to act as adults with their own autonomy who can make the best decisions for themselves, which includes effecting the environment and social structures that benefit them most, then, congratulations, you're an authoritarian and have just discarded the basic tenets of liberalism, right libertarianism, left libertarianism (i.e. anarchism), communism, and socialism. After eradicating most post-enlightenment ideas of how to treat people as human beings, what are you left with? I reiterate: If you treat someone like a child, you're not engaging them. You are dismissing them. And if you treat someone like a child in order to justify a hierarchy and power structure above them, it is very, very clear what historical examples you are following.

fleitz 11y ago
" If you don't trust university students to act as adults with their own autonomy who can make the best decisions for themselves, which includes effecting the environment and social structures that benefit them most, then, congratulations, you're an authoritarian and have just discarded the basic tenets of liberalism, right libertarianism, left libertarianism (i.e. anarchism), communism, and socialism. After eradicating most post-enlightenment ideas of how to treat people as human beings, what are you left with?" Not really, many horrible governments have been democratically elected, don't you think it's a good thing that the north told the south that they don't have the right to decide what's good for them? Do you not feel that it's good that the 'free world' told Russia & Germany what is good for them? There are many example through history of one people telling another that they don't know what's good for them and it being regarded later as a good thing.
- danharaj 11y ago
  I think you can disagree with people and come into conflict with them, even violent conflict, while still treating them as fully autonomous advocates for themselves. The issue I took was with the mentality that you can ascribe childish, or sub-autonomous agency to another person in order to discredit them and justify dominating them. Slavery, actually, is an example of such pernicious ideas applied to the relation of slave and slave owner. This sort of reasoning is only legitimate in authoritarian philosophies that treat people as at best illegitimately autonomous, needing some sort of patriarchal figure to dictate their lives to them. In your examples you are making the unspoken assumption, for example, that black slaves were part of the political body that kept them in slavery. Yes, if you look at it as an issue between North and South, it looks like the North telling the South what to do for itself, but that seems completely wrong because we are putting the lots of slaves and slave owners together as if they were one coherent entity. In a world where freedom of association holds, I believe my statement would hold to the limit that many, many actions we take that seem only to affect us also affect others, and to the limit that freedom of association, like all freedoms, is incoherent in its absolute limit.

m0dc 11y ago

The professor's attitude that you're talking about is perfectly valid - as is your own (opposite) attitude. The tension is a result of modern universities being dual-purpose. On one hand, the university is supposed to be a crucible where difficult problems are confronted, hard work is accomplished by making sacrifices, and mature professionals are forged through years of dedicated effort. On the other hand, it's also the students' home and living space for several years, and it should provide the comfortable and low-stress lifestyle that most adults need to be mentally healthy. Inflated tuition costs and degree commoditization have lead universities to adopt a "customer is always right" attitude, bringing the two purposes directly in contention in an attempt to please everyone. The solution is probably somewhere in between. There's a place for puppy rooms, and a place for strict educational standards - but the two shouldn't mix.

joesmo 11y ago

So you're saying we should bow down to these students, and we should stop teaching law students about rape law and not even use the word "violation" in terms of law to bow down to students' incredibly stupid wishes? Why not just abolish universities altogether? Hell, why not abolish laws and all of society while we're at it. Since it no longer matters that we're teaching students anything at all, only that they have a "supportive environment." What a load of shit.

danharaj 11y ago
How would we abolish universities? If universities are voluntary gatherings of professors and students transformed into cultural institutions that persist longer than any teacher-student relationship, then they are going to exist and the only way you could prevent it is through force. Authoritarian much? You seem to be incredibly enraged at the idea of freedom of association: The liberty to associate with other people or not on your own terms. It turns out that universities act as loci of power in the larger hierarchy of our society: Universities confer status and distinction, legitimize skillsets, and some act as hubs of commingling for people who belong to the ruling class. Students need to go to university in order to participate in society as dignified individuals. That is what is at stake here, and your anger is merely anxiety at the idea of an institution of power falling into the hands of powerless people. You would rather they degrade themselves in order to receive a piece of paper that says they are good enough to be respectable parts of modern society. I trust university students. There are two reasons to go to university: To go into debt so you can get a professional job, and to learn. I trust university students to transform universities in a way that benefits them most. I do not trust the powers that be to do anything but degrade universities into businesses for profit that hold individual legitimacy for ransom, or propaganda centers for the prevailing power structures that shape our society. If professors want to teach, they ought to lead, not bludgeon students with the authority granted to them by institutional forces. Unquestionable authority is a tumor in any healthy society. When it pervades the system, society itself is terribly ill.
- hueving 11y ago
  Professors cannot lead though without walking through a landmine of political correctness that could lead to a title 9 inquisition. Students have reached a point where they are not interested in being intellectually challenged in any way that may upset them.