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It's not necessarily that it lacks what happened (or at least what the author says happened), but that it's hidden under rhetorical fluff and opinion. The autho

by gozo 11y ago

It's not necessarily that it lacks what happened (or at least what the author says happened), but that it's hidden under rhetorical fluff and opinion. The author spends his time coming up with adjectives rather than explaining why you should agree with him or actually discussing the heart of the issue. Maybe incoherent isn't so much the right word as embellished. Take this example... > With world-altering research to support, graduates who assume positions of extraordinary power, and a $24.9 billion endowment to marshal for better or worse, Yale administrators face huge opportunity costs as they parcel out their days. or the text surrounding the e-mail > Erika Christakis reflected on the frustrations of the students, drew on her scholarship and career experience, and composed an email inviting the community to think about the controversy through an intellectual lens that few if any had considered. Her message was a model of relevant, thoughtful, civil engagement. > It’s hard to imagine a more deferential way to begin voicing her alternative view. And having shown her interlocutors that she*respects them and shares their ends, she explained her misgivings about the means of telling college kids what to wear on Halloween. It's weird how much someone supposedly advocating having an open-mind are telling you what to think without explaining why. Then you get HN comments saying how respectful her e-mail was, without talking about the issues themselves. It's written for someone that agrees with the premise of the article and won't question all the embellishments. It's apparent even by the title.

Jtsummers 11y ago
I have 10 minutes left before I won't be online for 5 hours. So let's talk about the issues. Why shouldn't adult students be able to govern themselves with regard to Halloween costumes? Why do adult students require guidance from administrators to determine what is and isn't allowed? Why are adult students upset that someone has asked these questions?
- gozo 11y ago
  You're not talking about the issues, but offering some questions that I'm supposed answer while you don't participate and I get rewarded by downvotes. That the faculty offers guidance doesn't seem to be much of an issue since that is what the article commends Nicholas and Erika Christakis for doing. Why there should be guidance is argued in the original e-mail on costumes [0]. That someone is upset doesn't seem to concern the author much when they don't agree with his viewpoint. This is the problem with basing discussions on low quality articles. Let's look at the e-mails instead. The first e-mail is arguing it's point. > Yale is a community that values free expression as well as inclusivity. And while students, undergraduate and graduate, definitely have a right to express themselves, we would hope that people would actively avoid those circumstances that threaten our sense of community or disrespects, alienates or ridicules segments of our population based on race, nationality, religious belief or gender expression. The second e-mail offers: > Which is my point. I don’t, actually, trust myself to foist my Halloweenish standards and motives on others. I can’t defend them anymore than you could defend yours. Why do we dress up on Halloween, anyway? [...] Is it okay if you are eight, but not 18? I don’t know the answer to these questions; they seem unanswerable. [...] Whose business is it to control the forms of costumes of young people? It’s not mine, I know that. https://www.thefire.org/email-from-intercultural-affairs/ https://www.thefire.org/email-from-intercultural-affairs/ https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing-yourselves-email-to-silliman-college-yale-students-on-halloween-costumes/ https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing...
- 13thLetter 11y ago
  This is the rub, isn't it? In other contexts, these adults would be raising children, holding down full-time jobs, or leading squads in the Army. That we have contexts -- at allegedly elite universities, no less -- where they are not expected to be emotionally capable of handling a Halloween costume or an op-ed they disagree with is somewhat terrifying.
- tptacek 11y ago
  1. Bogus premise. The students aren't objecting to the idea that adults can govern themselves. They're objecting to other problematic claims in the letter. 2. Bogus premise. The original mass-email offered advice about choosing non-offensive costumes, and that advice was so general that nobody could have mistaken it for "guidance"; it was, rather, a set of questions to ask about your costume choices. It was Erika Christakis who reframed it as a set of guidelines, suggesting at the same time that Yale culture was going to police Mulan costumes. 3. The students are upset that the letter hand-waves away concerns about racial sensitivities and stereotypes by making comparisons between childrens costumes and choices made by adults in a climate where there had been real racist incidents at Halloween. (I don't agree with the students but you should be able to summarize their arguments accurately if you hope to refute them.)
- s73v3r 11y ago
  You say adults as if that means they instantly know all.
  - scotty79 11y ago
    This means they should know by now. Surely some of them got most of what's expected by age 14

by gozo 11y ago

Jtsummers 11y ago

I have 10 minutes left before I won't be online for 5 hours. So let's talk about the issues. Why shouldn't adult students be able to govern themselves with regard to Halloween costumes? Why do adult students require guidance from administrators to determine what is and isn't allowed? Why are adult students upset that someone has asked these questions?

gozo 11y ago
You're not talking about the issues, but offering some questions that I'm supposed answer while you don't participate and I get rewarded by downvotes. That the faculty offers guidance doesn't seem to be much of an issue since that is what the article commends Nicholas and Erika Christakis for doing. Why there should be guidance is argued in the original e-mail on costumes [0]. That someone is upset doesn't seem to concern the author much when they don't agree with his viewpoint. This is the problem with basing discussions on low quality articles. Let's look at the e-mails instead. The first e-mail is arguing it's point. > Yale is a community that values free expression as well as inclusivity. And while students, undergraduate and graduate, definitely have a right to express themselves, we would hope that people would actively avoid those circumstances that threaten our sense of community or disrespects, alienates or ridicules segments of our population based on race, nationality, religious belief or gender expression. The second e-mail offers: > Which is my point. I don’t, actually, trust myself to foist my Halloweenish standards and motives on others. I can’t defend them anymore than you could defend yours. Why do we dress up on Halloween, anyway? [...] Is it okay if you are eight, but not 18? I don’t know the answer to these questions; they seem unanswerable. [...] Whose business is it to control the forms of costumes of young people? It’s not mine, I know that. https://www.thefire.org/email-from-intercultural-affairs/ https://www.thefire.org/email-from-intercultural-affairs/ https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing-yourselves-email-to-silliman-college-yale-students-on-halloween-costumes/ https://www.thefire.org/email-from-erika-christakis-dressing...
13thLetter 11y ago
This is the rub, isn't it? In other contexts, these adults would be raising children, holding down full-time jobs, or leading squads in the Army. That we have contexts -- at allegedly elite universities, no less -- where they are not expected to be emotionally capable of handling a Halloween costume or an op-ed they disagree with is somewhat terrifying.
tptacek 11y ago
1. Bogus premise. The students aren't objecting to the idea that adults can govern themselves. They're objecting to other problematic claims in the letter. 2. Bogus premise. The original mass-email offered advice about choosing non-offensive costumes, and that advice was so general that nobody could have mistaken it for "guidance"; it was, rather, a set of questions to ask about your costume choices. It was Erika Christakis who reframed it as a set of guidelines, suggesting at the same time that Yale culture was going to police Mulan costumes. 3. The students are upset that the letter hand-waves away concerns about racial sensitivities and stereotypes by making comparisons between childrens costumes and choices made by adults in a climate where there had been real racist incidents at Halloween. (I don't agree with the students but you should be able to summarize their arguments accurately if you hope to refute them.)
s73v3r 11y ago
You say adults as if that means they instantly know all.
- scotty79 11y ago
  This means they should know by now. Surely some of them got most of what's expected by age 14