4 ms·
There's an interesting link in the story to something out of the university I attended (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/03/student-accused-of-violating-
by matthewmacleod 11y ago
There's an interesting link in the story to something out of the university I attended (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/03/student-accused-of-violating-university-safe-space-by-raising-he/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/03/student-accused-o...) that I think sums these issues up:
According to the association’s rules, student council meetings should be held in a “safe space environment”…This includes “refraining from hand gestures which denote disagreement”, or “in any other way indicating disagreement with a point or points being made”.*
That's just utterly baffling to me. I don't understand how any form of real debate can be had when participants are subject to being excluded for actions like, say, shaking their head in disagreement.
This entire issue seems to reek of a desire to stifle debate under the weight of bureaucracy, to save having to consider complex issues. Naturally, this will involve the kind of selective enforcement of rules that is such a hallmark of corrupt legal systems worldwide. I like to think that there will be enough rebellion against this from inside student bodies that we'll reach a more sensible compromise, but who knows?
- DanBC 11y agoIt's taken a potentially useful mechanism ("be polite; be collaborative; be collegiate") and reduced it to an absurd characature. I'm pleased that 33 people voted in her favour, but it's scary that 18 people voted against her.
- neerdowell 11y agoI wonder how many of the 18 also disagree with her views on Israel (and how many of the 33, in the interests of curiosity).
- vidarh 11y agoImagine if these rules had been in place in Parliament. Everyone would end up being thrown out...
- arethuza 11y agoWorth noting that parliament is quite strict about some language - Dennis Skinner got into trouble yesterday for referring to Cameron as "dodgy".
- vidarh 11y agoThat's true. Frankly they have stricter rules than I personally consider reasonable. And yet we see examples of groups that insist on rules that makes the parliamentary rules seem like pure anarchy...
- jon-wood 11y agoI find the rules around behaviour in parliament to be really quite strange. You can be kicked out of the of the house for calling someone "dodgy", or indeed for directly referring to someone by their name, but continuously heckling throughout a major speech is considered business as usual.
- eru 11y agoThe weight of history..
- robinjfisher 11y agoMy concern is how little this prepares people for life in the real world. How well prepared will those students be when they enter a workplace for the first time and have to handle disagreements? EDIT: deleted "bigger". It's a concern, not a bigger concern.
- sooheon 11y agoSadly, too many workplaces (Github being the most famous recent example) are succumbing to the same institutionalisation of coddling.
- usrusr 11y agoTheir highly developed guiltcraft will slash through those disagreements like butter. It might just give them the competitive edge they need. I guess being cynical does not give me mine.
- kitd 11y agoThat link included some interesting context for the complaint against her. She was speaking out against boycotting Israel because it might encourage anti-Semitism. The complaint against her was made immediately after that. In contrast when she was later defending Jewish students, there were all sorts of hand/head movements around the room, yet no complaints. The anti-Israel brigade move in mysterious ways (he says waiting for downvotes)
- voxic11 11y agoThis is exactly the problem with free speech restrictions. They inevitably are used by the powerful against the less powerful. Why many minority (power) groups can claim they are oppressed by those in power, yet push to give those same people more power over them always baffles me.