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But it also doesn't. And a lot of this culture on campus is about replacing objective facts and knowledge with highly individual, subjective facts and knowledge

by Aqueous 10y ago

But it also doesn't. And a lot of this culture on campus is about replacing objective facts and knowledge with highly individual, subjective facts and knowledge, privileging "my truth" above all else. In this mindset, there's no 'objective truth' at all because all objectivity is tainted by power dynamics. The problem is, just because the facts were placed in our textbook by some culturally privileged Caucasian scholar doesn't mean they're not true.

locopati 10y ago
When it comes to history and literature and other non-science fields, are there actually meaningfully objective facts and knowledge? Even a 'fact' like X event happened on Y date involves a lot of subjective perspectives on how X came to pass and even more subjective perspectives on why and even more on what the ramifications were.
nicoburns 10y ago
I think the purpose of a lot of these movements is to point out the natural counterpoint to this: Just because the facts were placed in our textbook by some culturally privileged Caucasian scholar doesn't mean that they are true. Academia has a history of claiming things as objectively true, and then changing it's mind. It's healthy to question these things from the beginning. If you're doing secondary research then you ought to be asking who wrote what you are reading, what was their outlook on life, and why did they choose to write what they wrote. If you are doing primary research then you ought to be asking the same thing about your methodology. There surely is such thing as 'objective truth', but it isn't to be found in textbooks written by human beings.
- morgante 10y ago
  > There surely is such thing as 'objective truth', but it isn't to be found in textbooks written by human beings. Really? The fact that a textbook was written by a human does not mean it cannot contain facts. No amount of politics will change the fact that the Normandy landings occurred on June 6, 1944.
- mikerichards 10y ago
  by some culturally privileged Caucasian scholar there ya go...just what the article is talking about. Sorry to have to clue you in, but nobody buys that weird leftist newspeak.
  - jmorphy88 10y ago
    Bingo. Progressive leftist ideology, in its essence, is anti-white racism. All of its purported ideals are really about stripping whites of any power or identity and giving it to others.
    - morgante 10y ago
      That goes entirely too far. There is certainly a subset of "leftist" thought which is about searching for offense, but you shouldn't paint the whole progressive left with that stroke. Plenty of progressive movements (including the original Progressive Era) did not make racial causes central or important.
      - jmorphy88 10y ago
        In regards to historical progressivist movements, I agree with you. I was referring only to the current progressive dispensation. Perhaps I'm not using the correct term for it... whatever you want to call the dominant American university ideology of today. I do think it's appropriate to think of this ideology primarily in racial terms. Virtually any issue supported by the left today is, in its essence, about stripping white people of power, identity, and autonomy, and giving that power to other groups. Diversity, equality, multiculturalism, globalism, "one-world"-ism, pro-mass-immigration, all of these terms mean "not white". It's perfectly easy to see that, because all "white" cultures are treated differently in this paradigm, as "oppressor", "colonialist" nations/peoples, "majority/minority", "privileged", etc. These terms don't apply to other groups. The amorphousness and formlessness of this ideology and its lack of coherent theoretical basis (as opposed to something more rigidly principled like Marxism, libertarianism, etc) is what provides cover for its true aim, which is political power for its adherents.
- ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
  >>Just because the facts were placed in our textbook by some culturally privileged Caucasian scholar doesn't mean that they are true. lol. F=ma I don't care who wrote it :)
  - AngrySkillzz 10y ago
    No one is talking about physics, these students are obviously not studying physics. They're talking about "theory:" rhetorical, social, economic (not the empirical kind), historical, etc. Liberal arts stuff.
- adrianN 10y ago
  Being written by some privileged Caucasian scholar doesn't make the facts false either.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    It does mean there might be cognitive bias that influences those facts. Science experiments like CERN have to go to great lengths to eliminate bias. It's easy to see how bias can influence softer sciences and arts.
    - adrianN 10y ago
      Skepticism is a core part of the scientific method. It doesn't need social justice to learn to think for yourself. The last time I sat in a philosophy lecture thinking about what the smart guys of yore said and whether it makes sense or not was basically all we did.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
When I was 15, and struggling to accept the limits of what I was learning in high school, a teacher explained it to me very well. "You're here to learn how to learn, as much as to learn anything in particular. You're hear to learn how to think critically about the world around you, how to formulate a question based on observation, and then go into the world and find the answers."
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

by Aqueous 10y ago

locopati 10y ago

When it comes to history and literature and other non-science fields, are there actually meaningfully objective facts and knowledge? Even a 'fact' like X event happened on Y date involves a lot of subjective perspectives on how X came to pass and even more subjective perspectives on why and even more on what the ramifications were.

nicoburns 10y ago

I think the purpose of a lot of these movements is to point out the natural counterpoint to this: Just because the facts were placed in our textbook by some culturally privileged Caucasian scholar doesn't mean that they are true. Academia has a history of claiming things as objectively true, and then changing it's mind. It's healthy to question these things from the beginning. If you're doing secondary research then you ought to be asking who wrote what you are reading, what was their outlook on life, and why did they choose to write what they wrote. If you are doing primary research then you ought to be asking the same thing about your methodology. There surely is such thing as 'objective truth', but it isn't to be found in textbooks written by human beings.

morgante 10y ago
> There surely is such thing as 'objective truth', but it isn't to be found in textbooks written by human beings. Really? The fact that a textbook was written by a human does not mean it cannot contain facts. No amount of politics will change the fact that the Normandy landings occurred on June 6, 1944.
mikerichards 10y ago
by some culturally privileged Caucasian scholar there ya go...just what the article is talking about. Sorry to have to clue you in, but nobody buys that weird leftist newspeak.
- jmorphy88 10y ago
  Bingo. Progressive leftist ideology, in its essence, is anti-white racism. All of its purported ideals are really about stripping whites of any power or identity and giving it to others.
  - morgante 10y ago
    That goes entirely too far. There is certainly a subset of "leftist" thought which is about searching for offense, but you shouldn't paint the whole progressive left with that stroke. Plenty of progressive movements (including the original Progressive Era) did not make racial causes central or important.
    - jmorphy88 10y ago
      In regards to historical progressivist movements, I agree with you. I was referring only to the current progressive dispensation. Perhaps I'm not using the correct term for it... whatever you want to call the dominant American university ideology of today. I do think it's appropriate to think of this ideology primarily in racial terms. Virtually any issue supported by the left today is, in its essence, about stripping white people of power, identity, and autonomy, and giving that power to other groups. Diversity, equality, multiculturalism, globalism, "one-world"-ism, pro-mass-immigration, all of these terms mean "not white". It's perfectly easy to see that, because all "white" cultures are treated differently in this paradigm, as "oppressor", "colonialist" nations/peoples, "majority/minority", "privileged", etc. These terms don't apply to other groups. The amorphousness and formlessness of this ideology and its lack of coherent theoretical basis (as opposed to something more rigidly principled like Marxism, libertarianism, etc) is what provides cover for its true aim, which is political power for its adherents.
ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
>>Just because the facts were placed in our textbook by some culturally privileged Caucasian scholar doesn't mean that they are true. lol. F=ma I don't care who wrote it :)
- AngrySkillzz 10y ago
  No one is talking about physics, these students are obviously not studying physics. They're talking about "theory:" rhetorical, social, economic (not the empirical kind), historical, etc. Liberal arts stuff.
adrianN 10y ago
Being written by some privileged Caucasian scholar doesn't make the facts false either.
- DanBC 10y ago
  It does mean there might be cognitive bias that influences those facts. Science experiments like CERN have to go to great lengths to eliminate bias. It's easy to see how bias can influence softer sciences and arts.
  - adrianN 10y ago
    Skepticism is a core part of the scientific method. It doesn't need social justice to learn to think for yourself. The last time I sat in a philosophy lecture thinking about what the smart guys of yore said and whether it makes sense or not was basically all we did.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

When I was 15, and struggling to accept the limits of what I was learning in high school, a teacher explained it to me very well. "You're here to learn how to learn, as much as to learn anything in particular. You're hear to learn how to think critically about the world around you, how to formulate a question based on observation, and then go into the world and find the answers."

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]