6 ms·

Step on a college campus in the US. There is no free speech. No intellectual diversity at all. Everyone just shuts up since no one dare steps out of line.

zer00eyz 10y ago
The idea of "safe spaces" is what drove this, and is being used against protesters already: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/ohio-state-turns-the-concept-of-safe-space-against-student-protesters/478221/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/ohio-sta...
return0 10y ago
You know the solution: step out of it.
- partiallypro 10y ago
  And then perhaps lose your scholarship and get expelled? There's no incentive to go against the grain of intellectual monotony.
  - return0 10y ago
    I mean step out of college, or study a field with little ideological indoctrination.
    - sverige 10y ago
      What field is that? Everything is political to the Left.
- harveywi 10y ago
  Bingo (vote with your dollar etc.). However, as others have mentioned, there is a huge risk gradient to overcome for students wishing to drop out to stand behind their principles. They need to be somewhat reassured that they are not gambling their careers away. One way that those out in the workforce could help would be to make a hefty and very public effort to hire as many of these dropout students as possible, credentials be damned. That's how it used to work back in the day anyway, why can't it be done again? With all of the excipient courses that one is forced to take that have little or nothing to do with one's profession, they won't be missing out on much.
Fej 10y ago
My campus leans a bit right compared to the usual, and I'm actually glad for that. We haven't lost intellectual diversity and free speech is alive and well. Haven't seen anyone in favor of censorship, but if there was they'd be laughed right out of the room. Not all colleges/universities have gone bad, and that's a good thing, because intellectual discourse is supposed to be the point of university, not (just) vocational training.
- lobotryas 10y ago
  >in favor of censorship That's because it's not called "censorship" any more. Instead, people will label a person whose speech they dislike as a racist, homophobe, Islamophobe, anti-semite, misogynist, etc. Sure, people with such views exist and we should debate how we, as a society, want to respond to such views. What is the problem is the unwritten expectation that, once identified as such by almost anyone, you are excluded, attacked, and told to "shut up". For a regular person it's often enough to be labeled in this way once for their social or work prospects to either be ruined or hurt. Worse, the label will still stick, even if later this person is exonerated.
  - prutschman 10y ago
    What are you arguing for? Censoring the declaration of someone as a *-phobe? Censoring the criticism of people who say certain things? Censoring the cries of "shut up" leveled at them?
    - verroq 10y ago
      That is a strawman and you know it. He is not saying that people need to stop labeling others as *phobe. He is merely saying the consequences shouldn't be life ruining.
      - prutschman 10y ago
        The parent poster was explicitly drawing an equivalence between censorship in some unspecified traditional sense and widely communicated judgements and denouncements by a group. It came out as more flippant than I intended, but I'm being quite serious, and my real question is genuine: what can be done--other than suppressing communication about the judgement--to render the consequences other than life ruining?
saboot 10y ago
.. As a college graduate, and now back in grad school, this type of hyperbolic generalization really is absurd.
- harveywi 10y ago
  What are you studying? The difference between STEM and humanities experiences is huge.
  - saboot 10y ago
    Engineering now, I was doing philosophy for a couple of years in undergrad.
    - convolvatron 10y ago
      absolutely. unless you're obviously wasting time, in philosophy, literature, the arts, every one in the room has been trained to listen, digest, and issue reasonable critical commentary. thats all these people do. yes, in university there are children who are so appalled at the injustice of the world that they react .. as children but you can't dismiss the academy for their actions
- hnamazon123 10y ago
  Maybe you should do some research. Or maybe you have and you just condone this behavior. http://www.dailywire.com/news/4727/belligerent-mob-assembles-outside-shapiro-penn-joshua-yasmeh http://www.dailywire.com/news/4727/belligerent-mob-assembles...
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
pervycreeper 10y ago
We (entrepreneurs and technologists) urgently need to create an alternative to academia.
jMyles 10y ago
Can you be specific about which campus you're talking about? In the past 3 years, I've been to many SUNY schools (notably SUNY New Paltz, my alma mater and a historically politically active school), UConn, UMD, and many other campuses and my sense is that free speech and student power is strong right now. Which campus are you talking about?
vertex-four 10y ago
Universities in much of the western world have generally been towards the social left (by most definitions of that term) for a very long time. The thing is, in the past, their surrounding societies were largely to the social right - it's only now that societies are catching up that suddenly, universities are "anti free speech". Fact of the matter is that there was never much room for rightist discourse in the first place. Nothing's changed, except that people now see the same stuff as being part of the norm instead of fighting against the norm.
jccalhoun 10y ago
Maybe my experience is unique but I am a college professor and several of my friends from grad school are at a universities across the USA and none of us has seen any of this "safe space" or "trigger warning" stuff that people love to talk about online (and neither I nor any of my friends are in STEM fields).

zer00eyz 10y ago

The idea of "safe spaces" is what drove this, and is being used against protesters already: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/ohio-state-turns-the-concept-of-safe-space-against-student-protesters/478221/ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/ohio-sta...

return0 10y ago

You know the solution: step out of it.

partiallypro 10y ago
And then perhaps lose your scholarship and get expelled? There's no incentive to go against the grain of intellectual monotony.
- return0 10y ago
  I mean step out of college, or study a field with little ideological indoctrination.
  - sverige 10y ago
    What field is that? Everything is political to the Left.
harveywi 10y ago
Bingo (vote with your dollar etc.). However, as others have mentioned, there is a huge risk gradient to overcome for students wishing to drop out to stand behind their principles. They need to be somewhat reassured that they are not gambling their careers away. One way that those out in the workforce could help would be to make a hefty and very public effort to hire as many of these dropout students as possible, credentials be damned. That's how it used to work back in the day anyway, why can't it be done again? With all of the excipient courses that one is forced to take that have little or nothing to do with one's profession, they won't be missing out on much.

Fej 10y ago

My campus leans a bit right compared to the usual, and I'm actually glad for that. We haven't lost intellectual diversity and free speech is alive and well. Haven't seen anyone in favor of censorship, but if there was they'd be laughed right out of the room. Not all colleges/universities have gone bad, and that's a good thing, because intellectual discourse is supposed to be the point of university, not (just) vocational training.

lobotryas 10y ago
>in favor of censorship That's because it's not called "censorship" any more. Instead, people will label a person whose speech they dislike as a racist, homophobe, Islamophobe, anti-semite, misogynist, etc. Sure, people with such views exist and we should debate how we, as a society, want to respond to such views. What is the problem is the unwritten expectation that, once identified as such by almost anyone, you are excluded, attacked, and told to "shut up". For a regular person it's often enough to be labeled in this way once for their social or work prospects to either be ruined or hurt. Worse, the label will still stick, even if later this person is exonerated.
- prutschman 10y ago
  What are you arguing for? Censoring the declaration of someone as a *-phobe? Censoring the criticism of people who say certain things? Censoring the cries of "shut up" leveled at them?
  - verroq 10y ago
    That is a strawman and you know it. He is not saying that people need to stop labeling others as *phobe. He is merely saying the consequences shouldn't be life ruining.
    - prutschman 10y ago
      The parent poster was explicitly drawing an equivalence between censorship in some unspecified traditional sense and widely communicated judgements and denouncements by a group. It came out as more flippant than I intended, but I'm being quite serious, and my real question is genuine: what can be done--other than suppressing communication about the judgement--to render the consequences other than life ruining?

saboot 10y ago

.. As a college graduate, and now back in grad school, this type of hyperbolic generalization really is absurd.

harveywi 10y ago
What are you studying? The difference between STEM and humanities experiences is huge.
- saboot 10y ago
  Engineering now, I was doing philosophy for a couple of years in undergrad.
  - convolvatron 10y ago
    absolutely. unless you're obviously wasting time, in philosophy, literature, the arts, every one in the room has been trained to listen, digest, and issue reasonable critical commentary. thats all these people do. yes, in university there are children who are so appalled at the injustice of the world that they react .. as children but you can't dismiss the academy for their actions
hnamazon123 10y ago
Maybe you should do some research. Or maybe you have and you just condone this behavior. http://www.dailywire.com/news/4727/belligerent-mob-assembles-outside-shapiro-penn-joshua-yasmeh http://www.dailywire.com/news/4727/belligerent-mob-assembles...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

pervycreeper 10y ago

We (entrepreneurs and technologists) urgently need to create an alternative to academia.

jMyles 10y ago

Can you be specific about which campus you're talking about? In the past 3 years, I've been to many SUNY schools (notably SUNY New Paltz, my alma mater and a historically politically active school), UConn, UMD, and many other campuses and my sense is that free speech and student power is strong right now. Which campus are you talking about?

vertex-four 10y ago

Universities in much of the western world have generally been towards the social left (by most definitions of that term) for a very long time. The thing is, in the past, their surrounding societies were largely to the social right - it's only now that societies are catching up that suddenly, universities are "anti free speech". Fact of the matter is that there was never much room for rightist discourse in the first place. Nothing's changed, except that people now see the same stuff as being part of the norm instead of fighting against the norm.

jccalhoun 10y ago

Maybe my experience is unique but I am a college professor and several of my friends from grad school are at a universities across the USA and none of us has seen any of this "safe space" or "trigger warning" stuff that people love to talk about online (and neither I nor any of my friends are in STEM fields).