7 ms·

The Dangerous Safety of College

32 points by frostmatthew 10y ago

rhapsodic 10y ago
It has been decades since the political left in the US has relied to any degree on reason and logic to bring people around to their way of thinking. It's basically been name-calling (that's RACIST!), public shaming via internet rage mobs, mockery, and now, physical violence to oppress people with whom they disagree. And I think this has made them intellectually soft. Many of the younger ones don't know how to argue for their views intellectually because they've never had to. A now-deceased friend who was an avowed socialist, who came of age in the late fifties/early sixties, absolutely loved to argue politics and ethics with avowed free-market capitalists like myself, and I enjoyed arguing with him. But I've found it impossible to have any discussions with any element of intellectual rigor with any of the 20- or 30-something Bernie Sanders supporters I'm acquainted with. Within minutes, they fall back on character attacks -- "that's racist!", "you're greedy and selfish!", etc. And it looks like it will get a lot worse before it gets any better.
- nickthemagicman 10y ago
  I'm very liberal but I came to that conclusion based on a lot of economics study. And am liberal only because demand side economics makes much more sense than supply side to me. You must have talked to a lot of weird Bernie supporters because almost all of the ones I've spoken with were incredibly articulate and rational about their views. I've actually found conservative voters to be incredibly ignorant with arguments based on on "muh freedoms" or "muh jobs" or "muh terrorism". Ask them why they like Trump they can't tell you anything reasonable.
  - pottersbasilisk 10y ago
    Sounds like a liberal bubble. Using phrases like "muh jobs" probably also turns off people from discussion with you.
    - nickthemagicman 10y ago
      Lol. Ad Hominem attacks are the conservative specialty. Cucks, libtards, etc. etc. You guys really have no in depth philosophy of conservatism. It's a bunch of uneducated people running around attacking people due to whatever inferiority complexes they have.
- mhneu 10y ago
  I find the opposite effect - liberals have thought much more deeply about their views, and conservatives often just parrot shallow talking points. For example, a group of my progressive acquaintances has been debating in depth on the New Yorker's reporting over past few months, including especially the long piece on Hillary the week before the election. They have framed that discussion around progressive views on fairness of opportunity and fairness of wealth distribution. The leading political progressives have the same depth of argument - listen to Obama's speeches, the speeches at the DNC, Bernie and Robert Reich, Kander on voting, Stiglitz. In contrast the right is intellectually bankrupt. Michael Anton's articles motivated the right for the past few months and the articles are poorly argued flimflam. Heritage's chief economist is disingenuous and misguided. The chief GOP wonk in Congress, Paul Ryan, is a mediocrity who barely understands healthcare never mind economics. This is what happens when a party goes to war on expertise[1] (because expertise of course threatens their donors' ability to make huge amounts of money[2]). 1. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-death-of-expertise-9780190469412?cc=us&lang=en& https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-death-of-experti... 2. http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/10/14871696/scott-pruitt-climate-denial http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/10/14871696/sco...
  - chillacy 10y ago
    Maybe (just a guess) it depends on where you are? I suspect if you live in a city which leans left, all the people who go with the flow and don't think too much about their views end up being on the left because that's everyone else. The people going against the grain at least have thought more deeply of their views. And if you live in a majority red community, people who have left views will be the ones who have thought long and deep about their views.
    - nickthemagicman 10y ago
      This is not true at all. Conservatives in general have extremely simple black and white thinking with no consideration of statistics or larger concepts. That's why they're so fear driven. They don't like terrorism so get rid of muslims no matter if it's an infinitesimal fraction of Muslims who are terrorists...they don't like taxes so get rid of them, even though it funds the infrastructure they use every day...they don't like black people getting welfare so stop it, even though in a bigger context it's income redistribution which sends dollars through the economy. Its very simple thinking.
- tomlock 10y ago
  The flipside of this is the reactionary multitudes who spout 'sjw' or 'virtue signalling' or 'socialist' when someone on the left questions the status-quo. Its a problem on both sides.
  - rhapsodic 10y ago
    >The flipside of this is the reactionary multitudes who spout 'sjw' or 'virtue signalling' or 'socialist' when someone on the left questions the status-quo. A fair point, however, I think the only way to reverse the trend on the left is for the right to employ the left's own tactics back against them, in spades. The right needs to destroy the lives and careers of, for example, some university presidents who allow this sort of brutish behavior to go unpunished, sometimes even making excuses for it. Or go to war against companies who cave to the SJW demands. It has to be mutually-assured destruction, not one-sided.
    - tomlock 10y ago
      I think you're painting the left as bad and the right as good. There are pretty clearly bad actors on each side, and each side is a broad church. I think its very apt that you use MAD as an analogy, because I'm analogously all for nuclear non-proliferation.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      Yes, purges will help a lot, and definitely aren't exactly what a strawman Evil Reactionary Dictator would do /s.
    - pottersbasilisk 10y ago
      So the alt right evolved because the gop was too weak. Pretty interesting. I've never thought of it like an arms race before.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    It's not a "problem on both sides" when one side controls every branch of federal, state, and local government across the vast majority of the country, while the other can't seem to win an election against Donald Trump. Strength is not equivalent to weakness.
closeparen 10y ago
Having been physically present at ground zero of this thing, and having spent quite a bit of time trying to understand it, let me offer one piece of missing information. This group is well aware of the prevailing doctrine that truth comes from dispassionate investigation and rigorous argument. They just reject it. They reject that it's conducted in good faith, and they reject that the sacred constructs of the ideology are subject to any microscope. That intellectual ideal is seen as something by and for the powerful old white men who control power structures, including and especially academia. It's seen as just as much a tool of oppression as phrenology, eugenics, and other racist pseudoscience, and they're hoping to push it towards the same fate. Some of the more extreme protestors will tell you that advocating for traditional academic inquiry is fundamentally white supremacist, in that a mode of understanding the world favored by the ruling class is seen as more legitimate than others. There is no objectivity, the reasoning goes, so we ought to put the traditionally opppressed in control of the narrative for a while. The article is spot on that the right way to think about it is as a religion. There are articles of faith: the world works in terms of identity-based groups; certain groups hold and actively maintain power over others; it's time to depose those groups and let others have a turn at authority, particularly over what constitutes truth. There is testimony: the "lived experiences" - anecdotes - of members of oppresssd groups are gospel. Obedience is paramount - the first and last step of being an Ally is to accept, believe unquestioningly, and evangelize what you are told. These people aren't coddled and they aren't weak. Appeals to psychological safety are attempts to weaponize empathy, not genuine fragility. They are fierce warriors for what they believe to be justice.
- tomlock 10y ago
  Your characterization made me grin, as someone who is on the other side to you. >That intellectual ideal is seen as something by and for the powerful old white men who control power structures, including and especially academia. Lets be real here - academia until only very recently in world history - was virulently exclusionary to people of color and women. Before we dismissed eugenics as pseudoscience, it was perceived as just science. It is easy in hindsight to say it was flawed and a tool of oppression - but at the time it was very much an active area of academic inquiry. Given that in the past pseudoscience was seen as science, what evidence do we have to believe that we haven't made some of the same mistakes in classifying pseudoscience in the present? Given that academia in the past was corrupted by bias against women, what makes us now think it's truly objectively academic, now? It takes a lot of faith to believe that this is the one period in history when bias hasn't tainted "objectivity"/"science"/"academic inquiry".
crb002 10y ago
It's the US Dept of Education's fault. They won't stop lending money to institutions who trample on student speech the administration disagrees with. U.S. Dept of Education is a blank check.
flashman 10y ago
That's odd, I'd define "dangerous safety" as being unlikely to experience racism, sexism or other prejudice, and thus becoming incapable of realising how those things affect others. "Dangerous safety" is the kind of environment in which a man like Charles Murray sees no problem with burning a cross next to a police station.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(political_scientist)#cite_note-9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(political_scie...

32 points by frostmatthew 10y ago

It has been decades since the political left in the US has relied to any degree on reason and logic to bring people around to their way of thinking. It's basically been name-calling (that's RACIST!), public shaming via internet rage mobs, mockery, and now, physical violence to oppress people with whom they disagree. And I think this has made them intellectually soft. Many of the younger ones don't know how to argue for their views intellectually because they've never had to. A now-deceased friend who was an avowed socialist, who came of age in the late fifties/early sixties, absolutely loved to argue politics and ethics with avowed free-market capitalists like myself, and I enjoyed arguing with him. But I've found it impossible to have any discussions with any element of intellectual rigor with any of the 20- or 30-something Bernie Sanders supporters I'm acquainted with. Within minutes, they fall back on character attacks -- "that's racist!", "you're greedy and selfish!", etc. And it looks like it will get a lot worse before it gets any better.

nickthemagicman 10y ago
I'm very liberal but I came to that conclusion based on a lot of economics study. And am liberal only because demand side economics makes much more sense than supply side to me. You must have talked to a lot of weird Bernie supporters because almost all of the ones I've spoken with were incredibly articulate and rational about their views. I've actually found conservative voters to be incredibly ignorant with arguments based on on "muh freedoms" or "muh jobs" or "muh terrorism". Ask them why they like Trump they can't tell you anything reasonable.
- pottersbasilisk 10y ago
  Sounds like a liberal bubble. Using phrases like "muh jobs" probably also turns off people from discussion with you.
  - nickthemagicman 10y ago
    Lol. Ad Hominem attacks are the conservative specialty. Cucks, libtards, etc. etc. You guys really have no in depth philosophy of conservatism. It's a bunch of uneducated people running around attacking people due to whatever inferiority complexes they have.
mhneu 10y ago
I find the opposite effect - liberals have thought much more deeply about their views, and conservatives often just parrot shallow talking points. For example, a group of my progressive acquaintances has been debating in depth on the New Yorker's reporting over past few months, including especially the long piece on Hillary the week before the election. They have framed that discussion around progressive views on fairness of opportunity and fairness of wealth distribution. The leading political progressives have the same depth of argument - listen to Obama's speeches, the speeches at the DNC, Bernie and Robert Reich, Kander on voting, Stiglitz. In contrast the right is intellectually bankrupt. Michael Anton's articles motivated the right for the past few months and the articles are poorly argued flimflam. Heritage's chief economist is disingenuous and misguided. The chief GOP wonk in Congress, Paul Ryan, is a mediocrity who barely understands healthcare never mind economics. This is what happens when a party goes to war on expertise[1] (because expertise of course threatens their donors' ability to make huge amounts of money[2]). 1. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-death-of-expertise-9780190469412?cc=us&lang=en& https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-death-of-experti... 2. http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/10/14871696/scott-pruitt-climate-denial http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/3/10/14871696/sco...
- chillacy 10y ago
  Maybe (just a guess) it depends on where you are? I suspect if you live in a city which leans left, all the people who go with the flow and don't think too much about their views end up being on the left because that's everyone else. The people going against the grain at least have thought more deeply of their views. And if you live in a majority red community, people who have left views will be the ones who have thought long and deep about their views.
  - nickthemagicman 10y ago
    This is not true at all. Conservatives in general have extremely simple black and white thinking with no consideration of statistics or larger concepts. That's why they're so fear driven. They don't like terrorism so get rid of muslims no matter if it's an infinitesimal fraction of Muslims who are terrorists...they don't like taxes so get rid of them, even though it funds the infrastructure they use every day...they don't like black people getting welfare so stop it, even though in a bigger context it's income redistribution which sends dollars through the economy. Its very simple thinking.
tomlock 10y ago
The flipside of this is the reactionary multitudes who spout 'sjw' or 'virtue signalling' or 'socialist' when someone on the left questions the status-quo. Its a problem on both sides.
- rhapsodic 10y ago
  >The flipside of this is the reactionary multitudes who spout 'sjw' or 'virtue signalling' or 'socialist' when someone on the left questions the status-quo. A fair point, however, I think the only way to reverse the trend on the left is for the right to employ the left's own tactics back against them, in spades. The right needs to destroy the lives and careers of, for example, some university presidents who allow this sort of brutish behavior to go unpunished, sometimes even making excuses for it. Or go to war against companies who cave to the SJW demands. It has to be mutually-assured destruction, not one-sided.
  - tomlock 10y ago
    I think you're painting the left as bad and the right as good. There are pretty clearly bad actors on each side, and each side is a broad church. I think its very apt that you use MAD as an analogy, because I'm analogously all for nuclear non-proliferation.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    Yes, purges will help a lot, and definitely aren't exactly what a strawman Evil Reactionary Dictator would do /s.
  - pottersbasilisk 10y ago
    So the alt right evolved because the gop was too weak. Pretty interesting. I've never thought of it like an arms race before.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  It's not a "problem on both sides" when one side controls every branch of federal, state, and local government across the vast majority of the country, while the other can't seem to win an election against Donald Trump. Strength is not equivalent to weakness.

closeparen 10y ago

Having been physically present at ground zero of this thing, and having spent quite a bit of time trying to understand it, let me offer one piece of missing information. This group is well aware of the prevailing doctrine that truth comes from dispassionate investigation and rigorous argument. They just reject it. They reject that it's conducted in good faith, and they reject that the sacred constructs of the ideology are subject to any microscope. That intellectual ideal is seen as something by and for the powerful old white men who control power structures, including and especially academia. It's seen as just as much a tool of oppression as phrenology, eugenics, and other racist pseudoscience, and they're hoping to push it towards the same fate. Some of the more extreme protestors will tell you that advocating for traditional academic inquiry is fundamentally white supremacist, in that a mode of understanding the world favored by the ruling class is seen as more legitimate than others. There is no objectivity, the reasoning goes, so we ought to put the traditionally opppressed in control of the narrative for a while. The article is spot on that the right way to think about it is as a religion. There are articles of faith: the world works in terms of identity-based groups; certain groups hold and actively maintain power over others; it's time to depose those groups and let others have a turn at authority, particularly over what constitutes truth. There is testimony: the "lived experiences" - anecdotes - of members of oppresssd groups are gospel. Obedience is paramount - the first and last step of being an Ally is to accept, believe unquestioningly, and evangelize what you are told. These people aren't coddled and they aren't weak. Appeals to psychological safety are attempts to weaponize empathy, not genuine fragility. They are fierce warriors for what they believe to be justice.

tomlock 10y ago
Your characterization made me grin, as someone who is on the other side to you. >That intellectual ideal is seen as something by and for the powerful old white men who control power structures, including and especially academia. Lets be real here - academia until only very recently in world history - was virulently exclusionary to people of color and women. Before we dismissed eugenics as pseudoscience, it was perceived as just science. It is easy in hindsight to say it was flawed and a tool of oppression - but at the time it was very much an active area of academic inquiry. Given that in the past pseudoscience was seen as science, what evidence do we have to believe that we haven't made some of the same mistakes in classifying pseudoscience in the present? Given that academia in the past was corrupted by bias against women, what makes us now think it's truly objectively academic, now? It takes a lot of faith to believe that this is the one period in history when bias hasn't tainted "objectivity"/"science"/"academic inquiry".

crb002 10y ago

It's the US Dept of Education's fault. They won't stop lending money to institutions who trample on student speech the administration disagrees with. U.S. Dept of Education is a blank check.

flashman 10y ago

That's odd, I'd define "dangerous safety" as being unlikely to experience racism, sexism or other prejudice, and thus becoming incapable of realising how those things affect others. "Dangerous safety" is the kind of environment in which a man like Charles Murray sees no problem with burning a cross next to a police station.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(political_scientist)#cite_note-9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Murray_(political_scie...