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As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality, it should be no surprise they are increasingly less welc

As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality, it should be no surprise they are increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. If you reject not only the politics of your opponents, but the value of fact itself, why should they listen to or accommodate you? https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/america-epistemic-crisis https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/a...

ThrowawayR2 9y ago
> If you reject not only the politics of your opponents, but the value of fact itself, why should they listen to or accommodate you? Because "you" (i.e. the right wing, in your analogy) can muster more votes from the political center than "they" can and can put into place governmental and economic policy that can disrupt or damage said "spaces dedicated dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge" greatly. The ivory tower doesn't exist in a vacuum. Its gates can be besieged by the populace and it can fall to its besiegers.
- vannevar 9y ago
  It can, but the notion that ignorance can triumph by force is not the fault of the universities. What is their alternative? To pander to people who believe that Islamic terrorists are a greater threat to them than the ladder in their garage, that being gay is a conscious moral choice, and that tax cuts stimulate economic growth? Conservative backlash against science and mathematics is a consequence of the increasing availability of data directly contradicting most of their core intuitive beliefs. That they're choosing to shoot the messenger is not the messenger's fault.
  - creaghpatr 9y ago
    >To pander to people who believe that Islamic terrorists are a greater threat to them than the ladder in their garage A poor straw man argument, and it's telling that you need untruthful hyperbole to make your point.
    - irhd 9y ago
      That's not a strawman either. Hyperbole is a valid rhetorical device. The point is that fear is used to drive conservatism, in many cases irrational fear.
    - vannevar 9y ago
      In what sense is it a straw man argument? Republicans favor spending enormous amounts of money fighting Islamic terrorists, while ignoring much more probable threats. That is not hyperbole, it is sad truth.
      - carry_bit 9y ago
        Compare the rate for both of those aggregated over the last 5 years to the previous 5 years.
        vannevar 9y ago
        Or you can simply look at the probability of various causes of death: http://www.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrorism-disease-accidents-2017-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrori.... They don't specifically have ladder deaths, but at about 300/year, it would rank between heat waves and electricity on the list.
youdontknowtho 9y ago
I know. There's been an organized project on the right to undermine universities since the 60's. Any accommodation made to them is a small victory.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  The programs you're talking about have more to do with the FBI than any particular party. Edit: they were in place during Johnson's administration
  - youdontknowtho 9y ago
    No. There were specific conservative groups that had specific recommendations about how to make universities less radical.
confuseddesi 9y ago
Perhaps it is the American right-wing moving further right, but I am more inclined to believe the American left is moving farther left: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/why-america-is-moving-left/419112/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/why-ame... Take for example this speech by Bill Clinton in 1995: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4654597/bill-clinton-illegal-immigration https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4654597/bill-clinton-illegal-...: "That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens." To think that this was a speech by a Democrat president about 20 years ago is unfathomable to the left today.
- vannevar 9y ago
  Not all that unfathomable, Obama deported record numbers of criminal illegals.
  - confuseddesi 9y ago
    Here's another snippet from President Clinton: "I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages and this legislation is consistent with that position." http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/scotts/ftp/wpaf2mc/clinton.html http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/scotts/ftp/wpaf2mc/clinton....
    - vannevar 9y ago
      That's a general social trend, not unique to the left. Steadily increasing numbers of Republicans also support gay marriage, currently around 40%. (http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay...)
      - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        The same source shows a roughly similar shift on immigration, with older people being less keen and the average opinion changing as they age out: http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/4-race-immigration-and-discrimination/4_10-2/ http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/4-race-immigration-an...
thecatwentup 9y ago
What's interesting is that this is the exact attitude that the article is critical of. One persons perceived closed mindedness should not preclude them from sharing and refining their ideas in an academic setting, and being accepted as a member of the academic society.
- lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
  The difference is that to participate in an acedemic setting you need to come with facts first. This, extremely low, bar "elitist" as it may be is necessary to provide at least the bare minimum of protection against bad actors. People unwilling to change their view poison the space for all participants. The pursuit of an unmoderated ideal is a false one.
  - jtbayly 9y ago
    Is it "facts" or "consensus reality" as the OP said? I'm very interested in facts. Consensus reality? Not so much.
juliangoldsmith 9y ago
>As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality, it should be no surprise they are increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is the gap between consensus reality and objective reality. A lot of what the American left has been preaching recently (the Russia-Trump story, for instance) has no basis in objective reality, but people believe it because everyone else believes it. When a small number of large companies control almost the entirety of the media, it's not difficult to change consensus reality.
- chowchowchow 9y ago
  That's way overstating it -- people may jump to conclusions that don't match objective reality, but the string of suspicious meetings, consistent omissions from security clearance forms and testomonies, peculiar behaviors by advisors and campaign managers, are all things that did happen in reality. Things like 3 million illegal aliens voted in California, or Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or John Podesta running a sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor, are better examples of ideas fully divorced from objective reality.
  - juliangoldsmith 9y ago
    If something being suspicious is cause to believe it, then we can believe that the Clintons had something to do with the large number of politically convenient accidents and suicides surrounding them. Objective reality doesn't seem to be enough to cast a shadow on the Clintons. How many people on the left know much about the scandal surrounding the Uranium One deal that Hillary Clinton approved, after taking large amounts of Russian money [0]? [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton...
    - chowchowchow 9y ago
      > If something being suspicious is cause to believe it, That's not what I said at all, I was talking about the reality of the suspicious acts, not the reality of their implications. But the immediate refocus to the Clintons, when nobody was talking about them, is plenty illuminating about where this will go if we keep discussing.
lj3 9y ago
> further way from participating in consensus reality > increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. Consensus reality is the opposite of the pursuit of knowledge. This is readily demonstrated by the decaying social trust in higher education.
- jtbayly 9y ago
  Exactly. They taught the world that truth was relative and then they have the gall to demand that everybody has to take the academy's truth as the absolute truth. No thanks, I'll keep my own truth. I like it better.
- sremani 9y ago
  Yes, that "truth" research papers with 50% failure to reproduce. No Thanks!
jtbayly 9y ago
Congratulations on being the straw man. But seriously, this is exactly the sort of attitude and comment that gave us Trump as president. The idea that truth is relative was taught to the America public by the academy. Now you say that the academy is a place dedicated to the pursuit of "knowledge" and speak of the "value of fact" as if these are absolutes. But you do so just after talking about "consensus reality." Make up your mind. Either reality is defined by consensus or not. If "consensus reality" isn't able to convince me that it will benefit me, why would I pursue it? And if "consensus reality" isn't even able to get enough consensus to keep Trump out of the White House, then you'll have to pardon me for laughing your "reality" right out the door. You made your bed. Now you're lying in it and complaining that others won't join you.
- irhd 9y ago
  It's not a strawman. It's an argument as to why conservatism is rejected. I don't really agree with it, but it's an argument. > But seriously, this is exactly the sort of attitude and comment that gave us Trump as president No. This is ridiculous. I'm so sick of people refusing to take responsibility for their actions on this. People saw Trump. They saw the same things as everyone who hated him then and hates him now, and they decided that was what they wanted.
- throwaway648fus 9y ago
  Yes, yes, we all know the narrative that quite literally everything liberals do in modern society were the straw that broke the camels back and forced millions of Americans to vote for Trump. Everything from elite colleges' safe spaces to shopping at Whole Foods. Or perhaps it's simpler than that: a large swath of Americans unimpressed Hillary Clinton's largely uninteresting business-as-usual policies matching her husband's mildde-of-the-road governance with no real winners or interesting nuggets, up against the usual conservative base that will vote for just about anybody who claims loyalty with the Elephant (even if they don't really fit the profile, as Trump certainly did not). How about everybody just stop coming up with hot takes on the election for five seconds. Your nitpick about the liberals in your life or sensationalized in the newspaper really did not matter. Sorry.
junkscience2017 9y ago
> As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality the "consensus" gave them the Presidency, House and Senate
ConceptJunkie 9y ago
> +As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality, it should be no surprise they are increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. The two clauses in this sentence are contradictory. You are claiming that conservatives are stupid because they reject the herd mentality. Think about that.
- mmierz 9y ago
  Did you read the article in the post you're replying to? I don't think "herd mentality" is what the US far-right rejects.
  - ConceptJunkie 9y ago
    Perhaps the right believes that the "consensus reality" which is just another word for what the herd thinks, is moving further and further from the truth. That kind of thing happens all the time.

ThrowawayR2 9y ago

> If you reject not only the politics of your opponents, but the value of fact itself, why should they listen to or accommodate you? Because "you" (i.e. the right wing, in your analogy) can muster more votes from the political center than "they" can and can put into place governmental and economic policy that can disrupt or damage said "spaces dedicated dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge" greatly. The ivory tower doesn't exist in a vacuum. Its gates can be besieged by the populace and it can fall to its besiegers.

vannevar 9y ago
It can, but the notion that ignorance can triumph by force is not the fault of the universities. What is their alternative? To pander to people who believe that Islamic terrorists are a greater threat to them than the ladder in their garage, that being gay is a conscious moral choice, and that tax cuts stimulate economic growth? Conservative backlash against science and mathematics is a consequence of the increasing availability of data directly contradicting most of their core intuitive beliefs. That they're choosing to shoot the messenger is not the messenger's fault.
- creaghpatr 9y ago
  >To pander to people who believe that Islamic terrorists are a greater threat to them than the ladder in their garage A poor straw man argument, and it's telling that you need untruthful hyperbole to make your point.
  - irhd 9y ago
    That's not a strawman either. Hyperbole is a valid rhetorical device. The point is that fear is used to drive conservatism, in many cases irrational fear.
  - vannevar 9y ago
    In what sense is it a straw man argument? Republicans favor spending enormous amounts of money fighting Islamic terrorists, while ignoring much more probable threats. That is not hyperbole, it is sad truth.
    - carry_bit 9y ago
      Compare the rate for both of those aggregated over the last 5 years to the previous 5 years.
      - vannevar 9y ago
        Or you can simply look at the probability of various causes of death: http://www.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrorism-disease-accidents-2017-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/death-risk-statistics-terrori.... They don't specifically have ladder deaths, but at about 300/year, it would rank between heat waves and electricity on the list.

youdontknowtho 9y ago

I know. There's been an organized project on the right to undermine universities since the 60's. Any accommodation made to them is a small victory.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago
The programs you're talking about have more to do with the FBI than any particular party. Edit: they were in place during Johnson's administration
- youdontknowtho 9y ago
  No. There were specific conservative groups that had specific recommendations about how to make universities less radical.

confuseddesi 9y ago

Perhaps it is the American right-wing moving further right, but I am more inclined to believe the American left is moving farther left: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/why-america-is-moving-left/419112/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/why-ame... Take for example this speech by Bill Clinton in 1995: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4654597/bill-clinton-illegal-immigration https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4654597/bill-clinton-illegal-...: "That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens." To think that this was a speech by a Democrat president about 20 years ago is unfathomable to the left today.

vannevar 9y ago
Not all that unfathomable, Obama deported record numbers of criminal illegals.
- confuseddesi 9y ago
  Here's another snippet from President Clinton: "I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages and this legislation is consistent with that position." http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/scotts/ftp/wpaf2mc/clinton.html http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/scotts/ftp/wpaf2mc/clinton....
  - vannevar 9y ago
    That's a general social trend, not unique to the left. Steadily increasing numbers of Republicans also support gay marriage, currently around 40%. (http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/ http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay...)
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      The same source shows a roughly similar shift on immigration, with older people being less keen and the average opinion changing as they age out: http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/4-race-immigration-and-discrimination/4_10-2/ http://www.people-press.org/2017/10/05/4-race-immigration-an...

thecatwentup 9y ago

What's interesting is that this is the exact attitude that the article is critical of. One persons perceived closed mindedness should not preclude them from sharing and refining their ideas in an academic setting, and being accepted as a member of the academic society.

lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
The difference is that to participate in an acedemic setting you need to come with facts first. This, extremely low, bar "elitist" as it may be is necessary to provide at least the bare minimum of protection against bad actors. People unwilling to change their view poison the space for all participants. The pursuit of an unmoderated ideal is a false one.
- jtbayly 9y ago
  Is it "facts" or "consensus reality" as the OP said? I'm very interested in facts. Consensus reality? Not so much.

juliangoldsmith 9y ago

>As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality, it should be no surprise they are increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. The problem is the gap between consensus reality and objective reality. A lot of what the American left has been preaching recently (the Russia-Trump story, for instance) has no basis in objective reality, but people believe it because everyone else believes it. When a small number of large companies control almost the entirety of the media, it's not difficult to change consensus reality.

chowchowchow 9y ago
That's way overstating it -- people may jump to conclusions that don't match objective reality, but the string of suspicious meetings, consistent omissions from security clearance forms and testomonies, peculiar behaviors by advisors and campaign managers, are all things that did happen in reality. Things like 3 million illegal aliens voted in California, or Barack Obama was born in Kenya, or John Podesta running a sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor, are better examples of ideas fully divorced from objective reality.
- juliangoldsmith 9y ago
  If something being suspicious is cause to believe it, then we can believe that the Clintons had something to do with the large number of politically convenient accidents and suicides surrounding them. Objective reality doesn't seem to be enough to cast a shadow on the Clintons. How many people on the left know much about the scandal surrounding the Uranium One deal that Hillary Clinton approved, after taking large amounts of Russian money [0]? [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton...
  - chowchowchow 9y ago
    > If something being suspicious is cause to believe it, That's not what I said at all, I was talking about the reality of the suspicious acts, not the reality of their implications. But the immediate refocus to the Clintons, when nobody was talking about them, is plenty illuminating about where this will go if we keep discussing.

lj3 9y ago

> further way from participating in consensus reality > increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. Consensus reality is the opposite of the pursuit of knowledge. This is readily demonstrated by the decaying social trust in higher education.

jtbayly 9y ago
Exactly. They taught the world that truth was relative and then they have the gall to demand that everybody has to take the academy's truth as the absolute truth. No thanks, I'll keep my own truth. I like it better.
sremani 9y ago
Yes, that "truth" research papers with 50% failure to reproduce. No Thanks!

jtbayly 9y ago

Congratulations on being the straw man. But seriously, this is exactly the sort of attitude and comment that gave us Trump as president. The idea that truth is relative was taught to the America public by the academy. Now you say that the academy is a place dedicated to the pursuit of "knowledge" and speak of the "value of fact" as if these are absolutes. But you do so just after talking about "consensus reality." Make up your mind. Either reality is defined by consensus or not. If "consensus reality" isn't able to convince me that it will benefit me, why would I pursue it? And if "consensus reality" isn't even able to get enough consensus to keep Trump out of the White House, then you'll have to pardon me for laughing your "reality" right out the door. You made your bed. Now you're lying in it and complaining that others won't join you.

irhd 9y ago
It's not a strawman. It's an argument as to why conservatism is rejected. I don't really agree with it, but it's an argument. > But seriously, this is exactly the sort of attitude and comment that gave us Trump as president No. This is ridiculous. I'm so sick of people refusing to take responsibility for their actions on this. People saw Trump. They saw the same things as everyone who hated him then and hates him now, and they decided that was what they wanted.
throwaway648fus 9y ago
Yes, yes, we all know the narrative that quite literally everything liberals do in modern society were the straw that broke the camels back and forced millions of Americans to vote for Trump. Everything from elite colleges' safe spaces to shopping at Whole Foods. Or perhaps it's simpler than that: a large swath of Americans unimpressed Hillary Clinton's largely uninteresting business-as-usual policies matching her husband's mildde-of-the-road governance with no real winners or interesting nuggets, up against the usual conservative base that will vote for just about anybody who claims loyalty with the Elephant (even if they don't really fit the profile, as Trump certainly did not). How about everybody just stop coming up with hot takes on the election for five seconds. Your nitpick about the liberals in your life or sensationalized in the newspaper really did not matter. Sorry.

junkscience2017 9y ago

> As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality the "consensus" gave them the Presidency, House and Senate

ConceptJunkie 9y ago

> +As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality, it should be no surprise they are increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. The two clauses in this sentence are contradictory. You are claiming that conservatives are stupid because they reject the herd mentality. Think about that.

mmierz 9y ago
Did you read the article in the post you're replying to? I don't think "herd mentality" is what the US far-right rejects.
- ConceptJunkie 9y ago
  Perhaps the right believes that the "consensus reality" which is just another word for what the herd thinks, is moving further and further from the truth. That kind of thing happens all the time.