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Even among liberal-minded people, the politics and culture presented at colleges is exceedingly narrow. Regardless, colleges should deal with bad ideas by ackn

Even among liberal-minded people, the politics and culture presented at colleges is exceedingly narrow. Regardless, colleges should deal with bad ideas by acknowledging and refuting them, not pretending they don't exist. I have a theory that people born after about 1980 don't really understand bigotry they just know there are certain things they can't say and certain things they should say. That leaves them ignorant of the root causes and it can manifest in other forms and not be recognized as bigotry. Much better to have open intellectual discussion than to pretend bad ideas don't exist.

josefresco 8y ago
"they just know there are certain things they can't say and certain things they should say" Ah the decades-old conservative "political correctness" culture war strategy (successful I might add). You'd have to be a complete idiot to make it through school and not realize why these "certain things" are offensive - OR you could be making a disingenuous argument because you support bigotry (my vote is on the latter). What would an "open intellectual discussion" about race/sex/religion/immigration, hosted by a conservative group look like exactly?
- true_religion 8y ago
  Conservative groups are not evil, or even reactionary by definition. In my experience, conservative groups favor the staus quo, no matter what that may be. Liberal groups on the other hand, favor some sort of change, but the actual specifics vary from group to group. On something as simple as environmentalism, you will see a range between people who want laws to ensure pets are well treated, and people who think all animal domestication is slavery and every pet ought to be freed into the wild. A conservative group on the other hand will trend to defend whatever law existed when they grew up. Sure it is not a very clever policy, but thats the essense of it.
- jeffdavis 8y ago
  Immigration is a good example. Immigration laws are popular but immigration enforcement is unpopular. So what we have in the U.S. are lots of laws and spotty/inconsistent enforcment. So we need an intellectually-honest debate about what laws we want that we are actually willing to enforce. Unenforced laws leaves many in a legal grey area which is not fair or just.

josefresco 8y ago

"they just know there are certain things they can't say and certain things they should say" Ah the decades-old conservative "political correctness" culture war strategy (successful I might add). You'd have to be a complete idiot to make it through school and not realize why these "certain things" are offensive - OR you could be making a disingenuous argument because you support bigotry (my vote is on the latter). What would an "open intellectual discussion" about race/sex/religion/immigration, hosted by a conservative group look like exactly?

true_religion 8y ago
Conservative groups are not evil, or even reactionary by definition. In my experience, conservative groups favor the staus quo, no matter what that may be. Liberal groups on the other hand, favor some sort of change, but the actual specifics vary from group to group. On something as simple as environmentalism, you will see a range between people who want laws to ensure pets are well treated, and people who think all animal domestication is slavery and every pet ought to be freed into the wild. A conservative group on the other hand will trend to defend whatever law existed when they grew up. Sure it is not a very clever policy, but thats the essense of it.
jeffdavis 8y ago
Immigration is a good example. Immigration laws are popular but immigration enforcement is unpopular. So what we have in the U.S. are lots of laws and spotty/inconsistent enforcment. So we need an intellectually-honest debate about what laws we want that we are actually willing to enforce. Unenforced laws leaves many in a legal grey area which is not fair or just.