8 ms·

I believe HN has both right and left leaning individuals, but I wonder if most people would condemn the practice of professors being ousted from schools for dar

by wpasc 7y ago

I believe HN has both right and left leaning individuals, but I wonder if most people would condemn the practice of professors being ousted from schools for daring to challenge their students' "safe space" notions and microagressing them? This is not an isolated event and universities skew heavily in one direction politically. Is it universally agreeable that the end of healthy debate in college is a really, really bad thing?

SantalBlush 7y ago
It's been my belief that many people get offended by opposing viewpoints because their beliefs--while perhaps correct--weren't firmly grounded in much evidence. A well formulated counterpoint forces us to refine our argument (or abandon it), and most people just don't seem very interested in doing that.
- mpweiher 7y ago
  “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.” -- John Stuart Mill
wtallis 7y ago
Confronting controversial topics in the classroom is important, especially for a school of public policy. But I don't think it's good to assume that any debate being suppressed would have been healthy debate. in this particular case, the professor and the university are both being deliberately vague about what debate subjects were deemed to have been handled badly, and what kind of positions the professor advocated or endorsed, if any. With so little information, there's not enough evidence to rule out the possibility that the professor was bringing up important subjects but then fumbling the discussions in a way that gave some students a negative and unhelpful experience.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Eridrus 7y ago
The primary good universities provide to most people is not education, but signaling. It basically doesn't matter what most students are taught since they will never have an opportunity to use it, and even if they did, they would not remember what they were taught, and even if they remembered they probably wouldn't be able to apply it outside a classroom context.
pjc50 7y ago
I think there is a large amount of misunderstanding (and misinformation) about what safe spaces and trigger warnings are actually all about. They have also been subject to a certain amount of .. inflation? But the core ideas are important. "Trigger" originally referred specifically to PTSD. There is a small number of students, such as women who have experienced sexual assault, for whom the subject is more than merely upsetting, it causes flashbacks and significant risk to short term mental health. They asked that they not be exposed to this material without warning. (Not that the material not be taught, nor even that it not be taught to them, but that they be informed in advance about the course content in order to mentally prepare for it) > healthy debate Healthy debate for whom? Do we need a debate about what constitutes a healthy and effective debate? Do we need to consider the validity of different modes of interaction? "Traditional" debate assumes a sort of weightlessness, that the issues involved are at a distance from the people having the debate. For things like sexual assault or abortion, or the racialisation of intelligence, it's people's actual experiences - well, for people other than the traditional professor class. > microagressing them Somehow I'm reminded of the debate over corporal punishment in schools, where pedagogical effectiveness takes a back seat to more primal ideas about punishment, conformity, and order. People used to be beaten for being left-handed, remember.
- golergka 7y ago
  > it's people's actual experiences First-hand experience gives you unique perspective that you can share with others, but doesn't make you a final authority on the matter. Once you shared your information with others (and assuming there's no trust issues involved), you're on equal grounds as to what to conclude from it.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    1) "assuming there's no trust issues involved" is doing an awful lot of load-bearing there 2) One of the things that people keep starting "free speech controversies" over is the idea that some groups are intrinsically less intelligent or apt than others. When, as a member of such a minority group, you are confronted with this idea, what can you conclude from the suggestion that you are intrinsically less intelligent than your classmates? - the instructor is right, and you should drop out? - the instructor is prejudiced, so you will receive unfair marks? - the instructor is wrong about this, and likely to be wrong about everything else?

by wpasc 7y ago

SantalBlush 7y ago

It's been my belief that many people get offended by opposing viewpoints because their beliefs--while perhaps correct--weren't firmly grounded in much evidence. A well formulated counterpoint forces us to refine our argument (or abandon it), and most people just don't seem very interested in doing that.

mpweiher 7y ago
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.” -- John Stuart Mill

wtallis 7y ago

Confronting controversial topics in the classroom is important, especially for a school of public policy. But I don't think it's good to assume that any debate being suppressed would have been healthy debate. in this particular case, the professor and the university are both being deliberately vague about what debate subjects were deemed to have been handled badly, and what kind of positions the professor advocated or endorsed, if any. With so little information, there's not enough evidence to rule out the possibility that the professor was bringing up important subjects but then fumbling the discussions in a way that gave some students a negative and unhelpful experience.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Eridrus 7y ago

The primary good universities provide to most people is not education, but signaling. It basically doesn't matter what most students are taught since they will never have an opportunity to use it, and even if they did, they would not remember what they were taught, and even if they remembered they probably wouldn't be able to apply it outside a classroom context.

pjc50 7y ago

I think there is a large amount of misunderstanding (and misinformation) about what safe spaces and trigger warnings are actually all about. They have also been subject to a certain amount of .. inflation? But the core ideas are important. "Trigger" originally referred specifically to PTSD. There is a small number of students, such as women who have experienced sexual assault, for whom the subject is more than merely upsetting, it causes flashbacks and significant risk to short term mental health. They asked that they not be exposed to this material without warning. (Not that the material not be taught, nor even that it not be taught to them, but that they be informed in advance about the course content in order to mentally prepare for it) > healthy debate Healthy debate for whom? Do we need a debate about what constitutes a healthy and effective debate? Do we need to consider the validity of different modes of interaction? "Traditional" debate assumes a sort of weightlessness, that the issues involved are at a distance from the people having the debate. For things like sexual assault or abortion, or the racialisation of intelligence, it's people's actual experiences - well, for people other than the traditional professor class. > microagressing them Somehow I'm reminded of the debate over corporal punishment in schools, where pedagogical effectiveness takes a back seat to more primal ideas about punishment, conformity, and order. People used to be beaten for being left-handed, remember.

golergka 7y ago
> it's people's actual experiences First-hand experience gives you unique perspective that you can share with others, but doesn't make you a final authority on the matter. Once you shared your information with others (and assuming there's no trust issues involved), you're on equal grounds as to what to conclude from it.
- pjc50 7y ago
  1) "assuming there's no trust issues involved" is doing an awful lot of load-bearing there 2) One of the things that people keep starting "free speech controversies" over is the idea that some groups are intrinsically less intelligent or apt than others. When, as a member of such a minority group, you are confronted with this idea, what can you conclude from the suggestion that you are intrinsically less intelligent than your classmates? - the instructor is right, and you should drop out? - the instructor is prejudiced, so you will receive unfair marks? - the instructor is wrong about this, and likely to be wrong about everything else?