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It should come as no surprise that the right-leaning students who ideologically agree with the stated "controversial books" or ideological viewpoints of the hyp

It should come as no surprise that the right-leaning students who ideologically agree with the stated "controversial books" or ideological viewpoints of the hypothetical speakers do not want to remove them from the university library. Also, it's a third of SOCIAL SCIENCE students, not overall student population, and the study has a terrible response rate of 7.5% which they themselves admit in part 4.1. Also, because it seems like bad faith editorializing by the OP, it's about banning books from the university library, not in general. In other words, the study is awful and it doesn't prove any point, but because it's easy to spin it into an anti-woke censorship narrative, HN is going to eat this up.

seventytwo 5y ago
> an anti-woke censorship narrative, HN is going to eat this up. Yup.
swiley 5y ago
I tend to be right leaning and would flip out if the extreme left was censored. If you can't have a discussion you can't have democracy.
- kwinten 5y ago
  The "extreme left" is not even a fraction as represented as even far right within popular consciousness and, more significantly, political representation. There's no Marxist-Leninist politicians of note in Germany (where the study was done). There are however plenty of popular politicians and parties with significant power who align with some of the statements and topics the students were asked about. What I'm trying to say with that is that it's not an equal comparison. There is no political mobilization for extreme left ideas that is even remotely comparable to the far-right that align with some narratives that the students obviously consider as dangerous, such as anti-Islam and anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ, and pro gendered labor division. I am not in favor of flat out banning such books (even if I personally believe they have no place in an environment of science and learning such as a university), but it's easy to understand why the response of left-leaning students towards right-leaning topics is stronger than the inverse.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - swiley 5y ago
    >The "extreme left" is not even a fraction as represented A good democratic country will swing between extreme polls but if you look around you'll see many strongly leftist ideas (extreme gun control, censorship, minors consenting to sex reassignment surgery etc.) getting quite a lot of support and becoming laws in many countries. I certainly wouldn't argue that they're being ignored.
    - kwinten 5y ago
      Idk if you're still talking about Germany specifically or more global trends. Regarding Germany: gun control is a non-partisan issue and not even remotely part of the public discourse. Censorship of various degrees is written in German law especially when it pertains to racism, hate speech, and Nazi language and symbolism. Regarding the last, I'm not aware of the state of Germany on that point. However, none of the points you named are anywhere even remotely near "extreme left", even by US standards. Those are all Democrat party talking points, which is anywhere from slightly left of center to center-right. The "extreme left" (no, US Democrats are not socialists) has no political representation anywhere in the Western world and barely registers in public consciousness at all.
      - sofixa 5y ago
        > The "extreme left" (no, US Democrats are not socialists) has no political representation anywhere in the Western world and barely registers in public consciousness at all. That's false. In France there's a far left party ( France Insoumise, which has or has had stuff like redistribution of wealth and nationalisation of infrastructure, increasing the minimum wage in multiples in their programme, and regularly works with the Communist party for elections ) which is pretty mainstream, and their candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was 4th with 19.6% in the last presidential elections. ( For reference, 3rd was with 20%, 2nd with 21.4%, first with 24%) Isn't there a far left party in Spain as well? And Italy? Western world != US, Canada, UK.
- watwut 5y ago
  I mean, whole range of topics tangentially related to 1916 is being censored in american schools right now and it is not even extreme left. By actual lawmakers.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  > I tend to be right leaning and would flip out if the extreme left was censored. Florida is demanding ideological surveys of faculty within the state. Laws are being passed banning discussion of "CRT" in a variety of institutional levels. I've got a few friends who receive fairly consistent death threats every time they are mentioned by Fox News or equivalents for being "anti-american ivory tower leftists" for teaching courses on police violence or race and gender in medieval europe. One of the authors of the 1619 project had their position changed from a tenured position to a TT position after interference from the board of a public university. Heck, the Trump administration published "the 1776 project", which was absolutely ahistorical nonsense (no single historian was involved in the project) explicitly designed to shift history curricula towards a specific ideology.
akomtu 5y ago
The statistical significance of the poll may be garbage, but the point it's trying to make is important. I'd personally ban CRT rhetorics in education, but banning CRT books would be a direct attack on 1A.
- kwinten 5y ago
  You can't make a point based on garbage data.
cracker-news 5y ago
> because it's easy to spin it into an anti-woke censorship narrative, HN is going to eat this up. It is the most tiring and mundane narrative -- that a group of people who are mostly young and relatively powerless somehow represent some grave existential threat by being too "woke". It's embarrassing for humanity that this is the issue that riles people up. We're killing off all life on the planet, but comparatively no one seems to care much.
ramoz 5y ago
Im not a researcher, but why would any study of some social environment not be worth studying? Especially as it relates to present day & macro-scale social dilemmas, and more importantly a robust history to learn from vs repeat –– Though for this, I'd be more interested in historic psycho- analysis/profiling, present day, and how individual viewpoints evolve to large social disruptions in democratic societies.
- kwinten 5y ago
  Never said it's not worth studying. The methodology, resulting samples, one-sided nature, and biased and opinionated narrative structure of the paper (I urge you to read through it) make it entirely uninteresting is all. It's clear that this is yet another piece to throw on the libertarian heap and to spin it into anti-woke agitprop just as the OP (and linked tweet, to a lesser extent) did with their heavy editorializing. Fuel for the fire for everyone who wants to read the title and extrapolate some greater social trends from this to fit their already established perspectives.
marcosdumay 5y ago
Well, I have some news from the future of that comment. HN is not eating it up. Almost every post is about how the study isn't great and the title doesn't reflect it.

seventytwo 5y ago

> an anti-woke censorship narrative, HN is going to eat this up. Yup.

swiley 5y ago

I tend to be right leaning and would flip out if the extreme left was censored. If you can't have a discussion you can't have democracy.

kwinten 5y ago
The "extreme left" is not even a fraction as represented as even far right within popular consciousness and, more significantly, political representation. There's no Marxist-Leninist politicians of note in Germany (where the study was done). There are however plenty of popular politicians and parties with significant power who align with some of the statements and topics the students were asked about. What I'm trying to say with that is that it's not an equal comparison. There is no political mobilization for extreme left ideas that is even remotely comparable to the far-right that align with some narratives that the students obviously consider as dangerous, such as anti-Islam and anti-immigration, anti-LGBTQ, and pro gendered labor division. I am not in favor of flat out banning such books (even if I personally believe they have no place in an environment of science and learning such as a university), but it's easy to understand why the response of left-leaning students towards right-leaning topics is stronger than the inverse.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- swiley 5y ago
  >The "extreme left" is not even a fraction as represented A good democratic country will swing between extreme polls but if you look around you'll see many strongly leftist ideas (extreme gun control, censorship, minors consenting to sex reassignment surgery etc.) getting quite a lot of support and becoming laws in many countries. I certainly wouldn't argue that they're being ignored.
  - kwinten 5y ago
    Idk if you're still talking about Germany specifically or more global trends. Regarding Germany: gun control is a non-partisan issue and not even remotely part of the public discourse. Censorship of various degrees is written in German law especially when it pertains to racism, hate speech, and Nazi language and symbolism. Regarding the last, I'm not aware of the state of Germany on that point. However, none of the points you named are anywhere even remotely near "extreme left", even by US standards. Those are all Democrat party talking points, which is anywhere from slightly left of center to center-right. The "extreme left" (no, US Democrats are not socialists) has no political representation anywhere in the Western world and barely registers in public consciousness at all.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      > The "extreme left" (no, US Democrats are not socialists) has no political representation anywhere in the Western world and barely registers in public consciousness at all. That's false. In France there's a far left party ( France Insoumise, which has or has had stuff like redistribution of wealth and nationalisation of infrastructure, increasing the minimum wage in multiples in their programme, and regularly works with the Communist party for elections ) which is pretty mainstream, and their candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, was 4th with 19.6% in the last presidential elections. ( For reference, 3rd was with 20%, 2nd with 21.4%, first with 24%) Isn't there a far left party in Spain as well? And Italy? Western world != US, Canada, UK.
watwut 5y ago
I mean, whole range of topics tangentially related to 1916 is being censored in american schools right now and it is not even extreme left. By actual lawmakers.
UncleMeat 5y ago
> I tend to be right leaning and would flip out if the extreme left was censored. Florida is demanding ideological surveys of faculty within the state. Laws are being passed banning discussion of "CRT" in a variety of institutional levels. I've got a few friends who receive fairly consistent death threats every time they are mentioned by Fox News or equivalents for being "anti-american ivory tower leftists" for teaching courses on police violence or race and gender in medieval europe. One of the authors of the 1619 project had their position changed from a tenured position to a TT position after interference from the board of a public university. Heck, the Trump administration published "the 1776 project", which was absolutely ahistorical nonsense (no single historian was involved in the project) explicitly designed to shift history curricula towards a specific ideology.

akomtu 5y ago

The statistical significance of the poll may be garbage, but the point it's trying to make is important. I'd personally ban CRT rhetorics in education, but banning CRT books would be a direct attack on 1A.

kwinten 5y ago
You can't make a point based on garbage data.

cracker-news 5y ago

> because it's easy to spin it into an anti-woke censorship narrative, HN is going to eat this up. It is the most tiring and mundane narrative -- that a group of people who are mostly young and relatively powerless somehow represent some grave existential threat by being too "woke". It's embarrassing for humanity that this is the issue that riles people up. We're killing off all life on the planet, but comparatively no one seems to care much.

ramoz 5y ago

Im not a researcher, but why would any study of some social environment not be worth studying? Especially as it relates to present day & macro-scale social dilemmas, and more importantly a robust history to learn from vs repeat –– Though for this, I'd be more interested in historic psycho- analysis/profiling, present day, and how individual viewpoints evolve to large social disruptions in democratic societies.

kwinten 5y ago
Never said it's not worth studying. The methodology, resulting samples, one-sided nature, and biased and opinionated narrative structure of the paper (I urge you to read through it) make it entirely uninteresting is all. It's clear that this is yet another piece to throw on the libertarian heap and to spin it into anti-woke agitprop just as the OP (and linked tweet, to a lesser extent) did with their heavy editorializing. Fuel for the fire for everyone who wants to read the title and extrapolate some greater social trends from this to fit their already established perspectives.

marcosdumay 5y ago

Well, I have some news from the future of that comment. HN is not eating it up. Almost every post is about how the study isn't great and the title doesn't reflect it.