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I’m not sure you’re correct that nothing is different. I saw a lecture recently by someone whose organization does mediation between student groups and universi
by milesvp 5y ago
I’m not sure you’re correct that nothing is different. I saw a lecture recently by someone whose organization does mediation between student groups and universities with regards to free speech. He was saying that a few years ago for the first time his organization was starting to mediate in the opposite direction.
Was a very interesting talk. The speaker had tried to commit suicide and in the process of recovering from that realized that the speech patterns that are associated with sucidal tendencies, extreme consequences to minor events, were being used by student groups. Things like “if so and so comes to campus, people will die”. And they weren’t being hyperbolic, like they were honestly afraid someone would die if a speaker were allowed to speak. So the mediations required finding ways to bring nuance back to the conversation.
I honestly don’t know how different these objections to speakers are than in the past, but I thought it was interesting that there was a shift in the balance of power between university administrations and student groups in the US.
Edit:
Thanks to mrosett for pointing out this was Greg Lukianoff who is with FIRE. Please take care researching this topic, it is a large lightning rod for alt-right and heavily conservative view points. Some cursory searches show that FIRE might not be as neutral as I thought they were.
- judahmeek 5y agoAny particular reason you choose not to name the speaker you're supposedly talking about?
- mrosett 5y agoQuite clearly Greg Lukianoff who is with FIRE and wrote The Coddling of the American Mind
- milesvp 5y agoApologies, I don’t think I can easily find the talk. I did some cursory looking based on what I could remember of the talk before posting. I like to link to things when I can. Worse, is the topic is a current lightning rod for alt-right, so there’s a lot of garbage to sift through. I will see if I can get lucky and find the talk again. Edit: mrosett answered this. Yes it was a lecture by Greg Lukianoff of FIRE. I might have been click-baited to watch it, but he seemed credible enough to quote, and seemed to genuinely care about actual free speech.
- Seattle3503 5y agoWas the talk by Greg Lukianoff by any chance? He has a book called "The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure" that expands on these ideas.
- zeckalpha 5y agoMediation with a “direction” isn’t good mediation.
- milesvp 5y agoAbsolutely. Apologies for poor paraphrasing. I think it was something like instead of students suing to be heard, they were suing to exclude. Mediation should really be neutral, but the organization is dedicated to free speech. It’s very possible that such an organization, or any organization with an agenda, does not make for good mediators. Would be an interesting topic next time I see my friend who acts as a mediator.
- FooBarBizBazz 5y ago> Some cursory searches show that FIRE might not be as neutral as I thought they were. FIRE were actually big fans of Obama. Yeah, they're all about free speech on college campuses -- that's their thing. But "alt-right" is a bit much.
- staysafeanon 5y ago>Please take care researching this topic, it is a large lightning rod for alt-right and heavily conservative view points. "Be careful to not allow facts, social psychology, and science based approaches get in the way of the narrative! We can't have any conservative view points around, regardless of how correct they are! The spooky alt-right fascism is just around the corner if you don't delude yourself like a good leftist!"