4 ms·

At universities, ideas which were once countercultural and revolutionary have become the mainstream orthodoxy. I'm not sure anyone has quite confronted that rea

At universities, ideas which were once countercultural and revolutionary have become the mainstream orthodoxy. I'm not sure anyone has quite confronted that reality yet. It seems almost like an army that won much more easily than they expected, and now doesn't quite know what to do off the battlefield. I hope this university is able to balance these ideas into more of a discussion and less of a battle.

seoaeu 5y ago
> ideas which were once countercultural and revolutionary have become the mainstream orthodoxy In the abstract, isn't this a good thing? Like this true of lots of scientific advances. Germ theory or whatever initially being seen as a fringe idea, eventually being adopted as the leading explanation
- seneca 5y ago
  > In the abstract, isn't this a good thing? Like this true of lots of scientific advances. Germ theory or whatever initially being seen as a fringe idea, eventually being adopted as the leading explanation This is a cultural revolution, not a scientific one. Scientific ideas replacing proven-false ones is a good thing. Cultural crusades, especially those spread through intimidation and bullying, have next to nothing in common with that though.
  - seoaeu 5y ago
    It sounds like you're saying that new scientific ideas replacing old ones can be good, but new cultural ideas replacing olds ones is always bad? That's a position, but I don't quite see why I should agree with it. There are aspects of any society that can be improved!
    - seneca 5y ago
      I said nothing of the kind. I said comparing a cultural revolution to a scientific one is nonsense.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  That's true in biology or physics where actual facts - or things very close to facts - are being discovered, but not so in culture. Culture doesn't "advance" like science, although it does change, and inevitably so, and in unexpected directions. Having flexibility and tolerance for heterogeneity is important, IMO. For example, look at how much China has changed from the cultural revolution of the 60s to the present. Instead of masses of kids waving a little red book arguing for "perpetual revolution" and going to work in a collective, the best ambition for many today is to be a small business owner or real estate investor, and virtually no one wants to work in a collective.
- chmod600 5y ago
  That's not good or bad in the abstract. It's good for good ideas and bad for bad ideas. What is bad is that the tactics seem to still be battlefield-like tactics. Not literally of course, but major downsides for saying the wrong things, which has a chilling effect on intellectual discourse.
mattkrause 5y ago
Has this actually happened? My experience has been that if you walk around a campus, you can find people studying all sorts of ideas. Some of that might even involve intellectual exercises where one tries to make a strong case for a “revolutionary” idea. However, at their core, universities are fundamentally conservative big businesses: they want more money and less controversy. There aren’t any actual Marxists in the Dean’s Office.
- seoaeu 5y ago
  > There aren’t any actual Marxists in the Dean’s Office. Certainly not in the Bursar's Office!

seoaeu 5y ago

> ideas which were once countercultural and revolutionary have become the mainstream orthodoxy In the abstract, isn't this a good thing? Like this true of lots of scientific advances. Germ theory or whatever initially being seen as a fringe idea, eventually being adopted as the leading explanation

seneca 5y ago
> In the abstract, isn't this a good thing? Like this true of lots of scientific advances. Germ theory or whatever initially being seen as a fringe idea, eventually being adopted as the leading explanation This is a cultural revolution, not a scientific one. Scientific ideas replacing proven-false ones is a good thing. Cultural crusades, especially those spread through intimidation and bullying, have next to nothing in common with that though.
- seoaeu 5y ago
  It sounds like you're saying that new scientific ideas replacing old ones can be good, but new cultural ideas replacing olds ones is always bad? That's a position, but I don't quite see why I should agree with it. There are aspects of any society that can be improved!
  - seneca 5y ago
    I said nothing of the kind. I said comparing a cultural revolution to a scientific one is nonsense.
rsj_hn 5y ago
That's true in biology or physics where actual facts - or things very close to facts - are being discovered, but not so in culture. Culture doesn't "advance" like science, although it does change, and inevitably so, and in unexpected directions. Having flexibility and tolerance for heterogeneity is important, IMO. For example, look at how much China has changed from the cultural revolution of the 60s to the present. Instead of masses of kids waving a little red book arguing for "perpetual revolution" and going to work in a collective, the best ambition for many today is to be a small business owner or real estate investor, and virtually no one wants to work in a collective.
chmod600 5y ago
That's not good or bad in the abstract. It's good for good ideas and bad for bad ideas. What is bad is that the tactics seem to still be battlefield-like tactics. Not literally of course, but major downsides for saying the wrong things, which has a chilling effect on intellectual discourse.

mattkrause 5y ago

Has this actually happened? My experience has been that if you walk around a campus, you can find people studying all sorts of ideas. Some of that might even involve intellectual exercises where one tries to make a strong case for a “revolutionary” idea. However, at their core, universities are fundamentally conservative big businesses: they want more money and less controversy. There aren’t any actual Marxists in the Dean’s Office.

seoaeu 5y ago
> There aren’t any actual Marxists in the Dean’s Office. Certainly not in the Bursar's Office!