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In fact that's how many get into the elite group and jockey for position within it. "Think about what it takes to claw your way into America’s elite strata. Un
by scifibestfi 4y ago
In fact that's how many get into the elite group and jockey for position within it.
"Think about what it takes to claw your way into America’s elite strata. Unless you were born into the upper-middle class, your surest route is to pursue an elite education. To do that, it pays to be exquisitely sensitive to the beliefs and prejudices of the people who hold the power to grant you access to the social and cultural capital you badly want. By setting the standards for what counts as praiseworthy, elite universities have a powerful effect on youthful go-getters."
"As the senior assistant director of admissions at Yale recently observed, “for those students who come to Yale, we expect them to be versed in issues of social justice. We encourage them to be vocal when they see an opportunity for change in our institution and in the world.” Picture yourself as an eager high schooler reading these words, and then jotting down notes. You absorb, assuming you hadn’t already, what it takes to make your way in contemporary elite America. And as you grow older, you lean into the rhetorical gambits that served you so well in the past. You might even build a worldview out of them."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/08/the-utility-of-white-bashing/566846/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/08/the-utilit...
- markdown 4y ago> for those students who come to Yale, we expect them to be versed in issues of social justice. We encourage them to be vocal when they see an opportunity for change in our institution and in the world. Would you want anything less in an academic institution? That's the entire point of places of higher learning.
- BuyMyBitcoins 4y agoI consider this meaningless fluff, or at the very least trite marketing. It reminds me of management that claims to welcome criticism with open arms and then proceeds to pay lip service to concerns while changing nothing.
- ekianjo 4y agoSocial justice is not an innocent word. It is charged with a political agenda.
- lostcolony 4y agoSo was "abolition". You can decide you -disagree- with the ideas of 'social justice', or the implementation, or whatever, but I think you'll need a stronger case than "it's political" to warrant the dismissal of an educational institution trying to incorporate the term.
- Swizec 4y agoThe problem with wokeism is that it’s more like a religion than an effective movement for change. Being seen to believe/say the right things is vastly more important than actively helping. Woke Racism is a really good book about that. Don’t worry it’s written by a black guy who’s been fighting for social justice for decades. The fact I have to say that is one of his points/arguments.
- actionfromafar 4y agoThis permeates all online discourse and a good chunk of face-to-face ones, too. Try this sometime - choose a position (in politics or whatever). Use the terminology and dog whistles of the "other camp", but argue the opposite policy.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoThe author thinks 'the hard left' think Universities are racist, and they are wrong to think that. Then he wrote a book called "Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America". So, they were right after all?
- MarcoZavala 4y ago
- ekianjo 4y ago> warrant the dismissal of an educational institution trying to incorporate the term. Kids are supposed to be in universities to learn and develop their critical thinking, not to be brainwashed by the most fashionable ideology of the time. Sorry if this is such a provocative line of thinking these days.
- airtonix 4y agoBut it's not really higher learning is it? As the parent indicated, they're not willing to even communicate with people who don't parrot their own ideas.
- markdown 4y agoWhat do you consider higher learning? Learning how to screw in a lightbulb, or how to turn manipulate people into clicking on ads? > As the parent indicated, they're not willing to even communicate with people who don't parrot their own ideas. That's the exact opposite of what I quoted. They invite criticism of the status quo, and push for greater justice in the world. Most decent human beings agree with that.
- MarcoZavala 4y ago
- soco 4y agoIn this particular context we call it "lip service".
- markdown 4y agoI see. I wouldn't know, as I haven't done any research on or looked into the impact of this policy on things at Yale. Since you seem to know enough to call it lip service, I assume you went there. what do you think should be done to ensure that those in charge actually made changes that you and your peers advocated for?
- lelanthran 4y ago> Would you want anything less in an academic institution? That's the entire point of places of higher learning. Is it really "higher learning" when LITERAL groupthink is required? (Maybe you're being sarcastic and I'm just not getting it)
- dijonman2 4y agoI can’t make sense of it either, in fact I would consider it a negative. A mayor was once asked what he was doing to help minorities in his city. He replied “I don’t have minorities in my city, we all are all equal”.
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- littlestymaar 4y agoThis comment is interesting because it kind of contradicts itself: At first you say sometuing akin to “to become part of the elite you need to accept the elite's point of view and beliefs”, citing higher education as a gateway for elites, and the you use the discourse “social justice” as an example of what young people must believe in to get to higher education. But “social justice” is definitely not a foundational belief of the elite, because otherwise the US wouldn't work the way it does otherwise, for the elite is the one who actually shapes the society. If anything, it's much more likely that Yale wants to attract young people by advertising values the young care about (young people being naturally much more progressive than older ones).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Jensson 4y ago> But “social justice” is definitely not a foundational belief of the elite The selection committees at universities certainly believes in social justice or they wouldn't consider race so heavily for admissions.
- astrange 4y agoIt’s mostly an excuse to accept fewer Asians, just as personality and interviews used to be one to not accept Jews.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoSo they care about social justice, which is bad, and they are only pretending to care about social justice, which is bad, and they use it as cover to do the opposite of social justice, which is also bad. So, higher education is definately bad, and whether social justice is bad or not depends on whether you open the box and find out if the cat is a Republican or a Democrat?
- dale_glass 4y ago