19 ms·

The sinister attempts to ‘decolonise’ mathematics

188 points by cm_silva 4y ago

cm_silva 4y ago
https://archive.ph/SAI6f https://archive.ph/SAI6f
benj111 4y ago
I think they mean 'de-colonialise' rather than decolonise. Seems like a strange error to make considering the number of times the term is used. Edit: Ok apparently this is an accepted term. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization I have no idea why as colonise and decolonise already mean things. And colonial is a distinct thing.
- selfhoster11 4y ago
  Decolonise seems to be far more common. I’ve never seen “de-colonialise” used, in fact, but seen “decolonise” used all over the place.
  - benj111 4y ago
    I've seen decolonise before, but in the context of removing colonies. This is about a hangover of colonialism. To me colony is A-political, whereas colonial applys to the politics. Taking it further. I colonise America I colonise mars I colonise maths? What does that mean? We aren't talking about a literal colony, were talking about colonialism. So (De)colonialise is the word the I would make up to describe this.
    - selfhoster11 4y ago
      I am not arguing about what the word should mean, I am simply pointing out that people seem to use it this way.
- veqq 4y ago
  Have you ever heard the word "colonialize"? Spell check doesn't accept it, google doesn't either. Colony->colonize->decolonize Colonial is an adjective from colony. You can add -ize to the noun, no need for this intermediary step.
  - carlmr 4y ago
    Maybe OP is German. We call it Kolonialisierung and Dekolonialisierung.
    - benj111 4y ago
      No I'm English. I'll take it as a complement that I'm recreating German words though.
      - carlmr 4y ago
        At least you're Germanic then, back to the roots ;).
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    -ize > a verb-forming suffix occurring originally in loanwords from Greek that have entered English through Latin or French (baptize; barbarize; catechize); within English, -ize is added to adjectives and nouns to form transitive verbs with the general senses “to render, make” (actualize; fossilize; sterilize; Americanize) https://www.dictionary.com/browse/-ize#:~:text=a%20verb%2Dforming%20suffix%20occurring,%3B%20sterilize%3B%20Americanize)%2C%20%E2%80%9C https://www.dictionary.com/browse/-ize#:~:text=a%20verb%2Dfo...
  - benj111 4y ago
    Decolonise to me means depopulate. I originally thought the article was talking about removing people from maths (teachers?) Elon musk colonises mars. Elon musk decolonises mars. Colony is a fairly A-political word to me. Colonial has political connotations. So if I wanted to talk about the political elements of the times when colonys were a thing would say colonial. And variations of that word. As we are talking about politics, it seems that colonial seems to be the better word. If I wanted to talk about setting off across the Atlantic and setting up a base, I would describe that as a colony, and the continuing process of that would be colonisation. If I wanted to talk about the negative impacts on the indigenous population, I would describe that as colonialism and the process by extension, colonialisation. Googling around I'm obviously in a minority as far as word usage goes, and I'm surprised I haven't come across this before. It still seems strange how decolonise was the work settled on though.
- carlmr 4y ago
  >Seems like a strange error to make considering the number of times the term is used. Whether it's an error or not. The same error being made multiple times is to me a normal case. So is a single error. An error being made sometimes is rather what I would call surprising. If you know something but make a mistake it's likely a one-off error. If you don't know something you will make the same error many times until someone alerts you to the situation. Both very likely cases if you ask me. Whereas if you have N mentions and ~N/2 are wrong, then that is the most unlikely case. Since you'd either have to forget what you know half the time, or you would have to make a sloppy mistake half of the time.
meigwilym 4y ago
This is a charity asking teaching establishments to follow its recommendations. They are perfectly within their rights to ignore this. Nothing very sinister going on.
- roenxi 4y ago
  If there is a group organising to reduce the quality of education, that is a concern. People probably want to sign up for their maths degree to learn about maths.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Them pressuring parents and the "if you don't do what we say you're racist" step usually comes after
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    I don’t think the parents of college students are super involved in college curriculums, but I could be wrong. If this “usually” happens, can you point to some actual examples?
  - WindyMiller 4y ago
    If there's one thing academics at British universities are more scornful of than third parties trying to dictate their curriculum, it's parents of students sticking their noses in.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  It’s funded through taxes. It’s a badly disguised front organisation. It’s about as independent from the government as Transport for London. > We are funded through a number of channels: membership fees from higher education providers contracts and agreements with the UK funding councils and organisations to which QAA reports annually private contracts, consultancy and business development work in the UK and internationally statutory fees from providers for work on behalf of the regulator in England fees and maintenance charges paid by providers of higher education seeking educational oversight for immigration purposes as required by the Home Office. https://www.qaa.ac.uk/about-us/how-we're-run/how-we're-funded https://www.qaa.ac.uk/about-us/how-we're-run/how-we're-funde... They hide how the various funding streams tot up, presumably to maintain the incredibly thin veneer of a pretence they’re not a government body. > The financial statements consolidate the results of the charity and its wholly owned subsidiary on a line-by-line basis. The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the group. A separate Statement of Financial Activities (SOFA), and income and expenditure account, for the charity itself are not presented because the charity has taken advantage of the exemptions afforded by section 408 of the Companies Act 2006. As required by the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended), a cash flow statement for the charity is included. https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/about-us/qaa-annual-report-and-financial-statements-2020-21.pdf?sfvrsn=658bda81_10 https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/about-us/qaa-annual-report-an...
proc0 4y ago
Anyone who thinks this is a valid idea should stop using chairs, speaking English, and using eating utensils, because those are literally products of colonialism (in the Americas). Some civilizations where more advanced than others hundreds of years ago... wow, what a cruel world... welcome to Earth.
- tomlockwood 4y ago
  Curious!
- thebooktocome 4y ago
  It amuses me that of your three examples, only speaking English is a product of colonialism. Chairs were known in ancient Egypt, the fork in Byzantium. Neither is a colonial power by any reasonable definition.
  - shakow 4y ago
    > Neither is a colonial power by any reasonable definition. Beg your pardon? If a colonial power is a country that expanded by force in lands that were not ethnically theirs (and I can't really think of a meaningful definition that would single out European powers between the 16th and early 20th century), then ancient Egypt and the (Eastern) Roman Empire are definitely colonial powers.
    - orwin 4y ago
      > I can't really think of a meaningful definition that would single out European powers between the 16th and early 20th century >> the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people. Ancient Egypt and the Roman empire weren't colonial powers by this definition. I do not know a lot about China, but Sinicisation seems to fit colonial markers, so the first empire to really colonize should be chinese? The Umayad Califate in some sense too, but I think i'm missing the idea of "pressure" and "force" in the definition.
kleiba 4y ago
The problem is, I think the people behind that mean well - they really do. But, unfortunately, in a mindcuffs echo chamber kind of way that is removed from the rest of society. Of course, you could argue that this description fits the early stages of any grassroots movement. However, I think this is not grass roots at all - at this point, it's a loud minority. And whether you agree with their position or not, I think, the woke movement is not proceeding very strategically. Granted, so far their approach - which basically boils down to "lots of pressure" - has been admirably successful. Yet, I don't think it's going to be sustainable. I see a real risk that the tide might be turning and a backlash will happen when the pressure gets too much on those that feel pressurized. This could destroy a lot of successes of the woke campaign, which could be avoided if those pushing these ideas tried to be appear less confrontational, matter-of-factly, and aggressive. For instance, instead of presenting a proposal like the one hand at hand "top down" - which now meets a predictable opposition - it could be a more successful long-term strategy to get all of the affected people into the same boat first, and then move forward with strong support, rather than dropping suggestions for what appear like radical changes. I suppose, though, that one reason this latter strategy hasn't already been pursued in some fields is that the opposition, like in this article, just immediately makes more sense, which then leaves little hope to get the changes implemented.
- notahacker 4y ago
  > For instance, instead of presenting a proposal like the one hand at hand "top down" - which now meets a predictable opposition - it could be a more successful long-term strategy to get all of the affected people into the same boat first, and then move forward with strong support, rather than dropping suggestions for what appear like radical changes. But this isn't a "top down" proposal to change everything. This is a 30 page document by an independent rankings agency that mentions "decolonisation" twice, both in sentences which advise mentioning the historical context of certain mathematical developments (congratulations, your lecture mentions in passing that Spearman came up with his rank correlation coefficient in part to justify his horrible racial hierarchy theories, but it's useful for other things too. Curriculum decolonised!) which I suspect some lecturers have been doing for years. Some people are going to disagree no matter what the change is and how it's suggested. Examples of actual "top down" proposals in the culture war come from government ministers insisting that the National Trust shouldn't be referencing Churchill's position on India in its Churchill exhibitions lest it paint him in a less-than-heroic light and threatening to make university funding contingent on universities hosting particular speakers. For some reason HN is convinced that student petitions and consultation documents are a more egregious abuse of power though...
tomlockwood 4y ago
> As one example, one such diversity course at Kent university requires all students to affirm that ‘sex is, in fact, a diverse, multi-expressive form of identity and a full spectrum.’ Correct, there are multiple continuous quantifiers which we can use to determine sex and therefore it is a multimodal distribution.
- doffa 4y ago
  It's not a continuous distribution - there's no biological variable of 'sex units' that describe a spectrum of maleness to femaleness. It's also not really an identity in any meaningful sense. A male can say "I am female", but, that is just a false statement.
  - tomlockwood 4y ago
    You're right - there's no biological variable of 'sex units', that'd be a discrete thing.
- ohCh6zos 4y ago
  Isn’t that in itself imperialism? What if the student was from the Islamic world, which google tells me, believes sex to be binary as a cosmological statement.
  - tomlockwood 4y ago
    So you're saying that there's culturally different views on sex that we need to consider? Agreed. It makes the distribution even more multimodal.
    - ohCh6zos 4y ago
      Isn’t forcing the affirmation of a single view the opposite of that?
      - tomlockwood 4y ago
Garlef 4y ago
Mediocre/bad article. It's mostly a rant against decolonisation in general. The actual treatment of why this mostly does not apply to maths is very thin. And there actually is a problem with the notion of mathematical truth: Not within mathematics itself but in its transfer to sociological questions. Here, simply presupposing that concepts can be defined with a universal meaning and statements have a universal truth is simply not true. Mathematics is not advanced enough to discuss these matters properly. (So: New notions need to developed) Since most readers here have a background in programming, here's an analogy of what the issues are: Sociology is about distributed systems. And these are more complicated. For example thinking about time in distributed systems requires quite a lot of non-trivial tech (vector clocks, etc). It's even more complicated for sociological notions. But in general, I agree: The topic mostly does not apply to maths.
- ssivark 4y ago
  But should that technology even be a part of mathematics? Different fields/applications will have different needs so I would imagine that these critical discussions should be part of each field and its methods. Eg: physicists don’t go around blaming math because specific physical systems need different models.
  - Garlef 4y ago
    With "mathemathical technology" I'm not taking about software but actual mathematics. And no one is blaming maths. If physicists realize there's something missing, they develop the maths they require. Or they ask their maths friends to do it. And it might happen if enough people care to pull it off. Same applies here. (But it's not very likely since most sociologists are not very educated in mathematics)
- dangerface 4y ago
  > mathematics itself but in its transfer to sociological questions > Sociology is about distributed systems. You make the argument that sociology is its own thing that can't be conflated with math which I think every one agrees with, isn't that the premise of the article? Sociology has its time and place and thats in sociology, just like Math has its own time and place Math.
causi 4y ago
In this world view it is not insulting to suggest non-Europeans prefer ‘other ways of knowing’ to rationality and science. This reminds me of that "racial sensitivity guide" that told employees punctuality and logical objectivity were "white expectations" not to be applied to persons of color. In New Zealand the school chemistry and biology syllabus has been decolonised and now invokes the concept of mauri, or life force, to give the atomic theory a new spiritual dimension. I went to high school and college so deep in the bible belt you could put an empty Coke can to your ear and hear banjo music and our textbooks still didn't have anything like that bullshit.
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  >it is not insulting to suggest non-Europeans prefer ‘other ways of knowing’ to rationality and science. yeah I got news for you about most Europeans there also.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    How the West was won: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/07/25/how-the-west-was-won/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/07/25/how-the-west-was-won/
    - eternalban 4y ago
      " In the 17th century, philosophers were remarking (in Latin, the universal language!) about how Descartes from France had more in common with Leibniz from Germany than either of them did with the average Frenchman or German. Nowadays I certainly have more in common with SSC readers in Finland than I do with my next-door neighbor whom I’ve never met." The crux of the issue/problem. Distribution is non-uniform and very chunky. At this point I am convinced that if there exists natural 'types' of mindset and behavior, they cross cut (far less intrinsic) ethnic and cultural boundaries.
      - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
        yeah, rationality and science are already here, but they're not evenly distributed yet. Starting to think that they might not ever be evenly distributed.
bell-cot 4y ago
For those unfamiliar - The Spectator can occasionally be an interesting read, but their business model is generally far closer to "push all the right-wing buttons" than to "objective and factual information source".
- dagw 4y ago
  The Spectator also has a 'house style' of being as provocative as possible. I often find that even when they're arguing for something I ostensibly agree with I come away disagreeing with them because of how they have chosen to present their arguments. That being said, as much as dislike their style and sometimes their politics, they're a solid journalistic outlet and I would not accuse them of making up facts (even if they might not always present said fact in the most neutral light)
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    I'd accuse them of making up facts. It's not a "Elvis kidnapped by Aliens" style supermarket tabloid but famous liar, and journalist repeatedly sacked for lying, Boris Johnson was the editor. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-spectator-uk/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-spectator-uk/ > We also rate them Mostly Factual in reporting, rather than High, due to misleading articles and a few failed fact checks regarding climate change. One random sample, which Boris admitted was a lie: > The Spectator - which he was editing at the time - printed an editorial saying the tragedy was “no excuse for Liverpool’s failure to acknowledge, even to this day, the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon.” > Smearing Liverpudlians, the editorial added: “They see themselves whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status; yet at the same time they wallow in it.” > An independent report and the 2016 inquests ruled there was nothing to suggest fans’ behaviour contributed to the disaster. > In 2012 Mr Johnson apologised again, admitting claims about football fans' behaviour were a “lie”.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    Partly agreed. I am not accusing them of making up facts, but of slanting things far beyond any reasonable "objective and factual information source" standard. (Note that I am so old and centrist that I still believe journalists should care about society being relatively cohesive and peaceful, with a good long-term future. The Spectator both obviously believing otherwise and being very closely tied to Britain's (currently ruling) Conservative Party...that strikes me as a pretty bad sign.)
rofo1 4y ago
If anything at all is objective, it's mathematics. Anyone can verify if the statements are true, independently. Granted, some of the statements are massively complicated, so not everyone can do it reasonably fast; however when you state something, typically you need to prove it. I (naively) thought this protected this particular discipline from "modern politics" or whatever we want to call this insanity that is spreading. I worry that we might reach a place where people believe that 1+1 is not exactly 2, it is dependent on the emotions of the person uttering the words, akin to the current discussions of male/female, genders, pronouns and so on. It looks weird even typing this, but I am sure someone in 19th or 20th century would say the same thing about the current state of what is a man, what is a woman, who gives birth.. things that are so obvious that but yet disputed. I don't understand what can be done about people legitimately believing insane things. I have no doubt that they believe what they are saying. We ought not to fund it with tax $ at least.. disappointing. > The QAA’s benchmark document that defines the common mathematics curriculum has grown in length by 50 per cent in just three years, but not because of any radical shift in the nature of the mathematics. Instead there has been a been a decision to introduce teaching on diversity, Just like the communists forced Marxism upon everyone, and Nazi Germany did the same thing to their youth. I expected Math would be the last place to be infected with this, but it has happened. We'll see how much it spreads. > Activists also have statistics in their sights. One academic review of school statistics textbooks ‘with a theoretical framework of queer theory and critical mathematics’ notes disapprovingly that ‘pregnancy was used frequently in problems involving females/women.’ Cannot be distinguished from pure comedy. What a reality we are living in.
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  When I first watched Interstellar, I thought the scene where the school official talks about how the moon landing was faked was a bit outlandish but nowadays it seems like something that could happen in the next 10 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyxEpi3f40w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyxEpi3f40w
- Fomite 4y ago
  The application of mathematics is, however, not objective. To use your last sentence about statistics, how you choose to handle variables, how they're put into regression models, and how those results are interpreted all have potentially subjective and cultural aspects to them. As someone who works on mathematical and statistical models for a living, there's plenty of opportunities for subjectivity, from how methods are applied to what questions are considered important.
WindyMiller 4y ago
> The QAA themselves don’t explain what decolonising means. Presumably this is a good thing, given the complaint: > But by requiring that all subject areas include these topics, the QAA is homogenising university teaching and diminishing true diversity of thought. The 'sinister attempt' here is literally just advice to have a bit of a think about this stuff when you're covering areas where it might be relevant, like the history of mathematics; and to consider the diverse needs of your students. An academic who chooses to follow that recommendation has huge scope to determine how they do so. The rest is just baggage Armstrong is bringing to it, and is very much his problem.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  Yeah most of the article seemed like a rant against wokeism, rather than about mathematics
- tomlockwood 4y ago
  Yeah, amazing so many people here, and the author, are reading so much into this.
- dangerface 4y ago
  It's not advice it's telling. When I say "being racist is something you shouldn't do" I am not giving advice I am telling you not to be racist.
nonrandomstring 4y ago
I think this sort of thing is overstated to provoke political outrage and distract from the real socio-economic disaster unfolding in higher education. It's certainly one minor symptom, but only a small example of how we've lost our way on a much grander scale. > It is easy when you work at a university to roll your eyes at this sort of thing and play along. But that's not what happens. You roll your eyes, smile and then blatantly and insubordinately forget about it. No one ever follows up. No one cares, except that one over-worked bullshit compliance officer whose softly-worded "advisories" get tactically directed to spam. Most people are already sensitive enough to teach incorporating a rich cultural history and awareness of "colonial values" (expeciallin maths which is practically a history of India, Persia and China), since it is precisely the bad sides of those values that are harming our own institutions today. People in British universities have more important stuff on their plate at the moment, like dealing with a massive crisis in student disaffection, debt, and mental health problems, lecturer strike action, recruitment problems...
- rini17 4y ago
  >You roll your eyes, smile and then blatantly and insubordinately forget about it. Till it gets used for witch hunts.
- misja111 4y ago
  > You roll your eyes, smile and then blatantly and insubordinately forget about it Do you realize that this is exactly the kind of thing that happens when an extremist and very active minority tries to push its ideas on the silent majority? The examples in history are abundant and often the outcomes were not very pleasant.
  - nonrandomstring 4y ago
    Except in this case they're a mild and moderate majority trying to preserve the institutions and educational prospects of their students that are teetering on brink of crisis. I would say that in the next couple of years we'll see 20% of British universities go to the wall, either as bankruptcy or takeovers, a tragedy directly attributable to mismanagement by failing to focus on core priorities. When it comes to standing up for my students, most of whom have come places like Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana and even Somalia (where they're literally starving to death), and who have gambled their family life savings on the one smart son or daughter (up to £25,000) I'll take on the "extremist" role of defending them with pride. I hope you'd have the courage too.
bowsamic 4y ago
I had once thought that it is ridiculous to suggest that rational thought might possibly be not superior to other forms of thought, until I spent some time as a Buddhist, in Buddhist spaces. Then I saw first hand how rationality is indeed used in a euro supremacist way to smack down anything that doesn’t fit in that framework. Everything from mocking Asian Buddhists as “backwards rednecks” for having traditional views on Buddhism, to even claiming that the Buddha only said the non rational, religious things to placate the stupid people and that really he was a rational philosopher. I’ve seen the erosion and closure of traditional Buddhist spaces in the west in favour of rationalised versions that remove the traditional elements. So I can definitely empathise with seeing the promotion of rational thought as white supremacist. That said, mathematics in the west was always rational, so I don’t see how the decolonisation argument is useful here. Mathematics isn’t an ancient religion like Buddhism, it is rationally constructed
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  > seeing the promotion of rational thought as white supremacist I think this is conflating "promotion of rational thought" with chauvinism which can be applied to any viewpoint. You could for instance be a Buddhist chauvinist. I think something is deeply wrong with our educational system. Many people seem entirely incapable of distinguishing between the most basic concepts. Is it due to poor vocabulary? Just not having the right words or not understanding the meaning of words when trying to express concepts? Is it lack of life experience? Confusing things like white supremacy or violence with acts that don't even come close to measuring up to the real thing? Or is it, as many presume, more nefarious and the intent is to simply burn everything to the ground out of the misguided belief that it will be easy (or even possible) to build a new utopia in the ashes?
  - bowsamic 4y ago
    Well the point is that it’s different to be a chauvinist when you’re the dominant culture in the world, partly due to colonialism but also global capitalism, compared to being a chauvinist for your minority religion. I’ve definitely met Buddhist chauvinists, but they have far less power outside of a few countries I have no idea what the relevance of your second paragraph is
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
[flagged]
- notahacker 4y ago
  It's particularly weird for people to buy the idea that there's something particularly terrifying about the QAA launching a consultation which mentions "decolonising" twice in 30 pages, when the other side of the culture war on universities is being fought by the government threatening to withhold funding.
bnjemian 4y ago
Not so long ago I was a PhD student in a STEM department. With the amount of DEI and antiracist discussions had during our department meetings, it often felt that I was attending an MBA program designed for HR professionals. Do I have anything against diversity, equity, inclusion? No. Did I often wish the department – which was already extremely diverse in age, gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, and citizenship status – would focus more on the work of doing good science, facilitating rich academic discourse, fostering cross-institutional collaborations, and driving more translation and commercial ventures? Yes. 100%, yes. In many ways, DEI initiatives, anti-racist policies, and decolonization aspire to worthy goals. Too often, though, they feel like the product of meme-driven corporate training and consulting firms who charge wholly unequipped professionals with disparate expertise with framing their work with a funhouse mirror of their on-the-ground reality. There has to be a better way.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  I've worked with a couple companies like that... usually it's corporate driven (someone high up saw it at some other company and wanted to show how progressive their company was too)... then they hired someone whose only job was to promote such ideas and slow down work in other departments. I live in a country that's 99.9% white in a field with 85%+ men. We don't get non-white people, because there are none here, and we don't get women, because there are very few women in such colleges at the first place. Comparing to other countries nearby and the ratio of women in tech colleges there (and later jobs), the only solution would be, to fuck up the economy so hard, that stem jobs would be one of the few ways to lead a relatively normal life, and then girls (who get better scores in hightschools and standardized exams here) would start studying one of those professions (and then probably leave the country).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - LionTamer 4y ago
    If you don’t mind me asking, what country are you referring to?
gyulai 4y ago
I suppose what they really want, although "decolonise" is a very weird word for it, is for teachers to throw in enough information about the biographies behind the big names in math for students to not engage in unreflected hero worship.
bazhova 4y ago
A British academic "rolling eyes" at efforts to decolonise their material. Yikes but also typical. Mathematics is a pure subject, and logic itself is not colonial. Of course. But academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching. It's not a wild idea to take a moment and consider how your department may be complicit.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Can you clearly and lucidy explain how mathematics might be "colonial"?
  - Fomite 4y ago
    From an application context, "Weapons of Math Destruction" is a good place to start.
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
      Okay, but that's not relevant to mathematics. That's about business decisions.
      - Fomite 4y ago
        Aided and abetted by putting a veneer of mathematics over the top. That is the important context for the idea of decolonizing math - that it doesn't actually take place in a vacuum.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  > academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching In mathematics? How do they do that?
- kennend3 4y ago
  > But academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching. So my ex-wife is Chinese and not to play into the stereotype but math is important to the Chinese. When she was growing up in China, learning Math, what aspect of this was "colonialism"? Now when our kids went to math class in Canada and the instructor was also Chinese, were they teaching "colonialism" as well as math?
l5870uoo9y 4y ago
I deeply oppose the reading of history that judge historical events and persons with today's moral. With that measurement your grandparents would properly hold immoral opinions. Historical context is essential and I hope future generations also apply this when judging us.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  Oh but my grandparents do. "Historical context" doesn't make something right. Colonization has always been objectively bad - it decimated and exploited populations and cultures, to name just one of many effects. Many of said historical events and persons were immoral with the morals of back then as well. Murder has always been bad. Slavery has always been immoral. Genocide has always been bad, but guess what happened when the Spanish invaded the Americas?
  - HKH2 4y ago
    On what basis are those things objectively bad?
    - tpush 4y ago
      Because of the killing, torturing, enslavement and exploitation of human beings.
      - FeepingCreature 4y ago
        What makes that "objective"? Are you confusing "objective" with "arguable"? A position does not become objective by being the consensus opinion.
      - HKH2 4y ago
        That is a circular argument, as those were the things I was referencing.
    - clappski 4y ago
      So are you arguing that genocide and slavery aren't objectively bad?
yrro 4y ago
- DoneWithAllThat 4y ago
  So you’re claiming none of this is actually happening? Because that’s just flatly lying.
  - chaosbolt 4y ago
    Comments like his form a pattern, start by saying X publication is biased, then say it's not exactly what's happening, then give you 2 links that arz unrelated and that you won't read becausz you're discussing the issue even if it's not exactly happenibg in that place exactly as reported. They might also call you racist or antisemitic after you tell them off. The past year I seriously started thinking about quitting the web, as in only use payment apps and services, everything else feels so bland, you can't talk about anything interesting anymore, and the replies usually feel weird and bland, either I'm going crazy or everyone else is noticing this but not saying anything.
    - joxel 4y ago
      The irony of this reply is not lost
  - viraptor 4y ago
    I don't see the parent claiming that in any way.
- mellosouls 4y ago
  the Spectator is a (now far-)right wing magazine The Spectator is a conservative publication with a reasonable liberal dislike for far-left overreach and bullying, like that discussed in the article.
  - yrro 4y ago
    30 years ago that would have been a fair assessment, but no longer. > The Spectator, once suavely edited, now serves as a fraternity house for Douglas Murray, Toby Young, James Delingpole and Rod Liddle; pummelling Muslims and high-fiving on Brexit, these right-wing bros are to the posh periodicals what Jeremy Clarkson was to the BBC. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n18/pankaj-mishra/what-is-great-about-ourselves https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n18/pankaj-mishra/what-i... > It used to be libertarian, cheeky. Now it’s like the Daily Mail. The difference is, I suppose, that its old spirit came from superiority. Now it comes from resentment and disappointment. > The Spectator has become a sounding board for resentment, amplifying the catastrophist mentality that has gripped the right in Britain and the US. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2019/11/why-spectator-tolerates-intolerable https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2019/11/why-spec... > Spectator and its Tory MP editor may face charges over Taki race rant > Threats against black lawyer after article [editor Boris] Johnson admits it should not have carried https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/feb/28/uk.pressandpublishing https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/feb/28/uk.pressand... Rod Liddle wrote in a 2018 column: "If you are an unpleasant person who enjoys macabre entertainment, wander down to Mile End and watch the women in full burka trying to cross the A11. That’s always good for a laugh." https://bylinetimes.com/2021/11/30/new-study-highlights-anti-muslim-bigotry-of-the-spectator-magazine/ https://bylinetimes.com/2021/11/30/new-study-highlights-anti... > A 2021 study by the Muslim Council of Britain's Centre for Media Monitoring that looked at media coverage of Muslims and Islam in 34 publications found that The Spectator had the highest percentage of articles judged "antagonistic" to Muslims, 37.3% of all articles which mentioned the religion, and the highest proportion of articles which the study judged misrepresented Muslims and/or Islam, one in four. The Spectator also had the second highest negative bias of any publication studied, with 10.9% of relevant articles "very biased" (only Christian Today with 11.3% "very biased" was worse). https://cfmm.org.uk/resources/publication/cfmm-report-british-medias-coverage-of-muslims-and-islam-2018-2020-launched/ https://cfmm.org.uk/resources/publication/cfmm-report-britis... And so on. Plenty more quotes and citations in https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Spectator#Controversies https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Spectator#Controversies.
sumo89 4y ago
Weird to see a right wing opinion piece posted on hacker news, even weirder to see the only downvoted comments are ones pointing out the reputation and editorial style of The Spectator. That of being a wordy Dail Mail. Maybe Hackernews has become too mainstream.
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
  > Maybe Hackernews has become too mainstream. I completely agree with what you said - this is clearly a right wing opinion piece rage bait, dressed up in a wordy style, but I don't view this as "mainstream". The parable of the Nazi Bar is relevant to HN: https://www.boredpanda.com/bar-bartender-nazi-punk-iamragesparkle https://www.boredpanda.com/bar-bartender-nazi-punk-iamragesp...
- goodpoint 4y ago
  HN has been going down the drain for years and it is especially vulnerable to certain online vocal minorities.
- confidantlake 4y ago
  If you have been following recently there are actually quite a lot of them. For me it seems like just another Tuesday.
hfbff 4y ago
Unfortunately the selection of criticisms is not great. I agree with some, but then it mixes it with things like >The UK Office for National Statistics has already succumbed to such ideas, proposing that respondents should be allowed to self-identify their sex in the 2021 census. This is something we've been doing in my country for decades and I don't see a problem with it (the alternative is to ask the person that does the census to take a guess on the gender of the person...sometimes it's easy, sometimes not so much)
- origin_path 4y ago
  The census is a set of forms. It isn't like there's someone in front of you trying to guess your age, gender etc. What "self-identify" means here is that you're allowed to pick whatever you want regardless of biological truth, whereas normally lying on a census can result in a fine.
  - Quarrelsome 4y ago
    I think "biological truth" is loaded here. In terms of a census there is an ambiguity about what it is that you're counting, are you counting people biologically born a given gender, people who are going to pair with the opposite sex, people who prefer a particular prefix or people that can give birth to children? It appears in this case the census is content in counting people who prefer a particular prefix and only counting that (which can be self-identified) achieves its aims. Tbh I don't massively see how this changes how one might treat census data (especially since the numbers remain small enough). I would suggest that if your research requires data points for people born as women then maybe you should be looking for other datasets such as births.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    This literally is the history of race on census forms. A census taker would decide what race you are, from categories thought up by other people. https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/race/MREAD_1790_2010.html https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/race/MREAD_1790_2010.... > While people nowadays are enumerated by race based on self-identification, until 1950 their race on the census was mainly determined by their census enumerator.[170] During this time multiracial people who were White and of another race were usually marked down as belonging to the other race due to the One drop rule.[170] The instructions provided to enumerators endorsed this practice.
SilverBirch 4y ago
It's always a bit funny listening to people complain about this, because at best they're naive about what they're criticising and at worst they're deliberately misrepresenting it. For example, the author here states >There is nothing particularly European about rational knowledge. Maths has always been an astonishingly international pursuit. The digits 0123456789 we use today were first written in India and inspired by Chinese mathematics. Yes, I agree, the history of Maths isn't particularly western or imperialist, so let's look at what the consultation said about decolonizing maths: >for example, decolonising the curriculum can involve explicit reflection on the history of MSOR [maths] knowledge generation Right, so in your complaint about "decolonizing" you totally agree with their example of decolonizing maths. Again, from the author: >There are genuine issues around race that mathematics needs to address. For example, we don’t have as many black maths lecturers as we should. and from the consultation: > for example, decolonising the curriculum can involve ... reflecting on how delivery or admission practices might adversely impact on certain subgroups within the student cohort. So again, why is this author writing a petition to oppose the thing he supports? My guess would be that the author has picked up some far right talking points from the same people that bought you "Critical Race theory is a marxist plot"- the telltale sign is the weird tangent about "rational knowledge" being superior to other kinds of knowledge- a talking point straight out of the CRT panic.
bjt2n3904 4y ago
Still shocked to find the apologists for these blatantly racist ideas lurking here in the comments. No, there is nothing good about "decolonizing", "equity", DEI, anti racism, or any of your other rubbish Marxist ideas. They are destructive ideas that tear down everything that we've built post enlightenment. Look at what it's doing to education. In Virginia, we tried to stop teaching advanced math in high school, because it was creating "inequitable" situations. Should we get rid of gyms too? I've been lifting weights every week, but I'm still not as strong as an athlete! And still the apologists for these ideas will rush to the comments and say it's well meaning and just poorly implemented, misunderstood, or outright deny that these things are happening. It boggles the mind.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- scarmig 4y ago
  I am always shocked that somehow "we shouldn't teach algebra in middle school because Black kids aren't able to learn it" somehow became a progressive viewpoint.
  - unmetid 4y ago
    A bit like how "anyone who performs the cultural stereotypes of femininity is a woman" is now apparently a progressive viewpoint, rather than the regressive misogyny it used to be.
jvvw 4y ago
I've taught maths at a few universities and until recently taught computing at a university, teaching algorithms etc (and am female if that is relevant!). I ended up recently at a talk at the university where they were talking about decolonising the computing curriculum. One of the thing that I felt hadn't been taken into account was that as lecturers we are qualified to teaching computing/maths not to teach history/social sciences. I really didn't feel like I should be teaching history when I stopped learning history at school aged 15. The course I was teaching covered Turing machines and I'd feel very weird suddenly diverting into discussing that Turing was gay (but he's also a white male just to complicate things...). It all felt like a massive distraction from actually trying to teach the materials better. I have to admit that when I was a student, it never really bothered me at all that all theorems were named after men (perhaps Noether got in there somewhere, but I really can't think of anybody else). They just felt like names to me and I was interested in the maths not the history. It had much more of an impact on me seeing female lecturers teaching and doing research.
- n4r9 4y ago
  Thanks for contributing your experience. I think it's important that the guidelines ought to consider the actual reported experiences and attitudes of the students whom they're trying to show sensitivity to. If as in your case they generally do nothing much, then it does feel like a waste of effort.
  - kukx 4y ago
    It is a generous assumption that the intention of these guidelines is to improve.
    - n4r9 4y ago
      I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Do you think the authors have some ulterior motive other than improving mathematics education?
- amrangaye 4y ago
  Not arguing that you’re wrong, but as a (counter / data)-point, both me and my friend were… relieved (for lack of a better word) when the convention of referring to things as master / slave in computing changed to primary / replica, etc. We are both from one of the countries where the slave trade was most active. It wasn’t something we would complain about out loud, it did not affect our work or productivity in any way. In fact we would have been content / happy to continue using the previous names. But it still felt good / noteworthy to not have to see them continuously, all day long. So sometimes providing that kind of context, or changing names of things to make everyone more comfortable, is a small thing but much appreciated by the minorities involved. I’m not sure it’s necessary to take it to the extent that you’re facing however :)
nathias 4y ago
These ideas are philosophically void, but really thrive in practice. I think it has to do with encoding population into discrete identities, this is why buraucracies love it, it's like building an API between populations and institutions. Instead of going through a process of representation (like a union or voting) you simply assign yourself a ready made identity and get represented.
throwboi123 4y ago
As an asian dude that grew up in Asia, despite my western education, in a western country, I don’t really care. As in, sure whatever you say, just give me the core stuffs, and I’ll pretend that I care. Take what’s good, discard what’s not. If math is good, take it, if decolonized math is bad, throw it away, and vice versa. I acknowledge different cultures have different strengths and weaknesses in different areas. White people invent math? Good, take it. Black people invent jazz? Good, take it. White people invent genocide? Reject it. Black people invent ghetto culture? Reject it.
Febra33 4y ago
"Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) – an independent charity which reviews university courses – launched a consultation that urged universities to teach a ‘decolonised view’ of mathematics." Yet another pointless piece written by some click hungry "journalists". Don't get me wrong, what that charity has done is simply put stupid, but does it deserve an article? This is just the casual rage-bait article meant to create a discussion around a stupid take by some random charity that is not even taken seriously by anyone.
pannSun 4y ago
Wouldn't decolonization, in the context of Britain*, imply ridding itself of foreign influence and focusing on its native heritage? In contrast, the way 'decolonise' is being thrown around looks more like de-Europeanisation - the demands are the same, regardless of location. *Naturally this does not apply to the examples from New Zealand.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
I’m continually baffled by the woke idea that equality means lowering standards, rather than raising expectations and performance.

188 points by cm_silva 4y ago

https://archive.ph/SAI6f https://archive.ph/SAI6f

I think they mean 'de-colonialise' rather than decolonise. Seems like a strange error to make considering the number of times the term is used. Edit: Ok apparently this is an accepted term. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decolonization I have no idea why as colonise and decolonise already mean things. And colonial is a distinct thing.

selfhoster11 4y ago
Decolonise seems to be far more common. I’ve never seen “de-colonialise” used, in fact, but seen “decolonise” used all over the place.
- benj111 4y ago
  I've seen decolonise before, but in the context of removing colonies. This is about a hangover of colonialism. To me colony is A-political, whereas colonial applys to the politics. Taking it further. I colonise America I colonise mars I colonise maths? What does that mean? We aren't talking about a literal colony, were talking about colonialism. So (De)colonialise is the word the I would make up to describe this.
  - selfhoster11 4y ago
    I am not arguing about what the word should mean, I am simply pointing out that people seem to use it this way.
veqq 4y ago
Have you ever heard the word "colonialize"? Spell check doesn't accept it, google doesn't either. Colony->colonize->decolonize Colonial is an adjective from colony. You can add -ize to the noun, no need for this intermediary step.
- carlmr 4y ago
  Maybe OP is German. We call it Kolonialisierung and Dekolonialisierung.
  - benj111 4y ago
    No I'm English. I'll take it as a complement that I'm recreating German words though.
    - carlmr 4y ago
      At least you're Germanic then, back to the roots ;).
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  -ize > a verb-forming suffix occurring originally in loanwords from Greek that have entered English through Latin or French (baptize; barbarize; catechize); within English, -ize is added to adjectives and nouns to form transitive verbs with the general senses “to render, make” (actualize; fossilize; sterilize; Americanize) https://www.dictionary.com/browse/-ize#:~:text=a%20verb%2Dforming%20suffix%20occurring,%3B%20sterilize%3B%20Americanize)%2C%20%E2%80%9C https://www.dictionary.com/browse/-ize#:~:text=a%20verb%2Dfo...
- benj111 4y ago
  Decolonise to me means depopulate. I originally thought the article was talking about removing people from maths (teachers?) Elon musk colonises mars. Elon musk decolonises mars. Colony is a fairly A-political word to me. Colonial has political connotations. So if I wanted to talk about the political elements of the times when colonys were a thing would say colonial. And variations of that word. As we are talking about politics, it seems that colonial seems to be the better word. If I wanted to talk about setting off across the Atlantic and setting up a base, I would describe that as a colony, and the continuing process of that would be colonisation. If I wanted to talk about the negative impacts on the indigenous population, I would describe that as colonialism and the process by extension, colonialisation. Googling around I'm obviously in a minority as far as word usage goes, and I'm surprised I haven't come across this before. It still seems strange how decolonise was the work settled on though.
carlmr 4y ago
>Seems like a strange error to make considering the number of times the term is used. Whether it's an error or not. The same error being made multiple times is to me a normal case. So is a single error. An error being made sometimes is rather what I would call surprising. If you know something but make a mistake it's likely a one-off error. If you don't know something you will make the same error many times until someone alerts you to the situation. Both very likely cases if you ask me. Whereas if you have N mentions and ~N/2 are wrong, then that is the most unlikely case. Since you'd either have to forget what you know half the time, or you would have to make a sloppy mistake half of the time.

meigwilym 4y ago

This is a charity asking teaching establishments to follow its recommendations. They are perfectly within their rights to ignore this. Nothing very sinister going on.

roenxi 4y ago
If there is a group organising to reduce the quality of education, that is a concern. People probably want to sign up for their maths degree to learn about maths.
ilyt 4y ago
Them pressuring parents and the "if you don't do what we say you're racist" step usually comes after
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  I don’t think the parents of college students are super involved in college curriculums, but I could be wrong. If this “usually” happens, can you point to some actual examples?
- WindyMiller 4y ago
  If there's one thing academics at British universities are more scornful of than third parties trying to dictate their curriculum, it's parents of students sticking their noses in.
barry-cotter 4y ago
It’s funded through taxes. It’s a badly disguised front organisation. It’s about as independent from the government as Transport for London. > We are funded through a number of channels: membership fees from higher education providers contracts and agreements with the UK funding councils and organisations to which QAA reports annually private contracts, consultancy and business development work in the UK and internationally statutory fees from providers for work on behalf of the regulator in England fees and maintenance charges paid by providers of higher education seeking educational oversight for immigration purposes as required by the Home Office. https://www.qaa.ac.uk/about-us/how-we're-run/how-we're-funded https://www.qaa.ac.uk/about-us/how-we're-run/how-we're-funde... They hide how the various funding streams tot up, presumably to maintain the incredibly thin veneer of a pretence they’re not a government body. > The financial statements consolidate the results of the charity and its wholly owned subsidiary on a line-by-line basis. The financial statements are prepared in sterling, which is the functional currency of the group. A separate Statement of Financial Activities (SOFA), and income and expenditure account, for the charity itself are not presented because the charity has taken advantage of the exemptions afforded by section 408 of the Companies Act 2006. As required by the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 2006 (as amended), a cash flow statement for the charity is included. https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/about-us/qaa-annual-report-and-financial-statements-2020-21.pdf?sfvrsn=658bda81_10 https://www.qaa.ac.uk/docs/qaa/about-us/qaa-annual-report-an...

proc0 4y ago

Anyone who thinks this is a valid idea should stop using chairs, speaking English, and using eating utensils, because those are literally products of colonialism (in the Americas). Some civilizations where more advanced than others hundreds of years ago... wow, what a cruel world... welcome to Earth.

tomlockwood 4y ago
Curious!
thebooktocome 4y ago
It amuses me that of your three examples, only speaking English is a product of colonialism. Chairs were known in ancient Egypt, the fork in Byzantium. Neither is a colonial power by any reasonable definition.
- shakow 4y ago
  > Neither is a colonial power by any reasonable definition. Beg your pardon? If a colonial power is a country that expanded by force in lands that were not ethnically theirs (and I can't really think of a meaningful definition that would single out European powers between the 16th and early 20th century), then ancient Egypt and the (Eastern) Roman Empire are definitely colonial powers.
  - orwin 4y ago
    > I can't really think of a meaningful definition that would single out European powers between the 16th and early 20th century >> the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people. Ancient Egypt and the Roman empire weren't colonial powers by this definition. I do not know a lot about China, but Sinicisation seems to fit colonial markers, so the first empire to really colonize should be chinese? The Umayad Califate in some sense too, but I think i'm missing the idea of "pressure" and "force" in the definition.

kleiba 4y ago

The problem is, I think the people behind that mean well - they really do. But, unfortunately, in a mindcuffs echo chamber kind of way that is removed from the rest of society. Of course, you could argue that this description fits the early stages of any grassroots movement. However, I think this is not grass roots at all - at this point, it's a loud minority. And whether you agree with their position or not, I think, the woke movement is not proceeding very strategically. Granted, so far their approach - which basically boils down to "lots of pressure" - has been admirably successful. Yet, I don't think it's going to be sustainable. I see a real risk that the tide might be turning and a backlash will happen when the pressure gets too much on those that feel pressurized. This could destroy a lot of successes of the woke campaign, which could be avoided if those pushing these ideas tried to be appear less confrontational, matter-of-factly, and aggressive. For instance, instead of presenting a proposal like the one hand at hand "top down" - which now meets a predictable opposition - it could be a more successful long-term strategy to get all of the affected people into the same boat first, and then move forward with strong support, rather than dropping suggestions for what appear like radical changes. I suppose, though, that one reason this latter strategy hasn't already been pursued in some fields is that the opposition, like in this article, just immediately makes more sense, which then leaves little hope to get the changes implemented.

notahacker 4y ago
> For instance, instead of presenting a proposal like the one hand at hand "top down" - which now meets a predictable opposition - it could be a more successful long-term strategy to get all of the affected people into the same boat first, and then move forward with strong support, rather than dropping suggestions for what appear like radical changes. But this isn't a "top down" proposal to change everything. This is a 30 page document by an independent rankings agency that mentions "decolonisation" twice, both in sentences which advise mentioning the historical context of certain mathematical developments (congratulations, your lecture mentions in passing that Spearman came up with his rank correlation coefficient in part to justify his horrible racial hierarchy theories, but it's useful for other things too. Curriculum decolonised!) which I suspect some lecturers have been doing for years. Some people are going to disagree no matter what the change is and how it's suggested. Examples of actual "top down" proposals in the culture war come from government ministers insisting that the National Trust shouldn't be referencing Churchill's position on India in its Churchill exhibitions lest it paint him in a less-than-heroic light and threatening to make university funding contingent on universities hosting particular speakers. For some reason HN is convinced that student petitions and consultation documents are a more egregious abuse of power though...

tomlockwood 4y ago

> As one example, one such diversity course at Kent university requires all students to affirm that ‘sex is, in fact, a diverse, multi-expressive form of identity and a full spectrum.’ Correct, there are multiple continuous quantifiers which we can use to determine sex and therefore it is a multimodal distribution.

doffa 4y ago
It's not a continuous distribution - there's no biological variable of 'sex units' that describe a spectrum of maleness to femaleness. It's also not really an identity in any meaningful sense. A male can say "I am female", but, that is just a false statement.
- tomlockwood 4y ago
  You're right - there's no biological variable of 'sex units', that'd be a discrete thing.
ohCh6zos 4y ago
Isn’t that in itself imperialism? What if the student was from the Islamic world, which google tells me, believes sex to be binary as a cosmological statement.
- tomlockwood 4y ago
  So you're saying that there's culturally different views on sex that we need to consider? Agreed. It makes the distribution even more multimodal.
  - ohCh6zos 4y ago
    Isn’t forcing the affirmation of a single view the opposite of that?
    - tomlockwood 4y ago

Garlef 4y ago

Mediocre/bad article. It's mostly a rant against decolonisation in general. The actual treatment of why this mostly does not apply to maths is very thin. And there actually is a problem with the notion of mathematical truth: Not within mathematics itself but in its transfer to sociological questions. Here, simply presupposing that concepts can be defined with a universal meaning and statements have a universal truth is simply not true. Mathematics is not advanced enough to discuss these matters properly. (So: New notions need to developed) Since most readers here have a background in programming, here's an analogy of what the issues are: Sociology is about distributed systems. And these are more complicated. For example thinking about time in distributed systems requires quite a lot of non-trivial tech (vector clocks, etc). It's even more complicated for sociological notions. But in general, I agree: The topic mostly does not apply to maths.

ssivark 4y ago
But should that technology even be a part of mathematics? Different fields/applications will have different needs so I would imagine that these critical discussions should be part of each field and its methods. Eg: physicists don’t go around blaming math because specific physical systems need different models.
- Garlef 4y ago
  With "mathemathical technology" I'm not taking about software but actual mathematics. And no one is blaming maths. If physicists realize there's something missing, they develop the maths they require. Or they ask their maths friends to do it. And it might happen if enough people care to pull it off. Same applies here. (But it's not very likely since most sociologists are not very educated in mathematics)
dangerface 4y ago
> mathematics itself but in its transfer to sociological questions > Sociology is about distributed systems. You make the argument that sociology is its own thing that can't be conflated with math which I think every one agrees with, isn't that the premise of the article? Sociology has its time and place and thats in sociology, just like Math has its own time and place Math.

causi 4y ago

In this world view it is not insulting to suggest non-Europeans prefer ‘other ways of knowing’ to rationality and science. This reminds me of that "racial sensitivity guide" that told employees punctuality and logical objectivity were "white expectations" not to be applied to persons of color. In New Zealand the school chemistry and biology syllabus has been decolonised and now invokes the concept of mauri, or life force, to give the atomic theory a new spiritual dimension. I went to high school and college so deep in the bible belt you could put an empty Coke can to your ear and hear banjo music and our textbooks still didn't have anything like that bullshit.

bryanrasmussen 4y ago
>it is not insulting to suggest non-Europeans prefer ‘other ways of knowing’ to rationality and science. yeah I got news for you about most Europeans there also.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  How the West was won: https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/07/25/how-the-west-was-won/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/07/25/how-the-west-was-won/
  - eternalban 4y ago
    " In the 17th century, philosophers were remarking (in Latin, the universal language!) about how Descartes from France had more in common with Leibniz from Germany than either of them did with the average Frenchman or German. Nowadays I certainly have more in common with SSC readers in Finland than I do with my next-door neighbor whom I’ve never met." The crux of the issue/problem. Distribution is non-uniform and very chunky. At this point I am convinced that if there exists natural 'types' of mindset and behavior, they cross cut (far less intrinsic) ethnic and cultural boundaries.
    - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
      yeah, rationality and science are already here, but they're not evenly distributed yet. Starting to think that they might not ever be evenly distributed.

bell-cot 4y ago

For those unfamiliar - The Spectator can occasionally be an interesting read, but their business model is generally far closer to "push all the right-wing buttons" than to "objective and factual information source".

dagw 4y ago
The Spectator also has a 'house style' of being as provocative as possible. I often find that even when they're arguing for something I ostensibly agree with I come away disagreeing with them because of how they have chosen to present their arguments. That being said, as much as dislike their style and sometimes their politics, they're a solid journalistic outlet and I would not accuse them of making up facts (even if they might not always present said fact in the most neutral light)
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  I'd accuse them of making up facts. It's not a "Elvis kidnapped by Aliens" style supermarket tabloid but famous liar, and journalist repeatedly sacked for lying, Boris Johnson was the editor. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-spectator-uk/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-spectator-uk/ > We also rate them Mostly Factual in reporting, rather than High, due to misleading articles and a few failed fact checks regarding climate change. One random sample, which Boris admitted was a lie: > The Spectator - which he was editing at the time - printed an editorial saying the tragedy was “no excuse for Liverpool’s failure to acknowledge, even to this day, the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon.” > Smearing Liverpudlians, the editorial added: “They see themselves whenever possible as victims, and resent their victim status; yet at the same time they wallow in it.” > An independent report and the 2016 inquests ruled there was nothing to suggest fans’ behaviour contributed to the disaster. > In 2012 Mr Johnson apologised again, admitting claims about football fans' behaviour were a “lie”.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Partly agreed. I am not accusing them of making up facts, but of slanting things far beyond any reasonable "objective and factual information source" standard. (Note that I am so old and centrist that I still believe journalists should care about society being relatively cohesive and peaceful, with a good long-term future. The Spectator both obviously believing otherwise and being very closely tied to Britain's (currently ruling) Conservative Party...that strikes me as a pretty bad sign.)

rofo1 4y ago

If anything at all is objective, it's mathematics. Anyone can verify if the statements are true, independently. Granted, some of the statements are massively complicated, so not everyone can do it reasonably fast; however when you state something, typically you need to prove it. I (naively) thought this protected this particular discipline from "modern politics" or whatever we want to call this insanity that is spreading. I worry that we might reach a place where people believe that 1+1 is not exactly 2, it is dependent on the emotions of the person uttering the words, akin to the current discussions of male/female, genders, pronouns and so on. It looks weird even typing this, but I am sure someone in 19th or 20th century would say the same thing about the current state of what is a man, what is a woman, who gives birth.. things that are so obvious that but yet disputed. I don't understand what can be done about people legitimately believing insane things. I have no doubt that they believe what they are saying. We ought not to fund it with tax $ at least.. disappointing. > The QAA’s benchmark document that defines the common mathematics curriculum has grown in length by 50 per cent in just three years, but not because of any radical shift in the nature of the mathematics. Instead there has been a been a decision to introduce teaching on diversity, Just like the communists forced Marxism upon everyone, and Nazi Germany did the same thing to their youth. I expected Math would be the last place to be infected with this, but it has happened. We'll see how much it spreads. > Activists also have statistics in their sights. One academic review of school statistics textbooks ‘with a theoretical framework of queer theory and critical mathematics’ notes disapprovingly that ‘pregnancy was used frequently in problems involving females/women.’ Cannot be distinguished from pure comedy. What a reality we are living in.

throwaway4aday 4y ago
When I first watched Interstellar, I thought the scene where the school official talks about how the moon landing was faked was a bit outlandish but nowadays it seems like something that could happen in the next 10 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyxEpi3f40w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyxEpi3f40w
Fomite 4y ago
The application of mathematics is, however, not objective. To use your last sentence about statistics, how you choose to handle variables, how they're put into regression models, and how those results are interpreted all have potentially subjective and cultural aspects to them. As someone who works on mathematical and statistical models for a living, there's plenty of opportunities for subjectivity, from how methods are applied to what questions are considered important.

WindyMiller 4y ago

> The QAA themselves don’t explain what decolonising means. Presumably this is a good thing, given the complaint: > But by requiring that all subject areas include these topics, the QAA is homogenising university teaching and diminishing true diversity of thought. The 'sinister attempt' here is literally just advice to have a bit of a think about this stuff when you're covering areas where it might be relevant, like the history of mathematics; and to consider the diverse needs of your students. An academic who chooses to follow that recommendation has huge scope to determine how they do so. The rest is just baggage Armstrong is bringing to it, and is very much his problem.

bowsamic 4y ago
Yeah most of the article seemed like a rant against wokeism, rather than about mathematics
tomlockwood 4y ago
Yeah, amazing so many people here, and the author, are reading so much into this.
dangerface 4y ago
It's not advice it's telling. When I say "being racist is something you shouldn't do" I am not giving advice I am telling you not to be racist.

nonrandomstring 4y ago

I think this sort of thing is overstated to provoke political outrage and distract from the real socio-economic disaster unfolding in higher education. It's certainly one minor symptom, but only a small example of how we've lost our way on a much grander scale. > It is easy when you work at a university to roll your eyes at this sort of thing and play along. But that's not what happens. You roll your eyes, smile and then blatantly and insubordinately forget about it. No one ever follows up. No one cares, except that one over-worked bullshit compliance officer whose softly-worded "advisories" get tactically directed to spam. Most people are already sensitive enough to teach incorporating a rich cultural history and awareness of "colonial values" (expeciallin maths which is practically a history of India, Persia and China), since it is precisely the bad sides of those values that are harming our own institutions today. People in British universities have more important stuff on their plate at the moment, like dealing with a massive crisis in student disaffection, debt, and mental health problems, lecturer strike action, recruitment problems...

rini17 4y ago
>You roll your eyes, smile and then blatantly and insubordinately forget about it. Till it gets used for witch hunts.
misja111 4y ago
> You roll your eyes, smile and then blatantly and insubordinately forget about it Do you realize that this is exactly the kind of thing that happens when an extremist and very active minority tries to push its ideas on the silent majority? The examples in history are abundant and often the outcomes were not very pleasant.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  Except in this case they're a mild and moderate majority trying to preserve the institutions and educational prospects of their students that are teetering on brink of crisis. I would say that in the next couple of years we'll see 20% of British universities go to the wall, either as bankruptcy or takeovers, a tragedy directly attributable to mismanagement by failing to focus on core priorities. When it comes to standing up for my students, most of whom have come places like Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Ghana and even Somalia (where they're literally starving to death), and who have gambled their family life savings on the one smart son or daughter (up to £25,000) I'll take on the "extremist" role of defending them with pride. I hope you'd have the courage too.

bowsamic 4y ago

I had once thought that it is ridiculous to suggest that rational thought might possibly be not superior to other forms of thought, until I spent some time as a Buddhist, in Buddhist spaces. Then I saw first hand how rationality is indeed used in a euro supremacist way to smack down anything that doesn’t fit in that framework. Everything from mocking Asian Buddhists as “backwards rednecks” for having traditional views on Buddhism, to even claiming that the Buddha only said the non rational, religious things to placate the stupid people and that really he was a rational philosopher. I’ve seen the erosion and closure of traditional Buddhist spaces in the west in favour of rationalised versions that remove the traditional elements. So I can definitely empathise with seeing the promotion of rational thought as white supremacist. That said, mathematics in the west was always rational, so I don’t see how the decolonisation argument is useful here. Mathematics isn’t an ancient religion like Buddhism, it is rationally constructed

throwaway4aday 4y ago
> seeing the promotion of rational thought as white supremacist I think this is conflating "promotion of rational thought" with chauvinism which can be applied to any viewpoint. You could for instance be a Buddhist chauvinist. I think something is deeply wrong with our educational system. Many people seem entirely incapable of distinguishing between the most basic concepts. Is it due to poor vocabulary? Just not having the right words or not understanding the meaning of words when trying to express concepts? Is it lack of life experience? Confusing things like white supremacy or violence with acts that don't even come close to measuring up to the real thing? Or is it, as many presume, more nefarious and the intent is to simply burn everything to the ground out of the misguided belief that it will be easy (or even possible) to build a new utopia in the ashes?
- bowsamic 4y ago
  Well the point is that it’s different to be a chauvinist when you’re the dominant culture in the world, partly due to colonialism but also global capitalism, compared to being a chauvinist for your minority religion. I’ve definitely met Buddhist chauvinists, but they have far less power outside of a few countries I have no idea what the relevance of your second paragraph is

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

[flagged]

notahacker 4y ago
It's particularly weird for people to buy the idea that there's something particularly terrifying about the QAA launching a consultation which mentions "decolonising" twice in 30 pages, when the other side of the culture war on universities is being fought by the government threatening to withhold funding.

bnjemian 4y ago

Not so long ago I was a PhD student in a STEM department. With the amount of DEI and antiracist discussions had during our department meetings, it often felt that I was attending an MBA program designed for HR professionals. Do I have anything against diversity, equity, inclusion? No. Did I often wish the department – which was already extremely diverse in age, gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, and citizenship status – would focus more on the work of doing good science, facilitating rich academic discourse, fostering cross-institutional collaborations, and driving more translation and commercial ventures? Yes. 100%, yes. In many ways, DEI initiatives, anti-racist policies, and decolonization aspire to worthy goals. Too often, though, they feel like the product of meme-driven corporate training and consulting firms who charge wholly unequipped professionals with disparate expertise with framing their work with a funhouse mirror of their on-the-ground reality. There has to be a better way.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
I've worked with a couple companies like that... usually it's corporate driven (someone high up saw it at some other company and wanted to show how progressive their company was too)... then they hired someone whose only job was to promote such ideas and slow down work in other departments. I live in a country that's 99.9% white in a field with 85%+ men. We don't get non-white people, because there are none here, and we don't get women, because there are very few women in such colleges at the first place. Comparing to other countries nearby and the ratio of women in tech colleges there (and later jobs), the only solution would be, to fuck up the economy so hard, that stem jobs would be one of the few ways to lead a relatively normal life, and then girls (who get better scores in hightschools and standardized exams here) would start studying one of those professions (and then probably leave the country).
- deleted 4y ago
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- LionTamer 4y ago
  If you don’t mind me asking, what country are you referring to?

gyulai 4y ago

I suppose what they really want, although "decolonise" is a very weird word for it, is for teachers to throw in enough information about the biographies behind the big names in math for students to not engage in unreflected hero worship.

bazhova 4y ago

A British academic "rolling eyes" at efforts to decolonise their material. Yikes but also typical. Mathematics is a pure subject, and logic itself is not colonial. Of course. But academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching. It's not a wild idea to take a moment and consider how your department may be complicit.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
Can you clearly and lucidy explain how mathematics might be "colonial"?
- Fomite 4y ago
  From an application context, "Weapons of Math Destruction" is a good place to start.
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Okay, but that's not relevant to mathematics. That's about business decisions.
    - Fomite 4y ago
      Aided and abetted by putting a veneer of mathematics over the top. That is the important context for the idea of decolonizing math - that it doesn't actually take place in a vacuum.
kwhitefoot 4y ago
> academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching In mathematics? How do they do that?
kennend3 4y ago
> But academic institutions do retain aspects of colonialism in their teaching. So my ex-wife is Chinese and not to play into the stereotype but math is important to the Chinese. When she was growing up in China, learning Math, what aspect of this was "colonialism"? Now when our kids went to math class in Canada and the instructor was also Chinese, were they teaching "colonialism" as well as math?

l5870uoo9y 4y ago

I deeply oppose the reading of history that judge historical events and persons with today's moral. With that measurement your grandparents would properly hold immoral opinions. Historical context is essential and I hope future generations also apply this when judging us.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Oh but my grandparents do. "Historical context" doesn't make something right. Colonization has always been objectively bad - it decimated and exploited populations and cultures, to name just one of many effects. Many of said historical events and persons were immoral with the morals of back then as well. Murder has always been bad. Slavery has always been immoral. Genocide has always been bad, but guess what happened when the Spanish invaded the Americas?
- HKH2 4y ago
  On what basis are those things objectively bad?
  - tpush 4y ago
    Because of the killing, torturing, enslavement and exploitation of human beings.
    - FeepingCreature 4y ago
      What makes that "objective"? Are you confusing "objective" with "arguable"? A position does not become objective by being the consensus opinion.
    - HKH2 4y ago
      That is a circular argument, as those were the things I was referencing.
  - clappski 4y ago
    So are you arguing that genocide and slavery aren't objectively bad?

yrro 4y ago

DoneWithAllThat 4y ago
So you’re claiming none of this is actually happening? Because that’s just flatly lying.
- chaosbolt 4y ago
  Comments like his form a pattern, start by saying X publication is biased, then say it's not exactly what's happening, then give you 2 links that arz unrelated and that you won't read becausz you're discussing the issue even if it's not exactly happenibg in that place exactly as reported. They might also call you racist or antisemitic after you tell them off. The past year I seriously started thinking about quitting the web, as in only use payment apps and services, everything else feels so bland, you can't talk about anything interesting anymore, and the replies usually feel weird and bland, either I'm going crazy or everyone else is noticing this but not saying anything.
  - joxel 4y ago
    The irony of this reply is not lost
- viraptor 4y ago
  I don't see the parent claiming that in any way.
mellosouls 4y ago
the Spectator is a (now far-)right wing magazine The Spectator is a conservative publication with a reasonable liberal dislike for far-left overreach and bullying, like that discussed in the article.
- yrro 4y ago
  30 years ago that would have been a fair assessment, but no longer. > The Spectator, once suavely edited, now serves as a fraternity house for Douglas Murray, Toby Young, James Delingpole and Rod Liddle; pummelling Muslims and high-fiving on Brexit, these right-wing bros are to the posh periodicals what Jeremy Clarkson was to the BBC. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n18/pankaj-mishra/what-is-great-about-ourselves https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n18/pankaj-mishra/what-i... > It used to be libertarian, cheeky. Now it’s like the Daily Mail. The difference is, I suppose, that its old spirit came from superiority. Now it comes from resentment and disappointment. > The Spectator has become a sounding board for resentment, amplifying the catastrophist mentality that has gripped the right in Britain and the US. https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2019/11/why-spectator-tolerates-intolerable https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2019/11/why-spec... > Spectator and its Tory MP editor may face charges over Taki race rant > Threats against black lawyer after article [editor Boris] Johnson admits it should not have carried https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/feb/28/uk.pressandpublishing https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/feb/28/uk.pressand... Rod Liddle wrote in a 2018 column: "If you are an unpleasant person who enjoys macabre entertainment, wander down to Mile End and watch the women in full burka trying to cross the A11. That’s always good for a laugh." https://bylinetimes.com/2021/11/30/new-study-highlights-anti-muslim-bigotry-of-the-spectator-magazine/ https://bylinetimes.com/2021/11/30/new-study-highlights-anti... > A 2021 study by the Muslim Council of Britain's Centre for Media Monitoring that looked at media coverage of Muslims and Islam in 34 publications found that The Spectator had the highest percentage of articles judged "antagonistic" to Muslims, 37.3% of all articles which mentioned the religion, and the highest proportion of articles which the study judged misrepresented Muslims and/or Islam, one in four. The Spectator also had the second highest negative bias of any publication studied, with 10.9% of relevant articles "very biased" (only Christian Today with 11.3% "very biased" was worse). https://cfmm.org.uk/resources/publication/cfmm-report-british-medias-coverage-of-muslims-and-islam-2018-2020-launched/ https://cfmm.org.uk/resources/publication/cfmm-report-britis... And so on. Plenty more quotes and citations in https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Spectator#Controversies https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/The_Spectator#Controversies.

sumo89 4y ago

Weird to see a right wing opinion piece posted on hacker news, even weirder to see the only downvoted comments are ones pointing out the reputation and editorial style of The Spectator. That of being a wordy Dail Mail. Maybe Hackernews has become too mainstream.

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
> Maybe Hackernews has become too mainstream. I completely agree with what you said - this is clearly a right wing opinion piece rage bait, dressed up in a wordy style, but I don't view this as "mainstream". The parable of the Nazi Bar is relevant to HN: https://www.boredpanda.com/bar-bartender-nazi-punk-iamragesparkle https://www.boredpanda.com/bar-bartender-nazi-punk-iamragesp...
goodpoint 4y ago
HN has been going down the drain for years and it is especially vulnerable to certain online vocal minorities.
confidantlake 4y ago
If you have been following recently there are actually quite a lot of them. For me it seems like just another Tuesday.

hfbff 4y ago

Unfortunately the selection of criticisms is not great. I agree with some, but then it mixes it with things like >The UK Office for National Statistics has already succumbed to such ideas, proposing that respondents should be allowed to self-identify their sex in the 2021 census. This is something we've been doing in my country for decades and I don't see a problem with it (the alternative is to ask the person that does the census to take a guess on the gender of the person...sometimes it's easy, sometimes not so much)

origin_path 4y ago
The census is a set of forms. It isn't like there's someone in front of you trying to guess your age, gender etc. What "self-identify" means here is that you're allowed to pick whatever you want regardless of biological truth, whereas normally lying on a census can result in a fine.
- Quarrelsome 4y ago
  I think "biological truth" is loaded here. In terms of a census there is an ambiguity about what it is that you're counting, are you counting people biologically born a given gender, people who are going to pair with the opposite sex, people who prefer a particular prefix or people that can give birth to children? It appears in this case the census is content in counting people who prefer a particular prefix and only counting that (which can be self-identified) achieves its aims. Tbh I don't massively see how this changes how one might treat census data (especially since the numbers remain small enough). I would suggest that if your research requires data points for people born as women then maybe you should be looking for other datasets such as births.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  This literally is the history of race on census forms. A census taker would decide what race you are, from categories thought up by other people. https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/race/MREAD_1790_2010.html https://www.census.gov/data-tools/demo/race/MREAD_1790_2010.... > While people nowadays are enumerated by race based on self-identification, until 1950 their race on the census was mainly determined by their census enumerator.[170] During this time multiracial people who were White and of another race were usually marked down as belonging to the other race due to the One drop rule.[170] The instructions provided to enumerators endorsed this practice.

SilverBirch 4y ago

It's always a bit funny listening to people complain about this, because at best they're naive about what they're criticising and at worst they're deliberately misrepresenting it. For example, the author here states >There is nothing particularly European about rational knowledge. Maths has always been an astonishingly international pursuit. The digits 0123456789 we use today were first written in India and inspired by Chinese mathematics. Yes, I agree, the history of Maths isn't particularly western or imperialist, so let's look at what the consultation said about decolonizing maths: >for example, decolonising the curriculum can involve explicit reflection on the history of MSOR [maths] knowledge generation Right, so in your complaint about "decolonizing" you totally agree with their example of decolonizing maths. Again, from the author: >There are genuine issues around race that mathematics needs to address. For example, we don’t have as many black maths lecturers as we should. and from the consultation: > for example, decolonising the curriculum can involve ... reflecting on how delivery or admission practices might adversely impact on certain subgroups within the student cohort. So again, why is this author writing a petition to oppose the thing he supports? My guess would be that the author has picked up some far right talking points from the same people that bought you "Critical Race theory is a marxist plot"- the telltale sign is the weird tangent about "rational knowledge" being superior to other kinds of knowledge- a talking point straight out of the CRT panic.

bjt2n3904 4y ago

Still shocked to find the apologists for these blatantly racist ideas lurking here in the comments. No, there is nothing good about "decolonizing", "equity", DEI, anti racism, or any of your other rubbish Marxist ideas. They are destructive ideas that tear down everything that we've built post enlightenment. Look at what it's doing to education. In Virginia, we tried to stop teaching advanced math in high school, because it was creating "inequitable" situations. Should we get rid of gyms too? I've been lifting weights every week, but I'm still not as strong as an athlete! And still the apologists for these ideas will rush to the comments and say it's well meaning and just poorly implemented, misunderstood, or outright deny that these things are happening. It boggles the mind.

deleted 4y ago
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scarmig 4y ago
I am always shocked that somehow "we shouldn't teach algebra in middle school because Black kids aren't able to learn it" somehow became a progressive viewpoint.
- unmetid 4y ago
  A bit like how "anyone who performs the cultural stereotypes of femininity is a woman" is now apparently a progressive viewpoint, rather than the regressive misogyny it used to be.

jvvw 4y ago

I've taught maths at a few universities and until recently taught computing at a university, teaching algorithms etc (and am female if that is relevant!). I ended up recently at a talk at the university where they were talking about decolonising the computing curriculum. One of the thing that I felt hadn't been taken into account was that as lecturers we are qualified to teaching computing/maths not to teach history/social sciences. I really didn't feel like I should be teaching history when I stopped learning history at school aged 15. The course I was teaching covered Turing machines and I'd feel very weird suddenly diverting into discussing that Turing was gay (but he's also a white male just to complicate things...). It all felt like a massive distraction from actually trying to teach the materials better. I have to admit that when I was a student, it never really bothered me at all that all theorems were named after men (perhaps Noether got in there somewhere, but I really can't think of anybody else). They just felt like names to me and I was interested in the maths not the history. It had much more of an impact on me seeing female lecturers teaching and doing research.

n4r9 4y ago
Thanks for contributing your experience. I think it's important that the guidelines ought to consider the actual reported experiences and attitudes of the students whom they're trying to show sensitivity to. If as in your case they generally do nothing much, then it does feel like a waste of effort.
- kukx 4y ago
  It is a generous assumption that the intention of these guidelines is to improve.
  - n4r9 4y ago
    I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Do you think the authors have some ulterior motive other than improving mathematics education?
amrangaye 4y ago
Not arguing that you’re wrong, but as a (counter / data)-point, both me and my friend were… relieved (for lack of a better word) when the convention of referring to things as master / slave in computing changed to primary / replica, etc. We are both from one of the countries where the slave trade was most active. It wasn’t something we would complain about out loud, it did not affect our work or productivity in any way. In fact we would have been content / happy to continue using the previous names. But it still felt good / noteworthy to not have to see them continuously, all day long. So sometimes providing that kind of context, or changing names of things to make everyone more comfortable, is a small thing but much appreciated by the minorities involved. I’m not sure it’s necessary to take it to the extent that you’re facing however :)

nathias 4y ago

These ideas are philosophically void, but really thrive in practice. I think it has to do with encoding population into discrete identities, this is why buraucracies love it, it's like building an API between populations and institutions. Instead of going through a process of representation (like a union or voting) you simply assign yourself a ready made identity and get represented.

throwboi123 4y ago

As an asian dude that grew up in Asia, despite my western education, in a western country, I don’t really care. As in, sure whatever you say, just give me the core stuffs, and I’ll pretend that I care. Take what’s good, discard what’s not. If math is good, take it, if decolonized math is bad, throw it away, and vice versa. I acknowledge different cultures have different strengths and weaknesses in different areas. White people invent math? Good, take it. Black people invent jazz? Good, take it. White people invent genocide? Reject it. Black people invent ghetto culture? Reject it.

Febra33 4y ago

"Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) – an independent charity which reviews university courses – launched a consultation that urged universities to teach a ‘decolonised view’ of mathematics." Yet another pointless piece written by some click hungry "journalists". Don't get me wrong, what that charity has done is simply put stupid, but does it deserve an article? This is just the casual rage-bait article meant to create a discussion around a stupid take by some random charity that is not even taken seriously by anyone.

pannSun 4y ago

Wouldn't decolonization, in the context of Britain*, imply ridding itself of foreign influence and focusing on its native heritage? In contrast, the way 'decolonise' is being thrown around looks more like de-Europeanisation - the demands are the same, regardless of location. *Naturally this does not apply to the examples from New Zealand.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

I’m continually baffled by the woke idea that equality means lowering standards, rather than raising expectations and performance.