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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 cer

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.
  - strangeattractr 4y ago
    How is ‘decolonising’ maths about defending those students? What are you defending them from?
laputan_machine 4y ago
Kathleen Stock probably begs to differ.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  No doubt, Kathleen Stock is a far more courageous woman than I. But there are different ways to fight battles. Instead of confrontation I don't even need to nudge my students to focus on what is important, for us to safely ignore well meaning do-gooders and direct all our energies into doing actual good. My strategy is letting them become the change I want to see in the world - despite indignant moralising from the sidelines that we are using "white man's maths" to stop black children starving. This week I am working with three women, all obviously > 140 IQs who are the daughters of farmers in Africa. This is their big hope to bring independence to their countries through agriculture and AI. We're using machine learning to identify crop pests and select seeds. That mean using mathematics. But while I am teaching them segmentation and pattern recognition in OpenCV I shouldn't have to worry every day that the department may close, the professors are laid-off and I'll never get to see these girls take back from the colonists what I think the world owes them. Why? because academics can no longer focus on doing their job, well and in good faith. The only dignified response is to smile and get on with your project regardless.
- flurg 4y ago
  True that. I would say further that, these 'woke' activists who attack women like Kathleen Stock are precipitating the end of their movement. People not well-versed in the ins and outs of gender critical feminism versus trans privileges activism just look at all these masked and balaclavaed males making a huge scene, shouting abuse and threatening violence, and just see a gang of men bullying women who speak up. That these males have bespoke gender identities that apparently make them all marginalized and vulnerable doesn't really register when they're spitting in women's faces and calling them cunts.
bjt2n3904 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 This is prima facie evidence of the socioeconomic disaster you speak of. Colleges flush with money blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on DEI training and commissars. Funny story, telling people that "whiteness" is to blame for everything doesn't improve mental health problems or student satisfaction. Yes! I'd love to do math, but we're two lectures in, and the professor is still making land acknowledgments... Very satisfying.
- andrekandre 4y ago
  > Funny story, telling people that "whiteness" is to blame for everything doesn't improve mental health problems or student satisfaction. this may be a very controversial opinion, but i think a lot of this "whiteness is to blame" is for (usually upper managerial-class) white people who want to feel better about themselves without actually having to do anything truly substantial to alleviate these basic problems
  - bjt2n3904 4y ago
    Self flagellation over false guilt (at best) hints at emotional immaturity, and at worst, deep rooted mental instability. Having someone like that in charge of "diversity" initiatives is like having Fat Albert run a campaign for health and fitness.
goodpoint 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 Spot on!
- onos 4y ago
  Here in USA corporate world it’s very clear that a significant fraction of those into this are “woke washing” over their other bad behavior. Here is the recipe: (1) Stab your employees in the back with one hand to save 100M then (2) donate 1M with the other to a worthy demographic then (3) incessantly talk about your donation ao ensure people stay focused on what really matters here.
joenot443 4y ago
Some girls I went to university with were expelled and effectively had their medical careers ruined at 19 because someone (without their knowledge) filmed them singing a Kanye song at a party and not sufficiently self-censoring. They were on track for med school and never came back to formal education, the DEI student group that lobbied the school for their expulsion was certainly happy though. This was back in Ontario where we now consider the province to have a doctor shortage, ironically. People can be ghouls and will absolutely use frameworks like this to bring down their peers, I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes.
- pannSun 4y ago
  Your experiences are anecdotal outliers. Their experiences are indicative of wider trends in society. /s
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  The story you tell is a sad case of bullying and victimisation. But before you draw any conclusions from it, do watch "The Lives of Others" and research into what happened in the former East German GDR after the wall fell and the Stasi files were opened. You see, the thing about "witch hunts" is this: It depends who is holding the torch. And time waits for no man. In 1992 the files were incomplete paper records. Today, the actions of those teachers and students who colluded to destroy the lives of the girls are still on a server somewhere, indexable, cross referenceable, timestamped. Waiting. What those bullies had better pray for, is that Dr. Martin Luther King was wrong. Because if the arc of history does tend toward justice....
  - joenot443 4y ago
    I'm reading about the Stasi files and the GDR now, thank you for the suggestion. This a very good way of looking at the topic, I hope you're right.
Febra33 4y ago

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.
- strangeattractr 4y ago
  How is ‘decolonising’ maths about defending those students? What are you defending them from?

laputan_machine 4y ago

Kathleen Stock probably begs to differ.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
No doubt, Kathleen Stock is a far more courageous woman than I. But there are different ways to fight battles. Instead of confrontation I don't even need to nudge my students to focus on what is important, for us to safely ignore well meaning do-gooders and direct all our energies into doing actual good. My strategy is letting them become the change I want to see in the world - despite indignant moralising from the sidelines that we are using "white man's maths" to stop black children starving. This week I am working with three women, all obviously > 140 IQs who are the daughters of farmers in Africa. This is their big hope to bring independence to their countries through agriculture and AI. We're using machine learning to identify crop pests and select seeds. That mean using mathematics. But while I am teaching them segmentation and pattern recognition in OpenCV I shouldn't have to worry every day that the department may close, the professors are laid-off and I'll never get to see these girls take back from the colonists what I think the world owes them. Why? because academics can no longer focus on doing their job, well and in good faith. The only dignified response is to smile and get on with your project regardless.
flurg 4y ago
True that. I would say further that, these 'woke' activists who attack women like Kathleen Stock are precipitating the end of their movement. People not well-versed in the ins and outs of gender critical feminism versus trans privileges activism just look at all these masked and balaclavaed males making a huge scene, shouting abuse and threatening violence, and just see a gang of men bullying women who speak up. That these males have bespoke gender identities that apparently make them all marginalized and vulnerable doesn't really register when they're spitting in women's faces and calling them cunts.

bjt2n3904 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 This is prima facie evidence of the socioeconomic disaster you speak of. Colleges flush with money blowing hundreds of thousands of dollars on DEI training and commissars. Funny story, telling people that "whiteness" is to blame for everything doesn't improve mental health problems or student satisfaction. Yes! I'd love to do math, but we're two lectures in, and the professor is still making land acknowledgments... Very satisfying.

andrekandre 4y ago
> Funny story, telling people that "whiteness" is to blame for everything doesn't improve mental health problems or student satisfaction. this may be a very controversial opinion, but i think a lot of this "whiteness is to blame" is for (usually upper managerial-class) white people who want to feel better about themselves without actually having to do anything truly substantial to alleviate these basic problems
- bjt2n3904 4y ago
  Self flagellation over false guilt (at best) hints at emotional immaturity, and at worst, deep rooted mental instability. Having someone like that in charge of "diversity" initiatives is like having Fat Albert run a campaign for health and fitness.

goodpoint 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 Spot on!

onos 4y ago
Here in USA corporate world it’s very clear that a significant fraction of those into this are “woke washing” over their other bad behavior. Here is the recipe: (1) Stab your employees in the back with one hand to save 100M then (2) donate 1M with the other to a worthy demographic then (3) incessantly talk about your donation ao ensure people stay focused on what really matters here.

joenot443 4y ago

Some girls I went to university with were expelled and effectively had their medical careers ruined at 19 because someone (without their knowledge) filmed them singing a Kanye song at a party and not sufficiently self-censoring. They were on track for med school and never came back to formal education, the DEI student group that lobbied the school for their expulsion was certainly happy though. This was back in Ontario where we now consider the province to have a doctor shortage, ironically. People can be ghouls and will absolutely use frameworks like this to bring down their peers, I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes.

pannSun 4y ago
Your experiences are anecdotal outliers. Their experiences are indicative of wider trends in society. /s
nonrandomstring 4y ago
The story you tell is a sad case of bullying and victimisation. But before you draw any conclusions from it, do watch "The Lives of Others" and research into what happened in the former East German GDR after the wall fell and the Stasi files were opened. You see, the thing about "witch hunts" is this: It depends who is holding the torch. And time waits for no man. In 1992 the files were incomplete paper records. Today, the actions of those teachers and students who colluded to destroy the lives of the girls are still on a server somewhere, indexable, cross referenceable, timestamped. Waiting. What those bullies had better pray for, is that Dr. Martin Luther King was wrong. Because if the arc of history does tend toward justice....
- joenot443 4y ago
  I'm reading about the Stasi files and the GDR now, thank you for the suggestion. This a very good way of looking at the topic, I hope you're right.

Febra33 4y ago