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Universities these days seem to contain a lot of social gangs, roaming around, looking to see where they can exert power and influence. Generally through outra
by Overtonwindow 4y ago
Universities these days seem to contain a lot of social gangs, roaming around, looking to see where they can exert power and influence. Generally through outrage and cancelling of others. Truly, this is not what university is supposed to be.
- WhatsName 4y agoI too made that assumption before reading the article. But after reading it, that does not seem like making the wealthy the new "woke" nemesis. They much rather seek to uncover institutional corruption, where donations to a college yield better chances for your kid in getting accepted. Let's not kid ourselfs that is not a wild conspiracy or some socialist agenda. Ending corruption is in everybodies interest, except you are planing to yourself profit from that system by making strategic donations in your offsprings interest.
- paulpauper 4y agoI think cancel culture is worse at lower ranking institutions. It's hard to think of any notable recent incidents at top universities. Could be wrong.
- swarnie 4y agoDepends how you want to define "cancel culture" I can think of a few notable examples from arguably the highest ranked university, Oxford.
- yesenadam 4y agoCould you write them or link to them too? Thanks.
- swarnie 4y agoRemoval of the Queen's portrait > Postgraduate students at Magdalen College have voted to remove a portrait of the monarch based on a photograph by Dorothy Wilding, taken in 1952, at the time she was crowned. > The portrait, purchased in 2013 by students to decorate the Middle Common Room (MCR), the room that houses them, has been removed because it was an unwelcoming symbol of the UK's "recent colonial history". Something about slavery, idk > An Oxford University college has decided to keep its statue of a Barbados-born slave owner. > All Souls College has dropped the name Christopher Codrington from its library The concept of audible clapping > Representatives from the Student Union (SU) passed a motion last week to replace clapping with “jazz hands” in hopes that this will make events “more inclusive” and “accessible” for those with the mental health condition. > This comes after the University of Manchester made international headlines for passing a similar motion in September 2018. In general it seems we import a lot of cultural nonsense from other Anglo countries even if its not quite relevant.
- yesenadam 4y agoThank you!
- int_19h 4y agoI don't think it's just imports, though. I remember doing a double take after seeing this: https://archive.fo/XVGA8 https://archive.fo/XVGA8 Granted, there are certainly tankie students in US colleges - but they don't usually run official Twitter accounts of student societies endorsed by the college. It reminded me more of the kind of stuff Orwell was writing about the UK intelligentsia in 1945: "The ordinary people in the street – partly, perhaps, because they are not sufficiently interested in ideas to be intolerant about them – still vaguely hold that ‘I suppose everyone’s got a right to their own opinion.’ It is only, or at any rate it is chiefly, the literary and scientific intelligentsia, the very people who ought to be the guardians of liberty, who are beginning to despise it, in theory as well as in practice. One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist claim that ‘bourgeois liberty’ is an illusion, there is now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It always appears that they are not only those who attack it openly and consciously, but those who ‘objectively’ endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other words, defending democracy involves destroying all independence of thought." So I think there's plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the Atlantic. ~
- mistrial9 4y agoUC Berkeley in particular has embarrassed itself and the legacy of Free Speech by hissing, screaming attacks on several individuals in public, to drown out their voices. Combine that with other very active culture-wars elements (not mentioned now) and this grand institution is now wetting the bed, so to speak.
- analog31 4y agoMy kids are both university students right now. One at the state "flagship" university, the other at a regional campus. I ask them about things that I read in the news about higher ed. Basically, they're aware of this stuff, and have opinions on it, but it hasn't really affected them.
- ffggffggj 4y agoThat’s definitely how right wing media portrays them. The reality is quite a lot more varied and nuanced. You should talk to some undergrads if you can! You may be surprised that things aren’t as you’ve been told.
- mc32 4y agoYep same about police actions. Sometimes they are in the wrong and abuse their power, but for the most part they’re doing their job, but if you listen to the media they’re at war with poor people.
- sidlls 4y agoI don’t need the media to see that. For one, I lived it as a poor person. For another, not being poor anymore, I still see it on a practically daily basis when I’m at the office.
- oneoff786 4y agoThe problem with police brutality is not that it’s commonplace, but that there are no repercussions for it. If blatantly abusive cops were held accountable the issue would not be as problematic.
- int_19h 4y agoI remember back when the PoliceOne forums were public. They eventually made it invite-only because reading that stuff for a few minutes was quite sufficient to reach this conclusion with no media in the picture. Alternatively, if you subscribe to your police / sheriff department FB or Twitter feed or whatever they have, they will often post news about training their staff at such-and-such academy or training center. Looking those places up and reading about what they teach, exactly, can be very illuminating - "killology", for example. And then there's the Fraternal Order of Police...
- mc32 4y agoOh the halcyon days when all we wanted to do was study to get good grades and get out while ignoring the partying and fun by the Greek sisterhood and brotherhood campus orgs.
- sidlls 4y agoSocial and class cliques are a real thing. The so-called networking benefits at elite schools like Princeton and Stanford don’t translate as well or as often to poor students, for example.
- mistrial9 4y agoyour bias is showing here -- guaranteed plenty of elite athletes, intellectual talents, hard workers or charismatic individuals have a whole new life after participating in those places or others.
- Barrin92 4y agoThat's literally what university has been for hundreds of years if not since medieval times. Practically any social movement or organisation of relevance can trace their roots back to an academic society largely from elite schools.