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I think the intent is to reduce the politically leftward trend in universities, as well as the fact that not all viewpoints are presented anymore. Universities

I think the intent is to reduce the politically leftward trend in universities, as well as the fact that not all viewpoints are presented anymore. Universities used to be billed as a "marketplace of ideas". Also, the hermeneutics used for interpreting literature on the fringes in the 1980s are now mainstream -- students aren't learning the methods of interpretation used everywhere in the west up until the turn of the century.

colanderman 1y ago
Or one can view it as the increasing intellectual vacuousness of ideas on the "right". (In quotes because the dividing line between left and right itself has shifted rightward over the years.)
- alabastervlog 1y ago
  This isn’t new. Buckley is the best they could manage in the entire last century or so, and that’s… not a great high water mark.
  - TimTheTinker 1y ago
    What about Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton, Dorothy Sayer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or Josef Pieper? These were in fact some of the intellectual greats of the 20th century. Like many today, they wouldn't necessarily closely identify with "the right" as much as they'd disagree with and argue against the current ideology of the left.
    - wredcoll 1y ago
      Tell me more about your seances with tolkien and lewis. Where did you have them? What's their favorite foods these days? Are they well?
      - TimTheTinker 1y ago
        Many authors poured their mind into their works such that simply reading their books makes it possible to know them pretty well. If you haven't tried it, I strongly suggest it :) Since you called out Lewis -- one of my favorites is his The Abolition of Man and its narrative counterpart That Hideous Strength. They describe in exquisite, arguably prophetic detail many of the evils of the modern left, particularly how it has ushered in a progressive downfall of society through institutionalized lies.
        wredcoll 1y ago
        The irony of you citing a work that critiques placing "subjective emotion over objective moral truths" and attempting to apply it to the "modern left" is almost physically painful. You and everyone like you owe so much of your current life to the modern left that your ingratitude is astounding. The very computer you're using to send your words to me is a product of science and rational thinking that you seem to abhor.
        TimTheTinker 1y ago
        One of the central problems of left-wing ideology is placing (or more accurately, weaponizing) subjective emotion over objective truth, moral or otherwise. I'm sorry if that's painful to hear, but it is true. > science and rational thinking that you seem to abhor. What did I say that gave you that impression? Au contraire. Modern life, science, rational thinking -- these are not products of left-wing political, moral, or social ideology, not even a little bit. I'm curious how you arrived at that viewpoint, which is incoherent. Perhaps that which is not currently right-coded is leftist to you, but political coding is a disparate concept from the propositions upon which worldviews are built.
        wredcoll 1y ago
        You brought up the right-left dichotomy, I'm just following your lead. It's undeniable that, right now, the right wing is anti-intellectual and anti-science. They constantly seek to censor speech, defund research and privatize public goods. Where's a prominent politician saying "no actually, we should keep funding public research"? Or defending free speech? They're awfully quiet on the matter. Frankly, I don't know how to define "left wing ideology", I've yet to hear anyone give a particularly good definition, but if we assume that what people who self-identify as right wing hate and fear is considered to be left wing, then it seems like I'm in favor of most of that. Gender/transgender is a trivial subject to demonstrate the point. People thought "male" and "female" was a super specific binary that was trivial to separate people into. Then people did Science and found out it was considerably more complicated and closer to a spectrum with people crossing over at various points. Now look at which group of people is rejecting that research by calling it a lie and shouting loudly and which group of people are changing their world views.
- dani__german 1y ago
  As far as the "left", one need only consider the ideological rigidity around the topic of transvestites to see that specific, thoughtful, deep, data driven, and evidence based rhetoric is abandoned in favor of not hurting the feelings of a group of people prone to threaten harm to themselves for political and social gain. Don't ever forget that the left cant clearly articulate what a woman is without resorting to circular reasoning.
  - wredcoll 1y ago
    This is probably pointless to reply to, but for anyone else reading this: For starters, the current right-wing hate campaign is targeting transgender people, not transvestites since the latter simply means people who wear clothing associated with the opposite gender, which is quite common in right-wing circles. Aside from that silliness, let's highlight the "specific, thoughtful, data driven, evidence based rhetoric" that is "not hurting the feelings of a group of people", as if "hurt feelings" were all that has happened. Also, hurt feelings matter. Humans are our feelings. They're who we are and what we are. People be hurt in a large variety of ways and they're all bad. It's trivial to demonstrate that non-fatal gash on your body is considerably less worse than being, say, ostracized and outcast from the community you grew up in. On a related note, why is "the right" so obsessed with defining what a woman is? What are the data driven and evidence based rhetorical reasons for coming up with a rigorous and definitive definition of woman? The idea that evidence or logic is involved in any of this is laughable. Edit: Nobody can come up with a good definition for what a planet it is either, but somehow we manage to stagger onwards.
    - jl6 1y ago
      Well, the evidence is that when males and females compete against each other in sport, the males tend to win, so if you think womens' sport should exist, then you need to define who is included and who is excluded from that category.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
wredcoll 1y ago
I don't understand why "rightward" viewpoints need affirmative action in the form of government regulations?
- dudefeliciano 1y ago
  because they would otherwise fail in the "marketplace of ideas" among educated people
- FloorEgg 1y ago
  That's very reasonable. Viewpoints are essentially grounded in actions, and actions are grounded in values or ways of being. Values are acted out by individuals and groups through a relative hierarchy, and generally guide which actions are taken. People generally consider what's true to be what works, and what works is relative to what action is being taken, and what action is being taken depends on the persons underlying values. Because almost all of the universities' leadership has shifted far to the left side of the US political spectrum over the last 50 years, there is now a hostile environment to many right leaning values. You can argue that this was natural and that right leaning values are worse, but that would be unwise. There is good and bad in everything, and it's not helpful to over generalize. The reality is that there are both "good" and "bad" values on both sides of the political bias, but even that is probably too generalized. What makes a value good or bad is contextual. Some values are more helpful in certain situations or environments than others. Even more important is that values don't naturally exist on one spectrum... The idea of "right" and "left" values is artificial. So while I agree that the constriction of values being supported within universities is unhealthy like a stool that's had three legs chopped off, the idea that top down authoritarian enforcement on these organizations is the solution is somewhat terrifying. Scary times.
  - wredcoll 1y ago
    > Because almost all of the universities' leadership has shifted far to the left side of the US political spectrum over the last 50 years, there is now a hostile environment to many right leaning values. You can argue that this was natural and that right leaning values are worse, but that would be unwise. There is good and bad in everything, and it's not helpful to over generalize Good lord that was a lot of words that said very little. I'll try to be more concise and take an actual position: there's no such thing as a leftward shift, it's just people adopting the good ideas and abandoning the bad ideas.
intended 1y ago
how dare people slander the right like this. Are you saying you can’t make a right leaning argument without government help? The right should have pride in their selves, and build their own universities, if not their own realities!
- wredcoll 1y ago
  Sounds like "The soft bigotry of low expectations" to me!
feoren 1y ago
> not all viewpoints are presented anymore. Universities used to be billed as a "marketplace of ideas". That's true. Universities no longer present the viewpoint that black people are inferior to whites and deserve to be slaves. They no longer present the viewpoint that human health comes from the balance of the four humours. They no longer present the viewpoint that women are the property of their fathers/husbands. They no longer present the viewpoint that nature is fundamentally made up of earth, aire, fire, and water. How dare they abandon these ideas and still call themselves a "marketplace of ideas"! Hypocrisy!
- FloorEgg 1y ago
  Indulging in your blatant straw man argument for a moment, what if discussing these ideas and the downsides of them to society helped the world transition away from them faster and minimized the chance of backslide? There is nothing wrong with discussing bad ideas, especially with students that aren't familiar with them, if done responsibly, with respect for the student, and facilitation of critical thinking. This attitude that certain topics or ideas are taboo and shouldn't ever be acknowledged or discussed because they are bad is a big part of what is increasing extremism and pushing America to the brink. It's authoritarian, and it makes the nation more fragile, not stronger.
  - feoren 1y ago
    Is this an example of "one strawman deserves another"? You know that when GP talked about "presenting a viewpoint", he didn't mean "as an example of a bad idea that nobody should believe". He meant he wants alt-right talking points parroted to everyone because he's upset that reality has a liberal bias. You know this. You also know that I'm not suggesting outlawing the discussion of slavery in its historical context, but simply saying that universities have no obligation to make a case for failed and abhorrent ideas in the name of "diverse viewpoints". Why are you pretending like you don't know this already?
    - FloorEgg 1y ago
      Your First Comment: "That's true. Universities no longer present the viewpoint that black people are inferior to whites and deserve to be slaves." Your Later Comment: "You also know that I'm not suggesting outlawing the discussion of slavery in its historical context, but simply saying that universities have no obligation to make a case for failed and abhorrent ideas in the name of "diverse viewpoints"." I am not American, Republican or even politically right. I am not your enemy. Please try and take the most respectful interpretation of what I am saying. Your first and second comments I quoted above contradict each other. The straw man I was referencing in your original post is how you pointed to the worst examples of "right" values. I indulged the examples you shared by stating even in those cases those ideas need to be explored fully in order to understand why they failed, so they are not repeated. I understand you are not advocating for these discussions to be outlawed, and I agree! I also don't advocate for these discussions to be forcefully imposed! However I do think that schools have evolved their curriculums to such an extent that many of these ideas are not adequately analyzed or represented within the programs offered, and the consequence is that it makes society weaker and more susceptible to the ideas resurfacing. Also, I honestly don't know who GP is that you are referring to. I also don't know who you are, what you believe, or what you meant beyond the words you wrote in that one comment. I am not pretending anything. Just trying to point out how avoiding discussing certain ideas (by deliberately excluding them from curriculums), just because those ideas are "bad", is a problem that will have big long-term consequences, including the resurgence of those "bad" ideas (because the education system didn't inoculate people against them). In your original comment that I responded to, it sounded like you were saying universities shouldn't discuss these ideas (including their subjective historical-context-dependent merits or correlated beliefs) at all. Now it sounds like you are saying that's not your stance. That's fine, you clarified your stance. It's not helpful to assume that I should have known this was your stance all along and that I am pretending not to.

colanderman 1y ago

Or one can view it as the increasing intellectual vacuousness of ideas on the "right". (In quotes because the dividing line between left and right itself has shifted rightward over the years.)

alabastervlog 1y ago
This isn’t new. Buckley is the best they could manage in the entire last century or so, and that’s… not a great high water mark.
- TimTheTinker 1y ago
  What about Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton, Dorothy Sayer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or Josef Pieper? These were in fact some of the intellectual greats of the 20th century. Like many today, they wouldn't necessarily closely identify with "the right" as much as they'd disagree with and argue against the current ideology of the left.
  - wredcoll 1y ago
    Tell me more about your seances with tolkien and lewis. Where did you have them? What's their favorite foods these days? Are they well?
    - TimTheTinker 1y ago
      Many authors poured their mind into their works such that simply reading their books makes it possible to know them pretty well. If you haven't tried it, I strongly suggest it :) Since you called out Lewis -- one of my favorites is his The Abolition of Man and its narrative counterpart That Hideous Strength. They describe in exquisite, arguably prophetic detail many of the evils of the modern left, particularly how it has ushered in a progressive downfall of society through institutionalized lies.
      - wredcoll 1y ago
        The irony of you citing a work that critiques placing "subjective emotion over objective moral truths" and attempting to apply it to the "modern left" is almost physically painful. You and everyone like you owe so much of your current life to the modern left that your ingratitude is astounding. The very computer you're using to send your words to me is a product of science and rational thinking that you seem to abhor.
        TimTheTinker 1y ago
        One of the central problems of left-wing ideology is placing (or more accurately, weaponizing) subjective emotion over objective truth, moral or otherwise. I'm sorry if that's painful to hear, but it is true. > science and rational thinking that you seem to abhor. What did I say that gave you that impression? Au contraire. Modern life, science, rational thinking -- these are not products of left-wing political, moral, or social ideology, not even a little bit. I'm curious how you arrived at that viewpoint, which is incoherent. Perhaps that which is not currently right-coded is leftist to you, but political coding is a disparate concept from the propositions upon which worldviews are built.
        wredcoll 1y ago
        You brought up the right-left dichotomy, I'm just following your lead. It's undeniable that, right now, the right wing is anti-intellectual and anti-science. They constantly seek to censor speech, defund research and privatize public goods. Where's a prominent politician saying "no actually, we should keep funding public research"? Or defending free speech? They're awfully quiet on the matter. Frankly, I don't know how to define "left wing ideology", I've yet to hear anyone give a particularly good definition, but if we assume that what people who self-identify as right wing hate and fear is considered to be left wing, then it seems like I'm in favor of most of that. Gender/transgender is a trivial subject to demonstrate the point. People thought "male" and "female" was a super specific binary that was trivial to separate people into. Then people did Science and found out it was considerably more complicated and closer to a spectrum with people crossing over at various points. Now look at which group of people is rejecting that research by calling it a lie and shouting loudly and which group of people are changing their world views.
dani__german 1y ago
As far as the "left", one need only consider the ideological rigidity around the topic of transvestites to see that specific, thoughtful, deep, data driven, and evidence based rhetoric is abandoned in favor of not hurting the feelings of a group of people prone to threaten harm to themselves for political and social gain. Don't ever forget that the left cant clearly articulate what a woman is without resorting to circular reasoning.
- wredcoll 1y ago
  This is probably pointless to reply to, but for anyone else reading this: For starters, the current right-wing hate campaign is targeting transgender people, not transvestites since the latter simply means people who wear clothing associated with the opposite gender, which is quite common in right-wing circles. Aside from that silliness, let's highlight the "specific, thoughtful, data driven, evidence based rhetoric" that is "not hurting the feelings of a group of people", as if "hurt feelings" were all that has happened. Also, hurt feelings matter. Humans are our feelings. They're who we are and what we are. People be hurt in a large variety of ways and they're all bad. It's trivial to demonstrate that non-fatal gash on your body is considerably less worse than being, say, ostracized and outcast from the community you grew up in. On a related note, why is "the right" so obsessed with defining what a woman is? What are the data driven and evidence based rhetorical reasons for coming up with a rigorous and definitive definition of woman? The idea that evidence or logic is involved in any of this is laughable. Edit: Nobody can come up with a good definition for what a planet it is either, but somehow we manage to stagger onwards.
  - jl6 1y ago
    Well, the evidence is that when males and females compete against each other in sport, the males tend to win, so if you think womens' sport should exist, then you need to define who is included and who is excluded from that category.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]

wredcoll 1y ago

I don't understand why "rightward" viewpoints need affirmative action in the form of government regulations?

dudefeliciano 1y ago
because they would otherwise fail in the "marketplace of ideas" among educated people
FloorEgg 1y ago
That's very reasonable. Viewpoints are essentially grounded in actions, and actions are grounded in values or ways of being. Values are acted out by individuals and groups through a relative hierarchy, and generally guide which actions are taken. People generally consider what's true to be what works, and what works is relative to what action is being taken, and what action is being taken depends on the persons underlying values. Because almost all of the universities' leadership has shifted far to the left side of the US political spectrum over the last 50 years, there is now a hostile environment to many right leaning values. You can argue that this was natural and that right leaning values are worse, but that would be unwise. There is good and bad in everything, and it's not helpful to over generalize. The reality is that there are both "good" and "bad" values on both sides of the political bias, but even that is probably too generalized. What makes a value good or bad is contextual. Some values are more helpful in certain situations or environments than others. Even more important is that values don't naturally exist on one spectrum... The idea of "right" and "left" values is artificial. So while I agree that the constriction of values being supported within universities is unhealthy like a stool that's had three legs chopped off, the idea that top down authoritarian enforcement on these organizations is the solution is somewhat terrifying. Scary times.
- wredcoll 1y ago
  > Because almost all of the universities' leadership has shifted far to the left side of the US political spectrum over the last 50 years, there is now a hostile environment to many right leaning values. You can argue that this was natural and that right leaning values are worse, but that would be unwise. There is good and bad in everything, and it's not helpful to over generalize Good lord that was a lot of words that said very little. I'll try to be more concise and take an actual position: there's no such thing as a leftward shift, it's just people adopting the good ideas and abandoning the bad ideas.

intended 1y ago

how dare people slander the right like this. Are you saying you can’t make a right leaning argument without government help? The right should have pride in their selves, and build their own universities, if not their own realities!

wredcoll 1y ago
Sounds like "The soft bigotry of low expectations" to me!

feoren 1y ago

> not all viewpoints are presented anymore. Universities used to be billed as a "marketplace of ideas". That's true. Universities no longer present the viewpoint that black people are inferior to whites and deserve to be slaves. They no longer present the viewpoint that human health comes from the balance of the four humours. They no longer present the viewpoint that women are the property of their fathers/husbands. They no longer present the viewpoint that nature is fundamentally made up of earth, aire, fire, and water. How dare they abandon these ideas and still call themselves a "marketplace of ideas"! Hypocrisy!

FloorEgg 1y ago
Indulging in your blatant straw man argument for a moment, what if discussing these ideas and the downsides of them to society helped the world transition away from them faster and minimized the chance of backslide? There is nothing wrong with discussing bad ideas, especially with students that aren't familiar with them, if done responsibly, with respect for the student, and facilitation of critical thinking. This attitude that certain topics or ideas are taboo and shouldn't ever be acknowledged or discussed because they are bad is a big part of what is increasing extremism and pushing America to the brink. It's authoritarian, and it makes the nation more fragile, not stronger.
- feoren 1y ago
  Is this an example of "one strawman deserves another"? You know that when GP talked about "presenting a viewpoint", he didn't mean "as an example of a bad idea that nobody should believe". He meant he wants alt-right talking points parroted to everyone because he's upset that reality has a liberal bias. You know this. You also know that I'm not suggesting outlawing the discussion of slavery in its historical context, but simply saying that universities have no obligation to make a case for failed and abhorrent ideas in the name of "diverse viewpoints". Why are you pretending like you don't know this already?
  - FloorEgg 1y ago
    Your First Comment: "That's true. Universities no longer present the viewpoint that black people are inferior to whites and deserve to be slaves." Your Later Comment: "You also know that I'm not suggesting outlawing the discussion of slavery in its historical context, but simply saying that universities have no obligation to make a case for failed and abhorrent ideas in the name of "diverse viewpoints"." I am not American, Republican or even politically right. I am not your enemy. Please try and take the most respectful interpretation of what I am saying. Your first and second comments I quoted above contradict each other. The straw man I was referencing in your original post is how you pointed to the worst examples of "right" values. I indulged the examples you shared by stating even in those cases those ideas need to be explored fully in order to understand why they failed, so they are not repeated. I understand you are not advocating for these discussions to be outlawed, and I agree! I also don't advocate for these discussions to be forcefully imposed! However I do think that schools have evolved their curriculums to such an extent that many of these ideas are not adequately analyzed or represented within the programs offered, and the consequence is that it makes society weaker and more susceptible to the ideas resurfacing. Also, I honestly don't know who GP is that you are referring to. I also don't know who you are, what you believe, or what you meant beyond the words you wrote in that one comment. I am not pretending anything. Just trying to point out how avoiding discussing certain ideas (by deliberately excluding them from curriculums), just because those ideas are "bad", is a problem that will have big long-term consequences, including the resurgence of those "bad" ideas (because the education system didn't inoculate people against them). In your original comment that I responded to, it sounded like you were saying universities shouldn't discuss these ideas (including their subjective historical-context-dependent merits or correlated beliefs) at all. Now it sounds like you are saying that's not your stance. That's fine, you clarified your stance. It's not helpful to assume that I should have known this was your stance all along and that I am pretending not to.