5 ms·

Texas A&M university is banning Plato, citing his "gender ideology"

51 points by Geekette 9mo ago

austin-cheney 9mo ago
Just wait until they discover the civilized ancient Greeks were commonly homosexual and even frequently engaged in pedophilia, especially the Spartans.
- antonymoose 9mo ago
  Wait until they discover pure Democracy is mob rule!
  - orionblastar 9mo ago
    Or walkouts: https://ancientromelive.org/seminar-the-mob-crowds-the-people-of-ancient-rome/ https://ancientromelive.org/seminar-the-mob-crowds-the-peopl...
- anigbrowl 9mo ago
  In all seriousness, I assumed that was part of why the US models itself on Rome rather than Greece. Not that there was no homosexuality in the days of the Roman empire, but there was a lot more performative masculinity to make up for it.
  - bell-cot 9mo ago
    Ancient Rome was unified, militarily successful, expansionist, rich, and huge for a fair number of centuries. Ancient Greece? Not so much.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
jonathanstrange 9mo ago
It was entirely predictable that the US alt right Neonazi movement would suppress free speech and academic freedom but it is astonishing how fast they're proceeding with their plans. Jason Stanley and Tim Snyder were right in leaving the US.
bell-cot 9mo ago
One wonders if A&M was ever bothered by the ancient Greeks being slaveholders, or the status of their women (talking cattle), or ...
cluckindan 9mo ago
This was just on the front page and promptly disappeared.
- sapphicsnail 9mo ago
  I posted an article about the same story and it got flagged and taken down. Maybe too controversial?
- toss1 9mo ago
  That is a wrong decision. If anything falls under the core HN guideline, "If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.", it would be this. I do not know how treatment of a founding thinker of Western Civilization in a top school would not be of intellectual interest.
defrost 9mo ago
It's Texas, they'll just ban Pluto's Republic and declare it Mission Accomplished! Addendum: 60 minutes on, no one's questioned the spelling or mentioned a 1960 Nobel Prize winner in biology.
- salawat 9mo ago
  Don't you mean Plato's Republic? Sorry I'm late, but info propagation lag is a bitch.
  - defrost 9mo ago
    Heh. Peter Medawar's Pluto's Republic isn't Plato's Republic but it's title was prompted by people so confidently and blatently incorrect about content and author that they deserved a shoutout.
toss1 9mo ago
So, "conservatives" yell about "preserving western civilization" whilst violating it's core principles of free speech and knowledge inquiry plus banning discussion of a founding thinker of western civilization. Whatever this is, it is NOT conservative, and it shows no modern right wing argument is ever made in good faith or on principle; the yelling is nothing but whatever sounds good at the moment, and the moment it is inconvenient, it changes. They have fewer principles than Vladimir Lenin.
- tstrimple 9mo ago
  > Whatever this is, it is NOT conservative I find it strange that so many people have a desire to rewrite the history of conservatism to turn it into something it is not and has never been. Conservatism has literally never been about a slow and measured rate of change and balancing budgets. Those are only things that liberals care about. Conservatism has always been about finding some "other" to scapegoat for all of your problems and leveraging the government to keep people in their rightful places. Just look at the major initiatives conservatives have taken up over the course of our nation's history. They fought a war against their friends and relatives in order to maintain slavery. They fought against women's suffrage. They fought against civil rights. They fought and are still fighting against gay rights. They are anti-immigration in a nation literally built on immigration. Conservatives have been on the wrong side of history since the very beginning fighting to maintain awful things and spread their cruelty to new targets. Why spend the effort to pretend otherwise?
periodjet 9mo ago
From the original non-blogspam article: > In a statement to the Tribune, A&M said the decision did not amount to a ban on teaching Plato and that other sections of the same course that include Plato – but do not include modules on race and gender ideology – had been approved.
tmaly 9mo ago
This is a slippery slope towards a Fahrenheit 451 type world
DivingForGold 9mo ago
[flagged]
- analognoise 9mo ago
  Hopefully this is satire. It would be a shame if we were gifted such deep cultural gifts and we limit them to turn everyone into zombie engineers, convinced of nothing but profit, as we race to the bottom in a colorless world. Boring.
  - pixelready 9mo ago
    Even if it was meant as satire, I have definitely known a scary number of the people being parodied there. Small, sharp, hard-headed. No poetry in the soul. A person like that just fully doesn’t get the need for college to be a place to become a deep, well-rounded, open-minded person where your understanding of yourself, your fellow man, and the world around you can evolve in leaps and bounds. To the college-as-job-factory folks it is simply a place to install valuable marketplace skills and the student loans are a pure business transaction. I feel the exact opposite, that we as a society should pay for (or at least heavily subsidize) a broad college education so that we put people on the track to being the best versions of themselves before we release them back into the wild world of civilization. I want to work with people driven by a mission, chat with people who are curious and interesting, buy from artisans who are performing a craft with all their heart, live near people who are considerate and kind, and vote with people who have a strong moral core. Liberal arts education is not the only path, but I think it’s one of the ways people hone those qualities in themselves.
  - treetalker 9mo ago
    Not satire, grandparent misuses alumni for alumnus.
ChrisArchitect 9mo ago
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46529257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46529257

51 points by Geekette 9mo ago

Just wait until they discover the civilized ancient Greeks were commonly homosexual and even frequently engaged in pedophilia, especially the Spartans.

antonymoose 9mo ago
Wait until they discover pure Democracy is mob rule!
- orionblastar 9mo ago
  Or walkouts: https://ancientromelive.org/seminar-the-mob-crowds-the-people-of-ancient-rome/ https://ancientromelive.org/seminar-the-mob-crowds-the-peopl...
anigbrowl 9mo ago
In all seriousness, I assumed that was part of why the US models itself on Rome rather than Greece. Not that there was no homosexuality in the days of the Roman empire, but there was a lot more performative masculinity to make up for it.
- bell-cot 9mo ago
  Ancient Rome was unified, militarily successful, expansionist, rich, and huge for a fair number of centuries. Ancient Greece? Not so much.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

jonathanstrange 9mo ago

It was entirely predictable that the US alt right Neonazi movement would suppress free speech and academic freedom but it is astonishing how fast they're proceeding with their plans. Jason Stanley and Tim Snyder were right in leaving the US.

bell-cot 9mo ago

One wonders if A&M was ever bothered by the ancient Greeks being slaveholders, or the status of their women (talking cattle), or ...

cluckindan 9mo ago

This was just on the front page and promptly disappeared.

sapphicsnail 9mo ago
I posted an article about the same story and it got flagged and taken down. Maybe too controversial?
toss1 9mo ago
That is a wrong decision. If anything falls under the core HN guideline, "If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.", it would be this. I do not know how treatment of a founding thinker of Western Civilization in a top school would not be of intellectual interest.

defrost 9mo ago

It's Texas, they'll just ban Pluto's Republic and declare it Mission Accomplished! Addendum: 60 minutes on, no one's questioned the spelling or mentioned a 1960 Nobel Prize winner in biology.

salawat 9mo ago
Don't you mean Plato's Republic? Sorry I'm late, but info propagation lag is a bitch.
- defrost 9mo ago
  Heh. Peter Medawar's Pluto's Republic isn't Plato's Republic but it's title was prompted by people so confidently and blatently incorrect about content and author that they deserved a shoutout.

toss1 9mo ago

So, "conservatives" yell about "preserving western civilization" whilst violating it's core principles of free speech and knowledge inquiry plus banning discussion of a founding thinker of western civilization. Whatever this is, it is NOT conservative, and it shows no modern right wing argument is ever made in good faith or on principle; the yelling is nothing but whatever sounds good at the moment, and the moment it is inconvenient, it changes. They have fewer principles than Vladimir Lenin.

tstrimple 9mo ago
> Whatever this is, it is NOT conservative I find it strange that so many people have a desire to rewrite the history of conservatism to turn it into something it is not and has never been. Conservatism has literally never been about a slow and measured rate of change and balancing budgets. Those are only things that liberals care about. Conservatism has always been about finding some "other" to scapegoat for all of your problems and leveraging the government to keep people in their rightful places. Just look at the major initiatives conservatives have taken up over the course of our nation's history. They fought a war against their friends and relatives in order to maintain slavery. They fought against women's suffrage. They fought against civil rights. They fought and are still fighting against gay rights. They are anti-immigration in a nation literally built on immigration. Conservatives have been on the wrong side of history since the very beginning fighting to maintain awful things and spread their cruelty to new targets. Why spend the effort to pretend otherwise?

periodjet 9mo ago

From the original non-blogspam article: > In a statement to the Tribune, A&M said the decision did not amount to a ban on teaching Plato and that other sections of the same course that include Plato – but do not include modules on race and gender ideology – had been approved.

tmaly 9mo ago

This is a slippery slope towards a Fahrenheit 451 type world

DivingForGold 9mo ago

[flagged]

analognoise 9mo ago
Hopefully this is satire. It would be a shame if we were gifted such deep cultural gifts and we limit them to turn everyone into zombie engineers, convinced of nothing but profit, as we race to the bottom in a colorless world. Boring.
- pixelready 9mo ago
  Even if it was meant as satire, I have definitely known a scary number of the people being parodied there. Small, sharp, hard-headed. No poetry in the soul. A person like that just fully doesn’t get the need for college to be a place to become a deep, well-rounded, open-minded person where your understanding of yourself, your fellow man, and the world around you can evolve in leaps and bounds. To the college-as-job-factory folks it is simply a place to install valuable marketplace skills and the student loans are a pure business transaction. I feel the exact opposite, that we as a society should pay for (or at least heavily subsidize) a broad college education so that we put people on the track to being the best versions of themselves before we release them back into the wild world of civilization. I want to work with people driven by a mission, chat with people who are curious and interesting, buy from artisans who are performing a craft with all their heart, live near people who are considerate and kind, and vote with people who have a strong moral core. Liberal arts education is not the only path, but I think it’s one of the ways people hone those qualities in themselves.
- treetalker 9mo ago
  Not satire, grandparent misuses alumni for alumnus.

ChrisArchitect 9mo ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46529257 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46529257