4 ms·

It takes just a tiny bit of epistemic humility to understand why due process is good and star chambers are bad. It goes way beyond infantilization, you have hav

It takes just a tiny bit of epistemic humility to understand why due process is good and star chambers are bad. It goes way beyond infantilization, you have have to train people counter to the history of Western civilization to make them reject these things. The fact that universities are embracing it should be a giant societal red flag.

alexqgb 11y ago
Exactly. The issue is not the politics or even the personalities involved. After all, these are perennial sources of conflict abd yet they don't invariably produce the awful results seen here. What does produce these results is terrible governance. The "system" described here is a case study in how not to handle dispute resolution. I lay blame squarely at the feet of the demonstrably overpaid "leadership" at Northwestern who allowed these procedures to take root in the first place.
- hoopd 11y ago
  That only works if this issue is isolated to NWU, but it isn't. Members of the social justice movement using claims of victimhood to stifle free speech is a national and in some cases international problem. Since the political beliefs involved are common across cases they becomes a prime suspect. Bureaucracy exists in many of the cases as well, but it's only one tool that this group uses to further their agenda.
  - alexqgb 11y ago
    Sorry, not buying that. Just because the sentiments involve extend beyond Northwestern does not mean the Northwestern needs to accept - and indeed, support - an egregiously flawed system for resolving conflicts. This is a basic sanitation issue. If you run your university that badly, problems like this are a mathematical certainty. The specific set of grievances is immaterial. If it's not one, it will be another.
    - hoopd 11y ago
      So, the university was asking for it?
      - alexqgb 11y ago
        I see where you're going and frankly, it's awful. But since you asked, no, there's no moral equivalence here. The reason why people who get raped, abused, etc. are not responsible for the crimes and assaults committed by others because they have a basic right to walk around freely and securely. However, governments (or people charged with the responsibility for governance) don't have the same right to operate without being targeted by assholes. That's because a major part of their job is dealing with assholes. It is literally what they get paid to do. So unlike people (who are generally not paid to deal with rape threats or worse), the people who are paid to deal with assholes cannot accept their giant salaries then turn around and say "hey, we're subjected a bunch of toxic assholes." This is about as unreasonable as a divorce lawyer getting upset because of exposure to people having distressingly sharp conflicts over irreconcilable differences. Seriously, if you have a problem taking out the trash, don't accept work in waste management.
        hoopd 11y ago
        Professors are supposed to challenge the thought processes of their students so this is more like a trash collector facing lawsuits for dealing with trash in a way that makes a few people angry. It does students no favors to coddle them throughout college instead of preparing them for the real world where nobody cares if it's inconvenient for them to deal with other people's opinions. College is meant to prepare people for the real world. It's morally wrong to subject others to unfair lawsuits, as noted elsewhere in this thread in some jurisdictions it's even codified in law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_%28common_law%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_%28common_law%29 It's not awful for me to point out that I see people who are the victims of morally wrong actions being blamed for what's happening to them. Who's doing the blaming just makes it ironic.
    - A_COMPUTER 11y ago
      The people pushing these things don't think they're bad. It really is an ideological issue.

alexqgb 11y ago

Exactly. The issue is not the politics or even the personalities involved. After all, these are perennial sources of conflict abd yet they don't invariably produce the awful results seen here. What does produce these results is terrible governance. The "system" described here is a case study in how not to handle dispute resolution. I lay blame squarely at the feet of the demonstrably overpaid "leadership" at Northwestern who allowed these procedures to take root in the first place.

hoopd 11y ago
That only works if this issue is isolated to NWU, but it isn't. Members of the social justice movement using claims of victimhood to stifle free speech is a national and in some cases international problem. Since the political beliefs involved are common across cases they becomes a prime suspect. Bureaucracy exists in many of the cases as well, but it's only one tool that this group uses to further their agenda.
- alexqgb 11y ago
  Sorry, not buying that. Just because the sentiments involve extend beyond Northwestern does not mean the Northwestern needs to accept - and indeed, support - an egregiously flawed system for resolving conflicts. This is a basic sanitation issue. If you run your university that badly, problems like this are a mathematical certainty. The specific set of grievances is immaterial. If it's not one, it will be another.
  - hoopd 11y ago
    So, the university was asking for it?
    - alexqgb 11y ago
      I see where you're going and frankly, it's awful. But since you asked, no, there's no moral equivalence here. The reason why people who get raped, abused, etc. are not responsible for the crimes and assaults committed by others because they have a basic right to walk around freely and securely. However, governments (or people charged with the responsibility for governance) don't have the same right to operate without being targeted by assholes. That's because a major part of their job is dealing with assholes. It is literally what they get paid to do. So unlike people (who are generally not paid to deal with rape threats or worse), the people who are paid to deal with assholes cannot accept their giant salaries then turn around and say "hey, we're subjected a bunch of toxic assholes." This is about as unreasonable as a divorce lawyer getting upset because of exposure to people having distressingly sharp conflicts over irreconcilable differences. Seriously, if you have a problem taking out the trash, don't accept work in waste management.
      - hoopd 11y ago
        Professors are supposed to challenge the thought processes of their students so this is more like a trash collector facing lawsuits for dealing with trash in a way that makes a few people angry. It does students no favors to coddle them throughout college instead of preparing them for the real world where nobody cares if it's inconvenient for them to deal with other people's opinions. College is meant to prepare people for the real world. It's morally wrong to subject others to unfair lawsuits, as noted elsewhere in this thread in some jurisdictions it's even codified in law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_%28common_law%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barratry_%28common_law%29 It's not awful for me to point out that I see people who are the victims of morally wrong actions being blamed for what's happening to them. Who's doing the blaming just makes it ironic.
  - A_COMPUTER 11y ago
    The people pushing these things don't think they're bad. It really is an ideological issue.