Senate College: Free Exchange of Ideas or Liberals Cancelling Chicken Sandwiches?

College students nowadays in a nutshell (NSFW language ):



Note: The students are clicking because apparently clapping is supposed to be "triggering" to people with PTSD or something along those (I'd just say, "Cut that out! You sound like a bunch of crickets doing that!").

 

No it doesn't.

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What about instances where, due to student protest, Warwick University tried to ban Iranian-born feminist Maryam Namazie from speaking on campus due to here criticism of Islamic treatment of women.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/13/islamism

You can't pretend that this cycle of students causing uproar over a speaker they don't like and then the administration caving demands to this belligerent minority isn't troubling.

 

It is true that sometimes college students are vehemently anti-"what's bad" - i.e. they don't wish to engage in discussion or listen to certain speeches. I'm not sure if some of that is group mentality, immaturity, a fear that listening to the "other" legitimatizes those other viewpoints.

I don't think this is a majority of college students, though, and for some, this is the first time some students have been relatively on their own and they're still discovering their own voice. Sometimes that voice is strident and unaccepting because they are so passionate in their beliefs.

On the other hand, that sounds like a lot of "other groups" - Tea Partiers, for one, who are most definitely not fresh-from-home college students.

In short, there is some sub-group of larger groups that can be intolerant of the expression of other viewpoints, but it's hardly the majority from what I observe.

 

Is J-Rod a grownup version of Anakin Solo Revanchist?

 

timmo, what are people in glass houses advised not to do? Run along and **** up the mechanics of evolution or something.

Hugely troubling, and usually it's the weakest of the proverbial chins with the loudest quivering voices.

 

I don't recall ever ****ing up the mechanics of evolution, but if you want to accuse me of that, feel free I guess.

 

whoosh

 

My experience from earning my B.S. in History and working on my B.A. in Technical Writing here in Kansas, where my first degree senior adviser was on first name basis with Governor Brownback. Take for what you will.

I never experienced the "liberal indoctrination" most critics charged. Most of my professors were, by American standards, a leftist. However, I only knew this by talking to the professors out of the class. I did learn most of my professors, when asked about something outside of their field, would say, "Talk to so and so because that is their area of study." As an example, I have watched On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Infernal Affairs due to Ender Sai recommendation. I am not the Bond scholar or sinophile he is, but I recognize his authority on the matters (yes, Infernal Affairs has the much better ending than The Departed, and this is coming from an american whose last name is Lawrence O'Rear).

I believe that Americans have a hard time admitting a person knows more than they do. When I was in philosophy club my professor would cede the floor to be on historical matters because this was my area of study.

To me, university is about learning a subject, yet recognizing your limitations on other areas. I knew many conservatives and liberals in my time. I did not agree on every subject, but I grew to accept. Despite my loud banging of the bisexual drum, I never had much use for transsexuals until I went to university and met several, realizing they are in the same crap I am.

I found university, despite being deep in Brownbackistan, to be a way of knowing how other people think, regardless of political ideologies. Take this for what you will.

 

I think there's probably a general distinction between blue collar and white collar conservatism.

Here in the UK, blue collar conservatives are generally concerned about reducing immigration and reducing welfare payments to the unemployed, sometimes with a side order of expand the military and tighten law and order.

White collar conservatives are generally far more concerned about things like fiscal policy, taxation and international affairs. Often - and I fall into this boat - with a degree of horror at the policies brought in to cut welfare and immigration.

Seems to me you have something fairly similar over there. Blue collar conservatives want to keep their guns so they can shoot Mexicans and protect foetuses from pervert, leftie teachers. Oh, and invade the ISISes. Kick ass! Yeah! Wooooooooooooo! etc.

 

^^^ As per this, don't people usually tend to be more liberal when they're young?

Regarding the no-platforming nonsense, this comes from students themselves, not from universities. I'm at a university in the UK right now and I remember that last year the university invited a UKIP* MEP to give a talk. In response, students put up posters asking people to help them no-platform this speaker. I'm not quite sure what happened but I think the MEP pulled out at the last moment.

Now there might be marxist politics professors, I wouldn't know as I don't study politics, but in my social circle there were quite a few people holding left leaning views prior to going to university - there were also some holding right leaning views by the way. You might suggest that they got those views from secondary/high school but I don't think that's the case. I don't remember my secondary school being a particularly political place at all. They did teach a politics course at A-level (that's for 16-18 year olds) but the syllabus for that was pretty dry, it was hardly the Communist manifesto.

* For anyone who doesn't know, UKIP (UK Independence Party) are a right leaning party who advocate withdrawal from the EU, cutting immigration etc. They're not all that dissimilar to Donald Trump though, unlike Trump, they aim to appear respectable and sensible, not outrageous and controversial.

 

Yeah, they're not very good at that. This gem from (at the time of filming) a UKIP councillor.




Wish I had footage of their lunatic who blamed the Somerset floods on gay marriage (?!).

 

Oh yes, they're full of loonies for sure.

I don't think there's footage of that guy - according to this article the comments were made in a letter to the local paper.

 

So because I don't like guns, am ambivalent about God, and think sexism is wrong, I'm indoctrinated by the left? Cool.

 

Obviously the OP of this thread sucks and is wrong on several fundamental levels, but there's a lot to be discussed about college here.

Yes, J-rod is wrong, no, no one is being indoctrinated, but we have a lot to discuss about groups of vocally belligerent left wing college students causing problems.

 

Anyone ever read this article? I felt it was pertinent to this thread. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

 

Fascinating article. The points about avoiding anxiety and CBT therapy are particularly insightful.

 

We had a thread about it.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...-warning-trigger-warnings-recursion.50033159/

 

I'm paying a lot of money to send my son to a prestigious private university with an international reputation, and I'm doing it for one reason only: so that he can meet a wealthy woman and marry above his station in life.

 

vivec, they made fun of your fedora. we get it. move past it

 

I'm glad that public university students in Georgia will be allowed to carry handguns to protect themselves from left-wing indoctrination. "NO, I WILL NOT SIGN AN OATH OF ATHEISM" pew pew pew blam blam pew.

 

in my experience, it's the dudes WITH the fedoras doing the bullying. at least on reddit

 

Just re-reading it I really hate how weak people are becoming. There's no resilience, and basically those who have a form of intellectual and social agoraphobia are having the world shaped to their particular lack of coping skills.

Ideas that challenge our own should not denied an opportunity to be voiced. It was objectively wrong for people to shut Germaine Greer out of any public discourse because she holds views that are at odds with modern progressive thought on transgendered women. Allowing her to speak does not alter the level of accuracy of her words; it allows those words to be reasoned with and debated again. "But what if she convinces some people"? Then debate them too, lest you force these views into underground echo chambers like ROK.

Society should not be rounded off at the edges and given padding so the most fragile, least resilient among us can have their days free of any stress. Nobody benefits from this as ideas cannot be fiercely contested. Challenges to orthodoxy can only be mounted if they conform exactly to the sheltered experience of a group of people who are weak and soft. I'm not saying only the strong should dominate, but if the word "violate" in a legal context upsets you maybe that's your problem, not everyone elses.

Oh. Sorry. I invoked personal accountability, and that's not a thing for these people now is it? Boo! Set the Ender afire!

 

The only thing set afire will be rogue's allegation of fedora.

 

Social media is mostly about training people to be even more self absorbed than they already are. Maybe it makes people more fragile when it comes to perceived threats to an identity that was probably badly constructed to begin with. Shrill students trying to shout outspoken professors out of a job is maybe a smaller social problem than the infinite shallowness of Facebook. I dunno.

but I hope you'd agree that there are probably a lot of things that should be rounded off at the edges and given padding.