The beautiful state of Washington, my native home and still home to many of my family members, has some people ready to enact some major legislative stupidity. David Horowitz was a right-wing nut who was making noise a few years ago with his witch hunt for evil leftists (Hi, Michael!) and his promotion of an Academic Bill of Rights, which was basically a ham-handed attempt to force academia to grant special privileges to intellectually bankrupt ideas, all under the guise of “fairness”. The Washington bill reeks of that familiar stench.
This bill aims to impose the ideological biases of ignorant politicians on the curricula of the state’s universities. It claims to be about “intellectual diversity,” but it’s really about stripping intellectual responsibility from the hands of professors. You can read the whole thing, but as an example of the kind of superficial promises the bill wants to make, but which do little more than corrupt the integrity of the classroom, look at this clause:
Develop a procedure in which a student may present his or her objection to a classroom assignment due to its opposition with the student’s conscience.
What, exactly, is a student’s conscience here? Well, if a UW biology professor tries to demand her students understand the mechanisms of evolution, a creationist student could formally demand accommodation for his beliefs. A chauvinist in a feminist history class could demand a better grade for his paper claiming that women have been oppressing him because they keep turning down his demands for dates. Basically, it throws the doors wide open and allows students to turn their subjective, poorly formulated, or even falsified “objections” into legitimate excuses to subvert the classroom…which is exactly the intent of deranged ideologues like Horowitz.
I know some Washington state residents read this blog. Get on the phone or email to your representatives and tell them that SB 6893 is a disaster in the making and that they better not support it. In particular, if your rep is on the Committee on Higher Education (which contains two of the sponsoring senators, unfortunately — Shin and Delvin) make sure to voice your displeasure and let them know that anyone who supports this abomination of a bill is no friend to higher ed.
An almost identical bill (HB 2600) has been introduced in the Oklahoma Legislature and has already received strong opposition from the Oklahoma American Association of University Professors, Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education and other organizations. These Horowitz inspired attempts can be expected in other states as well. All college administrations should come out strongly against this crap. The reporting requirement of the bills is also an unfunded mandate.
Damn it, no. I am entirely sick of this idea that students should never be exposed to anything they might object to. That’s the point of education, to expose you to things you would not have otherwise sought out. I want Horowitz to explain how doing an assignment can somehow injure a student. The only way this could ever be an issue is if the student were to have to do something more active than research and writing; for example, there was a case awhile back in which students not only had to write a letter to their congressperson advocating a particular cause, they were also supposed to mail it. Mailing it crossed the line into activism of something they might not agree with, but the actual writing of the paper was an exercise in taking a viewpoint and researching its issues. I couldn’t assign students to become prostitutes for a week and write about the experience, but I certainly could assign them to research and write about prostitution.
Exposure to ideas is not harm.
Even if you disagree with them.
Actually, doing homework is against my conscience.
So I guess… I could be freed of all of them? Yes?
Great, another state sinking into the quagmire of
safeguarding a person’s right to their unassailed demented
conscience over matters of religion and gender assertiveness. Good grief, is the whole country heading
for a massive breakdown due to all these unsettling
human foibles? Why don’t we just shut down everything on
the planet and sit around and let the morons gods do all
the work and planning? “Hey, I’m not going to that; my god
will do it and whenever it freaking feels like it”
How about a monstrous planet-wide intelligent designed
tornado to sweep the whole crap right out in to deep space.
The chair of the poli sci department at my alma mater obliterated Horowitz’s sham bill in a debate two years ago. Horowitz was reduced almost to tears, and was left quite speechless. There’s an MP3 available if you click the link from my name below–it’s worth checking out.
Way too stupid. What does this BS mean anyway? If a history class discusses the Reformation wars, can a student skip it because they are a pacifist, don’t believe in killing, and claim conscientious objector status?
Same with evolution. Students must know the subject. Whether they believe it or not is no business or concern of the university.
Same with a polysci class in terrorism. No one who takes the class would be expected to become a terrorist.
In classes, students are expected to know the subject. They are not required to believe the subject or believe in it. No school can require or force belief, only knowledge.
What is a guy with a name like David Horowitz doing promoting fundie Xian wingnut causes anyway?
Something a bit strange here.
For fucks sake! Facts are not debatable you dumbasses! Leave the colleges alone!
What is with this demand to stick their fingers in their ears and go Nuh-uh!
Damn this is getting retarded.
-A pissed off cat.
Oy, why won’t Horowitz just go away? I’m so sick of this conservative persecution complex.
As Carlie so pithily points out, exposure to different ideas will not harm a person. Likewise, a great many people have also remarked that hey, if your world-view or faith cannot hold up to mere exposure to different ideas, or general discussion, then there’s not much to it to begin with.
Dear student_b:
Sure, just quit university and get a job. *poof!* no more homework. You will be happier, and so will the staff and students who need the space vacated for someone who wants to be there.
Am I taking your comment too literally? Perhaps. But I have also spent years in college environments (in a variety of roles) and am tired of people whining about how being expected to actively learn things and do assignments is work and unnecessary hardship. Neither you nor anyone else has to be there.
On the flip side, I have spent years tutoring students, include those with various learning or other disabilities, and am heartily against the foolishness of some professors who mistake simply making things hard on students for challenging them, or who believe that “flunk-out classes” are a sign of academic excellence instead of an indicator of poor teaching. I get especially annoyed by those who use the idea of “being fair” to refer to equality and equity but refuse to accept the fact that fairness is also about accommodating different needs.
What a fucking crybaby.
Why do these shitstains insist on going to school if they hate learning so much?
Isn’t there Liberty College for those whose “consciences” require them to remain ignorant.
Why do they have to infect state universities with their stupidity, too?
I wouldn’t think the dumbing down process stops at High school.
The right fought back hard against the advances made in the sixties and seventies, and are winning.
Now they’re fighting back against the even remotest possibility that people might actually come together with their cultures and still live.
That is unacceptable.
The power brokers need you to be dumb.
The power brokers need you to be scared and they need you to be divided, not debating, divided.
Thanks for a great and timely post. I live in Seattle and teach at UW, but somehow had not yet heard about this bill.
I greatly appreciate the links you posted, which made it ludicrously easy for me to find and simultaneously e-mail all 3 of my district representatives about my opposition to this bill.
Horowitz isn’t looking for academic freedom, he’s searching for jobs. A degree from Christian U (if accredited) will place you on the forefront in an exciting career in fast food management. Bush appointees aside, these folks are pissed that their expensive degree is a sham and the money was tossed down a drain.
Horowitz is setting up wingnut welfare. You think Monica Goodling likes the free market value her JD has? Far better to be an academic, one that flits between government, academia, and business. Especially with the tenure. Can’t be fired for being stoopid or lazy.
Once Reagan policies made Christian U’s accredited, there was a surplus of graduates from these schools. They have to go somewhere. Before the bozos simplly cried in their beers at the local plant about how unfair the academics were. Well, no plant to work at and still the diploma mills churn out the students.
Please someone tell me this isn’t the same lovable Consumer advocate (“Fight Back”) David Horowitz with absolutely no sense of humour and an endearing sense of collective justice!
Pleeeeaaase and thank you!!!
(feeling a bit ripped off actually)
I would foresee this being used by students going through their college hippie phase. Gotta avoid all those icky dissections of the poor little piggies and whatnot.
This bill, and ones like it, smack of the current ploy by the religious wrong to wedge their way into schools and academia, which is to claim the right to diversity of point of view. Failure to comply is intolerance and censure. This, coincidentally is the same ploy employed by Ben Stein in his delusional “Expelled” movie. I smell a trend, as if this is orchestrated. Creation “Science”, Intelligent Design, “Teach the debate”, “Protect Free Thought (even if it’s delusional)”. Nice, consistent progression.
I would put this in the Obama thread, except that it’s so far down that I’m worried it’s mostly dead. It’s almost worth having its own thread.
Yes We Can music video(by numerous artists)
I’m so proud that one of my fave professors, H. Bruce Franklin, made Horowitz’s list. That means he’s doing a good job.
Unintended consequences!
Get ready for even more anti-deer-hunting essays in Freshman Composition class! Take that, conservatives! (I’m not a hunter at all, but still. Zzzzz.)
Does this also mean that we get to shout “Asshole!” and throw rice and toilet paper at the screen during Ben Stein’s interminable narration in Expelled? I mean, this whole back-to-the-Bi-bull movement is its own Time Warp. Dammit, Janet!
And yet, the Christian Right don’t seem to care that with what progress they’ve already made, the US’ educational system is already an international dark joke.
I’m having trouble even figuring out where this would apply.
Learning about evolution? No. One is required in some classes to understand the theory of evolution. Whether one believes it or not is not required.
Setting up graven images of other gods and worshiping them? What class was that?
Witchcraft? Is that in the family studies department?
The barbacueing a pig class? Presumably vegetarians, Moslems, and Jews wouldn’t take this class which, in any case, doesn’t exist except at cooking schools.
A class in fundie Death Cult beliefs? I could see objecting to this one. OTOH, these are certainly required at private Xian fundie schools but I have no intention of enrolling at Bob Jones, Oral Roberts, or Liberty.
A class in torturing suspects? Won’t the CIA and the military object? In any case, my university didn’t offer one.
This bill looks like a nonsolution looking for a problem to solve.
Shouldn’t be all that hard to create a procedure for those (let’s not call them students) whose consciences are offended by an assignment:
17A-m32: (i) A person who claims that her/his conscience is offended by a class assignment may, at her/his option, (1) do the assignment nevertheless; or (2) accept an immediate “F” in that class, (which grade shall be used in calculating the person’s GPA). (ii) A person whose conscience is offended a second time, and who chose option 17A-m32(i)(2) in the first instance, shall forthwith leave the university and shall, upon leaving, forfeit all fees and tuition due the university. Such persons shall forever be barred from collecting unemployment insurance or welfare in this State.
Does this mean someone can object to a teacher setting an assignment on the holocaust on the basis that, if it never happened according to what they think, they shouldn’t have to do it?
I’m gonna head right out to Washington and get me a PhD in math. Should be easy since I’m a conscientious objector to math homework and exams.
I wonder if I can get a discount on tuition since my professors won’t be able to actually teach me anything.
Hmm, starting to sound more and more like church. All sizzle; no steak.
I think you are missing the biggest idiocy of the legislation:
“1 (c) Establish campus policies that ensure speakers are not
2 prevented from speaking due to hecklers or threats of violence;”
By the squid, this seems to run counter to what a student might consider, “acting in good conscience”. Now, I’m not advocating violence, but heckling? I think if there was more heckling during any one of W. Bush’s State of the Union Addresses a lot of things might never have happened.
Before that the legislation says there must be a diversity of speakers and panels. I recall not so long ago that some liberals were talking about equal time on radio and television, and the righties were up in arms about the whole thing. And Horowitz was on FOX NEWS NETWORK (fairly unbalanced) to criticize the whole idea. Well call me an elitist but that sounds like hypocrisy.
We may be a free country and all but I’ve never heard that we have to obey the whims of an individuals conscience in an educational setting. That would require a professor has knowledge about every aspect of a subject in case a student objects on the basis of conscience. What might this objection entail? Who knows? But you better know how to answer it. The onus isn’t on the student to show something as ephemeral as “conscience”, but the professor to answer it. In short, classroom chaos.
Cool! I’ve donated money to Derik Kilmer’s (vice chairman) campaigns for years, and now I’ll get to see how far that three hundred bucks goes. I also know Tim Shelton, the chairman of the committee (jerk, but he can be persuaded).
This warrants an actual letter!
BTW Horowitz can bite me.
The hypocrisy of the Right, who long decried political correctness but are now promoting campus speech laws, is truly staggering.
“1 (c) Establish campus policies that ensure speakers are not
2 prevented from speaking due to hecklers or threats of violence;”
So someone could go and read from The God Delusion outside the campus church and be protected by law??
:o)
The beautiful state of Washington,
Grotesquely marred and disfigured by the Discovery Institute. Their reality distortion field has corrupted any pleasant associations I might have had.
Hmmm…
I can imagine such assignements:
A teacher once tried to force my kids to sing Xmas carols.
Ok. I am a WA citizen, and I just emailed my rep, expressing my concern.
Raven @7,
What is a guy with a name like David Horowitz doing promoting fundie Xian wingnut causes anyway?
Indeed: Horowitz, and Dennis Prager, and Ben Stein, and I’m sure there are others. Hofjude (“Court Jew”) is an ugly term, but sometimes ugly shoes fit.
At least the original Hofjuden, back in the day, had an excuse. It pleased the Christian bigots of the time to bar Jews from all professions but money-lending — and then they complained that the Jews were usurers!
That procedure already exists at every university:
1) Student tells professor s/he shouldn’t have to show learned knowledge of X because such content conflicts with student’s narrow sectarian religious interpretations.
2) Professor says tough shit, that’s the content of the class.
3) Student walks to admin office, withdraws from class, is more careful to discover course content before enrolling next time/transfers to university that spoon-feeds dogma instead of teaching facts.
You don’t have to be a liberal to see that Horowitz is a nut. He actually had the gall to accuse a anti-racist activist of being an anti-black racist simply because said activist supported affirmative action, yet Horowitz also has featured on his magazine articles by actual white supremacists such as Jared Taylor. Also, there’s this whining of his about “liberal academia”. Hey Dave, if you really wanted more intellectual diversity, why not encourage more conservatives to study hard and join academia? It would be more productive than simply accusing liberal intellectuals of bias.
Indeed: Horowitz, and Dennis Prager, and Ben Stein, and I’m sure there are others. Hofjude (“Court Jew”) is an ugly term, but sometimes ugly shoes fit.
I don’t think they’re necessarily selling out if that’s what you’re implying. Keep in mind that much of the woo attributed to Christianity is also in the Jewish religion. Everything in the first five books of the Bible (creation, the Exodus, some genocides, and draconian laws) constitutes one of the holy books of Judaism, the Torah. Therefore, I don’t think it’s too counter-intuitive that Jewish fundies in mostly Christian nations might form alliances with the more powerful Bible-thumpers against common enemies such as Muslims, liberals, and atheists.
I love how you talk about “fundies” as if they are a feature of the right. Fundie is a cute term for a fundamentalist and you can get fundamentalists of all stripes. You P.Z. are a fundamentalist of the left, and I don’t know how you can act like there are rightwing nutjobs and then there are sensible people like you.
As far as universities go. Because they are entrenched with your particular brand of fundamentalism then you see nothing wrong. Why, that’s just normality.. Rubbish.
We already have a procedure like that at the colleges here in Iowa. Here it’s called “be a grown-up and drop the class if it bothers you so damn much”.
ArgusEyes,
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
Biological Science and the teaching of TOE has continually borne the brunt of attacks by religious fundamentalist as being not only against their consciences but that as being false.
So assumed political leanings of academia aside I would venture that Dr. Myers more than has both the reason and the right to express his opinion about any statement as idiotic as Horowitz’s.
Fernando Magyar. That was an argument from authority as far as I can see. And I am not talking about religion, but now that you mention it when it comes to scientific issues such as evolution people on the left are generally absolutely correct.
When it comes to social issue such as race and sex (P.Z. used the strawman of a mysoginist in a feminist class himself) then people on the left are generally absolutely wrong, just my opinion, but when I criticise feminists I use logic, not my dating record.
What I am arguing here is that sensible centrist people must ignore the fundies on both sides no one of them has the absolute truth on everything, I.E. not left fundies are not right on everything and the right fundies wrong on everything or vice-versa. This is also known as the principle of the golden mean or the bhuddist principle of the middle way. The middle is the path to truth, not the extremes on either side.
I love how you talk about “fundies” as if they are a feature of the right. Fundie is a cute term for a fundamentalist and you can get fundamentalists of all stripes. You P.Z. are a fundamentalist of the left
If P.Z. is a “fundamentalist of the left” (whatever that means), you, sir, are a fundamentalist of misogyny. Seriously, anyone who proudly proclaims his opposition to “feminism” (which according to my dictionary merely calls for equality between men and women) is a self-admitted sexist. Now why don’t you move to Saudi Arabia or some other feministically challenged country instead of trolling biologists’ blogs?
Geoff@#16:
Not to fear. Wikipedia sez the your beloved David Horowitz of FightBack! fame was born two years earlier than this knuckledragging David Horowitz. I was thinking the same thing. How long was that show on? Like, maybe, 4 months? In 1985?
Also, has anyone thought how this legislation would be a boon to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? I could get out of any science labs, because I would just say the results only represent the wishes of the FSM, not an illustration of any physical laws.
Also (again) why is the state legislature passing laws on the administration of their universities? It seems like grossly innaproppriate micromanaging of a system that has its own proper bueracracy. I’d think it would be possible to object to this on those grounds alone, before you even engage the issue.
The middle is the path to truth, not the extremes on either side.
The middle is not the path to anything except intellectual laziness.
As far as universities go. Because they are entrenched with your particular brand of fundamentalism then you see nothing wrong. Why, that’s just normality.. Rubbish.
Ever wondered why intellectuals (aka learned people) tend not to espouse racist and sexist views like yourself? Think about it and you’ll probably find a good answer. Here’s a hint: “liberal conspiracy” does not count as a good answer.
Horowitz: “The earth is flat! And just 6,000 years old! Science is the enemy! STOP SAYING I’M WRONG!”
Myers: “Dude, you’re fucked up.”
ArgusEyes: “Middle path, people, middle path. STOP SAYING HOROWITZ IS WRONG!”
ArgusEyes, Crikey I’m already late for work but let me try to clarify. My point was that a Professor of Biology at a US University is in a position to be able to recognize what Horowitz’s ilk are attempting to accomplish, which is to pass legislation that will undermine the raison de etre of the academic process itself. And regardless of his political leanings he should speak out loudly about such an attack. I won’t disagree that there are people on both sides of the political divide that are fundamentally (no pun intended) blind to reality. However I don’t think that is the case here.
I’m a centrist and that argument seems as ridiculous as Horowitz’s to me. If you actually believe the nonsense you’ve written you’re a fundamentalist of the center and, by your own logic, sensible non-centrists like PZ should ignore you.
Myself, I tend to believe a centrist is just as likely to full of crap as anyone else. Also, any random pair of centrists will likely disagree with each other as often as they agree so the notion that the center is some unique path to truth is silly on its face. Hillary Clinton and the editors of Reason magazine are centrists, but they would agree on practically nothing.
You also ignore the very obvious fact that sometimes the conventional wisdom is dead wrong and extremists are absolutely correct. I think we can all agree it’s a good thing sensible centrist people didn’t ignore fundie extremists like MLK or Susan B. Anthony for instance.
ArgusEyes PZ was clear in his feminist example. So ArgusEyes explain yourself and use specifics.
Having the strength of your convictions because there is every sane, sensible, and, more importantly, reality based factual reason to hold them is not fundamentalism, nor is holding a personal opinion because you weighed and balanced things as objectively as you can to came to a conclusion for yourself. Fundamentalism as thought of on this blog I believe relates to the holding and promoting nonsense regardless of the utter lack of evidence for holding and promoting the nonsense. Fundamentalism is especially odious to those of us that would like to enhance understanding, knowledge, and usefulness of actions toward useful purposes. Intellectually honest people acting honestly and thoughtfully can come to different conclusions especially when the conclusions are really just meant to be further hypotheses. And such honest people can come to different conclusions for themselves simply because value systems can be different. I may like a flashy car; you may not. Jane might get an abortion; Mary may not (even though Mary may be much more voraciously pro-choice politically speaking than Jane).
Again, what we react to negatively is the application of fundamentalism (holding and promoting the nonsense). So again please be specific and tell use where and when PZ has held and promoted nonsense.
I do agree by the way that there are fundamentalists (fundamentalism) right and left, etc. Yup comes in all flavors. Do not quite catch that wave re: PZ though. Assist me; as the older woman said “where’s the beef?”
And PS — the earth is flat – the earth is round.. therefore the correct answer is it is hamburger shaped .. I mean using your middle is the path to truth argument. It has merit in negotiations, you know the old win-win scenario, but facts dictate (or should dictate) where conclusions fall in science and other disciplines of a rigorous nature — and yes it is often very one-sided.
The middle is the path to truth, not the extremes on either side.
I wonder what the Nazi middle path would look like? Only 3 cremas at Auschwitz?
I wonder how this bill would effect such Washington institutions as:
The Catholic University of America
or
Faith Evangelical Seminary (a Lutheran training college)
Would they have to allow the teaching of Islam, atheism, pro-life issues etc?
Dom @51,
good point. Horowitz really needs to carefully study the text of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Unless, of course, the Republicans succeed in packing the benches with godly and non-activist judges to dismiss complaints from the wrong sort of people.
BTW, I’ll go way out on a limb here, but it’s just possible that the CUA would, perhaps grudgingly, permit the teaching of “pro-life” issues.
If that’s a typo for pro-choice, though, then not so much. IIRC they disinvited the actor Stanley Tucci to give a speech when they learned Tucci is pro-choice. If that’s how they react to an entertainer appearing at what is, essentially, a student-sponsored entertainment event, I think they might have issues with giving equal time to pro-choice views in the Moral Theology seminar. But as I say, as long as there are plenty of judges like Scalia and Alito who are like, totally non-outcome oriented, CUA should be fine.
I agree that granting students the authority to challenge classwork based on philophical, religious, political or other personally held positions is a real problem. Teaching evolution with some students in the class being biblical literalists is a great case in point. That being said, I also have a real problem with postmodernism as applied to history, anthropology, many other disciplines in the humanities, and of course, science; indeed, almost any discipline outside of literary criticism. The Sokal affair, and Gross and Levitz’s “Higher Superstition” point out just how bankrupt are the ideas, and how disingenuous the applications, of this academic movement (and I’m thinking of the GI tract here). There has to be some way for people throw the BS flag when warranted.
My son is an atheist. The symbol for atheism (right now on many of the atheist blogs) is a stylized letter ‘A’. So could my son explain that anything but an ‘A’ interferes with his beliefs?
As usually happens when I debate left wingers some pretty horrible insults have been chucked my way in fact I used to be insulted by these things until they became part of a de-facto response to people (oh, I’m a racist again am I – yawn). I don’t like to spend too much time on this but when one is attacked they must defend. I am English, and atheist (the worst kind – the ones who say God definitely doesn’t exist which is not a centrist opinion is it?), I support abortion, was raise catholic, have a science degree, love science, defend evolution and scepticism to death. I’m not trying to egg up my credentials but to chuck stuff out there without knowing me is lame.
On insufferable evilness -> There are the standard ones. Racist and sexist. Well, I didn’t say anything about race so I would like to know where that one came from, Brandon P said that so explain yourself you liar.
Feminism -> Brandon P again, says I oppose feminism. Liar. I said “but when I criticise feminists I use logic” verbatim. I didn’t say I oppose feminism, I oppose SOME feminist ideas. And this is what I’m getting at, it’s all or nothing to the fundamentalist you have to accept it all and can never admit that you’re wrong. Seriously dude, you’re a douche. Stop hurling hideous insults at people on the internet.
On Strawmen -> The idea that a centrist must literally sit in the middle of ALL views is a strawman argument, a strawman is a twisted parody of the arguers original argument. This strawman is perpetuated by people citing scientific examples, e.g. I must exactly between flat earthers and round earthers is absurd. Science comments on what is true. There is only one truth. Politics is far from science.
It doesn’t mean that I can’t hold a particular view with passion. It merely means that I know that I am not right on everything and I accept that whilst feminists may be right about many things that they are also wrong about many things. They do, after all, represent only a certain viewpoint. The fundamentalist will deny that other views may be valid, will not accept any criticism of feminism and attack those who disagree with vile accusations and bile. Case-in-point. Brandon P.
Feminism -> Brandon P again, says I oppose feminism. Liar.
This is from your own home page:
This blog and all accompanying videos represent my values. These values roughly fall into the following groups:
Men’s rights
Science
Atheism
Anti-fundamentalism
Anti-political correctness
Anti Feminism
In other words, you said yourself that you’re opposed to feminism. Now, what is feminism? From the dictionary:
the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.
In other words, by calling yourself an anti-feminist, you have admitted that you are opposed to granting equality for women relative to men. That makes you a sexist, and since you denied it despite explicitly stating that you are anti-feminist on your own website (which you linked to, more than once), you have a lot of gall to call me a liar.
There are the standard ones. Racist and sexist. Well, I didn’t say anything about race so I would like to know where that one came from, Brandon P said that so explain yourself you liar.
This is what you said earlier:
When it comes to social issue such as race and sex (P.Z. used the strawman of a mysoginist in a feminist class himself) then people on the left are generally absolutely wrong, just my opinion, but when I criticise feminists I use logic, not my dating record.
We liberals are the ones who fight against racism, in case you haven’t noticed. Anyone who thinks that is “absolutely wrong” is racist.
Nobody can parody your original argument, because you haven’t actually made a coherent argument. If by ‘the middle is the path to truth’ you actually meant ‘the middle is sometimes the path to truth,’ then you’re going to have to establish that this is one of those times.
I second Justin’s (#5) recommendation to listen to the debate. Steinberger does a great job exposing Horowitz for what he is.
On the middle path argument: if I can’t decide whether to live in England or the USA, should I compromise by treading water in the mid-Atlantic?
I admit, I am one of those professors who Horowitz has gone after – one who has opined on topics not relevant to the course subject. However, I am not (yet) on his list. I have been meaning to send him a letter ratting myself out to him, because I belong there.
A couple of years ago, when I was teaching an Organic chemistry class, I said something about “this is what you could do while reading the comics in the school newspaper.” That is fine. But THEN, I went over the line, as I lamented, “And speaking of that, why did they take out ‘Rubes’? That was the best comic they had!”
(Rubes is a paler version of Far Side by Leigh Rubins – it’s not bad, far better than the other crap in our paper)
It had nothing to do with Organic Chemistry, but oh yeah, I went there.
Come and get me, Horowitz! I am providing my opinion on topics unrelated to the subject in class! It’s WRONG, I tell you, WRONG…
(btw, how is what I did any less wrong than if I commented on politics?)
Shorter Myers:
“Debate in classrooms is fine if I and my intellectual brethren are not in control. If we ARE in control, then debate is verboten.”
Arguseyes…you again. I met you on ERV. Misogynist Troll.
Argoseyes, you mention fundamentalism. I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Face it, you just want professors to be the only ones permitted to share their subjective, poorly formulated opinions, or even falsified “lessons”.
(I’m teasing, mostly.)
Trey from comment#17, if you don’t have some kind of pang of conscience about whether there is utility in killing any fellow mammal, or at least *see why others might*, you seriously need to go take yourself some ethics classes. Or at least visit a pet store.
I think there is a valid role for students to question individual assignments (for a variety of reasons). I think it can enrich the learning process rather than “subverting it”. I think most good professors welcome that kind of input (if offered respectuflly) anyway. But I agree a law like this could result in highly ridiculous outcomes.
Great post PZ! The Washington State bill is something we’ve been following, and we’ve gotten word today that the bill was pulled from it’s committee’s schedule and is effectively dead. Hooray!
Shorter Nobody:
“unless you let people like me with no clue wax nonsense related or unrelated to the subject matter you are not playing fair because we are so out-matched when it comes to facts and reason and intellectual honesty”
Another dense one. You don’t get to “debate” evolution because it conflicts with your religious beliefs.
Re: #38
Unsubstantiated claim. Provide supporting evidence.
Many great Universities are “Christian” universities. BYU is a great university and is “nominally” a Christian University. Sure, there’s the whole “Mormon thing” you’d have to deal with (though they do take non-Mormons), but they’re one of the best all-around universities west of the Mississippi. Their incoming student population is top-notch and they’ve got some great programs.
For example, when it comes to business education, where their religious beliefs don’t hold back the program, they’ve got one of the best (especially accounting, my discipline, where they are the best program in the US now) programs in the United States. Let’s face it, ranking 8th is right up there with Ivy League. And, believe me, when a kid from BYU is your competition for a job, you don’t dismiss him at all, because he’s got a gold-plated diploma and you better be top-shelf or you’re not getting the job.
Now, there are disciplines where they’re weak because of their religious restrictions on academic freedom, or areas they’re not overly-concerned with. They do not give the same level of academic, or personal, freedom as do public universities. But that’s the prerogative of religious colleges and you’d be a loopy as David Horowitz to think otherwise.
But to casually dismiss religious colleges out because there are diploma-mill useless ones like ORU or Liberty… Well, frankly, there are a lot of those kind of colleges that aren’t “religious,” like National University in San Diego (if it’s still in business), California Southern University, Alberdeen University, San Diego Pacific University, Kent College, Madison University, etc., etc.
I teach allied health professions at a Community College. This term, I have an older student who has proclaimed in class, among other things, that:
MRSA in UK hospitals is the result of socialized medicine.
Antibiotics do not exert selection pressure on bacteria; that is evolution, which is one of several theories, only a theory, and is rejected by many scientists.
Viability begins at conception, and early termination of pregnancy is not an acceptable option when dealing with hypereclampsia. Physicians and staff that participate in this should be jailed.
I put forward the basic structure of a socialized medicine system, as posited by conservatives, when he agreed, I illustrated for the class that the VA medical system fit all of the characteristics. Point to teacher.
I led the class in a discussion of proper use of terminology, very important as they develop into health care professionals. What is a theory? What is a hypothesis? What is proof? Is evolution an unproven hypothesis, or a robust theory? Point to teacher.
I haven’t yet addressed his third statement. Next fall, in the neonatal advanced course, perhaps.
The “conservative” student’s response to all this was to criticize the tenure process, the lack of control that the college can exert over tenured faculty, and the power of the “Teachers Union mafia” over education. Horowitz be damned; now I have his talking points to deal with, too.
Pass a law like the one proposed in Washington, and we have the potential to turn out a therapist who doesn’t acknowledge the science that underlies his profession. I’ll have to entertain his “’cause God did it” explanations for physiologic development of the fetus, and not give test questions about viability of a neonate, because, after all, life begins at conception. I’ll have to entertain his comments regarding health care systems and structures, and watch as he benefits from the very system he denigrates. All so that I don’t offend a student’s conscience.
What in the name of Elvis ever happened to college as a place to challenge your preconceptions, and maybe gain an understanding of self, your role and place in a larger society, and if you’re lucky, get a glimpse at understanding a small part of a very large world?
If I didn’t love reaching out to and teaching those who question me from a factual perspective, and relish the arguments…
So Tom Tancredo’s kid or grandkid can sign up for Spanish and insist on speaking only English?
Barklikeadog, ArgusEyes is also spreading inanity on Phil Plait’s blog. I suspect that there’s a reason that he only uses logic to debate feminists instead of his dating record. One he almost has experience in.
Oh, boy! An idiot was sent to entertain us all! Woohoo!
I hate to break it to you, sugar butt, but that’s a load of fundamentalist bull-crap. One side can be wrong.
There was a Holocaust. There are deniers. There is no middle path.
There is evolution. There are deniers. There is no middle path.
The Earth is not the center of the universe. There (sadly) are still deniers. There is no middle path.
I’m a Washington resident, and I was unaware of this idiocy (there’s so much nowadays, it’s hard to sort through it all). Thanks. I’ll let my representatives know.
Aw, poor little fundie kiddies, having their minds blown by evilutionists. Spare me.
I took a required Humanities class in college — a public institution, no less — where we were required to read stories from the bible. I didn’t believe word one of those stories, and made the reasons for that very clear in class discussion — which, by the way, was the first time someone threatened to kill me, coming from a Good Christian, of course. But I wasn’t about to demand an alternative assignment because it offended my delicate sensibilities.
You know why? Because my worldview isn’t so fragile that a crazy-ass fictional story is going to lead me to question everything I believe. However, when you live your life accepting an elaborate lie as, quite literally, gospel truth, you can understand why they would object so strongly to exposure to more reasonable viewpoints.
This is, I believe, an admission that Horowitz and his ilk don’t believe that anti-science fairytales can hold up to the slightest scrutiny even in their adherents’ minds. I’ll take it as an admission of the weakness of credulous faith, in which case I’m embarrassed for him for admitting that in public.
#1 vhut. Thank you for making me aware of Oklahoma HB 2600. I read the text of the bill. It is an evil bill because the language is so vague. It’s most disturbing provisions require an annual report. I’d like to see a better analysis of this bill.
Search for Wesselhoft, Oklahoma, and HB 2600 and you’ll come up with it. I know how tempting it would be to include the word jackass with Wesselhoft but that won’t do the trick.
To Brandon P.
“In other words, you said yourself that you’re opposed to feminism.”
Good catch, that one shocked me a little bit as well. It was ages ago that I wrote that. I wouldn’t put my views in quite that way now and I should probably update that. I’m telling you now what I believe. Right? Also, if you’ll watch some of those videos you’ll never see me advocate less rights for women. I disagree with some of the ideas of feminism. If you ignore me telling you what I believe and instead harp on those couple of words then those are the actions of someone who is closed to discussion and who has demonized people who has disagreed with him, the actions of a fundie.
Also being anti feminist is not necessarily sexist the reason you see that is demonstrated by your next statement
[“Now, what is feminism? From the dictionary:”]
To interject ever so quickly, the dictionary is a tool don’t let it replace thought.
[“the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.”]
Well your dictionary is wrong. I’m pretty sure that this is the Christian “a creation must have a creator” argument. Feminism is about equality therefore to be against it must mean to be against equality. Bzz! Wrong.
I believe these things but would not call myself a feminist. Why not? You have an answer because your mind is closed. It’s because I’m sexist (seriously you guys need better responses than to insult people). Wrong. The feminist movement is a complex thing spanning time periods and waves, I disagree with many of the ideas of modern feminism. To sum it up as merely “believing in equality of women”. Brandon, we all believe in equality, I know you think that we don’t but we do.
Do the feminists get to define what they are? No. I image David Irving would describe himself as fighting for truth but we don’t let him get the last word do we? We define people by their actions and there are a lot of problems with feminism. What is equality? Is it equality of outcome or equality of opportunity? I would say the latter whilst feminists would probably say the former, thus say their actions anyway.
You’ve probably not though about it in depth but it’s complicated and you should put down the dictionary and watch my videos and get an education. But continually calling me sexist won’t cut it anymore.
[“In other words, by calling yourself an anti-feminist, you have admitted that you are opposed to granting equality for women relative to men. That makes you a sexist, and since you denied it despite explicitly stating that you are anti-feminist on your own website (which you linked to, more than once), you have a lot of gall to call me a liar.”]
I’ve pretty much been over all of this. Inferring that the dictionary definition and a quote mine you come to an assurance that I blatantly said something I didn’t. This is fallacious thinking wrong at the very first premise.
I am reminded of when I used to be a demonstrator in second year physiology labs. In the first term we used a lot of cane toads. Students would occasionally opine to me that they objected to taking apart the brain dead but still sort of functioning toad because they were against animal experimentation (why were they doing physiology then?). I would reply that cane toads were dangerous vermin in Australia (where we got them after one of the many coups in Fiji) and they were doing the environment a favour by being responsible for the demise of one of them (half really, they worked in pairs). Their Green credentials invariably won out.
So the answer is to challenge them with another fondly held tenet, like freedom of speech.
(Un-named public university in Washington State)Western Civilization I: Mid-Term Examination Essay Question:
Approximately 2000 years ago, a small, despised offshoot of a small, despised religious sect began to operate at the Eastern edge of the Roman Empire. Its leader was ignominoiously executed. About 300 years later, it was the official religion of the Roman Empire. After the fall of the Empire, it was the most powerful institutional force in Europe for several centuries. How did this happen?
Answer of Student X:
Because Christianity is the true religion and God willed its triumph.
Grade: F
Now what?
ArgusEyes, above:
ArgusEyes, over at Bad Astronomy:
The propounded cure is surely no better than the disease, but be sure that there is a disease to be discussed. Oh that it could be cured. I was a political philosophy student in the mid-70s. The vast majority of the faculty still wore their SDS-esque support proudly and, after being berated and marked down a few times for suggesting that a bit of skepticism be directed towards their assumptions and a bit of critical thinking directed towards some of their conclusions, I quickly adapted and said and wrote what I knew they wanted to hear. I also found a professor who saw things differently (it was easy then — there was only one and he still wore a suit to class) for guidance and support, did well, and headed off to law school. PC-purity appears to me to be a far bigger problem in academia than anywhere else. Free speech is great, but if its content doesn’t toe the party line look out. How many “shout-down” demonstrations (so-called) have been undertaken by the Left and directed at a speaker they simply didn’t want to be heard?
(man I need to spell-check these things before they go on).
MartinM. Copy and paste won’t work you actually need to explain something – I know you think it’s obvious but not all people think so.
What’s the deal? Don’t you think that only talking about women when being a women will give others a bad view of you. If you’re only interested in that then how are you objective?
Would you give the presidency to David duke? Or to David Irving? Hillary is a sexist by the proper definition. She is the real deal. She runs women-centred events and campaigns, she makes statement proposing the moral superiority of women over men (the truth of this is not what we’re discussing). How is she not called a sexist but I am for claiming that feminism has problems (it would be a ridiculous statement to testify to the contrary – all movements have problems). It’s because it is a prominent meme that sexism is something that men do to women only and that women are still under trodden in some way. My message of self-empowerment that women have the opportunity to do what they want is not appreciated to the victim demahogues of the left like you.
Check out the political makeup of the people in the education system — 80 to 90% range from extreme leftists to Stalinists. The modern PC movement is a direct frontal attack on the First Amendment and comes from the left. Look at speech codes on colleges and universities. Russ Feingold authored a direct assault on the First Amendment in elections via McCain Feingold.
Google the work of Harvey Klehr to see the the American history profession is hard left. Klehr has direct evidence of the extent educators are under influence of communism.
From:
http://www.raleighspyconference.com/news/news_11-07-05.aspx
Klehr:
Among historians, there was widespread support for the idea that that American government had vastly overestimated the threat of Soviet espionage. The convictions of Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were widely regarded as miscarriages of justice. The charges by Elizabeth Bentley that dozens of government employees had given her secret data to turn over tot he Russians were derided as the unsupported ravings of a deluded alcoholic. President Truman’s imposition of a federal loyalty-security program was attacked as an unjustified intrusion on civil liberties. Fears of reds hiding under beds unleashed by liberals like Harry Truman, it was alleged, had contributed mightily to Senator McCarthy’s ability to demagogue the Communist issue.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, this simplistic version of an American history in which national security fears were merely the pretext for an attack on civil rights and liberties began to lose ground. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, previously closed Russian archives began to open to scholars. I was the first American to gain access to the previously closed files of the Communist International and the CPUSA itself, located in Moscow, in the summer of 1992. Although I was originally far more interested in issues of the CP’s political activities in America, I unexpectedly began to come across documents marked top secret being sent by a man named Pavel Fitin that contained the names of employees of the United States government who had been accused of being Soviet spies by Elizabeth Bentley, a defector from Soviet intelligence back in the late 1940s. It was interesting enough that these documents were labeled top secret; what was even more fascinating was that Fitin was head of the KGB’s foreign intelligence branch and that his memos were dated from 1943 and 1944- long before Bentley went to the FBI. That meant they were not reports on her testimony. Because the archivists had not realized that this material was in the files or its significance, I was able to take the microfilm copies out of the country. In The Secret World of American Communism,
So Horowitz is only seeking to mitigate Marxism in academia. Washington has a long history of leftist influence …check out the Everett Massacre so it is great to see not everyone there think Marx points the way to the future.
I have said, for years, that their opposition to science and critical analysis of their religious beliefs is a sign of their lack of faith. This is lack of faith, compounded by a secondary issue with their inherent anxiety that their children will end up with their fragile faith (or even none at all), goes a long way in explaining their constant persecution of science and “heresy.”
Thats for the links, I am writing to my reps right now.
Derek Kilmer (vice-chair) is my rep. I will be emailing him this afternoon. I’ve never been much for being involved with government. Seem like a good place to start.
I thought that this procedure was already in place. Office hours are a great opportunity to discuss all sorts of objections.
I remember once when I approached a professor with a problem with an analysis of historical events he insisted on. We agreed that I could write a longer paper that also compared and contrasted the professor’s analysis with my own. I learn a lot writing that paper and he learned learn a few things reading that paper. We were both better because of it.
Google the work of Harvey Klehr to see the the American history profession is hard left. Klehr has direct evidence of the extent educators are under influence of communism.
Oh, for frak’s sake.
The Soviet Boogeyman is dead and gone. Other than useful talking points, “Communism” was relevant in the Soviet Union only in that it was under that pretext (along with a heaping helping of Lysenkoism) that their industries and agriculture were decentralized to the point of crippling inefficiency – beyond that, it was old-style Russian Imperialism as resurrected by former White Russian Joey Stalin after switching sides in the war and then leaving an authoritarian legacy that they couldn’t shake off.
Joey McCarthy was not a crusading American Savior who died for our sins, he was just another egotistical authoritarian meathead with delusions of grandeur who was miffed that Fascism was something he couldn’t take credit for creating.
Chris said…. #1 vhut. Thank you for making me aware of Oklahoma HB 2600. I read the text of the bill. It is an evil bill because the language is so vague. It’s most disturbing provisions require an annual report. I’d like to see a better analysis of this bill.
Search for Wesselhoft, Oklahoma, and HB 2600 and you’ll come up with it. I know how tempting it would be to include the word jackass with Wesselhoft but that won’t do the trick.
It certaintly wouldn’t defer him (Representative Jackass) but, and it’s a BIG but living in Oklahoma, we could vote him out of office. Unfortunately I don’t live in his district. The bill won’t get passed anyway. It’ll fall dead like the rest. BTW, Vic is a GREAT watchdog. Thank you Dr. Hutchison. OU nutured my growth & I am grateful.
If these jeebers would leave academia alone and focus on the workplace this thing could have promise.
If I could just find a religion that abhors silicon as the Devil’s Crystal Lattice, why, I could duck out on 90% of my job and still demand full pay. Or better yet, I wonder if there are any religions that have a thing about copper?
Bill, you need to update your Demonology. And read a current newspaper. It is 2008, not 1955. McCarthy has been dead for decades. Communism is all but dead. The soviet union collapsed a decade ago. The Eastern Europeans are now capitalists and many have joined NATO. The Chinese outcapitalism us, sell us lots of cheap stuff, and keep us afloat by owning $1 trillion in US treasury bonds.
The current Demons are UFO/Alien Abductions, Moslems, terrorists, and scientists.
The current Demons are UFO/Alien Abductions, Moslems, terrorists, and scientists.
Almost, Raven. You forgot homosexuals, illegal immigrants, and people who’ve actually read the writings of the Founding fathers.
ArgusEyes, above:
But continually calling me sexist won’t cut it anymore.
OK. How about dickhead too?
But seriously, what does your misogyny have to do with the subject at hand? Go make another video and rant on your own blog, moron. Yes I’m calling you names. Find another soapbox.
“There are some things we don’t want to know, important things!” –Ned Flanders
This bill, quite simply, legitimizes such attitudes and establishes them as organizing principles of state supported higher education. That’s a bit of a problem.
Thanks for the heads up, PZ. I live in Washington had have contacted my senator.
As an educator and Washington resident, I have contacted my legislators in regards to this matter, and I am fortunate enough to be friends with one of them in the House. Hopefully we’ll see the proper action taken on this bill.
Funnily enough Arguseyes website seems to be unavailable just now.
Now, now.
If Horowitz is good for nothing else (and I think he is), he does provide occasions for innocent merriment.
Go Diebold!
Oy, they already ransacked our highschool education, now they want to do violence to our universities. Fantastic.
*Puts on his civic duty pants.* Well, none of my reps (District 3) are on the higher education committee, but they’ll hear about it nonetheless.
Faculty are leftists and socialists?
Yeah, right. All those socialists who are taking advantage of IPOs, business partnerships, business grant money, stock options and so forth…..
And all those businesses who are using higher ed as business incubators, et al…Must be in cahoots with the socialists and communists…
Arguseyes gets to redefine “feminism” as anything he doesn’t like.
I get to redefine “Arguseyes” as a poopy-head.
Bill the Troll, et al
I have been to many institutions of higher learning. From Harvard to the local Community College. I would agree with the assumption that most professors are left-leaning. Something about IQ, life experience, and having been really poor. As far as the rest, I’ve yet to meet any Stalinists outside of Rove/Cheney/Bush.
email sent! I checked the response box so we’ll see what they write back.
Re: cjg @ 66
Good news, of course, but do you have a source you for that that you would be willing to share? I’d love to read more.
This bill, by the way, has its own RSS feed on the WA state legislature site at:
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/SummaryRss.aspx?bill=6893
Alas, this feed does not currently list any history on the bill beyond the mention of its first reading.
ArgusEyes spewed
Physician, heal thyself.
You P.Z. are a fundamentalist of the left, and I don’t know how you can act like there are rightwing nutjobs and then there are sensible people like you.
Bad grammar aside, this is a completely null and void argument. The so-called ‘fundamentalists of the left’ are merely expecting facts to be taught in classes. Period. You don’t get to ignore materials because you don’t ‘believe’ them despite overwhelming evidence of their existence.
If you are so dishonest as to think that ignoring what you don’t want to believe in a class is some sort of academic freedom, I’d suggest you sit in on an elementary school class and see how well it goes over when you say you shouldn’t have to learn how to do math because you beleive 2+2=5.
You right-wing fundies are a hoot indeed.
From one of my reps, Fred Jarrett, I received this back:
“Thank you for your note regarding SB 6893. This bill remains in the Senate Higher Education committee and appears to be dead for this session.”
Didn’t say what he thought of it, though…should I be worried about that?
David Horowitz is essentially trying to revive all the justifications that are used during cultural revolution in china. The difference is only in scale. As in cultural revolution, the professors are not idealogically pure, must be purged. Students, who are idealogically pure has the authority and duty to purge these professors. These student bill of rights and 101 most dangerous professors, he sounds not too different from some red guard.
“The so-called ‘fundamentalists of the left’ are merely expecting facts to be taught in classes. Period.”
But we’re not always talking about what are clearly facts, but rather interpretations of facts. When I took an economics class (circa 1975) the (proudly Leftist) prof aggressively asserted that congressional Republicans and those who might have the audacity to agree with them were idiotic for complaining about the size of the federal budget deficit because, based upon the appropriate measure — percentage of GDP — the deficit was essentially insignificant. Today, an economics professor making that same argument would likely be perceived as a Bush apologist. Shouldn’t a student have the ability to challenge a professor’s interpretation of the facts (in my example, what the appropriate measure of whether the deficit is a problem should be and what the data means) without fear of ridicule or reprisal so long as the challenge is offered in good faith and adequately supported? In my view the answer is obviously yes, but far too few professors (in my experience) have the assurance and grace to handle such a challenge well and to avoid punishing the student simply for making it.
I just got an email from my State Rep., and she says the bill is dead. Couldn’t get a hearing in the State House.
A lot of time crap like this bill will get introduced as a favor to a constituent, and left to die in committee. It’s a cheap and easy way to get a nut off your back.
Ah, the classic response of the intellectually lazy.
The path to truth is the one paved with evidence, and sometimes that path leads to an extreme.
MRSA in UK hospitals is not the result of socialised medicine (read: allowing poor people into hospitals instead of leaving them to die in the gutter). It is the combined result of a corrupt National Health Service farming out cleaning work to whoever says they can do it the cheapest, overworked front-line clinical staff (who are considered by management as less important than administrative staff) literally not having time to wash their hands or change their clothes, and ignorant (perhaps not having seen any scary “They only come back stronger!” public information films, the making of which is considered less important than reality TV programmes or a new set of tyres for the manager’s Porsche) patients not finishing their courses of antibiotics.
As for the middle path always being right, this is a complete phallacy and trivial to debunk. If one person says “2 + 2 = 4” and another person says “2 + 2 = 5”, does that mean that it would be reasonable to suppose that 2 + 2 = 4.5?
There’s a whole philosophical book with the title “The truth does not lie in the middle”.
You know, Tycho Brahe proposed a middle path between the geocentric and the heliocentric model. (It consisted of the outer planets orbiting the sun and the inner planets and the sun orbiting the earth.) It was wrong. The heliocentric model is right, “despite” being an extreme.
There’s a whole philosophical book with the title “The truth does not lie in the middle”.
You know, Tycho Brahe proposed a middle path between the geocentric and the heliocentric model. (It consisted of the outer planets orbiting the sun and the inner planets and the sun orbiting the earth.) It was wrong. The heliocentric model is right, “despite” being an extreme.
I love how you talk about “fundies” as if they are a feature of the right. Fundie is a cute term for a fundamentalist and you can get fundamentalists of all stripes. You P.Z. are a fundamentalist of the left, and I don’t know how you can act like there are rightwing nutjobs and then there are sensible people like you.
As far as universities go. Because they are entrenched with your particular brand of fundamentalism then you see nothing wrong. Why, that’s just normality.. Rubbish.
I would have thought that someone whose website carries a .uk country designation would understand what a real leftist is. PZ Myers is a centrist in any sensible definition of the term which encompasses all relevant political positions (including anarchism, communism, and socialism).
Take it from a real leftist that being against right-wing misogyny in no way makes one a “fundamentalist” of the left–whatever that is, given that the authentic left can differ on the fundamentals to such a degree that it encompasses both the authoritarian Maoism and the libertarian movements of anarchism.
Check out the political makeup of the people in the education system — 80 to 90% range from extreme leftists to Stalinists.
There’s a Red under every mortarboard! Save us, Director Hoover!
The modern PC movement is a direct frontal attack on the First Amendment and comes from the left.
In a way. The phrase “politically correct” was invented by 60s Maoists who were intent on defining a very narrow party line. The wider leftist community–the ones who were not doctrinaire Maoists–picked up the term and used it derisively and ironically against these same doctrinaire Maoists. That’s where matters stood, with “politically correct” in implied scare quotes, until the right-wingers latched onto it as a strawman of leftism in general. This went well with the GOP’s strategy of appealing to disaffected racists whose grievances revolved around the fact that the John Birch Society and the KKK were no longer seen as respectable institutions in America.
Look at speech codes on colleges and universities.
And look at who’s running the colleges and universities. Most college and university chancellors and presidents are appointed by Boards of Regents, whose boardmembers are political appointees and generally center-to-right leaning (owing to the absence of an organized leftist political movement in the United States). Thus, the appointees of these political institutions tend to be center-right or right-wing, many coming from backgrounds in business, and they are responsible for overseeing the overall mission of the university. Yes, most university professors are Democrats. However, the Democrats are not left-wing either, and university professors are largely not responsible for overall policy. Using them to argue that speech codes represent a “left” viewpoint not only assumes, falsely, that American professors are overwhelmingly leftists, but also that they are responsible for university policy. It’s like claiming GM is institutionally pro-union based on a survey of the workers on the shop floor.
Russ Feingold authored a direct assault on the First Amendment in elections via McCain Feingold.
Russ Feingold is not a leftist either, nor is John McCain, whom I noticed you omitted from mentioning specifically except in the title of the law.
N —
I notice that you don’t offer any evidence for your suggestion that speech codes have no Leftist connection. No surprise there. But don’t be silly. The critical-race theorists and others who propounded speech codes in an effort to combat discrimination, so-called hate speech and harassment on college campuses will be shocked to discover that they’re (closet?) right-wingers.
I notice that you don’t offer any evidence for your suggestion that speech codes have no Leftist connection.
I notice that you didn’t quote anything I said, the relevant parts of which would undermine your contention that I’m claiming that speech codes have no leftist connection.
No surprise there.
You’re certainly right that there’s no surprise that someone who is substantially misrepresenting my words would not care to quote those words.
But don’t be silly. The critical-race theorists and others who propounded speech codes in an effort to combat discrimination, so-called hate speech and harassment on college campuses will be shocked to discover that they’re (closet?) right-wingers.
And I’m sure that critical race theorists (there’s no hyphen here) would be shocked to learn that they’re the ones who propounded speech codes. If you can demonstrate that out of the writings of Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Mari Matsuda, Richard Delgado, or even W.E.B. Du Bois or Max Weber, who also contributed to the field of critical race theory, then and only then will your diatribe be worth paying attention to.
After you’ve done that, perhaps you might deal with the fact that the implementation of new university policy, which is what I was dealing with, is in the hands of the administration, not in the hands of the professors as a whole.
The propounded cure is surely no better than the disease, but be sure that there is a disease to be discussed. Oh that it could be cured. I was a political philosophy student in the mid-70s. The vast majority of the faculty still wore their SDS-esque support proudly and, after being berated and marked down a few times for suggesting that a bit of skepticism be directed towards their assumptions and a bit of critical thinking directed towards some of their conclusions, I quickly adapted and said and wrote what I knew they wanted to hear.
By the way, Sinbad, in regards of this previous comment, perhaps you could also demonstrate how a single anecdote from a (by now obvious) right-winger about incidents which occured to a single student thirty years ago are in any way reflective of the current state of affairs in universities generally.
“I notice that you didn’t quote anything I said, the relevant parts of which would undermine your contention that I’m claiming that speech codes have no leftist connection.”
I didn’t quote the language because it was directly above and I thought it clear. Since I have apparently misunderstood, I apologize.
“And I’m sure that critical race theorists (there’s no hyphen here) would be shocked to learn that they’re the ones who propounded speech codes.”
I should have been more precise. Many of those who propounded speech codes did so in reliance upon the work of critical-race theorists. Those campus codes were obviously not created by individuals, but rather committees (in the usual course).
“By the way, Sinbad, in regards of this previous comment, perhaps you could also demonstrate how a single anecdote from a (by now obvious) right-winger about incidents which occured to a single student thirty years ago are in any way reflective of the current state of affairs in universities generally.”
If by “right-winger” you mean one who believes in free markets and free minds, I’ll plead. With respect to the “single anecdote.” you should note that I referred to an entire faculty rather than one instance. My law school faculty and the faculty of the university where I taught were similar in political make-up. Moreover, if you want data as to the political outlook of university faculty members generally, according to Does Diversity Make a Difference?, a study of college faculty sponsored by the American Council on Education and the American Association of University Professors, 10% of respondents described themselves as “far left” politically, 53% as “liberal,” 30% as “moderate,” 7% as “conservative,” and less than 1% as “far right.” That’s hardly representative of the public at-large, though that isn’t my concern. Maybe my experience was highly atypical and professors elsewhere encourage disagrement and discourse across-the-board, but somehow I doubt it.
I should have been more precise. Many of those who propounded speech codes did so in reliance upon the work of critical-race theorists. Those campus codes were obviously not created by individuals, but rather committees (in the usual course).
And enacted by the administration, and both these facts makes the political affiliations of professors irrelevant in regards to any university’s policy, including speech codes.
Moreover, if you want data as to the political outlook of university faculty members generally, according to Does Diversity Make a Difference?, a study of college faculty sponsored by the American Council on Education and the American Association of University Professors, 10% of respondents described themselves as “far left” politically, 53% as “liberal,” 30% as “moderate,” 7% as “conservative,” and less than 1% as “far right.”
Which nicely skewers the absurd claim I was responding to that 80-90% of professors were “extreme leftists or Stalinists” (does that imply that Stalinists are not extreme leftists?).
Maybe my experience was highly atypical and professors elsewhere encourage disagrement and discourse across-the-board, but somehow I doubt it.
Whether typical or atypical, your experience then is irrelevant now.
My personal political voyage started with me as a young conservative (who used to read the National Review on a regular basis!) to social democrat to anarchist. The latter are genuinely left positions, whereas American liberalism barely rates as center-right in any political metric which takes into account the full range of political beliefs. My own experience indicates that, however much my own political beliefs continue to differ from those of my professors, my grades have not suffered nor have I been demeaned publicly or (to my knowledge) privately.
You could argue that they’re more inclined to look favourably on an anarchist than they are a conservative, but I would say is profoundly unrealistic. In reality, liberals, particularly white liberals, hate and despise leftists whereas they share common cultural and social cues and signifiers with the conservatives with whom they ostensibly are locked in bloody battle. Don’t forget that COINTELPRO had the consistent support of both Kennedy and Johnson, that Truman paved the way for the McCarthy era, and that Wilson was the driving force behind the Sedition Act of 1918, which destroyed the IWW and caused Emma Goldman and many other anarchists to be deported. Compared to that, a few cocktail party snubs like the ones that Norman Podhoretz is still bothered by are far preferable.
If by “right-winger” you mean one who believes in free markets and free minds, I’ll plead.
Except for the free minds that take the standard verities of American life–which function as the 39 Articles of American Civil Religion–and show them to be unfounded. That’s the only thing I can conclude from including critical race theorists in your demonology.
That’s not a coincidence, either.
Well, if I were trying to argue for instituting this legislative ideological litmus test, from that point of view, misrepresenting critical race theorists would sure beat examining the intellectual history of this bill and of his larger jihad in Horowitz’ Maoism, I guess. Like that scene in Chicago, where Richard Gere tap-dances faster and faster to distract the jury–that kind of thing.
That’s what I’m hearing, too, fortunately. The legislature can’t be arsed to adequately fund higher education in this state, but at least they’re not saddling it with this misbegotten unfunded mandate, either.
Yup, for the moment. The nuts always come back, though.
“And enacted by the administration, and both these facts makes the political affiliations of professors irrelevant in regards to any university’s policy, including speech codes.”
And your hypothesis as to why the allegedly right-wing administrators conspired to put speech codes in place is…?
“Whether typical or atypical, your experience then is irrelevant now.”
Not entirely true, but I see your point.
“My own experience indicates that, however much my own political beliefs continue to differ from those of my professors, my grades have not suffered nor have I been demeaned publicly or (to my knowledge) privately.”
My own experience hasn’t been different in that I typically see much less negativity toward relatively extreme positions (particularly when the student is bright and the extreme position isn’t seen as immoral — e.g., a neo-Nazi). I think that’s due to a curiousity factor and because such minority positions aren’t any kind of substantive threat. It’s fascinating to me that there is some much vitriol between the two major U.S. political parties when, on the overall scale, they aren’t all that different. On the other hand, red state/blue state disagreements are much more intense and fraught with abuse.
And your hypothesis as to why the allegedly right-wing administrators conspired to put speech codes in place is…?
Conspired? Talk about a loaded word.
The reason is to foster an environment condusive to learning in the face of rising incidents of racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. In the period from 1985 to 1990, when the first speech codes started to come into existence, reports of harrassment on college campuses had quadrupled, and it’s estimated that 80% of cases are never reported. These sorts of things generally occur after incidents of hate speech on campus. In short, it’s fundamentally about the bottom line: does one take a stand against the racists, or does one become known as John Birch State U? In this day and age, the latter is not going to bring in those tuition checks.
Not entirely true, but I see your point.
Well, it might be relevant to you, but it’s not relevant to establishing anything about present-day pedagogy.
My own experience hasn’t been different in that I typically see much less negativity toward relatively extreme positions (particularly when the student is bright and the extreme position isn’t seen as immoral — e.g., a neo-Nazi).
There are many liberals who behave as if my position is immoral, or at least an insincere attempt to wind them up. In my experience, I’ve found that liberals hate leftists with a passion (and that, to some degree, is reciprocated). However, my professors and the ones I know as a current grad student TA have been professional enough not to let any student’s private beliefs affect their grade, except when it causes them to turn in work which doesn’t meet the requirements (e.g. a Bible-thumper who writes a paper about Paul of Tarsus when the assignment was a research paper on Islam).
And since when did the curriculum have to become a mirror for the beliefs of students? This is infantilizing them. It’s treating them like hothouse flowers who will somehow be so wounded if the sincerest outpourings of their soul get a “C”. Portrait of the PhD Student as a Prematurely Old Man: Back in my day, I could happily argue for positions I never even held for a moment, just for the practice.
Furthermore, who’s going to decide which positions are worthy of protection and which are not? There are students I have taught who regard it as a Hague-worthy crime against humanity to assign work over Spring Break. Shouldn’t someone be looking out for the homework-shirkers? One might object that this is not a deeply-held tenet, but you’d never believe it if you’d experienced the joy of a conversation with one of them. Many of them can provide documentary evidence of a sincere desire to evade homework stretching back for years. Demanding a “deeper” reason for their wish to not do homework is asking for administrators, or worse legislators, to determine beliefs are valid and must be catered to and which must not.
I think that’s due to a curiousity factor and because such minority positions aren’t any kind of substantive threat.
It’s certainly not treated like an insubstantial and harmless position in practice. An anarchist group I am active with has been infiltrated by an FBI informer, is the subject of a several hundred-page long FBI file, had its members selectively subpoenaed so that they could not attend a major protest, and had plainclothes cops infiltrate its community space/library and the rallies they organize…all within the last few years.
It’s fascinating to me that there is some much vitriol between the two major U.S. political parties when, on the overall scale, they aren’t all that different. On the other hand, red state/blue state disagreements are much more intense and fraught with abuse.
At last you have said something I can agree with. It’s a two-firm problem in game theory, that I’ve heard likened to ice cream vendors on a hot day. If the ice cream vendors can cooperate, then it makes sense to set their carts up 1/3rd of the way down the beach and split the middle third up evenly between themselves. If they compete, however, it is in there interests to move towards the center as much as possible and fight bitterly over the tiny margin of people that remain right in the middle.
In the context of American politics, the left side of the beach has been kneecapped by the ice cream vendors’ enforcers (see, for example, Jules Boykoff’s Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States), and so now the vendors have to move rightwards to capture more of the “center” because the people on the left have been pushed rightwards or marginalized.
That is one reason why I react to such a degree when I hear bullshit about how universities are a hotbed of “leftism”, simply because most professors vote for Democrats. Americans have forgotten what genuine left politics is.
Oy, why won’t Horowitz just go away?
He wants power.
I’m so sick of this conservative persecution complex.
Me, too.
He wants power.
Worse than that: he wants to be a professor. Unfortunately for him, no amount of quotas for conservatives is going to get him a professorship anywhere, because he’s just not that bright. Even in his leftist days, he wasn’t much of an original thinker. I read his book, The Free World Colossus, and all the best parts of it are simply retreads of existing analyses which had been said before and better by other people (e.g. I.F. Stone).
re: #127 — I think Horowitz’s basic personality hasn’t changed a whit since his conversion. He wasn’t just a leftist, he was a Stalinist. He’s kept the Stalinist mindset–paranoia, absolutist beliefs, intolerance, persecution complex, delusions of grandeur–and applied it to his current team. He was an asshole when he was a leftist, and he’s an asshole now.
“These sorts of things generally occur after incidents of hate speech on campus. In short, it’s fundamentally about the bottom line: does one take a stand against the racists, or does one become known as John Birch State U? In this day and age, the latter is not going to bring in those tuition checks.”
I’ll give you style points for creativity, but it’s not remotely consistent with reality. College administrators typically work their way up within academia — they were professors first. Business people are on boards of trustees, sure, but the members are picked in part to be loyal to the administration (much like corporate boards don’t frequently challenge executive leadership). Speech codes are passed not for the cynical reason you suggest, but because the schools’ leadership groups believe in them.
Think about a very public example from my alma mater — the Duke lacrosse scandal. The faculty and the administration couldn’t wait to throw the lax players under the bus while screaming about misogyny and racism. The only problem was that the players weren’t guilty of what they were charged with and were victims of a corrupt prosecutor seeking political advantage. From a marketing standpoint, it was the worst possible result — parents are less likely to send their kids there and, in fact, applications are down. Rather than your suggested outcome, politics in fact trumped marketing.
“And since when did the curriculum have to become a mirror for the beliefs of students?”
Straw man (since I don’t claim it does — remember my opening comment: the proposed cure is no better than the disease).
“Back in my day, I could happily argue for positions I never even held for a moment, just for the practice.”
That’s exactly what I did. But it’s unfortunate when students have no practical choice in the matter.
“It’s certainly not treated like an insubstantial and harmless position in practice. An anarchist group I am active with has been infiltrated by an FBI informer….”
Irrelevant. Anarchist groups have a long history of violence, so I can understand (if not support) the FBI seeing a public safety issue there and acting upon it. That has nothing to do with academics thinking that anarchists are no threat to the current political order.
“It’s a two-firm problem in game theory, that I’ve heard likened to ice cream vendors on a hot day.”
Your example can only apply where the goods offered are fungible.
“In the context of American politics, the left side of the beach has been kneecapped by the ice cream vendors’ enforcers….”
The Left never gets it. Toqueville was right and it’s still true — the American public is simply not interested in what the Left is selling. The problem isn’t that folks have been prohibited from seeing the True Light, it’s that they think the Left’s claims are dangerous, silly and/or wrong-headed.
Love how sinbad can speak for the whole american public…
wonder what he’ll be saying under President Obama.
There will be much whining and wringing of hands. Big babies.
“There will be much whining and wringing of hands. Big babies.”
I doubt it.
They will just forget all about how we should respect the POTUS and revert to rabid attack mode.
They will just forget all about how we should respect the POTUS and revert to rabid attack mode.
Exactly. And their friends in the Village will join right in. Part of me wants Hillary to win just to watch Chris Matthews commit sepukku
“Love how sinbad can speak for the whole american public…
wonder what he’ll be saying under President Obama.”
You might consider working on your reading comprehension. Within the context of this discussion, Obama is a relative centrist. It should be obvious that if the Democrats lose this election they are impossibly inept.
I’ll give you style points for creativity, but it’s not remotely consistent with reality. College administrators typically work their way up within academia — they were professors first.
Nothing I’ve said is in any way refuted by the claim that college administrators typically work their way up within academia. I am simply saying that the heads of colleges are typically centrist-to-right people, appointed by the state Boards of Regents.
Business people are on boards of trustees, sure, but the members are picked in part to be loyal to the administration (much like corporate boards don’t frequently challenge executive leadership).
And the executive leadership of universities are appointed by political appointees to the state Boards of Regents.
Speech codes are passed not for the cynical reason you suggest, but because the schools’ leadership groups believe in them.
So it’s just a coincidence that complaints of hate speech quadrupled in the five years from 1985-1990, and had nothing to do with the implementation of the earliest speech codes. I’m not arguing that they don’t believe in the value of the speech codes–that should be obvious even to an overdone cabbage–but that the reason they are convinced of the need for speech codes is because there are incidents of hate speech which provoke the issue.
Think about a very public example from my alma mater — the Duke lacrosse scandal.
I’m thinking about it, and I can’t see what in the hell it has to do with speech codes.
The faculty and the administration couldn’t wait to throw the lax players under the bus while screaming about misogyny and racism.
The administration suspended the team for two whole games while the matter was under investigation, and when the case didn’t blow over, they cancelled the season. The lacrosse players were not expelled from the university, even for a term, nor were they beheaded and their heads mounted from the university library as a warning to other students. In fact, it’s difficult to see how the administration could have been more fair in balancing the public scandal with the presumption of innocence.
It’s true that many of the faculty didn’t presume that the players were innocent, but the faculty is irrelevant to the issue of speech codes for the reasons I already explained. As someone who has friends attending Duke, I also know full well that many students weren’t presuming the players innocent either. In fact, the lacrosse team had such a bad rep that most assumed that the claims of rape were accurate.
If you want to complain that the issue was tried in the court of public opinion prematurely, well, boo fucking hoo. It still has nothing to do with speech codes, pedagogical practice, and it happens all the time, often to far more savoury people than the Duke lacrosse team. Here in San Diego, we had the Dale Akiki case, where “ritual abuse” was trotted out to accuse a mildly retarded man who was wholly innocent of the disgusting charges.
That’s exactly what I did. But it’s unfortunate when students have no practical choice in the matter.
You have yet to demonstrate that students as a whole do not have the freedom to argue any position on a topic, so long as that topic is relevant to the assignment or class discussion, and the presentation of their argument is not disruptive to the class (e.g. a student getting up in biology class and yelling that evolution is “Bullshit!”).
Irrelevant. Anarchist groups have a long history of violence, so I can understand (if not support) the FBI seeing a public safety issue there and acting upon it. That has nothing to do with academics thinking that anarchists are no threat to the current political order.
So anarchists are a highly dangerous group, and keeping close tabs on them is a public safety issue, but they’re also no threat to the current political order? This new learning amazes me.
Your example can only apply where the goods offered are fungible.
Wrong again. I suppose there’s nothing like conisstency. Game theory in the context of a two-party “horse race” was already extensively analyzed sixty years ago, in 1948, by Duncan Black (see “On the rationale of group decision-making.” J Pol Econ, 56(1): 23-34.)
The Left never gets it. Toqueville was right and it’s still true — the American public is simply not interested in what the Left is selling. The problem isn’t that folks have been prohibited from seeing the True Light, it’s that they think the Left’s claims are dangerous, silly and/or wrong-headed.
*laughs*
In order for this to be true, you’d have to demonstrate that the American public has an accurate and fairly comprehensive knowledge of left politics in order to know what they’re rejecting. So why don’t you show me how many in America can define anarcho-syndicalism and differentiate it from other strains of anarchism, let alone from statist left philosophies like socialism and communism? Are they aware of the philosophy of Fabian socialism? And so on and so on.
And just for the laughs, perhaps you can tell us precisely what claims the left as a whole makes that are dangerous and why?
“I am simply saying that the heads of colleges are typically centrist-to-right people, appointed by the state Boards of Regents.”
I hate to break this to you, but the majority of universities in the USA are private.
“So it’s just a coincidence that complaints of hate speech quadrupled in the five years from 1985-1990, and had nothing to do with the implementation of the earliest speech codes.”
No. They provided the climate to allow their goals to be accomplished.
“I’m thinking about it, and I can’t see what in the hell it has to do with speech codes.”
It has everything to do with the politicalization of American campuses.
“In fact, it’s difficult to see how the administration could have been more fair in balancing the public scandal with the presumption of innocence.”
I’m sorry, but this claim is too ridiculous to argue.
“You have yet to demonstrate that students as a whole do not have the freedom to argue any position on a topic….”
They’re free too, but should expect to punished for it far too often.
“So anarchists are a highly dangerous group, and keeping close tabs on them is a public safety issue, but they’re also no threat to the current political order? This new learning amazes me.”
If an anarchist group blows up a building, it’s a public safety issue. But that doesn’t mean they have a chance in hell of accomplishing anything politically.
“Wrong again.”
So if Cart A’s ice cream is significantly better than Cart B’s ice cream, nobody will walk past Cart B to buy from Cart A?
“In order for this to be true, you’d have to demonstrate….”
No I don’t. It’s your claim and your burden to show that the public would care about what the Left preaches had the evil Fascists not prevented them from hearing.
“And just for the laughs, perhaps you can tell us precisely what claims the left as a whole makes that are dangerous and why?”
The Left is way too fragmented even to suggest anything “as a whole.” But anarchy is a silly idea based on the evidence. Something pretty close to anarchy has been documented in really primitive hunter-gatherer societies. (See Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.) Unfortunately it’s not pretty — the casualty rate from revenge killings over women and other scarce resources is horrific. And of course there are plenty of examples of pseudo-anarchy in war zones and the like where there are multiple sources of authority competing but where none has the upper hand. It’s always ugly.
I hate to break this to you, but the majority of universities in the USA are private.
And those private universities are incorporated (e.g. Harvard Corporation appoints the president of Harvard, and then the appointment is confirmed by the Board of Overseerers). Are you telling me that these corporations are some sort of radical leftist redoubt, or are you just throwing up chaff in order to evade supporting any of your claims?
No. They provided the climate to allow their goals to be accomplished.
I see. Bare assertion is good enough, as usual.
It has everything to do with the politicalization of American campuses.
“Politicalization [sic] of American campuses” would still be meaningless verbiage even if “politicalization” was a word. I think you meant “politicization”.
I’m sorry, but this claim is too ridiculous to argue.
In other words, this person knew that the Duke lacrosse players were not expelled for any length of time, therefore it is too difficult for me to make the case that the lacrosse team was singled out unfairly by the administration.
They’re free too, but should expect to punished for it far too often.
Please quantify “far too often” with reference to something more substantial than your college experience thirty years ago.
So if Cart A’s ice cream is significantly better than Cart B’s ice cream, nobody will walk past Cart B to buy from Cart A?
That’s not what the word “fungible” means.
No I don’t. It’s your claim and your burden to show that the public would care about what the Left preaches had the evil Fascists not prevented them from hearing.
No, that’s not my claim. Nothing I’ve said has even come close to that. All I said is that there is no organized left in this country, thanks to a long history of American suppression of dissent, and that, therefore, the entire political dialogue has shifted rightwards in regards of other democracies with a parliamentary political system. Coalition left governments with the major center-left party of the day keep the major center-left party from drifting rightward, since they need the support of smaller left parties or else the coalition will fail.
You, on the other hand, have made the claim on behalf of the entire American public that they have never been interested in left politics. This is at variance with most of American history prior to the Red Scares, Sedition Act, and COINTELPRO, so the onus is on you, the claimant, to support your claim.
The Left is way too fragmented even to suggest anything “as a whole.”
Then you should stop treating the left as a monolithic bloc.
Something pretty close to anarchy has been documented in really primitive hunter-gatherer societies.
Something pretty close to anarchy has been documented in really primitive hunter-gatherer societies. (See Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond.) Unfortunately it’s not pretty — the casualty rate from revenge killings over women and other scarce resources is horrific.
If you’re treating women as subordinate property of the males, then what you have is not anarchy.
Actual anarchism has been documented historically as well, so we do not require inferences from unreliable pop sci books like those of Jared Diamond, and I’d encourage you to read about it in firsthand accounts like Augustin Souchy’s With the Peasants of Aragon.
I hate to break this to you, but the majority of universities in the USA are private
And a large percentage of those are owned by religious organizations.
So – those societies represent true socialism to you? Now where have I heard that before…
“Are you telling me that these corporations are some sort of radical leftist redoubt, or are you just throwing up chaff in order to evade supporting any of your claims?”
I was simply making it clear that for the majority of U.S. universities, their is no governmental involvement (your “Board of Regents” reference). By and large, universities are run by academics and reflect the views of academics (which views are significantly different from the population at large).
“In other words, this person knew that the Duke lacrosse players were not expelled for any length of time, therefore it is too difficult for me to make the case that the lacrosse team was singled out unfairly by the administration.”
A semester is a significant length of time, especially since it was obvious almost immediately that the prosecution was highly flawed and likely corrupt.
I’ve argued the Duke lax case to death. Read about it here:
http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/
“That’s not what the word ‘fungible’ means.”
It’s exactly what it means. In every context and dictionary I’m aware of, “fungible” means freely exchangeable or replaceable. The classic econ example is gasoline.
“All I said is that there is no organized left in this country, thanks to a long history of American suppression of dissent, and that, therefore, the entire political dialogue has shifted rightwards in regards of other democracies with a parliamentary political system.”
Even were I to grant your premise re the extent of the suppression, you haven’t shown anything close to causation. People like the idea of no government interference, but the idea fails because people tend to be lazy, to want to put their hands in someone else’s wallet if s/he has more money, control others’ life and morality, and butt into others’ business. Christians call that tendency sin. To look at the issue in a positive context, people what freedom and equality, even though these concepts are often dramatically at odds with each other.
You know, I had a longer response to you, but there was no point since you are simply bullshitting now.
So I will simply cover the outstanding claims which you have failed to address:
1) You have failed to support your claim that things like speech codes are the result of leftist concepts being actively supported by administrators, rather than a response to incidents at university.
2) You have failed to support your claim that students are punished in their grades for their political views “far too often”. You have not, in fact, quantified this at all. You’ve simply provided an anecdote, and I don’t even know whether or not to believe that.
3) You have not supported your claim that the American public has never been interested in left politics, since at least the 1830s, when de Tocqueville published Democracy in America. You have not accounted for the fact that the Wobblies had 100,000 active members at their height, and 300,000 supporters, nor have you accounted for popular uprisings like the Battle of Blair Mountain, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, nor the popularity of American socialism, particularly in the rural areas, around the late 19th and turn of the 20th century.
“You have failed to support your claim that things like speech codes are the result of leftist concepts being actively supported by administrators, rather than a response to incidents at university.”
…in the same way you have failed to support your claim that they’re a rightist response to “incidents” that were hurting business. We have each offered our opinions. I backed mine with examples. Though one was ancient (my experience in college), the recent Duke lax scandal is not and provides ample evidence of a faculty running amok in support of a leftish agenda. We’re still waiting for you even to offer an example.
“You have failed to support your claim that students are punished in their grades for their political views “far too often”.”
I don’t have data on that and don’t know if obtaining such data is possible. The anecdotal evidence is extensive, however. Even if we grant that some significant portion of that is from disgruntled students who didn’t do the work (as I assume), we’re still left with a real problem.
“You have not accounted for the fact that the Wobblies had 100,000 active members at their height, and 300,000 supporters, nor have you accounted for popular uprisings like the Battle of Blair Mountain, the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, nor the popularity of American socialism, particularly in the rural areas, around the late 19th and turn of the 20th century.”
I have not “accounted” for them because they are small potatoes in the overall scheme of things. Your primary evidence for the power of the Left in American politics is the Wobblies (circa 1923 or so), with 300,000 alleged supporters. The population of the U.S. at that time was roughly 105mm (per census data), meaning that this great Leftist juggernaut had support from about .285% of the population — roughly one quarter of one percent. Clearly, the American public has a love affair with the Left.
…in the same way you have failed to support your claim that they’re a rightist response to “incidents” that were hurting business.
That would be because that is a claim I have not made. I have simply noted that administrators tend to be centrist to center-right, and that the emergence of speech codes was tied to a fourfold increase in complaints about hate speech on campus between the years of 1985-1990.
We have each offered our opinions. I backed mine with examples. Though one was ancient (my experience in college), the recent Duke lax scandal is not and provides ample evidence of a faculty running amok in support of a leftish agenda.
Bullshit. There’s no “leftish” agenda (even if that were a word) implied in thinking that a group of athletes already notorious for this sort of thing would be guilty of a gang rape.
We’re still waiting for you even to offer an example.
Instead of examples and anecdotes, I’ve offered evidence of an increase in hate speech during the relevant time which you have failed to adequately address.
I don’t have data on that and don’t know if obtaining such data is possible.
Then don’t make the claim.
The anecdotal evidence is extensive, however.
The plural of anecdote is not “data”.
Even if we grant that some significant portion of that is from disgruntled students who didn’t do the work (as I assume), we’re still left with a real problem.
Why? Because you say so?
I have not “accounted” for them because they are small potatoes in the overall scheme of things. Your primary evidence for the power of the Left in American politics is the Wobblies (circa 1923 or so), with 300,000 alleged supporters.
No, it was just one example out of many. I also used the example of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which was damn close to a general strike and uprising. In certain cities, strikers controlled the entire city for a time. There’s also the Battle of Blair Mountain, which was a literal war between the federal government, the mine owners’ private Pinkerton gun thugs, and striking miners where the fledgling Air Force was used to drop bombs on the civilians, over a dozen years before Guernica. I also used the flourishing of socialism in rural areas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, none of which you have failed to address. Hell, you haven’t even addressed the Wobblies.
The population of the U.S. at that time was roughly 105mm (per census data), meaning that this great Leftist juggernaut had support from about .285% of the population — roughly one quarter of one percent. Clearly, the American public has a love affair with the Left.
Evidently you are incapable of simple addition. I said that they had 100,000 members, and 300,000 supporters. That’s 400,000, not 300,000. Furthermore, it was bad math in a misplaced cause–it’s totally irrelevant. Unless, of course, you can quantify the precise number by which we can be sure that the American public “has a love affair with the Left” and demonstrate that the public membership and support for the Wobblies was the sum total of any emergence of an organized Left in the history of the United States.
Just got the following e-mail from my district’s state senator re senate bill 6893:
Thanks for your message. I, too, oppose the bill which, I’m pleased to
report, is dead.