The President of Wesleyan University in Connecticut had a nice response to this kind of nannyish article.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/11/...
This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
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Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#52"As an evangelical Christian university of The Wesleyan Church, Oklahoma Wesleyan University models a way of thought, a way of life, and a way of faith. It is a place of serious study, honest questions, and critical engagement, all in the context of a liberal arts community that honors the Primacy of Jesus Christ, the Priority of Scripture, the Pursuit of Truth, and the Practice of Wisdom." This sounds to me more lik…
If nothing else, it sounds like it's definitely a safe space for mythology.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The REAL strawman is: "What's equally baffling is Ivy-league frat boys thinking that "free speech" entitles them to engage in conduct that would get them summarily booted out in the real world."
For some reason it is not letting me reply to the answer. Anyway: Definition of the strawman argument: "A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument which was not advanced by that opponent." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man ) The original article is put in a very specific context: a s…
I'm not responding to the point in the article, I'm responding to lagadu's point about people invoking a "right not to be offended."
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#54I find it baffling that there are people, in the real world, who somehow think that for unexplained reasons they have the right to not be offended or be made to feel uncomfortable. Somehow they believe that their feelings are the responsibility of everyone else.
While I sympathize with your viewpoint, perhaps I can shed some clarity on the other side. The concern is not feelings getting hurt, but rather physical security as a person of minority status. This is something that a white heterosexual middle-class male (such as myself) can probably never fully appreciate, but I try to sympathize. Imagine what it is like to be black in a country where just a few generations back yo…
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Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#55Yet another post for HN to one-up each other decrying the "PC culture" with plenty of "kids these days" rants, while completely avoiding taking the charitable position and putting ourselves in their shoes. The amount of hypocrisy that comes with the claims that these students should "learn to cope with uncomfortable ideas" is staggering. Guess what: these students are presenting us with an "uncomfortable idea" and th…
If you are in college, you are no longer a kid.
From 1 Corinthians 13:
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#56This seems to be thrusting in two directions. One about trigger warnings and safe spaces and so on, and one about sermons and guilt.
One common narrative re safe spaces seems to be: "if something makes you uncomfortable, you should suck it up instead of trying to force everyone else to accommodate you". I think this is somewhat missing the point, but I can relate to it. I feel like this is the dominant narrative in this thread.
But the narrative in the article seems to be: "if something makes you uncomfortable, good! It's because you're a bad person. You should be a better person instead of asking us to tell you you're not bad".
And I pretty strongly disagree with that.
For example, if the sermon was all about how gay people are going to hell, and that made a student uncomfortable, that's not because the student is a bad person. That's because it was a terrible sermon.
From the description, this sermon was not obviously terrible. But that still doesn't make the student a bad person. Not everyone experiences or expresses emotions in the same ways. That's fine. When people start speaking about experiences as if they're human universals, and if you don't share those experiences, that can make you uncomfortable. That's fine too. It doesn't make the speaker a bad person, but it doesn't make you a bad person either.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#57"Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a “safe place”, but rather, a place to learn" Exactly, I don't get why people are trying to make universities, workplaces, clubs, or anywhere else "safe places". They should not be safe places, they should be places where you feel confronted, challenged and threatened by different ideas and points of view.
The opposite of "safe" is "risky". If we're responsible, we do a risk assessment. So, if a place is not safe, what sort of risks does it contain, who is exposed to them, and what mitigation can be put in place.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#58Oh man, the amount of times I told students that maybe they don't belong in university is quite high. I used to teach (alongside a prof) Physics for Biologists. Constantly I'd get remarks like: "But what are we supposed to do all these hours between class and homework guidance hours?" (What am I, your entertainer??), "Why can't I use my graphical calculator, this is bull shit!", This is not why I choose biology!", and my favorite "Why won't you just let me fill in the formulas and work with the intermittent numbers?"
I'd tell them: You are an electron in it lowest possible energy and you want get to your highest excited state without adding energy. That simply does not work. If you can't handle it, perhaps you do not belong here where you are actually challenged and are required to meet that challenge.
It was also crazy how often they complained but turned out not to have even tried the homework on their own.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
The REAL strawman is: "What's equally baffling is Ivy-league frat boys thinking that "free speech" entitles them to engage in conduct that would get them summarily booted out in the real world."
It is, at least allegedly, real conduct that was, among other things, the reason those Yale students were angry: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/11/0... . Something real is by definition not a straw man.
let's be concrete about what we're talking about
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from your link:
"A fraternity brother who was at the party gave an entirely different account than Petros-Gouin. Speaking on condition that his name not be used because chapter rules discourage speaking to the media, he said members of the house always ask for Yale IDs and let everyone in until a party gets crowded. After that, a line forms.
That night, no one with a Yale ID was turned away before 11:15 p.m., the member said. Yale and New Haven police had responded to noise complaints at the party, and brothers were told not to let anyone else in, to avoid crowding. He said numerous students have said a woman who was denied entrance angrily challenged the man who stopped her, screaming: “It’s because I’m black, isn’t it?”
It was uncomfortable, he said, in part because that brother is African American and others working the door at the time are Portuguese and Costa Rican; he described the chapter as racially diverse. He said some in Yale’s black community have called black SAE members “Uncle Tom” on Monday, making them feel like they are being forced to choose between siding with the fraternity or others of their race.
“It has become incredibly hostile,” he said.
He and another student who attended the party said the crowd inside was representative of the student body at Yale."
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I see an incident of undetermined "real"(ness)
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#60There is a lot of press about this "Yale problem" type of stories but I live in Europe where I find kids fearless and aggressive. I find this type of reasoning very hard to relate to.
Do you feel this type of behaviour is affecting a majority of NA youth ? Or is it more media looking at what could be the very beggining of a trend ?