I think this is an interesting side-effect of being hyperconnected: no matter what the position is, i's possible to find a group of people who will empathize with us and make us feel right. I guess it goes back to the old saying of picking our friends wisely…
This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
141–150 of 707 posts
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
One takes offence, one does not give it. It's an idiopathic condition. I'm a white male, but I grew up being called Gwailo, Gaijin, Auslander, and when I finally returned to the anglosphere in my early teens, I was still an outsider as I spoke with a weird accent and was by that point a through-and-through third culture kid. I got the crap bullied out of me, and eventually figured out that it only hurt if I took it t…
> Folks need to have thicker skin Why? Congratulations on being such a paragon of excellence. Why should we require such virtue of all humans? Instead of expecting you to develop a thick skin (are you sure this is a good thing?), why can't we try to reform your aggressors in the first place?
You appear to have taken offence. This was not written about you.
It's also a lot easier to change yourself than every other human on the planet.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The idea that people's feelings should come first, especially before truth/understanding of reality No one is arguing for this.
In fact it's being very openly argued all over the place in US culture today. The recent famous video of the Yale professor that was trying to talk rationally to the irrational students around him - it was all about the students claiming they had a right to not be offended, and the notion that their feelings trumped freedom of speech.
Separately, please note that "freedom of speech" is a term which refers specifically to the government using force to prevent or compel speech from private citizens. In the context of university student conduct, I'm not aware of any law or court case which impinges on this freedom. Being expelled from a university for your conduct does not qualify as an infringement of your freedom of speech.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#1441 Corinthians 13 is a pretty uncontroversial passage. Hell, it's a favorite of mine, and I'm an atheist.
I'm a little curious about the actual complaint, and if Dr. Piper had any sort of productive discussion with the student. The standard "we're all sinners, but we must try" sort of thing seems the obvious starting approach.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Folks need to have thicker skin Why? Congratulations on being such a paragon of excellence. Why should we require such virtue of all humans? Instead of expecting you to develop a thick skin (are you sure this is a good thing?), why can't we try to reform your aggressors in the first place?
You appear to have taken offence. This was not written about you. It's also a lot easier to change yourself than every other human on the planet .
> You appear to have taken offence.
What gave you that impression?
> It's also a lot easier to change yourself than every other human on the planet.
I agree, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#146"if you want to arrogantly lecture, rather than humbly learn"
If you want to do that, you gotta stick around long enough to get the title "President of Someplace Nobody's Heard Of" first.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
One takes offence, one does not give it. It's an idiopathic condition. I'm a white male, but I grew up being called Gwailo, Gaijin, Auslander, and when I finally returned to the anglosphere in my early teens, I was still an outsider as I spoke with a weird accent and was by that point a through-and-through third culture kid. I got the crap bullied out of me, and eventually figured out that it only hurt if I took it t…
> and this is why we have criminal justice systems which typically take this sort of thing perfectly seriously I hate to break it to you but there are some serious issues with the justice system. In usa at least.
There are, but violent offences are at an all time low, and things like assault and battery aren't looked upon kindly in any semi-civilised corner of the planet.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Folks need to have thicker skin Why? Congratulations on being such a paragon of excellence. Why should we require such virtue of all humans? Instead of expecting you to develop a thick skin (are you sure this is a good thing?), why can't we try to reform your aggressors in the first place?
Because reforming all possible aggressors ever is an uphill battle you'll never solve. Imagine you have an API that receives a POST with some JSON. Every time your API receives a malformed POST, your application crashes or hangs. Do you a) try to do your best to make sure no one ever POSTS to your uri with malformed data, or do you b) rewrite your API to be more robust and send back an error code when malformed input…
I like it.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#149Regardless of the content, it seems to me that if someone came forward to complain to you, the time and place to deliver the message you had in response was when they came forward with the complaint. Yeah, it's a university, not a daycare, and as such a direct adult dialogue about the issue should be expected. A public letter like this from the university President is appropriate for a broad issue that goes beyond so…
Why do you assume he didn't? It's quite possible to have this conversation one on one and then use it as an opportunity to address a wider audience. They are not mutually exclusive.
Re: This Is Not a Day Care. It’s a University
#150One thing I find very scary about this discussion is that in the past when we talked about helping the situation of minorities no one had a problem explaining what the issue is we are trying to solve. Now I'm very often hearing things like "you are a white heterosexual male you won't understand/have no right to talk about it". This is just more racism and sexism and no way to have a discussion or a good direction for a society. It seems irrational and hate driven.