Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 102 posts

Re: Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

#51

Post by warrenm »

jchanimal wrote: post #41
weberc2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this true across the board? I can think of a handful of popular tropes where this is true, like climate change skepticism, but even this comes in degrees ranging from conservatives who agree that climate change is real and needs action to those who agree it's real but are skeptical about the long term consequences to those who think that climate change is real but not man-made to those who think it's not real at a…

Ok I’ll bite. Another unsubstantiated conservative canard: taxes are bad. When in fact highly redistributive polices are correlated with all-boats-rising economic tides. “But who cares if we are all worse off, taxes are theft,” whines the conservative. Cry me a river, it was always already the government’s money.

> it was always already the government’s money

Sounds like you went to the same fallacious economic school Elizabeth Warren did

Re: Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

#52

Post by ianai »

viggity wrote: post #20
mklarmann wrote: post #4

Tell me again. What is his issue?

that the only diversity that administrators care about is diversity of (largely) indelible characteristics (skin color, sexual orientation, etc), instead of diversity of thought. I'd much rather go to a school where everyone looked the same but thought different, than a school where everyone looked different but thought the same.

Either of those options is radically extreme.

Re: Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

#53

Post by babypuncher »

jchanimal wrote: post #31
josefresco wrote: post #17

politically lopsided When the fuck did equal rights for minorities, women, and GLBTQ become "politically lopsided". We're talking about human rights here. There is no legitimate "other side" to this argument, just hate. This article is concern trolling 101.

Exactly. Pretending there are two sides to this question is almost a paradigm example of what is wrong with American thought.

But if one candidate says we should exterminate the Jews, and the other candidate says we should NOT exterminate the Jews, they both deserve equal mindspace!

Re: Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

#54

Post by monksy »

the_gastropod wrote: post #39
stevewodil wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, since typically the issue is seen in reverse where leftist views don't hold up to statistics and logic. Check out some of Ben Shapiro's talks, or Crowder's 'Change my mind' series

Ah, yes. Let's review a few classic "leftist" views, and see if they hold up: 1. Single payer healthcare is both more effective and cheaper than the for-profit model we have now. [1] 2. Climate change is both actually happening and is largely caused by human activity. [I really hope I don't need to cite this...] 3. Gun control tends to lower gun violence. [2] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/07/upshot/why-single-p…

> 1. Single payer healthcare is both more effective and cheaper than the for-profit model we have now. [1]

Personally, I agree with this one, if they're done right. (I think Germany is the best one in the western world) [One conservative view] This won't be done right in the context of the US given it's size and demand on it's people. (That also is where the anti-big gov arguement comes from as well) There is also a bit of FUD in reguards to it's change to the economy after implementation. [Higher taxes and a higher COL] (There are many other _good_ arguements against it.. such as the right to conduct business without government interference.. but see Ben Shapiro for that)

> 2. Climate change is both actually happening and is largely caused by human activity.

Most of the anti-climate change arguments that I've seen on this stem on weird twisting of data. I haven't seen a lot of solutions on the otherside. So that's equally weird and it just seems that people are yelling to convince some government body to "do something." (Whether it's effective or not.. that's a VERY big concern)

> 3. Gun control tends to lower gun violence.

It depends on context. There are many cases where this fails. (IL being one of those [it's easier to buy in IN].. since you can get and transport a firearm with different gun control requirements across the border). This goes for Canada, US, and Mexico. (Although if you enforce the borders strictly you can maintain gun control) The issue with this: Gun control is more restrictive on those who wish to legally use firearms, but barely does much to inhibit those who intend to use them illegally.

Re: Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

#55

Post by [deleted] »

ianai wrote: post #10

The topics discussed are about as political as “slavery is wrong.” Edit-Just to add a quote, the author describes the following as being liberally “lopsided.” “The conference would touch on such progressive topics as liberation spaces on campus, Black Lives Matter and justice for women as well as for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and allied people.” This has no place on HN, as it’s cle…

[deleted]

Re: Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

#56

Post by JoHawth31 »

josefresco wrote: post #17

politically lopsided When the fuck did equal rights for minorities, women, and GLBTQ become "politically lopsided". We're talking about human rights here. There is no legitimate "other side" to this argument, just hate. This article is concern trolling 101.

This comment right here is proof of why we need to embrace viewpoint diversity. You’ve caricatureized any opposing argument inside your own head to the point where anyone who disagrees with you must be a scumbag. You can think BLM is a broken movement and still support equal rights, for example.

Re: Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

#57

Post by josefresco »

jeffdavis wrote: post #45
josefresco wrote: post #17

politically lopsided When the fuck did equal rights for minorities, women, and GLBTQ become "politically lopsided". We're talking about human rights here. There is no legitimate "other side" to this argument, just hate. This article is concern trolling 101.

Even among liberal-minded people, the politics and culture presented at colleges is exceedingly narrow. Regardless, colleges should deal with bad ideas by acknowledging and refuting them, not pretending they don't exist. I have a theory that people born after about 1980 don't really understand bigotry they just know there are certain things they can't say and certain things they should say. That leaves them ignorant…

"they just know there are certain things they can't say and certain things they should say"

Ah the decades-old conservative "political correctness" culture war strategy (successful I might add). You'd have to be a complete idiot to make it through school and not realize why these "certain things" are offensive - OR you could be making a disingenuous argument because you support bigotry (my vote is on the latter).

What would an "open intellectual discussion" about race/sex/religion/immigration, hosted by a conservative group look like exactly?

Re: Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

#58

Post by josefresco »

JoHawth31 wrote: post #56
josefresco wrote: post #17

politically lopsided When the fuck did equal rights for minorities, women, and GLBTQ become "politically lopsided". We're talking about human rights here. There is no legitimate "other side" to this argument, just hate. This article is concern trolling 101.

This comment right here is proof of why we need to embrace viewpoint diversity. You’ve caricatureized any opposing argument inside your own head to the point where anyone who disagrees with you must be a scumbag. You can think BLM is a broken movement and still support equal rights, for example.

"You can think BLM is a broken movement"

I've read what conservatives write about BLM. Saying they call it a "broken movement" is the understatement and mischaracterization of the century. It's racism, pure and simple. If you are a racist, you're a scumbag, full stop.

Re: Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

#59

Post by JoHawth31 »

iaosfgnionio wrote: post #47

I've never been sure whether or not this is a problem. Academics are not a representative cross-section of the American people, so there's no real reason to expect their political opinions to be representative. I would argue that professors should know better than the general public. In that case, we should want to see true beliefs over-represented and false ones under-represented. So-called liberal and conservative…

A couple things I think you’re missing:

Your assumption that one of the positions, either liberal or conservative, must be correct, is wrong.

Second, the assumption that professors know better than the general population in all cases is also incorrect. People in academia have a way of thinking that is sometimes divorced from reality and real world experience. Professors can be much more wrong than the general population in some cases.

This highlights the original point: viewpoint diversity and rigorous debate are the best tools for discovering truth. If your idea is so fragile it can’t exist outside of some protected ecosystem, the idea probably isn’t very good to begin with.

Re: Think Professors Are Liberal? Try School Administrators

#60

Post by 394549 »

gpm wrote: post #27
mmaunder wrote: post #12

A conservative leaning political post on HN's home page? I'm guessing this will be disappeared in a few minutes.

Look at the comments that already exist - is there any way that you can imagine this not turning into a flamefest?

> Look at the comments that already exist - is there any way that you can imagine this not turning into a flamefest?

That's an interesting censorship tactic: if you don't like a topic or an idea, start a fight about it, the ruder and unproductive the better. Your disliked topic is thrown out like a baby with the bathwater, an objections to the censorship can be countered with the misdirection that the topic or idea isn't getting suppressed, just "fights."

That's why I think, in the interest of open, good-faith discussion, the flamers themselves need to be moderated, but not the topics that attract them.

Post reply on HN