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The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

jamesgmartin.center

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Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#51

Post by Ntrails »

rland wrote: post #27
garmaine wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should specifics of what is said matter if the point is free speech?

Free speech is necessary, but not sufficient. It isn't simply that the speech has to be free; it also must be worth exploring. To use my analogy, the Earth-centered model is free speech, but it isn't worth much, because it is wrong.

> Earth-centered model is free speech, but it isn't worth much, because it is wrong.

And yet in schools around the world people are taught that electricity flows from positive to negative, and everyone is happy. xD

(slightly disingenuous, but I'd say wrong and not useful are merely correlated rather than 1-1 linked)

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#52

Post by pjc50 »

dboreham wrote: post #17
edraferi wrote: post #3

It seems like there’s a gap in the market for a hard-nosed, teaching-first university. A place full of passionate professors with high standards. A place where high school valedictorians work their ass off for a B. A place where you feel your best will never be good enough because the standards are impossible... until, one day, you get an A. And that grade MEANS something. And after four years, the students walk out…

Scotland?

Scotland has a number of universities with very different styles and backgrounds?

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#53

Post by esyir »

yarg wrote: post #28

More and more this safe space bullshit is infiltrating the former bastions of free-thought. It is a disturbing trend where it no longer matters if someone can convey a counter argument to any given point of view, the mere presence of a point of view contrary to the modern anti-liberal left world view - even if purely rhetorical - breaches the safe space contract and justifies censuring or even punishment. It will onl…

On the free speech front, I'll note that at the moment, the right seems to care more about it than the left, or at least it pays more respect to its dressings.

Whether this changes once the power balance tips is a whole different story.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#54

Post by lazyjones »

lowdose wrote: post #37
mmmBacon wrote: post #24

This is the world we live in now. Doesn’t matter if you actually harmed someone. What matters now is whether someone feels you as doing harm. The word of the person who perceives harm is taken as fact and the accused has little to no recourse or defense.

Is this is a symptom of a very developed society in which abundance of wealth creates the possibility where certain individuals will always find a way to feel victimized?

More likely it's the result of helicopter parenting...

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#55

Post by GrryDucape »

I wonder if Mike Nifong's prodigy was one of the complaining students. Keep your head up Professor, there are plenty of us in your corner! Let's petition Coach K to speak up on your behalf and see if the school has the balls to fire him too...

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#56

Post by whokal »

rland wrote: post #27
garmaine wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should specifics of what is said matter if the point is free speech?

Free speech is necessary, but not sufficient. It isn't simply that the speech has to be free; it also must be worth exploring. To use my analogy, the Earth-centered model is free speech, but it isn't worth much, because it is wrong.

Before people learned that the geocentric model is wrong, how do you suppose they discuss, learn, and share ideas to arrive at the truth? How do they know what is “worth exploring” and who decides that?

Furthermore, once the facts are established, I personally believe it’s important for people to express their ideas even if it’s out of ignorance because then we can know to edify. Not everyone will be willing to listen, learn, and change but without free speech and exchange of ideas I find it hard to see how people will grow effectively.

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#58

Post by mpweiher »

SantalBlush wrote: post #9
wpasc wrote: post #6

I believe HN has both right and left leaning individuals, but I wonder if most people would condemn the practice of professors being ousted from schools for daring to challenge their students' "safe space" notions and microagressing them? This is not an isolated event and universities skew heavily in one direction politically. Is it universally agreeable that the end of healthy debate in college is a really, really b…

It's been my belief that many people get offended by opposing viewpoints because their beliefs--while perhaps correct--weren't firmly grounded in much evidence. A well formulated counterpoint forces us to refine our argument (or abandon it), and most people just don't seem very interested in doing that.

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.” -- John Stuart Mill

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#59

Post by ptah »

etrautmann wrote: post #23
rland wrote: post #18

I have read probably 4 or 5 of these articles, written by professors/teachers, claiming to have been punished for their speech. 2 common threads about them. The first is that they rarely discuss specifics about what positions or what opinions got them censured. The second is that the comments section is typically full of drive by commenters who aren't responding to the content of the post in particular but to the ide…

his research publications help to provide a fuller picture: https://sites.duke.edu/evancharney/files/2014/09/Liberal-bia...

lovely how he tries to smuggle superstition into modern discourse

Re: The End of Being a Duke Professor and What It Means for the Future of Higher Ed

#60

Post by charliebrownau »

rdtsc wrote: post #26

> Unfortunately, a growing number of university students equate being made uncomfortable in the classroom with being “harmed.” University is a place of learning as they say. An important thing to learn is how to exert power over those around you. One way of doing that is to leverage the irrationality of large institutions in your favor. Large institutions, including whole countries, buy into different ideologies at d…

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