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The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

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Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#21

Post by kaycebasques »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #11
kaycebasques wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophize This just did a series on Foucault [0] and Deleuze [1] which I got a lot of value out of. Particularly the Deleuze discussion about how post-modernism doesn’t always have to devolve into deconstruction. That was eye-opening and hugely helpful for me. And Foucault’s idea of the panopticon is probably very relevant to anyone interested in surveillance capitalism. I studied History at Cal so I understand th…

Foucault's only half decent book was discipline and punish (where the panopticon chapter is in) but if you actually read him (or open up any of DnGs anti-oedipus) you will see very rapidly why you had to have a secondary source understand them. It's because modern people don't read Charlatan authors as much as Foucault did. Foucault is a terrible historographer and no amount of writing against "metanarratives" or "to…

I agree that secondary sources do a better job at explaining the ideas than the originals. I did read Discipline And Punish though and got through it fine. My understanding of the text mapped well to the Philosophize This podcast on the topic. It would be exhausting to read his whole body of work, though. Same goes for any of the post-modernists. I guess they might have argued that they were venturing into new intellectual territory and that language wasn’t well-suited to what they were trying to explain, but if that’s the case then that’s just elitist BS in my eyes. The secondary sources prove that you can explain these ideas in plain language just fine.

Didn’t mean to imply that you were critiquing deconstruction. I bring it up because in my experience the major complaint around these authors is that they seem to just tear down the “grand narratives” of the past without showing the way to a better future. I think this is the main problem on campuses right now. I for one can definitely say that was my college experience. I left with the clear impression that a lot of ideas I had grown up with were BS, meanwhile my ideas on how to build a better future were vague at best.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#22

Post by autokad »

A company was holding a competition for 'a great new idea to solve heart disease' with a huge million $ prize. our research group of 30+ people consisting mostly of faculty wanted to win it, so we broke our group into 6 or so sub-groups to come up with ideas and submit it to the greater group.

my group wanted to submit as an idea 'tax on soda'. I was adamantly against the idea. Ignoring the fact that I don't think it would work, its not a 'NEW' idea, and the company that was holding the comp was doing this for PR, and this doesn't seem like an idea they'd choose as a winner. However, when the groups got back together, all of the other groups submitted the same idea, tax soda.

I was floored. there was over 300 years (3 centuries) of higher education among the groups, and they were completely incapable of original thought.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#23

Post by Retric »

lostmymind66 wrote: post #15
jlawson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Responding to your first paragraph. If you came to the same conclusion as the mainstream on every issue , it almost certainly means you're incapable of independent thought. Not just one issue.

I still disagree. Many issues usually fall into 2 or a few sides (abortion, taxes, gun control, etc), so statistically, it's fairly easy to come up with your own opinion on any one issue and match the mainstream. There are also many people that go to the extremist views because they want to be different. They are guided by the mainstream and choose a different side, just so they can feel like a rebel. I don't really…

Issues are almost never binary, even if political parties love for people to think that way.

Seemingly binary choices like abortion always have the third option of not caring. But again that’s the headline stance policy deals with complexity. If someone feels very late term abortion is an abomination but the morning after pill is fine they need to define where that border exists. The extreme end is something like banning condom usage. Side issues like aborting for genetic issues or birth defects further split the issue.

Taxes are about as far from a binary issue as it gets. Unless you abolish government they need to collect some money, so the real question is exactly how much money they want to collect and from whom. Hand all the different numbers to every American and there is a reasonable chance none of them would pick the same budget as was past last year.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#24

Post by kaycebasques »

povertyworld wrote: post #13
kaycebasques wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophize This just did a series on Foucault [0] and Deleuze [1] which I got a lot of value out of. Particularly the Deleuze discussion about how post-modernism doesn’t always have to devolve into deconstruction. That was eye-opening and hugely helpful for me. And Foucault’s idea of the panopticon is probably very relevant to anyone interested in surveillance capitalism. I studied History at Cal so I understand th…

Pretty sure the panopticon predates Foucault by at least a century.

Foucault has a fascinating take on Jeremy Bentham’s idea of the panopticon and uses it as a metaphor to explain the pervasive sense of surveillance throughout modern society. Highly recommend this podcast on the topic: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1tcYLy2ILoRoDddvR56Kxy?si=4...

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#25

Post by Der_Einzige »

xfs wrote: post #18
Der_Einzige wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly why the term for what this article is criticising is "Critical Theory". Leftist postmodernists are damn good at critiquing things, and calling out why one should reject a mainstream position. Of course, they forgot that the seductive belief in rationalism - specifically in the claim that some human recognize reality more correctly than others (and education is what separates the wrong from the correct…

Well, you have to master the language of critique before being able to critique the language itself.

No you don't. Lay-people offer great criticism against "language" without knowing the "language of critique".

I don't need to say "Your epistemology is built upon a reductionist and totalizing conception of the self". I can say "There is no all-knowable truth in the world if there is no directly identifiable self"

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#26

Post by BeetleB »

jeremyjh wrote: post #19
jlawson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Responding to your first paragraph. If you came to the same conclusion as the mainstream on every issue , it almost certainly means you're incapable of independent thought. Not just one issue.

People outside the mainstream on a topic who are not deeply experienced specialists in that field have almost certainly fallen prey to well-crafted arguments that advance a falsehood. These arguments are far more common than novel ideas that are both correct and dominated by an incorrect mainstream idea. So when you encounter any argument against a mainstream position you need to be deeply skeptical of it, and if you…

>People outside the mainstream on a topic who are not deeply experienced specialists in that field have almost certainly fallen prey to well-crafted arguments that advance a falsehood.

First off, these are not mutually exclusive stances. Both you and GP can be right at the same time.

Second, I'd leave it at "well-crafted" and omit the claim that they are falsehoods. Whether they are true or false is the source of endless debate, which is rather the point.

Having said that, my experience is that while you say is often true (I'd argue about "almost certainly"), it's even more true when you find someone who almost entirely espouses mainstream views. They don't believe what they do because they spent much time musing over it and studying it. They believe it because they bought into a prevailing narrative without much thought.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#27

Post by marcosdumay »

traverseda wrote: post #16
hirundo wrote: post #4

> As every freshman course in “critical thinking” reminds us, the dull, unhappy burden of the rational mind is to follow the evidence where it leads, not the bandwagon. If you do that you frequently end up with a position that is "extremist" to someone or another. This effect is so reliable that if you meet someone who isn't extremist about anything it's safe to say that they don't think for themselves, rationally or…

Extremism isn't an understanding it's a way of doing things. I don't imagine that people are getting called extremists for jumping on the communism bandwagon, as an example. They're getting called extremists for how they're behaving, how they're promoting their ideas. >There are many animals which have what are called dominance contests. They rush at each other with horns - trying to knock each other down, not gore e…

Well call both "extremism". What is bad, because they are very different.

Like the GP says, extremist ideas are the very natural consequence of thinking by oneself. But extremist actions are the consequence of the very misguided arrogance of thinking that you are correct just because your ideas leaded you there.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#28

Post by jeremyjh »

BeetleB wrote: post #26
jeremyjh wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People outside the mainstream on a topic who are not deeply experienced specialists in that field have almost certainly fallen prey to well-crafted arguments that advance a falsehood. These arguments are far more common than novel ideas that are both correct and dominated by an incorrect mainstream idea. So when you encounter any argument against a mainstream position you need to be deeply skeptical of it, and if you…

>People outside the mainstream on a topic who are not deeply experienced specialists in that field have almost certainly fallen prey to well-crafted arguments that advance a falsehood. First off, these are not mutually exclusive stances. Both you and GP can be right at the same time. Second, I'd leave it at "well-crafted" and omit the claim that they are falsehoods. Whether they are true or false is the source of end…

> They believe it because they bought into a prevailing narrative without much thought.

And I'm arguing that this is the most rational thing to do in most cases. If you are outside your field, you should just accept the mainstream position unless you have devoted a great deal of (well-spent) time to the study of the topic. For any given matter of fact there is only one truth and unlimited falsehoods, and many of the falsehoods will have well-crafted arguments supporting them with lots of adherents. Its possible one of those could be the mainstream view but I believe that over time truths become mainstream.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#29

Post by Der_Einzige »

Retric wrote: post #23
lostmymind66 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still disagree. Many issues usually fall into 2 or a few sides (abortion, taxes, gun control, etc), so statistically, it's fairly easy to come up with your own opinion on any one issue and match the mainstream. There are also many people that go to the extremist views because they want to be different. They are guided by the mainstream and choose a different side, just so they can feel like a rebel. I don't really…

Issues are almost never binary, even if political parties love for people to think that way. Seemingly binary choices like abortion always have the third option of not caring. But again that’s the headline stance policy deals with complexity. If someone feels very late term abortion is an abomination but the morning after pill is fine they need to define where that border exists. The extreme end is something like ban…

Fourth option, and one that may seriously be advocated by Anti-natalists, is a "pro-death" view which would advocate for as many abortions as possible because all life invokes harm and on balance the ethical harm of even a small amount of suffering outweighs the ethical good of the pleasure of enjoyment - leading to the attempt to create a "benevolent end of the world" through not having children.

The only reason that the person before you didn't include this view is because its outside of their overton window.

Re: The Tyranny of Trendy Ideas in Academia

#30

Post by marcosdumay »

lostmymind66 wrote: post #15
jlawson wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Responding to your first paragraph. If you came to the same conclusion as the mainstream on every issue , it almost certainly means you're incapable of independent thought. Not just one issue.

I still disagree. Many issues usually fall into 2 or a few sides (abortion, taxes, gun control, etc), so statistically, it's fairly easy to come up with your own opinion on any one issue and match the mainstream. There are also many people that go to the extremist views because they want to be different. They are guided by the mainstream and choose a different side, just so they can feel like a rebel. I don't really…

Nearly no issues fall on 2 sides. Is there a time of pregnancy where abortion is ok? What guns do you want to control, and what kind of control do you want to have? Are your taxes progressive or proportional? How progressive? Where does progressiveness stop? Do you create product-specific taxes?

Anyway, take 10 issues that fall on exactly 2 sides, and you should never meet two people that agree with them all.

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