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Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production

heterodoxacademy.org

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Re: Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production

#21

Post by Der_Einzige »

I've never understood where the criticism was for American Universities having a somewhat more "Leftist" culture among social sciences is coming from. Once you learn how to speak the "leftist" language, it's extremely easy to get high grades. Read and understand a Foucault and De Beuvoir work, coast on easy A's through these "grievance" studies courses. I did 1/10th the amount of work for a graduate level gender studies course as I did in a graduate level programming class.

I certainly don't like the idea of not knowing the political orientation of a professor before I write an essay (as it is eminently important for my grade, no matter how impartial one pretends to be), and a radical left cannon means that I can write like I'm Marx and get a free pass into the Academy. The people on HN who don't like this simply don't know how to play the game.

Re: Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production

#22

Post by nuncanada »

ralusek wrote: post #8

It's always interesting to see Hayek's words, followed by a timestamp. Similar, although less recent at nearly 25 years ago, is this Peter Thiel video discussing the illusion of multiculturalism in 1996 https://youtu.be/qTPOBEdc7OI?t=722 . The degree to which radically far left ideology is taught in university is one of the most prevalent contributors to the current political schism. America has been primarily libera…

Do you realize that what you are complaining about has the same problematic root as what you think are good ideas? They are all pseudo-scientific ideology. Hayek and neoliberalism just as much as the radical left ideology...

Re: Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production

#24

Post by anonuser123456 »

slowswift wrote: post #13
ralusek wrote: post #8

It's always interesting to see Hayek's words, followed by a timestamp. Similar, although less recent at nearly 25 years ago, is this Peter Thiel video discussing the illusion of multiculturalism in 1996 https://youtu.be/qTPOBEdc7OI?t=722 . The degree to which radically far left ideology is taught in university is one of the most prevalent contributors to the current political schism. America has been primarily libera…

> The degree to which people are skeptical of markets and a market value associated with their actions is so immense Similarly, the degree to which market advocates, themselves, exhibit skepticism about the market mechanism vis-a-vis their own intellectual products is so immense, in fact, that the idea that ideas achieving widespread adoption within the marketplace of ideas do, indeed, have vastly greater value than…

You're making a derisive comment about inarticulate derision in a sentence with 7 commas.

Re: Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production

#25

Post by Smithalicious »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #21

I've never understood where the criticism was for American Universities having a somewhat more "Leftist" culture among social sciences is coming from. Once you learn how to speak the "leftist" language, it's extremely easy to get high grades. Read and understand a Foucault and De Beuvoir work, coast on easy A's through these "grievance" studies courses. I did 1/10th the amount of work for a graduate level gender stud…

Or perhaps people have standards that make them dislike some harmful things that benefit themselves personally.

Re: Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production

#26

Post by snagglegaggle »

ralusek wrote: post #8

It's always interesting to see Hayek's words, followed by a timestamp. Similar, although less recent at nearly 25 years ago, is this Peter Thiel video discussing the illusion of multiculturalism in 1996 https://youtu.be/qTPOBEdc7OI?t=722 . The degree to which radically far left ideology is taught in university is one of the most prevalent contributors to the current political schism. America has been primarily libera…

>Most notably, one's racial and gender identity are brought to the foreground as bar none the primary contributors to the outcomes an individual will encounter.

To be fair parental income is the best indicator of child income and those things you list are proxies for parental income. That said I do agree with your point, though I think market skepticism is largely a separate issue from forced multiculturalism and identity politics. The market is generally dysfunctional for the working class and people want to blame something for it. On the other side the dysfunction is blamed for different things.

This hurts me particularly as over-correction w.r.t race/social class has made it very hard to attend school despite good grades and extracurricular performance.

Re: Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production

#27

Post by pgcj_poster »

booleandilemma wrote: post #3

Can anyone provide the tl;dr on this?

Somebody named Rudi Dutschke[1] is responsible for a 50-year-long conspiracy to take over American culture in order to make the author unpopular in college.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudi_Dutschke

Re: Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production

#28

Post by bloaf »

Nasrudith wrote: post #10

That is an awful lot of words for "people who don't agree with me are part of a vast conspiracy". Put aside the possibility that the reason elites disagree is because they know something that the author doesn't. Even if one disagrees with a prevailing philosophy or even if it is objectively wrong but the idea catches on doesn't mean there is a conspiracy. That a rant from the 70s sounds like one today says more about…

Here is another statement which you can characterize as "people who don't agree with me are part of a vast conspiracy."

> Republicans have been making concerted efforts to stack US courts with conservative judges.

Accusing someone of promoting a conspiracy theory is to accuse someone of making creating an unfalsifiable story, which does not seem to be the case in either my example statement or the original post. Specifically, there are no claims that "evidence to the contrary is fabricated" or "lack of key evidence is due to deliberate suppression." Now it may be the case that the author would respond in this way when presented with contrary evidence, or when pressed for some key supporting evidence, but as it stands there is no cause to levy the "mere conspiracy theory" charge at the author.

Re: Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production

#29

Post by js8 »

I don't disagree with the piece, but it is quite biased.

The institutionalization of non-scientific (that is, there is no clear criteria of what constitutes the truth in knowledge) "crap" is much more wider phenomenon, and not just some aberration of "the left". Nor is it confined to universities.

Here are other examples:

- Neoclassical economics, especially the macroeconomics. (It's ironic they quote Hayek, who significantly contributed to its rise.) If you want a similar article with this example, look at Steve Keen's Debunking Economics.

- String theory in physics. This example shows that it doesn't have to be related to politics and society at all.

- Various project management methodologies, lately the Scrum and Agile craze.

The truth is probably that in many institutions, there is some atrophied department that mostly lost its useful function in favor of defending some internal dogma.

Re: Seizing the Means of Knowledge Production

#30

Post by llamataboot »

ralusek wrote: post #8

It's always interesting to see Hayek's words, followed by a timestamp. Similar, although less recent at nearly 25 years ago, is this Peter Thiel video discussing the illusion of multiculturalism in 1996 https://youtu.be/qTPOBEdc7OI?t=722 . The degree to which radically far left ideology is taught in university is one of the most prevalent contributors to the current political schism. America has been primarily libera…

Meanwhile, in the United States, the black and white wealth gap continues completely unchanged for over 50 years, despite having addressed "racism". Wealth disparities have increased to levels not seen in generations. Your income remains tightly coupled and correlated to your parents income. Etc Etc Etc.

So basically, from any actual social scientific perspective, meritocracy always has been the bullshit fantasy of charlatan "economists" dolling their philosophy of human nature in the disguise of econometric models and regression equations.

Get back to me when you have evidence to support your claims and not just whining about "but muh SJWs", until then you can decide who felt this way about landlords

"The landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for the natural produce of the earth."

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