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Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

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Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#211

Post by tgv »

tomohawk wrote: post #180
yathaid wrote: post #112

"Now that many university presidents have agreed to implement many of the demands, I believe that the conflict between truth and social justice is likely to become unmanageable." Can someone ELI5 what is this conflict between truth and social justice Haidt refers to?

"The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." - Kendi Kendi is a key promoter of "anti-racism", which is described in the above quote. Many institutions are signing on to this agenda, which requires people to view everything through this ideological (social j…

Did you notice that that promotes an eternal cycle of hatred? Because present day discrimination would mean discriminating against yesterday's powerful, and thus future discrimination will be the opposite. That someone, who seriously wrote something like that, has got influence is not a good sign.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#212

Post by superkuh »

tpoacher wrote: post #65

> Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) Hiding in plain sight, as they say xD

FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) has been defending student rights from attacks from all sides since the late 90s, well before any of this social justice stuff. They've done innumerable good works that your slanderous implications here deny without cause simply because the world changed around them and they're not exclusively protecting students from one political block instead of all political blocks.

But maybe you're just acting the clown to highlight the very issue this comment thread is discussing: inability to discern shades of grey due to polarization.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#213

Post by SeanLuke »

Entirely independent of the primary theme of this discussion, I found this statement from Haidt to be quite grating:

> "The telos of a knife is to cut, the telos of medicine is to heal, and the telos of a university is truth."

Since when is "truth" a verb?

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#214

Post by bobbylarrybobby »

SeanLuke wrote: post #213

Entirely independent of the primary theme of this discussion, I found this statement from Haidt to be quite grating: > "The telos of a knife is to cut, the telos of medicine is to heal, and the telos of a university is truth." Since when is "truth" a verb?

https://help.truthsocial.com/how-do-you-retruth/

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#215

Post by trention »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #208
trention wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they more destructive than woke activists? I very much doubt that. Your employer has no business judging you for how you (non-criminally) behave outside your working time. Firing over any such non-criminal behavior should be punishable severely.

I agree they shouldn't if its outside working time, but they can and should fire you for being an asshat at work. Also, sounds like you think all 'woke activists' everywhere are always destructive. Which is an interesting take. At what point does someone cross the line to become an inherently destructive 'woke' person?

When they do one or more of the following:

a) call/protest for firing people for said outside-of-work activities

b) protest/lobby for legislation changes restricting freedom of speech in any way

c) protest/lobby for any sort of affirmative action policies

d) protest/lobby against enforcing criminal laws because they disproportionally affect minorities (when said disproportionate effect is a result of minorities committing said crimes at higher rates)

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#216

Post by ZeroGravitas »

rhaksw wrote: post #205
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A written version of their (by which I mean Strossen and other's like Haidt involved in FIRE movement) "anti-hate laws helped the Nazis" argument is found here: https://www.thefire.org/would-censorship-have-stopped-the-ri... > Considering the Nazi movement’s core ideology, as espoused by Hitler in “Mein Kampf,” rested on an alleged conspiracy between Jews and their sympathizers in government to politically disempower…

> I don't find it particularly convincing Can you elaborate on what you find unconvincing about appeals to open discourse? Are you saying you think censorship is more effective?

The Nazis were helped by a lot of things.

Suggesting that anti-hate speech laws are worth bringing up in this context is like mentioning Hitler was a vegetarian or banned smoking and seems to be sourced to a cartoonist, rather than a historian.

Hitler went to jail for 'high treason' after an attempted coup.

> Goebbels' tactic of using provocation to bring attention to the Nazi Party, along with violence at the public party meetings and demonstrations, led the Berlin police to ban the Nazi Party from the city on 5 May 1927.[65][66] Violent incidents continued, including young Nazis randomly attacking Jews in the streets.[62] Goebbels was subjected to a public speaking ban until the end of October.[67]

Goebbels, the victim of oppressive laws that stop you from randomly attacking people in the street. Why have we not learned this lesson from history? If you stop them attacking people violently in the streets, and removing the government, then it's your own fault what happens next.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#217

Post by canadiantim »

concordDance wrote: post #155
yathaid wrote: post #112

"Now that many university presidents have agreed to implement many of the demands, I believe that the conflict between truth and social justice is likely to become unmanageable." Can someone ELI5 what is this conflict between truth and social justice Haidt refers to?

Basically if your research is considered bad for the dominant DEI narratives you're going to be in for a bad time. E.g. if your research gets the "wrong" results regarding police shootings then anyone who defends your research will have to resign: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2020/06/resignation.html?m=1 And anything regarding differences in crime numbers or IQ? Forget it.

Anyone else find it unsettling that the acronym the social justice crowd settled on was DIE (Diversity, Inclusion, Equality)?

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#219

Post by dash2 »

SeanLuke wrote: post #213

Entirely independent of the primary theme of this discussion, I found this statement from Haidt to be quite grating: > "The telos of a knife is to cut, the telos of medicine is to heal, and the telos of a university is truth." Since when is "truth" a verb?

It's not. Instead, the infinitives of "cut" and "heal" are being used as noun phrases. The grammar is correct, and the switch if anything makes the sentence more punchy.

Re: Mandated diversity statement drives Jonathan Haidt to quit academic society

#220

Post by rhaksw »

viraptor wrote: post #207
rhaksw wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't comparing academia to nazis. Rather, I was saying that even in the most extreme situations e.g. nazis and communists, open and civil discourse is still better than censorship. It's also worth noting that FIRE was expressly founded to deal with free speech violations in higher education. FIRE's president often discusses this, for example in a recent interview with Nick Gillespie [1]. FIRE recently expanded to…

He may be right with the general idea, but the point was that his phrasing needs some serious work. The classic argument is really that they should be censored so they can't easily organise and kill us. If he doesn't say that, I don't know if he realises what stakes he's talking about. (he probably does, but... say it) I'm annoyed, because there are lots of people who don't realise this is literally about survival fo…

It was a classic argument made during his lifetime, from the 1910s until 1981 when that video was made.
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