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A university president makes a case against cowardice

newyorker.com

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Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#181

Post by [deleted] »

krapp wrote: post #136
e40 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the politics get crazy enough it bleeds into everything, which is why it's now acceptable to discuss here.

I think you'll find that no matter how crazy it gets or what it bleeds into, it's never going to be acceptable to discuss here. As soon as people get a whiff of "politics" they're going to start flagging. Especially if they see the "T" word. The regime could be rolling dissidents into mass graves and the only valid point of discussion for most people here would be packing algorithms.

[deleted]

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#182

Post by taeric »

sequoia wrote: post #49

A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?

Hard not to see this as a class war that has been fed by some of the personalities that were big in the "conservative" sphere for a long time. Modern podcast influencers are big, but this isn't exactly a new thing. Rush and his ilk were big on lashing out against "ivory tower" theories. And they didn't invent the idea. Just went after easy targets.

None of which is to say that mistakes weren't made in the institutions. They were. Mistakes were also made by the critics. Populism, sadly, has a habit of celebrating their worst and elevating them to heights they flat out can't handle.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#183

Post by michaelhoney »

defen wrote: post #169
DFHippie wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Does it matter if they did or didn't? Universities have indisputably lost the mandate of heaven, have they not? Arguing over whether they actually did any of those things is irrelevant, if a politically powerful group of people think they did! None of them have an objective definition, so it's going to come down to values, and universities / academics as a class have alienated themselves from a substantial portion of…

... or have anti-intellectual media whipped up that resentment as part of their culture war?

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#184

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

sequoia wrote: post #49

A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?

Fox News. I don't think it's 100% irrational but perhaps 99% irrational. These ideas usually contain a nugget of truth.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#185

Post by Smithalicious »

andelink wrote: post #175
krapp wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find that no matter how crazy it gets or what it bleeds into, it's never going to be acceptable to discuss here. As soon as people get a whiff of "politics" they're going to start flagging. Especially if they see the "T" word. The regime could be rolling dissidents into mass graves and the only valid point of discussion for most people here would be packing algorithms.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is the "T" word in this context?

Tigger

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#186

Post by taeric »

disambiguation wrote: post #97
sequoia wrote: post #49

A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?

The political and ideological divide speaks for itself, but on behalf of the common folk universities have been failing their core mission - to provide the people with a quality education. The inversion and disconnect between the cost of tuition and economic outcomes is stunning. Too many kids who don't know better are pressured into pursuing higher education and taking on massive debt, only to graduate without any j…

Have they been failing at their core missions, though? You say there has been an inversion/disconnect between cost of tuition and economic outcomes, but looking at the data doesn't back that. At least, I have yet to see anything that supports an inversion. Diminished returns maybe. Certainly a good case to not take out loans to get into school if you don't have a reasonable chance of graduation.

But that is true of everything we do loans for, nowadays. The amount of consumer debt that people contort themselves into justifying is insane. If you want to use that as evidence that grade schools are failing in education, I can largely agree with you.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#187

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

andelink wrote: post #175
krapp wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find that no matter how crazy it gets or what it bleeds into, it's never going to be acceptable to discuss here. As soon as people get a whiff of "politics" they're going to start flagging. Especially if they see the "T" word. The regime could be rolling dissidents into mass graves and the only valid point of discussion for most people here would be packing algorithms.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is the "T" word in this context?

China

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#188

Post by mrtesthah »

bell-cot wrote: post #89
sequoia wrote: post #49

A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?

There's a highly emotional Right-Left culture war going on in America. Many of our "flagship" universities conspicuously sided with the Left - at least on most of the "litmus test" issues. And where universities didn't do that, the Right found it advantageous to talk up the association & outrage anyway. Any decent History Prof. could have explained to the U's that openly taking one side in long-term cultural wars was…

Billionaires shifted the overton window by pouring money into extreme right-wing media outlets and social media platforms. Every other existing institution now appears "left-wing" by comparison. That's not universities' fault.

Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice

#190

Post by diogocp »

mind-blight wrote: post #63
mantas wrote: post #4

Some of that so-called activism seems to be closer to suppressing any thoughts someone dislikes. Removing that from university life is not cool, that „activism“ itself went off the rails too.

I know someone who works for a university in event planning. They were putting together an event for a civil rights icon. Because of the new policies, they were forced to go through all of the brochures and pamphlets and censor any use of words such as "racism" and "black" (when referring to the man's skin color). They literally couldn't say "black man fighting against racism" about a civil rights icon without losing…

> They literally couldn't say "black man fighting against racism" about a civil rights icon without losing millions in funding.

They could. They just preferred to play the victim.

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