Earlier quoted context omitted.
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They are detaining people for op-Ed’s though.
What did I miss?
A university president makes a case against cowardice
301–310 of 934 posts
Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes they went to universities. No, they are not trying to help the students. They don't even pretend to be trying to do so. They are nit trying to make it cheaper and they are not trying to make it more accessible. They agenda was either openly the opposite or they ignored the students. Except when they think they are too progressive and attack then verbally.
I mean, at a minimum, they think they're helping students. Nobody would vote for a politician who just makes things worse, that doesn't make sense. In this case, they're trying to make universities more fair and to reduce government waste in universities by removing DEI programs. There's lots of logic to that.
> Nobody would vote for a politician who just makes things worse, that doesn't make sense.
Yet, that's what they did. Repeatedly. After he already demonstrated how much worse he would make things.
Oh yeah, he denied that he would execute the planes for how he would make things much, much, MUCH worse, that had been very openly stated by his close associates.
That's enough for it to "make sense" to you, I suppose.
Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice
#303The best solution here is for universities to become less involved with government money. They should have to compete for students and research on an even playing field, and we shouldn't be creating politically aligned fields through government spending.
Surprised at how it hasn't been pointed out here but - the "general public" wants the sausage, but not how it's made. They wouldn't if they knew what it entailed. Cutbacks to student aid, shuttering of departments, eliminating of PhD positions, etc.
Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice
#304America has done an absolutely terrible job of teaching people about rights. If governments granted rights then they would be privileges not rights. In western tradition governments exist to protect rights, such as the freedom of expression, not to grant them. If you believe these are human rights, rather than your privilege as an American, then you must protect their rights to seek justice too. People are already be…
I think what's going on is a helpful reminder that there's no such thing as "rights" in the way you describe. Everything we have, everything we're permitted to do, is at the pleasure and permission of our governments. Constitutions and laws are only worth anything if the people in charge honor them. Might may not make right, but might does let you impose whatever you want on people who don't have your might.
You can try to design systems where one group of people don't have all the might, and so those who balance them are somewhat adversarial in their goals and desires. We always thought the US had such a system, but when you put law enforcement and the military under a single group, and give the other two groups no teeth, you really don't have that sort of system.
Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice
#305This is rich. The Universities that caved to student activists engaged in antisemitism and other egregious activities should now fight for their rights to be cowards? Or the Universities that engaged in racist DEI programs are now going to stand on principal? Give me a break.
If tenure was designed to protect intellectual freedom, but academics are consistently the biggest cowards failing to stand up to anything - what does that say about academia?
Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remember all those people who are resentful (of course that word) towards degree-holders because they wish they had one themselves? Me neither. That’s a they-hate-me-cause’-they-ain’t-me kind of logic.[1] True othering comes from people living in different worlds and hating the other person’s world. [1] I did not read the the article but I’ve read this argument in a Graeber article.
> Remember all those people who are resentful (of course that word) towards degree-holders because they wish they had one themselves? I think the fair comparison isn't they have a degree and I don't, it's they have a better life/savings/house/car than me, which is enabled in general by getting a degree, which becomes the common contention point.
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Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
While not about resentment towards universities specifically, I thought this article in The Baffler [1] did a good job of framing a dynamic that, I think, contributes to this phenomenon. My interpretation: As the country has entered the post-industrial era, holding a college degree has increasingly become a table-stakes credential for entering the white collar labor force. The higher education system has struggled or…
Remember all those people who are resentful (of course that word) towards degree-holders because they wish they had one themselves? Me neither. That’s a they-hate-me-cause’-they-ain’t-me kind of logic.[1] True othering comes from people living in different worlds and hating the other person’s world. [1] I did not read the the article but I’ve read this argument in a Graeber article.
I don't think you're necessarily drawing the right conclusion from what the GP said. It seems more likely to me that non-degree-holders aren't resentful about not having a degree, but are resentful that white collar work more or less requires a degree these days. It wasn't always that way; degree holders used to be a minority in white collar work.
Why has that shifted? Can we blame the university system and their "marketing" that has pushed a degree as the One True Way of leaving the working class? If so, that's an understandable reason to be anti-university.
Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice
#308Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice
#309[flagged]
Re: A university president makes a case against cowardice
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
Read the Twitter files. The government was actively involved in censorship. Zuckerberg has also stated the FBI was demanding certain posts be removed / demoted, users shadow banned, etc. The CIA also infiltrates and subverts many organizations and platforms. Wouldn't be surprised if they operate here, they've definitely been manipulating Reddit for at least the past decade.
You wouldn't have to keep referencing a tenuous connection in The Twitter Files (cue: X-Files theme music) if you came around to seeing government and corpos as quite similar creatures on a spectrum of coercion rather than as completely disjoint and disparate things. So called "conservatives" were soooo close to being able to have this realization before they regained the power of the government, vested it all in a u…
Yes actually, i've been ranting about this for a long time, sufficiently powerful corporations are a form of government. I'm not conservative though despite being anti-dei so make of that what you will, i think a lot of people on the left are being lumped in with people on the right because we oppose the types of discrimination and racism now popular with the "left".