It reminded me of a quote from Hemingway's book, The Sun Also Rises:
- “How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
- “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”
The Slow Death of the University
111–120 of 134 posts
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When people are talking about "safe areas" to protect students from words spoken by a speaker, then criticism is dead. I understand what you're getting at, but some people really do have PTSD, and some speeches really do contain things like graphic recountings of abuse. Should those people just not attend university? (I'm actually undecided.)
I guess I am in the minority because I think that the concepts are good and useful in a limited scope but that they're obviously being abused by a cynical group of people to shut up other people they disagree with. Like, you have people arguing with a straight face that Christina-Hoff Sommers even being on their campus makes them feel unsafe. The entire thing has turned into a bizarre group-performativity ritual that…
It's because people have realized that if they say they feel unsafe, then the university takes them more seriously than if they said they were merely offended.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#113"It would also seek to restore the honorable lineage of the university as one of the few arenas in modern society (another is the arts) in which prevailing ideologies can be submitted to some rigorous scrutiny." Then the battle is lost, because universities, at least in the USA, are the home of "free speech areas" and not letting people speak who a group disagrees with. When people are talking about "safe areas" to p…
> When people are talking about "safe areas" to protect students from words spoken by a speaker, then criticism is dead. I understand what you're getting at, but some people really do have PTSD, and some speeches really do contain things like graphic recountings of abuse. Should those people just not attend university? (I'm actually undecided.)
> I understand what you're getting at, but some people really do have PTSD, and some speeches really do contain things like graphic recountings of abuse. Should those people just not attend university? (I'm actually undecided.)
Contrary to the collective opinion of certain Internet communities, I think it quite likely that reports of PTSD in the average person have been greatly exaggerated.
It's great to provide support in the rare case that a person really does have an unmanageable reaction to certain memories. But mitigating this edge case by making that support a default condition in every interaction on a campus stymies the free thinking and free expression that are supposed to flourish in a liberal learned environment.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Universities, which in Britain have an 800-year history, have traditionally been derided as ivory towers, and there was always some truth in the accusation. (...) Across the globe, that critical distance is now being diminished almost to nothing, as the institutions that produced Erasmus and John Milton, Einstein and Monty Python, capitulate to the hard-faced priorities of global capitalism. I never looked at Oxfor…
> I never looked at Oxford people with the same eyes again after reading Giordano Bruno's works and about how the professors in there treated him. Dude, you are going to be bummed when you find out how the rest of humanity has treated everyone
I now that, after all I'm a subscriber on /r/syriancivilwar , is that when you're a professor at a place like Oxford supposedly you don't actively fight against science.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#115"It would also seek to restore the honorable lineage of the university as one of the few arenas in modern society (another is the arts) in which prevailing ideologies can be submitted to some rigorous scrutiny." Then the battle is lost, because universities, at least in the USA, are the home of "free speech areas" and not letting people speak who a group disagrees with. When people are talking about "safe areas" to p…
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Re: The Slow Death of the University
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are we not really reaching here with the graduation speech examples? Every graduation speech I've heard has been little more than encouraging platitudes. Hardly likely to trigger PTSD. When was the last time graphic torture or rape was recounted in a graduation speech?
I guess I am reaching. But like I said, I'm looking for a "steelman argument"[1] in favor of the idea of a "safe zone"—a worst-case one-off emergency scenario where it might be warranted to have one. If we can agree that it's warranted in that case, then it becomes a matter of agreeing exactly when it becomes un warranted—which is a much more fact-based debate to have than one where one side just shouts "Freedom of S…
The trouble here is that you're arguing from the enviable position of having a solution without a clear problem, and are trying to find a problem to justify it.
The concept got flipped in the chain here -- what is actually happening on these campuses is the establishment of "free speech zones", where a person can say what they like, and the establishment of rules that, on the rest of the campus, punishment will occur for saying things that could trigger or make someone feel unsafe.
So, what's happening is that an entire campus is made to be this "safe" area.
Is the assertion that there are so many people on any given university campus who might have a breakdown that the entire campus must walk on egg shells? Because that is the side of the debate you're arguing from.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#117This is only mildly related to the article, but does anyone else have difficulty imagining what others' jobs are? For example, I'm just young enough to remember a time when I thought a programmer was someone who hid in a closet to slam at a keyboard for nine hours a day, but that notion was only corrected by entering the workforce. What about my other misconceptions? There's no way to learn about all of them firsthan…
Maybe also a good question is "what should they do". A lot of jobs are rubbish. That opinion rubs people the wrong way for totally acceptable reasons, but only a hundred years ago, around 90% of people were farmers. Today it's 2%. I think it's fair to say that the cataclysmic effect that our human economy is having on the planet can not last in it's current configuration. Most people should be employed in building an…
You are right. The world doesn't need engineers (we didn't run out of television sets). It needs farmers.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#118"It would also seek to restore the honorable lineage of the university as one of the few arenas in modern society (another is the arts) in which prevailing ideologies can be submitted to some rigorous scrutiny." Then the battle is lost, because universities, at least in the USA, are the home of "free speech areas" and not letting people speak who a group disagrees with. When people are talking about "safe areas" to p…
University should be the one place where Crocker's rules apply to all participants BY VIRTUE OF THEIR SIGNING UP FOR UNIVERSITY. http://sl4.org/crocker.html If scientific facts (so-called "HateFacts", think Evolutionary Psychology) offend you, it's your problem really.
At the same time, if factual acts (like the teachings of a religion concerning human acts) offend you, it's your problem really.
The thing goes in all directions.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#119What's it with humanities people that make them believe that only them, of all people, are able to do critical thinking? Anyway, the author is part of the problem. Just at the beginning of the article he states that humanities are only good for rich students to pass their time. Until the professors themselves stop thinking this way, no government will prioritize them. (And no, I don't agree that humanities are useles…
"...What's it with humanities people that make them believe that only them, of all people, are able to do critical thinking?..." The same thing that is with everyone else. If you look around our societies today it seems almost a matter of course that the first argument deployed in any debate is a dismissal of the opposing view holder's ability to think critically. Not to put too fine a point on it... but you can see…
I disagree. People who practice critical thinking, like at least some Humanities courses do, become better at it. I think the idea that things are equally good or bad everywhere in large stems from a lack of practice of/in critical thinking.
I also think people are confused what critical thinking means. It's much more about how you discuss something rather than what you are discussing or what position you take.
Re: The Slow Death of the University
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I understand what you're getting at, but some people really do have PTSD, and some speeches really do contain things like graphic recountings of abuse. Should those people just not attend university? Perhaps don't attend that speech then? Life at a university doesn't involve dodging "pro rape" speeches blasted over the PA system multiple times a day. The recent article about the "safe spaces" full of coloring books…
My argument is that whether the idea of a "safe space" is warranted, and who should be allowed to make use of such a space , are different questions. A "safe space" might have valid medical reasons to exist—in fact, it would likely be a concept quite easily unified with that of a counselling office. But, for it to have the correct incentive structure , it would probably require you to get a note from a real honest-to…
One line I read recently from an article stuck with me. By allowing a "safe space" it implies that everywhere else is an "unsafe space".