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I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

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Re: I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

#11

Post by dragonwriter »

ksenzee wrote: post #6
cjbprime wrote: post #3

Unimpressive; the worst he has is that someone made a groundless complaint that was handled perfectly well in 2009, and he worries that someone will make another one one day (though it seems kind of telling that they haven't..?) and it will go differently. Why not get someone who's actually been harmed by this change in culture to write about that?

The important point here is that he's changing his curriculum to avoid provocative works, so he doesn't get in trouble. If that becomes a widespread practice, we'll have a serious problem in higher education.

> The important point here is that he's changing his curriculum to avoid provocative works, so he doesn't get in trouble.

I think that the rather spurious grounds that he identifies for the fear motivating those changes is also important, particularly, it is important in identifying the source of the problem -- which is not, contrary to the headline, his liberal students, or even his students more generally.

Re: I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

#12

Post by yellowapple »

> If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum, uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the perceived correctness of ideas.

I don't understand this. If ideas are judged in a vacuum, then by definition, their perceived correctness is not influenced by race and gender. If those ideas are perceived differently based on race or gender, then they're not being judged in a vacuum. Or am I missing something here?

Re: I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

#13

Post by rcxdude »

6stringmerc wrote: post #8

As a self-proclaimed renegade, disruptive thinker, and stubbornly practiced argumentative individual with an English Literature degree, I think this write-up hits on several valid points. The framing of discourse is important, and actually quite relevant to notions of technological / software innovation as well. Placating feelings is akin to me like being a drug dealer. Pandering for profit is a real, viable business…

>In a primal sense, trolling online is akin to purposefully challenging a person's worldview through their feelings, using drastic / hyperbolic / inflammatory rhetoric.

No, The definition of trolling is attempting to get a reaction out of people by any means possible. Trolls aren't interested in having an actual conversation, educating, or changing anyone's view, in fact they thrive off of the opposite.

Re: I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

#14

Post by BlackAura »

yellowapple wrote: post #12

> If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum, uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the perceived correctness of ideas. I don't understand this. If ideas are judged in a vacuum, then by definition, their perceived correctness is not influenced by race and gender. If those ideas are perceived d…

The belief that ideas can be judged in a vacuum is a very different thing than ideas actually being judged in a vacuum.

Ideas are not judged in a vacuum - humans are rubbish at doing that. We allow various factors to influence how we evaluate ideas, even when those factors have nothing to do with the idea itself. Race and gender being very obvious ones.

Example: In a meeting, a woman comes up with an idea. Everyone ignores her. Thirty seconds later, a man says the exact same thing, and suddenly everyone is in awe about how amazing this idea is.

And yes, that does happen. A lot.

However, most of us believe that we aren't doing this. We believe that we're evaluating ideas on merit alone, and are therefore completely blind to the fact that we're not. Humans are rubbish at being objective, but very good at fooling ourselves into believing that we are.

The only way to approach evaluating ideas on merit is to be aware of one's own biases, one's own point of view, various power imbalances, systemic discrimination, and all that stuff. Once you're aware of what you're actually doing, you can try to factor that into how you evaluate ideas.

Re: I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

#15

Post by k__ »

I always find it interesting, that the US seems to be all about conservatives (republicans) and liberals (democrats).

In Germany it seems to be more of a conservatives (CDU) and socialists (SPD) "battle". Interestingly I had the feeling the liberals (FDP) are more on the side of the conservatives (most of the time in german history FDP and CDU worked together). So when I read about US politics it feels like they are only debating on details. Like socialism isn't even an option.

Re: I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

#17

Post by dropit_sphere »

BlackAura wrote: post #14
yellowapple wrote: post #12

> If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum, uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the perceived correctness of ideas. I don't understand this. If ideas are judged in a vacuum, then by definition, their perceived correctness is not influenced by race and gender. If those ideas are perceived d…

The belief that ideas can be judged in a vacuum is a very different thing than ideas actually being judged in a vacuum. Ideas are not judged in a vacuum - humans are rubbish at doing that. We allow various factors to influence how we evaluate ideas, even when those factors have nothing to do with the idea itself. Race and gender being very obvious ones. Example: In a meeting, a woman comes up with an idea. Everyone i…

A defense I'm not sure I believe, but one worth being aware of, at least:

Could this simply be people exercising Bayesian reasoning? If we postulate that men come up with more out-of-band good ideas (which I don't find hard to believe, as they come up with more out-of-band everything, including bad ideas), then people's priors will change to reflect that.

What I am saying is that this may in fact be rational, whatever your (or my) opinions on its rightness.

Re: I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

#18

Post by BlackAura »

bamboo_7 wrote: post #7
cjbprime wrote: post #3

Unimpressive; the worst he has is that someone made a groundless complaint that was handled perfectly well in 2009, and he worries that someone will make another one one day (though it seems kind of telling that they haven't..?) and it will go differently. Why not get someone who's actually been harmed by this change in culture to write about that?

I think the deeper point isn't just that it will go differently now, but that he has had to adjust his material and teaching style in fear of that bad reaction ruining his career. He points to a few examples of professors who were fired because of a single student's complaint and where universities have removed activities in deference to this outspoken social justice. The shame is that the discussions which should ch…

So the university being paranoid about being sued is the students' fault?

> being silenced

Nobody is being silenced by the students. What the students want is for professors to stop being assholes towards anyone that's not just like them, and are (correctly) pointing out various kinds of systemic bias, subjective opinions masquerading as objectivity, and instances where you have material that is disturbing or emotionally difficult for absolutely no good reason other than "it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you either".

When confronted with that, this professor's response is basically denial, writing off these complaints as irrelevant, trivial, or "pandering" (ignorant of how much society in general panders to his own perspective).

So, given that bringing this up directly will result in either being ignored, or being belittled or insulted, and the conversation shut down immediately... students don't actually have any choice but to complain.

At that point, the university overreacts because they're paranoid about being sued. Which is part of a larger cultural issue that has nothing at all to do with the students.

Funny that student activism that happened decades ago is considered a good thing (now), but activism by today's students is considered to be some kind of scary monster that threatens the whole of society...

Re: I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

#19

Post by yellowapple »

BlackAura wrote: post #14
yellowapple wrote: post #12

> If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum, uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the perceived correctness of ideas. I don't understand this. If ideas are judged in a vacuum, then by definition, their perceived correctness is not influenced by race and gender. If those ideas are perceived d…

The belief that ideas can be judged in a vacuum is a very different thing than ideas actually being judged in a vacuum. Ideas are not judged in a vacuum - humans are rubbish at doing that. We allow various factors to influence how we evaluate ideas, even when those factors have nothing to do with the idea itself. Race and gender being very obvious ones. Example: In a meeting, a woman comes up with an idea. Everyone i…

I guess that makes more sense, though I'd argue that not having the necessary information to make those biases could result in ideas actually being judged in a vacuum (how can you be biased against someone if your subconscious is incapable of knowing whether that someone is subject to its biases?). This is part of the reason why the "hacker" subculture (if the Jargon File is anything to go by) claims itself to be more egalitarian than other STEM-oriented subcultures; since a lot of collaboration is entirely text-based, it doesn't invoke gender/racial biases (or at least does so far less often).

Basically, in the scenario you've described, if the "meeting" is instead a discussion on, say, an IRC channel, then as long as the participants are anonymous, there shouldn't be any reason for bias to occur (and even when they aren't anonymous, I'd hypothesize that - due to the lack of stimuli reinforcing those biases, like visual confirmation of race or gender - bias will be significantly diminished).

Re: I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

#20

Post by michaelbuddy »

BlackAura wrote: post #14
yellowapple wrote: post #12

> If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum, uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the perceived correctness of ideas. I don't understand this. If ideas are judged in a vacuum, then by definition, their perceived correctness is not influenced by race and gender. If those ideas are perceived d…

The belief that ideas can be judged in a vacuum is a very different thing than ideas actually being judged in a vacuum. Ideas are not judged in a vacuum - humans are rubbish at doing that. We allow various factors to influence how we evaluate ideas, even when those factors have nothing to do with the idea itself. Race and gender being very obvious ones. Example: In a meeting, a woman comes up with an idea. Everyone i…

> And yes, that does happen. A lot.

You don't seem to have a grasp of the real world here. What actually happens is that people will take credit or get credit from other's ideas regardless of gender. That's what happens a lot. It's only your own bias that you think it's noticeably women being the victims. Welcome to the world of equal opportunity.

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