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Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

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Re: Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

#21

Post by Helloworldboy »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #15
nilkn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is really about free speech in the sense of the First Amendment. Universities are supposed to be about the pursuit of knowledge, and it's pretty unlikely that conservatives are wrong about everything and liberals are right about everything. Moreover, I don't think any reasonable person would say that any historical political party has ever been correct on every issue. So again it's quite unlikely t…

The "interesting, well-spoken, articulate" folks have no issue speaking at college campuses. Playing the "good people on many sides" card ignores who these people are that are being forced off of college campuses. Alan Greenspan could show up to give a talk and be well received; Richard Spencer is going to spark riots (for good reason). Most issues have a gradient or contextual answers so I don't buy the argument tha…

When you have riots over right-leaning moderates like Ben Shapiro, I think it's clear that there is a free-speech problem at universities in the US.

Re: Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

#22

Post by bbctol »

confuseddesi wrote: post #12
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #3

As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality, it should be no surprise they are increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. If you reject not only the politics of your opponents, but the value of fact itself, why should they listen to or accommodate you? https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/a...

Perhaps it is the American right-wing moving further right, but I am more inclined to believe the American left is moving farther left: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/why-ame... Take for example this speech by Bill Clinton in 1995: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4654597/bill-clinton-illegal-... : "That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record…

Left here, not unfathomable or particularly surprising. You don't need to go back to Clinton to find a Democratic president who expanded border security and cracked down harshly on illegal immigration; Obama did the same thing, despite all the rhetoric that the Democrats want open borders and lawlessness. What's weird is how negative a reaction things like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals got, seeing as it's just a milder form of H. W. Bush and Reagan's executive orders to prevent ICE from breaking up families in the 80s and 90s.

Re: Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

#23

Post by jrjririr828283 »

smallnamespace wrote: post #10

Just as an anecdote, met a recent state school grad who said he arrived on campus as a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, tried to get into campus activism, and his fellow activists and teachers scared him so much that he's now not sure where he stands politically. Obviously I can't verify this, but for example he had a professor who actively taught that nations are a completely artificial social construct, and as such all im…

That’s a lot of description about campuses in general based upon one anecdote

As a counter anecdote, a small campus I worked at in rural Pacific Northwest, a liberal bastion right?

This campus was swarming with traditional values students who want to strike down gay marriage and cut all taxes

And I found them much less open to being reasoned with than extreme liberals who think nation states are social constructs (since they don’t exist in physics, they kind of are human social constructs? Not judging them, just pointing out a potential point of reference for viewing them that seems valid)

Re: Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

#24

Post by klank »

smallnamespace wrote: post #10

Just as an anecdote, met a recent state school grad who said he arrived on campus as a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, tried to get into campus activism, and his fellow activists and teachers scared him so much that he's now not sure where he stands politically. Obviously I can't verify this, but for example he had a professor who actively taught that nations are a completely artificial social construct, and as such all im…

> nations are a completely artificial social construct

But if nations aren't simply social constructs, what are they? Is it the word "artificial" that is so surprising?

Maybe I have more fringe beliefs than I thought I did.

Re: Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

#25

Post by vannevar »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #8
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #3

As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality, it should be no surprise they are increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. If you reject not only the politics of your opponents, but the value of fact itself, why should they listen to or accommodate you? https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/a...

> If you reject not only the politics of your opponents, but the value of fact itself, why should they listen to or accommodate you? Because "you" (i.e. the right wing, in your analogy) can muster more votes from the political center than "they" can and can put into place governmental and economic policy that can disrupt or damage said "spaces dedicated dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge" greatly. The ivory tower…

It can, but the notion that ignorance can triumph by force is not the fault of the universities. What is their alternative? To pander to people who believe that Islamic terrorists are a greater threat to them than the ladder in their garage, that being gay is a conscious moral choice, and that tax cuts stimulate economic growth? Conservative backlash against science and mathematics is a consequence of the increasing availability of data directly contradicting most of their core intuitive beliefs. That they're choosing to shoot the messenger is not the messenger's fault.

Re: Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

#26

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

Helloworldboy wrote: post #21
lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "interesting, well-spoken, articulate" folks have no issue speaking at college campuses. Playing the "good people on many sides" card ignores who these people are that are being forced off of college campuses. Alan Greenspan could show up to give a talk and be well received; Richard Spencer is going to spark riots (for good reason). Most issues have a gradient or contextual answers so I don't buy the argument tha…

When you have riots over right-leaning moderates like Ben Shapiro, I think it's clear that there is a free-speech problem at universities in the US.

In which universe do you live in that Shapiro is a moderate?

Re: Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

#27

Post by nasredin »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #15
nilkn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is really about free speech in the sense of the First Amendment. Universities are supposed to be about the pursuit of knowledge, and it's pretty unlikely that conservatives are wrong about everything and liberals are right about everything. Moreover, I don't think any reasonable person would say that any historical political party has ever been correct on every issue. So again it's quite unlikely t…

The "interesting, well-spoken, articulate" folks have no issue speaking at college campuses. Playing the "good people on many sides" card ignores who these people are that are being forced off of college campuses. Alan Greenspan could show up to give a talk and be well received; Richard Spencer is going to spark riots (for good reason). Most issues have a gradient or contextual answers so I don't buy the argument tha…

Re R.S.:

I feel like every time you say his name, he is getting more powerful.

Good piece on the Richard Spencers/Milos/white nationalists/white supremacists that came out of the woodwork recently:

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/11/lets-just-stop-writin...

Re: Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

#28

Post by lj3 »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #3

As the American right-wing moves further right and further way from participating in consensus reality, it should be no surprise they are increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. If you reject not only the politics of your opponents, but the value of fact itself, why should they listen to or accommodate you? https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/2/16588964/a...

> further way from participating in consensus reality

> increasingly less welcome in spaces dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.

Consensus reality is the opposite of the pursuit of knowledge. This is readily demonstrated by the decaying social trust in higher education.

Re: Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

#29

Post by vannevar »

confuseddesi wrote: post #17
vannevar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all that unfathomable, Obama deported record numbers of criminal illegals.

Here's another snippet from President Clinton: "I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages and this legislation is consistent with that position." http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/scotts/ftp/wpaf2mc/clinton....

That's a general social trend, not unique to the left. Steadily increasing numbers of Republicans also support gay marriage, currently around 40%. (http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay...)

Re: Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them

#30

Post by CJefferson »

klank wrote: post #24
smallnamespace wrote: post #10

Just as an anecdote, met a recent state school grad who said he arrived on campus as a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, tried to get into campus activism, and his fellow activists and teachers scared him so much that he's now not sure where he stands politically. Obviously I can't verify this, but for example he had a professor who actively taught that nations are a completely artificial social construct, and as such all im…

> nations are a completely artificial social construct But if nations aren't simply social constructs, what are they? Is it the word "artificial" that is so surprising? Maybe I have more fringe beliefs than I thought I did.

I think you have to continue to the second part of that sentence.
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