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In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas
51–60 of 157 posts
Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas
#52This is the end result of a culture that treats children like dainty chinadolls that are going to shatter at the first fracture. These kids are coddled since they are born to make sure they are "safe" and ferried endlessly from one constructive activity to another so they don't take any risk. Of course it will also be that they need "safe spaces" in college (basically extended high school) whenever they hear somethin…
I'm not sure it is the problem of a culture treating children particularly -- I think it has much more to do with the fact that:
- in America you can sue someone for almost anything
- universities in the US made students pay so much for their educations, that basically they got fucked up because students now ask to be the boss since Universities would be at a loss without them, so they must comply to their every demand
On the contrary, in Europe, teachers are "the boss" and students come to them to learn, so there is a respect for the institution and the teaching, and people learn to manage their every whim
Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great comments, yours and the "parent's". Very eloquently put. I have had problems with people thinking I'm arguing or attacking their ideas, when I am only looking for a debate and a more thorough view of their ideas and line of thinking. This forced me to rethink my communication skills and try to change my approach of conversing. I've found that people who understand those concepts can use them to their advantage…
I agree that the GP and GGP both are great points, and I aspire to that state of mind myself (not always reaching it, but trying to). That said, it definitely bugs me when someone comes to be "looking for a debate", so that may be why people have reacted negatively. I can generally tell when someone's genuinely concerned with an issue, and when someone wants to provoke me into a debate. I prefer not to spend much tim…
To me, the difference between what I read blumkvist to mean by debate and what I read you to mean is that blumkvist's debate is more like your discussion - teasing out the details, attacking the issue from a different angle to find out what the limits are, finding not just the flaws and shortcoming, but also the benefits of whatever is being discussed.
Often this is done by playing devils advocate or by playing dumb and getting the other people to really explain their viewpoint. I do this too when I either don't properly understand what is being presented and I want to encourage others to flesh it out and explain it in a way that I get it, or if I see the ideas as being too vague or risky and I want to make sure all of the pros and cons have been properly considered. Often I will then concede, because the idea really was a good one, but sometimes I dig in if I feel like it isn't being resolved.
I'd say I go looking for a discussion in these cases, but its not up to me to judge - only other people can tell you if I do it tactfully or not. I'll make an effort not to be too confrontational.
Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas
#54Nietzsche has a great bit on these people. The Gay Science #359.
Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas
#55That discourse is ridiculous, yet it seems like a simple case of the pendulum swinging too far. It used to be bad one way, now the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, but only because people are still learning the adverse effects of the way things used to be. Once people learn, and feel comfortable with the new knowledge, things will correct themselves. I'm not worried.
The only thing troubling here is the medicalization of the emotions experienced during an intellectual debate.
Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas
#56It wasn't so long ago that "trigger warning" wasn't even a common phrase. I remember thinking about this in college, though, because I was in a relationship with someone who would get angry at people for expressing input that was too closely related to recent private trauma she had been through. I didn't really understand it because I had always trained myself to judge the producer of input by the intent of the produ…
Of interest, this article has a comprehensive history of the phrase, and reasonably balanced portrayal of its utility: https://www.buzzfeed.com/alisonvingiano/how-the-trigger-warn...
Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas
#57Unfortunately, there's a real professional risk in speaking out against this tide of censorship, so I won't say much. This is a great essay on the increasingly anti-controversy left: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/
From your link, I think the author nailed it. The fear is that the current leftist ideas are tomorrow's mainstream ideas and tomorrow's left will be more extreme. The reality is that tomorrow's left will have opinions like the NYT writer. You can see the inverse of this on the right, too: Rand Paul has surpassed Sarah Palin; Alex Jones surpassed Glenn Beck. Edit to add: So the progression of political trends isn't li…
> The fear is that the current leftist ideas are tomorrow's mainstream ideas and tomorrow's left will be more extreme.
I see a lot of evidence on the right but not much on the left. E.g. The people saying they support gays but are against gay marriage are the same ones helping African governments pass laws enacting the death penalty for homosexuality. But I don't really see any evidence that, say, what the folks lobbying for high speed trains really want is to put Christians to death or whatever.
Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas
#58Is this phenomenon observable in cultures that are generally accepted as more progressively feminist than the US? (e.g. northern European countries, Germany, etc) I'm not American and I don't know much about feminism, so for me it's hard to tell the proportions with which these ideas come from US culture vs feminism (there are accounts of UK based initiatives, but there is heavy cross pollination between the US and U…
The US is the world leader when it comes to women's studies departments and professional feminists. They set the trend. If this is not in Europe yet, it is about to arrive.
Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas
#59It's not even just "hiding from scary ideas", it's "suppressing scary ideas".
Re: In College and Hiding from Scary Ideas
#60It's not even just "hiding from scary ideas", it's "suppressing scary ideas".