Elite colleges are making it easy for conservatives to dislike them • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by irhd » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 6:05 PM UTC

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…

> Obviously I can't verify this,

but you'll post it anyway, because that's always the case with these stories.

> I think true liberalism is not just having a general set of 'progressive' values, but also being open to dissenting opinions and facing them honestly and openly.

I don't agree with, for example, shouting down Jordan Peterson over his original argument. I also don't agree that we need to give any platform or voice to the multitude of people intent on spreading hateful, violent, ideas.

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

#72

Post by SamReidHughes » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 6:07 PM UTC

jrjririr828283 wrote: post #23

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 (si…

If something's morally wrong, you can't "reason" for or against it.

Like, God says so, end of discussion. The only way to attack that stance is to break their faith.

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

#73

Post by ZeroGravitas » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

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…

The Clintons are famous for a strategy called "triangulation" where they move as far to the right as necessary to get enough votes to win an election. With a voting base, and voting system that skews as far right as America's that leads to them taking some right-wing positions.

I've always thought this was a clever strategy, but apparently enough people live in their own social bubbles that many progressive types don't realise how unprogressive a lot of older, rural voters are (and you could argue they've been misled by their news providers into positions that are contrary to their own values and desires) and can't understand why compromise is necessasary to actually win elections.

Some have argued that this is bad because you need to inspire people, like Obama did, but Obama is another triangulator, so I'm not sure how that makes sense.

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

#74

Post by carry_bit » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

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.

Nations are the extended family writ large. They are no more social constructs than the family is a social construct.

You might be confusing 'nation' with 'nation-state'; not all states are nation-states.

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

#75

Post by irhd » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

jtbayly wrote: post #45

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...

Congratulations on being the straw man. But seriously, this is exactly the sort of attitude and comment that gave us Trump as president. The idea that truth is relative was taught to the America public by the academy. Now you say that the academy is a place dedicated to the pursuit of "knowledge" and speak of the "value of fact" as if these are absolutes. But you do so just after talking about "consensus reality." Ma…

It's not a strawman. It's an argument as to why conservatism is rejected. I don't really agree with it, but it's an argument.

> But seriously, this is exactly the sort of attitude and comment that gave us Trump as president

No. This is ridiculous. I'm so sick of people refusing to take responsibility for their actions on this.

People saw Trump. They saw the same things as everyone who hated him then and hates him now, and they decided that was what they wanted.

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

#76

Post by m00g00 » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 6:12 PM UTC

amarkov wrote: post #41

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…

> 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 immigration policies of any sort are illegitimate and harmful. But that's a very mainstream position in economics, with much stronger arguments behind it than ideological purity. And it's typically supported by libertarians more than progressives, since the…

Libertarians support open borders as a means to free movement of labor. As you alluded to, they also do not believe in taxpayer funded social services, much less granting rights of citizenship to not-naturalized immigrants.

This combination of ideas is not at all what is being espoused in liberal universities. They are pushing for both open borders (or at least amnesty and much less restrictive immigration laws) and guaranteed social services for immigrants.

Libertarians certainly don't view nations as "completely artificial illegitimate social construct" and I seriously doubt most college professors are teaching from that ideology's point of view. Libertarians are often as demonized as Republicans at universities.

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

#77

Post by irhd » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 6:12 PM UTC

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…

> the American left is moving farther left

finally. America as a country is incredibly far to the right.

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

#78

Post by lordCarbonFiber » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 6:13 PM UTC

ZoeZoeBee wrote: post #33

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Curious which views of Shapiro's do you believe are extreme? Are you a person who believes gender is merely a social construct whereby the genetics of a person hold no bearing on their attributes?

He's cited a solution to the divide between Isreal and Palenstine as being >"The Jews don't realize that expelling a hostile population is a commonly used and generally effective way of preventing violent entanglements...."

That's decently non-moderate if not extreme as far as that debate goes.

Nice strawman with the gender thing. The nature v nurture debate will continue but the fatalist "genetics trump all" sort of thinking is pretty solidly false. And the amount of bad stats in trying to apply population level trends to self selecting sub groups is just mindnumbing (ie the school of thought around woman tend to have these traits ergo the self selecting group that go into this field must also follow that distribution).

As for the specifics of current progressive politics, I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far in direction of needless specific taxonomy; however that's a better state of affairs than the prescriptive "a man is this; not that" sort of thinking that dominated previous generations.

As a bisexual man Im a bit biased though; I think the average American is way too hung up on tying sexuality and gender into their identities.

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

#79

Post by jeffrom » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 6:14 PM UTC

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…

Perhaps a more reasonable explanation is that the student signed up for a class which covered political theories including a critique of national borders, and the student dismissed it, and therefore got a bad grade.

Anecdotally, I was a political science major and there are always a few loud people who came to argue and not learn.

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

#80

Post by throwaway648fus » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 6:14 PM UTC

jtbayly wrote: post #45

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...

Congratulations on being the straw man. But seriously, this is exactly the sort of attitude and comment that gave us Trump as president. The idea that truth is relative was taught to the America public by the academy. Now you say that the academy is a place dedicated to the pursuit of "knowledge" and speak of the "value of fact" as if these are absolutes. But you do so just after talking about "consensus reality." Ma…

Yes, yes, we all know the narrative that quite literally everything liberals do in modern society were the straw that broke the camels back and forced millions of Americans to vote for Trump. Everything from elite colleges' safe spaces to shopping at Whole Foods.

Or perhaps it's simpler than that: a large swath of Americans unimpressed Hillary Clinton's largely uninteresting business-as-usual policies matching her husband's mildde-of-the-road governance with no real winners or interesting nuggets, up against the usual conservative base that will vote for just about anybody who claims loyalty with the Elephant (even if they don't really fit the profile, as Trump certainly did not).

How about everybody just stop coming up with hot takes on the election for five seconds. Your nitpick about the liberals in your life or sensationalized in the newspaper really did not matter. Sorry.