A theory on the college campus issues.

[pErvinalia]

I suspect it is because Focault is right in his assessment of power and privilege.

I studied and worked at my university on and off for about 15 years. I remember remarking to friends that ...

ahh fuckit. too high. can't concentrate.

[Forty Two]

I would be happier if I had any confidence that college students knew who Foucault was.... I don't like the idea of people being steeped in an ideology they do not really consciously "get."

[Hermit]

it's more like "professors these days..."

Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas, Althusser...

iin the 60s, they were counterculture. Free love. Experimentation. Drugs. Sex. Rock n Roll.

Baader-Meinhof. Red Brigade. Black Panthers. Weather Underground. Japanese Red Army...

Indeed, you make the point.

You have missed it. Either that, or you pretend to have missed it. Firstly, it's no more about professors these days than it was in the 1960s. I listed just a few among the previous lot you label "the professoriat". Secondly, speaking about the 1960s counterculture as being about free love, experimentation, drugs, sex and rock n roll while ignoring its political dimension is distorting the picture out of all recognition. You make it look as if - in contrast to today's counterculture - the previous on was all about libertarian hedonism. The hippie movement upset the buttoned up sensitivities of the bourgeoisie. The political activists, and the majority of them was not of the revolutionary sort, the minority just took up almost all the headlines and column inches of newsprint on page one - rattled the powers that were to a much greater degree than Islamic terrorism frightens today's rulers.

You are too young to remember the sixties and seventies. That's OK. Not OK is that you pretend knowing stuff you so obviously have not bothered researching. I bet you never even read up on Aldo Moro, Hanns-Martin Schleyer or the amount of support for violent radicals at that time.

I'm not going to debate whether I know more than you or you know more than me.

Very well. Your take on the 1960s gave me the impression that you are profoundly uninformed about that time. I am happy to concede that the impression I got is totally mistaken, that your profound mischaracterisation of it was intentional instead.

The Youtube clips, articles and comments you regale us with do not amount to evidence that freedom, happiness and the American Way is threatened.

Freedom is definitely threatened by laws and regulations which limits the freedom of speech. That's by definition. Happiness is subjective and some people would, indeed, be happier with less freedom. And, i never mentioned the American Way.

Is that supposed to be an answer to the bit you quoted? Using alternate words for something like "Yes, the Youtube clips, articles and comments I regale you with do amount to evidence that freedom, happiness and the American Way is threatened."?

They are evidence of unorganised, demented students, teachers and rioters lashing out blindly and without any coordination.

Many of these protests are very coordinated, also involving paid protesters.

That may be so, but I was alluding to the necessity of regional and national organisation, not what little it takes to organise each individual protest or riot. Even the "occupy" people did a little better in that regard, though not enough to make any long term difference whatsoever.

They are even less of a threat than the left-wing activists of yore, and look at what happened with them. They were not destroyed by the guardians of civic ideals. Support for them never reached - never even looked like reaching - the critical mass necessary to create a new order, so they just melted away.

Not the point I was making.

Apologies for making the point that today's lefties are even less likely to create a new order than those of the 60s.

Your pompous, sanctimonious tirades are nothing more than the ignorant, emotional outbursts of a panicked, hysterical rightwinger. You are standing on a soap box made of hot air, simultaneously resembling the bloke pictured below.

Sounds like something hit a nerve. Tirades. LOL. This thread was a very calm, serious presentation of one theory...

My comment is not limited to your posts in this thread. When you were posting as Coito you were presenting an emphatically conservative (in the European sense of the word) position in a calm and measured way most of the time. While almost always disagreeing with you I had no difficulty understanding what you wanted to convey and replying to them in likewise fashion most of the time. You have changed. In an awful lot of the 6000 posts you submitted since abandoning that account you have indeed become a purveyor of pompous, sanctimonious tirades and ignorant, emotional outbursts of a panicked, hysterical rightwinger. They do evoke a picture in me of you standing on a soap box made of hot air, simultaneously resembling that bloke with the sandwich board. Do not expect me to stay cool, calm and collected at all times when subjected to a sustained barrage of that shit, even in the moment when you decide to simmer down for a bit. And yes, the tedium of you saying the same things over and over again with nary a variation is beginning to go beyond the tedious.

Why can't you just dismantle the points made in the OP? I clearly noted whose points they were, and they were not mine.

You summarised them as

Three points- (a) hyper left professoriat, (b) foucoult-ian ideas with pop-psychology bringing in microaggression theory, and (c) students being the ones demanding more speech regulation which resulted essentially from social media - caused a fundamental shift in thinking from the previous generation.

I addressed them all. In summary: (a) Nothing new (b) Ditto (c) We had worse. Nothing came of it.

And no, before you ask, I am not going to listen to 40 minutes worth of Youtube clips, thank you. Instead of emulating Galaxian I expect you to put your argument in your own words. Getting anyone to speak on your behalf for more than a view minutes is either incapable of discussing things, fucking lazy, or both. You may have noticed that when I link to lengthy I at least provide a pointer to the exact time(s) of the excerpt(s) I want you to listen to, but more often add a transcript of those excerpts below the clip. And if I can't find the appropriate transcript to copy/paste, I bloody well write it up myself. Be so kind to reciprocate. Thank you.

[Forty Two]

it's more like "professors these days..."

Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas, Althusser...

iin the 60s, they were counterculture. Free love. Experimentation. Drugs. Sex. Rock n Roll.

Baader-Meinhof. Red Brigade. Black Panthers. Weather Underground. Japanese Red Army...

Indeed, you make the point.

You have missed it. Either that, or you pretend to have missed it. Firstly, it's no more about professors these days than it was in the 1960s. I listed just a few among the previous lot you label "the professoriat". Secondly, speaking about the 1960s counterculture as being about free love, experimentation, drugs, sex and rock n roll while ignoring its political dimension is distorting the picture out of all recognition. You make it look as if - in contrast to today's counterculture - the previous on was all about libertarian hedonism. The hippie movement upset the buttoned up of the bourgeoisie. The political activists, and the majority of them was not of the revolutionary sort, the minority just took up almost all the headlines and column inches of newsprint on page one - rattled the powers that were to a much greater degree than Islamic terrorism frightens today's rulers.

According to Haidt, it is more about the professors now than in the 1960s, because of the shift from "lean left" to "overwhelmingly left" which occurred from the early 1990s to the late 1990s. I did ot label anything the "professoriat." Haidt did, and if you watched the video, you would know that he was referring to overall academic leanings. Suggesting that the professoriat is overwhelmingly leftist these days does not mean "exclusively." Haidt's view on that is consistent with other professors, such as Dr. Jordan Peterson and Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia, who also note the extreme leftward shift of the professoriat (meaning academia in general).

I fully recognize that there were radical groups in the 1960s that had political motivations well beyond drugs, sex, rock n roll, etc. I even pointed an additional one out that you did not point out. That does not change the analysis here.

I would ask you to address Haidt's argument which is what this thread is about.

You are too young to remember the sixties and seventies. That's OK. Not OK is that you pretend knowing stuff you so obviously have not bothered researching. I bet you never even read up on Aldo Moro, Hanns-Martin Schleyer or the amount of support for violent radicals at that time.

I'm not going to debate whether I know more than you or you know more than me.

Very well. Your take on the 1960s gave me the impression that you are profoundly uninformed about that time. I am happy to concede that the impression I got is totally mistaken, that your profound mischaracterisation of it was intentional instead.

The Youtube clips, articles and comments you regale us with do not amount to evidence that freedom, happiness and the American Way is threatened.

Freedom is definitely threatened by laws and regulations which limits the freedom of speech. That's by definition. Happiness is subjective and some people would, indeed, be happier with less freedom. And, i never mentioned the American Way.

Is that supposed to be an answer to the bit you quoted? Using alternate words for something like "Yes, the Youtube clips, articles and comments I regale you with do amount to evidence that freedom, happiness and the American Way is threatened."?

You're diverting the issue. I have not alleged here that happiness and the American Way is threatened. Freedom, yes, because the people I'm talking about suggest a reduction in freedom. That's one of the key issues raised in Haidt's video interview in the OP - that what surprised folks was how much the students were leading the anti-freedom movement. This was seen as a distinction with the generation of people born in the 1960s.

Do you take issue with something Haidt said in the video? What?

They are evidence of unorganised, demented students, teachers and rioters lashing out blindly and without any coordination.

Many of these protests are very coordinated, also involving paid protesters.

That may be so, but I was alluding to the necessity of regional and national organisation, not what little it takes to organise each individual protest or riot. Even the "occupy" people did a little better in that regard, though not enough to make any long term difference whatsoever.

Well, what do you think of the "fuses" referred to by Haidt in his explanation? What do you take issue with?

They are even less of a threat than the left-wing activists of yore, and look at what happened with them. They were not destroyed by the guardians of civic ideals. Support for them never reached - never even looked like reaching - the critical mass necessary to create a new order, so they just melted away.

Not the point I was making.

Apologies for making the point that today's lefties are even less likely to create a new order than those of the 60s.

Not sure what that has to do with the issue under discussion. But, they do seem to be effectively changing the order - this is where we're getting hate speech laws, anti-Islamophobia resolutions, and a generation of college students who think freedom of speech ends where someone else gets offended.

Your pompous, sanctimonious tirades are nothing more than the ignorant, emotional outbursts of a panicked, hysterical rightwinger. You are standing on a soap box made of hot air, simultaneously resembling the bloke pictured below.

Sounds like something hit a nerve. Tirades. LOL. This thread was a very calm, serious presentation of one theory...

My comment is not limited to your posts in this thread.

Oh, well I don't care. If you don't like a discussion, go to one you do like. Not sure why pissing and moaning about other people's "tirades" enters into it. Lots of people have tirades on various issues. So what?

When you were posting as Coito you were presenting an emphatically conservative (in the European sense of the word) position in a calm and measured way most of the time. While almost always disagreeing with you I had no difficulty understanding what you wanted to convey and replying to them in likewise fashion most of the time. You have changed. In an awful lot of the 6000 posts you submitted since abandoning that account you have indeed become a purveyor of pompous, sanctimonious tirades and ignorant, emotional outbursts of a panicked, hysterical rightwinger.

Honestly, it seems as if you are the only one engaged in a tirade here. Maybe back off and stop making this some sort of personal gripe or fight. Either discuss the topic or move on.

They do evoke a picture in me of you standing on a soap box made of hot air, simultaneously resembling that bloke with the sandwich board. Do not expect me to stay cool, calm and collected at all times when subjected to a sustained barrage of that shit, even in the moment when you decide to simmer down for a bit. And yes, the tedium of you saying the same things over and over again with nary a variation is beginning to go beyond the tedious.

It's very clear that the kind of hysterical commentary that you exhibit from time time, and some other folks too, not just you, is purely a function of your own mind and personality. This has nothing to do with me. Nothing I've said here is in the least a tirade, or pompous, or an alarmist rant of any kind. I posted a video of a discussion where someone advances an argument as to why there is this anti-free speech movement on college campuses. Somehow, this causes you to flip out, and start screetching about it. You don't just argue about it. You declare that I don't know what I'm talking about, you declare that you think you know all about my experiences and knowledge base, and that it's so much less than yours. It might be, I don't know. I don't pretend to know you.

Rather than simply address the issue presented, you make this some sort of referendum on me, and whether I have the right attitude to engage in this discussion, or whether I'm like a "right winger" or something. You're fishing for a reason to dismiss the posts without addressing them. If this is just part of a tirade of a right winger, it's not worth addressing, and you can just hand wave it away.

Why can't you just dismantle the points made in the OP? I clearly noted whose points they were, and they were not mine.

You summarised them as

Three points- (a) hyper left professoriat, (b) foucoult-ian ideas with pop-psychology bringing in microaggression theory, and (c) students being the ones demanding more speech regulation which resulted essentially from social media - caused a fundamental shift in thinking from the previous generation.

I addressed them all. In summary: (a) Nothing new (b) Ditto (c) We had worse. Nothing came of it.

Well, Haidt did describe that there was something new, in that the "lean left" went to "very hard left", but you don't agree, so fine. Microaggression theory is definitely new, and while it was invented a ways back, it never made any headway until just a few years ago, and it has been growing exponentially. None of the groups you mentioned were out protesting for the administration to crack down on speech. The Black Panthers, for example, were out there agitating to end discrimination - they weren't suggesting the administration adopt speech codes.

And no, before you ask, I am not going to listen to 40 minutes worth of Youtube clips,

Oh, 11 minutes and 30 seconds. But, if you don't want to listen to it, fine. Don't take it out on me. Nobody is forcing you to participate in the thread. Other threads exist that don't involve discussing a particular video or book. If someone started a thread designed to discuss a 2 hour movie, or 500 page book, would you make it a point to declare how somethign in the movie or book was all wrong, but then state that you're not going to bother watching or reading it before you comment? Jeez, Hermit. Come on. I get it, for some reason you're emotionally invested in some of these topics, but come on...

thank you. Instead of emulating Galaxian I expect you to put your argument in your own words.

I don't care what you "expect." There is nothing wrong with creating a thread to discuss someone's theory. If I posted an argument made by Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens on the existence of god, wouldn't it be o.k. to premise the topic on it being a discussion of Dawkins' or Hitchens' views? Sometimes, to understand a person's view, whether it be Sam Harris, or Jordan Peterson, or Daniel Dennett, or Foucoult, it's nice to set up a thread and say "here's what so and so argues, what do you think?" That was, basically, this thread. it wasn't a contest or competition.

Getting anyone to speak on your behalf for more than a view minutes is either incapable of discussing things, fucking lazy, or both.

Haidt doesn't speak on my behalf. The beginning of wisdom is the ability to entertain a notion without accepting it. And, it isn't lazy to discuss other people's views. That's part of public discourse and the marketplace of ideas, and it's one of the primary ways people learn.

You may have noticed that when I link to lengthy I at least provide a pointer to the exact time(s) of the excerpt(s) I want you to listen to,

First of all, it's a little over 11 minutes long. It's not lengthy. And, after it became apparent that you weren't going to bother to listen to it before going off on a tangent, I did reference a couple different times where he makes a couple of different points. It's only 11 minutes long - I'm not going to write out a transcript and delineate each minute.

But, it's not your business anyway. You can create your threads, and I'll create mine. If this was not something you were interested in engaging in, then by all means, don't. it's better that you don't, since going off on insulting commentary when you haven't bothered to watch the short video under discussion just pisses all over the thread. Now we're wasting time talking about things unrelated to the topic, and making this a personal fight. I have nothing against you, Hermit. I haven't the slightest worry in the world that you may or may not differ with me on various issues. In fact, any such differences make you someone I'd rather talk to than someone with whom I agree. What I wish would not happen is that on every thread my motives, purposes, and intent are questioned, and that I'm declared to be a "right winger" in some attempt to categorize me and then divert the discussion to an argument over me and not the OP.

but more often add a transcript of those excerpts below the clip. And if I can't find the appropriate transcript to copy/paste, I bloody well write it up myself. Be so kind to reciprocate. Thank you.

Oh calm your hormones, Hermit. It's 11 minutes long, including non-relevant intro and outro bits. If you can't listen to a few minutes of video without having it transcribed for you, then that's just fine. I'm not going to accept, however, any sort of reprimand from you about it. I guarantee you that most videos posted by most people on this cite do not come with "transcripts" lol, particularly short ones where it might be expected that those interested in discussing a topic would be interested in watching....

[laklak]

I would be happier if I had any confidence that college students knew who Foucault was....

Wasn't he that pendulum dude?

[pErvinalia]

this is where we're getting... a generation of college students who think freedom of speech ends where someone else gets offended.

Haidt makes the point that this stuff is only occurring in a minority of universities. That's hardly a "generation" of students.

[pErvinalia]

I would be happier if I had any confidence that college students knew who Foucault was....

Wasn't he that pendulum dude?

Yeah. He was indirectly responsible for the most impenetrable book in the history of books ("Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco).

[Hermit]

In the post I replied to you included three youtube clips totalling 40 minutes.

And again, my fuse has not been lit by this thread in particular, though it continues - albeit in a much more subdued tone - your paranoid fear about "The Left".

So far my responses were to what you posted, rather than the links you included. So, for example, I assumed your three-point summary was a fair abbreviation of the Haidt clip, and addressed them throughout. I might listen to Haidt tomorrow. Maybe.

[Hermit]

I would be happier if I had any confidence that college students knew who Foucault was....

Wasn't he that pendulum dude?

No. You're confusing him with Michel Foucault. Léon Foucault, the bloke of pendulum fame, died decades before Michel.

[pErvinalia]

They're like the Marx troupe - they were all Marxists!

[Forty Two]

I would be happier if I had any confidence that college students knew who Foucault was....

Wasn't he that pendulum dude?

That's Leon, lol.

[Brian Peacock]

@42. The 'professoriat' is a generalisation from the particular - the premise being that entire teaching bodies of universities are a single entity which the cited examples merely typify. Are your views fully and completely inline with those expressed the video? Is it speaking for you to such an extent that you need say nothing more about your own views on this?

Negative - Haidt explains this, and I even explained it in trying to write out what Haidt said in the video. By "professoriat" he explained that he is referring to the academic leanings on campus, which he explained went from overall "leaning left" to "very hard left" or overwhelmingly left. He did not say that "entire teaching bodies of universities" are all of the same viewpoints. He is talking about the overall dominance of the leftist thought. Saying "the professors lean left" doesn't mean they all lean left. It means that overall leftist thought prevails. when one says that there has been a shift from leaning left to very hard left, then the dominance is much greater. There would still be a minority of right or moderate views, but the overall is very much dominated by the left.

It's a lot like the tracking of election polls. When someone says that Virginia was leaning democrat, they don't mean the entire population is a single entity and they all believe one way, they are saying the population leans democrat. When they say California is very hard to the democratic side, they still aren't saying everyone is one block - they say that overall the POPULATION is overwhelmingly, largely democrat. There are still some republican voter, but not many. The same goes for the professoriat - Haidt is talking about the prevailing view among the population.

That seems like an equivocation to me, as 'proffessoriat' speaks to an entire staffing body. I take your points about leanings, though it is problematic. I'd dispute that Western academia is being held hostage to 'hard-left' politics. I mean, for one, judging by government compositiion left-leaning politics comprises the minority view across the nations of the Western World, and for two, there's no shortage of right-leaning or hard-right academics, commentators, or thinktanks willing, ready and able to counterpoint the views from the left. In fact, the intellectual armoury of the right seems very well served in this regard at the moment.

Now, if the charge is that right-leaning political views are waning or being squeezed out of the discourse under the weight and prevalence of left-leaning political views, in academia or elsewhere, then the right are just bleating on about how they're no longer favoured by the young and how there position might not be as secure as they would like it to be. Really, if this is the case the right should look to their own house rather than cobbling together this kind of loose-lipped conspiracy theory about how the malevolent left are skewing the discourse and undermining the views and attitudes of the young.

And, I have been having a bear of a time here just getting some of you to focus on what is being discussed in the OP, rather than sharing my own views of it. I posted Haidt's video for comment, and then hardly anyone commented on what Haidt said. it became yet another gang up on 42 thread, where everyone accuses me of various things, and makes it all about my views, when the thread was about an argument presented by a particular person. I still don't know why you have to always make it about me. Why not just say - if you're interested -- what you think about what Haidt said. "I agree with X because..." or "I disagree with X, because...." Maybe there is part of the argument you see merit to, maybe none of it. I don't know.

Yeah, I can see that. But you do like to challenge the views others by proxy - it allows you to take a pop at the views of others without exposing your own ideas to challenges. Your famous overstating the points of others via sarcastic hyperbole being a case in point.

The reason I'm asking you to dig in and pin down your core thesis is that you've started a number of threads all around the same theme, but I still really have no idea what your basic beef is beyond finger pointing at the young and telling others you don't like it. I accept that articulating these things isn't always straightforward, but posting videos of the young and callow, or of other people pointing out the callowness of the young, starts to wear a bit thin after a while.

[pErvinalia]

I'm just reading an article by Haidt on microaggressions.

Some recent campus actions border on the surreal. In April, at Brandeis University, the Asian American student association sought to raise awareness of microaggressions against Asians through an installation on the steps of an academic hall. The installation gave examples of microaggressions such as “Aren’t you supposed to be good at math?” and “I’m colorblind! I don’t see race.” But a backlash arose among other Asian American students, who felt that the display itself was a microaggression. The association removed the installation, and its president wrote an e-mail to the entire student body apologizing to anyone who was “triggered or hurt by the content of the microaggressions.”

This new climate is slowly being institutionalized, and is affecting what can be said in the classroom, even as a basis for discussion. During the 2014–15 school year, for instance, the deans and department chairs at the 10 University of California system schools were presented by administrators at faculty leader-training sessions with examples of microaggressions. The list of offensive statements included: “America is the land of opportunity” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”

[Brian Peacock]

I don't care about so-called micro-aggression, it's reflex bigotry which needs to be addressed.

[Animavore]

When you were posting as Coito you were presenting an emphatically conservative (in the European sense of the word) position in a calm and measured way most of the time. While almost always disagreeing with you I had no difficulty understanding what you wanted to convey and replying to them in likewise fashion most of the time. You have changed.

I mentioned in another post a Rat-Skep person who went down a very similar route, and like Coito it all began with becoming insanely anti-"SJW" and feminist. I think both have gotten themselves caught up in (brainwashed) by the whole MRA/MGTOW/Alt-Right cult. They parrot all the same talking points.

I think they badly need to get laid and get over whichever woman dumped them and give up this poisonous ideology.