Generally, [conservative] professors fear they have little hope for advancement to leadership roles. Research backs up this fear, suggesting that intellectual conformity is still a key driver of personal success in academic communities....I would expect some progressives to argue that it's fine to make conservatives feel like outsiders because: 1. Conservatives make those in groups that have historically felt like outsiders feel like outsiders, 2. Conservatives can take it, they're not all about feelings, 3. Conservatives should follow their own ideology and take responsibility for their own condition and fight for success, not look for others to blame, and 4. Conservatives actually have weaker minds, deserve their lack of success, and cannot credibly beg for affirmative action.
Several top-tier private universities — notably Princeton, Harvard, Stanford and Chicago — have made important commitments to protect intellectual diversity on campus. And a new coalition of academics called Heterodox Academy, directed by the New York University psychologist Jonathan Haidt, has formed to foster this movement.
Notably, more than 40 percent of the members of Heterodox Academy are liberals or centrists. And this brings me to a point I want to make to progressive academics: It is up to you to make campuses more open to debate and the unconstrained pursuit of truth. This is partly because liberals are in an overwhelming majority on campus. But more important, the task fits perfectly the progressive movement’s ethical patrimony. American liberalism has always insisted it is the duty of the majority to fight for the minority, whether or not it suits one’s own private interests.....
September 15, 2017
Worse than excluding conservative speakers: "the profound alienation of professors who don’t hold the mainstream political views and are treated as outsiders as a result."
A NYT op-ed by Arthur C. Brooks, who's looking at a book "Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University." From the op-ed:
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American liberalism has always insisted it is the duty of the majority to fight for the minority, whether or not it suits one’s own private interests.....
American liberalism has never meant it though.
“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
― Thomas Paine
Prediction. Nearly all of the Progs who comment here will adopt option (4). However I admit that Cookie caught me by surprise.
Robert found a very good quote.
@Big Mike: Why? I've pasted this quote from Thomas Paine to several comment threads on this blog over several years. I think it is the essential principle that must be held to in order preserve true freedom of speech and thought and action.
You left out "conservatives are evil and shouldn't be allowed to speak" which I think underlies all the other reasons you listed
Very similar to Martin Niemoller's-
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
The best-known versions of the speech are the poems that began circulating by the 1950s.[1] The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum quotes the following text as one of the many poetic versions of the speech:[2]
Robert Cook is an honorable man.
Glad he is here at Althouse.
I am Laslo.
I would expect some progressives to argue that it's fine to make conservatives feel like outsiders because....
5. They use words like "patrimony."
Vocabulary is the penumbra that surrounds option 1. Conservatives will not be welcome in the university unless they adopt the progressive's dictionary. Ambrose Bierce would not be welcome either.
Cook has always been a principled lefty, like Dershowitz. His presence is crucial for the authentic cross-ideology discussion that makes Althouse unique. If I stopped commenting no one would notice, but if Cook stopped the thread would become too one sided to be interesting, IMO.
Today's leftist, Democrat, liberal, antifa, BLM, etc. always, always, lose in the arena of ideas. That's why so many leftist topics have been ruled to have already been proven, and declared, discussion closed.
Arthur Brooks' first sentence is interesting: "These days, the news is full of sensational stories of violent campus mobs shutting down conservative speakers and freaked-out college administrators treating rioters with kid gloves."
In the New York Times? Does the Times "fill" its coverage with "sensational stories of violent campus mobs shutting down conservative speakers and freaked-out college administrators treating rioters with kid gloves..."?
I was thinking about commenting that even more than "The Heterodox Academy" (I will forever be grateful to Althouse for having exposed me to its existence), we need "The Heterodox News Outlet." And yet Arthur Brooks' observation is true, because we do have a living, breathing conservative news media segment. That supplies him with the stories he referenced.
It's hard to say, in academia, that there is an equivalent to Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the National Review. There's Hillsdale (the National Review of colleges) and Liberty University (the Fox News of colleges). And a few others. (George Mason? The Wall Street Journal of colleges?)
I'm in academia, and I do my part to protect the rights of my conservative colleagues, including their opportunities to be considered for leadership opportunities.
Oddly, It's really not so hard to not be an asshole, regardless of your political affiliation.
Three of Ann Althouse's possible explanations I've never actually seen. The only explanation I ever see offered by real people is some variation of her #4. To quote: "Conservatives actually have weaker minds, deserve their lack of success,..."
And that skips the by far the most common response, which is to not think about the issue at all. This is actually how the left deals with most problems: "Just don't think about it."
You know it sometimes seems like the left is quite intelligent and intellectual. But it's not. It's not real. What you're seeing is the product of a multi-trillion dollar enterprise. Our schools train all of our children to be left-wing. They go to the colleges where all the rewards are for being left-wing, and we take the very cream of what comes out of this fantastically expensive and wasteful process and we think that is somehow descriptive of the left-wing in general.
Most of these people don't think period. And I'm talking about academia. They just kiss Hitler's ass. That's all you have to do every day to be considered good people. They don't know how to think for themselves. They would be risking their careers if they did.
all that but proggy leftwing communists in packs are like che bullies.
Can we get some muscle over here?
Haters have no right to speak.
I've actually seen a variant of #5 which states that conservatives are more interested in money and security so they avoid academia and got into business. If they are interested in research and ideas they take cushy think-tank jobs. The excuses, they multiply.
The concept of flabby groupthink seems to have escaped them.
6. Conservatives are evil and fo mean things.
As long as more or less everyone believes in history understood as progress, it is natural, so to speak, to have regular outbursts of moralism, demanding that everyone adopt the latest version of progress--all outposts of racism must be eradicated, etc. The second-last version, held by people who consider themselves progressive, is already too retrograde and reactionary. Campuses will see themselves taking a leading role in a moral campaign. It may be difficult to find intelligent conservatives. A real debate should be possible, and will probably only be possible within the humanities on campus, between a belief in history as progress, on the one hand, and human nature on the other. Even if most societies that talk about human nature have been unjust, and even if most statements about human nature are questionable or wrong, is there such a thing as human nature? Should it or does it guide our thinking, sometimes without our being aware of it? Are we better off trying to ensure that biological differences between men and women make absolutely no difference (socially or politically) to how they live their lives, or is there something to be said for acknowledging biology? The Nazis appealed to German nationalism from the beginning; Stalin was forced to fall back on Russian nationalism to save himself and his regime. All of this old-fashioned stuff was supposed to be gone in the twentieth century. Is it true that if you try to throw out nature with a pitch fork, it will find a way to return?
I agree with this:
I would expect some progressives to argue that it's fine to make conservatives feel like outsiders because: 1. Conservatives make those in groups that have historically felt like outsiders feel like outsiders, 2. Conservatives can take it, they're not all about feelings, 3. Conservatives should follow their own ideology and take responsibility for their own condition and fight for success, not look for others to blame, and 4. Conservatives actually have weaker minds, deserve their lack of success, and cannot credibly beg for affirmative action.
So much self-pity on the right. They have the Presidency and the Congress and they see themselves as victims. Poor, poor us
These Profs really dig Mao. If I remember correctly, during the Cultural Revolution in China they executed the Professors first. Progressivism is a short-term and fatal philosophy for those who want to practice it, it appears.
"And I'm talking about academia. They just kiss Hitler's ass. That's all you have to do every day to be considered good people. They don't know how to think for themselves. They would be risking their careers if they did."
Many people don't know that Nazism was extremely popular at German universities - considered the best in the world - among both faculty and students during the 1930's. The Jewish professors lost their positions, of course, and were replaced with fanatical Nazis and stupid race theory professors. Lectures about the superiority of the Aryan race and nefarious "Jewish science," "Jewish art" and "Jewish music" were added to courses, so it was impossible to avoid indoctrination no matter what subject one studied. A great university system was corrupted with the enthusiastic cooperation of those who worked and studied there.
The actions of German professors during the Nazi era, and the way the academic establishment has caved in to the demands of student radicals since the 1960's demonstrate that academics, with a few notable exceptions, are cowardly conformists.
sunsong -- you agree with all 4! Nicely done.
You forgot #5 -- Conservatives smell bad and sweat a lot.
sunsong said......quoting somebody else, as per usual.
Poor sunsong, who doesn't have a thought in her head that wasn't put there by someone else. She is utterly incapable of formulating a logical argument or doing anything except mindlessly repeating the words of others.
The weak-minded are easily brainwashed. She's exhibit A.
1. Conservatives make those in groups that have historically felt like outsiders feel like outsiders,
I don't think that's true.
2. Conservatives can take it, they're not all about feelings,
"intellectual conformity is still a key driver of personal success in academic communities...." so it's not about just feelings.
3. Conservatives should follow their own ideology and take responsibility for their own condition and fight for success, not look for others to blame, and
Possibly.
4. Conservatives actually have weaker minds, deserve their lack of success, and cannot credibly beg for affirmative action.
"Weak minds" is exactly the reason for affirmative action; in academia, the weaker the average mind in the group, the more AA the group gets.
sunsong:So much self-pity on the right. They have the Presidency and the Congress and they see themselves as victims. Poor, poor us
As is her wont, sunsong misunderstands what's going on. Conservatives are certainly sympathetic to individuals who have been hurt by the leftist bias she embodies, but what she (dimly, as always) perceives as self-pity is actually disdain for leftists that are once again dehumanized by their hatred.
1. Democrats get to discriminate because Democrats discriminated against people years ago and now blame conservatives,
2. Liberals get to discriminate because conservatives don't have human-level emotions,
3. Conservatives who face demonstrable discrimination in the present by institutions that hold themselves unaccountable must not complain, and
4. Conservatives actually have weaker minds, deserve their lack of success, and cannot credibly beg for equal treatment under the law with no special protections.I
5. Because reasons.
Number X. Almost all academics are government employees, which conservatives tend not to be. Though not a conservative, based on my own feelings this would probably be the biggest reason for there being fewer conservatives in academia.
Related article:
By Dennis Prager and how many musicians hide their conservative views, like hidden Jews in Spain.
Conservatives in America --- Like Marranos in Medieval Spain
image: http://jewishworldreview.com/cols2/prager.jpg
By Dennis Prager
Read more at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0917/prager090517.php3#bCuKLLmL7IIc0PLp.99
I'm still reeling from the implication that the politics of your typical university are "mainstream" in any meaningful manner.
Can we get some muscle over here?
Curious, I googled her. Now a non-tenure at Gonzaga.
The responses among the NYT commenters, at a glance, appear to be divided between "I've never seen that happen anywhere *I* have worked", and variants of #4.
The interesting thing about the latter is that the respondents don't seem to have any concept of what a "conservative" is. Instead, there's a place-holder in their brains occupied by a weird chimera of a toothless bible-thumper and a cartoon Koch brother. (That the latter represents the neoliberal, globalist economic views of the Democratic politicians most of 'em support is an irony lost on these commenters.)
This is a closed and stagnant intellectual world. An irruption of any strain of conservative thought that isn't "conservatism(tm)" couldn't produce anything but a confused "point and sputter" response among its inhabitants. There's no energy here.
sunsong cannot see that that Althouse turned the conservative argument against conservatives and thereby sunsong adopts the conservative argument.
Let's apply the argument consistently, then.
Strick said...
I'm still reeling from the implication that the politics of your typical university are "mainstream" in any meaningful manner.
9/15/17, 8:38 AM
Antifa is trying to bring the tactics that have been so successful in shutting down opposition at colleges to the "real world" outside the campus. Spattering red paint on statues of Columbus and Francis Scott Key, attacking people at pro-Trump rallies while the police "stand down" - they've betting that the politicians will be as craven and spineless as university administrators.
In blue cities, at least, their bets have paid off.
To be fair to sunsong, many of the conservatives seem to have missed the point Althouse made.
The term affirmative action gives away the game, people.
I've been going to heterodoxacademy for quite some time. So I can say with confidence that #4 is the only argument that leftists ever use. "Reality has a liberal bias, and it's no surprise that people who believe the world was created 4000 years ago/believe in the Laffer curve/can't handle the basic physics of climate change/... are not able to hack it in academia."
The counter-argument that if you switched the word black for the word conservative to explain why there aren't enough black professors or whatever, everyone would correctly think you're a loser racist, doesn't seem to impress them.
Another way to look at the "weaker minds" idea is: If you care about success within academia at all, if you didn't figure out you should lean left, you must be dumb.
Its not about feelings or individuals, and there are no great principles involved either. This situation and process was all described by Gramsci "Cultural Hegemony", and how to get it.
The left has won, and the cost is that the culture has turned to shit. Really, the nature of the material and the level of treatment/analysis in universities is a shadow of what it was.
It's very simple. The ship has sailed; it's too late. Conservatives are unpeople. The end.
I actually was told when I was thinking about grad school that, if I did go, it would be best to keep my opinions to myself. I ended up not going because I got a good paying job that still pays well, and I paid off my student loans in half the expected time due to some belt tightening, but I wonder: "If I got told that, I wonder what hard right conservatives are told."
If I were an open-minded person who wanted to make it in academia, I might offer an apologia such as that offered by Althouse at 9:26 AM.
The downstream consequences are enormous.
In K-12 the propaganda aspect has changed utterly (education IS propaganda, always has been even in ancient times, thats one of its functions). The propaganda used to be cultural-political unity, now it is all factionalization.
The dumbing-down also comes from the universities.
I would expect some progressives to argue that it's fine to make conservatives feel like outsiders because:
What do you mean "feel like outsiders?" They ARE outsiders. Never with the cool kids.
Can they even get published in some fields?
Diversity, deny individual dignity, judge people by the "color of their skin".
"=", political congruence, because some orientations and expression are more equal than others.
Abortion rites, deny lives deemed unworthy, inconvenient, or profitable (e.g. Planned Parenthood), with an de facto argument of privacy, no less. Is anyone still asleep to what passes in abortion chambers and Mengele clinics?
Redistributive change, because the "Jews" didn't build it.
Elective regime changes, elective wars, CAIR, trail of tears, because social justice or something resembling it, forced by a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Immigration Reform, because the Earth is flat, and observations made in isolation can and should be extrapolated to infer behavior in the wild, past, present, and future, to the edges of the solar system, an inferred universe, and beyond.
Progressive liberalism is monotonic divergence at the twilight fringe with an illusion of principle that is one baby... small step forward, one giant leap backward.
MikeR said...
people who believe the world was created 4000 years ago/believe in the Laffer curve/can't handle the basic physics of climate change/... are not able to hack it in academia."
Much of "liberals smarter than conservatives" comes from the definitions of lib and con; using different definitions gives different results:
"Conservatives Are Dumber, and Smarter, Than Liberals"
"If you think about it, Jerry Falwell and Milton Freedman are worlds apart."
Just to make a point, and taking my example from an earlier discussion - what proportion of new US English majors could read Anthony Burgess' "Earthly Powers" and understand his references and context? Or, perhaps, read it at all?
This is not Joyce, this is not "Ulysses".
"Freedman" deserves a [sic]! Obviously Milton Friedman.
It's been fascinating watching Sunsong's slow transformation from stereotypical bliss ninny into hate-filled bigot.
In response to Birkel. Speaking for myself and of course that's always the case, I've been wondering for a while whether I should embrace the idea of affirmative action. And I mean that it should be applied to everyone not just the groups that the left wants to privilege.
I wouldn't apply it to academia. I don't think there's any practical way to do that. Instead what we should do for academia is to allow universities to legal discriminate based on political viewpoint. You might think that's what we have now, but in reality it's kind of more or less illegal. It happens nevertheless because the left is so good at lies and hypocrisy. And there's a good reason why the left is so good at this, and that is that their central core value is conformity. And that makes them very powerful. You have all these people thinking the same thing, saying the same thing, doing the same things. This is why the left dominates almost all institutions.
The right is what is left over. It's all the people that can't be part of the conformity. And they are not at all unified and they disagree about many, many things. So, so what if the Republicans control Congress? They don't agree about that much. It's difficult for them to do anything.
Jumping back to academia, before I move on, the point of legalizing discrimination by viewpoint is that it allows the creation of some institutions that maintain themselves very openly by doing so and that are not left wing.
So getting back to affirmative action. First of all, practically speaking, we are not going to get rid of it. It's going to be there for certain groups indefinitely because, in a sense, they really need it. And then there are groups, like women, who are currently privileged, who seriously don't need affirmative action. In fact in some areas one could argue that it's really needed the other way around.
The problem that I'm worrying about is that practically speaking it has become legal to discriminate against whites and men. And this is actually happening. You can in to large institutions and see a huge imbalance in who is being employed.
Sunsong,
"So much self-pity on the right. They have the Presidency and the Congress and they see themselves as victims. Poor, poor us"
Look, let's say it's 2010, and your calling, your intellectual passion, places you after years of hard work in an environment where all your colleagues just happen to be pissed-off right-wingers. And not political geeks, either; just people who have attitudes, are furious at what's going on in the country and the world, and are convinced that the damn libruls are trying to ruin the country because they hate it.
Oh, and someone who knew you back in the day "outed" you, so you now serve as President Obama's local representative. Your function, for people who have make-or-break power over your career - did I mention that in theory your work has nothing to do with politics - is to sit there and take their insults. To just shut up and take it while they make jokes that mainly vent their anger, and are only funny if you actually hate the target of those jokes (which is people who think more or less like you).
And then I airily tell you to toughen up, what are you complaining about, your side has the presidency and both houses of Congress. You big baby.
Harrogate's right. It's really not so hard not to be an asshole. The problem is, some people love to be.
buwaya: The left has won, and the cost is that the culture has turned to shit. Really, the nature of the material and the level of treatment/analysis in universities is a shadow of what it was.
Which is so unexpected a result, what with the "left" comprising all the intelligent, curious, open- and rational-minded people. It's a paradox, it is, that chasing out or shutting up all the narrow-minded, ignorant people results in the hopeless dumbing-down of an institution or society.
It's almost as if there's something wrong with the premises here, something we're just not getting...
Nah, couldn't be.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Immigration Reform, because the Earth is flat, and observations made in isolation can and should be extrapolated to infer behavior in the wild, past, present, and future, to the edges of the solar system, an inferred universe, and beyond.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. CAIR is a well characterized phenomenon that is man-made and the result of "clean" wars.
JPS,
Read the responses here. The hate is coming from the right. You guys just can't seem to stand the thought of people having other opinions than yours. Read the way your fellow right-wingers communicate to people with different ideas. You immediately attack the person! How stupid is that? Why don't you learn to communicate your ideas better?
"I would expect some progressives to argue that" You would expect wrong. Only a variation of 4. "Conservatives actually have weaker minds" comes up in commentary on academia, as far as I can tell. But even that is not the way progs think. Instead "I would expect some progressives to argue that" conservatives are wrong, higher ed is about teaching truth, therefore it is good that conservatives be shunned; and that higher ed should prepare the next generation for a more progressive society, conservatives obstruct that emancipating purpose, and therefore should be shunned.
'Conservatives make those in groups that have historically felt like outsiders feel like outsiders" Interpretation - They put quotas on us and now it's payback time baby. Also there is a little of " don't bite the hand that feeds you" on Ann's part.
I would expect some progressives to argue that it's fine to make conservatives feel like outsiders because:
5 - Liberals hate Conservatives.
#6--They're jerks.
=
Ann Althouse said...
Another way to look at the "weaker minds" idea is: If you care about success within academia at all, if you didn't figure out you should lean left, you must be dumb.
9/15/17, 9:26 AM
So survival of the fittest professor? Fittest meaning leftist.
sunsong said...
JPS,
Read the responses here. The hate is coming from the right. You guys just can't seem to stand the thought of people having other opinions than yours. Read the way your fellow right-wingers communicate to people with different ideas. You immediately attack the person! How stupid is that? Why don't you learn to communicate your ideas better?
9/15/17, 10:39 AM
LOL. Just LOL. Antifa, BAMN, BLM, Rainbow PUSH, La Raza...
sunsong,
"Read the way your fellow right-wingers communicate to people with different ideas. You immediately attack the person! ... Why don't you learn to communicate your ideas better?"
Who are you talking to?
I've offered an argument to what you've written. I invited you to consider how you'd feel in that situation, one with which I have extensive mirror-image experience.
I haven't attacked you. Find me where I've attacked anyone, and don't tell me you're referring to others. I don't hold you responsible for the behavior of others on the left (anymore than I credit you with Robert Cook's being such a steadfastly nice guy even under provocation), and I'd appreciate your returning the courtesy.
But sunsong, what are your ideas?
You have communicated none of you own.
Nor do you engage. You assert, you are rebutted, the dialectical game is afoot, the debate is started, but then nothing.
As with Asian-Americans, no one is actually begging for affirmative action, i.e. extra assistance. They'd just like to not be massively discriminated against. But the academy refuses this steadfastly, as with Asian-Americans.
I lean towards #3. The only thing that gives me pause is the amount of public funds most universities receive.
My son has just started his second year of college. He is rather conservative. His mantra is "keep my head down and my mouth shut". He works to learn his gen ed professors and give them what they want to hear. Sadly, neither side of the spectrum is learning how to string a cogent argument together.
He was irate last week though. There was a DACA protest that shut down the tram that runs from his apartment to the university. He had a half an hour walk in 100° heat and had to double time it to make sure he wasn’t late for his physics class. Needless to say he wasn’t receptive to their cause.
Finally, education is the an area that I could most readily accept affirmative action ( best focused on socioeconomic factors). When it comes to employment you hire/recruit/pay the best person for the job.
" Why don't you learn to communicate your ideas better?"
What ideas have you communicated Sunsong? You only parrot the ideas and thoughts of others.
Sunsong posts a quote.
Others point out that sunsong is unoriginal and seems be unable to think for herself or construct an argument.
Sunsong comes back and wails "You're such meanies! Stop with the personal attacks!!!"
Thus proving our point - that she is incapable of presenting a logical argument or debating honestly, because she can only echo the thoughts of others.
harrogate said...
"I'm in academia, and I do my part to protect the rights of my conservative colleagues, including their opportunities to be considered for leadership opportunities.
Oddly, It's really not so hard to not be an asshole, regardless of your political affiliation."
Get out! Really?
I think the battle is about conforming. The 60's 'revolution' was all about being non-conformist. The long hair, paisley shirts, and bell bottoms made you a non-conformist. There was great social pressure in the colleges to conform to the non-conforming viewpoints. I'll say it again, the hippies were sheep, rebelling against the conservative conformity of the 50's and moving into the the liberal conformity of the 60's which is still with us.
It is human nature to take the easiest route through life, and the easiest route is to conform. There will always be pressure to conform, and the weak willed will be the first to succumb. Unfortunately full conformity within a society can lead to all sorts of ills. Totalitarianism being one of them. Antifa isn't the bunch of non-conformists they they would like to label themselves, they are the militant wing of conformity.
A healthy society will always have a percentage of non-conformist elements in it no matter the pain it causes the conformists. The conformists, by human nature, will always be uncomfortable with non-conformity. In extreme swings the conformists will demand, and worse, enforce their views of what should be.
This can be the case for any ideology that holds sway, but at present it seems the leftist ideology is fighting very hard to hold onto the conformity that it has built over the past 5 decades. The election of Trump is viewed as a direct threat. Conservatives (at present, non-conformists) are starting to come out of the woodwork and it is scary.
Colleges today are a prime example of this. They are demanding conformity when their job should be to impart knowledge and let the chips fall where they may.
The Left has learned to turn political issues into moral issues, so that people with different views are not merely incorrect, they are evil. It is therefore not necessary to confront their arguments. And this is a very effective tactic. Case in point, our own MikeR;
MikeR said...
"The counter-argument that if you switched the word black for the word conservative to explain why there aren't enough black professors or whatever, everyone would correctly think you're a loser racist, doesn't seem to impress them."
Correctly, Mike? My knowledge that average black IQ is a full standard deviation below the white average makes it "correct" to think I am a loser racist? Have you slipped on your "eat-me-last" spectacles, so you can see things the way the Lefties see them?
Another way to look at the "weaker minds" idea is: If you care about success within academia at all, if you didn't figure out you should lean left, you must be dumb.
Or...you could argue that if you are unwilling to do the difficult but correct thing and resist the pressure to go along to get along and you submit, you have a weak mind.
Dennis Prager has referred to those who need to hide their political beliefs in public as "Marranos": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrano
I'm one of them -- I can't say anything at work or in an orchestra pit about politics. Hewing the line on Leftist beliefs is a requirement for being a working musician in Southern California. I just keep my head down, nod at the proper times, and move on to the next gig.
Those who believe Charlottesville was all about RACISM! are completely wrong -- the battle today is over free speech, and how it is under assault by the Left.
Pianoman said "I'm one of them -- I can't say anything at work or in an orchestra pit about politics. Hewing the line on Leftist beliefs is a requirement for being a working musician in Southern California. I just keep my head down, nod at the proper times, and move on to the next gig."
And people like sunsong side with the bullies and, when the conservatives fight back, accuse the conservatives of "whining."
Shut up and take your punishment, you deplorables! You have no rights!
The hate is coming from the right. You guys just can't seem to stand the thought of people having other opinions than yours. Read the way your fellow right-wingers communicate to people with different ideas. You immediately attack the person! How stupid is that? Why don't you learn to communicate your ideas better?
So much self pity on the left...
The reality is that the Left's positions are so shot through with contradictions that they cannot stand up to logical analysis. And therefore they must be protected from analysis, by being treated as morally based. This is accomplished by asserting "equality" as both a desirable but elusive goal, and also as an undeniable present reality. Since all are known to be equal, only a desire to gain or retain an unfair advantage can possibly explain any claim of unequal merit. Such arguments cannot be made in good faith, they can only be hate-speech. Once you have established that the mere expression of certain ideas is immoral, you do not need to address them as ideas. You can condemn their expression as a violent action. Your opponent is not expressing a different view of factual matters, he is attacking blameless innocents with malicious lies. The only question is what should be his punishment.
Pacwest makes very good points, including the important one about how the rebellion against the conformity of the 1950's was led by people who were conformists themselves.
. Antifa isn't the bunch of non-conformists they they would like to label themselves, they are the militant wing of conformity."
The hope I have is that the majority of students will soon tire of this constant scolding and policing and hectoring, coming not from ministers or priests or schoolmarms but largely from their own peers. Indeed, I don't understand why they've put up with it for as long as they have, given the tuition they are paying. Probably because they know their elders - the professors and administrators - will not only cave in to the radicals but actively side with them and punish the kids who want education instead of indoctrination.
From Powerline blog:
"A backlash from other students seems to be building, according to a report on the matter in The Economist:
Yet at Reed College this term there are also signs of a counter-revolution. A professor of Muslim studies refused to lecture in front of protesters and taught his class of 150 students outside, under a tree. Some freshmen have shouted down protesters. One (black) student told them: “This is a classroom. This is not the place. Right now we are trying to learn. We are freshmen students.” The rest of his speech was drowned out by applause."
If normal students and parents begin applying pressure, the universities might get the message.
There seems to be some confusion as to MikeR's comments. Liberals are composed of the elites and the foot soldiers( read Sayet's book).The elite have a heavy concentration of Jews and Asians.The foot soldiers are predominantly blacks and hispanics. Now when you look at IQ charts, indeed the Jews and Asians have the highest IQs and PSAT scores while the blacks and hispanics bring up the rear. So indeed elite liberals on the whole are smarter than whites and blacks.It is corroborated by financial and professional status. That is why i laugh at the accusation by liberals of "white" supremacy ". The real supremes are elite liberals.
Conservatives and foot soldiers are suckers and the liberal elites justly play them like fools.
One (black) student told them: “This is a classroom. This is not the place. Right now we are trying to learn. We are freshmen students.”
...and then an Antifa thug cracked his skull open with a bike lock.
Very similar to Martin Niemoller's
That needs to be updated for the current year:
First they came for the Nazis, and I could not speak out—
Because they said I was a Nazi.
Jupiter,
"My knowledge that average black IQ is a full standard deviation below the white average"
I won't call you a loser racist but I will challenge your conclusion and the premises that underpin it.
I don't believe for a moment that IQ tests only test aptitude. They are supposed to, but I think there's a huge cultural component to them. I think a kid (me) raised in a household with two bookish parents who read to him as a toddler is going to be set up for success on these tests in a way that a kid in a broken home with no dad around and a mom trying to work and raise kids (now I'm being racist, I guess, but this is still statistically likelier in black households than white) is not.
(Put another way, if the IQ test consisted of the kind of highly elaborate multipart fist-bump my black friends have occasionally pop-quizzed me on, I'd test Moron.)
And I've known too many black soldiers whose GT scores were middling at best and who were damned sharp - sharp as the students in the well-regarded university I left for the Army in my midlife crisis. For that matter, I know plenty of unintellectual, not-highly-educated white soldiers who are a hell of a lot smarter than many of the academic types who nodded to John Kerry's "if you don't [work hard in school] you get stuck in Iraq." There is such a thing as a smart person who doesn't test well.
bgates, that's a keeper!
One problem with Conservatives is that large numbers of them simply refuse to network or work together as a group. Plus, many of them aren't really conservative, but simply contrarians.
Secondly, it'd make more sense for conservatives to take over certain universities -or make their own - but of course, most Conservatives are against that, because they like posing as "rebels" at a liberal university.
JPS said...
I don't believe for a moment that IQ tests only test aptitude. They are supposed to, but I think there's a huge cultural component to them.
That's a nice thing to think.
"Intelligence tests are not culturally biased against American blacks or other native-born, English-speaking peoples in the U.S. Rather, IQ scores predict equally accurately for all such Americans, regardless of race and social class. Individuals who do not understand English well can be given either a nonverbal test or one in their native language."
IQ tests are designed so that, e.g., blacks and whites miss the same sets of questions at a given IQ level.
"Raven's Matrices" is a non-verbal IQ test with no cultural content.
There is such a thing as a smart person who doesn't test well.
That's another nice thing to think.
Ray beat me to it. Darn.
Well, Fernandinande, to the left I'm already a Science Denier(TM) for asking questions like, Wait, how do you know that? and, Could anything else explain these observations?
There is such a thing as a smart person who doesn't test well.
"That's another nice thing to think."
I'm not being nice. I tested extremely well. My whole adult life I've been learning it doesn't make me nearly as special as I once thought. Conversely I know lots of people who test middling-poorly and are a damn sight smarter than I would have thought from their scores.
We forget, this is academia, it's much worse than you think:
7. Screw them, soon we will be able to line them up against the wall and eliminate them. Then we can usher in the glorious socialist paradise.
JPS: I don't believe for a moment that IQ tests only test aptitude. They are supposed to, but I think there's a huge cultural component to them.
Lots of well-meaning people believe that. I don't think there's much evidence to support that belief.
I think a kid (me) raised in a household with two bookish parents who read to him as a toddler is going to be set up for success...
Chickens/eggs...
Do you think "bookishness" and the habit of reading to one's children has no correlation to innate intelligence? It's just some trait that manifests itself randomly among parents?
(Put another way, if the IQ test consisted of the kind of highly elaborate multipart fist-bump my black friends have occasionally pop-quizzed me on, I'd test Moron.)
IQ test scores are highly predictive of life outcomes. If the highly elaborate multipart fist-bump test had the same predictive value, you'd have a point. But it doesn't. It's simply not true that "IQ tests only measure the ability to take IQ tests."
Look, I'm no IQ absolutist. But I wish people who obviously don't know much about the subject of IQ tests would stop opining on useless and meaningless they are.
in the a whole , IQ test indeed shows intelligence. And intelligence begets power and money in our meritocracy society.
We dumb whites and blacks cling to "i could have been a contender except for my parents or lack of" bs. We are what we are.Just line up on the next play and try to beat the man in front of you and remember there is Someone who loves you.
JPS: I'm not being nice. I tested extremely well. My whole adult life I've been learning it doesn't make me nearly as special as I once thought.
IQ tests don't tell you that you're "special", JPS, they just make pretty accurate predictions about your ability to undertake complex tasks successfully, as well as accurate predictions about personality traits that lead to successful outcomes (e.g. low time preference, perseverance), which correlate strongly with IQ scores.
Nobody's making claims about human worth here. Stop projecting.
Conversely I know lots of people who test middling-poorly and are a damn sight smarter than I would have thought from their scores.
Everybody has anecdotes like this, JPS. You really know, say, competent architects and physicians who scored below 100 on IQ tests?
Never forget, we conservatives pay the salaries of these totalitarian, leftist assholes.
And they insult us for the honor of doing so.
@Jim at
They are not asshole: they are smart and powerful. We dumb whites and blacks are the assholes for paying them to insult us.
"Conservatives should follow their own ideology and take responsibility for their own condition and fight for success, not look for others to blame"
No problem! We'll get Congress to pass a law saying no student loans or gov't grants can go to any school that doesn't have a majority of conservatives in faculty and administration. We'll also require the termination of tenure, and the firing of any "academic" who says anything left wing in public.
No free speech & no academic freedom for people we don't like? We can work with that. And if you academics don't stop pushign that, we WILL work with it
I believe the reasoning for not protecting conservatives is 6) Any truly smart person will necessarily come to the exact policies that we (the Left) believe in, because there are no other answers. If someone does not believe every single one of these things, then they are not smart enough to be an academic.
I don't believe for a moment that IQ tests only test aptitude. They are supposed to, but I think there's a huge cultural component to them.
There is a remarkable consistency across time and different tests worldwide when it comes to IQ tests. The results are not controversial, just embarrassing to some, and inconvenient to others, so it is rarely spoken of.
Yes, there is a huge environmental factor when it comes to knowledge and the readiness/desire to learn. I.Q. however is clearly linked to genetics.
I don't believe for a moment that IQ tests only test aptitude. They are supposed to, but I think there's a huge cultural component to them.
Why do Asians and Jews score higher than Whites?
This worm will turn. Just a matter of when. For those with any historical memory, there was a time when universities were dominated by equally intolerant conservatives. Rebellion against the reigning orthodoxy is part of the natural academic cycle -- and the way young scholars make their names. No need to count on the good faith or principles of the progs. And if you do, you're likely to be disappointed.
Geez, the New York Times commentariat (plus whoever decides their "NYT picks") are some of the most intellectually intolerant I've seen on any "respectable" site.
And Brooks confuses the liberal tradition versus the progressive one. The former does indeed have a long history of protecting minority rights, the latter not so much. "Moderal liberalism" is traceable more to the progressive tradition than the older liberal one, and even today it takes a very paternalistic attitude toward minority "rights", only to be respect as long as those rights do not involve thinking for oneself or asserting one's individual autonomy outside of certain narrow bounds. Freedom of conscience, the right to decide one's own way in the world, for example, are liberties that fall outside of these bounds.
If you believe that a right-thinking (or left-thinking) clerisy must rule the lives of all common folk for their own good, how tolerant are you likely to be to anyone who things otherwise?
Sunsong said, " Read the way your fellow right-wingers communicate to people with different ideas. "
We engage ideas. Unfortunately most on the left, including you, have no ideas. Just dogmatic leftist talking points.
It is also in their long-term interest. When half the taxpayers and parents look down on academic ideological conformity how long can they expect their funding to continue, let alone increase?
But should professors’ political philosophies factor into how welcome they are or the likelihood of their leading departments and institutions? Only if the fundamental goal of the university is more political than scholarly.
So which is the primary goal of universities today? They are in the process of deciding. If they decide the answer is scholarship, they must work harder to form communities that do not just tolerate conservatives but actively embrace ideological diversity. They must be willing to see conservative faculty members not as interlopers to be tolerated but as valued colleagues, worthy of promotion and appointments to leadership roles when merited.
That should have been the pull-quote from the op-ed. The four imagined arguments of of progressives all miss the point by focusing on the conservatives themselves and not on the university and its mission. If you want a strong university, you need diversity of thought, which you won't get by excluding people because you disagree with them, or by cowing them into silence once they're there.
AA: "If you care about success within academia at all, if you didn't figure out you should lean left, you must be dumb." I sense about ten layers of irony there. But taking it straight, I have to say (as others have said), you are arguing for everyone with a brain to capitulate to the Prog regime. Why?
Why not champion a culture where people can make their own minds up, and challenge one another in civil discourse, without fear of exile? Is that really so hard?
Apparently it is. Apparently the best we can do is a Red Guard world, where the Woke wave their little books and recite the orthodoxy. Utter sterility.
I would say this: there is a nonlinear failure in these academic (and other) environments, where it is suddenly not OK to offer a view that does not double-down on the opinion in that day's Daily Worker. People are acutely sensitive to their social and work environments, and what will undermine their career prospects. I would think it usually happens at ages 25-35, when the first hot flush of Unlimited Potential gives way to Holy Shit I Want To Start A Family/Build A Career.
Actually, professors with views in the mainstream of society as a whole feel alienated as well. The campus "mainstream" is nowhere near society's "mainstream.
Look, suppose you say that Africans and African-Americans on average measure one standard deviation below whites - and you say that IQ tests measure something innate, not something cultural. Then you are saying that the average black one meets in life has the intelligence of a white person with a measured IQ of 85. Whites with that measured IQ are very slow; if you want to be mean you call them stupid. But the average black one meets is not slow and stupid like a white person with an measured IQ of 85. Poorly educated, yes. But not slow.
"Angel-Dyne
IQ tests ... just make pretty accurate predictions about your ability to undertake complex tasks successfully [in this culture], as well as accurate predictions about personality traits that lead to successful outcomes [in this culture] (e.g. low time preference, perseverance), which correlate strongly with IQ scores."
If IQ tests tests for personality traits that will succeed IN THIS CULTURE isn't that the same as saying that IQ tests are cultural? I mean suppose that in the schools we taught music as an academic subject K to college. Don't you think that most blacks would do quite well and most whites would struggle in those classes? I would be "slow" in any class where I had to hold a melody in my head. I'd have to hear things 15 times. But I think blacks would get it almost at once - (and I think if they were taught a musical tradition academically then we would have great music as the art form of American culture, but that' s another story).
We learn European literary and scientific culture in schools and that culture is dominant world-wide. It has traditions which have to be learned before you can hope to do well unless you are a special sort of person. If you come from a European background you start life by learning those traditions. If you are Chinese it is part of your tradition that one gets ahead by learning a complex, somewhat alien system. It was the Chinese who first used exams to test for qualifications for job entry. That's how I explain IQ tests and success in school. IQ tests test for success in the dominant culture which is mainly literary and scientific.
For an alternative view, see my film: https://youtu.be/FmhfRi5j8aA. I argue that universities now serve as laboratories of totalitarianism...
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