
I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me - Balgair
https://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid
======
NTDF9
I used to be a liberal. Then I realized that I cannot trust everyone who cries
foul. I haven't turned conservative either. But I don't hold liberal views as
correct by default anymore.

The problem with today's liberals is that they think political correctness is
more important than factual data. Any rational argument requires dealing with
cold hard facts, however brutal and hurtful they might be. There is no place
for emotions in objective observation, exploration, research.

For more info on this perspective watch this video: Why So Many Americans
Don't Want Social Justice and Don't Trust Scientists
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86dzTFJbkc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86dzTFJbkc)

TL;DR: Political correctness...aka too many pussies in the real world.

~~~
namlem
It's crazy how far left liberalism has been pushed these past few years. Just
as crazy as how far right conservatism has moved over the past couple decades.
This extreme polarization is very worrying. It's not stable, and it's going to
lead to serious problems.

~~~
Balgair
Meh. It's always been there. It's just that the internet has allowed us to see
it better.

Also, this definition of 'far' left or right (at least here in the states) is
not all that far, historically speaking. Far right would be a return to
religious law, banning of contraception, a return to a theocracy, etc. There
are countries like that, and we view them as nuts and places you dont want to
live in. Far left would be a total communist state (I think) and we all know
those are equally as bad. Yet, people do live, love, have families, die, fight
for, and defend those countries. Something else must be going on, right?

Again, there is a trap of viewing politics as a 1-D continuum. Granted this is
better than a 1-D binary, but politics has as many dimensions as there are
people, if not more. We all have opinions, or have the idea that our ideas are
not important.

What is most important is that we VOTE. If we think these people are too far
right or left, the best way to do something about that is to VOTE and
participate in your community.

[https://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup](https://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup)

[http://www.civiced.org/resources/curriculum/lesson-
plans/456...](http://www.civiced.org/resources/curriculum/lesson-
plans/456-how-can-citizens-participate)

[https://www.gop.com/get-involved/](https://www.gop.com/get-involved/)

[https://www.democrats.org/projects](https://www.democrats.org/projects)

and many more.

------
yellowapple
> If we subscribe to the belief that ideas can be judged within a vacuum,
> uninfluenced by the social weight of their proponents, we perpetuate a
> system in which arbitrary markers like race and gender influence the
> perceived correctness of ideas.

I don't understand this. If ideas are judged in a vacuum, then by definition,
their perceived correctness is not influenced by race and gender. If those
ideas _are_ perceived differently based on race or gender, then they're not
being judged in a vacuum. Or am I missing something here?

~~~
BlackAura
The _belief_ that ideas can be judged in a vacuum is a very different thing
than ideas actually being judged in a vacuum.

Ideas are not judged in a vacuum - humans are rubbish at doing that. We allow
various factors to influence how we evaluate ideas, even when those factors
have nothing to do with the idea itself. Race and gender being very obvious
ones.

Example: In a meeting, a woman comes up with an idea. Everyone ignores her.
Thirty seconds later, a man says the exact same thing, and suddenly everyone
is in awe about how amazing this idea is.

And yes, that does happen. A lot.

However, most of us _believe_ that we aren't doing this. We believe that we're
evaluating ideas on merit alone, and are therefore completely blind to the
fact that we're not. Humans are rubbish at being objective, but very good at
fooling ourselves into believing that we are.

The only way to approach evaluating ideas on merit is to be aware of one's own
biases, one's own point of view, various power imbalances, systemic
discrimination, and all that stuff. Once you're aware of what you're actually
doing, you can try to factor that into how you evaluate ideas.

~~~
yellowapple
I guess that makes more sense, though I'd argue that not having the necessary
information to make those biases _could_ result in ideas actually being judged
in a vacuum (how can you be biased against someone if your subconscious is
incapable of knowing whether that someone is subject to its biases?). This is
part of the reason why the "hacker" subculture (if the Jargon File is anything
to go by) claims itself to be more egalitarian than other STEM-oriented
subcultures; since a lot of collaboration is entirely text-based, it doesn't
invoke gender/racial biases (or at least does so far less often).

Basically, in the scenario you've described, if the "meeting" is instead a
discussion on, say, an IRC channel, then as long as the participants are
anonymous, there shouldn't be any reason for bias to occur (and even when they
_aren 't_ anonymous, I'd hypothesize that - due to the lack of stimuli
reinforcing those biases, like visual confirmation of race or gender - bias
will be significantly diminished).

~~~
BlackAura
> not having the necessary information to make those biases could result in
> ideas actually being judged in a vacuum

Potentially, yes. It certainly can happen, but it can also go horribly wrong
for a whole variety of reasons.

In online discussions, people's ideas tend to be judged based on how well the
person proposing them conforms to the norms of the group. Which is part of the
reason most online communities tend to develop a kind of hive mind - everyone
who sticks around shares the same opinions as the group, because the group
chases off anyone who dissents, either by making the environment unwelcoming,
or outright harassing people.

It's part of the reason the hacker subculture isn't as egalitarian as it likes
to believe. Even if everyone's anonymous (or at least using a pseudonym), it's
still composed almost entirely of nerdy, reasonably well off straight white
guys, mostly from the US. The reason for that is a reflection of external
social forces which don't exactly exist inside hacker subculture, but strongly
influenced who was able to participate in it. That creates an extremely
homogenous group, which is reflected in the way hacker culture developed.

It's not deliberate, but it can feel like a hostile environment to outsiders.
Which can make outsiders avoid it like the plague. Since there are no
outsiders, members of the group never hear their perspective, nor do they ever
realize that there's a problem, because they assume that they're being
egalitarian.

That's not universal, and it's much less common in groups that have _always_
been diverse from the very beginning. If you have a group with significant
numbers of women, for example, they will tend to object (much more loudly than
in real life) when someone says something sexist. The group culture that
develops tends to be one that does not tolerate sexism.

In that kind of environment, you tend to be able to have discussions where
everyone is listened to, and their ideas judged on merit, for precisely the
reasons you suggest. It's all text based, and there's no stimuli to re-enforce
your biases that you carried with you from the outside world.

However, that can only be done if you don't allow the group's culture to
become a reflection of the outside world's culture. Which is what happens if
you just ignore it.

------
k__
I always find it interesting, that the US seems to be all about conservatives
(republicans) and liberals (democrats).

In Germany it seems to be more of a conservatives (CDU) and socialists (SPD)
"battle". Interestingly I had the feeling the liberals (FDP) are more on the
side of the conservatives (most of the time in german history FDP and CDU
worked together). So when I read about US politics it feels like they are only
debating on details. Like socialism isn't even an option.

~~~
ttepasse
Keep in mind that the word liberal has different meanings in the political
context on both sides of the atlantic ocean.

Although it is always a question of one's own standpoint. Where I (a somewhat
social-democratic german) stand, both CDU and SPD look like parties of the
right today. :(

------
vannevar
I suspect that the situations the author describes have more to do with office
politics than personal politics, and have little or nothing to do with the
students. Academia is a notoriously feudal environment; once someone has made
enemies in their department, any transgression, however minor, is used as a
tool to strip them of power or, in the extreme, get them fired. It's no
different today than it has been historically, it's just that the particular
choice of teapot for the tempest has changed through the years.

------
ilaksh
The whole don't-hurt-my feelings culture is odd and a problem, but so is the
general employment situation and overall structure.

------
istvan__
Very sad indeed.

------
6stringmerc
As a self-proclaimed renegade, disruptive thinker, and stubbornly practiced
argumentative individual with an English Literature degree, I think this
write-up hits on several valid points. The framing of discourse is important,
and actually quite relevant to notions of technological / software innovation
as well. Placating feelings is akin to me like being a drug dealer. Pandering
for profit is a real, viable business model.

Freemium gaming is one element. Aggregating and slanting news for a specific
demographic is another. Giving a voice to ignorance in the case of vaccination
discussion is yet another. I could go on and on, because these things are
real, visible, and frankly horrible deviations from intellectual and societal
progress.

This is why trolling has become such a bloodsport and, quite frankly, one of
the counter-balances to the trend. In a primal sense, trolling online is akin
to purposefully challenging a person's worldview through their feelings, using
drastic / hyperbolic / inflammatory rhetoric. People like Mark Twain and
Hunter S. Thompson were masters, and I've studied them extensively.

For those who think this article might be a non-starter, fine, go bury your
head in the sand a little deeper. It will only be a matter of time before a
co-worker, an underling, or a family member exhibits this contagious mental
rot and throws you for a loop. After all, if you don't feel that it's a
problem, then it's not a problem, right?

~~~
rcxdude
>In a primal sense, trolling online is akin to purposefully challenging a
person's worldview through their feelings, using drastic / hyperbolic /
inflammatory rhetoric.

No, The definition of trolling is attempting to get a reaction out of people
by any means possible. Trolls aren't interested in having an actual
conversation, educating, or changing anyone's view, in fact they thrive off of
the opposite.

~~~
A_COMPUTER
Is it trolling if you pick your targets ideologically and say what you mean?
We need a new word, because trolling does seem to capture the method and the
spirit, but not the goals.

~~~
dagw
_Is it trolling if you pick your targets ideologically and say what you mean?_

Depends very much on your intended and hoped for outcome for doing this? A
genuine discussion and a meeting of minds or to laugh at the ignorant sheeple?
If you find that you're getting more of the latter than the former, do you
double down or change your approach?

------
cjbprime
Unimpressive; the worst he has is that someone made a groundless complaint
that was handled perfectly well in 2009, and he worries that someone will make
another one one day (though it seems kind of telling that they haven't..?) and
it will go differently.

Why not get someone who's _actually been harmed_ by this change in culture to
write about that?

~~~
bamboo_7
I think the deeper point isn't just that it will go differently now, but that
he has had to adjust his material and teaching style in fear of that bad
reaction ruining his career. He points to a few examples of professors who
were fired because of a single student's complaint and where universities have
removed activities in deference to this outspoken social justice. The shame is
that the discussions which should challenge and enrich a student's mind are
now being silenced and therein lies to the harm.

~~~
BlackAura
So the university being paranoid about being sued is the students' fault?

> being silenced

Nobody is being silenced by the students. What the students want is for
professors to stop being assholes towards anyone that's not just like them,
and are (correctly) pointing out various kinds of systemic bias, subjective
opinions masquerading as objectivity, and instances where you have material
that is disturbing or emotionally difficult for absolutely no good reason
other than "it doesn't bother me, so it shouldn't bother you either".

When confronted with that, this professor's response is basically denial,
writing off these complaints as irrelevant, trivial, or "pandering" (ignorant
of how much society in general panders to his own perspective).

So, given that bringing this up directly will result in either being ignored,
or being belittled or insulted, and the conversation shut down immediately...
students don't actually have any choice but to complain.

At that point, the university overreacts because they're paranoid about being
sued. Which is part of a larger cultural issue that has nothing at all to do
with the students.

Funny that student activism that happened decades ago is considered a good
thing (now), but activism by today's students is considered to be some kind of
scary monster that threatens the whole of society...

