Note that I am not taking sides on this topic, but it is worthy of discussion as presented.
The source has strong editorial policies. The author and the book author reported on have good reputations in their respective fields.
There may be a case that this topic is not relevant for a tech-oriented forum such as HN, but I beg to differ. This topic impacts our work environments and, in some cases, our actual work.
I personally believe that it’s worthy of both HN and responsible intellectual exchanges.
But the articles doesn't really have any concrete facts with which to advance the debate, and nor do we get to peek inside the book, so isn't this just an advertisement for a book?
This is the 1st generation that was experimented on by the education establishment by artificially boosting self esteem and using that as a driving factor in policy.
Before this, achieving a ribbon on track and field day meant something. It meant you performed better than the others. Afterwards, everyone got a ribbon. Before, there was actual grades, and F was one of them. After, getting an F due to lack of achievement was pretty much forbidden - and many grading systems went away from A-F. I've known teachers who only gave an F when they decided that they were leaving the profession and so they could actually grade with an F without career suicide, rather than giving passing grades to students who absolutely refused to learn or do any work. Before, creative spelling and math were unheard of. After, students get a 100% on a spelling exam, despite not spelling any of the words correctly. I've seen the same thing in math. All in the name of self esteem. Before, graduating from elementary school was no big deal. Certainly, there was no ceremony. It was simply expected and normal. Now, most schools seem to have a ceremony, not just for this mundane event, but for graduating from any grade.
It was predicted when this self esteem boosting was imposed by the education establishment that there would be problems. How would such a generation function once they leave the artificial environment of the education establishment? Wouldn't they be like plants grown in a green house, that die when exposed to a natural environment? We can all see that now.
We live in an amazing time with unprecedented freedom, prosperity, health, etc. Just go back in time 100 years and do a comparison. And yet, what is the focus?
The worst blow to self esteem comes when, as an adult, you realize you've been lied to all of these years during your education and that you actually suck at what you do or you studied a dead end (career wise) path, and have no hope of paying off those expensive loans.
I speak with both academic scientists and cultural theorists on this issue often.
I think there's elements of truth about this but it's not the whole picture. students are indeed more demanding because they're consumers now they are paying for a product and getting into decades long debt for something so we should expect that they want a) value for money and b) not be flunked. The universities that most newspaper readers understand run according to an older system and not this consumer one.
Secondly there is a radical tendancy which challenges the very nature of academia itself. What students should do is simply "drop out". Dropping out as a morally good thing is worse than anything it appears to me in the US. In Europe it's more common but Americans have an ingrained culture of hard work (or study) as being morally good (protestant work ethic). Actually starting a utopian progressive society should be the recommendation of those who have major criticisms of academia, but it doesn't happen.
So I think that it's a small amount and a minority of students that are extreme. And they are not so extreme they would drop out because they dont! They are progressive and want to work in companies and change the world in small "woke" ways to make it more comfortable in an actually narrow selfish way and not a wider more fundamental radical way.
So the reactions from the organisation is more visible because they are serving their consumers. If the customer is always right and the customer says that something is problematic and should be changed then they will be obeyed.
In summary the idea that there's some deep cultural war occuring on the front line in the campus is wrong. most students want what they pay for. Universities are changing to meet the demands of a small number of students.
Having a degree is just about better than not. The investment, the cost of the product is just about worth it.
What are students actually paying for though? A diploma? Or an actual education. It sounds like you're making the case for the former. In that case, why even have grades or work? Why not just give everyone a diploma after four years no matter if they did the work well or if they got drunk for four years and never stepped foot in the classroom? If the customer is always right, then this is what should happen. I'd argue that the customer is not always right. That in the case of education, they are paying for an education and not a diploma. By definition, they cannot always be right because education implies learning and learning implies failure and being wrong. After all, if you're never wrong, you're not learning. You already knew everything. That is hypothetical of course and not a real situation.
Students are paying for an education and therefore they must be challenged, tested, and worked. And none of those things are guaranteed. They are all difficult. And none of those actions are safe. So the idea that they should be in some sort of safe space is antithetical to learning. If the universities bow down to the students and replace education with safe spaces of non learning, they are just a diploma mill now. The students learn nothing and the diplomas are meaningless. Instead, universities need to stand behind for the product they offer. They should not bow down to the stupid demands of students who are anti learning and want safe spaces and meaningless diplomas without learning. They should continue to educate and kick out such students that have no interest in learning. They should promote education at any cost. Otherwise they become institutions of meaningless association, places where students go to get drunk, party, and hang out. In other words, just like most high schools. This anti intellectual idiocy needs to be resisted and one way to do so is to have reasonable costs, ideally free. That needs to be regulated and subsidized by the government, but in the meantime universities themselves have plenty of options for lowering costs if the will is there. Otherwise, why don't these students just apply for fake diplomas from the internet? The end result is the same.
As a woman participating on HN and trying to develop an adequate income, this is actually something I wrestle with a lot, but speak about a lot less because I know it's a difficult subject that has a lot of potential pitfalls.
My experience has been that most men who talk to me are doing so to hit on me. It's a very serious problem for trying to network. Even if I hit it off with a guy, it doesn't do anything at all for my career.
I've read at least one article by one successful woman that openly admitted to "playing the woman card." In other words, she knew she got attention because of her gender and she was willing to use that fact to her benefit professionally, even though she realized a professional connection was not why her gender got such attention.
I'm aware my gender closes doors for me. I find that frustrating, but I'm not interested in using my gender to nominally open doors because my experience has been that it doesn't actually work. It doesn't get me access to the same sorts of things it gets men access to.
I think this undermines a standard of excellence. I think it's a factor in why the Theranos debacle want so crazy far. It was a lot of hot air valued at $10 Billion one day and $zero the next.
I don't think you would see that with a male owned company. I think the usual checks and balances were not there in part because the face of the company was a pretty young woman.
I don't know how to solve this because it's a legitimate complaint that race, sex, etc closes doors on a lot of people unfairly. It's also a legitimate complaint that work done by someone of low status gets valued differently than similar work done by someone of high status. This has been widely documented.
But when a cishet white male gets access to "the old boys club," he gets a combination of opportunities and constructive feedback. People tell him he needs to fix X.
This is not necessarily the case if a woman or person of color gets opportunities. It is socially harder to arrange constructive feedback that you can trust is not really prejudice and hostility talking.
So people may hesitate to give it for fear of being misinterpreted. Those receiving it may not take it seriously because it feels like prejudice talking or because it's a combination of legitimate feedback and prejudice mixed together and difficult or impossible to sort out. It's all too easy to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
"But when a cishet white male gets access to "the old boys club," he gets a combination of opportunities and constructive feedback. People tell him he needs to fix X"
This is a hateful lie, full of resentment and projection. I have NEVER had anyone mentor me and tell me what I had to fix in my professional relationships and personality. I have come from nothing, and achieved due to hard work and merit, not because of my color, gender, or sexual orientation. I've had to figure it out on my own. It is up to each of us as individuals to navigate the world around us. Grouping people by their intersectional identity group is incredibly hateful, petty, and divisive.
I don't know about campuses, but in online forums we have a constant problem of people claiming expertise in things they just read about in the news and know hardly anything else about.
I'm actually somewhat encouraged by people showing up and giving their credentials. Claiming group membership is a form of that, so I don't see it as being a bad thing in itself. The problem, if anything, is not showing similar respect for other people's credentials.
Also, competence in one subject doesn't excuse arrogance when repeating "conventional wisdom" in other subjects. Since we're ignorant about most things, being humble about what you know should be the default.
> but in online forums we have a constant problem of people claiming expertise in things they just read about in the news and know hardly anything else about.
> I'm actually somewhat encouraged by people showing up and giving their credentials. Claiming group membership is a form of that, so I don't see it as being a bad thing in itself. The problem, if anything, is not showing similar respect for other people's credentials.
Do you think we should rely on people's "group membership" and/or credentials over the actual substance of their reasoning? There are many cons that go along with anonymous-ish online forums. In my view, one of its pros is that it forces people to face the actual argument without falling back on appeal to authority.
I am unimpressed by most armchair reasoning (including my own) and would rather read people's stories about what happened to them. Recommended reading is useful too. Logic hardly matters, give me the data it's based on.
A problem with anonymous forums is you don't know whether to trust the stories. At best we end up with something like Wikipedia where all facts are copied from other sources.
> would rather read people's stories about what happened to them. Recommended reading is useful too. Logic hardly matters, give me the data it's based on.
At which point, you're drawing a conclusion. I like to hear people's stories and firsthand experiences, too. They help us get into the shoes of someone else and get a new perspective. However, I take them for what they are: anecdotes. If we want to draw some conclusion or insight from the data, then we must apply reasoning.
Yes, but since I trust my own reasoning over a random Internet commenter, there's little value in reading someone else's conclusions.
To put it another way, a well-written argument often calls on evidence that can be interesting and useful even if you disagree with the conclusion. But the conclusion of an anonymous commenter can't be trusted without the supporting evidence.
And yet, many people think that if they state their conclusions louder, or turn them into a clever slogan, others will be compelled to listen to them. This happens especially when these conclusions become "conventional wisdom" in some community.
Please don't respond to a bad comment with another bad one. It arguably damages the thread more, since the original comment can always be flagged but a flamey subthread usually cannot.
Note that I am not taking sides on this topic, but it is worthy of discussion as presented.
The source has strong editorial policies. The author and the book author reported on have good reputations in their respective fields.
There may be a case that this topic is not relevant for a tech-oriented forum such as HN, but I beg to differ. This topic impacts our work environments and, in some cases, our actual work.
I personally believe that it’s worthy of both HN and responsible intellectual exchanges.