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robindch · 17-06-2015 1:16pm

Peregrinus wrote: »

Rightly or wrongly, Pride in London fear that the wider community will not tolerate the participating of UKIP in the parade and will respond in ways which will, or could, escalate to violence.

Hardly violence, but unpleasantness is certainly a realistic possibility. For myself, I can't ever imagine myself marching alongside UKIP - perhaps jank might?

Pherekydes · 17-06-2015 2:27pm

robindch wrote: »

For myself, I can't ever imagine myself marching alongside UKIP - perhaps jank might?

Yes, but not in a Pride Parade.

The Black Oil · 19-06-2015 8:36pm

Liberal professor talks through some of his experiences of how things changed for him and his colleagues, including the attitudes some of his liberal students. First portion deals with a complaint about him being communistical. It was dismissed - I'm not copying it here, it's in the link.

Piece at Vox

In 2009, the subject of my student's complaint was my supposed ideology. I was communistical, the student felt, and everyone knows that communisticism is wrong. That was, at best, a debatable assertion. And as I was allowed to rebut it, the complaint was dismissed with prejudice. I didn't hesitate to reuse that same video in later semesters, and the student's complaint had no impact on my performance evaluations.

In 2015, such a complaint would not be delivered in such a fashion. Instead of focusing on the rightness or wrongness (or even acceptability) of the materials we reviewed in class, the complaint would center solely on how my teaching affected the student's emotional state. As I cannot speak to the emotions of my students, I could not mount a defense about the acceptability of my instruction. And if I responded in any way other than apologizing and changing the materials we reviewed in class, professional consequences would likely follow.

I wrote about this fear on my blog, and while the response was mostly positive, some liberals called me paranoid, or expressed doubt about why any teacher would nix the particular texts I listed. I guarantee you that these people do not work in higher education, or if they do they are at least two decades removed from the job search. The academic job market is brutal. Teachers who are not tenured or tenure-track faculty members have no right to due process before being dismissed, and there's a mile-long line of applicants eager to take their place. And as writer and academic Freddie DeBoer writes, they don't even have to be formally fired — they can just not get rehired. In this type of environment, boat-rocking isn't just dangerous, it's suicidal, and so teachers limit their lessons to things they know won't upset anybody.

He also delves into the 'simplistic, unworkable, and ultimately stifling conception of social justice', and internet liberals.

There's a counter piece here.

Hotblack Desiato · 19-06-2015 10:22pm

Is it just me, or did universities work a lot better when only a minority were expected to go to them and they didn't receive much in the way of public funding?

Pherekydes · 19-06-2015 10:26pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Is it just me, or did universities work a lot better when only a minority were expected to go to them and they didn't receive much in the way of public funding?

You mean when they were elitist?

Hotblack Desiato · 19-06-2015 10:27pm

Pherekydes wrote: »

You mean when they were elitist?

Yes, that.

As opposed to today when half of the students aren't that arsed to be there except to meet parental expectations.

Peregrinus · 22-06-2015 2:38am

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Yes, that.

As opposed to today when half of the students aren't that arsed to be there except to meet parental expectations.

I don't think that's a change that happened between 2009 and 2015, though!

What strikes me about the Vox piece, though, is that the writer contrasts an actual complaint that was made in 2009, and how it was received by the institution, with an entirely hypothetical complaint that could be made in 2015, and how he imagines (necessarily, since the complaint is hypothetical, he can only imagine this) how it would be received. And while his imagination could be grounded in his experience and common sense, for all I know it could equally be grounded in his paranoia, arrogance or sense of entitlement. How could I know? I've never met him. So I don't think this is quite proof positive of left-wing lunacy in the groves of academe.

The other thought I have here is that, uncomfortable as the fact may be, a complaint that the teaching adversely affects the student's emotional state may actually have slightly more validity than the complaint that the teaching is "communistic". It's teaching, after all, and teaching must involve more than standing at the front of the lecture hall spouting information. There's a pedagogic relationship here which requires effective communication. And if students are having an emotional response to the teaching which become a barrier to learning, that isn't necessarily the sole responsibility of the students. Possibly, just possibly, this material could be better taught.

silverharp · 23-06-2015 8:50am

from the Sargon of Akkad youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MabWYzpNKdk

jank · 24-06-2015 7:02am

robindch wrote: »

Unless UKIP have a firm, open, agreed and accepted policy concerning, for example, "acceptance and tolerance" of the LGBT community themselves, then it's not unreasonable for LGP to ask them to stay away.

So its less about tolerance and more about supporting the 'correct' ideology? Fine by me, it is their march and they can tell whomever they wish to march in it or not. It does however somewhat nullify their primary core aim, in that of promoting tolerance itself.

jank · 24-06-2015 7:12am

Peregrinus wrote: »

And if students are having an emotional response to the teaching which become a barrier to learning, that isn't necessarily the sole responsibility of the students. Possibly, just possibly, this material could be better taught.

In what sense, as in trigger warnings?

How can a teacher and in turn a University possibly try to accommodate every single students' emotional state and response when teaching various subjects and topics that does not impact on the subject matter itself for the majority of other students. For example, if a student finds the topics and words in say Huck Finn too much for him/her then perhaps the simple answer is that a University setting is not for them.

Peregrinus · 24-06-2015 8:17am

jank wrote: »

In what sense, as in trigger warnings?

The appropriate response depends entirely on what the problem is. When we know what the problem is, we may well conclude that the appropriate response is to do nothing at all. It's just that the (hypothetical) isn't inherently baseless, in the way that an objection to "communistic" teaching is.

jank wrote: »

How can a teacher and in turn a University possibly try to accommodate every single students' emotional state and response when teaching various subjects and topics that does not impact on the subject matter itself for the majority of other students.

Who is saying they have to do this? Not me.

jank · 24-06-2015 8:28am

Peregrinus wrote: »

The appropriate response depends entirely on what the problem is. When we know what the problem is, we may well conclude that the appropriate response is to do nothing at all. It's just that the (hypothetical) isn't inherently baseless, in the way that an objection to "communistic" teaching is.

Perhaps the problem is overly indulgent egotistical twenty-something snowflakes who cannot comprehend a world where people hold various and different opinions, therefore they grab the nearest loudspeaker (Twitter) and proclaim some sort of travesty is happening.

Peregrinus · 24-06-2015 8:37am

jank wrote: »

Perhaps the problem is overly indulgent egotistical twenty-something snowflakes who cannot comprehend a world where people hold various and different opinions, therefore they grab the nearest loudspeaker (Twitter) and proclaim some sort of travesty is happening.

Perhaps it is. Since the problem is hypothetical you can hypothesis it in any terms you like, and if you find it gratifying to hypothesise it in terms that conform to and reinforce your preconceptions, well, knock yourself out.

My point is that teaching is a two-way relationship, and if people find the that the teaching offered to them is confronting, that may] be because they are delicate flowers, but it doesn't have to be. It could be that the teacher is presenting the material in a way that creates emotional barriers that don't have to be created. Without an actual complaint, and investigation of that complaint, you have no way of knowing. There can be no a priori assumption that the complaint is groundless (except for the reasons suggested above).

robindch · 24-06-2015 9:52am

jank wrote: »

[...] overly indulgent egotistical [...] cannot comprehend a world where people hold various and different opinions [...] some sort of travesty is happening.

*cough*

jank wrote: »

So its less about tolerance and more about supporting the 'correct' ideology?

You seem to differ with me on this, but I don't believe that "tolerance" is well-served by indulging the famously intolerant.

24-06-2015 10:00am

robindch wrote: »

*cough*
You seem to differ with me on this, but I don't believe that "tolerance" is well-served by indulging the famously intolerant.

Intolerance squared?

Peregrinus · 24-06-2015 2:32pm

robindch wrote: »

. . . I don't believe that "tolerance" is well-served by indulging the famously intolerant.

I take your point. On the other hand, the UKIP LGBT group is presumably challenging those attitudes within the party, and seeking to change them, so possibly other LGBT activists should be expressing solidarity with them, rather than refusing to associate with them. Just sayin'.

jank · 25-06-2015 2:43am

robindch wrote: »

You seem to differ with me on this, but I don't believe that "tolerance" is well-served by indulging the famously intolerant.

Therefore it is not tolerance, no matter how you dress it up.

jank · 25-06-2015 4:07am

Peregrinus wrote: »

Perhaps it is. Since the problem is hypothetical you can hypothesis it in any terms you like, and if you find it gratifying to hypothesise it in terms that conform to and reinforce your preconceptions, well, knock yourself out.

Well, according to the Vox article it did happen and hence one of the reasons and basis for writing the article in the first place.

http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid

I once saw an adjunct not get his contract renewed after students complained that he exposed them to "offensive" texts written by Edward Said and Mark Twain. His response, that the texts were meant to be a little upsetting, only fueled the students' ire and sealed his fate. That was enough to get me to comb through my syllabi and cut out anything I could see upsetting a coddled undergrad, texts ranging from Upton Sinclair to Maureen Tkacik — and I wasn't the only one who made adjustments, either.

As regards my example of Huck Finn and Mark Twain, it has happened.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/trigger-warnings-college-campus-books

It's a phrase that's been requested this semester by a number of college students to be applied to classic books — The Great Gatsby (for misogyny and violence), Huck Finn (for racism), Things Fall Apart (for colonialism and religious persecution), Mrs. Dalloway (for suicide), Shakespeare (for ... you name it). These students are asking for what essentially constitute red-flag alerts to be placed, in some cases, upon the literature itself, or, at least, in class syllabuses, and invoked prior to lectures.

Peregrinus · 25-06-2015 4:28am

Well, I'd like to see someone else's account of the adjunct who did not get his contract renewed. The author doesn't actually say that the contract wasn't renewed because people complained about him assigning offensive texts, but he clearly wants you think that. But a couple of other questions occur. Were there any other complaints about the man concerned? Where there other adjuncts in competition for the same post? How was he rated as a teacher generally? By his students? By his colleagues? What was his publishing record like? Etc, etc.

As for the Guardian article, if you follow the links through you'll find that one Rutgers student has called for The Great Gatsby to carry a trigger warning; the response of Rutgers to this call is not recorded. And the links in that article, when followed, don't back up the claim that anyone at all has called for trigger warnings on Twain (or Achebe or Woolf or Shakespeare); one link takes you to an article where a journalist speculates that someone could call for a trigger warning on Huck Finn. No claim is made, still less evidence offered, that anyone ever has called for this, or that any institution has acceded to such a call. But through the wonderful magic that is the internet today, that gets parlayed up into your (I don't doubt, sincere) claim that "it has happened".

In short, this conversation is rather neatly illustrating the very point I am trying to make. People calling attention to supposed left-wing (or, for that matter, right-wing) lunacy may be - not are necessarily, but may be - simply illustrating their own insecurity, treating imagined threats as real, or uncritically accepting accounts that they come across in the echo-chamber of the internet because those accounts confirm their ideological preconceptions in a gratifying way.

"Il nous faut du scepticisme, et encore du scepticisme, et toujours du scepticisme!", as Danton ought to have said, but unaccountably didn't.

jank · 26-06-2015 3:46am

Peregrinus wrote: »

In short, this conversation is rather neatly illustrating the very point I am trying to make. People calling attention to supposed left-wing (or, for that matter, right-wing) lunacy may be - not are necessarily, but may be - simply illustrating their own insecurity, treating imagined threats as real, or uncritically accepting accounts that they come across in the echo-chamber of the internet because those accounts confirm their ideological preconceptions in a gratifying way.

That is just a contrarian answer that could be used for everything to be honest. Any problem in the world could be viewed as such, from Islamic terrorism to climate change. We are exposed and bombarded to more events, media, news, studies everyday hence, are these problems actually problems or just natural events in the course of human history? If one only gets their news from Jihadwatch.com then of course one may think that Islamic Terrorism is mans greatest threat to civilization. However, that is not the point I nor that author was trying to make.

The issue with intolerance in American 'liberal' Universities to difficult subject matter coupled with the air of overt political correctness is well documented, has been aired numerous times in this thread and has been mentioned by scores of people who would not necessarily fit paranoid right-winger. Chris Rock, George Carlin, Bill Maher as well as others have all made reference to this and they are would one could be described as liberal minded progressive people by and large.

Take for example the hysterical reaction of illiberal progressives to that article penned by Jonathan Chait earlier in the year for daring to mention the unmentionable (it was noticeable that most of the criticism was not actually of the valid points raised in the article itself but that the fact he was male and white, the cardinal sin, so obviously he has no clue and therefore just wrong, just cause).

So, as a self proclaimed liberal progressive who has a solid record if debating and fighting the conservative 'agenda', is Jonathan Chait paranoid who exists in the same echo chamber or perhaps more simply, he has a point.

Peregrinus · 26-06-2015 3:53am

jank wrote: »

That is just a contrarian answer that could be used for everything to be honest . . .

It's not an answer at all; it's just a caution. You should treat claims critically, and with scepticism. You should especially do this when the claim appeals to your preconceptions. In this instance, when we scrutinise the material you presented, there turns out to be very little documented substance behind it, and the material contains a number of factual claims which are simply not supported by the cites offered.

I noticed this; you didn't. How do you account for that?

jank · 26-06-2015 3:55am

So it starts in Ireland...sigh!

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/nuig-agrees-to-gender-taskforce-recommendations-1.2260404

This bit stood out.

The chairwoman of the governing authority, Judge Catherine McGuinness, said it accepted the four initial recommendations of the taskforce, namely the establishment of a new position of vice-president of equality and diversity; women holding 40 per cent of positions on management committees by the end of 2016; the roll out of “mandatory unconscious bias training” this year; and a review of promotion and career development policies.

Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange came to mind immediately. Can anyone even define what 'unconscious bias training' training?
With this 'training' can they make me like white wine rather then red and enjoy McDonald's rather then an Indian Curry?

Peregrinus · 26-06-2015 4:00am

jank wrote: »

Can anyone even define what 'unconscious bias training' training?
With this 'training' can they make me like white wine rather then red and enjoy McDonald's rather then an Indian Curry?

Well, I can probably define it better than you seem to be able to. From the plain meaning of the words, it seeks to train you to become conscious of your biases.

As you appear already to be conscious of your biases with respect to wine and take-away food, I don't see that unconscious bias training has anything to offer you in that regard. I myself acknowledge that I share those particular biases so I, too, have no need of this training.

Absolam · 26-06-2015 4:12am

Though if one were unconscious of ones biases, training might be useful in bringing it to ones conscious attention?

Peregrinus · 26-06-2015 4:29am

Precisely. That would be the point of the training. But since Jank and I are already fully conscious of our biases in relation to things that really matter - wine, food - we have no need of such training. We could only benefit from the training if anything other than wine or food had any signficance. An absurd proposition, surely?

jank · 26-06-2015 4:47am

To the point, is there any evidence that such 'training' works in their predefined objective?

Lets say one has an unconscious bias against religion, is the training meant to bring the fact to your conscious attention [job done] or meant to change your mind in regards that bias?

jank · 26-06-2015 4:54am

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's not an answer at all; it's just a caution. You should treat claims critically, and with scepticism. You should especially do this when the claim appeals to your preconceptions. In this instance, when we scrutinise the material you presented, there turns out to be very little documented substance behind it, and the material contains a number of factual claims which are simply not supported by the cites offered.

I noticed this; you didn't. How do you account for that?

I did notice, as I recognise the fact that the author wrote the article using a pseudonym, hence many of his observations are not cited due to the fact in my opinion that this would blow his profile. Perhaps I am naive. Then again, it more an opinion piece then peer reviewed scientific journal. If that disappoints you then....

Anyway, lets take the fact that you are entirely 100% right and I am 100% wrong, how do you account for my other examples?

Peregrinus · 26-06-2015 4:57am

jank wrote: »

To the point, is there any evidence that such 'training' works in their predefined objective?

I don't know.

jank wrote: »

Lets say one has an unconscious bias against religion, is the training meant to bring the fact to your conscious attention [job done] or meant to change your mind in regards that bias?

I don't know that either. Neither do you, it seems, which suggests that your reaction to the idea might be a bit knee-jerk.

I think its reasonable to accept that we all do have unconscious biases, and I also suggest that we are better off if we learn to become conscious of these. If nothing else, we'll understand ourselves better and, as any Aristotelian will affirm, that is an unqualified good thing. Having become conscious of our biases we may then affirm them or we may challenge them or we may respond in some other way, but at least we are equipped to make a better-informed choice, and a better-informed decision, than we were before. All of which sounds good to me.

So that leads me to think that "unconscious bias training" is at least potentially beneficial.

Now, it may well be that when we know more about it we'll find that it doesn't live up to this promise. It may be completely misnamed. Or it may simply be ineffective at doing what it says on the tin. But we have no a priori reason to assume either of these things, and condemning or dismissing it on the basis of no evidence or information at all seems to me irrational.

Peregrinus · 26-06-2015 5:00am

jank wrote: »

I did notice, as I recognise the fact that the author wrote the article using a pseudonym, hence many of his observations are not cited due to the fact in my opinion that this would blow his profile. Perhaps I am naive. Then again, it more an opinion piece then peer reviewed scientific journal. If that disappoints you then....

Anyway, lets take the fact that you are entirely 100% right and I am 100% wrong, how do you account for my other examples?

What other examples? I haven't read the Chait article you mention, or the responses to it, so I have nothing to say about them. If I were to read them, I would approach them with the same scepticism that I encourage you to adopt. And that scepticism should be applied both to the Chait article and to any rebuttals of it that others offer.

Absolam · 26-06-2015 5:35am

jank wrote: »

To the point, is there any evidence that such 'training' works in their predefined objective?

Well, if the objective were to point out that certain actions demonstrate an unconscious bias exists, and that those actions post unconscious bias training could only be considered conscious bias which was actionable, then either an absence of actions, or a plethora of actions could indicate the effectiveness of the training. Win win for HR team.....

jank wrote: »

Lets say one has an unconscious bias against religion, is the training meant to bring the fact to your conscious attention [job done] or meant to change your mind in regards that bias?

Let's say one had an unconscious bias against members of the opposite gender, acting on which would be illegal, with the potential defence of being unconscious of ones bias. Training staff to recognise their bias would remove (or at least reduce) their defense, enabling the company to take reasonable action to defend their employees from the illegal bias of their other employees. The company (or institution as it is here) doesn't need to change your bias necessarily, it just need to protect it's employees from it.

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