The Cult of Ignorance in America Anti-Intellectualism

92tide · Jul 10, 2017

CharminTide said:
Ah Scheiß, I forgot the trigger warning.

i could have warned you. now you get to watch a video the mizzou professor again.

Tidewater · Jul 10, 2017

CharminTide said:
Sure, but that's pretty clearly a fringe circumstance that isn't representative of higher education as a whole.

I'm not so sure.

University of Virginia president Sullivan sends out an email quoting Jefferson. UVa professors say that "the inclusion of Jefferson quotations in these e-mails undermines the message of unity, equality and civility that you are attempting to convey.”
By the way, the "offending" quotation was,

UVa President Sullivan said:
"Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that University of Virginia students ‘are not of ordinary significance only: they are exactly the persons who are to succeed to the government of our country, and to rule its future enmities, its friendships and fortunes,’ I encourage today’s U.Va. students to embrace that responsibility.”

University of Pennsylvania students remove Shakespeare portrait, replace it with a portrait of Audre Lorde.

“Students removed the Shakespeare portrait and delivered it to my office as a way of affirming their commitment to a more inclusive mission for the English department.”

Apparently, "inclusion" means eliminating the greatest English author of all time.

Evergreen College (Wash.) students demand whites stay off campus for a day.
One professor dissented from this way of proceeding.

“There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and underappreciated roles (the theme of the Douglas Turner Ward play Day of Absence, as well as the recent Women’s Day walkout), and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness which is, of course, crippling to the logic of oppression. The second is a show of force, and an act of oppression in and of itself.”

Riotous students attempted to interrupt his class and have demanded his firing.

I could go on, but you get the point.

crimsonaudio · Jul 10, 2017

CharminTide said:
Pew just released a report that asked GOP-leaning and Dem-leading Americans their view on various institutions. A strong majority of Republicans think that colleges and universities are bad for America.

LINK

That's fascinating - I wonder if the wording of the question had something to do with it. I live in a red state, and virtually every parent I know wants their kids to go to college (regardless as to whether the kid knows what they want to do and whether higher education will help that career goal).

Just as I have a hard time believing a large percentage of HS seniors in any US school cannot name the first president, I also wonder about these stats.

CharminTide · Jul 10, 2017

Tidewater said:
<snip>

Citing three examples from across the country does not make this any less of an outlier.

CharminTide · Jul 10, 2017

crimsonaudio said:
That's fascinating - I wonder if the wording of the question had something to do with it. I live in a red state, and virtually every parent I know wants their kids to go to college (regardless as to whether the kid knows what they want to do and whether higher education will help that career goal).

Just as I have a hard time believing a large percentage of HS seniors in any US school cannot name the first president, I also wonder about these stats.

I'd also be curious to know the wording of the questions. I certainly hope the stat isn't true, but recent history makes it believable.

crimsonaudio · Jul 10, 2017

CharminTide said:
I'd also be curious to know the wording of the questions. I certainly hope the stat isn't true, but recent history makes it believable.

Yah, I mean if the wording was something akin to "do you think the liberal bias in modern universities is good for the US or bad?" I could understand the majority answering in the negative. Obviously I doubt anything was that overt about it, but I recall seeing a show once on how pollsters can manipulate the results by the questions they ask and how they ask them - apparently some are quite good at this manipulation.

But again, it might just be as bad as it looks on that graph...

HartselleTider · Jul 10, 2017

crimsonaudio said:
That's fascinating - I wonder if the wording of the question had something to do with it. I live in a red state, and virtually every parent I know wants their kids to go to college (regardless as to whether the kid knows what they want to do and whether higher education will help that career goal).

Just as I have a hard time believing a large percentage of HS seniors in any US school cannot name the first president, I also wonder about these stats.

Well, they may not know his name but surely they've been indoctrinated in what a racistophobicanismist he was.

Tidewater · Jul 10, 2017

CharminTide said:
Citing three examples from across the country does not make this any less of an outlier.

My gosh. Grasping at straws.

I will admit that the plural of anecdote is not data. How many anecdotes would you like?
Would you at least condemn the behavior in those three instances?
A. Is it improper in all circumstances to quote Mr. Jefferson at Mr. Jefferson's university?
B. Is removing a poster of Shakespeare proper for an English Department? Should excellence not be recognized regardless of an author's race, sex or sexual orientation? Is Shakespeare not the best (and best known) of English authors?
C. Would you condemn a student group demanding whites stay off campus for a day? If a professor declines that "invitation," is it proper for students to riotously attempt to prevent his class from being held?

CharminTide · Jul 10, 2017

Tidewater said:
Would you at least condemn the behavior in those three instances?

I didn't think that was in question, but yes, all are absurd. That said, there are more than 20 million students in American colleges, and your attempts to frame these as anything more than fringe examples is equally absurd.

Tide1986 · Jul 10, 2017

CharminTide said:
I didn't think that was in question, but yes, all are absurd. That said, there are more than 20 million students in American colleges, and your attempts to frame these as anything more than fringe examples is equally absurd.

Methinks you have willfully chosen ignorance/blindness when it comes to the point(s) TW has raised. Ironic.

CajunCrimson · Jul 10, 2017

Tide1986 said:
Methinks you have willfully chosen ignorance/blindness when it comes to the point(s) TW has raised. Ironic.

Ironic? Maybe. Surprising? Nope

CajunCrimson · Jul 10, 2017

pcfixup said:
Many of them only care about the football program. Kinda like that old guy from Memphis who died a few years ago.

Last I checked, it's okay to be a fan. Lots of Yankee fans who have never been to NY and think The Big Apple is a wasteland. (Insert Cubs/Chicago or 49ers/San Fran or Phillies/Philadelphia). Alabama Football hasn't been about the University for decades for many fans...it's about winning..... It's that way for many Universities around the nation. Ditto for Duke Hoops, Sooner Football, etc.

chanson78 · Jul 10, 2017

Tidewater said:
My gosh. Grasping at straws.

I will admit that the plural of anecdote is not data. How many anecdotes would you like?
Would you at least condemn the behavior in those three instances?
A. Is it improper in all circumstances to quote Mr. Jefferson at Mr. Jefferson's university?
B. Is removing a poster of Shakespeare proper for an English Department? Should excellence not be recognized regardless of an author's race, sex or sexual orientation? Is Shakespeare not the best (and best known) of English authors?
C. Would you condemn a student group demanding whites stay off campus for a day? If a professor declines that "invitation," is it proper for students to riotously attempt to prevent his class from being held?

Are your examples ridiculous, and an example of people behaving badly? Of course.

However, to hold those up as the representative example of all colleges, and the students that attend is as flawed as holding up Westboro Baptist Church as an example of how all churches are full of crazies and cult indoctrination.

Edit: To clarify, by ridiculous examples, I am referring to the behavior of the people in those examples. Not the actual references themselves. They are well sourced, and I appreciate actual events with documentation versus "My brothers friend told me about a story at this one college..."

bama_wayne1 · Jul 11, 2017

I have a feeling that too many are viewing social media and even broadcast news as fact when clearly they are all slanted to cater to an audience or just plain sensationalism. THERE IS NO GOOD SOURCE FOR UN-BIASED NEWS!!! Even someone with a great education needs news and current events in order to come up with appropriate responses to current events. It is increasingly difficult to find that.

LA4Bama · Jul 12, 2017

CharminTide said:
Sure, but that's pretty clearly a fringe circumstance that isn't representative of higher education as a whole.

You're right. That is very fringy. Most academics would never apologize.

BamaInCummingGA#1 · Jul 12, 2017

You know, I am quite sure there are a lot more examples ( and no, I am not going to look them up. If you dare and want to do honest research you can do it yourself ) of how the academic world has become left wing and is still swinging more left. It is very disingenuous to act as if these were just a couple isolated incidents. Universities now, on the whole, are a bastion of free speech - as long as you are freely touting the union/party line.
Safe spaces? really? Asking all white people to not come on campus a day? Talk about being racist......Dumbing down education so we can all get a trophy/diploma? Our education system is broke from kindergarten to four year institutions because the gvt (largely controlled by the left for a lot of years) wants everyone to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. In my job, I run across people within the company who can't make a complete coherent English sentence. Unless enough people wake up, and real soon, we're gonna become a 3rd world country because we won't have a population that is educated enough to run businesses or to be able to work at any company. All in the name of everybody gets a trophy/diploma whether it's deserved or not.

jthomas666 · Jul 12, 2017

Tidewater said:
My gosh. Grasping at straws.

I will admit that the plural of anecdote is not data. How many anecdotes would you like?
Would you at least condemn the behavior in those three instances?
A. Is it improper in all circumstances to quote Mr. Jefferson at Mr. Jefferson's university?

no.

B. Is removing a poster of Shakespeare proper for an English Department? Should excellence not be recognized regardless of an author's race, sex or sexual orientation? Is Shakespeare not the best (and best known) of English authors?

Yes, if they want to. Yes. Not necessarily. Yes (in fact, it should be recognized even if it's not Shakespeare, which more or less was the idea). More to the point, Does replacing Shakespeare's portrait in any way lessen Shakespeare's fame? I don't think so.

3. Would you condemn a student group demanding whites stay off campus for a day? If a professor declines that "invitation," is it proper for students to riotously attempt to prevent his class from being held?

Yes. No. (Really, those students are complete morons.)

pcfixup · Jul 12, 2017

BamaInCummingGA said:
You know, I am quite sure there are a lot more examples ( and no, I am not going to look them up. If you dare and want to do honest research you can do it yourself ) of how the academic world has become left wing and is still swinging more left. It is very disingenuous to act as if these were just a couple isolated incidents. Universities now, on the whole, are a bastion of free speech - as long as you are freely touting the union/party line.
Safe spaces? really? Asking all white people to not come on campus a day? Talk about being racist......Dumbing down education so we can all get a trophy/diploma? Our education system is broke from kindergarten to four year institutions because the gvt (largely controlled by the left for a lot of years) wants everyone to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. In my job, I run across people within the company who can't make a complete coherent English sentence. Unless enough people wake up, and real soon, we're gonna become a 3rd world country because we won't have a population that is educated enough to run businesses or to be able to work at any company. All in the name of everybody gets a trophy/diploma whether it's deserved or not.

It is not just the "Everybody gets a trophy" issue. The bigger one is the religious balkanization that has taken place in the west. 25-30 years ago, many University faculty were devout christians. Now a days, you cannot be a participant in the academy and be a believer.

chanson78 · Jul 12, 2017

pcfixup said:
It is not just the "Everybody gets a trophy" issue. The bigger one is the religious balkanization that has taken place in the west. 25-30 years ago, many University faculty were devout christians. Now a days, you cannot be a participant in the academy and be a believer.

I would be interested in proof.

I may be mistaken, but I have a hard time believing that the majority of professors in southern colleges are unable to be a Christian. Are you really saying that 20-30 years ago you wouldn't have had as many people push back should a professor share their belief, even if it wasn't pertinent to the material? If so then I would tend to agree with you. But then I would wonder why that is a necessary thing. If the material doesn't warrant having a Christian perspective, why should there be one provided?

How Religious are America’s College and University Professors?

How Religious are America's College and University Professors? said:
Professors completed the survey by logging into a special password protected website. The incentive offered was an early look at study results, and entry into a lottery to win one of twenty $100 gift certificates. In 76 cases, invitation letters were sent to bad addresses, or to people who were not in fact on the faculty. The study closed eight weeks after the initial invitation letters weresent, and achieved a final response rate of 51 percent, with 1471 valid cases. In a regression model predicting response to the survey, neither type of institution—community college, BA granting, PhD granting, or elite doctoral—nor whether the school was public or private proved statistically significant, suggesting no response bias across these variables. To better assess response bias, we conducted short phone interviews with 100 nonresponders. The mean response to our key political attitudes question among nonresponders was about the same as the mean response among survey participants, suggesting no significant response bias along political lines either (nonresponders were slightly more conservative than responders, but the differences were small). When asked, in an open-ended question format, why they did not respond, the majority of nonresponders—54 percent—said they had not had time to do so, 7 percent stated that they objected to some feature of the questionnaire design, and 7 percent said they were uncomfortable answering political questions, with the rest citing a variety of other factors.

I went ahead and looked it up. You may think that a response rate of 51% is low, or that things have changed significantly within the 7 years that this was written, and therefore not representative of reality. If that is the case, I would be interested in any information you can come up with that would back up the claim that "you cannot be a participant in the academy and be a believer."

Jon · Jul 13, 2017

chanson78 said:
I would be interested in proof.

I may be mistaken, but I have a hard time believing that the majority of professors in southern colleges are unable to be a Christian. Are you really saying that 20-30 years ago you wouldn't have had as many people push back should a professor share their belief, even if it wasn't pertinent to the material? If so then I would tend to agree with you. But then I would wonder why that is a necessary thing. If the material doesn't warrant having a Christian perspective, why should there be one provided?

How Religious are America’s College and University Professors?

I went ahead and looked it up. You may think that a response rate of 51% is low, or that things have changed significantly within the 7 years that this was written, and therefore not representative of reality. If that is the case, I would be interested in any information you can come up with that would back up the claim that "you cannot be a participant in the academy and be a believer."

haven't you seen god is not dead? Duh

The Cult of Ignorance in America Anti-Intellectualism

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