“to ask for evidence of violent practices is itself a violent practice.”<p>This is a scary phrase because it requires immense power be rested in an authority that can not be questioned.<p>I have a friend who was a victim of domestic violence growing up, terrible beatings. The worst part was that the cause was not always known, a few times a week the parent would go into a rage and beat the first one or two children they saw. The beatings were terrible- belts, shoes, hockey sticks, dowel rods, etc - so my friend tried to avoid them. Early on he would ask “what did I do” and that would enrage the parent more as the offense was so massive that not knowing it was an offense that made the beatings longer.<p>The only thing that consistently worked was to arrange for other siblings to be encountered first and wear out the parent’s rage. My friend discovered this because his brother kept doing it to him.<p>My friend never figured out how to avoid the beatings, they just grew up and left.
Reading this article gave me goosebumps and an overall melancholy feeling. I can't quite put my finger on why though...<p>I think it has to do with the subtext (I might be reading into this...) that knowledge is no longer a respected asset, but instead is viewed by some as a symbol of the 'old' status quo (and its related issues and in particular its failure in resolving some of those issues). The reaction to this, as I have understood it, is to either shun those who use knowledge (in the sense of this 'old' way) or outright censor them (remove them from the knowledge-pool).<p>The article did help in my understanding of identity-politics and why its such a powerful force in the USA and, for example, less so in places like Europe.
"The lack of cognitive significance in tribal language is a symptom of the deeper disease: the devaluing of the pursuit of knowledge. Students are now absolutists. Students, administrators and some faculty know what is right (and who is wrong). Any challenge to their views cannot be in pursuit of knowledge or even clarification. It can only come from the desire to crush and oppress."<p>This is a good sentence. I've watched a few videos on YouTube of the interactions between some agitated, angry and "passionate" US campus students directing their indignation at what is often a single lecturer or orderly.<p>How is the irony of these types of hostile interactions lost of the very folks who insist on "safe spaces"?
The paraphrasing of Martha Nussbaum's thoughts near the end of this article seems to contain its essential message:<p><i>"The world-citizen view insists on the need for all citizens to understand differences. … It is connected with a conception of democratic debate as deliberation about the common good. The identity-politics view, by contrast, depicts the citizen body as a marketplace of identity-based interest groups jockeying for power, and views difference as something to be affirmed rather than understood."</i>
> If you ask current students, and many administrators and faculty, what the goals of their colleges are, you will have to wait some time before hearing “knowledge.”<p>And yet, costing more than ever. For what? It's not like people are learning a lot more by paying a lot more.<p>When I was in college I thought it was more interesting and valuable from the conflict on campus. I'll call it conflict, too. People who were actually having differences with each other, and saying them, many times passionately if not angrily. Now it seems like people are so worried about offending each other they'd rather say nothing at all, which seems to defeat the point of having a diverse campus. If you have a diverse campus but everyone says the same thing, is it really diverse?<p>I also think the skills of being able to deal with, work with, and learn from people that are different from you (and possibly outright hate you, for reasons that may or may not be "valid") were some of the more valuable skills I learned in college. College was a lot more real world than say, high school. When you get out into the real world, nobody cares about your safe spaces, trigger warnings, and microaggressions. You have to find your own way, and fight for your own causes.
It strikes me that these “woke” students and faculty who value victimization over free speech are simply lazy. It takes far less effort to justify a position with dogma than with an intelligent, nuanced argument.
The replacement of truth with truthiness and platitudes and dialogue with attacks and tribes and dehumanization is not the way to build a stable society.<p>Fortunately this has not yet hit education here from what I can see.
Honest question: how should we take Bloomberg articles mainly based on opinion or original investigations ?<p>I don’t study in the US so have no opinion about US college, so don’t have any way to tell if these claims are any valid. Bloomberg has an history of making bold and empty claims to rile up viewership, is it limited to tech or is it the same for the other fields they cover ?
>one professor asked for evidence of “violent practices.” Another professor responded that “to ask for evidence of violent practices is itself a violent practice.”<p>so: to question something is an act of violence towards that something?<p>oops, I just questioned something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s not just intellectual comfort... colleges have invested in other comforts and luxuries like extremely fancy dorms, dining halls that rival restaurants, etc. After all, each student provides more revenue than ever before, so higher CACs are justifiable. It’s a luxury good for a luxury market, and just like your local Rolls Royce dealership will not provoke you into a debate about racism your local four year private college would similarly prefer not to.
How common are things like that? I'm not American, but my impression is that these stories tend to describe exceptions. Is this just a particularly radical subset of students in a particularly radical college or is this representative of a larger pattern?
Sans paywall: <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rise-comfort-college-140049728.html" rel="nofollow">https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rise-comfort-college-14004972...</a>
Far right demands purity of body and far left demands purity of mind. Everyone who fails do adhere should be purged. If you can't get them imprisoned or killed, at least try to ensure they can't get a job or live a life without harassment.<p>The current free speech laws protects our minds from the government, but it does nothing to protect us from private entities unlike the laws protecting our bodies from discrimination.