A theory on the college campus issues.

[Animavore]

But you got it from Infowars. What in the hell are you doing reading infowars?!?

Exactly. And as I pointed out at the time, he could've just embedded the video straight. There was no reason to post via Info Wars. Why would anyone do that?

[Forty Two]

But you got it from Infowars. What in the hell are you doing reading infowars?!?

Exactly. And as I pointed out at the time, he could've just embedded the video straight. There was no reason to post via Info Wars. Why would anyone do that?

Who cares? The video is the video. I'm not an activist.

[JimC]

I don't think the issue is really whether a significant number of US academics are left-leaning, in a general sense. Where I share some of 42's concerns is where a sub-set of leftist politics is pushing for rules and regulations which can amount to censorship and an attack on freedom of speech. And by this, I mean something more than just rowdy demonstrations against speakers from the right, such as demands that university authorities forbid them to speak or even enter the campus, and where certain forms of speech are ruled to be forbidden.

Outside of a certain number of American Universities, however, I suspect that this sub-set is having little success, and that (as I've said earlier), the thin end of the wedge is, in this case, too fragile to be a significant threat to broader society.

[Animavore]

Where I share some of 42's concerns is where a sub-set of leftist politics is pushing for rules and regulations which can amount to censorship and an attack on freedom of speech.

I think most of us agree with that, but the reasonable action is to laugh in these people's faces. Not become a zealot for the "opposite" side, that of MRA/MGTOW/Alt-Right reactionaries who exist out of an irrational fear that they're under attack.

[Brian Peacock]

I don't think the issue is really whether a significant number of US academics are left-leaning, in a general sense. Where I share some of 42's concerns is where a sub-set of leftist politics is pushing for rules and regulations which can amount to censorship and an attack on freedom of speech. And by this, I mean something more than just rowdy demonstrations against speakers from the right, such as demands that university authorities forbid them to speak or even enter the campus, and where certain forms of speech are ruled to be forbidden.

Outside of a certain number of American Universities, however, I suspect that this sub-set is having little success, and that (as I've said earlier), the thin end of the wedge is, in this case, too fragile to be a significant threat to broader society.

I don't necessarily disagree: there is a rabid cohort and either extreme on the political spectrum, but I do doubt the assertion that the hard-left has taken over academia in Western universities.

[Forty Two]

check out this analysis of this issue - http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/01/09/ ... y-did-not/

[pErvinalia]

Universities have always been the home of the left.

[Scot Dutchy]

Universities have always been the home of the left.

Business and communication studies tend to be right wing orientated.

[pErvinalia]

yeah, true (actually, I don't know what communication studies is, but I take the point). I started to write something about the change toward the right in Australian unis last night, but stopped because I was too high. I'm too high again, so can't tonight either... :p

[Forty Two]

Universities have always been the home of the left.

Indeed but the idea in the OP and in the link I just provided is that the data seems to show a shift from leaning left to very solidly hard left. And, that's part of the reason the universities in the US are going batshit crazy, because the hard left is full of batshit crazy ideas, which are trickling through -- microaggressions, trigger warnings, no platforming, identity politics, cultural appropriation -- these things have life because of the hard left shift.

[Scot Dutchy]

My daughter studied at the Vrij Universiteit van Amsterdam. It is a good study for politics and business management.

[pErvinalia]

Universities have always been the home of the left.

Indeed but the idea in the OP and in the link I just provided is that the data seems to show a shift from leaning left to very solidly hard left. And, that's part of the reason the universities in the US are going batshit crazy, because the hard left is full of batshit crazy ideas, which are trickling through -- microaggressions, trigger warnings, no platforming, identity politics, cultural appropriation -- these things have life because of the hard left shift.

Well the ideas of the environmental movement, and, say, people like Howard Zinn were considered batshit crazy at the time too.

[Forty Two]

Universities have always been the home of the left.

Indeed but the idea in the OP and in the link I just provided is that the data seems to show a shift from leaning left to very solidly hard left. And, that's part of the reason the universities in the US are going batshit crazy, because the hard left is full of batshit crazy ideas, which are trickling through -- microaggressions, trigger warnings, no platforming, identity politics, cultural appropriation -- these things have life because of the hard left shift.

Well the ideas of the environmental movement, and, say, people like Howard Zinn were considered batshit crazy at the time too.

Many of the ideas of the environmental movement and Howard Zinn were batshit crazy at the time. Nevertheless, pointing to certain ideas as having eventually been shown to have merit is not an argument that the current batshit ideas are actually not batshit.

But, is your argument here really that some other people had ideas in years past which turned out to not be as crazy as they were thought at the time, therefore, the current lot of progressive leftist identity politics, cultural appropriation, microaggression, trigger warning stuff might just not be batshit?

[pErvinalia]

Yes.

[Brian Peacock]

check out this analysis of this issue - http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/01/09/ ... y-did-not/

And so? Your point please.

The data for the graph was taken from a UCLA study that, among other things, asked 25,000 people with undergraduate teaching responsibilities to rate their politics on a five point scale. The graphs interprets this as a three point scale. Though the article is clear about its data sources, and that it has extrapolated the UCLA data across the national teaching, it is far from clear on its methodology, or it's terms of reference for each of the three categories. Do you have a link to a peer reviewed paper?

Surely the 'center' group should comprise the major chunks of the bell curve?

Do you think that specifically Conservative universities, on the model of the various religious universities, are a good idea?