Author Topic: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?  (Read 6582 times)

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Offline wilber

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #135 on: November 21, 2017, 08:52:18 pm »
Well this may be a start. http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/wilfrid-laurier-universitys-president-apologizes-to-lindsay-shepherd-for-dressing-down-over-jordan-peterson-clip

You have to wonder where this might have gone if she hadn't made the recording. I think Shepherd is right to be somewhat cynical about the apology.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2017, 09:02:10 pm by wilber »
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #136 on: November 21, 2017, 08:59:14 pm »
There is a huge difference between STEM and non-STEM programs. Any complaints about censorship only appear to come from the non-STEM programs and since all non-STEM programs is [SIC] technically not all universities then you have a point. However, there is a huge systematic problem in non-STEM programs where group think appears to have taken over.

The hero of this story is a grad student in non-STEM.  Arguably this is an important issue for us to reflect on right ?  We ARE talking about it.

 

Offline SirJohn

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #137 on: November 21, 2017, 09:08:49 pm »
The hero of this story is a grad student in non-STEM.  Arguably this is an important issue for us to reflect on right ?  We ARE talking about it.

Hadre pointed out the issue with the increasing lack of intellectual diversity on college campuses some time ago. There are few conservatives left to challenge the vapid self-assumptions of the academic elitists of the left. And no university I'm aware of is talking about that, or ways to change that.

What happened at WLU is the product of five decades of tenured radicals executing their Gramscian “long march” through the academy. In 1969, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education found there were about twice as many left-of-centre faculty as right-of-centre. Today, in the humanities, according to an Econ Journal Watch study, it is about 12 to 1. In some departments, like English, the faculty is virtually 100 per cent leftist.

Why is that fact so dangerous to academic health? Because, as John M. Ellis, emeritus professor at the University of California Santa Cruz and chairman of the California Association of Scholars, observes in a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Higher Education’s Deeper Sickness,” “ntellectual dominance promotes stupidity. As one side becomes numerically stronger, its discipline weakens. The greater the imbalance between the two sides, the more incoherent and irrational the majority will become…. With almost no intellectual opponents remaining, campus radicals have lost the ability to engage with arguments and resort instead to the lazy alternative of name-calling: opponents are all ‘fascists,’ ‘racists’ or ‘white supremacists’.”

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-wlus-contemptible-conduct-proof-of-intellectual-assault-underway-on-campuses
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Offline TimG

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #138 on: November 21, 2017, 09:35:32 pm »
The hero of this story is a grad student in non-STEM.  Arguably this is an important issue for us to reflect on right ?  We ARE talking about it.
Fortunately we are talking about thanks to the fact that she recorded the session so we can see for ourselves the level of bullying she was subjected to. If she had not done that she would have likely quietly left WLU - if not the field entirely. She would likely never go on to become prof in the field with a more balanced view of the issues and free speech. This bullying of students is how intellectual conformity happens. People quietly making choices to do other things and thereby leave the field to those who believe in the views pushed by the bullies in power which perpetuates the state of intellectual conformity. What we need is a system that values diversity of intellectual thought more than diversity of skin pigmentation.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2017, 09:37:49 pm by TimG »

Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #139 on: November 21, 2017, 09:54:08 pm »
Why are you not addressing my point?

"It's disappointing how universities are fast becoming institutions of indoctrination rather than learning."

Do you have more than one real example or no?

How about universities (with the support of many students) across the continent banning or actively discouraging all sorts of conservative speakers from speaking on campuses in the last few years.  This is well documented in the media.
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Offline Queefer Sutherland

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #140 on: November 21, 2017, 10:03:50 pm »
Well, we might have something here.  But what it comes down to is somebody complained about a video and now it's in the national newspaper. 

It's perhaps an interesting anecdote but we would probably want to get Professor's Rambukkana's side on this first.


Fair enough, but what side could it really be that we don't already know?  The TA showed a video in class that included someone expressing political opinions a student/students was offended by, and then the student(s) complained to admin.  Now the admin is trying to censor the TA.  That seems the issue.

The prof brings up "the Charter", but there's nothing about gender identity in the charter, and the charter doesn't apply to what TA's show students anyways.  Prof Peterson was complaining that the Ontario human rights code including "gender identity" is dangerous.  Now the university admin is claiming that showing a video of someone complaining about the code is a violation of the code, which seems nonsense.
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Offline wilber

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #141 on: November 21, 2017, 10:07:39 pm »
Well maybe he can come up with something coherent because his harassing of Shepherd sure wasn't.
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Offline kimmy

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #142 on: November 22, 2017, 12:12:29 am »
Prof Peterson himself brought up this point earlier today, but the way Prof Rambukkana and his cohorts used the mere existence of C-16 to intimidate Shepherd illustrates a problem.   The National Post discussed the issue with some legal experts who concluded that C-16 wasn't relevant to Shepherd's situation because it was under provincial jurisdiction, and that probably nothing Shepherd did was in violation of the Ontario human rights law. But how was she supposed to know any of that? She's not a lawyer, she didn't have a lawyer with her to advise her that they weren't telling the truth on that matter... she's a student being told "you've broken the law here".  Peterson was proven right, despite the assurances from his critics that the law couldn't actually be used in the way he predicted.


The part where they talk about the "Gendered Violence" policy to Shepherd reads almost like an excerpt from a Monty Python skit:

Quote
Rambukkana: Do you understand how what happened was contrary to, sorry Adria, what was the policy?

Joel: Gendered and Sexual Violence.

Rambukkana: — Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy. Do you understand how —

Shepherd: Sorry, what did I violate in that policy.

Joel: Um, so, gender-based violence, transphobia, in that policy. Causing harm, um, to trans students by, uh, bringing their identity as invalid. Their pronouns as invalid — potentially invalid.

Shepherd: So I caused harm?

Joel: — which is, under the Ontario Human Rights Code a protected thing so something that Laurier holds as a value.

Shepherd: Ok, so by proxy me showing a YouTube video I’m transphobic and I caused harm and violence? So be it. I can’t do anything to control that.

Rambukkana: Ok, so that’s not something that you have an issue with? The fact that that happened? Are you sorry that it happened?

Shepherd: I know in my heart, and I expressed to the class, that I’m not transphobic and if any of them — again, I don’t know what they said — but I don’t think I gave away any kind of political position of mine. I remained very neutral, and uh—

Rambukkana: —that’s kind of the problem.

At this point I'm expecting John Cleese to show up and explain that they need to take her liver.

And this part just kind of left me speechless:

Quote
Rambukkana: These are very young students, and something of that nature is not appropriate to that age of student, because they don’t have …

Shepherd: 18?

Rambukkana: Yes.

Shepherd: They’re adults.

Rambukkana: Yes, but they’re very young adults. they don’t have the critical toolkit to be able to pick it apart yet. This is one of the things we’re teaching them, so this is why it becomes something that has to be done with a bit more care.

Seriously?  Seriously???


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Offline cybercoma

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #143 on: November 22, 2017, 06:27:31 am »
Yes, seriously.


Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #145 on: November 22, 2017, 06:39:34 am »
Sorry... Already posted above.

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #146 on: November 22, 2017, 06:41:42 am »
  This is well documented in the media.

Exactly my point.  I don't trust that.

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #147 on: November 22, 2017, 06:45:44 am »


Now the university admin is claiming that showing a video of someone complaining about the code is a violation of the code, which seems nonsense.

I believe that the interest in this case is what our public needs to leverage.  This isn't just a case of fixing one university or moralizing about liberal moralizing.  We should look also at how this issue got onto our radar and how to discuss the Peterson issue as objectively as possible.

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #148 on: November 22, 2017, 06:50:58 am »
I also think that students should be able to opt out of material that could be traumatic but reasonable accommodation needs to apply.

My brother once had a parent try to tell him that her child could not be expected to read any material for his class.

Offline wilber

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Re: Is The College Intolerance Meme Bullshit ?
« Reply #149 on: November 22, 2017, 10:10:36 am »
And perhaps universities and people in general need reminding that freedom of speech goes hand in hand with the freedom to be offended. You can’t have one without the other so they had better make their minds what kind of society they want to live in.

kimmy is right, this skit could have been written by Monty Python.

Opting out of material that could be traumatic. Give me a break. Who doesn’t find the Holocaust traumatic, does that mean we should stop teaching or discussing it? Are they there to be educated and learn to think or be indoctrinated. I’ve never liked the term Snowflake but sometimes I wonder.
« Last Edit: November 22, 2017, 10:36:42 am by wilber »
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