The Coddling Of The American Mind (Trigger Warning Article In The Atlantic...)

do people still go occupy camping? kinda forgot about that whole thing. probably time for #occupy reunions already.

they've upgraded to yurts

this is a safe space; no yurt feelings.

the more i read that list of demands from the missouri football players (et al) the more ridiculous and incoherent much of it seems. they demand "comprehensive racial
awareness and inclusion curriculum throughout all campus departments and units"? what does this mean? that the math dep't should offer "racial awareness and inclusion curriculum"?

you can read it as a demand for a suitably universal curricular requirement. i don't know if mizzou has one. but given the compartmentalization of programs on campuses, unless there's a gen ed diversity requirement in place, many majors (including some prone to reactionary swastika-drawing hmmmm) can escape college having given minimal thought to anything like what's being asked for.

Yeah I don't get how it's unreasonable to ask anybody that teaches anything for a living to hold court on racial awareness and inclusion.

which majors are most prone to reactionary swastika-drawing? business?

what do you mean by "hold court"?

i don't have a problem with the sort of "diversity" curriculum requirements that many if not most universities have (meaning that at some point students have to take one or more courses substantially about minority cultures/issues). i don't actually think these requirements do much of anything, but i have no problem with them.

asking /all/ parts to add "racial awareness curriculum" to their courses is just not practicable.

if you read this (at a stretch) as asking that all /teachers/ somehow receive diversity training, this is a theoretically laudable goal that, based on everything i know about how these things are implemented in practice, will be a huge waste of time and resources.

and of course one important context for these demands is that we live in a time when state legislatures are less and less interesting in funding state universities.

ahem, i meant asking all departments

You seem pretty certain that any such initiatives are a waste of time, why?

not "any such," but those particular ones, sure. have you ever been at a diversity-training workshop?

i'm profoundly cynical, i suppose, of the efficacy of asking for, effectively, more bureaucracy in a probably vain attempt to purge the university of the racism that is, unfortunately, a fact of our culture--a culture from which the university can't be cut off. does that mean that the president should ignore racist acts when they occur, or should twiddle his thumbs rather than engage with student protestors? no. maybe he needed to go for a host of reasons, that being one of them. but if those demands really are the endgame (which is a big "if," i'll admit) then it seems like mostly wasted motion.

guessing that training on the professional side would amount to a mandatory workshop w/ some kind of binder distribution and powerpoint slides, maybe a little bit of the usual role-playing exercises, a cynical charade all around

or worse, a required webinar designed by HR staff

oh believe me I've attended these diversity training sections, and I work for the division that programs diversity in student activities: they're staff development hours at best.

which majors are most prone to reactionary swastika-drawing? business?

maybe; i'm teaching a bunch of business types for the first time this year and am finding them surprisingly engaged and thoughtful, as a group - should be no surprise i guess that a lot of people who are ambitious and talented would be in business since that's a way to get the $$$

i was thinking over the years of lame letters from people in the engineering fields. or e.g. when my graduate alma mater tried to unionize, the core of resistance to the efforts came from some of the most socioeconomically conservative majors on campus - chemical engineers and the like who were well compensated, highly skilled, and incentivized to side with authority

to be fair "mostly wasted motion" is a good description of life

xxxpostsssss

Xps
Yeah I've seen a fair few and while the feeling I mostly associate with them is despair, they're so much better than nothing. Change in wider culture often foments in controlled closeted institutions, and while I don't think anybody expects the eradication of racism in America, fighting a losing battle is better than playing the odds in a situation where things could easily get worse.

Yeah I mean those demands reflect the fact that uncertainty in the atmosphere leading up to the resignations and i assume/hope they'll reevaluate what's what.

Xps
Yeah I've seen a fair few and while the feeling I mostly associate with them is despair, they're so much better than nothing. Change in wider culture often foments in controlled closeted institutions, and while I don't think anybody expects the eradication of racism in America, fighting a losing battle is better than playing the odds in a situation where things could easily get worse.

Yeah I mean those demands reflect the fact that uncertainty in the atmosphere leading up to the resignations and i assume/hope they'll reevaluate what's what.

the J-school dean; http://journalism.missouri.edu/2015/11/dean-david-kurpius-comments-on-students-coverage-of-protest-on-carnahan-quad/

this blog post from the american assoc. of university profs website echoes some of the stuff sterling said about there being better ways for a journalist to be present without that presence upsetting people, but also comes down on the "side" of the photographer. above all he blames the authority figures present for not exerting a mediating, de-escalating presence: http://academeblog.org/2015/11/10/16583/

I gotta say, the photojourno thing seems like kind of a distracting non-issue -- obviously the footage capturing that mob mentality in action is disturbing & hard to watch, which is why we're even having the conversation, but I don't think it's any more disturbing than the 'whimsical' flash mob I witnessed on my public university campus ~7 years ago, and if I step back and look at the big picture, I know which activity I'd rather see young people getting carried away in service of.

Obviously the two UM employees in the video were... shall we say "overzealous" in their support of the students; but given that they were never trained to act as law enforcement officers, I can forgive them for performing poorly when the role was thrust upon them (and obviously, at this moment in history, there are about a thousand reasons for not wanting to involve the *actual police*).

That being said: a small part of me hopes the off-camera dude who kept repeating "you lost this one, bro!" got splashed by a bus on his way to class the next day, because gloating is really just nagl

This is kinda all-over-the-place, but I agree with the central point of not looking to authority for all of the answers, etc.

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/194874/person-up-yale-students

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/race-and-the-free-speech-diversion

jelani cobb

Also was Kelefa's article on this subject posted earlier this year? i forget http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/10/the-hell-you-say

towards the end of that tablet piece:

I have a different vision for my students, one that I am constantly trying to promote in class: Please, think of yourselves as fellow adults, my peers. When I am wrong, say so. Don’t assume I know any better than you—in many cases, you may know more. When upset by fellow students, ask if there is a forceful, creative way to solve the problem without involving the strong fist of administrative authority—which, as you know, is often likely to get things wrong and make matters less, not more, just. Recognize that solidarity with one another will nearly always work better than asking us to be disciplinarians. Consider an analogous situation in the post-college world: Do you want more police presence, or less?

And, above all, take some time to wonder what college life would be like if you comported yourselves as draft-age, marriage-age, voting citizens. Which is what you are. Would you drink more responsibly, party a bit less, be less reckless in relationships? Would do more of your reading? When offended, would you organize more effectively? Would you be more capable of truly radical political action? Think about how an adult, not a partying student, treats people of other genders. If you are white, take stock of what solidarity you owe people who lack white privilege.

this is a theme i stress a lot in my own teaching (usually in regard to taking charge of your education) but it rarely seems to get across. it's quite difficult to get college students to look at college as anything other than an extension of high school adolescence. and i think larger trends within and without the university unfortunately encourage that approach.

you almost uniformly see students with children of their own, or students who have worked prior to school or are still working 'real jobs', take to that message w/ complete alacrity tho

yes absolutely. it's kind of a thing with me to remind my classes early on that "you don't have to be here, this is a choice you are making"--which is both obvious and hopefully a bit of a perspective changer.

haha it just makes you sound like a high school teacher tho

lol

it's true. there's just some thing you can't get across to people by telling them over and over.

for people who just want a generic BA on their resume, I'm not sure partying less and doing all the reading is actually the best decision

i should have partied more and not got sucked into going to grad school, that's for sure.

for people who just want a generic BA on their resume, I'm not sure partying less and doing all the reading is actually the best decision

― iatee, Tuesday, November 10, 2015 7:34 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this, unfortunately.

the self-motivated people will be self-motivated, the others will be cynical and opportunistic to differing extents governed by personal code and social pressure.

yes absolutely. it's kind of a thing with me to remind my classes early on that "you don't have to be here, this is a choice you are making"--which is both obvious and hopefully a bit of a perspective changer.

― ryan, Tuesday, November 10, 2015

haha I experience this phenomenon every day: students won't enter an empty classroom until I walk in; or, today, for example, a student needed to leave early and she took the trouble to tell me. I said, "Thanks for telling me, but you can leave this room whenever you want" and she said, "I'm just being courteous."

i always had this silent [palm up] [apologetic face] gesture i would make while leaving to indicate i wasn't leaving in rage over something the professor had said about lenin.

that tablet piece is really good.

i guess it's OK for a bunch of 20-year-olds to put together a list of demands that doesn't read like they were written by seasoned activists. they're young. but b/c of the internet, social media, etc., there's going to be this huge spotlight on those demands, and the folks who wrote them, and it's going to follow them around forever.

Yeah if they go into activist work they can say oh you are the famous person who got wrote up in the Atlantic.

Not to mention the opportunity to see how their ideas are received by the community at large and the establishment in particular. Activists growing up in this turbulent period have a much broader scope and who knows maybe in the future all this awkward stuff will be finely tuned from decades of mass market research.

i'm so glad i don't have to go to workshops. jesus. you should see how hard i try to look engaged at school events for my kids. it's sad. it's not my natural habitat. i read all the teacher posts on here though. interesting. i like work bitching. cheers, teachers.

Yeah if they go into activist work they can say oh you are the famous person who got wrote up in the Atlantic.

Not to mention the opportunity to see how their ideas are received by the community at large and the establishment in particular. Activists growing up in this turbulent period have a much broader scope and who knows maybe in the future all this awkward stuff will be finely tuned from decades of mass market research.

i honestly don't know which of this is sarcastic and which isn't, and i'm not sure who the sarcasm is directed at. :(

and this is what i mean by the troubling consequences of channeling outrage into bureaucratic remedies

http://www.mediaite.com/online/university-of-missouri-police-ask-students-to-report-hurtful-speech/

I'm going to tip-toe in, leave this on the table, and then tip-toe out again.

https://medium.com/@juliaserano/how-to-write-a-political-correctness-run-amok-article-9b828d443018

This one just happens to be about "trans ppl" but you can easily just substitute in "oversensitive college students" or "those kids protesting racial violence in ways I don't condone or agree with" or a lot of other subjects where cranky old people think things have "gone too far", quite easily.

i'm not sure that being able to point out the rhetorical strategies of a particular argument is the same thing as dismantling that argument.

and it doesn't take much these days for something to become cliché. sure, the "outrage against political correctness" article is a horrible cliché, as the atlantic magazine seems bent on proving every 36 hours. but there are all manner of journalistic clichés, from all political perspectives, simply because the internet seems to generate about 23,000 thinkpieces per minute.

also that piece seems built upon bad-faith straw man arguments, or not even arguments so much as snark, e.g.:

But then you will pan back and show that this is but one instance among many in a much larger and disturbing trend sweeping the nation — aka, “political correctness running amok.” (I am not sure why political correctness is always “running amok” as opposed to other synonymous phrases, but just roll with it.)

i'm not sure, either, since the author doesn't actually cite a single instance of this cliché being used in the type of article she's mocking. (in fact, i'd bet at this point the "...run amok" cliché is used much more often in an ironic fashion than a sincere one.) but it allows her to mock the (as yet unnamed) object of her scorn. so why not? who cares?

also, wtf is "medium.com."

also i suspect her aim is bad in implying that internet liberals are up in arms about transgender activists. but i wouldn't really know since she doesn't provide a single actual example.

i think my default position concerning pretty much every tempest-in-a-teapot controversy around campus life and "political correctness," in re. all sides, is mutating into "fuck all y'all."

but i wouldn't really know since she doesn't provide a single actual example.

It's not linked in the article, but "Feminism Needs More Thinkers Who Aren't Right 100 Percent of the Time" can be found in most popular search engines

i think my default position concerning pretty much every tempest-in-a-teapot controversy around campus life and "political correctness," in re. all sides, is mutating into "fuck all y'all."

― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 11 November 2015 11:05 (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

glad 2 have u on board, now we need a mod

also, wtf is "medium.com."

it's a blog publishing platform that hosts mainly long-read pieces - it's pretty widely known and not, like, some obscure thing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_(publishing_platform)

It's not linked in the article, but "Feminism Needs More Thinkers Who Aren't Right 100 Percent of the Time" can be found in most popular search engines

why would i know to search for that?

all these thinkpiece sites seem indistinguishable to me; a discover a new one every day.