Free Speech and Creepy Liberalism

there are conservatives who spend all their time helping the less fortunate, and even some who think laissez fair economics promotes economic equality -- or at least has the power to raise the median living standard.

these people are deluded, and are clearly ignoring glaring contradictions in their own worldview but then again don't we all. i think they should still be allowed to become social workers. that is a field that calls for people to be kind and helpful on an individual basis, and political orientation doesn't tell you much about someone's capacity to be those things

lots of "social justice educators" i've known are great. but a few have been real assholes and i'm sure they cause emotional damage to their students just on the basis of their general vituperativeness. having good intentions in an abstract sense doesn't always translate to how you treat people in the real world. don't know about other fields, but i imagine a similar thing is at play in social work. screening for "conservatives" misses the point of what really matters.

i stood when the category “working class” was called out, naïvely not realizing that there were nonworking classes in America.

wait this person is in grad school?

^^^

Full disclosure I didn't know that either until age 23 or so, but I'm a dumb hick from the Calvinist backwater.

iirc, Hunter explicitly brands itself as a "social justice" oriented program, which would seem to bar conservative points of view from having much purchase there.

i think they should still be allowed to become social workers.

im sympathetic to this, but if you, say, deny the existence of structural racism im not sure how good a social worker you can be and im sympathetic to a social work program not wanting to hand out degrees to such people.

maybe i'm really confused about the function of social workers (nb, my sister-in-law's father is a social worker) but my impression was that it had to do w/ helping ppl directly and nothing to do w/ theories of inequality.

like if someone is suffering and you attribute it to something other than "structural racism," that doesn't prevent you from helping them secure food, housing, apply for programs that benefit them, etc. i'm coming around to the idea that the only ethical position is total political apathy bc too many ppl seem to confuse having political opinions for being a good human. (TS terrible human w/ the right politics V. kind human w/ the wrong politics)

there's different kinds, most social workers are on a "clinical" track which, as you say, is more individual oriented. but i think these "social justice" oriented programs are probably newer and, yes, a bit more ideologically inclined to be social activists.

re "working class," i assumed she was snarking at the idea that only some ppl 'work' (those who need a euphemism for lower class? or blue collar?) v. "middle" class or "upper" class. it's absurd bc obv we understand culturally what "working class" is supposed to mean, but is it any more absurd than the status quo beliefs about class? ie that like 90% of americans identify as "middle" class?

i'm coming around to the idea that the only ethical position is total political apathy bc too many ppl seem to confuse having political opinions for being a good human

what's that phrase? "never let morality get in the way of doing the right thing."

i have a very close friend i used to work w/ when i was in education. she is an incredibly talented (and successful) behavioral psychologist who specializes in early intervention for children w/ autism + add. we used to commute together 2 hours a day and she was completely uninterested in politics of any form. this disinterest made her no less successful in her work or less able to make effective interventions that improved the quality of her students' lives.

my only point that i think certain ideological inclinations are baked into any profession, and only moreso in many forms of social work. im sure we could cook up pretty outlandish scenarios where someones ideological beliefs make awarding them a degree in science or history would be a farce...it's up to these programs to, for the most part, determine what their standards are. Hunter is pretty up front about what theirs are.

the argument isnt so much about being a good person but about accreditation.

i'd love to start a school where you have to demonstrate mastery of buddhist and christian forms of compassion but then im biased in that way.

are the skills needed to be a successful practicing social worker tho predicated even 1% of the acceptance of social justice tropes in 2015? or are the skills things like navigating government programs, learning how housing laws work, learning how to interact w/ food banks, etc?

we're getting beyond my competence in the subject, but from what i remember i think that the whole social justice indoctrination at hunter varies according to the "track" you are on and even then comes down to 1 or 2 classes. so the things you mention are still the bulk of it. think of it like a "methodologies and theory" course in an english grad program.

my problem with it was that, from what i saw, the theory wasn't terribly rigorous--but then maybe a rigorous theory course isn't exactly what social workers need, as you say. they just want to dip their toes in the water, to have a little broader perspective to fall back on if necessary, maybe.

tbf tho any good english grad program won't force u to accept a particular critical theory over another (and the ones i took tended to downplay ideological theories like fem theory, queer theory, marxist theory in favor of intellectual historicism and historiographies). i can't imagine avital ronell giving someone a poor grade in a german dpt class bc they didn't agree w/ her political pov on antigone + trauma.

"how dare you suggest that antigone's conflict w/ the State isn't evidence for royal privilege. get out."

oh sure, but in certain subsets of english, like "women's studies" or "gender studies," i can imagine certain persistent questioning of basic points being a problem. english can withstand a lot of dissent but most other studies have to make more assumptions before they can proceed.

this is why some people find philosophy so maddening...it's like you're always starting at the beginning.

you can question the status of the observer in particle physics but if you walk into biology 101 and start questioning the basic tenants of empirical observation then you're creating a problem.

this might be one of the reasons i'm not a huge fan of identity studies programs. too ideologically locked in before you even start. i don't think they're all like that tho - or at least the scholarship being produced from such programs aren't always so dogmatic. lots of great stuff eg about histories of women, that use a particular identity as a historical focal point but not necessarily carrying a ton of political baggage.

like to write a people's history of a particular event requires accepting upfront that it's important to understand the role of the masses in forming society/culture/politics/etc and that often they're neglected bc of a focus on wealthier, more powerful personas. but it doesn't require accepting that the cure to the US's ills necessitate the socialization of utilities.

maybe not, but im sure someone motivated enough could connect those dots. in any case, id rather such studies lay their cards on the table--the "undeconstructable" assumptions needed to begin at all--rather than hide them in an attempt at mastery or total competence. this is what i mean above in saying that we're arent required to take the social worker's pov as "truth." (nor do social workers need to take their own pov as truth in order to act upon it.)

i think, if nothing else, the identity politics going on in those exercises described in the article demonstrate how fraught and complex such things are--if someone walked away from that thinking they had mastered it, or were given the impression that such exercises were anything more than a lesson in humility--then so much the worse for them.

on one hand yes everyone has biases and if you're really engaged in the prevalent discourses of yr discipline you are probably going to have political biases. but i'm not convinced that the most valuable scholars are ppl heavily involved in the politics of their field, i do like a level of disengagement just-the-facts in academic literature, and tbph i prefer idiosyncratic literature from ppl who are super obsessed w/ some niche interest that alone encompasses all of reality. like i don't know u but i skip all those intros where the author carefully aligns themselves ideologically.

but i'm not convinced that the most valuable scholars are ppl heavily involved in the politics of their field, i do like a level of disengagement just-the-facts in academic literature,

im not convinced either, but i tend to read heavily in fields where the "facts" are less at issue than their interpretations? if that makes sense. for that reason i tend to find those anxious intros to be pretty interesting because im invested in seeing what different interpretative frameworks (ideological or otherwise) might bring to light. i just dont like it when authors make their framework harder to discern, or worse, dont seem to have a grasp on what their framework even is. i think that's sloppy.

tbf tho any good english grad program won't force u to accept a particular critical theory over another

I think that's true only if you have a very narrow idea of what counts as a "critical theory." There are people, not a few, who think that the right way to approach the study of literature is through primarily quantitative methods, and that traditional close reading of poems, novels, and plays is an empty exercise. There are English departments where someone committed to that approach could complete a Ph.D., but at most it would be impossible.

I feel like if you were committed to the idea that federal/state aid programs were a shackle holding poor people in dependency, well, that's a viewpoint! Lots of people hold it. But I feel like it would be hard to train somebody for a job that primarily involved helping poor people make use of those programs, if the person felt those programs were useless or actively harmful to their recipients.

it could be that someone who thinks aid programs were a shackle holding poor people in dependency would have their emphasis + expertise in helping people get vocational training and steady employment

loooool stop. Everyone wants training and employment. Connecting people to resources so they can survive is hardly as simple as saying to self, "I think people are better off working than not working--so I'm going to do my job THIS way."

"emphasis + expertise" if ppl's politics mean anything presumably they mean having at least some influence on the kind of work they are particularly passionate about. obv plenty of conservatives care deeply about taking care of the impoverished.

I worked housing dept for seven years with a lot of v conservative ppl, not all of whom loved their clients as we all should our fellow man. thats zero to do with how good you are at your job ime.

That's also different from social work as an academic and practical discipline. It has more to it than charity and volunteerism.

obv no ron swanson type conservatives are becoming social workers. i'm sure that's not the kind of conservatism practiced by the author of the article.

success at placing and keeping ppl in social housing isnt exactly based on your flower arranging skills, hoss xp

I stood when the category “working class” was called out, naïvely not realizing that there were nonworking classes in America. I realized my mistake when most people stood up for the “middle class” category. I was impressed by the few “upper classers.”

Devorah Goldman is senior health care analyst at Capital Policy Analytics, a consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

LOL A+ troll.

Obvs but social work as a modern discipline has never just been about helping people access services and trying to make sure they stick. Xp

I came here to quote that with "fuuuuuuuuuck you"

xp

Yeah, Mordy is kind of right, I was imagining someone so conservative they wouldn't be in social work grad school at all, while Mordy is probably imagining someone more, like, well, Mordy, who would be laughed out of CPAC if he called himself a "conservative"

http://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/teaching-rape-law-in-the-age-of-the-trigger-warning#.hsNveMNJr

followup to recent stories somewhere above itt

“There was a point in time where women were excused from not just rape but any disturbing legal topic because it was too traumatic,” said University of Colorado Law professor Aya Gruber, who said she’s noticed a “rapid and profound shift” in the way her students think about rape pedagogy over the past few years.

“Several of my contemporaries do not teach rape because it is too fraught, but I find this to be an almost sexist position,” she said. “My question is always the extent to which we as teachers are protecting women in a world which oppresses them, and the extent to which we as people in power are reaffirming and reinforcing the messages that keep women in that position.”

i'm a survivor of sexual assault who took crim law with one of the professors cited in that article. rape week had good class discussion, but outside of class a few far left female students expressed fury that anyone thought any of the cases might not constitute rape. fury on a different level than any other issue.

and that is meaningful to me bc most law school students (especially lefty ones) are nothing but furious about everything all the time.

http://www.michigandaily.com/news/umix-film-removed

showing of american sniper pulled after student petition

In the final version of the letter, students voiced several concerns over the film’s portrayal of Arabs and the Middle East and North Africa regions.

“Although we respect the right to freedom of speech, we believe that with this right comes responsibility: responsibility of action, intention, and outcome,” the letter read. “The movie ‘American Sniper’ not only tolerates but promotes anti-Muslim and anti-MENA rhetoric and sympathizes with a mass killer.”

In their statement, CCI said while their intent was not to make certain communities uncomfortable, they understood the impact of the film and would take more time to screen for content in the future.

“We in the Center for Campus Involvement and the UMix Late Night program did not intend to exclude any students or communities on campus through showing this film,” they wrote. “Nevertheless, as we know, intent and impact can be very different things.”

Mekkaoui said she appreciated CCI’s quick response to student concerns.

“I just want to say thank you to the Center for Campus Involvement for listening to student feedback, and for taking quick action to make sure (that) once they found that they had done something that made students on campus feel uncomfortable, they took immediate action to change that,” she said.

if your whole deal is based around the concept of "uncomfortable rhetoric" maybe stay away from calling an american soldier a "mass killer"

ridiculous

Although we respect the right to freedom of speech

sigh.

tbh i blame the org that pulled the film more than the petitioners (who, after all, just exercised free speech). instead of engaging in possibly uncomfortable but imo necessary dialogue about the issue, or responding to concerns in a different way (e.g. holding afterfilm discussion, or publishing critique of film in school paper, whatever), it's easier to just give in, meekly apologize, and of course-- be sure in future not to show any film which might unintentionally make anyone on campus uncomfortable.

sigh.

or, how bout, show two films