<story><title>The Yale Problem Begins in High School</title><url>http://heterodoxacademy.org/2015/11/24/the-yale-problem-begins-in-high-school/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nickbauman</author><text>The problem with &amp;quot;balancing viewpoints&amp;quot; argument is that it isn&amp;#x27;t based on a critical ethos and so it cannot progress on the basis of logos. You can have a &amp;quot;balanced viewpoint&amp;quot; and still have debates about &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;whether the moon is made of the body of Vince Foster or not.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; There are certain ideas that just don&amp;#x27;t belong in a university setting because they are &lt;i&gt;bunk&lt;/i&gt; and this has nothing to do with diversity of opinion.&lt;p&gt;It similar to the bogus &lt;i&gt;fair and balanced&lt;/i&gt; media argument. News reporting is about reporting the facts &lt;i&gt;as they lead logically&lt;/i&gt; so that if anyone would perform the work of the journalist they would arrive at &lt;i&gt;similar conclusions&lt;/i&gt; regardless of their perspective or polity. It&amp;#x27;s very much like the scientific method. Focusing on opinion diversity is a red herring.</text></item><item><author>jseliger</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve taught at two colleges and based on my (purely) anecdotal experiences and attention to the climate, I&amp;#x27;d say that the number of students and faculty interested in stifling or censoring ideas is small but also very, very noisy. They also have no sense of humor and college administrators as a group have no sense of humor or perspective, and they&amp;#x27;re chronically worried about accusations of indifference or insensitivity (which are themselves as good as convictions). There is a strong economic and career incentive for administrators to take &lt;i&gt;everything&lt;/i&gt; seriously and to keep their heads down as much as possible.&lt;p&gt;Brew this up and one gets a majority of students who are reasonable but a small minority who drive all the discourse.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t teach at Yale and have never taught at Yale or schools with similar cultures, so I can&amp;#x27;t speak to the environment there, but William Deresiewicz did, and his book &lt;i&gt;Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life&lt;/i&gt; came out of that and I recommend it. His book &lt;i&gt;A Jane Austen Education&lt;/i&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;jakeseliger.com&amp;#x2F;tag&amp;#x2F;a-jane-austen-education-how-six-novels-taught-me-about-love&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;jakeseliger.com&amp;#x2F;tag&amp;#x2F;a-jane-austen-education-how-six-n...&lt;/a&gt;) is also very good, even for someone like me who does not love Jane Austen.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Edit:&lt;/i&gt; Also, almost all of the censorship calls and nasty behavior &amp;#x2F; comments came from students on the left. Vox&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;8706323&amp;#x2F;college-professor-afraid&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;8706323&amp;#x2F;college-professor-afraid&lt;/a&gt;) is congruent with my experiences.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jimbokun</author><text>&amp;quot;There are certain ideas that just don&amp;#x27;t belong in a university setting because they are bunk and this has nothing to do with diversity of opinion.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sure all of the students getting faculty and administrators dismissed right now would describe the opposing ideas as &amp;quot;bunk&amp;quot; not worthy of consideration.&lt;p&gt;I see a few reasons to explicitly address &amp;quot;bunk&amp;quot; ideas.&lt;p&gt;* Students have already been exposed to the ideas, and many already believe them.  Having a discussion explaining &lt;i&gt;why&lt;/i&gt; they are bunk might be critical to moving on to more interesting topics.&lt;p&gt;* Appeals to authority make for bad pedagogy.  Sure, evolution is the scientific consensus.  But students who just accept it at face value without asking to be shown the evidence are not students capable of scientific thought.&lt;p&gt;* Ideas you thought were bunk might turn out to have more merit or nuance than you expected, once you start digging deeper.  It&amp;#x27;s easy to see other people&amp;#x27;s deeply held bunk ideas.  But how do you force yourself to see your own?</text></comment>
<story><title>The Yale Problem Begins in High School</title><url>http://heterodoxacademy.org/2015/11/24/the-yale-problem-begins-in-high-school/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nickbauman</author><text>The problem with &amp;quot;balancing viewpoints&amp;quot; argument is that it isn&amp;#x27;t based on a critical ethos and so it cannot progress on the basis of logos. You can have a &amp;quot;balanced viewpoint&amp;quot; and still have debates about &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;whether the moon is made of the body of Vince Foster or not.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; There are certain ideas that just don&amp;#x27;t belong in a university setting because they are &lt;i&gt;bunk&lt;/i&gt; and this has nothing to do with diversity of opinion.&lt;p&gt;It similar to the bogus &lt;i&gt;fair and balanced&lt;/i&gt; media argument. News reporting is about reporting the facts &lt;i&gt;as they lead logically&lt;/i&gt; so that if anyone would perform the work of the journalist they would arrive at &lt;i&gt;similar conclusions&lt;/i&gt; regardless of their perspective or polity. It&amp;#x27;s very much like the scientific method. Focusing on opinion diversity is a red herring.</text></item><item><author>jseliger</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve taught at two colleges and based on my (purely) anecdotal experiences and attention to the climate, I&amp;#x27;d say that the number of students and faculty interested in stifling or censoring ideas is small but also very, very noisy. They also have no sense of humor and college administrators as a group have no sense of humor or perspective, and they&amp;#x27;re chronically worried about accusations of indifference or insensitivity (which are themselves as good as convictions). There is a strong economic and career incentive for administrators to take &lt;i&gt;everything&lt;/i&gt; seriously and to keep their heads down as much as possible.&lt;p&gt;Brew this up and one gets a majority of students who are reasonable but a small minority who drive all the discourse.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t teach at Yale and have never taught at Yale or schools with similar cultures, so I can&amp;#x27;t speak to the environment there, but William Deresiewicz did, and his book &lt;i&gt;Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life&lt;/i&gt; came out of that and I recommend it. His book &lt;i&gt;A Jane Austen Education&lt;/i&gt; (&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;jakeseliger.com&amp;#x2F;tag&amp;#x2F;a-jane-austen-education-how-six-novels-taught-me-about-love&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;jakeseliger.com&amp;#x2F;tag&amp;#x2F;a-jane-austen-education-how-six-n...&lt;/a&gt;) is also very good, even for someone like me who does not love Jane Austen.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Edit:&lt;/i&gt; Also, almost all of the censorship calls and nasty behavior &amp;#x2F; comments came from students on the left. Vox&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;m a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;8706323&amp;#x2F;college-professor-afraid&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vox.com&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;8706323&amp;#x2F;college-professor-afraid&lt;/a&gt;) is congruent with my experiences.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>frotak</author><text>You&amp;#x27;re missing the thrust of the argument entirely.&lt;p&gt;The author does not advocate validating factually invalid statements - see his anecdote in the second article linked in GP regarding &amp;quot;whether or not the economic collapse was caused by poor black people&amp;quot;:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;I gave a quick response about how most experts would disagree with that assumption, that it was actually an oversimplification, and pretty dishonest, and isn&amp;#x27;t it good that someone made the video we just watched to try to clear things up? And, hey, let&amp;#x27;s talk about whether that was effective, okay? If you don&amp;#x27;t think it was, how could it have been?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;In other words - in the case of &amp;quot;bunk&amp;quot; it can be summarily dismissed with a proper basis. Which is entirely different from vilifying and personally attacking a person for their beliefs or thoughts which are doing no actual harm to anyone else. People can have bogus ideas and those bogus ideas can be completely harmless no matter how much you might find them distasteful.&lt;p&gt;Viewpoint diversity is entirely about bringing different perspectives and experiences to bear on a subject.&lt;p&gt;It works in the hard sciences: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quantamagazine.org&amp;#x2F;20151124-kadison-singer-math-problem&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.quantamagazine.org&amp;#x2F;20151124-kadison-singer-math-...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why shouldn&amp;#x27;t it similarly be applied in areas of morality, ethics, social science, etc?</text></comment>