Outrage Culture - College edition

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Feelings have no place in the pursuit of knowledge (except in psychology where they may sometimes be appropriate as the subject of detached observation)

That's not exactly true, if it's true at all; there is plenty of room for feelings in academia. The very best academics and researchers are passionate about their work, and many of them come to it from a personal experience that motivates them, like the MS researcher whose college best friend had MS, or the AIDS vaccine developer whose adopted daughter was born with HIV. What there isn't room for is self-indulgent bullshit.

I suppose it can be a motivation to go into the field and to keep getting up in the morning, but once you're in...

What I mean is that, for example, you don't want to get emotionally attached to a theory and keep insisting that it's right even if it's been disproven. You don't want to confuse hope with probability or faith with evidence. And you CERTAINLY don't want to consider other people's feelings; can you imagine if Galileo or Kinsey or Darwin had worried about offending people's sensibilities!?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Feelings have no place in the pursuit of knowledge (except in psychology where they may sometimes be appropriate as the subject of detached observation)

That's not exactly true, if it's true at all; there is plenty of room for feelings in academia. The very best academics and researchers are passionate about their work, and many of them come to it from a personal experience that motivates them, like the MS researcher whose college best friend had MS, or the AIDS vaccine developer whose adopted daughter was born with HIV. What there isn't room for is self-indulgent bullshit.

I suppose it can be a motivation to go into the field and to keep getting up in the morning, but once you're in...

What I mean is that, for example, you don't want to get emotionally attached to a theory and keep insisting that it's right even if it's been disproven. You don't want to confuse hope with probability or faith with evidence. And you CERTAINLY don't want to consider other people's feelings; can you imagine if Galileo or Kinsey or Darwin had worried about offending people's sensibilities!?

Sure. But if you are using language precisely, that's not the fault of the presence of emotion. It's the fault of letting emotionality override critical thinking.

[Demolition Squid]

It is depressing to think that I was in university five whole years ago. I guess things really could have changed a lot in that time.

I studied Politics and there was a lot of classroom debate. In the first year I took it fairly easy, but in the second and third year I enjoyed arguing from alternative perspectives just to get people to defend their viewpoint. It didn't always make me popular in the class, but there were usually four or so people along with me in each class who got the point of doing that and we had fun with it. The professors usually seemed supportive, too.

My favourite was arguing with someone about environmental politics. They were saying we should impose more tax and regulation in order to try and bring down climate change because if we didn't we'd reach a tipping point where the world would end some time in 2020. I argued that if that was the case, the time for tax and regulation was over because we are talking about the end of civilization and if you believe that, surely we should be engaging on a campaign of global guerilla warfare - or at least blanket bans on anything and everything we can even vaguely related to global warming to stop it. If the end of civilization itself isn't justification for more than fines and penalties, what is?! He didn't really... have an answer for that other than 'well I still need to use a car and violence is ... bad?'

I do remember the first time someone followed me after a class and asked if I really believed what I'd been arguing for. He seemed genuinely surprised when I said 'no', which was interesting because I'm fairly sure we shared classes where I'd argued for communism in one seminar and libertarian capitalism in another. Good times.

[LMNO]

Not as depressing as I anticipated. "Nothing to do now but sit on our hands...and wait for the inevitable conservative backlash," was pretty on the nose.

I don't even know if it will be a conservative backlash, as he seems to be mistaking special snowflake syndrome for a phenomenon exclusive to liberal brats. Professors who teach at expensive private colleges have been complaining about it for a lot longer.

I think that's definitely a big part of it, and the move towards steadily more privatised education has led to the impression that schools are service providers not educators, and that the student as customer is always right.

However, I remember reading this guy's blog post from when he first put it up, and those by Freddie de Boer as well.  And I think their criticisms are a bit more subtle than that.  From what I can see, based on their writing, there are seperate problems which come together in particular in schools.  There is the liberal-rhetorical problem: most public liberals have incredibly weak rhetoric and verbal skills, and tend to rely on shutting down debate via the "I Win" button of accusations of sexism, homophobia, racism, "problematic", prejudicial etc.  And then there is the neoliberalisation of schools problem.  The two meet at a point because it's incredibly attractive for students to use discourse that originated in the academy, validates their complaints and allows little in way of dissent precisely because they are spoilt brats.  But they're spoilt brats operating within this particular discourse, at this particular time, because said discourse is very popular outside of the staid and traditional social conservative or libertarian conservative circles, and because they've learnt it works.

A guy in my class had a temper tantrum today because he doesn't like that 70 years ago, psychology researchers did really shitty things to cats.

Not kidding.

All of a sudden it was gone... FOREVER... my cat's penis. **sob**

[Cain]

Not as depressing as I anticipated. "Nothing to do now but sit on our hands...and wait for the inevitable conservative backlash," was pretty on the nose.

I don't even know if it will be a conservative backlash, as he seems to be mistaking special snowflake syndrome for a phenomenon exclusive to liberal brats. Professors who teach at expensive private colleges have been complaining about it for a lot longer.

I think that's definitely a big part of it, and the move towards steadily more privatised education has led to the impression that schools are service providers not educators, and that the student as customer is always right.

However, I remember reading this guy's blog post from when he first put it up, and those by Freddie de Boer as well.  And I think their criticisms are a bit more subtle than that.  From what I can see, based on their writing, there are seperate problems which come together in particular in schools.  There is the liberal-rhetorical problem: most public liberals have incredibly weak rhetoric and verbal skills, and tend to rely on shutting down debate via the "I Win" button of accusations of sexism, homophobia, racism, "problematic", prejudicial etc.  And then there is the neoliberalisation of schools problem.  The two meet at a point because it's incredibly attractive for students to use discourse that originated in the academy, validates their complaints and allows little in way of dissent precisely because they are spoilt brats.  But they're spoilt brats operating within this particular discourse, at this particular time, because said discourse is very popular outside of the staid and traditional social conservative or libertarian conservative circles, and because they've learnt it works.

A guy in my class had a temper tantrum today because he doesn't like that 70 years ago, psychology researchers did really shitty things to cats.

Not kidding.

It's almost like people in the past had different moral outlooks and ways of thinking about things.

There should be a pention to ban all mentions of history.  This deeply problematic outlook has no place in the Bright New World of Tomorrow.

[Demolition Squid]

You know what they say, those who do not remember history never ever repeat it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I also have a professor in one class who is profoundly unqualified to teach the subject... in fact, I'm more qualified than he is, and yet he's in charge of grading the papers. It's kind of obscene.

Yesterday, h asked about neuroscience book recommendations, and I mentioned a few authors, and concluded by saying "...and of course, Ramachandran is always a good read" to which he responded "If you can stand his arrogance". I said "I have trouble with his arrogance and I'm not a fan of his sense of humor, nor do I always agree with his conclusions, but he has really interesting case studies". The professor kind of scoffed and said "but you recommend him?" as if that was some kind of contradiction. I said "I don't always like what I recommend, and I don't always recommend what I like. If there's good information that has contributed significantly to informing the field, it's worth reading, and a good chance to exercise some critical thinking".

He clearly didn't get it, which is not surprising. He's into complete bullshit that reinforces his views, whether there's good science behind it or not. Currently, he's singing the praises of Rupert Sheldrake, which should tell you everything you need to know about his views on science.

[LMNO]

Rupert fucking Sheldrake.

[Doktor Howl]

Had to google, because Rupert Sheldrake sounds like a Harry Potter character.

"Morphic Resonance"? Homeopathic termites?  WHAT?

Nigel, your prof is an airhead.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I know, it's absolutely just awful. When I think about how much my handlers paid for this class, I feel nauseous. I could have taken something interesting, instead, this complete babyshambles.

[Bu🤠ns]

Not as depressing as I anticipated. "Nothing to do now but sit on our hands...and wait for the inevitable conservative backlash," was pretty on the nose.

I don't even know if it will be a conservative backlash, as he seems to be mistaking special snowflake syndrome for a phenomenon exclusive to liberal brats. Professors who teach at expensive private colleges have been complaining about it for a lot longer.

I think that's definitely a big part of it, and the move towards steadily more privatised education has led to the impression that schools are service providers not educators, and that the student as customer is always right.

However, I remember reading this guy's blog post from when he first put it up, and those by Freddie de Boer as well.  And I think their criticisms are a bit more subtle than that.  From what I can see, based on their writing, there are seperate problems which come together in particular in schools.  There is the liberal-rhetorical problem: most public liberals have incredibly weak rhetoric and verbal skills, and tend to rely on shutting down debate via the "I Win" button of accusations of sexism, homophobia, racism, "problematic", prejudicial etc.  And then there is the neoliberalisation of schools problem.  The two meet at a point because it's incredibly attractive for students to use discourse that originated in the academy, validates their complaints and allows little in way of dissent precisely because they are spoilt brats.  But they're spoilt brats operating within this particular discourse, at this particular time, because said discourse is very popular outside of the staid and traditional social conservative or libertarian conservative circles, and because they've learnt it works.

A guy in my class had a temper tantrum today because he doesn't like that 70 years ago, psychology researchers did really shitty things to cats.

Not kidding.

All of a sudden it was gone... FOREVER... my cat's penis. **sob**

[Bu🤠ns]

It is depressing to think that I was in university five whole years ago. I guess things really could have changed a lot in that time.

I studied Politics and there was a lot of classroom debate. In the first year I took it fairly easy, but in the second and third year I enjoyed arguing from alternative perspectives just to get people to defend their viewpoint. It didn't always make me popular in the class, but there were usually four or so people along with me in each class who got the point of doing that and we had fun with it. The professors usually seemed supportive, too.

My favourite was arguing with someone about environmental politics. They were saying we should impose more tax and regulation in order to try and bring down climate change because if we didn't we'd reach a tipping point where the world would end some time in 2020. I argued that if that was the case, the time for tax and regulation was over because we are talking about the end of civilization and if you believe that, surely we should be engaging on a campaign of global guerilla warfare - or at least blanket bans on anything and everything we can even vaguely related to global warming to stop it. If the end of civilization itself isn't justification for more than fines and penalties, what is?! He didn't really... have an answer for that other than 'well I still need to use a car and violence is ... bad?'

I do remember the first time someone followed me after a class and asked if I really believed what I'd been arguing for. He seemed genuinely surprised when I said 'no', which was interesting because I'm fairly sure we shared classes where I'd argued for communism in one seminar and libertarian capitalism in another. Good times.

That's what really stuck out for me too...i mean, not 10 years ago i was in college dealing with adult subjects like adults.  wtf happened?

[Bu🤠ns]

I also have a professor in one class who is profoundly unqualified to teach the subject... in fact, I'm more qualified than he is, and yet he's in charge of grading the papers. It's kind of obscene.

Yesterday, h asked about neuroscience book recommendations, and I mentioned a few authors, and concluded by saying "...and of course, Ramachandran is always a good read" to which he responded "If you can stand his arrogance". I said "I have trouble with his arrogance and I'm not a fan of his sense of humor, nor do I always agree with his conclusions, but he has really interesting case studies". The professor kind of scoffed and said "but you recommend him?" as if that was some kind of contradiction. I said "I don't always like what I recommend, and I don't always recommend what I like. If there's good information that has contributed significantly to informing the field, it's worth reading, and a good chance to exercise some critical thinking".

He clearly didn't get it, which is not surprising. He's into complete bullshit that reinforces his views, whether there's good science behind it or not. Currently, he's singing the praises of Rupert Sheldrake, which should tell you everything you need to know about his views on science.

It kills me that you had to explain it to him.  Sheldrake, the morphogentic field guy? Man...your prof checked out years ago.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I also have a professor in one class who is profoundly unqualified to teach the subject... in fact, I'm more qualified than he is, and yet he's in charge of grading the papers. It's kind of obscene.

Yesterday, h asked about neuroscience book recommendations, and I mentioned a few authors, and concluded by saying "...and of course, Ramachandran is always a good read" to which he responded "If you can stand his arrogance". I said "I have trouble with his arrogance and I'm not a fan of his sense of humor, nor do I always agree with his conclusions, but he has really interesting case studies". The professor kind of scoffed and said "but you recommend him?" as if that was some kind of contradiction. I said "I don't always like what I recommend, and I don't always recommend what I like. If there's good information that has contributed significantly to informing the field, it's worth reading, and a good chance to exercise some critical thinking".

He clearly didn't get it, which is not surprising. He's into complete bullshit that reinforces his views, whether there's good science behind it or not. Currently, he's singing the praises of Rupert Sheldrake, which should tell you everything you need to know about his views on science.

It kills me that you had to explain it to him.  Sheldrake, the morphogentic field guy? Man...your prof checked out years ago.

He's not trained in any science, whatsoever, and has apparently not really tried to educate himself beyond reading things that reinforce what he wants to believe.

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

I also have a professor in one class who is profoundly unqualified to teach the subject... in fact, I'm more qualified than he is, and yet he's in charge of grading the papers. It's kind of obscene.

Yesterday, h asked about neuroscience book recommendations, and I mentioned a few authors, and concluded by saying "...and of course, Ramachandran is always a good read" to which he responded "If you can stand his arrogance". I said "I have trouble with his arrogance and I'm not a fan of his sense of humor, nor do I always agree with his conclusions, but he has really interesting case studies". The professor kind of scoffed and said "but you recommend him?" as if that was some kind of contradiction. I said "I don't always like what I recommend, and I don't always recommend what I like. If there's good information that has contributed significantly to informing the field, it's worth reading, and a good chance to exercise some critical thinking".

He clearly didn't get it, which is not surprising. He's into complete bullshit that reinforces his views, whether there's good science behind it or not. Currently, he's singing the praises of Rupert Sheldrake, which should tell you everything you need to know about his views on science.

It kills me that you had to explain it to him.  Sheldrake, the morphogentic field guy? Man...your prof checked out years ago.

He's not trained in any science, whatsoever, and has apparently not really tried to educate himself beyond reading things that reinforce what he wants to believe.

How did he get to be a professor? Was it nepotism, or cronyism, or bribery, or just bad hiring policies?