Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by CoolHand on Monday August 29 2016, @01:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the it-takes-all-kinds dept.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0

WE progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table — er, so long as they aren't conservatives. Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We're fine with people who don't look like us, as long as they think like us.

O.K., that's a little harsh. But consider George Yancey, a sociologist who is black and evangelical. "Outside of academia I faced more problems as a black," he told me. "But inside academia I face more problems as a Christian, and it is not even close."

I've been thinking about this because on Facebook recently I wondered aloud whether universities stigmatize conservatives and undermine intellectual diversity. The scornful reaction from my fellow liberals proved the point.

"Much of the 'conservative' worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false," said Carmi. "The truth has a liberal slant," wrote Michelle. "Why stop there?" asked Steven. "How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?"

To me, the conversation illuminated primarily liberal arrogance — the implication that conservatives don't have anything significant to add to the discussion. My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination.

The stakes involve not just fairness to conservatives or evangelical Christians, not just whether progressives will be true to their own values, not just the benefits that come from diversity (and diversity of thought is arguably among the most important kinds), but also the quality of education itself. When perspectives are unrepresented in discussions, when some kinds of thinkers aren't at the table, classrooms become echo chambers rather than sounding boards — and we all lose.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:29AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:29AM (#394479)

    This is exactly the kind of modern liberal arrogant elitist shit sandwich that has driven former liberals like myself out of the fold. Hope you feel proud that you are losing democrats real votes.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Insightful=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   1  
  • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @08:20AM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 29 2016, @08:20AM (#394538) Journal

    Also happens to be true. Eat shit.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday August 29 2016, @09:25AM

      by aristarchus (2645) on Monday August 29 2016, @09:25AM (#394558) Journal

      former liberals like myself

      Southern Democrats hardly count as liberals. And this is the real problem with non-liberals, they mistake truth for arrogance, and cannot tell that they are not liberal. You know, "liberal" means "free". This is what the "Liberal Arts" are, the skills and basic knowledge of free people. Liberalism is what America is about. If you hate liberals, you hate America. Why do you hate America?

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @12:28PM

      You just agreed with someone who was spewing a blatant troll. What does that make you? Besides a fool I mean.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:04PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:04PM (#394680)

        How difficult would it be to create an "other" user-selectable category in addition to friend and foe?

        The top Soylent trolls are incredibly skilled, but I often find myself halfway through their posts (since I try to avoid looking at the author's name first) before I recognize I'm right in the middle of another post made by an excellent troll and have wasted my time doing so.

        I certainly don't want to assign trolls as friends, but neither are they foes.

        (Note to self: consider looking at GreaseMoney as a means to load up SN comments pages without having authors' names visible by default.)

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @02:17PM

          Honestly, I'm not sure. I haven't looked at the zoo (what the friends/foes system is internally named) much at all.

          In either case I'm not sure applying a modifier to someone you'd tagged as a troll would be a good idea anyway. Looking at the latest stats [soylentnews.org], our top troll percentage-wise only trolls one post out of four*, so you'd miss a significant number of posts by blanket hiding them. Maybe give us a little troll icon beside the subscriber star if we're in the user's troll list instead?

          * That's not where the post ends up rated Troll, that's where anyone at all has modded a post Troll. Now that I think of it, that query may even count multiple Troll moderations per comment. I'll have to check.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:02AM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:02AM (#395131) Journal

        Sometimes even a troll tells the truth. Hell, even YOU can't be wrong ALL the time. If you told me the sky was blue, I would still double-check, but wouldn't sit there with my arms crossed and go "Nuh-uh, this jackass says it's blue so it's gotta be orange with green polka dots."

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...