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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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:48PM (#394730)

    I've been working on trying to dig out the outline of Azuma's foundation for scrutiny for a while now (the benefit to me being energetic attacks on my own premises which should serve to help strengthen them by revealing any weaknesses I can discard). Every time I've gotten close to the crux of the matter where cognitive dissonance should start being painful for authoritarians-in-denial, she has not chosen to continue the discussion.

    Latest thread where I was starting to get hopeful [soylentnews.org], continuing down this branch [soylentnews.org].

  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:16PM

    Oh, I just didn't bother either believing or disbelieving her. Or caring. We are on the Internet after all. Where the men are men, the women are men, and the kids are FBI agents.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:58AM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:58AM (#395126) Journal

    Please...the only thing "self-owned" about you is in the sense of you constantly playing yourself. Anyone who's so completely un-self-aware as to assert their own independence in one breath and in the next bend over and profess pig-bottom authoritarian Christian faith is a complete basket case. It was silly of me to even waste my time on you.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:28AM (#395209)

      so completely un-self-aware as to assert their own independence in one breath and in the next bend over and profess pig-bottom authoritarian Christian faith

      The single strong theme consistent in both (individual self-ownership and authoritarian Christianity) is individual freedom of choice.

      (Since we've engaged once on my reasoning on some of this [soylentnews.org] and it seems that you chose to disregard my thoughts in their entirety as "irrelevant, fallacious, and outright sociopathic" with no further explaination, I see little point in re-engaging on such complex matters at this time versus simple, tightly-focussed topics.)

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:12PM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:12PM (#395319) Journal

        > The single strong theme consistent in both (individual self-ownership and authoritarian Christianity) is individual freedom of choice.

        Those words all make sense individually, but not in that order. They make, in fact, the complete opposite of sense when you put them in that order. I don't think you'll ever understand why, though, because you don't want to. From the sound of it you haven't studied apologia or formal logic much.

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