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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: 3, Insightful) by julian on Monday August 29 2016, @10:06PM

    by julian (6003) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @10:06PM (#394950)

    As soon as liberals see someone write the word "white", they cry "racist". That is not the case. People of other races and other cultures are free to take pride in their own cultures. The alt-right simply says that it should not be taboo for white Europeans to do the same.

    Well I'm a liberal, and if I see anyone displaying an overabundance of creepy pride in their race I'm going to call them a racist. Doesn't matter if they are white or black or Asian. Racial pride almost always turns into racial supremacy. It certainly has in the alt-right. They usually hide their beliefs in layers of irony and pseudo-intellectual pablum but it never takes more than a few questions to uncover.

    I will agree with you that Western civilization deserves and needs defending, but here's where we depart. You seem to attach race to the Western cultural identity. I think that's an error. Anyone can be a Westerner if they adopt Western values. A black African can come to the USA or Europe and fight for liberal secular democracy just as well as anyone else; and they often do. Here's another point where I diverge from modern liberalism: I recognize that many of these immigrants aren't interested in defending and building Western culture. They come here and are resentful, they want to destroy what we have.

    And here's the part that really makes me a bad liberal: the majority of these bad apples are coming from one particular tree--Islam. But I turn the tables yet again by saying Muslims or people of Muslim heritage can and do make just as good Westerners as any white Christian. Witness Maajid Nawaz or Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Either of them has done more for Western civilization than any alt-right mental defective racist. I'd rather my entire neighborhood be filled with people like them than Trump supporters who share my skin color. I have absolutely no use for racial pride or for people so bereft of real accomplishments they have to cling to the achievements of people long dead who shared their melanin concentration.

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