2
0

Debate: Do Leftists Stifle Intellectual Diversity On The College Campus?


 invite response                
2017 Apr 25, 10:08am   3,187 views  16 comments

by Dan8267   ➕follow (4)   💰tip   ignore  

https://www.npr.org/player/embed/390254974/390448198

Good debate hosted by NPR, but with one very important caveat. Everywhere in the debate, the term liberal means "the left", not actual liberals. This is a debate about the conservative left and the conservative right. Liberals believe in free speech, by definition. If you don't believe in free speech, you aren't a liberal.

That said, here's my take away from the debate and my knowledge from outside the debate.

1. Both the conservative left and the conservative right use censorship. That has been true for the entire 20th and 21st century.

2. The conservative left uses censorship far more than the conservative left, including tyrannical oppression.

3. The reason for (2) is that the conservative right controls the government and the conservative left cannot use the government right now to push their agenda. Back in the early and mid-20th century, the reverse was true. The conservative right engaged in terrorism (the KKK), cross burning, lynching, book burning, and other forms of oppression because they could not use the government and the law to force their agenda. Today, the conservative left does modern, less violent but essentially the same, forms of oppression because they cannot use the government and the law to force their agenda.

In the future, this may reverse again. If the conservative left takes over the government, it will use the government rather than college campuses to push their agenda, and the conservative right would take up the tactics of the conservative left.

4. College campuses are dominated by the conservative left because the conservative right won't take low-paying jobs.

Basically, I agree with most of what the conservative right says, except of course mislabeling the conservative left as liberals. There are a few good points that the conservative left makes, such as student free speech means that student have the right to petition their college to not invite specific speakers and hyperbole is also free speech, but overall the conservative left does not support their case because their examples are not representative of the norm of college campuses.

More importantly, both the conservative left and the conservative right concede that liberalism, real liberalism, is the correct political basis for speech.

Do liberals stifle intellectual diversity on the college campus? Hell no!

Do left-wing conservatives stifle intellectual diversity on the college campus? Hell yes!

Do right-wing conservatives stifle intellectual diversity on the college campus? On conservative campuses like religious fake schools, yes. On most college campuses, no and no because they don't have the power to do so. If they did have the power, they would.

One final take-away, NPR did a good job with this debate despite confusing leftist conservatism with liberalism. NPR took a vote before and after the debate and based the winner off which side gained more support after the debate. The winner was the affirmative, those that said the left was stifling intellectual diversity.

@Patrick, this demonstrates that not all NPR stations and content are left-wing bullshit. Some NPR stations most certainly are dominated by left wing propagandists. But a lot of NPR national content and local content in various areas is rational and as close to unbiased as one can practically get. The quality of NPR program varies considerably depending on who is doing the talking and where. NPR in San Fransisco will be nearly pure propaganda. Not so for NPR Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, and Miami. Location and local station managers matter. Some NPR stations and programs practice identity politics, but clearly not all.

#politics

Comments 1 - 16 of 16        Search these comments

1   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Apr 25, 10:11am  

It's a policy put forward by Marcuse, a French hard leftist philosopher. Many 60s and 70s Profs read him and absorbed his philosophy:
http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spubs/65repressivetolerance.htm

2   zzyzzx   2017 Apr 25, 11:12am  

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-39692673

Avoiding eye contact 'everyday racism'

Staff at Oxford University have been told avoiding eye contact with students could constitute "everyday racism".

It is included in a list of "racial micro-aggressions" that has been published in a newsletter by Oxford's equality and diversity unit.

It described micro-aggressions as "subtle, everyday racism" which can be alienating.

Oxford University said the newsletter was one way of supporting its staff in its pursuit of equality of opportunity.

The newsletter said racial micro aggressions might include: "Not making eye contact or speaking directly to people."

'Trivialising racism'

Other examples cited were "not believing someone is British", and jokes drawing attention "to someone's difference, their accent, or nationality".

Emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, Prof Frank Furedi, said the newsletter's authors "need a reality check".

"It is almost as if they have become obsessed with the idea that racism is everywhere... and I think what they are doing is trivialising the real meaning of racism."

He added that the unit's interpretation "represents a new expansion of the meaning of racism", and could intensify conflict in an unnecessary way.

The equality and diversity unit's newsletter said micro-aggressions could be "well-meaning", and that people might be "mortified" if they knew they had caused offence.

But it argued this makes little difference if people feel they "do not belong" as a result, and said awareness of "subtle racism" was now included in its training.

3   socal2   2017 Apr 25, 11:37am  

Dan8267 says

This is a debate about the conservative left and the conservative right. Liberals believe in free speech, by definition.

Dan - where do "Progressives" fit in your political/ideological labeling scheme that tries to divorce Democrats/Liberals from all their bad authoritarian impulses?

For instance, Howard Dean has come out against free speech this week defending the children at Berkeley. Is Howard Dean one of those "Conservatives"?

4   Dan8267   2017 Apr 25, 11:42am  

zzyzzx says

racial micro-aggressions

Micro-aggressions are bullshit.

5   Dan8267   2017 Apr 25, 12:04pm  

socal2 says

Dan - where do "Progressives" fit in your political/ideological labeling scheme that tries to divorce Democrats/Liberals from all their bad authoritarian impulses?

If you don't use the terms conservative and liberal correct, I doubt you use the term progressive, socialist, and communist correct either.

In any case, those three things are economic philosophies, tactics, and systems, not social ones. They are independent of each other.

I'm a fiscal conservative liberal. I don't like the term "fiscal conservative" because it misleads people into thinking there's a connection with social conservatism, and there's not. A better term would be fiscal conscientious, and it's opposite is fiscal aggressiveness. Being fiscally aggressive is taking a lot of risk and debt. Fiscal conscientious means living debt-free, taking only minor risks that balance out in the long-run, and living within one's means.

I believe in personal private property and public property. More importantly, I believe people should keep most of the fruits of their labor, which is incompatible with capitalism, a system that rewards control over key resources rather than wealth production. Communism and capitalism and feudalism are essentially the same economic system with different classes. They are all centralized economic systems with a few rulers controlling everything and producing little to no wealth and depending on masses of peasants.

I believe that free markets are better than rigged markets, but capitalism does not allow for free markets. However, free markets don't work for necessities or infrastructure. They only work for luxuries and items that have highly elastic demand. I am essentially a Georgist at heart when it comes to necessities, public resources, and infrastructure.

That said, I am being completely honest and accurate when I say,
1. Damn few democrats are liberals. Most are left-wing conservatives.
2. The conservative left and the conservative right have much in common with each other, and little in common with liberals. It is dishonest to associate the conservative left with liberals or to disassociate the conservative left from the conservative right. They use the exact same tactics in the exact same situations. The only difference between the two of them, and between them and Islamists, is the arbitrary culture they are tying to impose on the rest of the world.
3. Liberals are, by definition, not authoritarianism. If a person born in Mexico and living in Mexico his entire life self-identified as a U.S. citizen, would you consider him such? If a man with a Y-chromosome and hair penis self identified as a 12-year-old girl, would you consider him such? Then why the hell would you consider a conservative who self-identifies as a liberal as such? That's hypocrisy. Liberal isn't a self-identifying term. If you don't meet the definition of a liberal, then you are not a liberal.
4. You can argue that liberalism in its purest sense is bad. Completely accepting liberalism means legalizing prostitution and public sex. Maybe you really don't like that. I reserve the right to say why you are wrong. However, neither one of us has the right to misrepresent what liberalism is or what our opponents are. When I state what conservatives believe, it's what they actually believe, not some straw man I'm setting up to make defeating them easier. There is no purpose to a straw man argument in an honest debate.

socal2 says

For instance, Howard Dean has come out against free speech this week defending the children at Berkeley. Is Howard Dean one of those "Conservatives"?

I'd have to go through Howard Dean's voting record and political history on OnTheIssues.org to determine how much of a liberal, if at all, he is. I cannot answer the question without the facts, so I'll have to come back to it later when I have time to do the research.

As for the specific incident you refer to, you'd have to go into much more detail, with links to news coverage, so I can get an accurate picture.

I can say that conservative-liberalism and left-to-right-conservatism are spectrum in continuous gradients of beliefs. Think of it as a multi-dimensional space with gradients along every axis. There are no litmus tests, only degrees.

I see politics as having many dimensions, but if that's too much for you, start by envisioning it as a cone. Three simple spatial dimensions with liberalism at the top. See the illustration below.


Liberalism Defined

I'm at the top of the cone because I'm a rationalist, and as a rationalist I would need to have a rational reason to reject liberalism even partially. I cannot think of a rational reason why two people should not be allowed to have sex in public and that pointing a gun at them and throwing them in a cage to prevent that is justified. And not wanting people to do this is not a rational justification for using violence to stop it.

The bottom line is that the conservative left, the conservative right, Islamists, and Stalinists far more closely resemble each other than any of them resemble liberalism.

6   socal2   2017 Apr 25, 12:08pm  

Dan - can you name any contemporary politicians that meets YOUR definition of liberal?

7   Dan8267   2017 Apr 25, 12:22pm  

socal2 says

Dan - can you name any contemporary politicians that meets YOUR definition of liberal?

Irrelevant. Even if there are no liberals in Congress today, that does not mean that liberals don't exist, haven't been in Congress before, or won't ever be in Congress again. If there were zero women in Congress that would not mean that women don't exist and are some academic construct.

And it's not my definition. It is the definition. It is what liberalism has always been. Just because some assholes try to co-opt a term with a good reputation for their own perverse usage, doesn't make all the people in the original group evil. If pedophiles co-opted the term "Christian", would you consider all Christians to be, by definition, kiddie fuckers?

However, I can give examples of famous liberals both past and present. The quintessential famous liberal is Noam Chomsky. Listen to him and you will always know what liberals actually believe. In fact, go to YouTube right now and type in Noam Chomsky on Obama. Watch the first five videos. Then tell me that liberals are dumb asses or that Obama was a liberal. Go on. This isn't a rhetorical challenge. Go do it right now.

8   Patrick   2017 Apr 25, 1:06pm  

Dan8267 says

Patrick, this demonstrates that not all NPR stations and content are left-wing bullshit. Some NPR stations most certainly are dominated by left wing propagandists. But a lot of NPR national content and local content in various areas is rational and as close to unbiased as one can practically get.

Given the article history of any NPR show, I could prove that the selection of NPR articles is grossly biased against straights, whites, men, and Christians.

Every single day I hear mostly articles specifically covering this entire list:

* gays
* blacks and/or Hispanics
* women
* Muslims

Listen for it. You'll see what I mean. It's a weird day when NPR's national shows fail to praise every one of those groups, damning straight white men of Christian origin by conspicuous omission.

That said, sometimes NPR shows glimmers of self-awareness into how ridiculously biased they really are, like the show you ran across. But that's the exception that proves the rule.

9   socal2   2017 Apr 25, 2:00pm  

Dan8267 says

Irrelevant. Even if there are no liberals in Congress today, that does not mean that liberals don't exist, haven't been in Congress before, or won't ever be in Congress again.

OK - since you admit that YOUR definition of Liberal is basically non-existent (with the exception of Cambodian genocide-denier Noam Chomsky) - why do you even bother with all this nonsense labeling in the first place?

There is enough real ideological differences in America between Republicans/Democrats...........Right/Left............Conservatives/Progressives.........without spending thousands of words trying to differentiate out YOUR "Liberal" that doesn't really exist.

10   Dan8267   2017 Apr 25, 2:35pm  

rando says

It's a weird day when NPR's national shows fail to praise every one of those groups, damning straight white men of Christian origin by conspicuous omission.

My point is that NPR isn't a single entity. It's more of a federation of local stations and syndicated programs. Some of the stations and programs are leftist propaganda, definitely. But many aren't. I can't think of anything I've listened to recently on WRLN that matches your description, but WRLN is probably a lot different from whatever San Fransisco's NPR station is.

I listen to the NPR news at 9 eastern time, The Diane Rehm Show (not off the air since Rehm retired), All Thing Considered, it's weekly All Tech Considered show, and On Point. I've been trying to get into the 1A show, but I'm undecided on that. Out of all these shows, the only one that I can remember engaging in identity politics is 1A, and to be fair, it was tackling the conversation of race relations, and how can you talk about race relations without talking about race?

11   Entitlemented   2017 Apr 25, 2:47pm  

Dan8267 says

2. The conservative left uses censorship far more than the conservative left, including tyrannical oppression.

See for instance the rise of Bolshevism in 1917.

12   Dan8267   2017 Apr 25, 2:48pm  

socal2 says

OK - since you admit that YOUR definition of Liberal is basically non-existent

No, that is not what I said.

There are plenty of liberals in the U.S. population. There used to be plenty of liberals in Congress. There were even liberal presidents like Dwight D. Eisenhower. The founding fathers at least attempted to found the country on liberalism. Benjamin Franklin was a liberal. Thomas Jefferson wrote liberal letters and argument, although he was a slave owner, so that's a huge contradiction. I'm not sure if I should chuck that up to hypocrisy or if there is a more subtle explanation.

In any case, the entire Age of Enlightenment and American political philosophy is based on liberalism. Furthermore, the number of senators who are liberal is not indicative of anything except the need to vote out non-liberals from both parties.

You clearly do not have the courage to argue against the philosophy of liberalism or liberal policies. You seem to only want to argue about calling the conservative left liberals. Well even if I let you get away with that, you still would not be making an argument against what liberalism really is or what liberal policies would actually be.

If you cannot find fault with liberalism, then you should simply accept that both the conservative left and the conservative right are wrong, and that liberalism is exactly what this country needs.

Let's apply the question to the topic of this thread. The liberal policy would be to let the minority political view honestly express its case to the skeptical audience on both leftist colleges like Berkeley and rightist colleges like Hillsdale College. The opposition should rationally debate their opponents using verifiable evidence and counter-arguments. Let the best ideas win through the crucible of transparent debate, verifiable evidence, sound reasoning, and refinement of arguments. No fake facts. No shouting down opposition. No violence or threats of violence. No book burning. No vandalism. No trigger. No safe spaces. No indecency laws. No anti-blasphemy laws. Just the truth and evidence to back it up. That's the liberal philosophy. Are you really telling me you disagree with it?

I can literally give hundreds of examples of liberal writing from the past 250 years to back up my claims. I'm not going to discard 250 years of intellectual writing just because you want a weak straw man to punch and label a liberal. You want to debate liberal philosophy or policy? Then tell me where Noam Chomsky is wrong. That's the bar you have to meet, not TrigglyPuff.

And if you cannot rise to meet that challenge, it means that you are wrong.

13   socal2   2017 Apr 25, 3:29pm  

Dan8267 says

No, that is not what I said.

There are plenty of liberals in the U.S. population.

Yet you can't name a single Liberal in Congress? How does that happen Dan? What happened to the Democrat/Progressive party of Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Bill/Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that they chased away all of YOUR good Liberals into political irrelevance?

I suspect that deep down you are embarrassed by what Liberals have become in the US. You can't defend Liberal's authoritarian group-think impulses that are routinely displayed on college campuses, so you try to muddy the waters and change up political definitions to project Liberal's intolerance and failures on "Conservatives" thinking no one will bother to call your shit out.

It is really not much different then bitter old Marxists confronted with the absolute failure and horrors of Communist nations saying: "they weren't true Communists, they were doing it wrong".

14   Dan8267   2017 Apr 25, 5:10pm  

socal2 says

Yet you can't name a single Liberal in Congress? H

I'm sure I could if I went down every single one of the 535 congressmen looking at their voting history, but I don't choose to waste my time doing this because whether or not there is a liberal in Congress a this moment is irrelevant to this conversation.

As to the Democratic Party no longer being a liberal party, well duh, shit, when did you figure that out? I could have told you that the democrats weren't a liberal party back in the 1980s while playing Jump Joe on CGA graphics.

In this country, you vote for the lesser of the two evils, and the lesser of the two evils is almost always the democratic candidate. Yes, the democrats suck ass, but the republicans are down right evil. If the United States were to be destroyed in a nuclear war, it most certainly will be a republican with his finger on the button. On climate change, the single most important economic, political, moral, and survival issue of our time, republicans are down right evil and dangerous. The same is true for human rights, civil rights, globalization, the economy in general, the national debt, and war.

I'll gladly vote against democrats consistently when the alternative is no longer some religious nut job who wants to hasten the coming of Christ or some greedy asshole who will destroy the planet to increase his wealth by 10%.

socal2 says

I suspect that deep down you are embarrassed by what Liberals have become in the US.

We liberals did not become anything else. Hillary Clinton was an authoritarian and a Goldwater girl her entire life. Is you think Pelosi or Obama were liberals, you have your head up your ass. Obama continue running a torture center for eight years and created the most massive domestic spying program in the history of the world. The Democratic Party changed, moving towards the batshit crazy conservative end of the spectrum. We liberals didn't change.

I hate to break this to you honey, but the two-party political system has changed six times in our country's history and is currently changing a seventh time. Political parties do change. That doesn't invalidate political philosophies. Political philosophies are independent of parties. You may see the entire world as us vs them, but I see the world as a complex machine with many subsystems, and as an engineer, I fix complex systems. The machine should be constantly refined, improved, and enhanced. That's called progress. There are no teams, only machines. I doubt you will ever understand this worldview. You simply lack the maturity to do so.

15   socal2   2017 Apr 25, 6:20pm  

Dan8267 says

There are no teams, only machines. I doubt you will ever understand this worldview. You simply lack the maturity to do so.

Ha! Dan is accusing me of lacking the maturity to understand a complex world? Says the guy who says this in the very same post?

Dan8267 says

Yes, the democrats suck ass, but the republicans are down right evil.

Or this.

Dan8267 says

republicans are down right evil and dangerous.

Or this.

Dan8267 says

when the alternative is no longer some religious nut job who wants to hasten the coming of Christ or some greedy asshole who will destroy the planet to increase his wealth by 10%.

You can't paint a more cartoon caricature if you tried. People who don't share YOUR version of "Liberalism" are not just wrong, but according to you they are "assholes, evil, greedy, religious nutjobs, and dangerous". You are just like the authoritarian Liberals we see in videos at all of these expensive colleges who are shutting down speakers.

Yeah champ, I believe you are trying to really wrap your head around the issues and find reasonable and workable solutions to complex problems.

16   Dan8267   2017 Apr 25, 7:43pm  

socal2 says

You can't paint a more cartoon caricature if you tried.

Irrelevant. It's still accurate. The Republican Party is controlled by greedy assholes who don't care at all about their fellow humans and would gladly commit any atrocity against those fellow humans for financial gain. There is no other word but evil to describe that.

Honesty does not preclude the ability to deal with complexity.

Please register to comment:

api   best comments   contact   latest images   memes   one year ago   random   suggestions