No, that’s a logic you’ve attributed to others, but not what people here have been arguing. They’ve been arguing that if you want to have a productive intellectual conversation among people with very different experiences and worldviews, you need to listen to what they have to say rather than just dismiss it, marginalize it, and/or treat it as a threat to your right to hold a different opinion. And you need to think about where you are coming from (and how that affects your views/perceptions) as well as where they are coming from. And if you persist in refusing to do these things, people will stop engaging with you, because it’s pointless.
But there seems to be an undercurrent that the only way you are “listened to” is if you are agreed with. I can listen to someone, turn over their arguments in my head, and still not agree with their conclusions.
You don’t have to agree, but you do have to show that you’re willing to refine or rethink rather than just repeat or ridicule.
In some situations (my guess is that here would have been one of them, at least earlier in the discussion), you also have the option of saying ok, but how can your concern be handled in a way that doesn’t raise my concern? In other words, you can attempt to problem-solve or seek/find common ground rather than “win” the argument.
Upthread someone posted an article that referenced “having to listen to the boring ramblings of white / cis / straight men” (I’m paraphrasing). The person quoted sure didn’t seem open to listening / learning from anyone who happened to fit that demographic. I guess that’s … different, though. It’s ok to characterize all white / cis / straight males as boring and having only first-world problems about burying their pets or some such, because clearly no white / cis / straight male has ever had any kind of trauma that could Ever Compare.
See, you’re doing it again.
Of course, a committee of cc could have helped the Dean too. Heck, a bunch of us could improve articles in the NYT. But so what? (Even the greatest of writers can always word-smith and improve, given enough time.)
Highly unlikely that is what the Dean intended.
Is it acceptable to debate whether Black Lives Matter is a worthwhile movement on a college campus, or is that inherently so offensive and threatening that it must be shut down? (Please note I am making no commentary on the topic itself)
No, exacademic, I actually made a serious point. Is it in keeping with the spirit of “I’d really like you to seriously consider what I have to say” - that you allege is their only agenda - to dismiss all white males as boring babblers with insignificant life experiences and minor life traumas? Wouldn’t one’s credibility be better enhanced by saying “we all have life experiences, I’d like to hear yours and I’d like you to consider mine”?
Wow, this thread just won’t stop.
@nickflynn, I’ll speak with the social activist (I hate the term sjw for people who are actually involved in things beyond marching around and yelling) I live with, or the one I grew up with, or the cousin who actually organized a couple of the protests in Chicago mentioned up the thread and let them know you said to be patient with me, thanks. That said, if you feel I owe you an apology for saying you think those who disagree with you are bigots or idiots, fine. I have occasionally been known to slip into hyperbole. Sorry to give offense.
@runswimyoga, I get what you are saying about picking your battles with kids and schools. We are currently dealing with a much, much, more mild version of a similar issue. My inclincation is always to push such things into the light, because if it is not obvious from my posts I think the way you defeat crazy ideas is with more robust debate, not less. But my wife generally holds me back. Not sure she would be able to do so (or even try very hard) given the circumstances you describe.
Since we are in fact all talking past each other, let me lay out what I think directly. Since I find myself to be both rational and reasonable, I assume most could agree on the following:
1)LGTBQ/cultural/religous, etc special interest houses or other distinct spaces serve a net positive educational purpose.
2)Everyone, on a university campus or in the wider culture, should have the ability to protest the content of any speech. This rule applies whether the protested speech is in support of Bernie or Trump, BLM or La Raza, Pro Lfe or Pro Choice.
3)No one should have the right, particularly on a university campus, to stop or disrupt another from speaking outside of a very few clear cultural taboos. These cultural taboos do not include anything that is a current matter of political debate in our wider culture or being a conservative gay man with weird hair.
4)The attempt to stop or disrupt such speech is anti intellectual, and contrary to the broader mission of the university.
5)Professors (not students) should have the discretion to determine whether the material to be studied in a particular course is potentially offensive or trauma inducing, and to decide whether A)the material is appropriate for the course and B) whether some type of trigger warning should be provided.
6)Trigger warnings, in the academic context, should not be applied outside of the classroom.
7)Safe spaces are intended to exists within strict geographic and physical boundaries, and are not intended to encompasses the university as a whole or the vast majority of its academic facilities.
8)Safe spaces/trigger warnings are not implicated because someone doesn’t like an email about halloween costumes, because an editorial is written in the school paper, or because a conservative gay guy with weird hair is speaking on campus.
9)The attempt to silence such speech identified in point 8 above by reference to safe spaces andor trigger warnings is anti ethical to the mission of a university.
Anyone wanty to take issue with something on that list?
Speaking of talking past each other, who ever said anything like what is quoted below?
To refine or rethink is to grant the underlying point. I am sure you know this. No real debate requires that one side make such concessions. You are always allowed to refuse the premise. This is indeed one of the major propblems with the idea of privilege as a “marker” in debate.
And if we are being honest, it hasn’t been the pro letter side of this debate that has had trouble acknowledging that the other side has a point. That is blindlingly obvious.
I can find a person on the other side who seems to behave as dismissively as I do isn’t “a serious point” that invites further engagement.
"They’ve been arguing that if you want to have a productive intellectual conversation among people with very different experiences and worldviews, you need to listen to what they have to say rather than just dismiss it, marginalize it, and/or treat it as a threat to your right to hold a different opinion. "
The prof in the quad at Yale did just that. He indicated willingness to listen to what she had to say and to engage in a dialogue.
The girl in the quad was the one who was dismissive and took it as a personal affront/threat to her emotional safety that she had to inhabit the same space with someone who held a different opinion.
So remind me who was advocating productive discourse, again?
Look, as I’ve said before, I’m a liberal, but I find some of what is happening on the super left wing side to be quite problematic in attempts to define what is “correct” speech and points of view, as well as trotting out an oppression card as a trump card (no pun intended with use of that word).
Any pro-Israel vs pro-Palestine debates on a college campus, for example - there is going to be one side told to shut up, and clue, it doesn’t begin with P.
OK. Very true. I have no idea how that relates to the point under discussion though. Care to illuminate?
Re “To refine or rethink is to grant the underlying point.”
No it isn’t. It can involve clarifying what you’re saying to avoid misunderstanding. It can involve trying to figure out the source of the disagreement. It can involve distinguishing among different situations.
It does involve taking the other point seriously enough to reconsider your own position.
Universities are (or can be) amazing places because (or to the extent that) they create environments in which people are routinely willing to do that with each other.
The Internet, by contrast…
Sorry, that was a response to PG’s follow-up post (929) re the babbling of cis men.
OK, say that is so. How is saying LGBTQ houses, etc are one thing, but using “safe spaces” as a vehicle to stiffle speech you don’t agree with is wrong, not “distinguishing among different situations”?
From my perspective, if there is any over the top refusal of the premise going on here, it is the persistent idea that Dean’s letter is 1)an effort to appeal to “right wing” donors because Chicago needs money, 2)evidence of a lack of understanding of the clinical definition of “safe spaces” or “trigger warnings” or 3)a signal that Chicago will not provide a “welcoming enviornment” to certain students. None of those things are explicit in the letter, and indeed require belief that 1)each of the various reported incidents of over the top behavior referenced here ad nauseum either didn’t happen or are no big deal and 2)that the express language of the letter is not intended as a further expression of Chicago’s committment to what it views as its intellectual mission, but is rather some type of coded message.
Seems to me that there is no reason to accept any of the above outside of a particular ideology.
“It does involve taking the other point seriously enough to reconsider your own position.”
I didn’t see any evidence that the girl in the Yale quad was trying to examine the Christakis’ position in any serious way to perhaps rethink or refine her own. I guess that was only supposed to flow one way.
When students at Oberlin issue a list of demands and threaten that there will be consequences if they are not met in full, that’s not evidence of benign and well-meant “considering other points of view with a view to refining their own.” They’re explicitly saying - there’s no room for compromise, no room to agree to disagree. My way or the highway.
“that the express language of the letter is not intended as a further expression of Chicago’s committment to what it views as its intellectual mission, but is rather some type of coded message.”
Yes. Believing this letter was a “dog whistle” to rich conservative donors (it wasn’t even sent to them) or, even worse, white supremacists (“secret welcome, KKK!”) is conspiracy theory at its finest.
There are enough conspiracy theories going around (hello, Infowars) that the left doesn’t need to pile on and make up their own.
Yes, distinguishing between residential/social spaces vs classrooms would be an example of what I’m talking about.
Personally, I think this thread says more about various posters’ hot button issues than about whether the different concerns expressed here are reconcilable. As I’ve said from the beginning, I think that well-trained teachers (and students) can create environments in which genuine intellectual exchange happens and where people learn to have productive conversation across all sorts of divides.
@Ohiodad51, I am glad to see you included the left and the right in point 2. I don’t remember you ever doing that expilicitly. Maybe you did and I missed it.
I don’t know if I agree with number 8. There were costumes of whites in blackface…I think there were derogatory costumes against Asians in the past that offended people. I don’t know where I stand on some of this.
Even if you don’t believe Yale’s residence hall was a safe house or should be a safe house, it is very clear the students thought they lived in a safe house because Yale pretty much said so.
The professors weren’t listening. Not just the couple, but professors like Holloway admitted he wasn’t listening. That can lead to confrontation.