A forceful argument I can relate to. I'd like to add one angle that may be unfamiliar to Americans: down here we have actually the following written into a specific law on universities (a rough translation);
"The function of universities is to promote liberal research and scientific and artistic scholarship, to provide the highest education based on research, and to educate students to serve their country and humanity. In carrying out their tasks, universities must provide opportunities for continuous learning, interact with the rest of society and promote the social impact of research results and artistic activities."
If "down here" is Australia, then it might interest you to note that 1 in 30 Australian residents are international students, and none of those people expect a liberal scholarship. The entire industry is built on giving foreign students what they paid for, and scholarship be damned.
If an entire industry "is built on" the needs of 1/30 of its customers either they're paying a lot more than the other 29/30 or the 1/30 needs are a superset of most of the rest or it seems mismanaged. Pick at least one.
Finland, although I am fairly sure some other European countries have similar statements in their laws. Note though (for marcus_holmes above too) that the word liberal is a somewhat morbid translation; a direct translation would be free, but the word liberal fits better into the weird North American separation ("liberal arts" versus "university"), which we do not even have in Europe as they belong together.
In a pre-internet society I think universities rightfully earned reputations as being the closest place to a true bastion of inquiry and free speech. There were conflicts and exceptions over the years, but generally universities would lead the way on introducing, refining, and testing the radical discourse that might later go mainstream (or not!)
On the contrary, in the 21st century I don’t think universities own this privilege nor should we pretend that they do. Radical discourse is now almost exclusively introduced, refined, and tested on the internet, then later brought to other venues (including universities). And this is for good reason - the internet is simply more efficient and with less barriers.
To that end, as someone who is not a university professor, I frankly could not give a crap about the state of universities wrt free speech. Every student carries a phone in their pocket with a cellular connection that offers all the free speech and inquiry they could want.
I really like this idea. There’s obviously a point where an idea crosses the membrane between individual human and human collective for the first time. And that is obviously not in universities anymore.
Except in reality college is all about learning class signals, the knowledge and ideologies that are required to become a member of the professional managerial class.
https://youtu.be/1hZylJp-pHo?
It's signalling. If college was about teaching skills someone who completed 3/4 years would get 3/4th the income boost. Someone who finished all their classes except their last final exam would get the full benefits. But that's not how it works. Sheepskin effect means it's the stamp of approval that matters and not the education or training provided.
I think this is a category error. A vocational school ideally provides training in skills that can lead to direct employment in that area. A college ideally provides greater understanding of the world, though general study in many areas, combined with in-depth study in one area.
Then it's always been that. It's just now it's flowing in a direction that a certain segment of the population disagrees with, so now that's a bad thing.
Yeah, right. When _I_ went to Harvard (of all places!), it was all about learning Physics (in my case) and being with other people who cared _deeply_ about what _they_ were studying. Everyone I knew there regarded all the final club / class-signalling arcana as ridiculous, humorous, and utterly irrelevant bullshit. Some people have weird hobbies, like caring about that sort of thing. Good for them, but I didn't have to think about it.
To be sure, that was a while ago. Maybe it's different now. If so, that's sad.
Did you go to college? Did you learn about class signals? Is that really what it's about these days?
I did, perhaps at Harvard or at whatever time you went to college, the degree was enough to guarantee gainful employment in a field of interest, so you could treat it ultimately as an enriching 4 year summer camp.
For lower tier schools and today, the degree doesn't open enough doors, and people aren't learning enough practical skills in college so they go into massive debt just to learn how to talk like someone a corporation/firm is willing to trust with their capital, with a piece of paper to prove that they will fall in line and do what is asked.
"Free Speech" is a popular outrage-generating topic where just about anyone, anywhere, at anytime can shout loudly about free speech violations because <someone they like> has said <something they agree with> and is getting negative feedback from <someone they don't like>.
A quick reminder that the Berkeley Free Speech Movement was in the 1960s so it's not like college campuses have been some utopia of free expression until now.
The reality is that free speech is messy. There are few true absolutists and even fewer, I suspect, who are in vulnerable minority populations. If the majority keeps telling themselves that it's OK to hate the minority, the minority has very little defense. That doesn't mean censorship is A-OK, it just means that the discussion deservers more nuance than most people want to give it. Angry polemics in the media do little to encourage such nuance.
If it was like this then there would be no need for such discussion, I think. It is not about argument and counter argument but about systematic censorship.
Sometimes I feel like people don’t have real opinions any more, just carefully engineered, flexible / shifty, safe, ingroup-signaling, one-uppy, cloutchasing hot takes and meme positions.
Before this scandal basically no one knew or cared who the president of Harvard was. All of a sudden, we all have an opinion.
I think the issue we have is not a culture restricting free speech, I think the issue is a media landscape that spoon feeds us emotional content to manipulate us.
One thing we can all do right away is stop blaming left/right/woke/trumpers etc and be a little more critical on the news we're getting to suss out what's real vs propaganda.
"Before this scandal basically no one knew or cared who the president of Harvard was."
Possibly because Claudine Gay was an academic nobody with no other significant talents?
Plenty of people knew who Lawrence Summers was.
It is a similar story to Mozilla. Many programmers know who Brendan Eich is. How many people know the name of the current Mozilla director without googling? Me neither, the only thing I know about her is that she was chosen because she offended nobody. Hardly a recipe for standing out in a crowd of other gray mice.
>Before this scandal basically no one knew or cared who the president of Harvard was. All of a sudden, we all have an opinion.
This is how all new information works.
And the highest ranking member of one of the highest ranking schools being a known cheater seems like a newsworthy thing (regardless of the motivation of those publicizing the information).
It is signal rather than noise, in that it can provide a more accurate prior probability to people about the brand name of the school and people coming from it.
I hear you. It's good to point out and hold accountable people in positions of power who are corrupt.
My argument is that (to me) I doubt a leader being corrupt is uncommon. Thus I think it's worth questioning why we are focusing so heavily on this one specific person versus a general story on corruption.
For instance, does someone have an agenda against her identity or political views? That definitely doesn't exonerate her, but it's worth sensing if we the public are having our attention focused in a certain way in service of someone's agenda.
In a market economy the producer sells what the customer demands. If some dystopic speech restrictions is what consumers want, that's what will be provided.
Readit News
"The function of universities is to promote liberal research and scientific and artistic scholarship, to provide the highest education based on research, and to educate students to serve their country and humanity. In carrying out their tasks, universities must provide opportunities for continuous learning, interact with the rest of society and promote the social impact of research results and artistic activities."
On the contrary, in the 21st century I don’t think universities own this privilege nor should we pretend that they do. Radical discourse is now almost exclusively introduced, refined, and tested on the internet, then later brought to other venues (including universities). And this is for good reason - the internet is simply more efficient and with less barriers.
To that end, as someone who is not a university professor, I frankly could not give a crap about the state of universities wrt free speech. Every student carries a phone in their pocket with a cellular connection that offers all the free speech and inquiry they could want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement
To be sure, that was a while ago. Maybe it's different now. If so, that's sad.
Did you go to college? Did you learn about class signals? Is that really what it's about these days?
For lower tier schools and today, the degree doesn't open enough doors, and people aren't learning enough practical skills in college so they go into massive debt just to learn how to talk like someone a corporation/firm is willing to trust with their capital, with a piece of paper to prove that they will fall in line and do what is asked.
A quick reminder that the Berkeley Free Speech Movement was in the 1960s so it's not like college campuses have been some utopia of free expression until now.
The reality is that free speech is messy. There are few true absolutists and even fewer, I suspect, who are in vulnerable minority populations. If the majority keeps telling themselves that it's OK to hate the minority, the minority has very little defense. That doesn't mean censorship is A-OK, it just means that the discussion deservers more nuance than most people want to give it. Angry polemics in the media do little to encourage such nuance.
I think the issue we have is not a culture restricting free speech, I think the issue is a media landscape that spoon feeds us emotional content to manipulate us.
One thing we can all do right away is stop blaming left/right/woke/trumpers etc and be a little more critical on the news we're getting to suss out what's real vs propaganda.
Possibly because Claudine Gay was an academic nobody with no other significant talents?
Plenty of people knew who Lawrence Summers was.
It is a similar story to Mozilla. Many programmers know who Brendan Eich is. How many people know the name of the current Mozilla director without googling? Me neither, the only thing I know about her is that she was chosen because she offended nobody. Hardly a recipe for standing out in a crowd of other gray mice.
I have to remember this propaganda is created by people with a very good understanding on how to trigger the outrage in everyone’s brain.
People on all sides of the aisle are more alike than they want to admit right now.
Just hoping people can turn the bullshit off someday.
This is how all new information works.
And the highest ranking member of one of the highest ranking schools being a known cheater seems like a newsworthy thing (regardless of the motivation of those publicizing the information).
It is signal rather than noise, in that it can provide a more accurate prior probability to people about the brand name of the school and people coming from it.
My argument is that (to me) I doubt a leader being corrupt is uncommon. Thus I think it's worth questioning why we are focusing so heavily on this one specific person versus a general story on corruption.
For instance, does someone have an agenda against her identity or political views? That definitely doesn't exonerate her, but it's worth sensing if we the public are having our attention focused in a certain way in service of someone's agenda.
Symptoms of a diseased customer.
Is it as perfectly market competitive as buying retail gasoline? No. Does it contain significant elements of consumer choice? Yes.
Deleted Comment
A people of weak constitution will lead to collapse of the Constitution.