I'd like to challenge the core assertion: that conflict will necessarily happen. Then, even if we can adequately show it will necessarily happen, I'd like to challenge the children:
• that it has happened and • that it will/has happenened so much that it's caused a problem. My challenge lays the burden of proof at the feet of those who claim: a) that truth and social justice are in any way different and _how_ they are different, b) that the apparent conflicts we've seen have actually been between truth and social justice, and c) that this alleged conflict is somehow more critical than others that seem to be successfully navigated (e.g. between budget and class size or tenure or admission policies or cost or the peer review crisis, etc.). A second type of challenge is to the (again, false binary) idea that there are only 2 ways to procede: 1) choose a singular priority or 2) handle each instance case by case. Why not a 1.5) handle some based on a (volatile) priority and others by case? Or why not any of a large number of multi-objective optimization algorithms? Why does it have to be one or the other? You'll note that both the above challenges are the same, really. I claim telos can be multifarious and solutions to problems can be a mix of rule-based and case-by-case. Haidt says this can be done in an individual _human_... So, what is it about institutions that _prevent_ it from being done? Why do you assert that institutions are simple, whereas individuals are complex? It seems reasonable to believe the "manipulation conception of mechanism", wherein one can only learn or understand some thing by modifying it. Hence, the dichotomy Haidt sets up (understand vs. change the world) is obviously suspect. A university _cannot_ be one or the other. It must be both. Change allows understanding and understanding allows change. To artificially separate the two seems a bit childish to me. On 12/05/2016 01:29 PM, Eric Charles wrote:
Glen, Certainly one can follow more than one telos, and given fairly compatible choices one can typically do so for long periods without encountering conflict. But eventually they will conflict, if pursued long enough, and when that happens, there are various courses of action, and various consequences. One course of action is that you can deny the need to pick a priority, and thus handle every instance of a conflict on a case by case basis. That leads to schizophrenic behavior on the part of an organization, with difficult to interpret inconsistencies in the rewards and punishments distributed. Haidt argues that, we have reached such a state in many universities (to use Nick's phrase they have "passed a point of no return"). Conflicts between truth-seeking objectives and social-justice objectives are so frequent as to be ubiquitous, and the institutions are becoming schizophrenic trying to fully pursue both. Faculty don't know what to do (can we invite a respected expert on a controversial topic?), and administrators don't know what to do when faculty act (yes we put out a call for two-sides debates, but experts on both sides might lead to objections). The students also don't have a principled way to predict when the university will or will not agree with them if they voice an objection. It has, in many places, become a grand mess. The result isn't as dramatic as all this makes it seem, the result is a slow, but steady, decline in the intellectual atmosphere, as everything becomes ever more "safe." ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Supervisory Survey Statistician U.S. Marine Corps <mailto:echar...@american.edu> On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 1:01 PM, Nick Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net <mailto:nickthomp...@earthlink.net>> wrote: Glen, ‘n all, ____ __ __ I thought Haidt's point was not universal, but that we had passed some point of no return in the current situation. I have to reread it. ____ __ __ Somebody once wrote a very profound essay on this subject 45 years ago. Oh, Wait a Minute! It was ME! <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261728846_The_Failure_of_Pluralism> I particularly like the author portrait on the title page. ____ __ __ We’ve been here before. Clark Kerr vs The Free Speech Movement, 1964. ____ __ __ Nick ____ __ __ Nicholas S. Thompson____ Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology____ Clark University____ http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>____ __ __ __ __ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com <mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com>] On Behalf Of ?glen? Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 10:15 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com <mailto:friam@redfish.com>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Truth vs. Social Justice on college campuses __ __ Is there anything in the study of telos that demands it be unitary? Even assuming "truth" and "social justice" are fundamentally disjoint, why must a university choose one over the other when they "collide"? The epithet "linear thinker" comes to mind.____ __ __ Haidt's parenthetical is important: "But an institution such as a university must have one and only one highest and inviolable good."____ __ __ Institutions are complex, whether more or less so than the individuals composing them is debatable. But anyone who sells you with a pitch claiming that a university is a simple structure that must have a single arching _purpose_ is obviously a huckster of some sort.____ __ __ __ __ On 12/05/2016 07:33 AM, Eric Charles wrote:____ > Seems like the type of thing this group likes to digest. (Note, there ____ > is an outline of the talk below the video, so you don't need to watch ____ > anything.)____ > ____ > http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/10/21/one-telos-truth-or-social-justi <http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/10/21/one-telos-truth-or-social-justi>____ > ce/____ __ __ --____ ␦glen?____ __ __ ============================================================____ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv____ Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com>____ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> by Dr. Strangelove____ ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ <http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/> by Dr. Strangelove ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
-- ☣ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
