All I can say in defense of Universities, Glen, is that it's hard as hell.
You're trying to foster a discussion a class that gets to the bottom of some
important issue, and some student keeps trying to veto the discussion on the
grounds that no such discussion should be allowed to happen. I don't teach,
anymore, but I was on an RG forum the other day where a guy kept ranting on the
one hand about the ills of political correctness AND paradoxically insisting
that a Marxist theory of science should not get any hearing on the forum
because Stalin had killed 30 million people. Now, on a forum, on can just skip
the post; but in a classroom, that one person can simply destroy a semester of
discussion.
I am also afflicted by my Deweyan voice, which keeps insisting that no progress
can be made to the truth without social justice at least amongst the
discussants -- equal access to the floor, no power dictating who can speak and
who not, full attention to all relevant information, etc. etc.
I can't remember, Glen, if you are now or have ever been a teacher. But before
you quickly condemn the Haidt article, walk in a professor's shoes for a few
days. It's ROUGH! Particularly if you have any idealism about either social
justice or the truth.
All the best,
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of glen ?
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 2:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Truth vs. Social Justice on college campuses
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:[email protected]> mailto:[email protected]>
>
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 1:01 PM, Nick Thompson <
> <mailto:[email protected]%20%3cmailto:[email protected]>
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> 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_Plu
> ralism> 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/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
> < <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
> http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>____
>
> __ __
>
> __ __
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam [
> <mailto:[email protected]%20%3cmailto:[email protected]%3e>
> mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>] On
> Behalf Of ?glen?
> Sent: Monday, December 05, 2016 10:15 AM
> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> <mailto:[email protected]%20%3cmailto:[email protected]> [email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>>
> 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
> <http://heterodoxacademy.org/2016/10/21/one-telos-truth-or-social-just
> i>____
>
> > ce/____
>
> __ __
>
> --____
>
> ␦glen?____
>
> __ __
>
> ============================================================____
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--
☣ glen
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