I know I'm coming to it late, but I did not find that article very convincing. The main problems are:
1. Nothing about the omnipresent DEI initiatives of the past few decades assures viewpoint diversity, and, if you are only getting people deeply devoted to DEI you are for sure actually quashing viewpoint diversity. And, by deeply-devoted I mean that academic job applications require DEI statements, teaching statements are required to highlight how your teaching relates to DEI efforts, applicants are judged based on "diversity" goals at the college and within departments, some members of hiring committees explicitly see it as their goal to right past wrongs against certain groups with their selections, etc. 2. In certain contexts there is very, very good justification to prefer a narrow range of viewpoint diversity over maximal diversity. For example, having a math department with different perspectives on what math "is" creates a positive environment for students to learn in. For example, it might be nice to have a math realist, someone with an aesthetic approach, a hard core logician-mathematician, etc., and you certainly want people who study different fields within math. However, you might not want someone who thinks mathematics is a tool of colonialist oppression which should be rejected from the curriculum. In fact, it might be problematic to have proponents of that argument in decision-making roles *anywhere *within an *educational *institution. 3. I have seen (when I was full-time in academia), and continue to see (via colleagues in academia) actual discrimination against academics with conservative views, and a ton of self-silencing based on anticipated discrimination. To use the DEI phrase, most faculty settings are not a "safe space" for them. 4. Most of what the author asserts to be secretly implied or covertly assumed or bad faith about the efforts seems very upfront and straightforward. 5. Frankly, the failure to replace conservative academics as they retire has created HUGE problems in this country. The conservative movement used to have decent group of hard-core academics and public intellectuals as a key part of it. The current trainwreck of ideas that pass for "conservative" these days could be, and could have been, greatly helped if academia broadly returned a good chunk of the prior support it used to give to people doing serious intellectual work from a conservative perspective. 6. While this obviously applies to humanities and social sciences, it applies in all fields. It is good for a chemistry department to have some people who believe in hard core merit and some who believe in actively supporting those who might have had less opportunity growing up. It is good for a chemistry department to have some people who see "less opportunity" in terms of structural oppression rampant within a society and others who see it in terms of individual hardship. etc. <[email protected]> All that said, for sure the Trump administration is acting in bad faith in many ways, about all things... but that's a different issue. On Tue, Sep 1, 2026 at 8:57 PM Santafe <[email protected]> wrote: > Agree Siraganian is wrong. > > I believe the etymology of the expression “red herring” was not intended > to be a compliment to the dogs that run off following it. > > In some lecture or interview or someplace, I remember Snyder making a > connection that seems good for the current situation: Authoritarian > gaslighting really works by adopting the main premises of postmodernism (as > it has become in its now-degenerated form; I understand the defense of some > of the original work). A thing Snyder didn’t say, which just calls out a > further point of context, but that I think is also within the center of his > point: in eras where postmodernism hadn’t spread as widely as it has here > and now, the need was the same, but the authoritarian gaslighters had to > build some of the infrastructure they wanted to use. For today, it is just > there at the Ikea where you can go pick it up and assemble it the same > day. Or, so widely distributed in Amazon warehouses that they can deliver > it the same day, anywhere. > > Another nice little frame I saw, from some commenter on some article, was: > > For my friends, the Unitary Executive Theory. > For my enemies, the Major Questions Doctrine. > > And then:I have heard (reasonable) people criticize Paul Krugman for > having lots of public opinions in areas where he doesn’t have a lot of > earned expertise. Okay; fair enough for that. But I think it is to his > credit that he started calling out bad faith as the central issue, quite a > long time ago (when I also thought that needed to stay the focus). Not > leaving it to irony, as Siraganian sort-of does, but being plain that it is > too frontal an attack to be winked at in irony. > > (And of course Glen’s point is also exactly right, but already said: it is > just because the notion of what one wants from truth isn’t so easy that it > can be handled lazily, and if we did less of that, maybe we would be better > positioned to repel some of this other nonsense, or at least have a smaller > vandal-group to repel over it. That could itself be an interesting > article, but it would have a completely different aim (solving a new > problem) than Siraganian’s evident aim in this piece, which was to > contribute to a struggle.) > > I noticed, somewhere else, too, that Anne Applebaum has now started to use > the term “predators” explicitly to refer to the various oligarchs and the > relatively small and connected band of people trying to end the society and > turn it into a CAFO. It has been about time for that term to be one of the > standards for a while too. Not just in the generic term “predatory > capitalism”, which is also correct in some ways but has been both > long-enough used, and rhetorically over-used enough, to have become > semantically bleached. Applebaum’s use is more specific and meant to draw > a role distinction in a place and a time. The predator group are the thing > that will still be here when trump is gone, and that is what the world both > knows and needs to come up with some plan to deal with, if there is a path > to be found through this that isn’t pretty miserable. > > Eric > > > > > On Sep 1, 2026, at 20:56, glen <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.aaup.org%2facademe%2fissues%2ffall-2025%2fseven-theses-against-viewpoint-diversity&c=E,1,b55AythETSm80UCsORPJraafH3z3tJu6asT6ZVhNKOP2vQ18isZEEIf7z4C3GPp5lj3OGTA_Qt38a-J92wtnOELDQdBiOHPtQqd5U3udVQ,,&typo=1 > > > > OK. I admit I've been a bit guilty in my emphasis on diversity. But I am > aware of Goodhart's Law. And given thesis 2, here, I think I'm going to > stop calling myself a "methodological pluralist" and use "instrumental > pluralist" instead. > > > > But 1) what Siraganian says here is simply wrong: > > > > "To promote viewpoint diversity is to be thrilled to have my views in > the mix, even if you think they are wrong, because either (a) they > contribute to more viewpoint diversity (the more views you have, the more > viewpoint diversity there is), or (b) they provide more views to choose > from to figure out which view is the most true. In the first position, you > end up not caring about whether a particular view is true or good, because > you care about viewpoint diversity intrinsically: What matters is having > the greatest possible variety of views. In the second position, you > instrumentally value a diversity of views; having viewpoint diversity only > matters until you can figure out which view is the best or most true, at > which point all the other views can be rejected." > > > > If the "best" or "most true" is relatively smooth from the 1st best to > the 2nd best, 3rd best, etc., then NO, you do not reject "all the others". > Such smooth grading has to remain contingent, defeasible. And my guess is > the gradation isn't smooth everywhere. It may be smooth for the first 2 or > 3 distinguishable ideas, but #4 might be batsh¡t. (cf. SynthID< > https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09263>) > > > > 2) Diversity remains a useful measure of the crosstrophic nature of > complex systems, circularity, industrial symbiosis, etc. So even in light > of Goodhart's Law, diversity is a reasonable *outcome*, even if it's > dangerous to optimize to that sole outcome. > > > > There are issues with all the theses she lays out. But persnickety nits > aside, her gist seems right. And you can't overlook the blatant hypocrisy > of objecting to DEI initiatives, but then arguing for "intellectual > pluralism", pointed out in thesis 7. > > > > This post is too long already. But I know many, here, have succumbed to > Haidt glazing. So I offer this as further demonstration of Bad Faith > rhetoric: > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fassignedmedia.org%2fbreaking-news%2fjonathan-haidt-social-contagion-rogd-pbs%2f%2c&c=E,1,ngAIsHPbOX56tMD3TLOiPP3zB_rDDRBGj6yCaK5XLPuFc14XPOHo1PAnUmR0cgLwf_aU1VOVbz2Qm4aIIhJq35Fz9wAOItW1lSLlFynYJZWGIWmgx6evchreXotW&typo=1 > only peripherally about instrumental pluralism. > > > > -- > > 8647 ⊥ ɐןןǝdoɹ ǝ uǝןƃ > > ὅτε oi μὲν ἄλλοι κύνες τοὺς ἐχϑροὺς δάκνουσιν, ἐγὰ δὲ τοὺς φίλους, ἵνα > σώσω. > > > > > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. > / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,Z3MoIzr2_gYwXuX-WJtLvRPuw4lrhGeRqwGco_ktfU4qQxaHJOmOv8h7QMo4q3phH_1bmuxN1YrArL9vwsmrlwLg4h5aQ--jFIBIjkqUV_3dZSnq0Of_&typo=1 > > to (un)subscribe > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,o6A878gmRtPOn9RwEViePS_tcms3qTJcMqxXPZx3Tkb5VVsg3DN3BwRifub1Y27kD8BXA2EcIdTAA5u_ss_n-HeWoDOugHR7cAovqEIe&typo=1 > > FRIAM-COMIC > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,4L88HNZqyH91Pv-TjJN8ZBC5prMxsVmwbT8EnV2BL55YaGf9xpqybKKdZXevcT9vNGfnKXERh-TdHqJkFi9pu4vaShGSjiFDpS-sbMcf7zMfgrrV&typo=1 > > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,dGOrN-AOox-kFvpdb0Dq2LmV2SHzDQkncfWAKefpZ-jFJiBypNbt-CvFkQf_lkDpmGDYeTJJ-klo5QXsqOKhhet4GxkDAa2L8OPx7YvTlbSWDCeIFEY,&typo=1 > > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ > > > .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / > ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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