The form of critique that Stiglitz is talking about is not “neutral”—it involves speaking truth to power.
If a “neutral” position is what the DJT administration wants, then how do you explain the vast slashing of funding to the sciences? They don’t just hate progressives; they clearly hate science and its attempts to speak truth about things such as cancer, climate, and so on.
I’ll leave aside the other key issue: the DJT administration’s terrorizing of international students. This is not just a matter of calling for a “neutral” position; it is trying to shut people up.
Of course it doesn’t, and I didn’t say that. You should probably read what I wrote again more carefully.
Sure, people think they’re “speaking truth to power” etc. The problem is such reasoning can justify ANY partisan stance that they happen to prefer. There lies the rub
I don’t disagree with anything he said though! Good talk.
Conservatives have been fighting this war since the 1980s. They have been unable to win support in the academic world where freedom of inquiry and independence is prized. Most importantly, the only real way to gain power and credibility in the academic world is to do work that is recognized by your peers. So now conservatives are giving up their conservative values and backing state interference in academic freedom. It’s a sad day.
What’s happening now is now open suppression of fact-based inquiry and critique. It is a vigorous attempt to cover eyes and ears and mouths to seek to stop the circulation of fact-based inquiry. We could see this quite clearly in DJT version 1.0 when he didn’t want that ship to dock as it would have added numbers to the COVID case count at that time. No docking of ship, no new cases! Or so his reasoning goes.
Fast forward to the active attempts to suppress the use of “climate change” as a term. No use of this term, no climate change! Or so DJT administration reasoning goes.
And now by seeking to shut up students, faculty, entire universities, the same logic is being applied. No critique or discussion of an issue, and there is no issue! This is the logic of DJT administration 2.0. It’s transparently fascist.
I don’t support the reasoning behind the threat to tax Harvard, but I’ve always supported taxing private education in general. The not for profit excuse is a smokescreen. People who run these places make shed loads of money.
People like me (and some others too ) have been talking about unfairness on this playing field for years. Deplatformings, people afraid to speak their minds, people pushed out, etc. etc. with the woke always sure of how right they are. If you listened to some of the right wing activists, maybe you could have imagined something like this response, but no one expected it or in these quarters at least, wanted it. Mark my words, anyone hitching their cart to this insanity is going to regret it sooner than later. That being said, nice story but I would stick with mine.
Maybe this used to be the case, but the DEI movement of the past 12 years proves you wrong. If you disagree, either you are out of touch or in the club.
Right, and most of the academy leans hard left. The research backs that up
I mean the current administration’s response. Those guys have spoken a lot on it, and very well, but I never heard anything like this from them, that is for sure.
Surveys differ, but it looks likely that fewer than 10% of academic faculty identify as conservative and this has fallen over time. There are several reasons for that, but I’m sure people can see why Republicans view it as a problem.
Absolutely. They can fix that problem by doing better research recognized by their peers and having better ideas that more young people are actually interested in.
Or they can start their own institutions and do what they please.
The Federalist Society has shown how to do this and been very succesful in traditional institutions.
Is this a pursuit that should be done before or after they are cancelled and lose tenure (if they had it) at an already established university?
This nonchalant tone-deaf response is just as grating as the “learn to code” crowd when issues were brought up. Reform and a movement is preferable to accelerating the sequester of opposing ideas both academic and ideological.
When two sides stop talking to each other and only stay in their ideological bubble disagreements aren’t resolved rationally anymore they are resolved with force.
I call nonsense. Here’s the faculty page for Princeton’s Department of Economics. I don’t see any shortage of male white men here. DEI is just a bogeyman.
What’s more, it’s the same bogeyman that conservatives complained about back in the 1980s. They just called it affirmative action. The outcry over Alan Bloom and the Closing of the American Mind was just a preview of coming attractions.
[deleted in the interest of trying to disagree agreeably]
Yes, that is clearly what is happening. Sadly, it will do grievous and perhaps irreversible harm to institutions that are the envy of the world. Oh well.
That should have little bearing on how academic institutions are run.
American universities are incredibly succesful institutions. What happened to conservatives who wanted to conserve institutions and not break things that are working well despite some problems?
In the context of the United States (that is the topic of this thread, after all), I would venture to say that it is because the modern conservative movement has become a fascist fact-free zone. Of course this has no market value in universities, where positions need to be factually supported and defended.
Right, because conservative views = fantasy, and no gatekeeping was ever done by leftist faculty and administrators at institutions of higher education to stifle and obstruct opposing views.
) have been talking about unfairness on this playing field for years. Deplatformings, people afraid to speak their minds, people pushed out, etc. etc. with the woke always sure of how right they are. If you listened to some of the right wing activists, maybe you could have imagined something like this response, but no one expected it or in these quarters at least, wanted it. Mark my words, anyone hitching their cart to this insanity is going to regret it sooner than later. That being said, nice story but I would stick with mine.