Posted on 12/29/2023 5:16:39 AM PST by karpov
Colleges and universities keep telling us that they teach “critical thinking” skills, but in reality they are deeply complicit in the destruction of the ability to think at all. They’re the source of a kind of mental contagion called “cancel culture,” an anti-intellectual phenomenon that encourages people to silence and punish those who disagree with them. Rather than teaching students how to rationally argue, our schools (and not just colleges) are teaching that dissenters can and should be silenced.
That is the big, frightening point of a new book by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott, The Canceling of the American Mind. Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Equal Rights and Expression, and Schlott, a journalist and podcast host, have written an extremely timely book meant to awaken Americans to a growing threat to our ability to communicate and reason. Instead of listening, evaluating, and then formulating a rational response to those who don’t agree with you, Americans are encouraged to “win” by censoring their opponents.
This atavistic behavior has become common not only in our educational institutions but also in business, publishing, and the professions. Lukianoff and Schlott provide many examples that will persuade anyone with an open mind that “cancel culture” is not some right-wing bogeyman, as some claim, and that the nation desperately needs to return to the free-speech culture that used to prevail here.
Consider this case.
In 2022, Hamline University art-history professor Erika Lopez Prater decided to show her class a painting of the Prophet Mohammad. She was aware that some followers of Islam believe it to be sacrilegious to paint that image and therefore took pains to ensure that no student would be surprised. In her syllabus, she warned that the painting would be shown on a particular day.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
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Dietrich Bonhoeffer concluded that stupidity was more harmful and malignant than evil. The difference between the two is that evil has its limits.
“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large group” applies.
As a Principle Engineer with 35 years of experience, I can say with 100% conviction that this statement, Colleges and Universities actually teach “critical thinking” skills is COMPLETE AND UTTER BULLSH!T
Over the past 5 years I have taught a number of “critical thinking skills” workshops. I only agreed to this because I naively thought “how hard could this be?”. OMG, engineering graduates are utter MORONS!! They attack problems head on. They grab their theories and examples from class and attack the problem.
Granted they have ZERO practical experience, but they SHOULD be able to examine a problem BEFORE diving in. They NEVER examine more than one side of the problem. They dive in and have NO IDEA HOW DEEP THE WATER IS!!! The last intern I mentored fit this example. Nice kid, LOUSY ENGINEER, but he did know the 57 current genders and various pronouns. ENGINEERING, not so much.
I wonder how many other professions fit my example?
Are we screwed? ——— YES
You just had to bring Congress into this, didn't you?
Guess I’ll have to be more careful when driving over newly-built high bridges.
Bull$h1t. Give an example. The writer gave examples of the Left cancelling opponents; but not the Right. Just stated that the Right does it. Gotta be evenhanded and all that? Sure.
From the article: "Rather than teaching students how to rationally argue, our schools (and not just colleges) are teaching that dissenters can and should be silenced."
On some threads, I have been called a "dissenter," as a "disruptor," and told to "rot in hell." [ verbatim ] I have been called a "Commie," not for anything other than disagreeing with a few on a thread, all the while agreeing with others. Yup. There are examples rather close to home.
From the article: “Hamline’s president, Fayneese Miller, stated, ‘Responsibility for the observant Muslim student should have superseded academic freedom.’”
Would that they showed the same consideration for Christian students...
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
What you have cited are boycotts. That’s passive effort, yes. You cannot seriously believe that there’s any moral equivalency between the concerted, aggressive cancellations the Lefties are practicing these days, and the mere exercising of personal preferences you’ve cited on the right.
On FR (not society at large), perhaps there’s an assumption that we agree on the core principles of the Constitution and the founding. So on FR, when there are people who disagree (within that microcosm), name-calling rears its head. I, too, a appalled by this. We should contend w/o being so contentious. Hey, it’s a new year. Maybe... we can try to remember we’re on the same team.
Our country has become the septic tank to the world and the “colleges and universities” are the pumps.
Same for social issues. Karl Rove and crew put forth gay marriage vote in 2004 and now the lefties are bringing abortion to vote, thanks Karl!. There is always blowback on issues, mobs ebb and flow. FR is a test case on such a ecosytem, how much has changed here since 9/11.
I would argue with my boss how his new idea might fail,
So he would ask if I supported him.
I said, if you see all the pros and cons, I will, 100%.
I actually got banned from a discussion group for giving one link.
It was the official Washington DC police web site.
(You see, they identify specific neighborhoods/blocks/streets/addresses/dates/times where crimes occur.)
There is nothing more dangerous that basic factual information.
This is exactly why there is so much rancor on social media, of which some of the Free Republic threads have become, sadly. Asking for sources is greeted so often with silence. Basic factual information is the foundation on which judgments can be made, and it is that information which is the target of ideologies (plural).
People got upset but they did not get canceled for that.
What they did get canceled for was calling their fans a bunch of redneck bambi killers that they did not even want listening to their music as they just wanted a smaller audience of "cooler" fans.
I know this will come as a shock to some people but when you tell people to stop buying your product, they will.
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