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Free Speech and the Modern Campus

Posted by khalling 8 years, 6 months ago to Culture
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Provocative modern culture philosopher, Camille Paglia takes on PC and and historical perspective. (I do not agree with everything in this article btw) from the article: "Today’s campus political correctness can ultimately be traced to the way those new programs, including African-American and Native American studies, were so hastily constructed in the 1970s, a process that not only compromised professional training in those fields over time but also isolated them in their own worlds and thus ultimately lessened their wider cultural impact. I believe that a better choice for academic reform would have been the decentralized British system traditionally followed at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, which offered large subject areas where a student could independently pursue his or her special interest. In any case, for every new department or program added to the U.S. curriculum, there should have been a central shared training track, introducing students to the methodology of research and historiography, based in logic and reasoning and the rigorous testing of conclusions based on evidence. Neglect of that crucial training has meant that too many college teachers, then and now, lack even the most superficial awareness of their own assumptions and biases. Working on campus only with the like-minded, they treat dissent as a mortal offense that must be suppressed, because it threatens their entire career history and world-view. The ideology of those new programs and departments, predicated on victimology, has scarcely budged since the 1970s. This is a classic case of the deadening institutionalization and fossilization of once genuinely revolutionary ideas."
SOURCE URL: http://thesmartset.com/free-speech-the-modern-campus/


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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 6 months ago
    Free speech, whether due to PC or pure political coercion is, like freedom itself, less understood by youth today than ever before in recent history. As our freedoms diminish, we are led down the one way road to totalitarianism. Past a certain point on that road, there is no turning back. I believe we are nearing the last intersection that will allow us to bypass future slavery.
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  • Posted by $ SarahMontalbano 8 years, 6 months ago
    It's sad to see this attitude in my high school as well. But what can be expected when there is a stranglehold on education by the government? My classmates are all liberal, some even self-proclaimed democratic socialists, and I am quite a bit of a social outcast in that manner. Being a libertarian - or even arguing for moderate politics - can be a death sentence.
    The problem gets even worse as education gets higher and higher. Colleges are often completely reliant upon public funds, and the students themselves are inundated with government funds.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 8 years, 6 months ago
    Political Correctness (PC) is another form of religion where "correct" thought and speech is dictated by a central "committee of Nazis. 1984 is not a subtle novel.

    Paint it with this brush, and PC will die the death it deserves.

    The problem is that the paint on this brush attaches to other nonsense as well...
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 8 years, 6 months ago
    Hello khalling,
    Free Speech and the Modern Campus... in most cases today, that is an oxymoron.
    You know things are not good when a self described liberal democrat makes note of PC bullying from her own ilk that results in silencing dissent. The PC police are no better than those that burn books.
    "The progressive 1960s, predicated on assertive individualism and the liberation of natural energy from social controls, wanted less surveillance and paternalism, not more." Some things do change... not for the better. Even Ms. Paglia's nostalgic view of what a liberal democrat was is not the same as it now is. Her party has left the building.
    Great article.
    Thank's
    O.A.
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  • Posted by PeterG 8 years, 6 months ago
    This is similar to a point I argued a few years back. The foundation of the scientific revolution in the West was the role of Latin among the educated. A universal language within that class allowed discoveries to be disseminated in relativity short time. This allowed the replication of replication of experiments and cross fertilization of ideas. The ethnic/sex ghettos rejected standards of proof as oppressive and created tenured sinecures to provide a base from which to attack the culture in general and intellectual standards in particular.
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  • Posted by strugatsky 8 years, 6 months ago
    Traditionally, the people at the helms of universities, or associated with them, have been considered intellectuals. The term, by definition, means using one's intellect, further implying ability to consider and evaluate ideas and thoughts. Today's American university campuses are almost exclusively populated by people who have proven their inability to evaluate and accept other ideas, to be capable of logical and critical thought and, worse, that make it their mission to ferret out and eliminate any thoughtful person still hiding among within their midst. By a realistic definition, today's universities are anti-intellectual establishments. If one can shed tradition and inertia, and critically evaluate the pro's and con's of a college degree, except for technical degrees, sending your teenager to most colleges results in solidifying the thorough dumbing down received in high school and a financial burden for almost half of their lives.
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 8 years, 6 months ago
    What ever happened to the advice from adults that I grew up with---'Sticks and stones will beak my bones, but words will never hurt me'

    I was glad to see the author include the impact of Lenny Bruce during the beginning phases of the 'free speech' movements. I never liked his humor, but I was pulled into the concept of free speech, particularly the battle of how a specific word could carry so much negative weight compared to the scientific descriptor or even latinized translation. That was during the early days of my awakening to the control of words as a method to control thought, and the true depths of the evil of control and manipulation.

    Good find. Txs
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