site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32051 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

24
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Anyone have any examples of an employee union that improves business for both employees and employer?

The most salient feature of unions that I know about is that they prevent the employer from firing bad employees, or promoting good employees over ones with seniority. This makes sense to me because unions get their power/support from employees that need the union more than the employer needs them i.e. bad ones. A prototypical example of the leftist high-low alliance.

But there's no reason it has to be this way. It's technically possible for a union to say "fire bad employees, promote some faster than others, but pay us more". Is there any examples of this sort of thing working well?

First of all, unions don't prevent employers from firing bad employees or making promotion decisions based on seniority; rather, contracts do that, and only some contracts do so. Moreover, the general rule is the US is that workers can be fired at any time without cause -- i.e., at the whim of the employer. Union contracts, in contrast, permit firing only for cause. What constitutes "cause" varies, but still, here is one benefit: Those contracts not only make it more difficult to fire bad employees; they also makes it more difficult to fire a good employee who happens to get on the wrong side of a bad supervisor, or who doesn't "get with the program," even when the program is a poor one.

Let me explain in more detail.

First, it is well established that managers of companies do not always act in the best interests of the companies themselves. For that reason, giving employees the power to push back against managers can often be in the best interests of the company. See, eg, Dilbert.

Second, let's analogize with tenure in K-12 schools (which, contrary to popular belief, means only that teachers can be fired only with cause, as opposed to, as CA courts put it re teachers before they get tenure, being fired "for any reason, or for no reason.") When I taught high school, I had tenure, and hence I (and other teachers) were able to push back on all sorts of proposals by administrators which were unlikely to inure to the benefit of students (newsflash: teachers know more about their students than administrators do). Sometimes that was about budgeting -- federal law requires decisions about spending money to be made by a committee composed of administrators, teachers, and parents. Teacher representation would be pointless if teachers on the committee have to fear getting on the wrong side of the principal). Sometimes it was about the administration pushing teachers to teach how to game multiple choice tests rather than teaching real curriculum. The list goes on and on.

Now, this is not to say that teachers always act in the best interests of their students, nor that administrators never do. Ditto re the analogous positions in private companies. Nevertheless, a system in which those in supervisory roles have unfettered power is unlikely to yield anything close to optimal results.

First, it is well established that managers of companies do not always act in the best interests of the companies themselves.

Very true. For example, managers are well known to keep workers who should be fired - either to maintain their "empire" or just because it's socially uncomfortable to fire people they've formed relationships with.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/real-dev.stlouisfed.org/wp/2005/2005-040.pdf https://www.nber.org/papers/w3556 https://pure.eur.nl/en/publications/cultural-influences-on-employee-termination-decisions-firing-the-

Similarly, managers - as employees themselves - are incentivized to minimize accountability and maximize their own compensation.

How do unions counteract this, in either the general case or even in specific cases like education?

were able to push back on all sorts of proposals by administrators which we disliked and rationalized as being unlikely to inure to the benefit of students (newsflash: teachers know more about their students than administrators do).

Fixed that for you. Sure is convenient that teaching methods teachers find boring (phonics, direct instruction) are bad for students and all the studies showing otherwise are wrong.

“For seven years in a row, Oakland was the fastest-gaining urban district in California for reading,” recalls Weaver. “And we hated it.”

The teachers felt like curriculum robots—and pushed back. “This seems dehumanizing, this is colonizing, this is the man telling us what to do,” says Weaver, describing their response to the approach. “So we fought tooth and nail as a teacher group to throw that out.” It was replaced in 2015 by a curriculum that emphasized rich literary experiences.

https://time.com/6205084/phonics-science-of-reading-teachers/

Fixed that for you. Sure is convenient that teaching methods teachers find boring (phonics, direct instruction) are bad for students and all the studies showing otherwise are wrong

  1. As it happens, I liked the administrators in question. THAT"S THE POINT: The nature of any organization is that agents, such as school administrators, often are incentivized to act in a manner not conducive to the mission of the organization, even if they are perfectly reasonable, ethical persons.

  2. Also as it happens, I support the teaching of phonics. But, that is irrelevant to my comments, because, as I noted, I taught high school, not elementary school. I am really not sure why you feel a need to personalize this issue.

  3. I note also that you ignored the specific examples I gave, such as pressure to teach how to game standardized tests, and pressure to rubber stamp principals' funding priorities.

  4. Note also that I EXPLICITY said: " this is not to say that teachers always act in the best interests of their students, nor that administrators never do." Why you think that citing evidence that that is true is somehow a "gotcha" is beyond me.

As it happens, I liked the administrators in question. THAT"S THE POINT: The nature of any organization is that agents, such as school administrators, often are incentivized to act in a manner not conducive to the mission of the organization,

Here's the most I can make out of your reasoning:

  1. Agents don't necessarily act in the best interest of the principal.

  2. ...

  3. A second set of agents will somehow fix or improve things.

Can you fill in (2)? The closest you come is "teachers know more about their students than administrators do", but you now seem to be backing away from this claim.

If you're not claiming the second set of agents is somehow better aligned with principals, what are you claiming? Or maybe you aren't claiming (3) at all?

such as pressure to teach how to game standardized tests, and pressure to rubber stamp principals' funding priorities.

Ok. I'll bite.

Teaching the mechanics of testing along with techniques for ballparking and figuring out certain answers are definitely wrong is not an unreasonable demand. I know there's a claim that "teaching to the test" somehow involves techniques that don't convey the material, but in the rare occasions someone has shown me what it actually involves it's mostly teaching the actual curriculum instead of whatever the teacher feels like.

If you want to argue this claim of mine, a great way to do so would be to a real high stakes standardized test from CA or NY and explain the mechanics of getting students to do well on this test without also learning the material well. A bad way would be saying the words "teaching to the test" or "game the test" with no specifics.

Teachers have no demonstrated ability to be administrators or competent stewards of funds, so I don't know why I should care what they think about funding priorities.

I discussed #2 at some length.

Yes, teaching how to game the test is not utterly devoid of value. But that is a red herring. The issue is whether teaching that, in lieu of teaching substantive material, is in the best interests of students. It certainly is in the best interests of administrators, which is why it was pushed. And it is why,as I discussed re #2, it was valuable to students that rules making it hard to fire me were a good thing,as they allowed me to continue to teach substantive material.

Btw, I am not talking about "teaching to test," which refers to teaching only the material that will be on the test. I am talking about teaching how to game the test.

The issue is whether teaching that, in lieu of teaching substantive material, is in the best interests of students. It certainly is in the best interests of administrators, which is why it was pushed. And it is why,as I discussed re #2, it was valuable to students that rules making it hard to fire me were a good thing,as they allowed me to continue to teach substantive material.

This is all kind of silly. First, it's remarkable to hang your hat on "best interest of the students" in the immediate wake of the teacher's unions utterly fucking their students for their own benefit over covid. Second, if this problem of "teachers not being allowed to teach substantiative material" is a general structural problem, then that's a damning indictment of the entire public school system, and we should be moving to the "burn it all down" part of the discussion, which would still involve abolishing the existing union as a part of the corrupt status quo.

I am talking about teaching how to game the test.

Curious as to what this means. It takes like 5 minutes to explain, e.g., the logic of when to guess on the SATs.

First, it's remarkable to hang your hat on "best interest of the students" in the immediate wake of the teacher's unions utterly fucking their students for their own benefit over covid.

As I explicitly said in my initial post, "Now, this is not to say that teachers always act in the best interests of their students, nor that administrators never do"

Second, if this problem of "teachers not being allowed to teach substantitive material" is a general structural problem, then that's a damning indictment of the entire public school system,

I don't know why you infer that it is a general structural problem. It was simply a single example of how principal-agent problems can sometimes crop up. And, btw, I guarantee you that it is not a problem unique to public schools. Private school administrators if anything have an even greater incentive to generate high test scores, since they need to sell their school to prospective parents.

It takes like 5 minutes to explain, e.g., the logic of when to guess on the SATs

IF that is true, then that just strengthens my point, because we were asked to spend several days on it.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats