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I'm an academic (well part time) and my current experience is this: the kids are already "woker" and leftier than most of my colleagues even before we get our hands on them. They are mostly kids of Blue Tribe progressives, so they have already inherited a great deal of their world view.
They don't want viewpoint diversity and neither do their parents (generalizing of course).
What incentive does a university currently have to go against that in any concrete way?
Principles? Intellectual virtues? Fulfilling the ideals of a university rather than a 4-year vacation?
Okay, once you've stopped laughing- not running the risk of Trump (and possibly Vance) continuing to gut their funding and harass them with lawsuits for as long as they can?
Indeed. But that will have to be sustained for a while. If the next President just reverts all of that, then a few years is easy enough to get through for most institutions. That's my point. It has to be a sea change from parents on up. Academia is a symptom not a cause.
Where do you think the parents got their views from?
You must be anticipating I'd say... their parents? To be a little less glib, parents and family.
Blue Tribe people make Blue Tribe institutions. Which is the chicken and which the egg?
A brief look at the recent history of the awakening clearly shows the ideas flow from the institutions to the children, with parents having very little to say about it outside of "it's just a couple crazy kids on college campuses".
Does it? I can assure you in very Blue Tribe places that is not so. Maybe you can argue it flowed from Blue Tribe places to Blue Tribe academia to academia in general.
That protests happen on college campuses does not mean the colleges are responsible for the ideas those protests are expressing. As I pointed out the kids I get in my classes are already well to the left of me in general.
And why should I put any weight on your assurances? Because you're blue tribe and I'm not? It hasn't crossed your mind that I could have been blue tribe myself at the time?
I was there when these ideas were becoming dominant, and in the conversations I was having, their academic backing was THE argument for why they should be taken seriously. Hardly anyone could argue them with their own words, and without relying on arguments from authority. It's half cancelations became a thing.
Not at all. I'm not Blue Tribe. I just live with them and educate their kids. Academic justifications follow belief systems not the other way round. What you're talking about are the rationalizations being used. But almost everyone is not reasoned into a position, they rationalize their beliefs post hoc. If you refute their academic arguments it won't change their minds, because that isn't how they got to that position. As the saying goes you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
Just to be clear when I am talking here I am just giving my opinion and experiences, there is no reason for you to be believe some random guy on the internet. Having said that hydroacetylene also said the same thing above and he is a Red Tribe conservative (as far as I recollect), so someone in a very different milieu than I am is seeing the same things.
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