They don't have numbers and they don't have labeled units either. What in the hell could you even be measuring "wage rates" and "layoffs" by in the same units anyway? Number of times people are using the words?
This isn't about 'feeling unhappy on campus', it's about the ideas being conveyed on campus. And sure, that article said that 'students push back against opposing viewpoints' - how many students are left wing? The majority, as we all know and is mentioned in your article. It could thus be said that the vast majority of people actually having to defend their viewpoints are the few conservative professors.
The trend toward democrat isn't down to one professor or another, but the entire environment. The vast majority of people in uni are left wing, most professors are left wing and much of academia is left wing. You'd have to be very, very unyielding in your beliefs to not tone it down because you don't want to be outcast. Most people do this naturally and subconsciously. In addition, just saying 'non-ideological associations probably act to minimize conservatives’ social and political isolation' isn't addressing the question. This study doesn't show for sure and, fine, it's conjecture, but in my experience (and other user's here) conservative beliefs simply don't feel welcome on campus. Everything is politicized these days, even going out with a tennis society often devolves after a few drinks into 'fuck the right, amirite? *cheers*'.
The 'average trend' could be wrong because the vast majority of students are left anyway- that it moves trends toward the left despite this fact is actually concerning. It means left-leaning students become more radical while right-wing students become more sympathetic toward the left the longer they attend college. Also, that shift is only over one semester... and how many semesters do students have? The shift of 0.06 points toward the left. Let's say 4 years (the average), that's suddenly 0.48 on their scale, trending toward the left. Let's say that student then does two years of a masters degree, another 0.24. Then (we're getting into conjecture now, but I feel it helps illustrate my point regarding why so many professors are left wing and, considering the environment isn't changing, why would the trend?), the person decides to do a phd. A PhD taking 5-6 years on average to finish. You're then looking at 0.60 - 0.72. So on a 5 point scale, over the course of a lecturer's education, they will, on average move 1.44 points toward the left. That is *considerable* on a 5 point scale. You then have those people teaching students, in the exact same intellectual environment (trending slightly, or even more toward the left), hence perpetuating the cycle.
Wasn't it found recently that most studies fail to replicate their studies scientifically and the worst offenders were the humanities? I could've said that of the above, but frankly it was more fun to respond to it rather than simply dismiss it for your provided reason. Nonetheless, you can at least admit that the vast majority of professors are left wing.
Plus it really is to do with your point. This just in; people in camp x dislike area y because area y naturally produces followers of camp z. It naturally produces them because of the prevailing thoughts from generations of professors (each teaching the next generation a slightly more radical for of their own ideology), subconscious peer-pressure and echo-box environment.
Oh and don't make a joke along the lines of 'wow education stops republicans being republican'. We're all grown-ups here and, frankly, should be above such petty little comments. I've made the point above it's the environment and the result of parroting ideas from people who are supposed to teach you and want to, but end up parroting the ideas they were taught when they were in the undergrad seat.
I watched the American Civil War video Shaun mentioned and it's actually pretty good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcy7qV-BGF4
Just off the top of my head I can't find anything problematic about it. How bizarre to find it on the PragerU channel.
And my point is that just because something is a youtube channel, provided they cite their work effectively, doesn't mean it should be dismissed. My second point is that the right is slightly justified in it's lack of respect for higher education because, sadly, and as shown above, universities (probably unintentionally) don't teach students to make up their own minds, they're taught to parrot their lecturers.
Sure it's a failure of the lower education system too (i.e. 'learn this verbatim for this test'). However the fact that students emerge from university, on the whole thinking in one particular manner politically, is arguably a failure of the university system... which historically was meant to teach pupils to be well-rounded individuals capable of thinking for themselves and weighing up ideas.
You should probably watch the video in OP
They're not. If you have proof, you can challenge your lecturer in any graded assignment.
I have mate and I recognize that certain pragerU videos have glaring flaws, but I also disagree with some of the content in the bloke's video. For example, the strawmen the guy builds up as he's going (all youtuber 'slam' videos are guilty of this in some regard), such as the time he went 'there is no single feminism, it's not a boogeymonster' in the smarmiest voice possible. Prager, in that context, was clearly referring to current mainstream feminist thought and talking points.
But whatever, we've argued a hundred times on this forum and you're clearly not changing your views. I change mine often as, grudgingly, you and other left-wing posters make good points, but it seems my good points always float downriver. Funny... it feels like I'm back in uni again.
Don't you think it's dangerous to simply extrapolate the data like that? I recommend you read the whole article. It's not one study, it's a years long collection of them. It feels that you only focused on the tidbits I posted.
Which, by the way, debunk this. The 0.06 change you are so confident in extrapolating occurs irrespective of the professor's leaning. We literally just went over this.
Read the whole thing. It makes sense, if you are going to be spreading information on this topic, that you make sure it's information you can stand by with good research and argumentation, and this article offers plenty of arguments you can use for your position. Just don't absorb only the things you agree with, like you did above.
It's a zero sum game, mate. Coming from a humanities background, you can often count the relevant and good conservative historian viewpoints on one hand (because there's less of them). They're usually also dated, so essentially useless, you get marked down for 'not being up to date academically'. They're dated because we rarely churn out prominent conservative academics anymore due, evidently, to the education system which nudges each concurrent generation slightly more to the left. The best you can often do when mentioning them is mention their points and make a vain attempt to return them to the discourse, because left wing academics won the argument in the 80s (because there was no-one left to argue with them) and now all they do is argue over the finer points of how they should use the lens of their shared ideology to view the subject matter.
Want to make your own point? Oh, where are your sources and where does this academic trail of thought come from? Oh, there's no previous academic trail of thought? Well you haven't interacted with academia enough, marked down.
Honestly, uni professors are smart people. They're not gonna mark your essay down just because you argue a point they don't like. It's just the entire system is so weighted toward the left it's insanely difficult to actually even make other points. Real talk, on one topic of history I straight up had a professor say to me, 'Right, all other avenues of discussion on this topic are dead except for whether to examine it through a marxist or a feminist historical perspective. I highly recommend you focus your essays appropriately'.
You are literally claiming that "right-wing" viewpoints don't exist in academia as part of a grand conspiracy by the "left-wing" academics who run the entire thing from the inside out. The far simpler explanation is that these "right-wing" viewpoints haven't been able to stay relevant because they were successfuly discredited, and it is the fault of people peddling these viewpoints for not being able to defend them.
I came into this honestly, posting a thorough series of studies, with evidence both for and against my position, highlighting bits for ease of reading. I avoided using my own words to set it up, precisely so that the article wouldn't come off as leaning any way but what the author intended. It's disheartening to see that you discounted it as an attempt at a "slam" before giving it any serious thought, that you don't see any of it as information to be absorbed, but only as arguments that, already, you predict you'll disagree with.
Point me to where I have denied this? If this series of over-defensive outbursts tells me anything, it's that you're incredibly eager to assume, and to take things as personal attacks. Perhaps it is exactly this kind of attitude that people here are pointing to, when they talk of unfounded, overblown victimization by conservatives in an attempt not to delve deeper into the truth, as was my intention with the research you ignored, but to score political points, as you do when you discard any possibility of me being genuine to, instead, frame this discussion as a game of us vs. them.
Your point was this
You're saying their definition was clear. I am saying it's not, as it's heavily debated. I'm not saying you should define every word you use, but this is quite obviously a relevant thing to bring up when the topic is, specifically, how clear a definition is.
You know I’ve always found this ‘extreme leftist bias’ in universities kind of preposterous and always either parroted by STEM students or people who haven’t actually been. How many subjects would be open to this leftist bias? Economics education is anything but leftist for example. Hell, a PPE (Philosophy, Politics & Economics) degree over here is a ticket to the Tory party.
I mean to be fair Anglo-American (maybe not the right term - NA/UK) universities have a reputation for having very left-leaning student populations at least around here. I would say that some disciplines are fairly open to bias, since some disciplines just have a hard time being scientific; here you could probably mention economics or many forms of social studies.
With that said, my feeling is that it's mostly a product of the student population, not the teachers trying to push any particular world view - as in, I don't think this necessarily carries over to loads of bias in the teaching itself.
In JP's defence I had a left leaning university professor say that all bankers and brokers should be locked up and tortured. My father is a broker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIwKhX-1gZQ&feature=youtu.be&t=38
This is basically how i know about PragerU
A lot of people are getting the same. There's threads on google product forums and reddit about it. And from what I've noticed; it's being targeted at a lot of left leaning people.
Universities naturally tend to be more left wing, because that's inherent if you want to do progressive and open research. Research strives from new ideas and improving upon existing ones, so naturally it wouldn't make sense for the majority to be conservative. I don't see the problem with that.
I've had people say to my face that police should be rounded up and killed, and I've had one or two professors say less violent things in the same vein, and my father was a cop. But I can also distinctly remember one of my high school teachers telling us about how Obama was gonna rob us of our liberties and steal our guns. In my experience these people are the exceptions rather than the norm, and more often than not they have good reason to be upset but they're exaggerating for effect.
No I actually am seeing more ANTI alt-right videos. I'm familiar with the other problem. I've watched some of Destiny's debates with alt-righters and immediately got the "JP DESTROYS FEMINIST" crap showing up.
Except your "don't you try and make a joke" point does actually have some basis in reality - at least in the US.
Because Republican talking points include "climate change is fake / not affected by humans", "evolution is dumb", "trickle-down economics works", and "you can totally let the free market get rid of social discrimination".
All of which are demonstrably false.
Sure, there's some peer pressure involved, but many republican beliefs are provably wrong.
Also you don't actually have any proof of "the professors are only turning more left-wing because they want to make a name for themselves".
It doesn't even make sense. If they want to make a name for themselves, wouldn't they have an equal chance of deciding to go more right-wing instead?
Or sideways?
PragerU is about as full of shit and deceptive as you can get
But the academic institutions in america are certainly falling to biases.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg
Pretty interesting look into the process of how scientific papers are being disseminated and the possible flaws that exist in that system.
Honestly mate, come on, you show up in every vaguely political thread and argue for your chosen camp, which is honestly fair enough, that's your right, but please don't pretend that you innocently posted that study without thinking that you were scoring a political point (especially looking at the bits you chose to highlight for 'ease of reading').
It's good you haven't denied universities have a problem though, because they do. I don't care a jot for what you post as 'personal attacks' but when you directly quote me, posting a tidbit of a study that disagrees with what I just wrote, highlight parts that disagree with my post for emphasis, then don't comment yourself ('to not set it up') and then chastise me of not reading the entire study and only responding to the parts you emphasized, how else am I meant to take it? If you were really just posting it because it was relevant to the ongoing discussion, why tag me specifically in it?
I don't care for an 'us vs them', I hate 'camps', which is why I feel this is such a problem and am so willing to post about it. If you want to ignore my points, fine, but don't post a study, gloss over my response to it (which fairly said that the trend in the study does indicate a problem), and then dare to say 'oh you're turning this into an us vs them situation'.
Come on mate, it's clear the kind of feminist thought that pragerU is trying to debate. I.e. the radical feminism we're seeing a lot more of and people who watch pragerU get really angry at.
I never said it was some 'grand conspiracy', it just happens naturally. People who hold certain views find an environment that supports their views, they don't leave and perpetuate the views that formed a part of that environment further.
'Right wing viewpoints', in my field of study at least, were never 'successfully discredited', they just ran out of champions to put them across because modern historians, products of their education, find the points they made distasteful.
I went to university, found it to be exactly like a leftist indoctrination camp that people have argued. We had speakers banned because the university were afraid they'd say something controversial. Others got banned after the university didn't like the content of their speeches and some students complained. We had to use jazz hands at certain events to 'avoid triggering people'. We had gender neutral bathrooms. The university built 'safe rooms' for people who felt triggered. Left-wing marches and campaigns went on with hundreds in attendance, while right-wing and 'free speech society' events were cancelled due to the 'fear of bomb threats'. All in all, and adding to that the general environment in which you feel afraid to voice your opinions in case you get socially ostracized, it's easy to see why people think that way. Remember on the past page a study was posted that found that students move slightly more left every semester?
I'm not just saying that having leftist professors is wrong- what I'm saying is that leftist professors, with implicit maybe unconscious bias, in addition to the general environment and all the relevant academic materials in use being the result of close to 40 years of overwhelming left-wing dominance intellectually.
It's good too be progressive in STEM research, sure, it's essential to scientific progress. Being 'progressive' in social studies is another thing entirely and is arguably where a substantial portion of the political friction comes from (no surprises there though). Shouldn't you question matters if the vast majority of people who go through a system end up largely in one political camp? It speaks of an implicit bias that is being imparted upon the people who got through the system- are they really being taught to think for themselves or are they being taught to think and see the world in a certain way?
They want to make a name for themselves, but their studies have pushed them to think one way politically. Hence they would be highly dishonest if only to make a name for themselves they argued for points they deep down disagreed with. Wouldn't it be anathema to you to build a career over 40 years long on the bedrock of ideas you don't like? This is the point, going sideways in academia these days is like changing the discussion from a marxist lens to a feminist one and then arguing you're right.
All of those things are dumb, I think republicans are largely dumb. I come from the UK and studied there, where politics is a lot more nuanced and less retarded. But the impetus here isn't democrat-republican, it's leftwing-rightwing and if you're seeing people go through a system and come out largely thinking one way, there is undeniably a problem.
🤔
They found the points they made distasteful.... so they discredited them. That's how it works. The idea that these "right-wing" academics just suddenly started getting ignored out of spite alone is a fiction that only exists in your mind.
surely the link between education and left wing beliefs must be an illuminati conspiracy! would you like fries with that
Not reading it is fine, discounting the article without reading it is a whole other thing. And you can say it's not an us vs. them but, when I read this
Where you predict we'll disagree over an article you hadn't even read, it's difficult to believe we're not changing each other's minds because we're both unwilling. It just sounds like you're projecting your own unwillingness onto me, don't blame me for not appreciating it
Anyway, yes, I know the kind of feminism you and PragerU are talking about. The debate is over the significance of radicalism in modern-day feminist thinking. That's why the definition is important.
For instance, "mainstream feminist thought" and "radical feminism we're seeing a lot more of" don't necessarily paint the same picture. One implies the radicals are popular and a majority, the other not so much.
PragerU does not define it better, they do it worse. In the video, it's just "feminism". So yes, I think it's perfectly fine that Shaun took issue with it, and reinforced that it's not a monolithic ideology. You're free to take issue with his 'smarmy voice', but what is wrong with his argument?
I am fine with tackling extreme feminism, just not dishonestly. Which is what PragerU's video does when it goes way overboard, denouncing all of feminism as extreme. It takes issue with the broadest possible definition of the term. It paints anyone who would identify with the label as a man-hating nutjob. It completely misunderstands the concept of toxic masculinity. Whether you and I can tell who, specifically, PragerU is talking about, does not change the fact they aren't trying to be specific in the slightest. They want it to be a huge issue, that's the narrative of their dishonest right-wing propaganda. And just in case this isn't settled yet, the problematic words here are "dishonest" and "propaganda", not "right-wing"
I'm sorry but do you posses a humanities degree? I do. There is a growing and noticeable lack of historians in various, but all right-wing, schools of thought. They were never discredited- they just fell by the wayside as the historians who argued those points died and weren't replaced.
I wrote that in response to your second post, which wholly glossed over my points after having read your first post. To me it seemed clear that you wanted to disagree and not listen to my points (hence not changing your mind)- as you ignored the vast majority of what I wrote. I was predicting we'd disagree before you chastised me for not reading your article. You never made a point that I should perhaps read it and you even say you bolded part of the post for emphasis (the impetus thus being that that was the pertinent part you were bringing to my attention). I'd say it's very natural, as I have above, that in the context I was fairly justified in thinking you were posting it to disagree specifically with me. Especially given your previous posting history and the debates we've previously enjoyed.
As for the feminism thing, yeah it's clear pragerU are trying to con people who can't tell what they mean into thinking all feminism is bad. As you and I clearly understand what they mean, I fail to see where we don't agree on this other than your opinion the lad doing a smarmy voice isn't wrong. I personally reckon that clearly shows his bias, as unlike you, he wants to tell his own viewers that all feminism is fine and dandy and there aren't any issues. It's the same shoe on a different youtube channel.
Making a judgement only on the bits I posted is fine (because you read them), making a judgement on the article as a whole, isn't (because you haven't read that). Your reply to the piece looked like it was passing judgement on it as a whole. I didn't address the rest of your points because I thought they were predicated on you misunderstanding the research. For example, you make a lot of points as if they ran contrary to his position, when he actually validates many of the things you've said, and even mentions his own experiences avoiding radical professors. Don't you think entering a discussion telling yourself "I won't change his mind, he won't change mine" makes for a mindset that perpetuates the very thing it describes?
PragerU's description of feminism, as per your posts, has gone from
to
and now
Which one is it? Is Prager making a clear reference to the most popular, widely accepted idea of feminism, as the first one implies? To fringe groups gaining traction as your second argument states? Or is it a con, something which is inherently misleading?
You have now argued that they're both clear and deceptive. Do I even need to say why this is stupid
I don't need a humanities degree to tell you that you are wrong
You have still to actually substantiate your claim. You still need to bring up examples of "right-wing" scholars whose ideas have been suppressed, and you need to prove that it was due to their political orientation.
I am well within my rights to stand here and tell you that you are wrong, simply because if you could substantiate your ridiculous claims, you would already have done so. Instead, you've tried to plea pity for the poor, overlooked "right-wing" humanities degree and play the "both sides are equally as biased and therefore wrong" card.
Dangerous people are teaching our highly impressionable adults.
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