- Why should a ‘diverse’ campus include conservatives who are essentially against education?
- Paul Krugman on the eternal demonization of immigrants by conservatives;
- Short items about Vance’s fantasies, his aim simply to get media attention, and Trump’s clueless accusations about harsh language.
Here’s a venerable issue that has an obvious answer.
NY Times, Jennifer Schuessler, 14 Sep 2024: Should a ‘Diverse’ Campus Mean More Conservatives?, subtitled “Republicans are demanding colleges embrace ‘viewpoint diversity.’ They aren’t the only ones who are concerned.”
No doubt there are deeply nuanced replies to this question, but the big picture is about what universities are for. Teaching the the best of what was known thousands of years ago, or teaching the best of what’s currently known? I.e., tradition, or education?
From the article, which was printed in the Arts section of today’s NYT.
Criticism of universities as hotbeds of liberal elitists and tenured radicals is nothing new. But more than a decade after conservatives turned “free speech” into a rallying cry, they are increasingly championing another concept: “viewpoint diversity.”
The innocuous, bureaucratic-sounding term has its origins within academia itself. But as battles over higher education heat up, it has been taken up by politicians who promote it as a counterpart — some would say a counterpunch — to efforts to promote racial and ethnic diversity.
That’s part of the key — conservatives *don’t want* racial and ethnic diversity. The article goes on, citing Jonathan Haidt and Philip E. Tetlock, whose works some accuse as being conservative.
But I step back and look at the big picture. What are universities for? To educate, to teach as much of the truth about what humanity has discovered is possible. To conservatives, this means teaching the classics, even the ancient holy books with their obsolete conceptions of reality. That’s why so many conservatives home-school; see yesterday’s post. So what do conservatives want? To block or interfere with the progress of knowledge, that universities would teach? That’s how it strikes me.
They already have whole “universities” dedicated to teaching Biblical literalism, e.g. Bryan College.
For them to claim a presence in universities seems to me like the Amish demanding a presence on the highway planning boards of our major cities. Because they would prefer the highways be dismantled.
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NY Times, Paul Krugman, How Trump Is Undermining the Economy in Some Struggling Cities
The latest example of the eternal demonization of immigrants — of the “other.” Who are coming to spread disease and take our jobs. Send 500 years of them back where they came from! The conservatives would say.
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Quick items.
- Salon: “We’re creating a story”: Vance admits he’s making up Haitian immigrant smears, subtitled “In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Vance admitted the dog-eating stories were a fantasy”. Why does he do this? So that “the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people”. It’s still a lie.
- Guardian: JD Vance admits he is willing to ‘create stories’ to get media attention, subtitled “Republican vice-presidential candidate defends spreading false, racist claims demonizing Haitian immigrants”. Or, put another way: he just wants attention.
- NY Times: Trump, Using Harsh Language, Urges Democrats to Tone Down Theirs, subtitled “The authorities have not provided information about the gunman’s motive in the apparent assassination attempt on Sunday, yet former President Donald J. Trump, who has his own history of using violent language, sought to blame Democrats.” He doesn’t hear himself.
