"The Psychology of Progressive Hostility"

[pegelli]

"I'm a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me"

As long as there are professors fired from certain universities for teaching evolution I believe there are multiple sides to this story. It's not only certain liberals/left who are systematically intolerant of a different opinion from their own.

[Rob C]

Earlier in this thread, someone wrote about equality of opportunity being a right.

Yes, theoretically correct, but really?

Of course not. Opportunity stems as much from your geography as your parentage, education or anything else.

To anybody more directly connected with photography than is the usual amateur, it soon becomes obvious that opportunity, at least in photography, comes your way on entirely different a boat. It comes from where you live, how much capital you have, how good you are at what you do, and how much you are prepared to pay to get to your goal. You always have to pay, not necessarily in cash, but in the trade-offs that you have to make. Do you go to the right pubs? Are you of the correct religious persuasion? Do you have a good golf handicap? Can you charm the pants off Mr Big's secretary and get an appointment?

In other words, equal opportunity is bullshit. You can only be you, in whichever situation you pop into this world and with whatever kind of head that God gave you.

If there is at least one massive fault that I find within the world of today's young, it is that goddam sense of entitlement. Nobody owes you squat. Try six months of being a freelance at anything, and that kind of nonsense is forever driven from your head.

As with the old saw: if you do not lean to the left as a youth, there is perhaps something wrong with you; if you lean to the left in your forties, then you know there is something wrong with you.

However, today, left and right appear to have lost much of their earlier meaning and, where not interchangeable, verge on the extremes.

I do worry about the world my two grandkids are going to face if they reach my score.

[Bob J]

Earlier in this thread, someone wrote about equality of opportunity being a right.

Yes, theoretically correct, but really?

That would have been me... but the actual line was "Free speech is a basic human right as is equality of opportunity: but we have further to travel on equality than we do on free speech. " - which is kind of an acknowledgement that true free speech and equality of opportunity are not here: they may never be, but that is not excuse for not wanting (and working) to make things better.

I don't share your view of today's young people: they seem more sensible than in my day and have a better attitude towards people who are different... and I think we do owe the young something - we need to be sure that we pass them on a world that is better than the one we were handed, rather than saving up problem for them to solve... and this is quite apart from the consideration that these are the people who will be in charge of everything when we are in our dotage.. we owe them and we owe our seniors and vice-versa.

[PeterAit]

"[The conservative's] deeper grasp of the world’s complexity has the effect of encouraging intellectual humility."

The entire post is a gaggle of claptrappery but this one quote made me snort my wheatabix out my nose. Slobodan, shouldn't you have posted this in the A Touch of Humor thread?

[RSL]

As with the old saw: if you do not lean to the left as a youth, there is perhaps something wrong with you; if you lean to the left in your forties, then you know there is something wrong with you.

Or as Churchill is supposed to have put it: "If you're not a liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative at 35, you have no brain," or words to that effect. And of course that's quite true. We see evidence of its truth all around us; even, believe it or not, here on LuLa. Most often in The Coffee Corner.

But there's another component that enters into "opportunity." It's called entrepreneurship, and it's almost wholly genetic. I think of people like Henry Ford, Bill Gates, plus a host of others who've created opportunity out of whole cloth. Bottom line, if, by "opportunity" you mean the ability to advance in life, it's never going to be a "right" and it's never going to be "equal."

[pegelli]

Earlier in this thread, someone wrote about equality of opportunity being a right.

Yes, theoretically correct, but really?

Of course not. Opportunity stems as much from your geography as your parentage, education or anything else.

Rob, I think rather than accepting the status quo it's better to strive for more equal opportunity, even though the starting point is different. (btw, education and anything else are in my mind all a concequence of geography and parentage, and not independent variables).

Also I don't see what you are describing about the "sense of entitlement" of the younger generation. Around me they work hard and expect little else then a fair reward for their efforts. They have clearly figured out that with the "right" to equal opportunity comes the "duty" of equal and hard work. It's probably that second "duty" part that the youngsters you are referring to might have forgotten.

[Rob C]

That would have been me... but the actual line was "Free speech is a basic human right as is equality of opportunity: but we have further to travel on equality than we do on free speech. " - which is kind of an acknowledgement that true free speech and equality of opportunity are not here: they may never be, but that is not excuse for not wanting (and working) to make things better.

I don't share your view of today's young people: they seem more sensible than in my day and have a better attitude towards people who are different... and I think we do owe the young something - we need to be sure that we pass them on a world that is better than the one we were handed, rather than saving up problem for them to solve... and this is quite apart from the consideration that these are the people who will be in charge of everything when we are in our dotage.. we owe them and we owe our seniors and vice-versa.

I do think one factor has vanished: in my day, one did as one was told, mostly on the assumption that the older generation knew more than did we, the inexperienced younger; the sense of respect towards parents was usually still alive, for better or worse, as was the notion of not arguing with them.

I shall never forget the day when my daughter moved from primary school into secondary. She came home to tell us that the teacher had started the session by declaring: "I suppose I had better tell you about your rights." Can anyone imagine a more destructive teacher/student relationship? How on Earth was that teacher ever going to keep a class under control, expect to exercise any authority?

As for the world we may hand on: I think many of us have a hard enough time just making family ends meet. That kind of thinking should be in the safe hands of the politicians whose job, it might be seen to be, is to ensure the world is a happy place. Naïve, or what?

Yes, one should indeed work as best one can to improve the quality of life, but pretending that impossible targets are not met only because somebody else is "privileged" is a false pretence. The reason all are not living in that big house at the top of the hill derives as much from the fact that there is space up there on the top of that metaphorical hill for but one big house, as much as the fact that all of us are not equally psychologically endowed by nature to get a big house anywhere.

But then, only in "dotage" and with a clear rear-view mirror untrammelled by swinging footballs and/or saints, can one realise that one's own mistakes and shortcomings have led one to the position one presently occupies, just as much as can the über-successful see the other side of that picture and afford themselves the friendly pat on the back (regardless of what Schewe thinks of the dangers in such pats).

[amolitor]

It is unsurprising that academics, at least the lazy ones, would arrive at the conclusion that the left tends to the irrational and the shrill, whereas the right does not.

After all, it is on college campuses where we find the shrill, irrational, fringe of the left ascendant. If you look no further than a few yards from your office, you will find centrists of all stripes being shouted down by left wing fringe elements. You might, if you were either a dimwit or a right-leaning libertarian troll, put this wildly narrow world view forward as some universal truth.

If you look a little further, you will find that you're simply not seeing the right wing fringe. They're around, just not on college campuses. They prefer internet forums and their own network of wild-eyed foaming web sites. You'll find them on internet forums belittling everyone who disgrees with them, insulting the other side (and in forums where they are not yet in control, they will do it carefully, smearing "generalized groups" rather than individuals, and avoiding the use of a little list of words that have been ruled out by the impotent and naive moderators).

What you will not find anywhere, be it college campuses or internet forums, be it left or right, is fringees having actual discourse. Nope. They will simply state their positions over and over as if they were obvious truths, often claiming exactly that; they will attack whatever and whomever they perceive as the opposition by whatever means necessary, while painting the whole thing as a free exchange of ideas. Then, when the wheels fall off and people have had enough of the thinly veiled insults, the barely translucent instigation, they will spring back in horror, declaring that this was Never Ever What They Wanted. And then they'll do it again. And again. And again.

The name of the game on both sides is to smash the discourse, shout down the centrists, and destroy any attempts at reasoned debate.

[RSL]

There's a lot of truth in what you're saying, Andrew, but one thing you failed to point out is that though there are plenty of people on the right-wing fringe, not only are they not on college campuses, they're not teaching college kids. The left-wing college monopoly won't let even reasonable, rational conservatives on the campuses to teach. There are a few reasonable folks left over from back in the day who understand how the world works, people like Walter Williams, but what's happening on campuses often is indoctrination, not teaching. The result could, in time, mean the end of the United States, and of the free world.

The biggest takeaway from a study by research firm YouGov and Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which surveyed over 2,000 people regarding their views on socialism and the communist political system was that one out of every two millennials surveyed said they would rather live in a socialist or communist country over a capitalist democracy like the U.S.

In other words, these kids aren't being introduced to even simple illustrations of the disastrous nature of socialism, illustrations like the history of the Plymouth Colony. I'd also guess their professors don't mention Venezuela or any of the other socialist basket-cases around the world.

You're right. We do need reasoned debate, but we're not going to get it any time soon.

[Rob C]

And certainly not in parts of Britain, where invited speakers are sometimes not even allowed entrance to the hallowed halls, never mind open their mouth to speak.

But as ever, it's down to the scourge of youth: powerfull inexperience of what really makes this world go round. And coinciding beautifully with China slipping easily into another period of lifelong dictatorship...

On the other hand, maybe the kids are right: force, bloody force.


 

[RSL]

As long as there are professors fired from certain universities for teaching evolution I believe there are multiple sides to this story. It's not only certain liberals/left who are systematically intolerant of a different opinion from their own.

Where, exactly, is this happening, Pieter? And. . . how long ago?

[pegelli]

See here for one example. Google is your friend finding several others.

[RSL]

Ah yes! The Daily Beast. That settles it. Must be true.

[pegelli]

Ah yes! The Daily Beast. That settles it. Must be true.

I love it when people can only attack the source, it means they lost the argument

Btw, you're completely missing the point of why I posted my original remark. It's not that some of the things that are covered in the article Slobodan linked aren't true, it's the conclusion that hostile silencing of different opponents is the perogative of the liberal left. In my mind it isn't, the conservative right is just as good at it. It's mostly a "pot and kettle" type argument that leads nowhere and stifles true debate.

[JoeKitchen]

An ad hominem would have been "he's a right winger and therefore is wrong".  Instead, what I essentially said was, "he claims to have a depth of knowledge but checking his credentials doesn't support that claim, so that's not a good start to the basis of the article".  Then I went on to discuss other factors as to why I thought he article was lacking whilst specifically acknowledging that he's entitled to any view he wants.

If he hadn't claimed to be part of a group with special knowledge it wouldn't have been relevant.

I still don't buy this.  You could have explained where in his thoughts he lacks depth and then shown what was lacking.  However, just because someone lacks degrees does not imply his thoughts will lack depth, which is what you started off with.  You attacked the author, not his ideas, initially, and that is ad hominem. 

You should have just shown where the lack of depth was and left the personal attributes of the author alone. 

I can tell you as someone with degrees in Mathematics, and therefore had to study logic, your initial paragraph would have been considered erroneous. It would be like me criticizing the first person to prove a theorem because it was not the most elegant solution currently known and ask to have the theorem renamed after the person who later came up with the more elegant proof. 

[Farmer]

I still don't buy this.  You could have explained where in his thoughts he lacks depth and then shown what was lacking.  However, just because someone lacks degrees does not imply his thoughts will lack depth, which is what you started off with.  You attacked the author, not his ideas, initially, and that is ad hominem.

Only if you ignore the entire rest of my post that discussed the problems.  You can keep cherry picking and sniping and you'll be able to make all sorts of claims, but they will won't be true. 

[Farmer]

Equal Opportunity:  All this means is that, given the same situation, two people will not be treated differently due to characteristics which have no objective bearing on their ability to do something.  Equal opportunity is not about being equal nor about making people equal or providing special opportunities to some groups.  It's about removing subjective bias.

[JoeKitchen]

As long as there are professors fired from certain universities for teaching evolution I believe there are multiple sides to this story. It's not only certain liberals/left who are systematically intolerant of a different opinion from their own.

Does this really happen still.  It blows my mind when someone does not believe in evolution. 

[Farmer]

In a literally 5 seconds' worth of Googling:

https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/may-25-1925-tennessee-teacher-is-indicted-for-evolution-lessons/

2012, so not very recent, but recent enough to make the point, I think.

[James Clark]

In a literally 5 seconds' worth of Googling:

https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/25/may-25-1925-tennessee-teacher-is-indicted-for-evolution-lessons/

2012, so not very recent, but recent enough to make the point, I think.

The *article* is from 2012.  It references the 1925 incident    More likely today than firing a teacher for teaching evolution is the goofy tendency to elevate creationism as an equally valid subject for scientific study:  http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/316487-new-wave-of-anti-evolution-bills-hit-states