‘Go to Berkeley’: Ron DeSantis said students seeking ‘woke’ classes should study elsewhere

[Ana the Ist]

As a matter of principle, the government has no place for determining what constitutes a distortion of history.

In all fairness, the NYT billed the 1619 Project as a "reframing of US history". If that includes fictional narratives,it's distortion.

As for your point though....what about historians? Can they point out distortions?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Yes, Common Core - I couldn’t think of the right phrase. This was for elementary and high schools - what should be taught at each grade so the results could be compared to understand which teaching methods are most effective. What’s being taught can vary enough to make pedagogical comparisons difficult or invalid.

Apparently studying ancient history, anthropology and geology can be, um not so much indoctrinating as de-indoctrinating. Bart Ehrman is a good example.

If you're unaware of how wildly different higher education is today than it was back in Ehrman's day....then it's difficult to understand why this is happening.

Want an academic job? Start preparing your DEI statement.

More universities than ever are now requiring lengthy DEI statements from job applicants. Is that good for academic freedom?

reason.com

Political indoctrination isn't just for the students.

 

[wing2000]

In all fairness, the NYT billed the 1619 Project as a "reframing of US history". If that includes fictional narratives,it's distortion.

As for your point though....what about historians? Can they point out distortions?

Certainly.

 

[DaisyDay]

If you're unaware of how wildly different higher education is today than it was back in Ehrman's day....then it's difficult to understand why this is happening.

Want an academic job? Start preparing your DEI statement.

More universities than ever are now requiring lengthy DEI statements from job applicants. Is that good for academic freedom?

reason.com

Political indoctrination isn't just for the students.

No, so tell me how Princeton Theological Seminary changed since 1981?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Certainly.

Well a bunch of historians got slandered for pointing out the mistakes in the 1619 Project, though they were far gentler about than they needed to be.

 

[Ana the Ist]

No, so tell me how Princeton Theological Seminary changed since 1981?

I thought I just gave you an example....

Craft a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Statement

Publicly communicate statements of diversity, equity and inclusion tailored to each department’s experience.

academicinclusion.princeton.edu

In the list of departments requiring a DEI statement, you'll see the religion department.

They're literally screening out other viewpoints....which I'm sure is a familiar process for the religion department...but the rest of them must feel oddly...fascist.

 

[FireDragon76]

This is coming from the guy that went to Yale and Harvard.

What a hypocrite. He tilts at the windmills of elitism, but he's an elite himself.

 

[durangodawood]

....
How does one become in expert in something that's largely comprised of unanswerable questions or that's subject to opinions, and doesn't confer any skills?
....

Is that what you think music or philosophy study entails? You are simply and quite appallingly mistaken.

 

[Ana the Ist]

You're assuming that education is equivalent to indoctrination. That's not necessarily true.

I think you might be conflating education and indoctrination.

And anyway, what's wrong with having your values challenged?

Nothing. The problem is when someone's "values" are presented as irrefutable truth....that's indoctrination.

Learning and understanding the arguments offered by your ideological opponents informs and prepares you to effectively defend your opinions.

If passing the course requires affirmation of ideological positions....

You aren't learning anything except someone's opinions.

I was a psychology major as an undergrad. Even at 18/19 years old, I was very skeptical of religion.

Hey me too....I decided God didn't exist at 11yo.

But in college, I did some elective study in Biblical hermeneutics and world religions. It didn't make me a Christian. But I was better informed in regards to how religion influences human behavior.

If you had to summarize it (how religion influences human behavior) how would you summarize it?

Public universities are still not cheap. An undergrad--or his/her family--still pays many $1000s for his tuition and living expenses. Students should be able to study current events no matter what politicians say.

Current events?

What looks like ideology today, may well be reality in the future. Remember what Victor Hugo said:

Reality is objective....ideology is subjective. The two may intersect but never will they overlap entirely

“No army can stop an idea whose time has come”​

I can't imagine why one would need an army. Truth will stop any false beliefs....whether anyone can recognize it or not.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Is that what you think music or philosophy study entails? You are simply and quite appallingly mistaken.

Not so much music...there's attainable skills you can learn in music.

However, with philosophy, what tangible skills or objective information is ascertained? (apart from perhaps the historical aspect about historical philosophers and their theories)

Like I noted before, if there's a field, and 10 modern people considered to be at the top of their field all have wildly different theories and conclusions, that should be a red flag that what they're teaching is very subjective and is likely a case of people constructing and ideology around "what they wish to be true".

It's also one of the few fields where one can outright reject and insult someone who's an expert (based on ideological grounds) and it's considered perfectly acceptable to do so based on tribalism. For instance, I assume many people have no problem questioning the philosophy of a Jordan Peterson type? (despite the fact that he has a resume and credentials that dwarf anything they'll ever get) The same wouldn't be true if we were talking about a cardiac surgeon working at the Cleveland Clinic.

That's not just to pick on the philosophers (although I do it a fair amount simply because it's one of the few majors where the only thing of significance you can do is become a professor of philosophy yourself and repeat the pattern). I forget the comedian who did it, but they did about about what it was like to major in philosophy.

"And once I graduate with this degree what can I do?"
"You can teach it to some other people"
"And then what will they do?"
"...well, then they'll teach it to some other people"
"This isn't an education, this is Amway with a track team!"


In some ways, economics has a little bit of that propensity (where 5 people who've all studied it for decades can come up with 5 very different conclusions) ...though I'd argue that people who get an advanced econ degree at least leave with some additional understanding of some of the more obscure facets of our economic system that your average Joe wouldn't know.

 

[FireDragon76]

Not so much music...there's attainable skills you can learn in music.

However, with philosophy, what tangible skills or objective information is ascertained? (apart from perhaps the historical aspect about historical philosophers and their theories)

Like I noted before, if there's a field, and 10 modern people considered to be at the top of their field all have wildly different theories and conclusions, that should be a red flag that what they're teaching is very subjective and is likely a case of people constructing and ideology around "what they wish to be true".

It's also one of the few fields where one can outright reject and insult someone who's an expert (based on ideological grounds) and it's considered perfectly acceptable to do so based on tribalism. For instance, I assume many people have no problem questioning the philosophy of a Jordan Peterson type? (despite the fact that he has a resume and credentials that dwarf anything they'll ever get) The same wouldn't be true if we were talking about a cardiac surgeon working at the Cleveland Clinic.

That's not just to pick on the philosophers (although I do it a fair amount simply because it's one of the few majors where the only thing of significance you can do is become a professor of philosophy yourself and repeat the pattern). I forget the comedian who did it, but they did about about what it was like to major in philosophy.

"And once I graduate with this degree what can I do?"
"You can teach it to some other people"
"And then what will they do?"
"...well, then they'll teach it to some other people"
"This isn't an education, this is Amway with a track team!"


In some ways, economics has a little bit of that propensity (where 5 people who've all studied it for decades can come up with 5 very different conclusions) ...though I'd argue that people who get an advanced econ degree at least leave with some additional understanding of some of the more obscure facets of our economic system that your average Joe wouldn't know.

Philosophy is excellent for learning critical thought and disabusing a person of illusions.

 

[Pommer]

Philosophy is excellent for learning critical thought and disabusing a person of illusions.

Here’s the thing: in general, people do not like being disabused of their illusions.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Philosophy is excellent for learning critical thought and disabusing a person of illusions.

Is it?, or is the modern incarnation of it heavily tied to credentialism as a vehicle for steering people in one direction or the other?

If you look at the outcomes of people who major in philosophy
Nearly 80% are sympathetic to socialism
73% are atheist
They professors who teach it consistently (and heavily) land on the side of almost every left-leaning issue or initiative and consistently vote for one side over the other.
Among tenure-track philosophy professors: 88% were Democrats, 7% were Republicans, and 5% identified with a minor party

To be clear, not that there's anything inherently wrong with an individual holding those views. People are allowed to think that socialism is great if that's their persuasion (though I may staunchly disagree with them). And I check a few of those boxes myself as I'm an atheist and have voted for democrats numerous times (at both the state and federal levels). However, when you see outcomes that are that lopsided and out of step when compared to the general population, it's at the very least a red flag.

For instance, if you were to take any hot button ideological debate where the population was largely 50/50 split on something, and there's an institution where people go in, stay for few a years, and come out with 88% being on one particular "side", that's symptomatic of an indoctrinating factor more than an organic outcome. To put it in perspective, the only other institutions that produce those kinds of numbers are churches when people enter them at a young age. (>80% of people end up staying with the religious affiliation of the churches their parents take them to when they're young, thus the heavy regional component to religious affiliation).

The difference is, Churches (and Sunday Schools aimed at a youth audience) aren't coy about what their aim is with regards to indoctrination, it's to create and retain more people in the specific faith. Colleges (in particular, specific majors and fields of study), however, are claiming to be promoting critical thinking and objectivity.

That's why my critique of churches in that regard is a bit less harsh than my critiques of entities claiming critical thinking and objectivity.

For instance, a Southern Baptist church having 80% of the youths attending sunday schools and youth group meetings and identifying as Southern Baptist when they reach 18 isn't anything shocking (they were up front about the aims of their institution). In essence, their mission statement was "we want more people to be Southern Baptist because we feel that's the right faith".

However, if there were some entity that publicly claimed no specific affiliation, and just branded themselves as a neutral entity that was just about the abstract of objectively exploring the concept of spirituality, but 88% of the instructors were Southern Baptist and 80% of the people who attended were leaving with a claimed affiliation of Southern Baptist, most people would reasonably call shenanigans on the "neutral" and "objectivity" aspects of their mission statement as anyone with a shred of common sense would realize that those kinds of numbers aren't indicative of an organic outcome.



To me that would indicate 1 of 2 things

1) the first thing I mentioned, it's become a vehicle (via credentialism) for creating new political allies
or
2) the critical thought aspect is heavily one sided in that it's only teaching students to think critically about (or against) a certain subset of values and not others

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Here’s the thing: in general, people do not like being disabused of their illusions.

Is it possible that some of these courses and instructors aren't necessarily always disabusing people of their illusions, but rather are simply replacing one set of illusions with another?

Just in the economic realm (referring back to my earlier cited stat showing that a disproportionate number of Philosophy grads favor Socialism - to the tune of 80%)

If you had a group of 100 students, and were consistent in the approach of encouraging and guiding them through critical thinking processes about the various systems of economic structures (the pros, the cons, the potential pitfalls, the historical examples of each and where they saw some successes and failures, the ways the various systems can be exploited, etc...)

Would you expect to see 80 of them favoring Socialism at the end?

I would certainly expect to see some of them less enamored with Capitalism (as and objective review would highlight some pitfalls and open some peoples' eyes to some of the underbelly so to speak), but I wouldn't expect to see 80 of them coming out favoring socialism. To me, that would indicate that the process of critical review was heavily focused on the downsides of capitalism, and not much time was spent reviewing and thinking about the other systems with the same critical lens.

 

[durangodawood]

Not so much music...there's attainable skills you can learn in music.

Not at all with music. There's music theory, reading, proficiency on the instruments, music history, music education, music production, etc.

However, with philosophy, what tangible skills or objective information is ascertained? (apart from perhaps the historical aspect about historical philosophers and their theories)

Critical thinking, formal logic, writing skills, world history including history of science. I understand that philosophy grads go on to law and business quite often.

It's also one of the few fields where one can outright reject and insult someone who's an expert (based on ideological grounds) and it's considered perfectly acceptable to do so based on tribalism. For instance, I assume many people have no problem questioning the philosophy of a Jordan Peterson type? (despite the fact that he has a resume and credentials that dwarf anything they'll ever get) The same wouldn't be true if we were talking about a cardiac surgeon working at the Cleveland Clinic.

I dont believe he's associated with any academic philosophy program - neither as professor or student. But for the sake of argument, lets say he was. I think there's great value in people from a variety of pov's who've honed their capacity to step back and take a broad view of human experience - and then report what they've learned.

Your sense that we only get value from objective pov-free inquiry is factually false. People get great value from this - especially when we balance out carefully considered findings from diverse pov's.

If Ive any caveat to this, its that the public generally with their increasingly diminished attention spans wont have the room in their lives to assimilate philosophical ideas. And it not just primary source reading - who even does that? But just ideas as filtered through more accessible commentary and opinion, which formats poorly to tiktok etc.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Not at all with music. There's music theory, reading, proficiency on the instruments, music history, music education, music production, etc.

Those still equate to a tangible skill. While not all of them will be practical skills, some would be.

I don't think the same is true of Philosophy, where a large part of what's being imparted under the banner of "teaching people to think critically" is being done in service of steering people toward a particular direction. (per the stats I cited earlier, with regards to how lopsided the ideological leanings are of professors and post grads in the philosophy department, the only other kind of institutions producing those types of lopsided numbers are churches -- where 80% of the people come out of it having nearly the exact same political/ideological leanings as the person who's instructing.


For 80% of the people taking the classes to walk away with the same views/opinions as the instructors on economics, politics, religion, sociological theory (things philosophy delves into quite a bit), would be like if 80% of all music theory post grads came out claiming to all prefer the same style of music and composers (that just so happened to be the ones their instructors preferred).

Critical thinking, formal logic, writing skills, world history including history of science. I understand that philosophy grads go on to law and business quite often.

If done through a specific lens, it can still be considered indoctrination. Over emphasis on certain things combined with selective omission of others can still create a situation where someone is "learning something" while being steered in one particular direction.

I'll use economics as an example here...as that's a field where there are multiple theories and variety of thought.

Let's take Robert Reich and Milton Friedman. Two guys who have differing thought, but comparable credentials (both Ivy League educated, both won various awards, both held teaching positions at various points in their career)

If you studied under the tutelage of either one of them, exclusively, without ever getting a lot of exposure to the other, while you'd certainly learn some things (as they both know/knew a lot), chances are your views would be skewed toward whatever they taught in terms of what they framed as favorable and unfavorable.

Now imagine the economics department at a college was 88% Reich's and only 7% Friedman's, and 5% 'others'...safe to say a lot of the students would come out with a specific set of values. Combine that with the fact that there was a cultural climate of it be portrayed as "uncool" for a person to admit that they were more of a fan of Friedman's theories (and it limited your ability be a part of social circles and got you ostracized and disinvited from social gatherings)

It would be fair to say what was happening was a bit of a indoctrination.

I dont believe he's associated with any academic philosophy program - neither as professor or student. But for the sake of argument, lets say he was. I think there's great value in people from a variety of pov's who've honed their capacity to step back and take a broad view of human experience - and then report what they've learned.

I think his formal degree (and previous professorships) were in psychology, but he delves quite a bit into the philosophical realm.

However, while one can make the statement you did (saying they're value in variety and considering a broadened view of the human experience), in practice, that's clearly not what's happening the world of academia.

In the 60's through the 90's, one could've accurately said that variety was plentiful and that attending would expand one's range and broaden their horizons. That doesn't appear to be what's happening today. It would seem as if the longer people stay in college, the more narrow their views get, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the philosophy departments.

Either one has to have the somewhat arrogant self-serving opinion that "my position is the organic, exclusive end result of learning and critical thinking" (we've all heard the tropes about "well if you educated yourself on the subject and thought it about it more, you'd agree with me")


There was a time when traditionally progressive colleges were doing things like hosting speeches and debates between the likes of George Lincoln Rockwell and Elijah Muhammed (polar extremes). Now, students are protesting and threatening to throw a temper tantrum if a college invites the likes of a Bill Maher or a Ben Shapiro to give a speech...or booing Mayor Adams and turning their backs on him while he speaks (because he only agrees with them on 85% of the issues instead of the full 100%). Or academics signing petitions to try to have podcasts taken down because someone allowed someone else access to the digital town square who they don't approve of.

That's not indicative of a group of people who've had their horizons broadened.

More and more, it would seem to that modern collegiate academia is increasing intolerant to differing viewpoints...even ones that are basically center-left ones like in the cases of Maher and Adams.

 

[KCfromNC]

This is coming from the guy that went to Yale and Harvard.

What a hypocrite. He tilts at the windmills of elitism, but he's an elite himself.

The audience has shown that they're particularly credulous. What is he going to do - propose policies that generally help the majority of voters or something?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Philosophy is excellent for learning critical thought and disabusing a person of illusions.

Some philosophy is excellent for critical thought.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Either one has to have the somewhat arrogant self-serving opinion that "my position is the organic, exclusive end result of learning and critical thinking" (we've all heard the tropes about "well if you educated yourself on the subject and thought it about it more, you'd agree with me")

I very recently told another poster that the reason he was in the ideological cult he is in was a technique that involved suggesting he was stupid (as the passive aggressive statement above does) or that he was immoral....specifically bigoted....for not agreeing with the cult.

After making a joke of this assertion and swearing he didn't adopt his views for either of those reasons.....he immediately made a statement extremely similar to the one above. I pointed out that while it's certainly possible that I am not smart enough to understand him....I can point out that he's grouping multiple concepts into one definition and thereby making it unclear what he means. I even offered him the out of just saying that he was repeating what he'd heard elsewhere without anyone pressuring him with moral shaming or intellectual snobbery.

He just decided not to reply back.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

This is coming from the guy that went to Yale and Harvard.

What a hypocrite. He tilts at the windmills of elitism, but he's an elite himself.

The College Academia environment has likely changed quite a bit since the time he was going there.

He graduated from Yale in 2001. It wasn't as heavily skewed toward one side like it is now. These number were from 2015...I don't imagine that trend has changed it's trajectory in the past 8 years. These numbers were from before things got even more polarized over the 2016 election.

Back in 2001, Do you think there were any mainstream conversations at Yale about allowing biological males on the women's swimming team? Were there any speech codes being implemented about pronoun usage? If you were ask the majority of college students at Yale & Harvard back in the 90's and early 2000's how many genders there are, what do you expect would be the most common answer would be?

When Ron was going there, they would still have occasionally have some conservative speakers there. For instance, Republican Governor George Pataki gave their commencement one of the years he was going there. Harvard was still inviting speakers like JK Rowling and Colin Powell to give commencements prior to 2010.


Even college graduates themselves (per a poll from YouGov) acknowledge a bit of shift.

And various other polling would provide some indicators as well about what the post-2016 college climate is like:
a survey of 3,486 college seniors from colleges and universities throughout the U.S. found that “Forty-nine percent of the sample said that their professors expressed politically liberal views ‘frequently’ or ‘all the time.’ Just 9 percent said the same about conservative professors.”

One study from OSU was conducted in which “Students were surveyed over three points during college, 58% of students reported ‘high’ positive attitudes toward liberal values in 2015. That number grew to 66% in 2016 and then hit 70% in 2019.”