hey academics out there ive got something on my mind and i wondered if you could help me out. question in next tweet
so what im wondering is if your so smart how did you end up seeing your control over your profession stripped from you by mere administrators and how did you end up in a position where speech and thought are more restricted on university campuses than anywhere else in society
thanks ill take my answer offline
follow up question can you say "im living the life of the mind" without wanting to hurl yourself from a precipice to escape the shame you carry and which briefly reemerges when you think abt your forebears before you shove it under the surface when you remember your mortgage
and do you ever think about the millennia of christians who would sooner die than falsify their beliefs and often did and how your profession is a continuation of the medieval clergy and how a high duty of fidelity to conscience might not be doffed quite as easily as a cassock
do you ever wonder about the blood price men paid over centuries to be able to speak and think freely and wonder further at your exemption from having to ever even theoretically make such sacrifices yourself in our enlightened age
no further questions
or perhaps all of this is in keeping with tradition
overall im not sure weve made a good trade here if we judge convictions by the courage with which men hold them
the only real scientists were socrates and archimedes
"what are you talking about robot? why IM an academic and IVE never felt unable to express my opinions"
this thread was actually spurred by recalling that time literally hundreds of economists in positions of national prominence turned on an eminent colleague and denounced him in droves for suggesting riots might be counterproductive archive.is/zDsNS
Challenge to professors who definitely face no limits on their expression:
Go ahead. Post a piece of paper by your office that simply says "It's Okay to Be White"
these are a few prominent examples off the top of my head
because of their prominence they are especially well-documented
i am aware of many other cases some of which i cant discuss because i know the people involved
and there are many, many others none of us have heard of
the other thing is that you dont need to get everyone who things Wrong Things to strangle discussions. you can just make examples of some people and if these heroes break publicly?
well. generally lesser lights will follow
every apology was a failure. better men would've never.
anyway, As You Know
all of this has led to faculty jobs requiring applicants to submit groveling statements affirming their conformity to an ideological regime
@browserdotsys @shieldfoss i was thinking about the problem of how martyrdom and responsibilities to children interact
for students . . . idk. you dont want to screw their careers but if you dont stand firm what lesson are you teaching them, and what kind of profession are you even passing on to them?
@browserdotsys @shieldfoss i dont think i could bear the idea of leaving my toddler without a father irrespective of any cost to my integrity though, so im not sure you should take anything i say seriously
@trivialanalyst and no one at wal mart CLAIMS to be pursing Truth or Knowledge. they are literally trying to make a few bucks
the only reason universities have any authority is that theyre devoted to doing something greater
in any sociopolitical system, the degree to and the manner in which power is centralized may be characterized by the structure of patronage networks
these structures are often more revealing about the nature of government than its nominal type
for example
the "kingdom" of france continued continuously for about a millennium depending on how you measure it
but its actual government varied widely
most notably, it transitioned from feudalism to absolute monarchy that occurred under richelieu and at versailles
this transition, made possible first by military developments and the rise of the bourgeoisie, represented a rising king (patron of the bourgeois) among other things destroying the patronage networks of feudal lords and reallocating their clients to himself via state organs
i get it now, this is legit. reddit objects are objects recommended to _entry-level enthusiasts_ by topical subreddits because they work well to improve lives over baseline with a relatively low level of effort for a majority of cases
realistically there's no way to stop people from tacitly or explicitly allocating taxes and benefits on the basis of race and large portions of the country have interests in this happening or ideological commitments to doing so
the norms to which new immigrants are assimilating and young natives inculcated are immensely ethnically charged without any public and common ideal of transcending race for an american identity, an identity which frankly doesnt even exist anymore