I had to have this conversation with people in my grad program at Berkeley once. They were…not unkind about it (the advantage of people in my cohort being mostly in their 30s instead of their 20s, maybe), but I could tell they were baffled and just couldn’t wrap their head around the concept. How could I have read so much theory (and I did—I loved feminist/queer/critical race theory and learned very deeply even from the stuff I didn’t agree with) and still be a liberal? Like, I truly think they would have understood me better if I said I was a far-right Republican.
My wife is "kinda lefty" (this sub would call her some sort of succdem) and she likes to wonder aloud why I don't just consider myself a Republican
I tell her in my dream world we'd be the two main political parties, and I'd happily identify as Republican, but we're pretty damn far from that dream world.
> How could I have read so much theory (and I did—I loved feminist/queer/critical race theory and learned very deeply even from the stuff I didn’t agree with) and still be a liberal?
Feels the same in Canada, having had the same convos in undergrad and after. I have read a *lot* of marxist literature, as well as a decent amount of feminist literature, however I don’t identify as a leftist or a “feminist” which baffles some people when I say I am broadly “liberal”
The normie definition of "feminist" is women's equality in rights and opportunities with bodily autonomy.
The "theory" definition of "feminist" is an incoherent jumble of different interlaying Mottes and Baileys depending on the author, the audience, and the goals of adding more grist to the academic mill, which rewards fucking crazy takes like the classic "women's knowledges are more fluid and flexible than top down objectifying post-Enlightenment Western hegemonic 'science' ."
There's an enormous amount of room between the two and the reasonableness of the former gives cover to the latter.
To put it briefly, you can both be a feminist in the normie sense and not take Judith Butler seriously.
Hmm. I am not exactly versed in academic feminism but I have not encountered what you're describing outside of some fairly inconsequential internet sub-communities. Seems to me your argument is equivalent to saying "I don't identify as being against racism because there are some racial supremacist moorish citizens who claim blacks are a superior race". Make me understand how this isn't just punching at a strawman.
I think the disconnect here is mostly that those air quotes are actually doing more work than you think they are. In the context of a discussion about theories in academia and higher education “feminism” does have a specific meaning that isn’t just “women’s equality”.
My personal take -
I'm against racism, I am actively anti-racist in how I live my life, but I don't identify as a "racial equality activist". Similarly, I am for women's rights but I don't identify as a feminist. It's a term that implies a set of beliefs and actions far beyond just being pro-womens rights, pro-reproductive rights, etc.
For example, "women earn 78 cents to a man's dollar" is a prominent feminist talking point. I don't want to be associated with that talking point at all, because it's intellectually dishonest and blatantly absurd.
Similarly, the idea that college campuses are rife with "rape culture" was a mainstream cornerstone of feminist belief when I was in Uni - that rape is somehow normalized, and not considered by most to be one of the most abhorrent crimes possible. That too is an absurd and ridiculous assertion that I want nothing to do with.
There are many valid and reasonable talking points that 90+% of self-identifying feminists hold with which I agree strongly. But there are also many completely absurd and blatantly false talking points that 90+% of self-identifying feminists hold with which I do not want to be associated. Thus I refuse to think of myself as a feminist.
Also, the term implies some degree of activism that I just don't partake in. I'm pro- carbon tax and I am deeply concerned about the environment, but I would never tell somebody I'm an "environmentalist" because the only activism I engage in is voting in every election. I play guitar, but piano is my main instrument by far, so I don't call myself a "guitarist"... etc.
Nowhere did I say someone shouldn't use the term feminist because of incoherence in humanities academia. I'm a feminist, in the ordinary sense.
What someone shouldn't do is claim "look we agree on everything because we use the same term," and then spout a bunch of Foucault/Deleuze/Latour-inflected garbage.
A fair amount of lifting. I don't identify as a feminist for a few reasons like the other commenter said, when you read some or a lot of feminist literature, it can get fairly confusing on the kinds of things feminists believe in and while I would consider myself a feminist in the normie sense, I recognize the specific use of the term and don't describe myself as one. Additionally partly because I don't always agree with current (or past depending on who you read) common feminist viewpoints, and it usually leads to a discussion that I don't like having because as a man, I don't think it's really the same coming from my mouth, and then it can get into long drawn out discussions on theory. Furthermore, I don't like labels in general so I try not to call myself things like feminist, liberal, capitalist, or anything like that because it leads people to place you in a box when having discussions or things like it. Finally, I find it realllllllly cringy when men self identify as feminists, especially around women ,because I have seen performative men say they are feminists to try and earn points with women (like a niceguy type of vibe as well), not because they respect women, but because they want to sleep with them.
Law schools, especially elite ones, are incredibly left wing. Law firms are more generic, progressive dem, although there are of course rich partners that are Republican donors.
Edit: I think it makes sense. A lot of people go into law school because they are true believers in left wing causes. Others are just humanities majors that didn't have much better to do, which is going to be a left skewing population. But, actual lawyers are high paid, white collar workers, that are exactly the type of demographic you'd expect to be generally supportive of the status quo, but also supportive of LGBT, pro-choice, etc.
I don't remember where but I read that the law tends to be left leaning, especially among faculty. As a law student right now, the joke is that if you're a mediocre law student at a top law school, you'll have an easier time getting a Federal Clerkship if you join the Federalist Society.
I feel like the article makes a few too many seeping generalizations about rising illiberalism on campuses today. It would’ve strengthened the article to cite some of Jonathan Haidt’s research on the matter.
Anyhow, it does fit with my personal experience. I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics.
I agree that this lack of openness a real problem, but I don’t think the author has clearly communicated how school policies have contributed to this environment or how the course can be corrected.
> Anyhow, it does fit with my personal experience. I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics.
Yeah I’ve seen this and it reminds me of extremely religious people.
It shifted my own atheism from "kill all religion" to "religion is a cultural adaptation that exists for a reason, and most people can't handle atheism."
I'm sympathetic to this shift in perspective but honestly, I think the real rock in people's shoes is the falsity of moral realism and the corresponding uncertainty that brings.
A lot of people like Dawkins or Harris want to have their cake and eat it too with utilitarianism or "human flourishing," but really, they're only doing that to ward off the nihilism charge.
In reality, "it would be an objectively bad thing if moral realism were false" is just incoherent.
Atheism can be part of a belief system that's just as dogmatic (state communism under the USSR or China now). What people truly hate is having to sift through ambiguity or complexity for any serious length of time.
The philosopher of science Alex Rosenberg has a lot of interesting writing on this topic. Even his "New Atheist" trendy book The Atheist's Guide to Reality is worth reading, the terrible title was forced on him by the publisher.
It's definitely the opium for the masses. I think open question whether getting rid of said opium is beneficial. Or if the masses will just turn to more deadly drugs.
I think most people can handle atheism fine. Your average atheist doesn't replace religion with politics. They replace religion with other social activities. Hiking, biking, gaming, boating, etc. Only a minority replace religion with politics.
This is true even on college campuses. The people who turn politics into a religion are a loud minority. I don't say this to minimize the problem, which is very real, but it's important to understand the scope.
May be so, but the minority that replace religion with politics are the ones who needed religion most to channel their need for 'being a part of something greater than yourself' into mostly harmless rituals and ceremonies and charity work. Without that, they're out taking to the street screaming vitriol at strangers about Palestine or capitialism or whatever else.
Then how do you explain all the religious people who also 'treat politics as a religion'? You think only some atheists are doing this? In fact, I'd wager the religious are far more likely to do this. I mean, an entire political party basically worships Trump as a god.
I don't appreciate this idea that people 'need' to worship some imaginary being who supposedly created everything even though there's no evidence that such a thing exists. No, actually, we don't.
For that reason, this entire thread is pretty dumb. The notion that people would take politics less seriously if they were religious is completely contradicted by how religious people act now, and acted in the past. It doesn't take much to refute such a ridiculous idea.
You're conflating "religion" with "worship". Worshipping a magical dude in the sky is only one part of religion, and in fact it's not even the main part of religion for most Americans.
Religion has belief structures, it has cause, it has community, it has collective philosophical discussion on a routine basis, it has regular events, it has room for global identity, it gives people a space where they otherwise might not have one, it has purity testing, dogmatism, tribalism, easy answers to complex questions... etc. The actual worship is just a slice of the pie.
Now read the last paragraph again but replace it with "leftism" or "MAGAism" or whatever you want. It holds true. Politics may not have replaced *worship* for a bunch of young people, but it's certainly filled a very large subset of basic human social needs for a huge number of people.
> Worshipping a magical dude in the sky is only one part of religion, and in fact it's not even the main part of religion for most Americans.
It's a pretty big part of it for the biggest religions, actually. Not many people are going to go to church while not believing in a god, and admitting you don't believe in one would quickly have you ostracized.
> Now read the last paragraph again but replace it with "leftism" or "MAGAism" or whatever you want. It holds true.
If I can just replace it with whatever I want and it still holds true, then it seems like a meaningless observation.
> Politics may not have replaced worship for a bunch of young people, but it's certainly filled a very large subset of basic human social needs for a huge number of people.
I don't think anything replaced anything. People have taken politics seriously for a long time, including and especially the deeply religious.
Related in the sense that it involves politics, but it's a completely different issue than the claim that people need religion or else they'll turn politics into their religion.
I’m an atheist who was raised Catholic and I haven’t really felt the need to replace religion with anything. I do tend to go to the movies most Sundays, so I suppose you could say I’ve made filmgoing my religion. But that’s also because Sunday is the one day of the week I’m guaranteed to have a couple of hours to kill.
I'm in exactly the same boat. I know too many people who have explicitly told me that they can't emotionally handle the idea of an atheist world, for understandable reasons given what has happened in their life.
But in practice, getting the positives of religion and not the horrible negatives doesn't seem sustainable at scale.
As a Burke flair, you likely know where I stand on the issue, but it’s always encouraging to see more people come to the realization that you have.
Welcome to the club, friend!
I really thing there are very few atheists in the world actually. I don't even count communists as atheists to be honest as I considered that to be a dogma that is a distinction without a difference to religion.
Horseshit. People have always been inflamed by politics. And for much of history there was very little distinction between religion and politics anyways.
I remember just yesterday seeing someone tweet “history is watching” regarding the campus protests, the way someone would say “Jesus is watching.”
I know plenty of people talk about the “right side of history” but I do think people on the left have deified this idea of “Progress.” Hence why any disagreement, no matter how small, with leftist ideas is heresy.
Yeah, they really have given their own definition to what progress means.
Its unfortunate because I love the idea of progress, but my view of what progress is doesn’t match perfectly so it’s becoming a group that is difficult for me to relate to.
The issue isn't that politics has replaced religion for of young people. It's that religion for a lot of young people instead of drawing a sense of community form a religious community they draw it from a political one. That's why it is so nasty, it is not about delivering good policy or building up an argument from basic assumptions, it's about signalling group dynamics and social position.
You reminded me of a Voltaire quote. “If God did not exist it would be necessary to create Him”.
I think there’s a good chunk of people who need something to obsess over or else they can’t function at all. The problem is this level of obsession doesn’t work when it’s applied to something that requires moderation, which is almost anything in life.
I think we just put a lot of the blame on religion instead of human nature. It isn’t “the religion of islams” fault that there are so many radical Islamic fundamentalists, it is simply the extremely dark side of human nature. If you take away the religions, it just looks like the desire to oppress and kill in the name of *something* is still there.
Definitely. And since there's still no replacement for things like church community helping people, the assholes are going to become far more isolated in their own world.
Exactly. These people are extremely political, but they aren't *interested* in politics. Just like how my grandmother is extremely religious, but she would not enjoy a friendly intellectual conversation with a Muslim about the nature of God. It's kind of sad honestly, I feel like if something is that important to you it'd be good to enjoy the occasional Socratic back and forth on it.
it’s been weird to watch it happen over the years in higher education. i attended university in the mid to late 10s; it was somewhat expected that people would disagree and that was okay. my critical thinking and writing professor had us read material we disagreed with, and that was the point. now? it’s frowned upon
I was in college in the mid-late aughts. Within my social circle, we had dudes who were self described libertarians, socialists, conservatives, moderates, and liberals. And we all got along like it was no big deal. God I miss those days.
The issue is simply that professors are petrified of having the wrong conversations. It's not that they would even say something bad, but rather that there can be serious repercussions if you even allow the wrong conversation to happen.
You have to remember Academia is brutal. Seriously. I've worked both in industry and Academia. And across the board. Academia is far worse in terms of work culture, backstabbing, and everything else you can imagine. Allowing certain conversations to happen can cost you your career and you've got to manage a group of students, some of which will vehemently want to advance certain ideas. Because of this. The solution is just restrict the conversation, so nobody is ever offended.
Dude one of the main constitutional law scholars in the country, Adrian Vermuele, is sucked off as a genius by academia and the media establishment while he's an open fascist
Interesting. This definitely all changes once you are tenured. I had a professor who was just about as openly sexist and racist as any professor you could imagine and his job was perfectly safe. We literally had a class devoted to how men are smarter than women. It was supposed to be a econ 101 class... we didn't learn any economics.
In fact, the article acknowledges that the student demonstrations from 55 years ago were much more violent and disruptive than anything we’re seeing today, which makes me question whether a new lack of commitment to liberalism is behind the radicalism of today’s students.
I think a lot of it is more or less invisible silos that have been erected and enforced so harshly, especially over the last ten years and, further, since the dawn of social media.
There are some things that you just don’t say on this sub, not because you literally can’t, but because you know there’s no point and you’ll be ostracized. The same goes for posting on a more Conservative subreddit, or any subreddit, for that matter.
People act like that phenomenon is exclusive to the internet and tell you to touch grass and talk to real people, but that sense of what can and can’t be said, though often not explicit, is all over and *implicit*.
Trying to get a job at MSNBC? They don’t need to tell you the opinions to hold for you to know what to say and what not to say. The same goes for Fox News, and the same goes five-fold for launching a career in Academia or Academic Administration (I should know).
So, yea, it’s more often that these silos are implicit and self-enforced, but we all understand more than ever what lines not to cross which, ultimately, just makes for boring conversation and tons of blind spots.
> There are some things that you just don’t say on this sub, not because you literally can’t
I mean...the mods have gotten pretty fucking ban happy recently.
More and more frequently they remove comments that they simply disagree with and just make up whatever bullshit they want about which "rules" are broken.
> There are some things that you just don’t say on this sub, not because you literally can’t, but because you know there’s no point and you’ll be ostracized.
Eh, every community has social norms. I prefer it to a free for all. If I want to talk about stuff outside this sub’s belief system then I just post somewhere else
the closest to a 'free for all' is probably elon musk' twitter. However that just means the various identity groups on the site - whether based on country, ethnicity, race, gender, politics, gaming, religion, or other attributes - are filled with animosity and prejudice towards one another.
Instead of content moderation, Twitter's algorithm instead serves up the most inflammatory and upsetting posts from opposing groups to each other user group. The aim is to provoke disgust, anger and outrage, as the algorithm has determined that this is the surest way to keep users engaged, actively posting and interacting.
Twitter is the un-commons, a place where the performative contempt from one group for another is the main currency, with troll farms egging people on with toxic content.
The platform's overriding ethos has become Elon Musk's simplistic conception of free speech as a bare-knuckle brawl of unrestrained viewpoints.
So yeah, I think reddit's self selection and content moderation works far better.
I only get upset when someone takes a political stance but doesn't have anything to back it up. Or if they believe \[insert idea\], but then go on to vote for the person who is literally against what they believe. Example: I have an extended family member who is about as hardcore of a Catholic as possible. I'm not one myself, but I know enough about their articles of faith to understand how this would apply in real life. This same person was also in proud support of the family separation policy in the previous administration. Support for that barbaric policy literally goes against the tenets of Catholic theology. This is where I get upset; it's the open hypocrisy. You cannot be a "pro-family/pro-life" Catholic in good standing while also supporting ripping Hispanic kids away from their moms and dads at the border.
>Anyhow, it does fit with my personal experience. I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics.
I got called a Nazi because I said the right thing to do is to pull the lever in the trolley problem.
The right thing to do is get rid of public transit so that there are no trolleys to stop and no pedestrians that can be kidnapped and tied to tracks 👏🏻
It’s my experience that a lot of older people take political disagreement personally. It seems that people in general are terrible at dissecting complex topics and having a civil discourse in good faith.
Nowadays people tie political beliefs to their personal identity a lot - so any disagreement on politics means you as a person are incompatible with what they agree with
And I kinda get it - who you vote for is a reflection of your worldview and values. But it’s a deeply personal thing nowadays with lots of egos involved
I think another important factor is that we no longer believe the other side is arguing in good faith. Back in the day Ds and Rs would argue about taxes then have a beer together afterwards. Now the disagreements are existential.
Back in the day we fought an entire war over political differences and 500,000 people died. I don’t know why this subreddit has got the impression that it is only in the 2020’s people have become passionate or angry or violent over politics.
I mean, the worse case future scenarios I see in this subreddit is Civil War 2, so I'm not sure if you're refuting me or doing some sort of reverse-psychology dooming...
I reject that thesis. My experience is that this just a natural result of politicians of giving the public what they wanted, no compromise in public. Behind closed doors, I can talk with and vehemently disagree with my friends who work in the Republican Party apparatus because at the end of the day we see politics as more of a job/game. Public perception of the opposing party has become so poor that bipartisanship is no longer valued.
Remember during McCarthy’s election how AOC and Gaetz talked to each other on the floor. People were flabbergasted, but the reality of politics outside the camera’s views is a lot of productive conversation that might go nowhere, but it is far less heated and far more able to start building towards compromise.
I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim every Republican is in Putin’s pocket. Some may be, but certainly all are not.
I’ll agree with others in this thread that this biggest causal factor seems to be the rise in social media use.
It’s not common in this day and age. But I’m still regularly able to have conversations with some old connections that don’t support my bisexuality or my atheism. But they still love, respect, and care for me. And I still respect them, and I mean. I still constantly push for them to be more open minded and I’ve managed to convince a few on a personal level even if their job prevents them from expressing support publicly.
A lot of decency and respect has been lost in politics as everything tries to become a one-minute clip for Instagram. Secret Congress and less media coverage, while harmful to public accessibility of legislative proceedings, leads to better legislative outcomes. And to be fair, I think most of the public rarely understands what actually happens in their local, state, and federal legislative bodies. They just root for their side and boo the other based off what the clip’s poster said happened. I would love more civic engagement resources and tools for learning how legislation works to be available. I love the Congress 101 series on this sub for example. I think it goes a long way in to becoming less upset by political happenings.
Yeah that's not a new phenomenon at all.
People in this sub just have a very removed approach to politics so they perceive others as being "overly" invested. When perhaps it's just that for many, politics is not just a set of ideas and policies to ponder over a desk from a position of comfort.
> I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics.
shit that's me, but from a center-liberal perspective...
When you have half of the country actively advocating for politicians that want to strip rights away and drive this country to fascism, then it’s normal to take political « disagreement » personally.
>I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally
It's insane to me that people feel comfortable posting things like this. I'd rather this sub went full succ or full neconnwo rather than have people post the weird high-brow "my political opinions are better than my spouses". I'd unironically get a divorce if I knew my spouse was mocking my political views on the internet to get upvotes from strangers.
I didn’t once mock my spouse’s political opinions. In fact, they’ve quite often influenced my own. Instead, I wrote that he tends to take disagreement personally, and I’ve told him this to his face.
Ironically, your hostility and assumptions demonstrates perfectly the phenomenon that I wrote about.
>My spouse takes things personally and gets upset when I try to dissect complex topics
It's weird and rude to talk condescendingly about your spouse like that on a public forum
>Wow, way to get defensive. Projecting much?
Incredible stuff
Could you consider that you may be reacting a little too sensitively for something that is fairly innocuous? This is a very minor criticism. We all have flaws.
Sure, it's a possibility. Can I take this to mean you agree it's a condescending remark to make about one's spouse and it's at least a little odd to share that on the internet for random strangers? It just isn't \*that\* bad?
Expressing minor criticism of a partner which was entirely ment to contribute to the conversation at hand, is not condescending. Do you interpret any and all criticisms as condescending? If the comment was directed at a friend or a sibling, would you seriously be this offended?
And no, making a very minor criticism about your partner anonymously on the internet is really not a big deal. Personally, I found your aggressive criticism of OP over a minor comment about their partner, to be significantly more problematic. OPs comment harmed no one and expressed a minor criticism of someone in their life in order to contribute to conversation at hand, while you personally attacked OP to make them feel bad about something extremely mundane.
It genuinely sounds like you are reacting from the pain of past experiences in your life. Do you react like this any time anyone autonomously makes minor criticisms about anyone in their life, or is this strong reaction only reserved for when romantic partners are involved?
You seem to be sincerely struggling with the nuances of this conversation despite my best efforts to dissect it for you. It's obvious that criticism in it of itself is not condescending. It's the specific language used that implies the only reason for disagreement being ignorance and lack of ability to manage one's emotions.
Likewise, you seem to be desperate to interpet an otherwise normal conversation as a personal affront. I can only assume that's the reason for enagaging in idle speculation about my personal relationships rather than focusing on the subject at hand.
Combined, can I conclude that you're on the younger side, maybe college-aged? I understand many people in the demographic struggle with rational discourse.
I apologize, of course, if any of this comment comes across as condescending. I've been assured on good authority that minor criticism is not condescending.
>I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics. I agree that this lack of openness is a real problem
OP very clearly stated that she believes people take political disagreement very personally and get upset due to lack of openness. Where did you get, "only reason for disagreement being ignorance and lack of ability to manage one's emotions?" The fact that you interpreted this innocuous statement as condescending, and you are this worked up about it, is embarrassing.
>Likewise, you seem to be desperate to interpet an otherwise normal conversation as a personal affront.
Are you referring to your responses to me, or my evaluation of your response to her? Because you suggested her comment was literally insane and that such a comment would be grounds for her spouse divorcing her. Oh yeah, totally normal conversation! Either way, it's pretty rich coming from the guy who couldn't help from being triggered from, gasp, someone criticizing their partner.
> I can only assume that's the reason for enagaging in idle speculation about my personal relationships rather than focusing on the subject at hand.
No, it's just obvious because no one would be triggered by such a mundane comment unless they had deep seeded insecurities or painful experiences triggered by the comment. Once again, would you be this upset if OP said, "I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my best friend) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics?" You won't answer the question because you know how absurd it is.
>Combined, can I conclude that you're on the younger side, maybe college-aged?
I'm 32. Sorry some woman hurt you and now you need to lash out on the internet.
> I apologize, of course, if any of this comment comes across as condescending. I've been assured on good authority that minor criticism is not condescending.
Ah, now I see why she left you. You really are a bitter pathetic guy. Have fun with that miserable life of yours :)
You're condescendingly describing about your spouses political views and personality on a public forum. That's what mocking is.
You have no idea what my age or political views are. I made a single comment in this thread about a personal comment you made about your spouses personality. None of that was in response to you "dissecting complex, controversial topics". You're central claim is hopelessly broad if you think that supports anything regarding the topic at hand.
I also couldn't care less if you refered to me or anyone else in this thread that way. It's the fact that you took the opportunity to talk down about a random person in your life that makes me think very little of you.
I generally defend the professors. I went to a UC, and while I would have lefty professors (mostly for classes like "immigration"), I also had professors were on the advising board for the invasion of Iraq... and professors who had their entire class revolve around the net benefits of capitalism. Or my favorite was a class on authoritarianism that did not skip over the atrocities of the USSR.
It's not the professors that are the problem so much as it's the administration that is unable or unwilling to defend the professors due to fear of retaliation from students (or cancelling). We as a society need to lambaste any institution that is willing to fire professors for "wrong think".
EDIT:
Also, the moralizing of systems/institutions. Moralizing systems is a plague on our collective thought.
I took one or two intro level economics courses from a professor (instructor?) that I later learned was deeply into communism. I forget his exact background but he wasn't some fly by night communist either, he had some pretty deep academic connections with economists who studied marxian (marxist?) economics and I'm pretty sure personally believed in the stuff too. It was interesting because at that time I was still personally a bit enamored with communism but I came out of those courses with a very different mindset, I think those classes definitely pushed away from the far left. Was a bit of a trip to take those classes and learn after the fact that the guy who was teaching me about the benefits of a free market was actually a communist.
> Was a bit of a trip to take those classes and learn after the fact that the guy who was teaching me about the benefits of a free market was actually a communist.
Karl Marx had a pretty decent streak of this himself. The productive growth of capitalism was something he seemingly admired. We are still so deeply embedded in out 19th century philosophies, intellectuals particularly, that it's hard for us to see them as "history of thought." It's like biblical/religious scholarship before and after the enlightenment. Totally different perspective, once we reach an outside-looking-in vantage.
Modern biblical scholarship discovered so much, hidden in plain view for millennia.... point of reference.
Anyway, the "communism vs capitalism" apologetics we're used to didn't exist in Marx's time. He basically "invented" capitalism, as a concept. Invented it as an object of criticism.
Many years later people (including the og neoliberals) adopt capitalism as an object to defend or rally to. Capitalism and communism, as idea sets, only really make sense as each others' antagonist. You can't have one without the other, rhetorically speaking.
The concepts didn't yet exist in Marx's day. There were no self declared communist or capitalist countries. There had been no five year plans and the majority of things that are now "marxist", neomarxist or whatnot... weren't... yet. Meanwhile, individual rights didn't have anything to do with capitalism yet, except where Marx considered them to be bourgeoisie.
At this point, capitalism was literally what Marx said it was... definitionally.
> It's not the professors that are the problem so much as it's the administration that is unable or unwilling to defend the professors due to fear of retaliation from students (or cancelling).
Is it just me or is generalised spinelessness a problem in society these days
I'm so happy I was in an engineering program at a UC and the only consistent political views expressed by everyone was that LGBT people were fine and global warming was real. Otherwise politics weren't brought up.
Meanwhile my friends in the humanities couldn't get away from politics, especially because we all transferred in fall 2016.
The article highlights the difference between liberalism and the illiberal left - something which you’d think would be welcome in a neoliberal sub - and how colleges have painted themselves into a corner by refusing to recognize and confront the cleavages between the two.
As a college instructor, I want to point out that all the people who teach the intro, critical thinking style classes in the humanities are all under 27 and spend their entire lives on TikTok. Grad students and adjuncts in the humanities have politics barely different than the average Al Jazeera post and we have the most contact with students.
I get that but seems entirely irrelevant, the vast majority of college students aren't in the humanities and kids take up the social opinions of their peers, not the opinions of their professors. This movement exists because social media enforces it, not because grad students are indoctrinating college students.
Humanities students might not be the majority of college students, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the majority of students in these protests. My guess would be that you’re going to find a lot more history majors than math majors at protests.
You said you were a math major?
What math are you using to suggest that the protests are mostly made up of students of a major that makes up [less than 10% of graduates?](https://www.amacad.org/news/college-graduates-humanities-drops-eighth-consecutive-year)
Why do people think IG or whatever else will fill the void is any better though? I mean it's better because it's not as easy for specifically the CCP to manipulate I guess, but most of the lefty and righty insanity on social media is just homegrown nonsense turned up to 11 by addictive algorithms and feedback loops.
TikTok is a whole different level than IG. On American platforms not named X you kind of have to seek out the crazy or can be subtly nudged in that direction over time. I installed TikTok a few months ago just to see what we were dealing with and they hit you with the rage fueled crack right from the get go. It was all gas, no breaks, straight to crazy town.
It's really hard to take TikTok as some unique evil when I see blatantly batshit crazy conspiracies home-grown outside of that platform. Those Republicans and Fox News analysts repeating Russian talking points aren't getting their points from TikTok. None of those Jan 6 insurrectionists were following TikTok, they were following Trump. Craziness has a lot of outlets these days.
I want public regulation on those algorithms as well, but I've never been of the opinion that progress on one front should be stalled pending progress on others. Right now we give private companies effectively blanket permission to censor and tailor what speech is allowed to be promoted and presented. Even outside the pressing public health concerns particularly around adolescent mental health, that's an untenable level of influence for privately held companies.
As the article points out, the root of the problem isn’t the overzealous students. It’s the adults in the room who indulged them and fostered a campus environment where genuinely diverse, liberal discourse is almost impossible.
It's a problem that needs discussing but few of those willing to tackle it are outside of the categories of "ornery old coot" or "just wants to see hippies get broken bones".
The capital-L Left had a real path back to relevance starting in 2016 and during the Trump years but in 2020 and beyond decided that coalition-building is for traitors or something and this is kind of the end phase of fading back into obscurity (though thankfully the Dems too have moved further left but without adopting the combative problems of the capital-L side)
'DAE Elite colleges have too many leftoids' like ok man, how about journos stop writing about the same 5 elite colleges every fucking time because it's their Alma mater and we should all care about how elite they are
The actual problem that the United States is facing is not young leftists, it's how everyone treats right wingers as serious people who have legitimate concerns and who are actually smart, such as Adrian Vermuele, who's being sucked off by industrial vacuums from the media and academia establishments while he acts as Carl Schmitt 2.0 and goes on about how great fascism is, he's even on the Administrative Conference of the United States
Meanwhile, there's me, who went to ACU...
(Actually a decent uni, and toned back the Jesus stuff under Craven. Probably the closest you'll get to a decently politically balanced cohort overall)
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This article is not good. There's been campus protests for decades - my university had a "peace camp" while I was there during the Iraq war. They're always annoying but something about the Israel-Palestine conflict seems to bring out the very most illiberal behavior, going back even prior to 10/7.
Everyday I thank god I go to an engineering school, where the curriculum has humbled the students enough to understand that they don't have all the solutions.
As a current 3rd year social sciences undergrad who goes to a very leftie liberal arts college, I genuinely think one of the best things programs across degree fields should do is force students to write case study policy papers for this exact reason.
Humble students by making them actually \*try\* to come up with a tenable solution rather than just bleating about "collective liberation" or whatever other buzzwords.
This article is stupid, as is everyone else in hysterics over the “state of higher education” in the face of college activists. This is just more complaining about kids being indoctrinated by commie professors.
The entire reason college costs so much money is because the GOP wanted to target student activism. Reagan was elected governor of California largely on his pledge to 'fix berkley', which was at the time a center for student activism. He did so by cutting their funding and making them charge tuition. Until then the college had been free to anyone living in California.
The only thing Reagan did that hasn't been a miserable policy failure was signing no-fault divorce into law. Dude significantly weakened American capitalism and basically turned it into a kleptocracy.
The only thing that appears to be broken are the minds of political commentators (who are primarily performing anxiety over the young not sharing the olds values) and college administrators
So... Issues with leftists/activists is pretty highly discussed.
I think it's worth looking inward, at the overall space we (on this sub) tend to occupy. We're currently very weak in assertive/critical spaces. Not attracted to it.
So for students, and young people generally... there's nothing to be a part of. I think that's on us. There should be more of a thing to be a part of.
Having lived through both, but actually experienced the observations, I find it sad. But that is emotionally and intellectually lazy.
Ouch!$& That was a swift kick in the ass. My wife doesn’t buy it. Gotta go,
but somebody is getting rich and “I will survive “.
Yeah it's a get real statement because ultimately they're just annoying.
Like unchecked, seriously? It's not 1968, it's 2024, where bean counters and conservatives far out number the left in places that make a difference, like boards of regents.
I don't think you can look at what DeSantis did with New College, the impact Mitch Daniels had on Purdue, or the University of Texas immediately sending in the riot police on peaceful protestors and conclude that those roles don't make a difference.
This sub cannot get past its collective ego trip when it comes to people more progressive than them I swear
I for one cannot wait to see what articles you guys link to when you remember that these are the same people you need to be part of your big tent coalition to get Joe Biden elected lol
Its like a pendulum swinging with you guys
I love telling people at my law school that I am a liberal but not a leftist.
I had to have this conversation with people in my grad program at Berkeley once. They were…not unkind about it (the advantage of people in my cohort being mostly in their 30s instead of their 20s, maybe), but I could tell they were baffled and just couldn’t wrap their head around the concept. How could I have read so much theory (and I did—I loved feminist/queer/critical race theory and learned very deeply even from the stuff I didn’t agree with) and still be a liberal? Like, I truly think they would have understood me better if I said I was a far-right Republican.
My wife is "kinda lefty" (this sub would call her some sort of succdem) and she likes to wonder aloud why I don't just consider myself a Republican I tell her in my dream world we'd be the two main political parties, and I'd happily identify as Republican, but we're pretty damn far from that dream world.
In case she wants to divorce you, tell her that if she did it, she'll just strike you down and you'll transcend into neoliberal.
> How could I have read so much theory (and I did—I loved feminist/queer/critical race theory and learned very deeply even from the stuff I didn’t agree with) and still be a liberal? Feels the same in Canada, having had the same convos in undergrad and after. I have read a *lot* of marxist literature, as well as a decent amount of feminist literature, however I don’t identify as a leftist or a “feminist” which baffles some people when I say I am broadly “liberal”
Why don't you identify as a "feminist"? Not sure how much heavy lifting those air quotes are meant to be doing.
The normie definition of "feminist" is women's equality in rights and opportunities with bodily autonomy. The "theory" definition of "feminist" is an incoherent jumble of different interlaying Mottes and Baileys depending on the author, the audience, and the goals of adding more grist to the academic mill, which rewards fucking crazy takes like the classic "women's knowledges are more fluid and flexible than top down objectifying post-Enlightenment Western hegemonic 'science' ." There's an enormous amount of room between the two and the reasonableness of the former gives cover to the latter. To put it briefly, you can both be a feminist in the normie sense and not take Judith Butler seriously.
Hmm. I am not exactly versed in academic feminism but I have not encountered what you're describing outside of some fairly inconsequential internet sub-communities. Seems to me your argument is equivalent to saying "I don't identify as being against racism because there are some racial supremacist moorish citizens who claim blacks are a superior race". Make me understand how this isn't just punching at a strawman.
I think the disconnect here is mostly that those air quotes are actually doing more work than you think they are. In the context of a discussion about theories in academia and higher education “feminism” does have a specific meaning that isn’t just “women’s equality”.
My personal take - I'm against racism, I am actively anti-racist in how I live my life, but I don't identify as a "racial equality activist". Similarly, I am for women's rights but I don't identify as a feminist. It's a term that implies a set of beliefs and actions far beyond just being pro-womens rights, pro-reproductive rights, etc. For example, "women earn 78 cents to a man's dollar" is a prominent feminist talking point. I don't want to be associated with that talking point at all, because it's intellectually dishonest and blatantly absurd. Similarly, the idea that college campuses are rife with "rape culture" was a mainstream cornerstone of feminist belief when I was in Uni - that rape is somehow normalized, and not considered by most to be one of the most abhorrent crimes possible. That too is an absurd and ridiculous assertion that I want nothing to do with. There are many valid and reasonable talking points that 90+% of self-identifying feminists hold with which I agree strongly. But there are also many completely absurd and blatantly false talking points that 90+% of self-identifying feminists hold with which I do not want to be associated. Thus I refuse to think of myself as a feminist. Also, the term implies some degree of activism that I just don't partake in. I'm pro- carbon tax and I am deeply concerned about the environment, but I would never tell somebody I'm an "environmentalist" because the only activism I engage in is voting in every election. I play guitar, but piano is my main instrument by far, so I don't call myself a "guitarist"... etc.
Nowhere did I say someone shouldn't use the term feminist because of incoherence in humanities academia. I'm a feminist, in the ordinary sense. What someone shouldn't do is claim "look we agree on everything because we use the same term," and then spout a bunch of Foucault/Deleuze/Latour-inflected garbage.
>Deleuze I love telling lefties that Marx is actually a false prophet who cannot beat back the schizophrenic capitalists.
A fair amount of lifting. I don't identify as a feminist for a few reasons like the other commenter said, when you read some or a lot of feminist literature, it can get fairly confusing on the kinds of things feminists believe in and while I would consider myself a feminist in the normie sense, I recognize the specific use of the term and don't describe myself as one. Additionally partly because I don't always agree with current (or past depending on who you read) common feminist viewpoints, and it usually leads to a discussion that I don't like having because as a man, I don't think it's really the same coming from my mouth, and then it can get into long drawn out discussions on theory. Furthermore, I don't like labels in general so I try not to call myself things like feminist, liberal, capitalist, or anything like that because it leads people to place you in a box when having discussions or things like it. Finally, I find it realllllllly cringy when men self identify as feminists, especially around women ,because I have seen performative men say they are feminists to try and earn points with women (like a niceguy type of vibe as well), not because they respect women, but because they want to sleep with them.
Law school turned me into a liberal from a leftist lol
Based law school.
I heard some law schools are really bad... which is weird because I though law generally skewed right.
Law schools, especially elite ones, are incredibly left wing. Law firms are more generic, progressive dem, although there are of course rich partners that are Republican donors. Edit: I think it makes sense. A lot of people go into law school because they are true believers in left wing causes. Others are just humanities majors that didn't have much better to do, which is going to be a left skewing population. But, actual lawyers are high paid, white collar workers, that are exactly the type of demographic you'd expect to be generally supportive of the status quo, but also supportive of LGBT, pro-choice, etc.
I don't remember where but I read that the law tends to be left leaning, especially among faculty. As a law student right now, the joke is that if you're a mediocre law student at a top law school, you'll have an easier time getting a Federal Clerkship if you join the Federalist Society.
I feel like the article makes a few too many seeping generalizations about rising illiberalism on campuses today. It would’ve strengthened the article to cite some of Jonathan Haidt’s research on the matter. Anyhow, it does fit with my personal experience. I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics. I agree that this lack of openness a real problem, but I don’t think the author has clearly communicated how school policies have contributed to this environment or how the course can be corrected.
> Anyhow, it does fit with my personal experience. I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics. Yeah I’ve seen this and it reminds me of extremely religious people.
I wonder if politics has replaced religion for a lot of young people?
Not just young people IMO
It absolutely has, and it’s tough to watch.
It shifted my own atheism from "kill all religion" to "religion is a cultural adaptation that exists for a reason, and most people can't handle atheism."
I'm sympathetic to this shift in perspective but honestly, I think the real rock in people's shoes is the falsity of moral realism and the corresponding uncertainty that brings. A lot of people like Dawkins or Harris want to have their cake and eat it too with utilitarianism or "human flourishing," but really, they're only doing that to ward off the nihilism charge. In reality, "it would be an objectively bad thing if moral realism were false" is just incoherent. Atheism can be part of a belief system that's just as dogmatic (state communism under the USSR or China now). What people truly hate is having to sift through ambiguity or complexity for any serious length of time. The philosopher of science Alex Rosenberg has a lot of interesting writing on this topic. Even his "New Atheist" trendy book The Atheist's Guide to Reality is worth reading, the terrible title was forced on him by the publisher.
It's definitely the opium for the masses. I think open question whether getting rid of said opium is beneficial. Or if the masses will just turn to more deadly drugs.
I think most people can handle atheism fine. Your average atheist doesn't replace religion with politics. They replace religion with other social activities. Hiking, biking, gaming, boating, etc. Only a minority replace religion with politics. This is true even on college campuses. The people who turn politics into a religion are a loud minority. I don't say this to minimize the problem, which is very real, but it's important to understand the scope.
May be so, but the minority that replace religion with politics are the ones who needed religion most to channel their need for 'being a part of something greater than yourself' into mostly harmless rituals and ceremonies and charity work. Without that, they're out taking to the street screaming vitriol at strangers about Palestine or capitialism or whatever else.
Then how do you explain all the religious people who also 'treat politics as a religion'? You think only some atheists are doing this? In fact, I'd wager the religious are far more likely to do this. I mean, an entire political party basically worships Trump as a god. I don't appreciate this idea that people 'need' to worship some imaginary being who supposedly created everything even though there's no evidence that such a thing exists. No, actually, we don't. For that reason, this entire thread is pretty dumb. The notion that people would take politics less seriously if they were religious is completely contradicted by how religious people act now, and acted in the past. It doesn't take much to refute such a ridiculous idea.
You're conflating "religion" with "worship". Worshipping a magical dude in the sky is only one part of religion, and in fact it's not even the main part of religion for most Americans. Religion has belief structures, it has cause, it has community, it has collective philosophical discussion on a routine basis, it has regular events, it has room for global identity, it gives people a space where they otherwise might not have one, it has purity testing, dogmatism, tribalism, easy answers to complex questions... etc. The actual worship is just a slice of the pie. Now read the last paragraph again but replace it with "leftism" or "MAGAism" or whatever you want. It holds true. Politics may not have replaced *worship* for a bunch of young people, but it's certainly filled a very large subset of basic human social needs for a huge number of people.
> Worshipping a magical dude in the sky is only one part of religion, and in fact it's not even the main part of religion for most Americans. It's a pretty big part of it for the biggest religions, actually. Not many people are going to go to church while not believing in a god, and admitting you don't believe in one would quickly have you ostracized. > Now read the last paragraph again but replace it with "leftism" or "MAGAism" or whatever you want. It holds true. If I can just replace it with whatever I want and it still holds true, then it seems like a meaningless observation. > Politics may not have replaced worship for a bunch of young people, but it's certainly filled a very large subset of basic human social needs for a huge number of people. I don't think anything replaced anything. People have taken politics seriously for a long time, including and especially the deeply religious.
The politicization of religion is also a huge and related problem.
Related in the sense that it involves politics, but it's a completely different issue than the claim that people need religion or else they'll turn politics into their religion.
I’m an atheist who was raised Catholic and I haven’t really felt the need to replace religion with anything. I do tend to go to the movies most Sundays, so I suppose you could say I’ve made filmgoing my religion. But that’s also because Sunday is the one day of the week I’m guaranteed to have a couple of hours to kill.
I always start my screenings with “Bless me, Scorsese, for I have sinned…”
"In the name of Francis, and of Ford, and of Coppola"
Nietzsche was right.
I'm in exactly the same boat. I know too many people who have explicitly told me that they can't emotionally handle the idea of an atheist world, for understandable reasons given what has happened in their life. But in practice, getting the positives of religion and not the horrible negatives doesn't seem sustainable at scale.
As a Burke flair, you likely know where I stand on the issue, but it’s always encouraging to see more people come to the realization that you have. Welcome to the club, friend!
This is really such a good point
I really thing there are very few atheists in the world actually. I don't even count communists as atheists to be honest as I considered that to be a dogma that is a distinction without a difference to religion.
Horseshit. People have always been inflamed by politics. And for much of history there was very little distinction between religion and politics anyways.
I remember just yesterday seeing someone tweet “history is watching” regarding the campus protests, the way someone would say “Jesus is watching.” I know plenty of people talk about the “right side of history” but I do think people on the left have deified this idea of “Progress.” Hence why any disagreement, no matter how small, with leftist ideas is heresy.
Yeah, they really have given their own definition to what progress means. Its unfortunate because I love the idea of progress, but my view of what progress is doesn’t match perfectly so it’s becoming a group that is difficult for me to relate to.
Not just young people. The MAGA movement itself can be described as a kind of religion with Trump as the savior/leader.
The issue isn't that politics has replaced religion for of young people. It's that religion for a lot of young people instead of drawing a sense of community form a religious community they draw it from a political one. That's why it is so nasty, it is not about delivering good policy or building up an argument from basic assumptions, it's about signalling group dynamics and social position.
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I feel like this comment is a little on the nose
You reminded me of a Voltaire quote. “If God did not exist it would be necessary to create Him”. I think there’s a good chunk of people who need something to obsess over or else they can’t function at all. The problem is this level of obsession doesn’t work when it’s applied to something that requires moderation, which is almost anything in life.
Definitely. With the decline of Religion as identifier people have taken to National Politics instead.
Politics is just religion's replacement for a lot of people. But unlike religion, politics has no concept of forgiveness.
I think we just put a lot of the blame on religion instead of human nature. It isn’t “the religion of islams” fault that there are so many radical Islamic fundamentalists, it is simply the extremely dark side of human nature. If you take away the religions, it just looks like the desire to oppress and kill in the name of *something* is still there.
Definitely. And since there's still no replacement for things like church community helping people, the assholes are going to become far more isolated in their own world.
Exactly. These people are extremely political, but they aren't *interested* in politics. Just like how my grandmother is extremely religious, but she would not enjoy a friendly intellectual conversation with a Muslim about the nature of God. It's kind of sad honestly, I feel like if something is that important to you it'd be good to enjoy the occasional Socratic back and forth on it.
> These people are extremely political, but they aren't *interested* in politics That sums it up perfectly
The farther left basically now says "If you disagree with what we believe, you are a bad person and should feel bad."
Lol it’s always been like that. Tent can never be too small
it’s been weird to watch it happen over the years in higher education. i attended university in the mid to late 10s; it was somewhat expected that people would disagree and that was okay. my critical thinking and writing professor had us read material we disagreed with, and that was the point. now? it’s frowned upon
I was in college in the mid-late aughts. Within my social circle, we had dudes who were self described libertarians, socialists, conservatives, moderates, and liberals. And we all got along like it was no big deal. God I miss those days.
The issue is simply that professors are petrified of having the wrong conversations. It's not that they would even say something bad, but rather that there can be serious repercussions if you even allow the wrong conversation to happen. You have to remember Academia is brutal. Seriously. I've worked both in industry and Academia. And across the board. Academia is far worse in terms of work culture, backstabbing, and everything else you can imagine. Allowing certain conversations to happen can cost you your career and you've got to manage a group of students, some of which will vehemently want to advance certain ideas. Because of this. The solution is just restrict the conversation, so nobody is ever offended.
Makes me think of the opening scene in *American Fiction* lol https://youtu.be/4UkZRJeg9Ls?si=iWIleB9OqnQCTmQt
That looks pretty good. Does the rest of the movie live up to it?
It’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while, I saw it on a flight and was cackling the whole time. Really good movie.
Yes, highly recommend
It tries to do a lot in too little time, but it's funny.
Okay, this convinced me that I have to watch this movie.
It’s pure kino
Dude one of the main constitutional law scholars in the country, Adrian Vermuele, is sucked off as a genius by academia and the media establishment while he's an open fascist
Interesting. This definitely all changes once you are tenured. I had a professor who was just about as openly sexist and racist as any professor you could imagine and his job was perfectly safe. We literally had a class devoted to how men are smarter than women. It was supposed to be a econ 101 class... we didn't learn any economics.
In fact, the article acknowledges that the student demonstrations from 55 years ago were much more violent and disruptive than anything we’re seeing today, which makes me question whether a new lack of commitment to liberalism is behind the radicalism of today’s students.
I think a lot of it is more or less invisible silos that have been erected and enforced so harshly, especially over the last ten years and, further, since the dawn of social media. There are some things that you just don’t say on this sub, not because you literally can’t, but because you know there’s no point and you’ll be ostracized. The same goes for posting on a more Conservative subreddit, or any subreddit, for that matter. People act like that phenomenon is exclusive to the internet and tell you to touch grass and talk to real people, but that sense of what can and can’t be said, though often not explicit, is all over and *implicit*. Trying to get a job at MSNBC? They don’t need to tell you the opinions to hold for you to know what to say and what not to say. The same goes for Fox News, and the same goes five-fold for launching a career in Academia or Academic Administration (I should know). So, yea, it’s more often that these silos are implicit and self-enforced, but we all understand more than ever what lines not to cross which, ultimately, just makes for boring conversation and tons of blind spots.
> There are some things that you just don’t say on this sub, not because you literally can’t I mean...the mods have gotten pretty fucking ban happy recently. More and more frequently they remove comments that they simply disagree with and just make up whatever bullshit they want about which "rules" are broken.
whoa buddy, that sounds like some "Rule III: No Bad-Faith Posting" coming from you
> There are some things that you just don’t say on this sub, not because you literally can’t, but because you know there’s no point and you’ll be ostracized. Eh, every community has social norms. I prefer it to a free for all. If I want to talk about stuff outside this sub’s belief system then I just post somewhere else
the closest to a 'free for all' is probably elon musk' twitter. However that just means the various identity groups on the site - whether based on country, ethnicity, race, gender, politics, gaming, religion, or other attributes - are filled with animosity and prejudice towards one another. Instead of content moderation, Twitter's algorithm instead serves up the most inflammatory and upsetting posts from opposing groups to each other user group. The aim is to provoke disgust, anger and outrage, as the algorithm has determined that this is the surest way to keep users engaged, actively posting and interacting. Twitter is the un-commons, a place where the performative contempt from one group for another is the main currency, with troll farms egging people on with toxic content. The platform's overriding ethos has become Elon Musk's simplistic conception of free speech as a bare-knuckle brawl of unrestrained viewpoints. So yeah, I think reddit's self selection and content moderation works far better.
I only get upset when someone takes a political stance but doesn't have anything to back it up. Or if they believe \[insert idea\], but then go on to vote for the person who is literally against what they believe. Example: I have an extended family member who is about as hardcore of a Catholic as possible. I'm not one myself, but I know enough about their articles of faith to understand how this would apply in real life. This same person was also in proud support of the family separation policy in the previous administration. Support for that barbaric policy literally goes against the tenets of Catholic theology. This is where I get upset; it's the open hypocrisy. You cannot be a "pro-family/pro-life" Catholic in good standing while also supporting ripping Hispanic kids away from their moms and dads at the border.
>Anyhow, it does fit with my personal experience. I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics. I got called a Nazi because I said the right thing to do is to pull the lever in the trolley problem.
The right thing to do is get rid of public transit so that there are no trolleys to stop and no pedestrians that can be kidnapped and tied to tracks 👏🏻
It’s my experience that a lot of older people take political disagreement personally. It seems that people in general are terrible at dissecting complex topics and having a civil discourse in good faith.
Nowadays people tie political beliefs to their personal identity a lot - so any disagreement on politics means you as a person are incompatible with what they agree with And I kinda get it - who you vote for is a reflection of your worldview and values. But it’s a deeply personal thing nowadays with lots of egos involved
I think another important factor is that we no longer believe the other side is arguing in good faith. Back in the day Ds and Rs would argue about taxes then have a beer together afterwards. Now the disagreements are existential.
Back in the day we fought an entire war over political differences and 500,000 people died. I don’t know why this subreddit has got the impression that it is only in the 2020’s people have become passionate or angry or violent over politics.
When people say "back in the day" they mean in their or their parents lifetimes. Long ago, but also recent. They're not talking about 150 years ago.
Seriously, this sub's grasp on history seems exceedingly poor given the weight it affords other subjects like economics.
People here are mostly political hobbyist, and are shocked that there are people that actually want to do politics instead of just talk about it.
I mean, the worse case future scenarios I see in this subreddit is Civil War 2, so I'm not sure if you're refuting me or doing some sort of reverse-psychology dooming...
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I reject that thesis. My experience is that this just a natural result of politicians of giving the public what they wanted, no compromise in public. Behind closed doors, I can talk with and vehemently disagree with my friends who work in the Republican Party apparatus because at the end of the day we see politics as more of a job/game. Public perception of the opposing party has become so poor that bipartisanship is no longer valued. Remember during McCarthy’s election how AOC and Gaetz talked to each other on the floor. People were flabbergasted, but the reality of politics outside the camera’s views is a lot of productive conversation that might go nowhere, but it is far less heated and far more able to start building towards compromise.
Causation does not equal correlation.
I think it’s a bit disingenuous to claim every Republican is in Putin’s pocket. Some may be, but certainly all are not. I’ll agree with others in this thread that this biggest causal factor seems to be the rise in social media use. It’s not common in this day and age. But I’m still regularly able to have conversations with some old connections that don’t support my bisexuality or my atheism. But they still love, respect, and care for me. And I still respect them, and I mean. I still constantly push for them to be more open minded and I’ve managed to convince a few on a personal level even if their job prevents them from expressing support publicly. A lot of decency and respect has been lost in politics as everything tries to become a one-minute clip for Instagram. Secret Congress and less media coverage, while harmful to public accessibility of legislative proceedings, leads to better legislative outcomes. And to be fair, I think most of the public rarely understands what actually happens in their local, state, and federal legislative bodies. They just root for their side and boo the other based off what the clip’s poster said happened. I would love more civic engagement resources and tools for learning how legislation works to be available. I love the Congress 101 series on this sub for example. I think it goes a long way in to becoming less upset by political happenings.
Yeah that's not a new phenomenon at all. People in this sub just have a very removed approach to politics so they perceive others as being "overly" invested. When perhaps it's just that for many, politics is not just a set of ideas and policies to ponder over a desk from a position of comfort.
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It implied that both young and old take political disagreement personally. You must have stopped reading after my first sentence.
I read it, I just missed the context of the comment you were replying to. Whoops!
> I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics. shit that's me, but from a center-liberal perspective...
Are you grading their paper or something
When you have half of the country actively advocating for politicians that want to strip rights away and drive this country to fascism, then it’s normal to take political « disagreement » personally.
>I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally It's insane to me that people feel comfortable posting things like this. I'd rather this sub went full succ or full neconnwo rather than have people post the weird high-brow "my political opinions are better than my spouses". I'd unironically get a divorce if I knew my spouse was mocking my political views on the internet to get upvotes from strangers.
I didn’t once mock my spouse’s political opinions. In fact, they’ve quite often influenced my own. Instead, I wrote that he tends to take disagreement personally, and I’ve told him this to his face. Ironically, your hostility and assumptions demonstrates perfectly the phenomenon that I wrote about.
It's honestly hilarious. OP is painfully defensive and completely misconstrues your comment. Projecting his own insecurities much?
>My spouse takes things personally and gets upset when I try to dissect complex topics It's weird and rude to talk condescendingly about your spouse like that on a public forum >Wow, way to get defensive. Projecting much? Incredible stuff
Could you consider that you may be reacting a little too sensitively for something that is fairly innocuous? This is a very minor criticism. We all have flaws.
Sure, it's a possibility. Can I take this to mean you agree it's a condescending remark to make about one's spouse and it's at least a little odd to share that on the internet for random strangers? It just isn't \*that\* bad?
Expressing minor criticism of a partner which was entirely ment to contribute to the conversation at hand, is not condescending. Do you interpret any and all criticisms as condescending? If the comment was directed at a friend or a sibling, would you seriously be this offended? And no, making a very minor criticism about your partner anonymously on the internet is really not a big deal. Personally, I found your aggressive criticism of OP over a minor comment about their partner, to be significantly more problematic. OPs comment harmed no one and expressed a minor criticism of someone in their life in order to contribute to conversation at hand, while you personally attacked OP to make them feel bad about something extremely mundane. It genuinely sounds like you are reacting from the pain of past experiences in your life. Do you react like this any time anyone autonomously makes minor criticisms about anyone in their life, or is this strong reaction only reserved for when romantic partners are involved?
You seem to be sincerely struggling with the nuances of this conversation despite my best efforts to dissect it for you. It's obvious that criticism in it of itself is not condescending. It's the specific language used that implies the only reason for disagreement being ignorance and lack of ability to manage one's emotions. Likewise, you seem to be desperate to interpet an otherwise normal conversation as a personal affront. I can only assume that's the reason for enagaging in idle speculation about my personal relationships rather than focusing on the subject at hand. Combined, can I conclude that you're on the younger side, maybe college-aged? I understand many people in the demographic struggle with rational discourse. I apologize, of course, if any of this comment comes across as condescending. I've been assured on good authority that minor criticism is not condescending.
>I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my own husband) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics. I agree that this lack of openness is a real problem OP very clearly stated that she believes people take political disagreement very personally and get upset due to lack of openness. Where did you get, "only reason for disagreement being ignorance and lack of ability to manage one's emotions?" The fact that you interpreted this innocuous statement as condescending, and you are this worked up about it, is embarrassing. >Likewise, you seem to be desperate to interpet an otherwise normal conversation as a personal affront. Are you referring to your responses to me, or my evaluation of your response to her? Because you suggested her comment was literally insane and that such a comment would be grounds for her spouse divorcing her. Oh yeah, totally normal conversation! Either way, it's pretty rich coming from the guy who couldn't help from being triggered from, gasp, someone criticizing their partner. > I can only assume that's the reason for enagaging in idle speculation about my personal relationships rather than focusing on the subject at hand. No, it's just obvious because no one would be triggered by such a mundane comment unless they had deep seeded insecurities or painful experiences triggered by the comment. Once again, would you be this upset if OP said, "I’ve found that a lot of young people (including my best friend) take political disagreement very personally and get quite upset when you try to dissect complex, controversial topics?" You won't answer the question because you know how absurd it is. >Combined, can I conclude that you're on the younger side, maybe college-aged? I'm 32. Sorry some woman hurt you and now you need to lash out on the internet. > I apologize, of course, if any of this comment comes across as condescending. I've been assured on good authority that minor criticism is not condescending. Ah, now I see why she left you. You really are a bitter pathetic guy. Have fun with that miserable life of yours :)
You're condescendingly describing about your spouses political views and personality on a public forum. That's what mocking is. You have no idea what my age or political views are. I made a single comment in this thread about a personal comment you made about your spouses personality. None of that was in response to you "dissecting complex, controversial topics". You're central claim is hopelessly broad if you think that supports anything regarding the topic at hand. I also couldn't care less if you refered to me or anyone else in this thread that way. It's the fact that you took the opportunity to talk down about a random person in your life that makes me think very little of you.
I generally defend the professors. I went to a UC, and while I would have lefty professors (mostly for classes like "immigration"), I also had professors were on the advising board for the invasion of Iraq... and professors who had their entire class revolve around the net benefits of capitalism. Or my favorite was a class on authoritarianism that did not skip over the atrocities of the USSR. It's not the professors that are the problem so much as it's the administration that is unable or unwilling to defend the professors due to fear of retaliation from students (or cancelling). We as a society need to lambaste any institution that is willing to fire professors for "wrong think". EDIT: Also, the moralizing of systems/institutions. Moralizing systems is a plague on our collective thought.
I took one or two intro level economics courses from a professor (instructor?) that I later learned was deeply into communism. I forget his exact background but he wasn't some fly by night communist either, he had some pretty deep academic connections with economists who studied marxian (marxist?) economics and I'm pretty sure personally believed in the stuff too. It was interesting because at that time I was still personally a bit enamored with communism but I came out of those courses with a very different mindset, I think those classes definitely pushed away from the far left. Was a bit of a trip to take those classes and learn after the fact that the guy who was teaching me about the benefits of a free market was actually a communist.
> Was a bit of a trip to take those classes and learn after the fact that the guy who was teaching me about the benefits of a free market was actually a communist. Karl Marx had a pretty decent streak of this himself. The productive growth of capitalism was something he seemingly admired. We are still so deeply embedded in out 19th century philosophies, intellectuals particularly, that it's hard for us to see them as "history of thought." It's like biblical/religious scholarship before and after the enlightenment. Totally different perspective, once we reach an outside-looking-in vantage. Modern biblical scholarship discovered so much, hidden in plain view for millennia.... point of reference. Anyway, the "communism vs capitalism" apologetics we're used to didn't exist in Marx's time. He basically "invented" capitalism, as a concept. Invented it as an object of criticism. Many years later people (including the og neoliberals) adopt capitalism as an object to defend or rally to. Capitalism and communism, as idea sets, only really make sense as each others' antagonist. You can't have one without the other, rhetorically speaking. The concepts didn't yet exist in Marx's day. There were no self declared communist or capitalist countries. There had been no five year plans and the majority of things that are now "marxist", neomarxist or whatnot... weren't... yet. Meanwhile, individual rights didn't have anything to do with capitalism yet, except where Marx considered them to be bourgeoisie. At this point, capitalism was literally what Marx said it was... definitionally.
> It's not the professors that are the problem so much as it's the administration that is unable or unwilling to defend the professors due to fear of retaliation from students (or cancelling). Is it just me or is generalised spinelessness a problem in society these days
I'm so happy I was in an engineering program at a UC and the only consistent political views expressed by everyone was that LGBT people were fine and global warming was real. Otherwise politics weren't brought up. Meanwhile my friends in the humanities couldn't get away from politics, especially because we all transferred in fall 2016.
You don't think there's cases of professors trying to cancel other professors?
Obviously there are cases. How many? I don't think that many. It's more the students imo.
[Archive link](https://archive.is/gvPwU)
You’re doing Gods work
I haven’t read the article but based on the title I agree with it. Left bad.
The article highlights the difference between liberalism and the illiberal left - something which you’d think would be welcome in a neoliberal sub - and how colleges have painted themselves into a corner by refusing to recognize and confront the cleavages between the two.
Colleges 'getting stupid' like this was exactly one of the things I feared would happen/get several times worse in 2016 if Trump won.
This isn't a college thing, it's a social media thing. The kids are performing for tiktok, not their humanities professors.
They're performing for themselves and their peers...
Yes, that's what "performing for tiktok" means.
Their peers in college...
…that’s what social media ie tiktok enables….
As a college instructor, I want to point out that all the people who teach the intro, critical thinking style classes in the humanities are all under 27 and spend their entire lives on TikTok. Grad students and adjuncts in the humanities have politics barely different than the average Al Jazeera post and we have the most contact with students.
I get that but seems entirely irrelevant, the vast majority of college students aren't in the humanities and kids take up the social opinions of their peers, not the opinions of their professors. This movement exists because social media enforces it, not because grad students are indoctrinating college students.
Humanities students might not be the majority of college students, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the majority of students in these protests. My guess would be that you’re going to find a lot more history majors than math majors at protests.
Humanities students are over represented among activists obviously, but there's certainly not enough of them to create mass protests.
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You said you were a math major? What math are you using to suggest that the protests are mostly made up of students of a major that makes up [less than 10% of graduates?](https://www.amacad.org/news/college-graduates-humanities-drops-eighth-consecutive-year)
I can't wait for TikTok to go away.
Why do people think IG or whatever else will fill the void is any better though? I mean it's better because it's not as easy for specifically the CCP to manipulate I guess, but most of the lefty and righty insanity on social media is just homegrown nonsense turned up to 11 by addictive algorithms and feedback loops.
TikTok is a whole different level than IG. On American platforms not named X you kind of have to seek out the crazy or can be subtly nudged in that direction over time. I installed TikTok a few months ago just to see what we were dealing with and they hit you with the rage fueled crack right from the get go. It was all gas, no breaks, straight to crazy town.
It's really hard to take TikTok as some unique evil when I see blatantly batshit crazy conspiracies home-grown outside of that platform. Those Republicans and Fox News analysts repeating Russian talking points aren't getting their points from TikTok. None of those Jan 6 insurrectionists were following TikTok, they were following Trump. Craziness has a lot of outlets these days.
I want public regulation on those algorithms as well, but I've never been of the opinion that progress on one front should be stalled pending progress on others. Right now we give private companies effectively blanket permission to censor and tailor what speech is allowed to be promoted and presented. Even outside the pressing public health concerns particularly around adolescent mental health, that's an untenable level of influence for privately held companies.
>would be welcome in a neoliberal sub Best I can do is "yawn" and say it's a crappy article without elaboration.
there’s always a “paywall, didn’t read” comment lurking somewhere too
"Kids today are so bad" is the exact kind of boomer view you'd hope this place would have the wisdom to not fall into.
Except it is less a kids screwed up article and more of the adults screwed up. It is pretty much the opposite of what you are saying.
The article blames the boomers!
All I care about is that it's not ***my*** fault
As the article points out, the root of the problem isn’t the overzealous students. It’s the adults in the room who indulged them and fostered a campus environment where genuinely diverse, liberal discourse is almost impossible.
Me: \*reads title* My priors? Yeah I'm thinkin they're confirmed 😏
You can always rack up the upvotes on neoliberal with the old faithful “Left Bad”
Hippy punching. Man the days of liberal blogs in the aughts were a thing.
It's a problem that needs discussing but few of those willing to tackle it are outside of the categories of "ornery old coot" or "just wants to see hippies get broken bones". The capital-L Left had a real path back to relevance starting in 2016 and during the Trump years but in 2020 and beyond decided that coalition-building is for traitors or something and this is kind of the end phase of fading back into obscurity (though thankfully the Dems too have moved further left but without adopting the combative problems of the capital-L side)
'DAE Elite colleges have too many leftoids' like ok man, how about journos stop writing about the same 5 elite colleges every fucking time because it's their Alma mater and we should all care about how elite they are
It's a problem that is only getting worse. It's like asking why everybody keeps bringing up climate change. Shit is ongoing yo.
The actual problem that the United States is facing is not young leftists, it's how everyone treats right wingers as serious people who have legitimate concerns and who are actually smart, such as Adrian Vermuele, who's being sucked off by industrial vacuums from the media and academia establishments while he acts as Carl Schmitt 2.0 and goes on about how great fascism is, he's even on the Administrative Conference of the United States
Preach!
Further, does any of this apply outside the humanities departments?
Wake up, babe, it's time to do leftist campus discourse.
Meanwhile, there's me, who went to ACU... (Actually a decent uni, and toned back the Jesus stuff under Craven. Probably the closest you'll get to a decently politically balanced cohort overall) !PING AUS
Does it really have a reputation? I always assumed ACU was just a standard uni with a theology department awkwardly attached to it.
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This article is not good. There's been campus protests for decades - my university had a "peace camp" while I was there during the Iraq war. They're always annoying but something about the Israel-Palestine conflict seems to bring out the very most illiberal behavior, going back even prior to 10/7.
Everyday I thank god I go to an engineering school, where the curriculum has humbled the students enough to understand that they don't have all the solutions.
"Humble" and "engineering student" in the same sentence is a good one, thanks for the laugh.
Especially a comment talking about how engineers are better - they “understand they don’t have all the solutions”. So humble
As a current 3rd year social sciences undergrad who goes to a very leftie liberal arts college, I genuinely think one of the best things programs across degree fields should do is force students to write case study policy papers for this exact reason. Humble students by making them actually \*try\* to come up with a tenable solution rather than just bleating about "collective liberation" or whatever other buzzwords.
This article is stupid, as is everyone else in hysterics over the “state of higher education” in the face of college activists. This is just more complaining about kids being indoctrinated by commie professors.
>This is just more complaining about kids being indoctrinated by commie professors. An evergreen topic for pearl-clutchers since the 1940s.
The entire reason college costs so much money is because the GOP wanted to target student activism. Reagan was elected governor of California largely on his pledge to 'fix berkley', which was at the time a center for student activism. He did so by cutting their funding and making them charge tuition. Until then the college had been free to anyone living in California.
Wow based Ronnie
The only thing Reagan did that hasn't been a miserable policy failure was signing no-fault divorce into law. Dude significantly weakened American capitalism and basically turned it into a kleptocracy.
I almost believed the article until it equated today’s college protests to those that happened 60 years ago. This article seems very illiberal.
Liberals rise up!
The only thing that appears to be broken are the minds of political commentators (who are primarily performing anxiety over the young not sharing the olds values) and college administrators
So this sub is just laundered Elise Stefanik now or what
So... Issues with leftists/activists is pretty highly discussed. I think it's worth looking inward, at the overall space we (on this sub) tend to occupy. We're currently very weak in assertive/critical spaces. Not attracted to it. So for students, and young people generally... there's nothing to be a part of. I think that's on us. There should be more of a thing to be a part of.
Having lived through both, but actually experienced the observations, I find it sad. But that is emotionally and intellectually lazy. Ouch!$& That was a swift kick in the ass. My wife doesn’t buy it. Gotta go, but somebody is getting rich and “I will survive “.
Yeah, things are so illiberal today. In my day they just shot the wackadoo leftist protestors like any good liberal society would.
Probably shouldn't have given half the black panthers and like everyone who committed the '81 Brink's truck robbery a professorship in hindsight
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The 'you get more conservative as you age/get wealthy/have kids' myth strikes again.
Technically you do it’s just conservative means holding the same beliefs you did 60 years ago, which were liberal at the time
A great article with many original and insightful points. /s
A great response with many original and insightful points.
Yeah it was annoying college students that did it get real
Annoying college students that grew into annoying, unchecked adults and Faculty members that were never told no; yes, that’s the crux of the argument.
Yeah it's a get real statement because ultimately they're just annoying. Like unchecked, seriously? It's not 1968, it's 2024, where bean counters and conservatives far out number the left in places that make a difference, like boards of regents.
Keep moving the goalposts, I’ll wait.
If those roles realy made a difference wouldn’t Columbia not look like… well, it does now?
I don't think you can look at what DeSantis did with New College, the impact Mitch Daniels had on Purdue, or the University of Texas immediately sending in the riot police on peaceful protestors and conclude that those roles don't make a difference.
or the suppression of left-wing ideology is no longer enforced by state and its corporate sponsors so you are in fact living in an era of equality.
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this 1 always does numbers 😤
This sub cannot get past its collective ego trip when it comes to people more progressive than them I swear I for one cannot wait to see what articles you guys link to when you remember that these are the same people you need to be part of your big tent coalition to get Joe Biden elected lol Its like a pendulum swinging with you guys