Grievance studies: how liberal ideologues have poisoned the academia to push their hate based agenda

[Diamat]

As an academic you should very well know the empirical value of an anecdote as a method of drawing a generalized conclusion. It is important to underline diversity in schools. Especially universities. It is also important to continually push this boundary when we consider, the legacy of racism in United States. I'm amused that you said you are "color-blind", as if race, as an identifier, is unimportant. Yeah, quite frankly, if I was in a Ph.D. program and someone told me they're "color-blind" and that we shouldn't talk about diversity, I'd gape too.

It's an anecdote based on a consistent experience in academia, a mere surface ripple amidst a deep ocean. I find it funny that you would so quickly dismiss my experience while, I'm sure, being much more hesitant to deny the personal experiences of "marginalized" individuals. And you're disregarding the specificity of my experience. I used the notion of color-blind with regard to teaching. I treat all students equally and do not judge them on the basis of their skin color. It's precisely because of such non-sense that I got an academic position outside of the United States, where I can creatively develop a curriculum that isn't bogged down by politically correct red-tape and bureaucracy.

[Love Mountain]

It's an anecdote based on a consistent experience in academia, a mere surface ripple amidst a deep ocean.

It's an anecdote. Agreed?

I find it funny that you would so quickly dismiss my experience while, I'm sure, being much more hesitant to deny the personal experiences of "marginalized" individuals. And you're disregarding the specificity of my experience.

I'm hesitant to use any anecdote to support sweeping generalizations. Yeah, we all have our slip-ups and I'm much more likely to let a "marginalized" person to sway my point of view. I am, at the very least, honest enough to admit it. On the other hand, the constant innuendo of "SJW apocalypse" constantly being preached by you and Himster, are much less likely to sway me considering my own personal (and on-going experience) with Academia as well as lack of any hard statistical evidence, say otherwise. I was curious about PhD culture seeing as how I'm musing going back to school full-time for a graduate degree in public policy, and my recent experience with humanities graduate students did not demonize me at all for holding conservative views and concern over whether diversity and feminism as a subject is dominating the field.

It's pathetic. The constant innuendo against SJWs, when I have rarely met such extreme SJWs to begin with.

I used the notion of color-blind with regard to teaching. I treat all students equally and do not judge them on the basis of their skin color. It's precisely because of such non-sense that I got an academic position outside of the United States, where I can creatively develop a curriculum that isn't bogged down by politically correct red-tape and bureaucracy.

And? Students aren't equal and they shouldn't be treated equally. Different classes may require different approaches. Different results require changes. Different students, especially in grade school as opposed to lecture halls, require different resources to succeed. Different children require different parenting. It's absurd. Not to mention that just how "equally" you treat college students depends entirely on what subject you are teaching. Math classes require more "equality", discussion humanities based classes require more "affirmative-type" approaches.

If your seminar or whatever, talked about the importance of diversity and how important it is to ensure that "White" voices and "Male" viewpoints were given in traditionally minority-dominated or feminist-dominated academic subjects, I doubt you'd bring up color-blindness. Obsession over SJWs and their supposed dominance of academics/social media needs to die as your people's obsession. In fact, the only that comes up to me on Social Media and Academics, is sexy Instagram "influencers" and obsession with talking about poor countries/people. Hardly racial or feminist.

[Diamat]

I'm hesitant to use any anecdote to support sweeping generalizations. Yeah, we all have our slip-ups and I'm much more likely to let a "marginalized" person to sway my point of view. I am, at the very least, honest enough to admit it. On the other hand, the constant innuendo of "SJW apocalypse" constantly being preached by you and Himster, are much less likely to sway me considering my own personal (and on-going experience) with Academia as well as lack of any hard statistical evidence, say otherwise. I was curious about PhD culture seeing as how I'm musing going back to school full-time for a graduate degree in public policy, and my recent experience with humanities graduate students did not demonize me at all for holding conservative views and concern over whether diversity and feminism as a subject is dominating the field.

It's pathetic. The constant innuendo against SJWs, when I have rarely met such extreme SJWs to begin with.

I never even talk about the concept of SJWs. There may have been a time or two I mentioned the word, but it is not part of my everyday repertoire. Perhaps you're confusing me with someone else. I'm not on a crusade against some imagined specter, but I pointed out a grave concern based on my personal experience in academia. I never claimed it was a scientific evaluation. You're knocking down a straw man.

And? Students aren't equal and they shouldn't be treated equally. Different classes may require different approaches. Different results require changes. Different students, especially in grade school as opposed to lecture halls, require different resources to succeed. Different children require different parenting. It's absurd. Not to mention that just how "equally" you treat college students depends entirely on what subject you are teaching. Math classes require more "equality", discussion humanities based classes require more "affirmative-type" approaches.

If your seminar or whatever, talked about the importance of diversity and how important it is to ensure that "White" voices and "Male" viewpoints were given in traditionally minority-dominated or feminist-dominated academic subjects, I doubt you'd bring up color-blindness. Obsession over SJWs and their supposed dominance of academics/social media needs to die as your people's obsession. In fact, the only that comes up to me on Social Media and Academics, is sexy Instagram "influencers" and obsession with talking about poor countries/people. Hardly racial or feminist.

You're once again misrepresenting my words. I'm saying that I will not pre-judge students based on their skin color. I will not make assumptions about them. If a student has difficulties, then I will give this student the due attention that he deserves, but this is based on an individual, case-by-case basis, not on the basis of sweeping generalizations about a group of people.

[Love Mountain]

I never even talk about the concept of SJWs. There may have been a time or two I mentioned the word, but it is not part of my everyday repertoire. Perhaps you're confusing me with someone else. I'm not on a crusade against some imagined specter, but I pointed out a grave concern based on my personal experience in academia. I never claimed it was a scientific evaluation. You're knocking down a straw man.

Alright, I'll agree. If only because I have rarely seen you comment on Academia in general and my memory, is at best, hazy. Though it's fairly obvious to know which political spectrum you sit on, not that I'm insinuating it's a bad thing.

You're once again misrepresenting my words. I'm saying that I will not pre-judge students based on their skin color. I will not make assumptions about them. If a student has difficulties, then I will give this student the due attention that he deserves, but this is based on an individual, case-by-case basis, not on the basis of sweeping generalizations about a group of people.

I'm not mis-representing your words. I am criticizing your approach. A skin-color does imply things and I don't see how being "judgemental" or "making assumptions" is problematic. Especially when we are talking about the teaching aspect, and not grading. For the vast majority of people, their skin color, is an intrinsic part of their identity. "Color-blind" is a loaded term, one which has a lot of academic work discussing it. Funnily enough, from the very field the thread is criticizing.

[Diamat]

Alright, I'll agree. If only because I have rarely seen you comment on Academia in general and my memory, is at best, hazy. Though it's fairly obvious to know which political spectrum you sit on, not that I'm insinuating it's a bad thing.

I'm mildly conservative, though I only became conservative (I'm a former Marxist) due to my personal experience in academia. I really recommend browsing through Heterodox Academy, a place where professors (not always conservative) pen interesting articles about academia today, which might also indicate that my personal experience is not that unique.

I'm not mis-representing your words. I am criticizing your approach. A skin-color does imply things and I don't see how being "judgemental" or "making assumptions" is problematic. Especially when we are talking about the teaching aspect, and not grading. For the vast majority of people, their skin color, is an intrinsic part of their identity. "Color-blind" is a loaded term, one which has a lot of academic work discussing it. Funnily enough, from the very field the thread is criticizing.

So you think I should treat a black student different from a white student, without first knowing anything about them personally? If so, how exactly should I treat them differently? Please explain it to me.

[Love Mountain]

I'm mildly conservative, though I only became conservative (I'm a former Marxist) due to my personal experience in academia. I really recommend browsing through Heterodox Academy, a place where professors (not always conservative) pen interesting articles about academia today, which might also indicate that my personal experience is not that unique.

My point of criticism isn't that your experience is unique. It is a criticism of just how widespread and large this issue is.

So you think I should treat a black student different from a white student, without first knowing anything about them personally? If so, how exactly should I treat them differently? Please explain it to me.

Let's take a high-level discussion political course about international relations as an example. A lot of these types of classes have a fairly standard structure. Short lecture followed by discussion, with papers and group projects during different periods. You have your basic curriculum as a basis of discussion. Let's say you talk about the mechanics of the Westphalian system in the first few days. Now, you have White students and you have Black students, let's say the split is 50/50. As a moderator of the discussion and the lecture material, you can go ahead and read straight out of the book about the application and history of the Westphalian system, which will undoubtedly underline the issues of that concept and go into the Cold War, Globalization, blah blah blah. Or, perhaps you can be a little bit more unorthodox and directly try to breach the subject in a way that might be more relatable to your Black students. About how African colonization and slavery directly violated undermined Westphalian principles.

Perhaps later in the course, you decided to talk about Rawls' influence on global understanding of justice. Perhaps you can go intro more mainstream narratives of the flaws of Rawls' writing. Or perhaps we could skip straight to racial justice critique in the hopes of capturing the interest of Black students more.

In an all white class, you might say go ahead and make all of your own groups. But, in a perfect 50/50 split, maybe you want to diversify the groups to make sure that all groups are exposed to different skin-colored people, as Black people and White people are likely to have very different social backgrounds, which one can reasonably derive from their skin color alone. One can take this even further, and extend it to women. Perhaps you have a perfect 50/50 male/female class. Maybe you'll want to split groups into perfect Male/Female for the sake of diversity and producing interesting discussion. Or perhaps you deliberately split the class into men vs women in order to get two very different viewpoints on an issue from a uniquely male or female perspective. Considering the link you gave me earlier, I'm sure
you can see the importance of exposing people to different viewpoints.

Point is, different skin colors have different experiences. That's just a fact. Different skin colors or particularly diverse classes may require different approaches to teaching, of course this all depends on your goals. If your goal as a teacher is to simply teach the same thing to everyone in the exact same way regardless of their skin color. Fine, maybe you're a math professor. But what you said was, "At one point I told those women that I'm color-blind and won't consider a student's racial background in my teaching." I do find that wrong. In the same way as I would find a statement like, "I view Barack Obama as non-Black President. He's President of the United States and should be remembered as such, not as Black or White. Considering the history, the context of his election, and so on. I would find such a statement extremely wrong. Just as I find treating all Black students as regular non-Black kids wrong. If I were to break this down even further... Let's say we have a class full of white kids that we have to teach. I'd want to know their nationalities or their cultural background. This would further help deride and have pre-conceptions of what their history, social experience, and so on are like. We are all unique and different, and when it comes to something as personal and engaging as teaching, we should all be treated differently where possible. We should all have a tailored experience. Of course this is impossible in the logistics of a 20 person, 1 hour daily class... but it's perfectly fine to make slight adjustments to the curriculum or teaching content based on a person's race and our pre-conceived notions of them. Obviously as more information is gathered about the identity of every student, more adjustments should be made to engage everyone in a way that maximizes our efforts, but the idea that race shouldn't be a factor and that we shouldn't judge? I mean that's just absurd.

[Diamat]

Let's take a high-level discussion political course about international relations as an example. A lot of these types of classes have a fairly standard structure. Short lecture followed by discussion, with papers and group projects during different periods. You have your basic curriculum as a basis of discussion. Let's say you talk about the mechanics of the Westphalian system in the first few days. Now, you have White students and you have Black students, let's say the split is 50/50. As a moderator of the discussion and the lecture material, you can go ahead and read straight out of the book about the application and history of the Westphalian system, which will undoubtedly underline the issues of that concept and go into the Cold War, Globalization, blah blah blah. Or, perhaps you can be a little bit more unorthodox and directly try to breach the subject in a way that might be more relatable to your Black students. About how African colonization and slavery directly violated undermined Westphalian principles.

Perhaps later in the course, you decided to talk about Rawls' influence on global understanding of justice. Perhaps you can go intro more mainstream narratives of the flaws of Rawls' writing. Or perhaps we could skip straight to racial justice critique in the hopes of capturing the interest of Black students more.

In an all white class, you might say go ahead and make all of your own groups. But, in a perfect 50/50 split, maybe you want to diversify the groups to make sure that all groups are exposed to different skin-colored people, as Black people and White people are likely to have very different social backgrounds, which one can reasonably derive from their skin color alone. One can take this even further, and extend it to women. Perhaps you have a perfect 50/50 male/female class. Maybe you'll want to split groups into perfect Male/Female for the sake of diversity and producing interesting discussion. Or perhaps you deliberately split the class into men vs women in order to get two very different viewpoints on an issue from a uniquely male or female perspective. Considering the link you gave me earlier, I'm sure
you can see the importance of exposing people to different viewpoints.

Point is, different skin colors have different experiences. That's just a fact. Different skin colors or particularly diverse classes may require different approaches to teaching, of course this all depends on your goals. If your goal as a teacher is to simply teach the same thing to everyone in the exact same way regardless of their skin color. Fine, maybe you're a math professor. But what you said was, "At one point I told those women that I'm color-blind and won't consider a student's racial background in my teaching." I do find that wrong. In the same way as I would find a statement like, "I view Barack Obama as non-Black President. He's President of the United States and should be remembered as such, not as Black or White. Considering the history, the context of his election, and so on. I would find such a statement extremely wrong. Just as I find treating all Black students as regular non-Black kids wrong. If I were to break this down even further... Let's say we have a class full of white kids that we have to teach. I'd want to know their nationalities or their cultural background. This would further help deride and have pre-conceptions of what their history, social experience, and so on are like. We are all unique and different, and when it comes to something as personal and engaging as teaching, we should all be treated differently where possible. We should all have a tailored experience. Of course this is impossible in the logistics of a 20 person, 1 hour daily class... but it's perfectly fine to make slight adjustments to the curriculum or teaching content based on a person's race and our pre-conceived notions of them. Obviously as more information is gathered about the identity of every student, more adjustments should be made to engage everyone in a way that maximizes our efforts, but the idea that race shouldn't be a factor and that we shouldn't judge? I mean that's just absurd.

I don't quite believe that the content of teaching should change based on who is in the class, though once you know students better on an individual level, you may certainly cater to their interests. As an educator, you should always give every student the best possible understanding of a particular topic. So if you bring up slavery, it's not because you have black people in your class, but because it is something everyone should know. I'm quite worried about the approach you outline and find it a bit offensive to teach black students about black things simply because they are black. I'm not treating students as non-black students, I'm simply not making pre-judgments about them. That's different from Obama being factually the first non-white president. I know my students are black, but I don't think this fact warrants a pre-conceived judgment, lest we revert to the racism of old. I would not want my Japanese history professor to give undue attention to my whiteness in teaching the material. I would want him to teach as objectively as possible, supplying me with the best possible corpus of knowledge in a short span of time. If he wants to talk about the arrival of the Portuguese then he should do so not because I'm white, but because it is important to know regardless of your background.

[Love Mountain]

Being objective and changing course content based on the ethnic/racial makeup of your class are not mutually exclusive things.

[Basil II the B.S]

I'd just like to point out that the only ''academic'' theory that has problems with colour-blindness is indeed post-modernism, which postulates society is made of groups (oppressor/oppressed) rather than individuals and as such interpretation of reality should be always considered subjectively rather than objectively: eg, the experience of a black female is inherently different from that of a white male, on the basis of their race and gender.

There's also zero evidence whatsoever that splitting the class between black and white or male/female produces diversity of viewpoint. Actually there's overwhelming evidence that diversity of opinion is higher within a group than among groups. The former is another tenet of post-modernism.

I love how Sukiyama blindly repeats the talking points of what's essentially an entirely discredited ideology without even acknowledging the existence of its framework. Amazing. Now I understand why he's so eager to dismiss this case.

[Heathen Hammer]

Congratulations, you've typed out a bunch of buzzwords that do not resemble any reality whatsoever. Not even a parallel one. All of "right-wing" victories only accelerated "Dog eat Dog" capitalism, and the "alt-right" or "non-leftist" crowd actively encourage policies that increase inequality. The "modern left" actively campaigns for worker rights. But apparently Unionism is evil because "Cultural Marxism".

Looks like it is your post that does not correspond with reality. Modern left is more concerned with virtue signaling, to justify economic inequality and concentration of wealth within neoliberal elites that own them with "progressive" nonsense, while berating and neglecting the working class.

[Basil II the B.S]

Btw, I'd like to post a segment of the introduction of a university textbook that's a regular presence in Grievance Studies, but I can't remember the name. It's a pretty expensive book, roughly 140$, something like an anthology, pretty long too. Anyone knows what I'm talking about?

[Love Mountain]

I'd just like to point out that the only ''academic'' theory that has problems with colour-blindness is indeed post-modernism, which postulates society is made of groups (oppressor/oppressed) rather than individuals and as such interpretation of reality should be always considered subjectively rather than objectively: eg, the experience of a black female is inherently different from that of a white male, on the basis of their race and gender.

This is simply false. There are a number of different ways to criticize the concept of "color-blindness". Marxism, which criticizes liberal color-blind policies for allowing existing racial inequalities to persist, rather than confronted. Conservative critiques would argue that "color-blindness" promotes behaviors and activism that led to renunciation of native culture. The same "culture" that lead to the success of Western society in the first place. Promotion of color-blind policies means that we are discouraging criticism of negative and positive cultural traits. There are a ton of other ways to criticize "color-blindness" in ways that are not post-modernist. Your quip has less to do with "academics" and more to do with your own extreme right-wing ideological framework. So no, criticism of color-blindness is hardly unique to post-modernism. Quite frankly, attacking post-modernism is absurd, as it is an extremely broad and abstract theory. In the same way that Milton Friedman declared, "We are all Keynesian now", we can all safely declare that, "We are all Postmodernists now". Even the most right-wing, militant, nazis employ tools that were popularized by Postmodernism. Skepticism, deconstruction, and subjective reality. Overall, the contribution of postmodernism to modern academia, is a very positive one.

There's also zero evidence whatsoever that splitting the class between black and white or male/female produces diversity of viewpoint. Actually there's overwhelming evidence that diversity of opinion is higher within a group than among groups. The former is another tenet of post-modernism.

He says without citing any sources.

I love how Sukiyama blindly repeats the talking points of what's essentially an entirely discredited ideology without even acknowledging the existence of its framework. Amazing. Now I understand why he's so eager to dismiss this case.

What are you talking about now?

Looks like it is your post that does not correspond with reality. Modern left is more concerned with virtue signaling, to justify economic inequality and concentration of wealth within neoliberal elites that own them with "progressive" nonsense, while berating and neglecting the working class.

This makes zero sense, as it is the modern left that focuses on addressing economic inequality, globe-spanning issues, and social progress. Unlike the people you champion, such as your frequent defense and enamoration with Donald Trump, who is the worst type of profiteer.

[Diamat]

Being objective and changing course content based on the ethnic/racial makeup of your class are not mutually exclusive things.

Surely you must see the potential problem with your approach. I mean, if you had a 5th generation Eskimo-American in your "history of architecture" class, you'd spend a class period on the thermodynamics of an igloo? That's incredibly offensive and demeaning. You're making assumptions about a person on the basis of their ethnic background, even though in reality these people are so far removed from the past you're assigning to them. All students should be privy to the same education, regardless of their background. A white student ought to know about the problem of slavery just as much as a black student.

[Love Mountain]

Surely you must see the potential problem with your approach. I mean, if you had a 5th generation Eskimo-American in your "history of architecture" class, you'd spend a class period on the thermodynamics of an igloo?

I don't know, depends. I'm not familiar with the subject.

That's incredibly offensive and demeaning. You're making assumptions about a person on the basis of their ethnic background, even though in reality these people are so far removed from the past you're assigning to them.

You did pick just about the most ridiculous example. So sure, agreed.

All students should be privy to the same education, regardless of their background. A white student ought to know about the problem of slavery just as much as a black student.

Huh, so if I talk about "thermodynamics of an igloo" I'm somehow exposing the White kids to "inferior" education? Are they still now learning about architecture? History? Thermodynamics? This is a silly point to make. So let me get this straight, apparently there is only one way of offering the "same" education and we have no way of offering variety, based on the ethnic makeup of the class, because it automatically makes the education either inferior or superior. What an absurdity.

So if I were teaching an entirely Korean ethnic class about applications of various engineering concepts, I must talk about the Golden Gate Bridge, and I cannot talk about say... the Incheon Bridge? Because I'd be giving them "inferior" education? I mean come on. Like how deep does this rabbit hole go?

If I talk about police brutality and my audience is half white and half hispanic with no Blacks, I cannot change my focus to how Hispanics are targeted by police forces? I'm inevitably "humiliating and offending" them?

If I have to teach a class about the Industrial Revolution and I have a lot of women in my class, I cannot emphasize women's history during this period to cover key concepts? I must talk about the standard, re-hashed curriculum?

So there is no possible way to achieve a balance between variety and the full value of the content we are trying to pass on? We are always losing value of our teaching material every time we even contemplate about changing the content to "pander" to diversity?

[Diamat]

I don't know, depends. I'm not familiar with the subject.



You did pick just about the most ridiculous example. So sure, agreed.



Huh, so if I talk about "thermodynamics of an igloo" I'm somehow exposing the White kids to "inferior" education? Are they still now learning about architecture? History? Thermodynamics? This is a silly point to make. So let me get this straight, apparently there is only one way of offering the "same" education and we have no way of offering variety, based on the ethnic makeup of the class, because it automatically makes the education either inferior or superior. What an absurdity.

So if I were teaching an entirely Korean ethnic class about applications of various engineering concepts, I must talk about the Golden Gate Bridge, and I cannot talk about say... the Incheon Bridge? Because I'd be giving them "inferior" education? I mean come on. Like how deep does this rabbit hole go?

If I talk about police brutality and my audience is half white and half hispanic with no Blacks, I cannot change my focus to how Hispanics are targeted by police forces? I'm inevitably "humiliating and offending" them?

If I have to teach a class about the Industrial Revolution and I have a lot of women in my class, I cannot emphasize women's history during this period to cover key concepts? I must talk about the standard, re-hashed curriculum?

So there is no possible way to achieve a balance between variety and the full value of the content we are trying to pass on? We are always losing value of our teaching material every time we even contemplate about changing the content to "pander" to diversity?

You're missing the point. You're not exposing white kids to an inferior education, but everybody. If you believe that the principles of an igloo are important enough so that everyone should know about it, then it should be incorporated into your syllabus no matter what. If you incorporate it simply because you have a 5th generation Eskimo-American in your class, then it becomes offensive. In other words, it's the purpose which I'm criticizing here. So if you think that teaching about Hispanics being affected by police brutality, or women's role in the industrial revolution, is important, then shouldn't both Hispanics and women know about this topic just as much as whites and men? I understand what you mean, of course. It makes sense to try and form a connection with your audience. However, you gotta be careful not to demean your audience. I would never design the content of my course for the sake of diversity, but for the sake of more effective learning. So it makes sense to give examples that students may be able to relate to better. I'm not denying this. But again, I would not do this for the sake of diversity. I'm criticizing your purpose.

[Love Mountain]

You're missing the point. You're not exposing white kids to an inferior education, but everybody. If you believe that the principles of an igloo are important enough so that everyone should know about it, then it should be incorporated into your syllabus no matter what. If you incorporate it simply because you have a 5th generation Eskimo-American in your class, then it becomes offensive. In other words, it's the purpose which I'm criticizing here. So if you think that teaching about Hispanics being affected by police brutality, or women's role in the industrial revolution, is important, then shouldn't both Hispanics and women know about this topic just as much as whites and men? I understand what you mean, of course. It makes sense to try and form a connection with your audience. However, you gotta be careful not to demean your audience. I would never design the content of my course for the sake of diversity, but for the sake of more effective learning. So it makes sense to give examples that students may be able to relate to better. I'm not denying this. But again, I would not do this for the sake of diversity. I'm criticizing your purpose.

I didn't miss your point, actually I questioned its validity. I'm glad to see you got a part of my message, however, you missed a part of my counter-argument.

"So there is no possible way to achieve a balance between variety and the full value of the content we are trying to pass on? We are always losing value of our teaching material every time we even contemplate about changing the content to "pander" to diversity?"

Let me give a raw and direct example. In grade school, we learn about quadratic equations. It's simply a core part of mathematics education. Mathematics typically involves several different methods of "teaching" a concept to a student. First, there is theory. Then, it's application followed by repetition. Application is further divided into several parts. First, they break down the process for you and help you solve it, progressively with less wheels. Next, they give you different variations of the same problem. Then they give you word problems that get progressively harder where you have to identify the correct application of the problem.

Now then, let's say we have a computer program that changes the content of the word problems to your specific "attributes" whether they be race, age, sex, or culture. The result is the same, the words and approach might be slightly different, but each students gets the same process and education. In a similar manner, various subjects and teaching goals can be accomplished by varying the teaching material or method depending on what kind of students you have. The goal is to pass on the same level of education to all students. Sometimes, that requires us to change the content and method of the class, in order to better fit all of the various personalities in it.

I don't think this is even necessarily a "race" or "gender" thing. I think a bigger challenge is when you know you have a 50/50 Foreigner/American class. Considering how many international students there are on University campuses today, if the goal is to give the same change for success to all students, a professor would be wise to adjust their curriculum to account for less than perfect understanding of English that most foreigners have. Especially if its a class that requires engagement.

This doesn't even necessarily have to be the type of content, but simple things, like reducing the amount of idioms or focusing on simplifying the overall language of the course, might make things a lot easier for foreign students while having little to no negative impact on natives (Americans). And yes, this would be a surface-level thing. As you said, you wouldn't have to know anybody personally to do this. If oyu see that half of your class is Asian with obvious Asian names like Byun, Saeyok, etc, you can quickly assume that the level of English will be lower. Perhaps, if you're teaching an architecture class, as you brought up, maybe you can focus on Asian architecture to make it more relatable or easier to understand. Or perhaps, to even foster discussion and expose native students to unique solutions towards problems. Et cetera. This isn't degrading anyone's education, this is focusing on making it better, more equitable, and more accessible for everyone.

Now I'm full agreeable when people criticize approaches that go too far. It's understandable that at a certain point you are sacrificing the quality of the material for the sake of what Basil loves to call "postmodernism". But it's completely wrong to go in the complete opposite direction. That we cannot change the course on the basis of who our students are racially, socially, culturally, etc. This is especially true in humanities, where so many courses rely on active participation and the ability of the student to relate to the concepts we are trying to teach.

[Diamat]

I didn't miss your point, actually I questioned its validity. I'm glad to see you got a part of my message, however, you missed a part of my counter-argument.

"So there is no possible way to achieve a balance between variety and the full value of the content we are trying to pass on? We are always losing value of our teaching material every time we even contemplate about changing the content to "pander" to diversity?"

Let me give a raw and direct example. In grade school, we learn about quadratic equations. It's simply a core part of mathematics education. Mathematics typically involves several different methods of "teaching" a concept to a student. First, there is theory. Then, it's application followed by repetition. Application is further divided into several parts. First, they break down the process for you and help you solve it, progressively with less wheels. Next, they give you different variations of the same problem. Then they give you word problems that get progressively harder where you have to identify the correct application of the problem.

Now then, let's say we have a computer program that changes the content of the word problems to your specific "attributes" whether they be race, age, sex, or culture. The result is the same, the words and approach might be slightly different, but each students gets the same process and education. In a similar manner, various subjects and teaching goals can be accomplished by varying the teaching material or method depending on what kind of students you have. The goal is to pass on the same level of education to all students. Sometimes, that requires us to change the content and method of the class, in order to better fit all of the various personalities in it.

I don't think this is even necessarily a "race" or "gender" thing. I think a bigger challenge is when you know you have a 50/50 Foreigner/American class. Considering how many international students there are on University campuses today, if the goal is to give the same change for success to all students, a professor would be wise to adjust their curriculum to account for less than perfect understanding of English that most foreigners have. Especially if its a class that requires engagement.

This doesn't even necessarily have to be the type of content, but simple things, like reducing the amount of idioms or focusing on simplifying the overall language of the course, might make things a lot easier for foreign students while having little to no negative impact on natives (Americans). And yes, this would be a surface-level thing. As you said, you wouldn't have to know anybody personally to do this. If oyu see that half of your class is Asian with obvious Asian names like Byun, Saeyok, etc, you can quickly assume that the level of English will be lower. Perhaps, if you're teaching an architecture class, as you brought up, maybe you can focus on Asian architecture to make it more relatable or easier to understand. Or perhaps, to even foster discussion and expose native students to unique solutions towards problems. Et cetera. This isn't degrading anyone's education, this is focusing on making it better, more equitable, and more accessible for everyone.

Now I'm full agreeable when people criticize approaches that go too far. It's understandable that at a certain point you are sacrificing the quality of the material for the sake of what Basil loves to call "postmodernism". But it's completely wrong to go in the complete opposite direction. That we cannot change the course on the basis of who our students are racially, socially, culturally, etc. This is especially true in humanities, where so many courses rely on active participation and the ability of the student to relate to the concepts we are trying to teach.

Again, I don't disagree with the idea that we should cater to students' needs and interests. I don't think any true educator would disagree here. I disagree when it comes to making preconceived assumptions about your students on the basis of race while designing the curriculum around the normative concept of diversity. In trying to develop an effective teaching approach, diversity may coincide with this teaching approach, but it shouldn't be the final end. This can lead to mistakes and a different kind of discrimination. Get to know your students first; don't assume their identity. Even with international students - and usually most of my students are Korean - you have to be careful about making assumptions about their English skills just by looking at the roster. As a non-native speaker of English, I can certainly relate to the struggles of learning the language, since I was also suddenly thrown into the American education system when I was in high school, but honestly, I'm glad my teachers didn't pre-judge me or treat me different simply because of my national origins. Once they noticed my level, they of course catered to me, but I would have been offended had they treated me different from the outset. Such an attitude might actually hamper educational development and limit a student's true potential. As Koreans would say, and as I recall you can understand Korean, "앞 사람이 빨리 뛰어야 뒤사람도 부지런히 따라간다."

I don't think we disagree much, actually. We mainly disagree on the teaching mentality.

[Basil II the B.S]

This is simply false. There are a number of different ways to criticize the concept of "color-blindness". Marxism, which criticizes liberal color-blind policies for allowing existing racial inequalities to persist, rather than confronted. Conservative critiques would argue that "color-blindness" promotes behaviors and activism that led to renunciation of native culture. The same "culture" that lead to the success of Western society in the first place. Promotion of color-blind policies means that we are discouraging criticism of negative and positive cultural traits. There are a ton of other ways to criticize "color-blindness" in ways that are not post-modernist. Your quip has less to do with "academics" and more to do with your own extreme right-wing ideological framework. So no, criticism of color-blindness is hardly unique to post-modernism. Quite frankly, attacking post-modernism is absurd, as it is an extremely broad and abstract theory. In the same way that Milton Friedman declared, "We are all Keynesian now", we can all safely declare that, "We are all Postmodernists now". Even the most right-wing, militant, nazis employ tools that were popularized by Postmodernism. Skepticism, deconstruction, and subjective reality. Overall, the contribution of postmodernism to modern academia, is a very positive one.



He says without citing any sources.



What are you talking about now?



This makes zero sense, as it is the modern left that focuses on addressing economic inequality, globe-spanning issues, and social progress. Unlike the people you champion, such as your frequent defense and enamoration with Donald Trump, who is the worst type of profiteer.

Do you realize that post-modernism is a Neo-Marxist ideology? And the critique you gave me is the post-modernist one. Obviously, from your extreme left perspective, any diverging opinions is extreme. What a mess.

[Heathen Hammer]

This makes zero sense, as it is the modern left that focuses on addressing economic inequality, globe-spanning issues, and social progress. Unlike the people you champion, such as your frequent defense and enamoration with Donald Trump, who is the worst type of profiteer.

Nope, modern left doesn't care about income inequality, its just spouting neo-marxist nonsense to ironically justify the current uneven distribution of wealth and existence of financial elites.

[Dante Von Hespburg]

I think the hard sciences will be much more resistant to leftist political agendas. I noticed this during one of my PhD pedagogical seminars, during which we were taught to select readings on the basis of the author's social and racial background, especially selecting authors of marginalized groups. The one biologist in the room just shook his head while all the historians and dance PhDs just echoed off each other in agreement. I'm really worried for the humanities, based on my own experiences in academia. During another pedagogical seminar, hosted at an academic conference for the purposes of teaching PhD students how to write Teaching Statements, the instructor was telling us about the importance of diversity and inclusion in writing a Teaching Statement. I dared to raise my hand and ask what diversity has to do with teaching. Suffice it to say, during the break, the other students, all female, surrounded me, pointing their finger and yelling at me, some of them hysterically. At one point I told those women that I'm color-blind and won't consider a student's racial background in my teaching. They all flipped, telling me that I shouldn't even be in a PhD program and never become a professor. I learned from this to shut my mouth. My mother, who lived under East German communism, asked me, "why did you speak your opinion? You should never do that." Yeah... It was funny that all the men at this seminar just shut up and didn't try to save a brother.

The humanities are in danger of losing all credibility. If we consider racial and social background/value more important than the actual content of research, the quality of research is bound to decrease, which I have already seen. In recent years, I have read so many poorly written studies that just lack any substantive content, instead being purely driven by theory to give the impression of innovativeness. Empirical research is dying in the humanities. Don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of great researchers in fields such as history, but departments such as area studies, gender studies, race studies, and now grievance studies contribute to a lower overall quality of research and limit the future hiring prospects of talented researchers in more difficult fields such as history (non-history PhDs can get hired in history departments), because academic hiring today is done around buzzwords such as "gender," instead of caring about the scientific nature of a candidate's research.

I'm not sure why people tend to lump history, economics political science and the geographies (geopolitics etc) in with feminist studies and other more fringe scholarship. I guess its why i rile against the label 'humanities' but in the UK, both Uni's i've been to- current one is Russel Group doing an MA, but their just isn't this level of weirdness. Maybe because the professors are a mix across the spectrum (Even 'liberal' ones being UK liberal) but also that History i feel at least (Mine is based in economics and political structures) being a more 'serious' academic discipline where strange gender-stuff isn't really applicable, but then again History in the UK also has quite incredibly job opportunities due to how its perceived compared to i believe the US and Europe.

In fairness- i don't know how it is where you are of course. But 'Empirical research' is certainly not dead in History, Economics, politics etc. The peer review process is absolutely hellish as are the standards expected. Also in the UK EVERYTHING be it science, history, economics etc- has to have a 'practical implication' if you even want them to glance at you for funding- the questions asked are 'why is this relevant?' 'Who cares?' 'What can this tangibly provide?'- so it filters out most weird stuff (at least from Russell Group and their funding sources- i don't know for instance about Hull University....).

And this bringing onto the @general topic , We actually really enjoyed reading about this, i haven't yet met a Professor who isn't very happy that the more extreme elements were shown up to be completely trash. But i would also say, again this is UK specific perhaps, but the universities here are far from being 'liberal' extreme-labs. Maybe this is a result of austerity but even History research and the 'social sciences' have to have a 'practical element' that will help society/the government in a positive way- Trust me on that as i've just spent the last month or so securing funding, and the key criteria has been 'So...why does this matter? and 'Who cares?'- in this environment- i can't see how the more extreme elements will 'survive' in terms of receiving funding. They'll have to be privately funded by the students themselves (If they can find a Professor willing) and that essentially will destroy their financial prospects given the expense... so i guess that's an answer to this In the UK at least these things will be curtailed by an academic body that is not 'liberal' in the sense described (iirc the UK's 'leftist' Professors tend to be more along the lines of being sympathetic to socialism in its traditional model than actually in terms of patriarchy etc) and by the self-enforced drive (due to circumstances) of needing research- even in theoretical areas like Geopolitics to have to have a 'reason' in practical terms for it to be relevant and carried out. The downside of course is that we're now unlikely to get true 'off the wall thinking' and that will bite later on, but given funding constraints everything has to have a practicable impact- for instance its why KCL and UCL are looking turn their history departments even more in 'practical institutes' by turning their emphasis towards historical trade and business relations up until 2010- to fill gaps in the UK scholarship concerning trade deals for post-brexit (which will be a boom era for liberal academics- again the irony of brexit is that even in the worst case scenario the jobs it will provide for are the so-called 'liberal elites' in academia are insane as the UK has to rebuild entire branches of its geopolitical and practical strategic base- once more as to why brexit will not fix domestic issues, but exacerbate them as the academics will get a lot of work suddenly, while people like my parents who voted leave will not see a single new opportunity- again going back to the UK and its massive compounding of a classist conception of opportunity).