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A university president makes a case against cowardice

(www.newyorker.com)
450 points pseudolus | 3 comments | 03 Apr 25 12:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.689s | source
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sequoia ◴[03 Apr 25 13:52 UTC] No.43569673[source]▶
A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?
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bell-cot ◴[03 Apr 25 14:28 UTC] No.43570204[source]▶
There's a highly emotional Right-Left culture war going on in America. Many of our "flagship" universities conspicuously sided with the Left - at least on most of the "litmus test" issues. And where universities didn't do that, the Right found it advantageous to talk up the association & outrage anyway.

Any decent History Prof. could have explained to the U's that openly taking one side in long-term cultural wars was not a viable long-term strategy.

(Or, maybe that's why so many universities cut their History Dept's so brutally? Though "just shoot inconvenient messengers" is also not a viable long-term strategy.)

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mrtesthah ◴[03 Apr 25 22:35 UTC] No.43576294[source]▶
Billionaires shifted the overton window by pouring money into extreme right-wing media outlets and social media platforms. Every other existing institution now appears "left-wing" by comparison. That's not universities' fault.
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gedy ◴[04 Apr 25 00:31 UTC] No.43577089[source]▶
Honestly man since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the left in the US threw their whole weight into pushing the Overton window on identity politics/intersectionality to the point that "real" old time leftists and communists (like my father) were treated like some sort of conservatives, lol. They went way past the sustainable point.
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xracy ◴[04 Apr 25 05:36 UTC] No.43578681[source]▶
I feel like the people who say things like "communists were treated like some sort of conservatives because of identity politics" are telling on themselves.

If you look at the people on the actual political left in the US (Bernie, AOC, etc) are they talking about identity politics? Last time I checked they were talking about the problems that impact non-billionaire Americans: Healthcare, Social Security, Raising Minimum Wage, and other efforts to improve quality of life for Americans.

The only times I ever hear about identity politics is when I listen to conservatives describe what people on the left are talking about.

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1. milesrout ◴[04 Apr 25 09:43 UTC] No.43580024[source]▶
They talk about identity politics all the time. It is us vs them on everything. Worker vs employer is the quintessential example. Two groups that in the real world must work together, and do. But in the mind of the political left they are not just people that occasionally have adverse interests but mostly shared interests (my success is yours). No, they are sworn enemies.
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2. xracy ◴[04 Apr 25 18:28 UTC] No.43586104[source]▶
I don't think you know what "identity politics" are, which is kinda funny to me. I would love to have discussions where identity politics meant "Worker vs Employer".

Worker vs Employer aren't actually 2 groups of people, unless you really consider corporations as people.

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3. milesrout ◴[05 Apr 25 00:41 UTC] No.43589225[source]▶
Well firstly, bodies corporate are obviously legal persons and nobody with any clue disagrees with that. But that isn't what I am talking about.

Every company has a board of directors who are natural persons, and ownership eventually is traceable back to natural persons, and their officers are natural persons. Grouping people up doesn't make them unpersons.

Worker and employer not your preferred languahe? Call it worker and manager, worker and executive, worker and CEO. Whatever you want. But the sentiment is very real. It is about treating the workplace as an antagonistic, conflict-driven, zero-sum environment. If I win, you lose. If you win, I lose.

I don't think that is how real workplaces actually work. I like my employer and I like my boss. Without them, I'd be out if a job. Without me, they'd be out of a worker. I don't think we have opposing interests at all.

It is definitely identity politics. It is the original identity politics: Marxism. The proletariat against the bourgeoisie and all that rubbish.