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A university president makes a case against cowardice

(www.newyorker.com)
450 points pseudolus | 1 comments | 03 Apr 25 12:29 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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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nosianu ◴[04 Apr 25 08:32 UTC] No.43579668[source]▶
> If you look at the people on the actual political left in the US (Bernie, AOC, etc) are they talking about identity politics?

Great example! So... what happened to Bernie in the Democratic party?

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1. xracy ◴[04 Apr 25 18:35 UTC] No.43586177{3}[source]▶
I'm saying that the problem isn't identity politics, but that the American right is terrified of actual policies from the American Left. And they're so terrified they have to make a bid deal of the more divisive social policies (characteristic of the term "identity politics") rather than their economic policies that are incredibly popular.

The majority of the Democratic party is the group being actually shifted by the Overton window away from the actual political left. They are mostly centrists, and not leftists. Frequently they are conservatives. I wish Harris suggested half of the policies that got ascribed to her, but she was honestly to the right of Clinton.