It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it. Jacob Bronowski I’ve written a few postings about the current incarnation of political correctness that is strangling freedom of speech and biasing research. I see a sickening dissociation underlying it, between proclaiming diversity and realizing actual diversity. The current incarnation tries to achieve and control surface diversity (e.g., people should look different) while actively preventing deep diversity (e.g., people having or arguing for different points of view). Those sharing this mindset just want people (eg in academia, politics, companies, etc) to appear different, but share the same views. They think it strengthens their position — “See, all these different people who have nothing in common think we are right, so we have to be right.” In fact, it weakens their position: Ideas are not challenged nor grounded in representative data. But then again, a clash of ideas is not what these people want. They want their ideas confirmed and/or profit by controlling the public story (or “narrative”). How issues are framed, which positions get funding and public support (only theirs). It would be funny if it wouldn’t [...]
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