I believe HN has both right and left leaning individuals, but I wonder if most people would condemn the practice of professors being ousted from schools for daring to challenge their students' "safe space" notions and microagressing them?
This is not an isolated event and universities skew heavily in one direction politically. Is it universally agreeable that the end of healthy debate in college is a really, really bad thing?
Confronting controversial topics in the classroom is important, especially for a school of public policy. But I don't think it's good to assume that any debate being suppressed would have been healthy debate. in this particular case, the professor and the university are both being deliberately vague about what debate subjects were deemed to have been handled badly, and what kind of positions the professor advocated or endorsed, if any. With so little information, there's not enough evidence to rule out the possibility that the professor was bringing up important subjects but then fumbling the discussions in a way that gave some students a negative and unhelpful experience.
It's been my belief that many people get offended by opposing viewpoints because their beliefs--while perhaps correct--weren't firmly grounded in much evidence. A well formulated counterpoint forces us to refine our argument (or abandon it), and most people just don't seem very interested in doing that.
“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.” -- John Stuart Mill
I think there is a large amount of misunderstanding (and misinformation) about what safe spaces and trigger warnings are actually all about. They have also been subject to a certain amount of .. inflation? But the core ideas are important.
"Trigger" originally referred specifically to PTSD. There is a small number of students, such as women who have experienced sexual assault, for whom the subject is more than merely upsetting, it causes flashbacks and significant risk to short term mental health. They asked that they not be exposed to this material without warning. (Not that the material not be taught, nor even that it not be taught to them, but that they be informed in advance about the course content in order to mentally prepare for it)
> healthy debate
Healthy debate for whom? Do we need a debate about what constitutes a healthy and effective debate? Do we need to consider the validity of different modes of interaction? "Traditional" debate assumes a sort of weightlessness, that the issues involved are at a distance from the people having the debate. For things like sexual assault or abortion, or the racialisation of intelligence, it's people's actual experiences - well, for people other than the traditional professor class.
> microagressing them
Somehow I'm reminded of the debate over corporal punishment in schools, where pedagogical effectiveness takes a back seat to more primal ideas about punishment, conformity, and order. People used to be beaten for being left-handed, remember.
People with a bonafide disability are entitled to register their disability with school officials and receive reasonable accommodations. These accommodations are necessarily individualized, after all virtually anything could be a flashback trigger for some or other person with PTSD.
The hordes of people without PTSD that have appropriated the language and our collective sympathy for those that suffer from it to further their own ideological agendas ought to be ashamed of themselves.
> Somehow I'm reminded of the debate over corporal punishment in schools, where pedagogical effectiveness takes a back seat to more primal ideas about punishment, conformity, and order. People used to be beaten for being left-handed, remember.
Can you provide some context to justify comparing microagressions with beating people with sticks?
Difference between "agression" and "microagression" is one of scale - and they are at a very different scale, hence the "micro". But the intent to hurt is common.
We can see even in this thread people talking about the need to "toughen" up students.
Some people who think that any form of physical hurt would be completely unacceptable still seem to think that emotional hurt is completely fictional and it's totally OK to inflict arbitrary amounts of it on people, then refuse to believe their own accounts of the hurt.
I don't think I'd argue that emotional pain isn't "real." I have felt negative emotions before, I know that negative emotions actually make me feel bad. I also don't think it's some kind of good thing to make people feel bad. Sometimes it's just a matter of good manners -- respect people, avoid offending them, etc. You are positing that when microaggressions occur there was intent, however, and this is obviously false. In fact, it is exactly the lack of intent that is the focus of most of the conversation -- unconscious bias being the main explanation for why the aggressor commited the micro-act that led to the aggrieved's injury. There is a strong analogy to physical pain here, yes -- we're talking about the arena of ideas where unpleasant conversations and thoughts are inevitable if one is going to become and educated person. In a physical arena, say athletics, a similar situation would be where a coach makes everyone practice until they feel micro-pain, like maybe fatigue in their muscles and shortness of breath, or bumps and bruises from normal contact.
> Difference between "agression" and "microagression" is one of scale
No, you're comparing physical aggression with verbal aggression. Sure, the latter might hurt, but I think many (most?) people would agree that it's not just a difference "of scale".
> But the intent to hurt is common.
No, "microaggressions" are often accused even when there's no intent to hurt. E.g. asking a foreign-looking student "Where are you from?" - which is most often likely asked with genuine curiosity, and no ill intent whatsoever - even if you don't assume the person is a foreigner!
We teach our children that it's fine to be curious, but not to be rude. People we meet do not owe us any form of entertainment. If we get to know them and in the course of discussion they are inspired to share some details of their origins then we'll learn those details. If not we can just read a book.
I admit that society has been impoverished when rudeness is reframed as "microaggression", but that doesn't excuse the rudeness.
That has always been rude, but is especially so in today's political context. Immigrants of color know that lots of people in Western nations don't want them around. Random interrogations from random white people don't help them feel better about it.
Rudeness isn't the end of the world, but we should still try to avoid it. I don't get pissed off when adults ask me about or make stupid jokes in light of my obvious physical handicap, but I would still prefer that they not do that. Young children get a free pass, because I don't expect them to know any better.
The whole concept of "icebreaker" seems dubious. If you don't feel comfortable around strangers, that's your thing. It's silly to assume that anyone treasures your company enough that they want to become familiar.
Though it doesn't entirely answer your question, several philosophers of speech have identified no metaphysical difference between speech and non-speech, and some find the justifications for a law guaranteeing freedom of speech to be ultimately unfounded[0]. The issue for them is not whether speech causes harm (it does) but whether the harms are sufficient to allow some kind of regulation on speech; there is no evidence showing that speech "invariably causes less harm [than non-speech]". Several have argued this to be the case in the context of hate speech or pornography - it's conceivable their arguments may extend to widening current law (or college policy, since most discussion on the topic takes place in the context of universities[1]) to take into account microaggressions - which, as the researchers have noted, may not always be conscious[2].
> it's conceivable their arguments may extend to widening current law (or college policy, since most discussion on the topic takes place in the context of universities[1]) to take into account microaggressions
That's not true at all; threats, for instance, are not incitements to violence, yet they cause harm. Fraud can be speech, but it is harmful. One philosopher noted how in his profession, if someone broke his left leg, this would not even compare to the kind of harm he'd suffer if someone wrote an slanderous piece against him and published it in a big newspaper. "Whites only" signs can be said to cause harm.
Put it this way: if speech cannot cause any harm, then it would be almost pointless to have a law which guarantees freedom of speech.
Aside from all this, the first source I linked is a good paper that already goes over this distinction of harm which you've outlined and how baseless it is. As I have already said: there is no metaphysical difference between speech and non-speech actions:
>I argued that all speech is conduct, involving an agent, and all conduct, being intentional action, is expressive (of the motivating intention); that speech does not differ from other conduct in being context-dependent and subject to interpretation; that speech is a physical phenomenon, having physical effects on its listeners, effects which can be caused by the content of the speech; and that verbal assaults can be harmful in the same ways that assaults involving direct bodily contact are. For these (and other) reasons, I concluded that the attempt to assimilate freedom of speech to freedom of thought and in that way distinguish it from freedom of action fails.
Speech and violence are both expressive intentional action, therefore they are the same? This seems a very basic sort of logical error. (Perhaps affirming the consequent?)
No. You've misread the argument; she is only enumerating what she has deduced, and the first deduction is that speech and physical assault are both expressive intentional action. This premise was in doubt in the paper she was responding to. She never claims that speech and physical assault are at all the same, but rather, that speech does not merit a special category when differentiated from other actions.
"Special category"? This implies that all is forbidden unless specifically allowed. That is a recipe for an authoritarian hellscape. We don't live in that world. Violence is the special category, because some is allowed and some is not.
That's not the case; if speech is considered an action like any other, it can be regulated like any other action. The implication is not that actions are forbidden unless they are specifically allowed. You aren't specifically allowed to eat fries or post comments on HN - yet you do so anyway. And you would, rightly, resist a law which says you can't, just as you'd resist a law which contravenes a constitutional right to freedom of speech.
OK you finally confused me enough that I had to click through your link and read. I was somewhat disconcerted that the first thing I read was "please don't distribute this link publicly" (was that ironic?). Later on when discussing the crux of this thread (is there a significant difference between speech and other physical actions?), the author dropped an "[as] I’ve argued in previous work..." on us. There is reference to the mind-body problem, and there is some teasing about apparent contradictions perceived in random writings about speech, but no actual argument on this particular topic exists at this link.
Like much contemporary philosophy, this whole thing misses the forest for the trees. Toward the end the author quoted Schauer thus:
The ache, it seems to me, is caused by the fact that although the answer to ‘Must speech be special?’ is probably ‘Yes’, the answer to ‘Is speech special?’ is probably ‘No’.”
Can we just accept this as a compromise? Truth is less important than practice. Authorities at every level seek constantly to police the acceptable boundaries of public thought. They do this for their own interest. The justice system is not and cannot be perfect, especially in defending the public from that policing. A special status for speech is an important bulwark against authoritarianism.
It was probably my mistake to link the paper despite it being the best resource I could remember reading, and a mistake on two fronts: firstly since it's aworkshop paper as you note, an secondly because the more forceful refutation of the speech as separate argument is in the other paper she mentions. That said, this one seemed more relevant to the legal aspects and the issue of free speech rather than only the metaphysical aspects of speech. At the very least, the paper (convincingly in my view) refutes or at least mentions refutations of the main arguments for a specific right to freedom of speech (such as the truth argument or the democracy argument).
Regarding the bulwark against authoritarianism, this is already hinted to - being particularly hazardous about policing speech doesn't make so much sense when we already legislate on many other issues which seem to have bigger effects - such as food safety regulation, or the law of murder, or laws against literal genocide. I feel similar to Schauer here, but I'm uncomfortable about taking the plunge and sticking to the unjustified status quo which already seems to produce unfavorable results without much going for it. Even under a system with no free speech law, we'd have no reason to think political speech would necessarily be repressed but good reason to think that various reasoned arguments against hate speech and pornography would be entertained - to me that's a good thing.
In that case you simply disagree with the Constitution and many free speech fundamentalists about how public discourse works, nowadays even more than centuries ago. That's fine, but there is no need to dress up a simple factual disagreement in all that philosophy. There isn't much contemporary controversy about whether murder and genocide should be illegal, although of course there are exceptions about which there is also not much argument.
In USA history, curtailing the Bill of Rights has always been a bad thing. Expanding it, e.g. through 14A incorporation, has always been good.
The author has attempted to show rationally that speech is not fundamentally different from physical conduct. You are simply asserting that it is. That's not very convincing.
If that was what the author was attempting then she totally failed at it and wasted everyone's time. Rationality doesn't get you anywhere when your starting assumptions are wrong or lack support from fundamental, universal principles. Garbage in / garbage out.
That is far too narrow a view. There are many ways a person can be harmed beyond just physical violence. Instead the question we have to tackle is how much harm are we OK with.
Again I disagree. Complete social ostracisation for example is every bit as harmful (and almost certainly worse) than a punch to the face. Being fired from your job and/or being denied employment or advancement are again also at least as bad as a punch to the face. I could go on.
Limiting "harm" to mean being the victim of physical violence is so narrow as to be utterly meaningless.
Ah, this would be the species of academic debate where a carefully referenced argument can be downvoted and rebutted with a flat unsourced statement of position?
The argument ultimately boiled down to just one person's opinion, nothing more. Adding a bunch of academic references doesn't make the author's opinion any more valid than mine. If you search around you can find just as many opposing references. So what. This isn't like actual science where anything can be verified or disproven.
Triggers in PTSD commonly involve things that causes stress rather than specific topics. Bright light, loud noises, and sudden movements. I have seen several times where Medical professionals that treat PTSD recommended bans against fireworks, as a very low bar in order to reduce such stressors.
A healthy debate around PTSD might include listening to professionals that treats PTSD and follow their recommendations.
First-hand experience gives you unique perspective that you can share with others, but doesn't make you a final authority on the matter. Once you shared your information with others (and assuming there's no trust issues involved), you're on equal grounds as to what to conclude from it.
1) "assuming there's no trust issues involved" is doing an awful lot of load-bearing there
2) One of the things that people keep starting "free speech controversies" over is the idea that some groups are intrinsically less intelligent or apt than others. When, as a member of such a minority group, you are confronted with this idea, what can you conclude from the suggestion that you are intrinsically less intelligent than your classmates?
- the instructor is right, and you should drop out?
- the instructor is prejudiced, so you will receive unfair marks?
- the instructor is wrong about this, and likely to be wrong about everything else?
Depends on how the group is defined. I've found myself in the group of people defined as "with IQ score below 140" and you can say, with high degree of certainty, that I'm less intelligent than group of people "with IQ score at or above 140", but I don't lose much sleep about it.
Also, what exactly "intrinsically less intelligent" means? For example, I'm statistically more likely to be less intelligent than people of some ethnic background, but this effect is slight enough so that every time I'm compared to a person from this group (and he has to be randomly chosen, and I have to have no other information about him/her other than his ethnicity for this whole premise to work, btw), it's like 55%/45% in his favour, not 100%/0% - not a reason to drop out either.
> some groups are intrinsically less intelligent or apt than others
Do you have any specific examples? I am aware of controversies about some groups being on average more or less intelligent or more or less apt, but that has little to do with a) whether the variance is intrinsic or b) the capacities of any particular individual.
If the instructor is right about variance between groups, why does it follow that an individual should drop out? I wouldn't drop out of school upon hearing that on average Jews and people of Asian-descent are more intelligent than members of my ethnic group -- it is both true and irrelevant to my academic abilities or status, or whether the instructor is bigoted (they may or may not be, but making a true statement isn't evidence either way).
I guess you should take a statistics class before taking this class so that you can understand that people are varied and different and not entirely defined by which groups they fit into.
EDIT:
NB In case it is not clear I personally don't think that there are meaningful e.g. IQ differences between the (in my opinion totally arbitrary) groups of humans that people divide other people into where those groups are based on external characteristics.
The primary good universities provide to most people is not education, but signaling.
It basically doesn't matter what most students are taught since they will never have an opportunity to use it, and even if they did, they would not remember what they were taught, and even if they remembered they probably wouldn't be able to apply it outside a classroom context.
This is not an isolated event and universities skew heavily in one direction politically. Is it universally agreeable that the end of healthy debate in college is a really, really bad thing?