PC Principal thread

[Vandalhart]

"Offense is not given, it's taken."

[Marootsoobutsu]

How much of this could be dealt with by just being empathetic and not being a raging asshole to other people?

Empathy is overrated. Being a compassionate jerk is better.

[Blubbartron]

Empathy is overrated. Being a compassionate jerk is better.

This was the most interesting part of the article. I'm not sure how good the research is, but if that's true, that's amazingly hilarious and sad.

It also can lure countries into violent conflicts based on relatively small provocations, and researchers have shown that people who are more empathetic are more likely to want to impose harsh punishments on people. “The more empathy you have, the more violent you are—the more ready and willing you are to cause pain,” Bloom said.

It makes a certain level of sense to me - if you feel others' pain as if it had been done to you, combined with the natural tendency to seek vengeance for wrongs committed against ourselves, then you're going to be willing to shank people who hurt others, which happens all the goddamn time.

[Byrthnoth]

I'll note that that's two scientists sharing subjective thoughts about empathy. While the article emphasizes that they're scientists, it doesn't say they've ever done a society-wide cost/benefit analysis on empathy vs. rational altruism. The opinions they share aren't really even informed by science. They're just combining logic, history, and citing the scientific record when it agrees with them.

Which is all to say that I don't disagree with them, but it's another example of scientist's opinions being passed off as scientific.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Surface-level empathy. To me, an empathetic person would recognize that suffering is suffering, regardless of who is the victim and who is the perpetrator.


I wonder how this Bloom comes up with his criteria for empathy.

[Koul]

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...-arts-colleges

I finally read the whole thing. Most of the students responses were expected. I will say I *kinda* feel for some of them but for the most part my opinion is still the same in that they are being bratty.

This whole part was especially lulzy for me:

Spoiler: show

“It was, like, one day I was at college having fun, and the next day someone called me the N-word, and I had no avenue,” she says. She has on a red flannel button-down shirt, open over a tank top. There’s a crisp red kerchief around her head, knotted above a pair of hip blue-and-brown-tortoised glasses. “My parents don’t have the funds to drive to Oberlin when I’m crying and ready to self-harm. The only way that I can facilitate those conversations is to advocate for myself. That in itself makes me a part of a social-justice climate.”

Adams supported the fourteen-page letter of demands that was submitted to Oberlin’s president in the winter. “At that meeting, about the demands, there were a hundred people, literally,” she says.

“Even those who didn’t write it had things to put into it,” Taylor Slay, a fellow Abusua member, says. She is sitting next to Adams, taking notes.

Adams goes on, “Me trying to appeal to people? Ain’t working. Me trying to be the quiet, sit-back-and-be-chill-and-do-my-work black person? Doesn’t work. Me trying to be friends with non-black folks? Doesn’t work.” She draws out her final syllables. “Whatever you do at Oberlin as a person of color or a low-income person, it just doesn’t work! So you’re just, like, I’ve got to stand up for myself.”

“I have to be political,” Slay says.

“I have to be political in whatever form or fashion,” Adams says. “Because I have nothing else to do.”

There were negative responses to the fifty demands (which included a request for an $8.20-an-hour activism wage, the firing of nine Oberlin employees deemed insufficiently supportive of black students, and the tenuring of black faculty).

But the alumni reactions were the worst, according to Adams. “They are quick to turn around and call twenty-year-old students the N-word, and monkeys, and illiterate uneducated toddlers, and tell us to go back to Africa where we came from, and that Martin Luther King would be ashamed of us,” she says. “We knew realistically that most of those demands were not going to be met. We understand legality. We understand finances—”

“We see the pattern of nonresponse,” Slay says.

Zakiya Acey furrows his brow. “The argument was ‘Oh, so students ask for this, but it’s not legal,’ ” he says. “But it’s what I need. And it’s what this country needs, and it’s my country. That’s the whole point. We’re asking—”

“We’re asking to be reflected in our education,” Adams cuts in. “I literally am so tired of learning about Marx, when he did not include race in his discussion of the market!” She shrugs incredulously. “As a person who plans on returning to my community, I don’t want to assimilate into middle-class values. I’m going home, back to the ’hood of Chicago, to be exactly who I was before I came to Oberlin.”

Like everyone else at the table, Adams believes that the Oberlin board’s denunciation of Joy Karega’s Facebook posts shows hypervigilance toward anti-Semitism and comparative indifference toward racial oppression. “We want you to say, ‘Racism is not accepted!’ ” Adams says.

Acey, who insists that Karega’s posts were more anti-Zionist than anti-Semitic, thinks professors often hide their racial biases. “But they’ll vote in a way that does not benefit the students,” he says. “Like, the way the courses are set up. You know, we’re paying for a service. We’re paying for our attendance here. We need to be able to get what we need in a way that we can actually consume it.” He pauses. “Because I’m dealing with having been arrested on campus, or having to deal with the things that my family are going through because of larger systems—having to deal with all of that, I can’t produce the work that they want me to do. But I understand the material, and I can give it to you in different ways. There’s professors who have openly been, like, ‘Yeah, instead of, you know, writing out this midterm, come in to my office hours, and you can just speak it,’ right? But that’s not institutionalized. I have to find that professor.”

Also, things are trickier now than in the past. “In the sixties and seventies, you saw an attack on oppression,” Acey says. “How do we stop this from happening ever again? Then you have the introduction of multiculturalism: Let’s satisfy this. Let’s pretend we’re going to be diverse. Whereas what college does now is—”

“It separates us,” Adams says.

“It separates us, but it makes us busy. 24/7.”

“Also, we’re the generation that has more identities to encompass in our movement,” Adams says. “No shade to civil rights, but it was a little misogynistic. It had women in the back. A lot of other identities—trans folks and all that—were not really included. And we’re the generation that’s trying to incorporate everybody.”

“And we’re tired!” Slay says.

“That takes work,” Adams agrees.

“We do our work in the middle of the night,” Slay says.

“We meet at 11 P.M., and stay up till two o’clock in the morning doing work, and go to nine-o’clock class, and do that over and over and over,” Adams says. “We don’t sleep. We rarely eat the food at—”

“We’re not even compensated financially, so that’s a lot,” Slay says.

“The older generations have been desensitized,” Acey adds.

“Desensitized!” Adams says.

“It’s, like, ‘This is what the world is.’ ”

“ ‘It’s been this way since the fifties.’ ”

Acey says, “We understand this institution to be an arm of—”

“Oppression,” Adams offers.

“The capitalist process,” Acey goes on. “We go through this professionalization through the university. And this professionalization is to work really unnecessary jobs.”

“When I came here, I’m, like, ‘Where are the people who are disabled?’ ” Adams says. “I know so many disabled people at home.”

She shakes her head. “It does not reflect the real world.”

I'm just. I dono. I want to know what these students want. What do they want to do with their life. I'm also curious what they consider unnecessary jobs.

[Zetanio]

I'm just. I dono. I want to know what these students want. What do they want to do with their life. I'm also curious what they consider unnecessary jobs.

Any job that is "beneath" them. I have a terrible perspective because I was working full time in finance while getting a degree but I know I'm not far from the truth. At least at NYU.

[Koul]

I wonder if they foresee the next generation eating them up like they are doing to their teachers etc. I'm kind of sadistically eager to see what the next ante up will be to this

[NynJa]

What the fuck does "insufficiently supportive" mean?!? Is that like someone who says they support what theyre doing but refuse to spend multiple hours of their time making a shopping list of demands or participating in protests with them?

and what the hell is an 8.20/hr activism wage? "Pay me for making your college less offensive to me"? LOL

[Marootsoobutsu]

I'll note that that's two scientists sharing subjective thoughts about empathy. While the article emphasizes that they're scientists, it doesn't say they've ever done a society-wide cost/benefit analysis on empathy vs. rational altruism. The opinions they share aren't really even informed by science. They're just combining logic, history, and citing the scientific record when it agrees with them.

Which is all to say that I don't disagree with them, but it's another example of scientist's opinions being passed off as scientific.

There is a degree of that, but they have also been looking at how empathy differs from compassion in actual brain chemistry and psychological output.

But mostly I look at the article as a philosophical essay rather than a scientific one. But I definitely find it true: when you're a parent, you get your kids their shots because you love them and want the best for them. Empathy is suppressed to do what is good, because empathy says, "This is going to hurt a lot!" Empathy can be a useful tool-- it can help you understand others. But empathy is a horrible master. It can blind you to still other perceptions. The hyper-PC crowd is definitely guilty of this: they are so obsessed with the feelings of those they deem oppressed that they are blinded to all else. I don't think it *must* be that way; I just think that's the shape it has taken.

[Koul]

and what the hell is an 8.20/hr activism wage? "Pay me for making your college less offensive to me"? LOL

yeah, I think it means that anyone who partakes in activism gets 8.20$/hr. Which, color me cynical, I don't trust humans enough to be honest with their hours put in. I can see people being like "omg remember those tacos we ate while stoned and we talked about the patriarchy! That was like. Activism hours."

[Gredival]

A very large part. Coupled with their parents being in the driver's seat for policy making. It's amazingly depressing. Liberal arts academia is just awful.

What confuses me about this though is how these Humpty Dumpties made it all the way to college. For a few schools we see the activism on, I could understand never having to deal with the reality you aren't a special snowflake -- the kids at Yale, Dartmouth, etc.

But how did these kids who wind up at lesser state schools deal with getting less than stellar grades in H.S. or deal with getting rejected by Ivy schools? Or have decaying standards just cascaded down that far?

[Marootsoobutsu]

What confuses me about this though is how these Humpty Dumpties made it all the way to college. For a few schools we see the activism on, I could understand never having to deal with the reality you aren't a special snowflake -- the kids at Yale, Dartmouth, etc.

But how did these kids who wind up at lesser state schools deal with getting less than stellar grades in H.S. or deal with getting rejected by Ivy schools? Or have decaying standards just cascaded down that far?

These are the "Bs are okay. You're wonderful just the way you are, and nothing about you is bad" kids. Their failure to get into Ivy League? Not their fault-- system screwed 'em. ESPECIALLY if they are women, or minorities. It's not that nothing's ever gone wrong-- it's that they aren't accountable for what's gone wrong. Ever.

[Psion]

These are the "Bs are okay. You're wonderful just the way you are, and nothing about you is bad" kids. Their failure to get into Ivy League? Not their fault-- system screwed 'em. ESPECIALLY if they are women, or minorities. It's not that nothing's ever gone wrong-- it's that they aren't accountable for what's gone wrong. Ever.

See, im the kind of person who'd point out that b's are okay, and they are wonderful the way they are, and that the system is stacked against them...but i'd also point out the consequences of B's, point out that the world isn't likely to change anytime soon, although there will definetly be no change if people don't stand up for injustices, and point out that they may be fine the way they are, but to also focus on what they want to be and aim for that goal, even if they don't make it... because what you want to be can and will change over your lifetime, and what you thought you wanted to be a year ago may not be the same ideal you have now.

But what do I know, I think kids are little abominations and back away in horror at a "cute baby" video. (though oddly enough, baby animals, especially kittens, have the opposite effect on me.)

[Byrthnoth]

I'm only a fan of bear cubs.

Spoiler: show

Kittens look retarded and puppies are alright but can also be quite derpy depending on the breed.


PS. http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...ous-objections

I like the fact that they're overruling irrational religious rules in favor of irrational secular rules. Am I becoming conservative?

[Koul]

No, you're probably becoming libertarian

[Ragnus]

http://www.avclub.com/article/ghostb...fan-cu-237139?

Being a fan and not liking reboots is now a privileged opinion on something.

[Byrthnoth]

No, you're probably becoming libertarian

No, libertarian would be in favor of overruling irrational religious requirements in favor of no requirements.

[dasva]

I'd sure love a wage just to sit around and bitch about how much my life sucks and make list of demands of things people should do to make my life easier

[dasva]

No, libertarian would be in favor of overruling irrational religious requirements in favor of no requirements.

No not no requirements. Just no requirements thru the use of force. You can have just as many or more if you get people to agree to them