It's not that simple, is it? The problem is that the universities are no longer a free market of ideas, they are a corrupted market dominated by an ideological cartel that uses the numerical dominance of left wingers & fear to impose it's will on the academy
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Well, I'd hardly have spent so much time trying to show the problem and why it's a problem and arguing for a marketplace of ideas if we already had one!
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Sorry, I incorrectly interpreted you as meaning that leaving it up to what currently passes for the marketplace of ideas would see things right. But now I am a little perplexed. Could you please describe what you see as the best way forward from where we now find ourselves?
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To get universities to value the marketplace of ideas and embrace both ideological diversity and academic rigor in all departments.
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I believe if we teach and show the importance of critical thinking and civil debate most students would embrace open discussion.
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I'd love that to be the case but I don't believe we can easily get there from here
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But how can it be a free exchange of ideas when those in charge of universities (the left) consider the other side's ideas as hate speech and not something worthy of being added into the pot of ideas? I feel we need to somehow break the grip of the left on universities somehow.
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Well, yes. That's what I'm arguing for and trying to help bring about.
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People have been trying to resist this for at least twenty years using the methods you propose & the very thing they feared would come to pass may well be coming to pass: institutionalised advocacy - just policed by cultural studies via control of narrative “appropriateness”?pic.twitter.com/mqNUcGcs2X
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I agree in general with this position Helen. But there is nuance here, if some fields are objectively phony aren't we allowing universities to sell fraud careers to students? If we are going with the free speech route shouldn't we at least put a label on those careers? ...1/2
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With Tobacco companies we did the same: we added warning messages on the cigarettes packages regarding the health effects of the product. Shouldn't we warn students that they are free to choose those careers, but they are not free from the negative consequences? 2/2
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If students are willing to pay and put in jeopardy their own future studying those careers that's fine. But they need a clear warning explaining that those careers don't follow the basic methodological norms that the rest of the academy requires.
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I'm sure we disagree on many things politically, but you are rapidly becoming my personal hero.
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As terrible as the far-right is I have never seen them trying to purge "wrongthink" from universities or impedeing speakers like the far-left does, that said Richard Spencer did admit that if he gets his ethnostate there would be much less free speech, so still similar I guess.
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Right. They don't have the power or they probably would.
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Of course they would. The comments on this thread about purging subjects 'without economic utility' speak volumes on that front
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But according to academics, they are beating bad ideas through the academic process. An understanding that the process itself is broken is needed. Thus far, your (awesome) project hasn't shown them that.
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Would you as the chair of a tenure committee simply count publications and citations in quantifying the productivity of members of your faculty?
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This question matters, because in the "marketplace of ideas" on the research side (as opposed to teaching) such hiring/promotion committees *are* the primary external market participants, apart from government research funding bodies. Arguably, it's a command-economy.
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We can’t just purge political thoughts of any kind. We need to let thoughts battle to see which ones are the best. Fact is, circumstances change, so types of policies are needed in waves.
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