All in the Family featured the curmudgeonly Archie Bunker. Archie was television’s most famous grouch, blunt, blustering, straightforward and untouched by the PC crowd. He was the archetype of the conservative male. Michael desprately tried to reeducate him, but he persisted in his breviloquence.



Looking back at the last 40 years, we realize: ARCHIE WAS RIGHT!

6/24/2016

Freedom FROM Thought

When I was in school I loved the classes where the teachers let you get into controversial topics.  I had my first taste of this in high school.  The teacher's would assign the class to take sides on a controversial issue.  The topics would sometimes be political, or religious.  They were always be emotional.

The thing that was fun about these exercises was that you weren't being graded on if you won or lost.  You were being graded on your thought process and the way you structured your presentation.  The teachers always made that point up front.  You could take any side you wanted, but you were required to follow the rules of the assignment.

In college I found this style of education very beneficial as well as entertaining.  By the time I was an upper division undergraduate, case study was commonly used as part of the curriculum.  I loved it.  I also learned a great deal of practical application that I have actually used in the real world.

In the University of Northern Colorado they don't like it when you think unapproved thoughts.  They even have a University department that enforces thought conformity.

Professors investigated for presenting opposing viewpoints
Two professors at the University of Northern Colorado were investigated after students complained that they were forced to hear opposing viewpoints.
Apparently there are no grown ups working for UNC.  The teachers were the ones who got in trouble, even though one teacher made it clear that  he did not agree with the opposing point of view, but was merely presenting it as the other side of the argument.

That's right, the teacher was actually on the "right side" of the issue as far as the student was concerned.  The mere fact that the teacher acknowledged and confirmed the existence of an opposing point of view was the problem.

Anyone want to take a guess at what the topic under discussion in both cases was?  LGBT. 

It wasn't mentioned in the article but the traditional and until recently, medical view of LGBT people was that they suffered from either mental/psychological/emotional defect or disease or were predisposed to the lifestyle as a result of abuse or conditioning.  Got it?  LGBT is the result of mental disease or defect, not a genetic mutation.  The professor doesn't believe or teach that, but that is the opposing viewpoint.
"I would just like the professor to be educated about what trans is and how what he said is not okay because as someone who truly identifies as a transwomen [sic] I was very offended and hurt by this," the student wrote in their complaint.
From the other student:
"I do not believe that students should be required to listen to their own rights and personhood debated," the student wrote. "[This professor] should remove these topics from the list of debate topics. Debating the personhood of an entire minority demographic should not be a classroom exercise, as the classroom should not be an actively hostile space for people with underprivileged identities."
It's too hurtful to hear that other people don't agree with you about everything you do.  Wow!  They can't handle it if someone even mentions that there is a different point of view and they need the university to stop it.

It's almost like they suffer from a mental disease or defect or something.

10 comments:

  1. WaterBoy5:29 PM

    From the article:

    "The complaints were made to Northern Colorado's "Bias Response Team," an Orwellian office on campus that asks students to report their peers and professors for anything that upsets or offends them."

    Bias Response Team? Are you freakin' kidding me?!?

    Well, I guess the hand-holding and thumb-sucking goes right along with all the other remedial classes they have to take....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These spoiled brats have no clue about what it would have been like to grow up in a cultural stew of true paranoia and PC thinking. Like behind the Iron Curtain for instance. You can see that mind set still in the thought processes of a lot of Russians today who grew up in that environment.

      Imagine if the little darlings had to live everyday looking over their shoulders, wondering if even a brother or cousin is going to turn them into the State for saying something that could be construed wrongly.

      You see the end results of growing up that way in just the photos of the oligarchs who come West to live. They just look so hard.

      Delete
  2. I saw that too. They have a group of people who do nothing but look for things to get upset about.

    Aren't there any grown ups in Colorado, or is everyone stoned out of whatever is left of their mind?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wouldn't be a college graduate if I had to pay money to put myself in this kind of environment. I used to love the kinds of classes where you could debate or at least talk about what you thought instead of regurgitating what your prof said. I really think I learned/gained more real world practical information from those experiences than from theory classes.

      Delete
    2. WaterBoy12:15 AM

      Hey, now, don't be picking on Colorado when it's an epidemic across the entire country.

      Delete
    3. Res, Too many Californians have moved into the State according to my daughter who lived there for years before coming back a couple years ago.
      The greed of the politicians and the idiocy of the stoners is going to hit that state very hard within 5 years. Maybe not even that long.

      I don't care what long term users tell me, that drug use is just bad news all around. Bringing up dentists or even medical staff in the ER just terrifies me to contemplate. How long before we see a Colorado story of malpractice because the doctor was called in on an emergency, even just mildly stoned?

      Delete
    4. WaterBoy12:49 AM

      It's also ironic that these are in response to speech which has a"chilling effect" on minority students, but end up chilling everyone, as the example of the white students feeling uncomfortable shows.

      Plenty of opportunities for black-knighting there...

      Delete
  3. Almost forgot. This situation also explains why there are so many useless trolls out there in blogs and websites now. They are not learning the mechanics of debate. It really doesn't matter which side you take, you are learning the HOW of defending your points. This makes me understand why somebody highly intelligent like Vox can get frustrated with people sometimes. Most people really are idiots.

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  4. "Every man... should periodically be compelled to listen to opinions which are infuriating to him. To hear nothing but what is pleasing to one is to make a pillow of the mind."
    -- St. John Ervine

    Still holds true today.

    ReplyDelete
  5. speech which has a"chilling effect"

    There are lots of things in this world I disagree with. Freedom of speech is about being able to hash out ideas. When we lose that, we lose the ability to rationally interact with each other. When we lose rational interaction all we have left is strife and violence.

    ReplyDelete