The Closing of the American Mind; and worse.

[Formaldehyde]

He praises the Constitution and Declaration of Independence for their intolerance, but that’s a good thing. They impose a moral order upon the country through the language of natural rights and this order is intolerant of racism. The Jim Crow South needed to employ arguments to maintain its oppression of blacks and in doing so they appealed to tolerance (“it’s our way of life” etc). In contrast, the Civil Rights Movement, as he construes it, appealed to American enlightenment values, which were an adequate solution to the problem of discrimination.

I would argue that the paradox of tolerance applies in regard to racism and other similar acts of gross intolerance. That there is no requirement whatsoever to be tolerant of such hateful intolerance.

Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies:

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”

 

[gay_Aleks]

I think I'll just play Iron Maiden until I can't hear you guys.

 

[Flying Pig]

I would argue that the paradox of tolerance applies in regard to racism and other similar acts of gross intolerance. That there is no requirement whatsoever to be tolerant of such hateful intolerance.

Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies:

I think that's pretty much right, with the caveat that the law should rest 'not tolerating intolerance' on the rights of everyone - so focussing on the effect of people's words and actions rather than the thoughts themselves. With civil society in general, it's another matter. If we hear somebody expressing unacceptable views, we ought to challenge them - there's no need for the law to get involved, and actually I don't think it's its place to do so.

Put another way, legally silencing people is heavy-handed and hugely open to abuse, so needs to be used very sparingly. Doing so through social pressure isn't and doesn't, though isn't completely without its problems. After all, it wasn't so long ago that people made life extremely uncomfortable for people doing and saying 'unacceptable' things which we now think of as entirely legitimate - 'I'm gay' or 'I want to marry a black man' being obvious examples.

 

[Atticus]

Is it just me, or is the thing linked in OP terribly poorly written? I can pick up some themes, but mostly it's looks to me like just incoherent rambling.

Another thing: How do they know kids' minds are closed to the possibility of a certain truth? Do they know something that is certainly true and that the kids aren't willing to swallow? Usually people who speak like that are supporters of some very fringe thought.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

A website with the Gadsden Flag flying prominently front and center is definitely a rigorous journalistic endeavor. "Don't Tread On Me" has the wonderful anagram of "Dated Net Moron."

 

[Formaldehyde]

I think that's pretty much right, with the caveat that the law should rest 'not tolerating intolerance' on the rights of everyone - so focussing on the effect of people's words and actions rather than the thoughts themselves. With civil society in general, it's another matter. If we hear somebody expressing unacceptable views, we ought to challenge them - there's no need for the law to get involved, and actually I don't think it's its place to do so.

Put another way, legally silencing people is heavy-handed and hugely open to abuse, so needs to be used very sparingly. Doing so through social pressure isn't and doesn't, though isn't completely without its problems. After all, it wasn't so long ago that people made life extremely uncomfortable for people doing and saying 'unacceptable' things which we now think of as entirely legitimate - 'I'm gay' or 'I want to marry a black man' being obvious examples.

This is exactly why I am so opposed to hate speech laws. Not only are they heavy-handed, I think they do just the opposite of what their intent is. It drives bigotry and racism underground where it festers.

I would much prefer to return to the days before political correctness was so prevalent, back when the racists made themselves widely known instead of using dog whistles and symbols to communicate with others who shared their views.

Is it just me, or is the thing linked in OP terribly poorly written? I can pick up some themes, but mostly it's looks to me like just incoherent rambling.

Another thing: How do they know kids' minds are closed to the possibility of a certain truth? Do they know something that is certainly true and that the kids aren't willing to swallow? Usually people who speak like that are supporters of some very fringe thought.

These were my opinions as well.

 

[Commodore]

Did I claim it "automatically invalidates the arguments presented"?

Do you know what a "strawman" is?

"Logical fallacy much?"

You are using the fact that it received criticism as part of your refutation of the validity of the arguments presented in the book. What others think of a particular argument has absolutely zero bearing (or at least it should have zero bearing in a perfect world) on the validity of an argument.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I was merely pointing out that a number of prominent people whose opinions in such matters are respected by many were also highly critical of this book - nothing more and nothing less.

At no point did claim or even insinuate this meant there was no "validity" to the argument that this book was not a compilation of sheer gibberish. Now did I?

 

[Light Cleric]

This thread reminded me of an article I'd read a while back in The Atlantic. I'm...still not really sure how I feel about it, honestly, because it touches on some delicate subjects, but I certainly think it's worth a read.

 

[Borachio]

So.

At what period in history was the American Mind Open; and better?

And who's been in charge of this Mind, all this time? Surely, someone somewhere has been operating the thing. No?

 

[Truthy]

This thread reminded me of an article I'd read a while back in The Atlantic. I'm...still not really sure how I feel about it, honestly, because it touches on some delicate subjects, but I certainly think it's worth a read.

The idea that American college students are coddled isn't exactly novel, but it doesn't hurt to examine how university culture encourages distortions like emotional reasoning, which in turn could be exacerbating mental illness. That being said, I'm skeptical that college liberal sensibilities are quite as dangerous to academic freedom as the article leads us to believe. I suspect that it's pretty uncommon for professors to actually be terrified of their liberal students. What's probably really happening in a lot of these situations is that adjuncts are terrified that they have no job security. But it's still a good corollary to the Closing of the American Mind, unlike the OP article.

So.

At what period in history was the American Mind Open; and better?

And who's been in charge of this Mind, all this time? Surely, someone somewhere has been operating the thing. No?

I don't find this very helpful.

Obviously, Americans in the past were more racist, etc., but that doesn't mean ideological changes have been uniformly good. Your attitude expresses the view that the past was full of closed-minded bigots with nothing useful to say. And really, if we can say the "American mind" is closed now, it doesn't matter all that much whether it was more open in the past. Unless you're suggesting his book should have been titled "The Closed American Mind," but I'm quite sure you're not.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

This thread reminded me of an article I'd read a while back in The Atlantic. I'm...still not really sure how I feel about it, honestly, because it touches on some delicate subjects, but I certainly think it's worth a read.

Did you read Arthur Chu's (of Jeopardy fame) response? I read it and couldn't really find myself disagreeing with anything he said.

 

[Formaldehyde]

The idea that American college students are coddled isn't exactly novel, but it doesn't hurt to examine how university culture encourages distortions like emotional reasoning, which in turn could be exacerbating mental illness. That being said, I'm skeptical that college liberal sensibilities are quite as dangerous to academic freedom as the article leads us to believe. I suspect that it's pretty uncommon for professors to actually be terrified of their liberal students. What's probably really happening in a lot of these situations is that adjuncts are terrified that they have no job security. But it's still a good corollary to the Closing of the American Mind, unlike the OP article.

Again, the book was written in 1987.

I don't find this very helpful.

Obviously, Americans in the past were more racist, etc., but that doesn't mean ideological changes have been uniformly good. Your attitude expresses the view that the past was full of closed-minded bigots with nothing useful to say. And really, if we can say the "American mind" is closed now, it doesn't matter all that much whether it was more open in the past. Unless you're suggesting his book should have been titled "The Closed American Mind," but I'm quite sure you're not.

It seems like a reasonable point to me.

The author is trying to build a case that something happened to make it that way. He even blames rock music, specifically Mick Jaggar and 2 other bands that extends to 40 pages. He also tries to draw parallels to brownshirts in the Weimar Republic prior to the Nazis gaining control. He even mentions their "sterile" sexual habits while apparently ignoring the fact that this was smack in the middle of the AIDs crisis that radically changed sexual relationships.

 

[Flying Pig]

Did you read Arthur Chu's (of Jeopardy fame) response? I read it and couldn't really find myself disagreeing with anything he said.

I think that article is entirely correct, even if it's slightly missing the point. If it's wrong when conservatives censor things, it's wrong when liberals do it; pointing out that conservatives do it more so doesn't actually justify anyone else doing it.

I think a lot of the problem is how we view different issues as 'acceptable' or not. For example, we usually think of a military veteran with PTSD as having an entirely reasonable cause to be accommodated. If an Afghanistan veteran enrolled in an English course, few people would complain if he asked to be excused from lectures on All Quiet on the Western Front if those hit a bit too close to home. If the class had a sizeable number of Afghanistan veterans in it, they might suggest to the university that something other than All Quiet on the Western Front be studied. Nobody would have much of a problem with that, but we seem to get far more excited when the conditions in question are the sort that we collectively refuse to acknowledge exist. I've heard that something like one in five women says that they have been sexually assaulted, which means that a university class of (say) 200 has about 5 people in it who might, in a lecture on a subject involving violent sexual assault, feel rather like our Afghanistan veteran being spoken to about Remarque.

Obviously, you can't protect people from everything, but I don't think mental toughness (or the good luck to have never had anything traumatic happen to you) is supposed to be something that a university education tests for. If you can take it out of the equation, you should. University shouldn't be about forcing people to undergo a horrible three years in order to get a certificate. There are occasionally good reasons why students should have to be uncomfortable (you won't find anyone saying that we should stop them from working all night to revise for their exams because it's too difficult), but I don't see why universities shouldn't do anything reasonable to make them comfortable.

 

[Truthy]

Again, the book was written in 1987.

I was talking about the Atlantic article, which was published last month.

The author is trying to build a case that something happened to make it that way. He even blames rock music, specifically Mick Jaggar and 2 other bands that extends to 40 pages. He also tries to draw parallels to brownshirts in the Weimar Republic prior to the Nazis gaining control. He even mentions their "sterile" sexual habits while apparently ignoring the fact that this was smack in the middle of the AIDs crisis that radically changed sexual relationships.

I assume that in particular you're responding to this:

And really, if we can say the "American mind" is closed now, it doesn't matter all that much whether it was more open in the past.

That Bloom's thesis is partially a historical claim is why I said "it doesn't matter all that much," as opposed to "it doesn't matter at all." I won't deny that he assumes American intellectualism was better off at some point in the past. But is this the heart of what he's trying to say?

First and foremost, he's arguing that relativism, skepticism, and postmodernism are bad for our country's youth and intellectual climate. In short, there's a problem. To show there exists a problem, you don't need to show that some other problem (e.g., racism) didn't exist before. You don't need to show that the "American mind" was totally "open" at some point. Nor do you need to pinpoint precisely when, why, and how the problem emerged. If you want to refute what he says, you'd have to show that these forces aren't problematic or that they don't affect American youth as he says. That's why I called Borachio's comment unhelpful. It's a cavil.

And no, he's not blaming rock and "non-erotic" sexual relationships. These are symptomatic of our intellectual problems, not the cause of them.

 

[Hygro]

First and foremost, he's arguing that relativism, skepticism, and postmodernism are bad for our country's youth and intellectual climate. In short, there's a problem. To show there exists a problem, you don't need to show that some other problem (e.g., racism) didn't exist before. You don't need to show that the "American mind" was totally "open" at some point. Nor do you need to pinpoint precisely when, why, and how the problem emerged. If you want to refute what he says, you'd have to show that these forces aren't problematic or that they don't affect American youth as he says.

well put

 

[Formaldehyde]

I was talking about the Atlantic article, which was published last month.

Ah. Well I'm referring to the book.

The article is completely ludicrous because he is using a book written in 1987 as though it was written recently to describe the current academic scene. He even tried to hide this basic fact by stating it was written "at the end of the 20th century".

And it just gets worse from there:

Bloom begins with the problem of liberal education at the end of the 20th century – in a world where students are taught from childhood that “values” are relative and that tolerance is the first virtue, too many students arrive at college without knowing what it means to really believe in anything. They think they are open-minded but their minds are closed to the one thing that really matters: the possibility of absolute truth, of absolute right and wrong. In explaining where we are and how we got here, Bloom presents a devastating critique of modern American education and its students, an intellectual history of the United States and its unique foundation in Enlightenment philosophy, and an assesment of the project of liberal education.

We are well past that stage of the deterioration of American culture.

What utter nonsense.

This guy is an eightysomething MD. What does he possibly know about current academia that he probably hasn't learned watching Fox News?

 

[Truthy]

The Atlantic article is this: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/

You're talking about the article from the OP, which I agree was mostly a rambling mess.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Oh yeah. I've heard that criticism before. There is apparently a lot of merit to it. I even referred to it earlier regarding the way Dr. Tim Hunt was treated. That simply would not have happened in the past.

 

[Commodore]

What utter nonsense.

This guy is an eightysomething MD. What does he possibly know about current academia that he probably hasn't learned watching Fox News?

This I agree with. I am so tired of hearing all this "back in my day" crap from the older generations. What I think they fail to realize is that what was sound advice and good wisdom "back in their day" isn't necessarily sound advice and good wisdom nowadays.