Keep putting out the numbers, but don’t expect to change any minds. Faced with the discomfort of cognitive dissonance, people have a remarkable ability to deny reality. Those who are heavily invested in their particular dogma or groupthink will just say “that’s not true.” Another tactic to escape the stress of cognitive dissonance is to seek shelter in non sequiturs. We also see in some of the reviews of Greg and Rikki’s book the substitution of qualitative arguments for quantitative arguments. Thus, we see the word worse replacing more or less, which can be backed up by numbers. Unhappily, people devoted to truth are far too rare. Our punditry is filled with people who write well and have good grammar and punctuation, but little ability to analyze.
A panel at my university was canceled last week: a comparative discussion of the genocides of Assyrians, Armenians, and Palestinians. Canceled because threats were issued against the discussants. I don't know the particulars, if this came from students, or persons outside the university. And I do not know if the threats came from pro-Israel or Turkish persons, but most likely one or the other. My anecdotal experience is that canceling of demonstrations and events in the present context is bipartisan, no longer strongly anti-conservative. And given the recent cancellation of pro-Palestinian faculty, is becoming bipartisan even at that level.
Surveys can do more than collect frequencies of opinions; they can allow us to begin to unpack some of the evidence needed to understand the social dynamics behind the Big Chill in higher education precipitated by Cancel Culture. Thanks to generous support from FIRE, the local student underground paper, The Berea Torch, recently published information about a survey study that ended my tenure:
Deconstructing the Baffling “Bull” Behind Title IX at Our College (bereatorch.com)
Sigh. I graduated from a private university specializing in free markets and individual liberty in 2007. When I arrived on scene in the retail world, computerized systems were just coming into common use for customer relationship management in smaller and mid-sized firms. There was a lot of resistance to using it, and then there was a lot of resistance to inputting data in a way that ensured its downstream reliability and usefulness in analysis and reporting. I spent years fighting a personal war on data integrity because I could see how my executive managers seemed to rely on it for significant business decisions without any consideration it might be unreliable. Decisions that might affect the very survival of the business might get made on that information, so it was imperative to protect its integrity.
This prolonged experience really opened by eyes to how bad data is in all our systems, globally, and how little awareness of it we have, generally. The problem is even more disturbing when it comes to public policy.
If you engage in any public policy debate today, you will inevitably be met with a demand for sourcing on any claims. Largely, the interest is not in the data itself, but the political affiliation of the producer of the data, report, or analysis. This is the same childish mechanism for sorting information that Greg mentions he was embarrassed about engaging in himself (I'm sure we've all done it sometimes, but the point is to break out of this into a better future 😆).
But that's not even the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that the Left "owns the data" in the same way they made claims like "we own the science." What they mean is that they have much more cultural power in this area. The public policy data and analysis ecosystem for the Left has significant support within the media apparatus that is almost self-reinforcing. This is, of course, a huge risk because the temptation to begin manipulating data and analysis you funnel a large portion of the decision makers to is enormous.
We just trust computers and reports and data way too much, and fail to register that the overwhelming majority of it is heavily massaged before you ever hear about the outcomes and learnings. In my experience, there are plenty of organizations in America and all over the world trying to produce real data and reporting and analysis that would allow leaders and voters to start from a place of truth before beginning a real debate on solutions, but those organizations are under nearly universal attack by politicized competitors who drown them completely in lies.
As a result, my experience in public policy debates is that of listening to incredibly poorly-informed people with mind-blowing amounts of power who will not listen to the truth.
While deplatforming incidences have increased (as you have plainly shown), I am equally concerned about the ideological capture in the classroom.
There's no way to quantitatively measure fear. Or silence. I believe in the academic freedom allowed professors, grad-students, etc. But are classrooms really the places for free and open exchange? Are students able to honestly speak their minds? Are those in front of the classrooms so locked in to their orthodoxy that no one dares challenge, or dissent? Even if one student speaks out, will he/she be challenged by other students?
This is the silent suppression of speech. The silent suppression of thought. I cannot imagine thriving in such a stifling classroom atmosphere.
Is there a similar chart showing successful de-platforming over time, and not just attempts? In my observation the real problem in the last 10 years is not that the students have terrible views on free speech (this has always been the case), but rather the sudden abject failure of school administrations to do the right thing in response to such pressures. My guess is that the rise in deplatforming attempt is a direct consequence of past “successes” (ie administrative failures)
This is a semi-serious question. When speaking at an event there are microphones and amplifiers. Why wouldn’t you just turn up the amps until the hecklers hysterics can’t be heard over the speaker? This seems like a non-confrontational solution to a problem, and the heckler just looks increasingly like a lunatic as they continue to scream unheard by the larger crowd.
Keep putting out the numbers, but don’t expect to change any minds. Faced with the discomfort of cognitive dissonance, people have a remarkable ability to deny reality. Those who are heavily invested in their particular dogma or groupthink will just say “that’s not true.” Another tactic to escape the stress of cognitive dissonance is to seek shelter in non sequiturs. We also see in some of the reviews of Greg and Rikki’s book the substitution of qualitative arguments for quantitative arguments. Thus, we see the word worse replacing more or less, which can be backed up by numbers. Unhappily, people devoted to truth are far too rare. Our punditry is filled with people who write well and have good grammar and punctuation, but little ability to analyze.
A panel at my university was canceled last week: a comparative discussion of the genocides of Assyrians, Armenians, and Palestinians. Canceled because threats were issued against the discussants. I don't know the particulars, if this came from students, or persons outside the university. And I do not know if the threats came from pro-Israel or Turkish persons, but most likely one or the other. My anecdotal experience is that canceling of demonstrations and events in the present context is bipartisan, no longer strongly anti-conservative. And given the recent cancellation of pro-Palestinian faculty, is becoming bipartisan even at that level.
Surveys can do more than collect frequencies of opinions; they can allow us to begin to unpack some of the evidence needed to understand the social dynamics behind the Big Chill in higher education precipitated by Cancel Culture. Thanks to generous support from FIRE, the local student underground paper, The Berea Torch, recently published information about a survey study that ended my tenure:
Deconstructing the Baffling “Bull” Behind Title IX at Our College (bereatorch.com)
Sigh. I graduated from a private university specializing in free markets and individual liberty in 2007. When I arrived on scene in the retail world, computerized systems were just coming into common use for customer relationship management in smaller and mid-sized firms. There was a lot of resistance to using it, and then there was a lot of resistance to inputting data in a way that ensured its downstream reliability and usefulness in analysis and reporting. I spent years fighting a personal war on data integrity because I could see how my executive managers seemed to rely on it for significant business decisions without any consideration it might be unreliable. Decisions that might affect the very survival of the business might get made on that information, so it was imperative to protect its integrity.
This prolonged experience really opened by eyes to how bad data is in all our systems, globally, and how little awareness of it we have, generally. The problem is even more disturbing when it comes to public policy.
If you engage in any public policy debate today, you will inevitably be met with a demand for sourcing on any claims. Largely, the interest is not in the data itself, but the political affiliation of the producer of the data, report, or analysis. This is the same childish mechanism for sorting information that Greg mentions he was embarrassed about engaging in himself (I'm sure we've all done it sometimes, but the point is to break out of this into a better future 😆).
But that's not even the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that the Left "owns the data" in the same way they made claims like "we own the science." What they mean is that they have much more cultural power in this area. The public policy data and analysis ecosystem for the Left has significant support within the media apparatus that is almost self-reinforcing. This is, of course, a huge risk because the temptation to begin manipulating data and analysis you funnel a large portion of the decision makers to is enormous.
We just trust computers and reports and data way too much, and fail to register that the overwhelming majority of it is heavily massaged before you ever hear about the outcomes and learnings. In my experience, there are plenty of organizations in America and all over the world trying to produce real data and reporting and analysis that would allow leaders and voters to start from a place of truth before beginning a real debate on solutions, but those organizations are under nearly universal attack by politicized competitors who drown them completely in lies.
As a result, my experience in public policy debates is that of listening to incredibly poorly-informed people with mind-blowing amounts of power who will not listen to the truth.
Other than all that, we should be fine. 😀
While deplatforming incidences have increased (as you have plainly shown), I am equally concerned about the ideological capture in the classroom.
There's no way to quantitatively measure fear. Or silence. I believe in the academic freedom allowed professors, grad-students, etc. But are classrooms really the places for free and open exchange? Are students able to honestly speak their minds? Are those in front of the classrooms so locked in to their orthodoxy that no one dares challenge, or dissent? Even if one student speaks out, will he/she be challenged by other students?
This is the silent suppression of speech. The silent suppression of thought. I cannot imagine thriving in such a stifling classroom atmosphere.
Is there a similar chart showing successful de-platforming over time, and not just attempts? In my observation the real problem in the last 10 years is not that the students have terrible views on free speech (this has always been the case), but rather the sudden abject failure of school administrations to do the right thing in response to such pressures. My guess is that the rise in deplatforming attempt is a direct consequence of past “successes” (ie administrative failures)
The examples you list are as interesting as the ones you leave out. What about Steven Salaita?
This is a semi-serious question. When speaking at an event there are microphones and amplifiers. Why wouldn’t you just turn up the amps until the hecklers hysterics can’t be heard over the speaker? This seems like a non-confrontational solution to a problem, and the heckler just looks increasingly like a lunatic as they continue to scream unheard by the larger crowd.