Comments on: Grotesquely Long Post

By: bryan

bryan — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 15:51:07 +0000

finally, on the subject of certain types of conservatism and education: http://www.thetruthforyouth.com/standard/main.htm

By: bryan

bryan — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 14:19:05 +0000

‘Everyone has an agenda, more or less. It’s just whether you agree with his or her agenda or not. Where the agenda is irrelevant, there’s nothing to stop you from excluding the creationist biologist on the grounds that his or her work is not up to par – and if s/he does not subscribe to the theory of evolution, which is the bedrock of modern biology, then it is likely that the work won’t be up to par. And you can exclude on that – on the merits. ’ when you say Everyone has an agenda, more or less it sounds sort of like you think there might actually be differences between these agendas, some agendas are more and some are less. More or less what, I suggest that they are more or less likely to interfere with the teaching process. For this reason I would reject them, on the merits, pretty much in any academic field involving science. As I noted earlier, creationists spend political influence to make sure their literal interpretations of the bible get spread. One of the main foundations of their interpretation of the bible involves a chronology that is more bible-friendly and I would argue less science-friendly. Time is a pretty important quality in physics as well, and I don’t think a belief in the earth being a few thousand years old, and having been created in 7 days will be likely to make anyone a good physicist. now you also said: ‘If he’s a physicist who has some odd ideas about evolutionary biology, but is brilliant to a fault in say, experimental condensed matter physics, than why should his oddball ideas be held against him where it is irrelevant?’ Fine enough, however I think it’s clear that one makes rules for excluding people not to get rid of the ones that are brilliant to a fault, but to get rid of the ones that are average to a virtue. I have no problem making exceptions to my exclusionary policies if I find someone brilliant to a fault, the genius who wants to do research in their field always has a place, and the fact that they believe some stuff that we don’t want them telling students because it will probably not help make those students brilliant to a fault, but only succeed in driving them down from average to a virtue to the less desirable stupid to a waste (the average creationist level) is not especially important in the case of the brilliant researcher, cause we’ll be keeping him away from the students (to a certain extent). Now as I said earlier my point against the creationist breed of conservative is that they will use the political to push the religious, part of this usage has been shown in the past to be messing around with the content of textbooks to get what is the currently best understood fact to either be described as arguable or left out entirely, this I think makes them unacceptable in an academic environment. If they will do it to the textbook they will do it to the class. Knowledge is strange, one never knows when a bit from one field becomes interesting in another, Coleridge for example in his Biographia Literaria makes mention of an idea commonly accepted by educated folk that men are descended from some lower animal rather than created; I suppose that bit should need to be excised. This puts me in mind of an anecdote from my own life I mentioned in my first response to this post: in my high school British Literature class the teacher told us that A.D meant After Noah, and B.C meant Before Christ, obviously she was no creationist, but only a fumbling stupid person. I think her conflation of different chronological systems should have been enough to keep her from teaching anyone, on the merits, and I think that a creationist, being just as stupid, but likely not to be fumbling about it but rather organized, should also be kept from, not just academic posts in the sciences, but most academic positions, on the merits. As John’s original post never exactly managed to specify closer what was meant by conservative in the instance described I argued that it could have been “So in the example given the question was asked if the prospective employee was a conservative, it could very well be that the poor muddle headed liberal, having come to associate conservatism with some awful people he met trying to get mentions of evolution and slavery and whatnot removed from textbooks, and god put in whenever possible, just considered it impossible to hire anyone that was ‘conservative’. If Smith had qualified this conservatism, the nature of which is nowhere satisfactorily explained, by saying “yes, I’m something of a Burkean conservative” it might all have gone rather well” If however people wish to be taught by the creationist stripe of conservative they can always go to any of the fine institutions of higher learning that discriminate against non magical belief systems, such as BYU, Bob Jones U. or what have you. P.S: Have I beaten John and enthymeme in the length dept. yet?

By: enthymeme

enthymeme — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 04:12:32 +0000

Sebastian Holsclaw: And I can say with some confidence that your charge “who really does support all the forms of current employment discrimination…” is frankly false. To my knowledge conservatives in the US do not support any type of employment discrimination that you mention. Puchalsky: Once again I ask, who is supporting the attempt to amend the Constitution in order to discriminate against gays . . . And the proposed FMA has to do with employment how? Aren’t we talking about employment discrimination? Puchalsky has difficulty reading what other people write, and that’s probably the source of his confusion.

By: Rich Puchalsky

Rich Puchalsky — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 01:41:21 +0000

Sebastian, you said precisely nothing (other than yet another Godwin’s Law invocation—what is it with you conservatives)? Once again I ask, who is supporting the attempt to amend the Constitution in order to discriminate against gays, if not conservatives? You don’t get to disavow current efforts of your own political group with a 1984-style claim that they simply aren’t taking place. “But I can do much better for your side. Evidence that leftists are willing to defend employment discrimination is found by the existance of this very post and its comments. Many in the comments have argued that the discrimination is an affirmative good.” “Many in the comments have argued that discrimination is an affirmative good” only if “many” is me. Go on, find some others. You’ll see that every other liberal or leftist here has safely and cannily mouthed the proper platitudes about how we should all just get along. Which I agree is probably the best thing for them to do. So they don’t discriminate at all—just as, according to you, blacks aren’t discriminated against at all by conservatives, because the conservatives take care to say that they aren’t doing it.

By: enthymeme

enthymeme — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 23:22:22 +0000

Belle, I try to write like John sometimes. He’s a got great style and just draws you in. But more importantly, he’s a liberal who’s reasonable and refreshingly unprone to histrionics. Always a joy to read – even if we er, don’t always agree. Puchalsky, But conservatism supports discrimination, whether you think so or not, and every conservative personally chose to be a conservative. So I don’t see the problem. The “problem” has been pointed out to you time and again, Puchalsky. Every Christian chose to be a Christian too. Do you deny that religion is a matter of personal choice? Should we discriminate against Christians since the Church has supported discrimination for millenia? Deafening silence. Even if one grants that conservatism “supports discrimination” (which I don’t), two wrongs do not make a right. But it certainly makes for hypocrisy, and you’re guilty as charged. Now he’s claiming that conservatives find it hard to change from their beliefs because they are close-minded. No that’s not what I’m claiming. I claimed that they had difficulty changing their beliefs, whatever the reasons. It was you who suggested that conservatives be excluded from academia because they were close-minded and do not change even when “rational argument” is adduced. You said: “Academics are supposed to be open to changing their ideas based on new facts being discovered or on new, better theories being proposed” – implying that conservatives are NOT open to changing their ideas and thus are close-minded. But if they have precisely such a difficulty as you charge, how is conservatism “not-difficult” to change? You’re contradicting yourself. Do they or do they not have such a difficulty? Mr Bryan, no, but I believe it has been suggested that Aquinas made logical mistakes based on his need to resolve certain parts of religious doctrine, thus no doubt weakening his philosophy. The same could be said for many philosophers of genius. Or anyone who subscribes to some ideology or other for that matter. Are left-leaning ideologues any less susceptible than the right? Puchalsky doesn’t seem to be changing many minds for now. What does that suggest? It is a myth to suppose that (a special class of) persons are free from doctrinaire influences. The Marxian economist may work according to his bias, as may the libertarian economist – again, why exclude out of hand, without examining the merits of his or her work? Is this excellent physicist one of the conservatives who believe that the Grand Canyon is a few thousand years old at best? Like I said, as and when his beliefs are intimately connected to his work, then it would be OK to exclude him. That is not adverse discrimination. If he’s a biologist, you’re excluding him on the basis of merit or lack thereof – because creationist science isn’t science. Because it’s been repeatedly debunked. You’re not excluding him because he’s a conservative. If he’s a physicist who has some odd ideas about evolutionary biology, but is brilliant to a fault in say, experimental condensed matter physics, than why should his oddball ideas be held against him where it is irrelevant? Is Leibniz’s invention of calculus any lesser on account of monads? What Puchalsky is advocating is wholesale discrimination against conservatives irrespective of his or her merits in the relevant field of expertise. If a creationist applies for a job as a classicist, how is his creationism relevant? At any event, creationism is not solely a conservative belief. It is a Christian belief. It is conceivable that there are liberals who are also creationists. Are you going to discriminate against liberals or Christians then, just because some of them are creationists? No? So why discriminate against conservatives if not all of them are creationists? Isn’t that precisely the essence of discrimination? Tarring a class or group of people with a broad brush instead of examining each person on his merits? That is to say, is this a person who mixes their political agenda with the religious agenda? Are they concerned with using the political wing to push the religious position? If so I think I wouldn’t want them teaching physics, because I suppose that just as they are pushing the religious agenda with something I believe shouldn’t be used to push it, they will want to push it with something else that shouldn’t be used for that purpose – that is, the educational pulpit. Everyone has an agenda, more or less. It’s just whether you agree with his or her agenda or not. Where the agenda is irrelevant, there’s nothing to stop you from excluding the creationist biologist on the grounds that his or her work is not up to par – and if s/he does not subscribe to the theory of evolution, which is the bedrock of modern biology, then it is likely that the work won’t be up to par. And you can exclude on that – on the merits. I believe that knowledge grows because people disagree, set out to refute that which they disagree with – and whether successful or not, we get as an end product either some new theory that has shed the weaknesses of the old one, or we get a strengthened, reinforced and more corroborated theory of old. And if some of that disagreement is politically motivated, so be it. The genesis of criticism is irrelevent to the merits of that criticism. And this is why academic freedom is so important – and why a politically straight-jacketed academia is inimical to the pursuit of the growth of knowledge. It’s not just a matter of aesthetics: orthodoxy is the death of intelligence. And homogeneity as such is bad news for academe. Accordingly, a degree of heterodoxy is essential, and people whom you disagree with are useful for just this reason. Mr Holsclaw, I normally avoid asking for sources, but you will have to provide some if you are to convince me that my personal experience with conservatives on a day-to-day basis, and my extensive reading in conservative circles has somehow missed this support for job discrimination. Don’t bother. This joker never provides sources, nor does he support his assertions with factual data. If you look over at Dr Holbo’s blog, you’ll note that every single iota of information provided was sourced by me or the Cali lawyer. Puchalsky just bloviates. Puchalsky, I developed an argument that liberals oppose discrimination based on “difficult to change characteristics”, and included religion as one of these, since it depends on faith that is not really susceptible to logical argument, and is usually developed in childhood. enthymeme then repeatedly challenged me to prove that conservatism was not a “difficult to change characteristic”, and I replied that I didn’t beleive that it was, but that if it was, it was a valid reason to reject people from academic employment, since closed mindedness about matters of fact and theory is not compatible with academia. In other words, you could not support your assertion when challenged. Indeed, “you didn’t believe that it was” the case, meaning you believe that your own argument was specious. You have no argument and you self-imploded, as you here admit. So what are you complaining about? QED.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 22:19:52 +0000

“I’m not even going to bother going into conservative ideology and why it really is an ideology of inherited social position, one in which people are supposed to know their place, and which depends on some form of discrimination by inherited background. Presumably you’d deny that is your ideology.” Wow, you got me there. I guess I don’t get to make arguments because you have a sterotypical idea of ‘conservative’ which is resistant to facts. Or perhaps the word ‘conservative’ means precisely whatever you want it to mean. It worked for Humpty Dumpty. As a conservative I might be expected to know something about conservative ideology (at least in the US). And I can say with some confidence that your charge “who really does support all the forms of current employment discrimination…” is frankly false. To my knowledge conservatives in the US do not support any type of employment discrimination that you mention. Once again I suspect (though obviously cannot prove) that you are conflating opposition to affirmative action with supporting employment discrimination. I normally avoid asking for sources, but you will have to provide some if you are to convince me that my personal experience with conservatives on a day-to-day basis, and my extensive reading in conservative circles has somehow missed this support for job discrimination. But I can do much better for your side. Evidence that leftists are willing to defend employment discrimination is found by the existance of this very post and its comments. Many in the comments have argued that the discrimination is an affirmative good. I defy you to find a similar conservative expression on anything nearly as mainstream as this website….. unless you would care to conceed that this website is as far to the left as a NAZI organization is to the right? I didn’t think so.

By: Rich Puchalsky

Rich Puchalsky — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:36:29 +0000

Sebastian, I am willing to believe that you, personally, don’t support discrimination, or at least don’t think that you do. But someone supports, to take only the most recent example, discrimination against gays in the form of an amendment to the Constitution. If the people supporting this aren’t conservatives, who are they? They sure aren’t liberals or libertarians. And every conservative that claims that they don’t personally support this kind of thing, but who votes for people who do, is effectively supporting it anyway. I’m not even going to bother going into conservative ideology and why it really is an ideology of inherited social position, one in which people are supposed to know their place, and which depends on some form of discrimination by inherited background. Presumably you’d deny that is your ideology. But when you look at who really does support all the forms of current employment discrimination—racism, sexism, firing anyone who looks like a union organizer, etc.—those are all part of the conservative “Southern strategy” in the U.S.

By: bryan

bryan — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:28:54 +0000

‘Huh? Conservatives, at least in the states, don’t support discrimination. ’ Well, Sebastian, when we say conservatives here do we mean Republicans? I’m supposing that we do, that these two terms nearly synonymous in the states. Now I don’t think that all Republican’s support discrimination, and I don’t think that you do, but surely you can see how people might get the impression that groups within the Republican party do so.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 20:55:26 +0000

“But conservatism supports discrimination, whether you think so or not, and every conservative personally chose to be a conservative. ” Huh? Conservatives, at least in the states, don’t support discrimination. We just don’t support reverse discrimination as a method of correcting discrimination. Your argument makes sense only from your amazingly wrong premise.

By: Rich Puchalsky

Rich Puchalsky — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 15:52:31 +0000

bryan, enthymeme has difficulty reading what other people write, and that’s probably the source of your confusion. If you had the masochistic impulse to look back over the thread on both blogs (which I do not really advise) you’d see that enthymeme originally claimed that there was no difference between discrimination on the basis of political belief and discrimination on the basis of religion, and that therefore discrimination on the basis of political belief was liberal hypocrisy. I developed an argument that liberals oppose discrimination based on “difficult to change characteristics”, and included religion as one of these, since it depends on faith that is not really susceptible to logical argument, and is usually developed in childhood. enthymeme then repeatedly challenged me to prove that conservatism was not a “difficult to change characteristic”, and I replied that I didn’t beleive that it was, but that if it was, it was a valid reason to reject people from academic employment, since closed mindedness about matters of fact and theory is not compatible with academia. Since then, enthymeme has simply been running out the clock, figuring that if he writes abusively for long enough, everyone will get confused about what has been said and give up.

By: bryan

bryan — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 15:38:34 +0000

‘I assumed it was obvious. If liberals believe in sexual equality in academic hiring, they should believe in sexual equality in academic hiring even for people of alternative sexual orientations. ’ Well, I saw your earlier comment, not referencing any liberal belief, as an example of how one might try to define hypocricy given a good case study. As I found the case submitted, without you having pointed out its obvious basis, to be poorly argued I responded. ’ if you really think that ethymeme is winning, then I wonder whether you really have read his posts. Now he’s claiming that conservatives find it hard to change from their beliefs because they are close-minded’ I was under the impression that he claimed this was a claim that you had made Rich, and he derided this claim. ‘Yet nobody suggests that Aquinas or Plantinga are shit philosophers just because they are “close-minded” when it comes to religion’ no, but I believe it has been suggested that Aquinas made logical mistakes based on his need to resolve certain parts of religious doctrine, thus no doubt weakening his philosophy. There was no response to my earlier comment on the biotech scenario. Now there is a similar scenario posited by ethymeme that ‘Someone may obviously be an excellent physicist, but harbour conservative political beliefs.’ again I would respond they may be an excellent physicist depending on what in the hell a conservative political belief is, conservatism is a big field, with lots of room for wackos. Is this excellent physicist one of the conservatives who believe that the Grand Canyon is a few thousand years old at best? That the age of the earth can be found out from the bible? That is to say, is this a person who mixes their political agenda with the religious agenda? Are they concerned with using the political wing to push the religious position? If so I think I wouldn’t want them teaching physics, because I suppose that just as they are pushing the religious agenda with something I believe shouldn’t be used to push it, they will want to push it with something else that shouldn’t be used for that purpose – that is, the educational pulpit. If on the other hand when questioned, what kind of conservative are you, they reply, I’m a libertarian, I don’t think there should be any problem.

By: Rich Puchalsky

Rich Puchalsky — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 14:12:27 +0000

I wanted to add one thing to my reply to baa. baa contends that not all conservatives support discrimination, and that therefore it would be unjust to discriminate against all of them “for the sins of a few”. All right, imagine the following thought experiment: you are a non-conservative senior academic interviewing a conservative applicant for some important step in the applicant’s future academic career. You interview this applicant to find out whether they really do support discrimination. The applicant agrees that they hold the following personal beliefs; they think gays should be pushed out of the military, should not have civil union type rights, and should have no protections against being fired from their jobs for being gay. Let’s stipulate that none of these beliefs affect the applicant’s field of study—perhaps they study pure mathematics. Should you discriminate against this person? After all, all of this is irrelevant to their performance as an academic and their ability to generate knowledge. Now let’s say that, in addition, the applicant is a racist, and believes that black people are genetically inferior. He assures you that this would not affect his own decisions and academic relationships. Still willing to hire him? If there was any change, why the difference? If the answer is that you find racism personally more troubling than homophobia, why should this matter to you or your gay colleagues? Now let’s say that the applicant claims to be a conservative, but denies any of these beliefs. Even though the applicant regularly votes for people who implement discriminatory policies, when these policies are a known part of the platform of the candidate in question, the applicant himself disavows them. Do you believe him? Let’s say that, through close questioning of the type that your HR rep would go into fits about (but this is a thought experiment after all) you determine that the applicant in fact has voted for the more conservative candidate in every Republican primary, where the difference between the more and less conservative candidate is primarily the degree of hostility towards blacks and gays. Still believe them? Now, if you’re willing to say that of course you hire the guy regardless if his academic credentials are good, congratulations, you’re with enthymeme’s position. But the same slippery slope applies that you invoked Godwin’s Law for earlier. Why not just hire the Stalinist who applies similarly?

By: Rich Puchalsky

Rich Puchalsky — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 12:49:48 +0000

baa, of course I don’t believe that it’s appropriate to discriminate against an individual for something they did not choose. But conservatism supports discrimination, whether you think so or not, and every conservative personally chose to be a conservative. So I don’t see the problem. Bellw Waring, if you really think that ethymeme is winning, then I wonder whether you really have read his posts. Now he’s claiming that conservatives find it hard to change from their beliefs because they are close-minded. I already pointed out that a close-minded professor is not likely to be a good professor. Actually, in a fit of generosity I previously agreed that if ethymeme convinced us that conservatives were too stupid to be able to change their minds about the political views they had grown up with, even in the face of competing data, then I’d change my mind about discriminating against them. After all, I’d hate to discriminate against the mentally handicapped. enthymeme can’t have it both ways; either conservatives are competent adults like anyone else, who make their choices and give others the right to react to those choices, or they are helpless victims of an innately set mental temperament, one which would disqualify them from academia in any case. Needless to say, I favor the first of these, and the list of conservatives who are academics only confirms it.

By: Belle Waring

Belle Waring — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 11:15:58 +0000

Wow, enthymeme; you’ve been hanging around with John so much that your comments are getting as long as his posts. You’re winning the argument, though. Maybe you and rich to take it to…the Battle Zone!

By: enthymeme

enthymeme — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 11:08:28 +0000

Oh, and before anyone stamps foot, thumps table, and insists that conservatism is somehow correlated with a lack of academic merit – he or she should deign to explain why U Chicago, that purported bastion of conservatism (at least in law and economics, if not the humanities) is a university of singular academic distinction?