Academic Authoritarianism: Cancel the Academy

this is why Ben Shapiro's advice to conservative students is to answer "liberally" on tests, question the liberal professors only if there is little risk to their own academic careers.

Will not focus on 'Gate of Steiner' playing in background, will not focus on 'Gate of Steiner' playing in background, will not- DAMN IT! You gave me a Pavlovian response that makes this far more emotional than it would have been for me normally!

I have to voice a few interesting points as a non-American about Americans: I find your categories of conservative and liberal completely ridiculous. They don't mean anything really and appart from "other tribe bad" and "god told me to kill you" vs "ill kill you because you are racist" they don't tell me anything about what the person actually physically wants to implement. The sad thing is that since the 2008 crisis these categories more and more have supplanted our indigenous political designations: liberal used to mean right wing. But this comes from the country where the second strongest party in the country is called The Pirate Party (and they have my full support) and the communist party is slowly drifting to the alt-right (which is actually perceived as left) so take that as you may.
Also, I find quite interesting how US can foster such a combination of aggressive anti-intelectualism (as quite recently I think the perception that US is the country of the creationists and flat-earthers and generally idiots (across the political spectrum) has come to dominate in Europe, surely partially due to how Trump behaves) and at the same time uncritical belief in the uncorruptible power of academia. As somebody involved in academia myself I think that in my country the respect for academia comes from the fact the universities are mostly apolitical (and to a degree anti-communist) and it is then the politician who attacks the universities for their lack of support - in media or ideologically - by not inviting their representatives to some event that the government or the president organises. So even though in every country the academia is somehow intertwined with the politics (for example in Japan the universities are full of hard line old-school marxists), you should bracket that you talk about america here. Just to raise my finger to limit your otherwise insightful and troubling analysis.

Is that... Stein's:Gate I hear playing in the background
I knew you had good taste.

In general, Academia doesn't hire left-wingers or fire them when the leadership knows that they fire that person!
Liberals aren't left, they are at the best center-right if not right-wing!

Love you ty

I bet all my internets JSTOR and Friends created bropen science and then disseminated it to shills and useful idiots.

It's kind of amusing to see people complain about 'echo chambers' then have a circle jerk down below. Yes, academia needs to undergo change, but instead of blaming the 'libs' why not attempt to become the change? Is there any evidence of contradictory experiments not being assessed and given a fair chance by publishers if the research is sound? If everyone wants science to stop being 'political' then stop dragging the moronic 'left vs right' rhetoric into it and go by the research.

Nah those deadly shockers are just closeted murderers given cover, you just don't do that. Anyway... Gretchen was being an idiot but Abeba should've been smarter about how she disagreed. Now it's a whole rainbow of dumbass bitches for the men to use as arguments smh

Shut up science bitch

I really appreciate this video. While I tend to be a more "left" leaning individual, I find the current state of affairs extremely disheartening. The hyper polarity that appears to be taking over social discourse is threatening to dismantle all that humankind has laid the groundwork for. I have been pushing myself and others to engage people of opposing viewpoints, not as a means to convert/chastise them, but to understand them and close the seemingly ever widening gap between these "cultures." I'm not certain you're actively declaring yourself to be "conservative," but I actually appreciate that. It appears to me that the more we reinforce that which we define ourself as, the less truly free our minds become in exploring that which is otherwise foreign to us.

I greatly appreciate your in-depth videos and your citations of source material. While I confess that I have not found the time yet to acqaint myself with a lot of these studies, I do intend to so as to further bolster my ability to point to data over experiential knowledge alone. To see someone -- anyone -- take the time to give a well reasoned argument is rare enough these days, but to see them also confront the uncomfortable truths that examples appear to corroborate is truly outstanding. You should feel well and truly proud of your work and I look forward to moving my ability to perceive into the middle of human perspective, rather than the isolated areas of my personal life and friend groups.

You friend from afar,
Severin

I must admit, this is an interesting video, although there are some problems with some of what you bring up.

I think I can agree that often times people are forced out without consideration for an alternative viewpoint. Politics and science should be separate and, if they are kept as such, a professor should not be fired Particularly as tenure is supposed to provide protection from that. However, there are many times where research was not done properly or somebody did not do their job properly, which is why someone may be ostracized, such as the study linking vaccines to autism.

I think another problem in the sciences right now, that I have discussed with many others, is how studies are written up. Many are upset that information is hidden behind paywalls and not written in a way that a lay-person could understand. It does create this idea of science being elite when it should not be. This is why I'm very fond of the community science movement going on that engages the public in helping further scientific understanding.

The best way I can break down sciences is that it operates along the most or best predictive value. There must evidence to back up a view and studies are conducted to try to disprove the hypothesis. Hypotheseses are changed until the most predictable idea is reached and tested multiple times. Peer review is very important of this to see if the results can be replicated and what problems may have arisen in the original experiment. I would not call this an echo chamber, though I can understand how a space like Twitter may. I think this should be kept in mind when reading about science. However, all good science should be relying on facts and evidence. Which you seem to imply that most is not.

I do appreciate your viewpoint. It gives me a lot to think about.

Strongly leftist leadership acting like thought police?
No way!
In other news: water is wet
To be clear, I'm a centrist, not a rightist.
Some examples of my stance;

Pro-choice to ensure the rights and survival of the woman, whether because it was forced upon her, she can't support it or because she might be at risk of dying.

Pro-gun (I'm a Swede) because criminals might have them regardless if the public is allowed to, placing their victims at a total disadvantage.

Actual equal rights, not just entitled switching of who's on top based upon half accurate historical accounts.

No exclusive areas (other than possibly bathrooms), for example in occupation or schools, such as "safespaces" (anyone but straight, white males can request/demand a "safespace"), or discrimination in hiring other than merit (no quotas).

I think I'm being pretty fair.

Proud Leninist myself, speaking inter hostes: they hate us too. I work at a very rich university, and when I tell them systemic racism doesn't exist -its just the elite stirring up divisions among poor people for their own benefit-and that they should "check their own damn privilege" and classist attitudes (I'm second-generation American, first to college, definitely poorer than most of our undergrads), they ...don't take it well. Usually I get conservatives to agree with me more than liberals (even converted a few to communism). Also, calling oneself a "marxist" has tremendous social value in academe, but actually criticizing the people funding your grant isn't nearly as easy as criticizing abstract ideas like racism, so most academics who call themselves "Marxists" are nothing of the kind.

Science 'need be empirical'? And here I thought you might be an Austrian, Aydin...

The only way conservative ideas can survive is in 'fringe collectives'.

Hmmmmm, Hillsdale and Grove City: are they 'fringe collectives'?

Well, something to really consider is that these biases pretty much make any knowledge building outside of STEM untenable, and that anything outside of STEM should be considered more opinion than knowledge.

Like, if you're going to call knowledge justified, true belief, then is "lack of bias" a necessary component for justification? Perhaps it is.

And even if we take a pragmatic approach to this, perhaps funding should be removed from these opinion based departments because they produce less of value than STEM departments.

Was it sped up to 2x? That's a shame because the content seemed good.

Great video as always, just as a sugestion, you should break these in to 2 ore 3 smaller videos.

I had a professor a couple of days ago say flat out “most white people are racist”.........somehow that phrase isn’t racist because of.....something?!?!

i never thought I would see someone of your generation(and intelligence) include a reference to Firesign Theater in an upload. SHOES FOR INDUSTRY, COMPADRE!

After seeing the way the COVID-19 crisis is been handle by the so call experts, so all the censorship, so all the crab and lies from the mainstream media and the entertainment industry, so the many doctors and suppose medical experts that put money over the health of the people first. I had stop believing in most professionals these days, specially modern college graduates...to me most are ignorant, stupid people with a paper that say they are certificate professionals. You all can thank modern Universities for making people like me to have serious doubts about the education of the supposed new professionals they claim to educate and send to the streets. Certifications and diplomas don't mean anything anymore to millions of people, as me, and you all can thank the modern American college and education system for that.

As a Professor of mine one quipped: "I was impressed with PhDs until I found out what it took to get one."

I think this is the essay I asked for in your stream chat earlier. Would appreciate a follow-up where you go into the potential dangers that universities could face if they don't change course. The last authoritarian institution that swore an oath to truth wrought its own downfall in doing so (which is the Catholic church), partially triggered by Martin Luther's translation of the Bible.

Similarly, we're seeing a revolution in the way science is understood, thanks to people like you, who make it accessible to anyone with an internet connection. It's no longer exclusive to university attendants (similarly to how you no longer needed to speak Latin in order to read the Bible after Luther). I wonder what would be a good course of action for universities to respond to this development.

As a concluding note, I don't think this video got the attention it deserved. Just this semester I had a woke professor link to a half hour podcast on how women are oppressed in society, in which not a single paper or academic authority was ever referenced. At the same time, Jordan Peterson uploaded the episode of his podcast in which he invited a fellow psychologist to talk about the diagnosis and treatment of aggression in children and adolescents (titled "Aggressive by Nature?"). They went into precise detail about the methodology of their work and the episode is 2 h long. I learned more about social science in that episode than I did from the literature about aggression that aforementioned woke prof had us read for the seminar. For a few days I had weighed the pros and cons of emailing my prof to ask her if she can put the link to Peterson's podcast into the seminar's digital folder but I refrained from going through with this in fear of failing the seminar if she conceived of this as a provocation from me. Peterson is the best known anti-woke intellectual as it pertains to the West, after all.

Thanks for taking the time to read this comment.

This video felt like an hour of you saying in slow motion, if you want an education, just conform.

Of course most academics are leftists/statists, they live off tax money. Nothing to do with them being intelligent, anybody can parrot and make up things like academics do.

Follow = folly.

Thanks, really liked the video. An old NPR article talked about the political makeup of those who went to college and those who didn't and pointed out what'll be obvious, more schooling resulted in being more left politically. The comment section, obviously, was full of leftists patting themselves on the back. A European academic I followed for a little bit went on a rant that the reason that academia tilted so far left was because the right had awful arguments and simply lost intellectually. He did not use data and did not consider counter arguments like this.

In answer to your questions: I have never been to university. As for do I feel I can speak my mind? Hell no, I'm a (to use modern day terminology) cis-het white male. I'm one step below Satan and Hitlers baby.

It doesn't seem like it's their authority that they believe gives them the right to talk, it seems more like their race and their gender. It's kind of accepted among a lot of people now that women and black people are the only ones who should be able to speak in public and everybody else should just shut up. It's their race and gender that gives them this privilege to speak, not their profession.

Thw fact that this was a year before COVID hits home heavier.....

Human nature does not change. Humans are made to worship. If it's not God it will be something else. Government, country, philosophers/philosophy, communism, socialism, capitalism, money, power, sex. You will worship an idol. If you don't believe you worship anything, then congratulations, you are in the lowest rung of humanity, namely, those who worship themselves. You worship your beauty, intellect, ability to reason, your own 'created worldview', pick your poison. We all worship something. I'll roll with Christ and Christianity, which is greatest thing the world has ever known.

what does the closing phrase in all Aydin's vids mean?

A great deal of the anti conservative bias could also be attributed to the inability and/or unwillingness of certain academics to compartmentalize.

There are experts and there are "eXpErtS". The former tend to be able to support their claims with evidence, and are able to admit that they may not know the full story or were flat out wrong, while the latter gets offended at the mere idea of being questioned.

So the real minority status is Conservative.