"if I were" would be called for if the poster were referring to a question about a counter-factual condition (such as: "If you were an English teacher, how would you make ends meet?"). The poster was referring instead to a question posed in the past or about the past, hence, "was" (e.g., "Today I am being asked whether I am/was an English teacher. Yesterday I was asked whether I was an English teacher."). Also, "whether" is preferable to "if" here.
Most of the rules of grammar are not much more difficult than figuring out balancing parentheses or proper placement of semicolons in programming languages. That said, they're equally unforgiving: if you use or order the tokens incorrectly, you end up saying something other than you intended.
Both major parties probably have a substantial number of adherents who join up because they want to associate themselves with what they think will become the dominant group, whether through force or superior justice or whatever.
They also have some who sign up because they expect direct benefits to their subgroup (e.g., corporate welfare to this or that industry, helpful contracts, labor laws, anti-discrimination laws).
Related to this, but I think distinguishable, each party has some who think their individual ambitions to power will best be realized through adherence to this particular group.
Finally, some small number on each side are there because they've tried to reason out what would be the best policies for a society and have concluded that one or the other party comes closest.
This is not an exhaustive list, nor are these exclusive possibilities: the same person can have one or more of these or other motivations, I think.
All of this makes me think that "bullied/bullies" is never going to sort out to "Democrats/Republicans" very neatly. There may be a tendency in one or the other direction at any given time, but I expect that the multiplicity and complexity of reasons why people affiliate themselves in these ways makes any correlation difficult to predict.
When people present obvious results like this, do they really feel that it is moving their field forward?
Certain people would say, "But now we know." For them, looking at lights on a computer screen probably is the only way they can know. So, epistemically, things have in fact improved for them. The rest of us, who already knew the limits of partisans' cognitive style, can just yawn.
What I think would be interesting to know is what benefit there might be to thinking in that way.
I disagree with your account of the difference between opinion and bias. If your account is true, then there can be no such thing as knowledge about the things you say I should never express an opinion about.
Also, I wonder if you are capable of recognizing irony. When I said I create a "herd mentality" above, I added "a herd of free thinkers" or some such thing. A bunch of people who think for themselves do not constitute what people usually refer to when they speak of a "herd mentality."
And now you accuse me of unfairness. On what grounds?
The point is not merely that a professor's grading habits may be influenced by his biases. Of course they are.
That seems to be an article of faith. It's not reflected in the people I see around me. I teach a contentious bioethics class, so I'm constantly running into views that go against mine.
If that were the only problem, a prof's academic integrity would be a suitable counterbalance.
You've really missed the point here. I was arguing that the system is set up in such a way (via grievance procedures and the like) that flagrant lack of academic integrity can be challenged. It's a system that doesn't depend, Pollyanna-ish, on the unfailing good will of everyone involved.
It's not professors having opinions that is the problem. It's that expressing those opinions creates a herd mentality in the classroom.
I freely admit to trying to produce a herd mentality in the classroom: that of a herd of truth-seekers.
Disagreeing with those opinions means fighting the herd, something a young person finds difficult, and should not be forced, to do.
I'm trying to understand this and I can't. I do understand that it is difficult to express one's thoughts in what one feels is an unfriendly environment. (That's why I strive to produce a civil environment in the classroom and hold students to that standard. It's not really difficult to do. That said, I also think it's appropriate to respond to aggressive comments in such a way that reflects how aggressive they are.) But how do you go from "that's difficult" to "no one should have to do that"? I happen to think the skill of remaining in conversation with someone who doesn't agree with you is an essential component of thinking, and probably ultimately of peace, as well.
Adults disagree. You claim that students are "paying for knowledge." Maybe they should gain the knowledge of how to disagree without being disagreeable.
Students expect to learn, and have to have open minds to get the most out of their studies. Students shouldn't have to filter the chaff of political opinion from the grain of truth with which it's presented.
I think you couldn't be more wrong. Some of what I convey to students is information: that, however, is the least significant and easiest to verify or disprove. Much of what I strive to convey to students is the ability to think for themselves. That means precisely what they have to learn to do is to "filter chaff from wheat." That said, I don't do this by pummeling them with anti-administration talking points in classes that are not about that.
You claim it's the nebulous "environment" of presumed authority that is the problem. Let me note in passing how much this resembles a kind of point that's been made by opponents of racism, sexism, etc. for decades, and one that has been routinely mocked as an invalid kind of complaint for appealing to "unreal" entities like environments, communities, and unstated norms. My point is that if you've got actual leftists for professors, like myself, they are very familiar with this kind of idea. I for one strive to make students into authorities. My long practice at challenging half-articulated convictions is a tool for this kind of constructive work, not for "brainwashing." I happen to believe, as you apparently don't, that persuasion requires cooperation on the part of the person being persuaded. They have to choose to treat the person who's doing the persuading as an authority. I strive to help people make those sorts of choices and judgments less on the basis of personality and more on the basis of demonstrable truth.
I say all this only in order to offer a different perspective on what you think you're seeing in the classroom environment.
Responding differently in different situations is not hypocrisy. I don't think this is off-topic, because dumb-ass conservatroids (not to be confused with conservatives) want to fuck up my place of work, an institution I care a great deal about and have given my life and prosperity to. That happened to be the topic of the whole thread, as I recall.
Here, I'm just another schmoe with a 6-digit ID. I have no more power than anyone else. In the classroom, I adhere to a higher standard. It's called responsbility, and learning something about it could help the whiny-ass titty baby I responded to above. As soon as I point out that the deck is not horribly unfairly stacked against him by a malevolent and all-powerful liberal cabal, he starts whining about something different: "How was I supposed to know I could challenge an unfair grade?" As if his ignorance were further proof of the grand conspiracy to defraud everyone. It's not credible, and for not responding to that substantive criticism, neither are you.
I do not believe many students are ever made aware of any means by which they could challenge a grade. I know I never heard of such a thing; not while I was in college, certainly.
Hey, if you won't read the damned student handbook, don't go crying. I thought conservatives were all big, muscular types who disdained liberals for treating the state like a nanny to suckle them. It seems you're just a whiny-ass titty baby, waiting for someone to protect you.
That is also of course assuming that such an appeal system would even work. I'd put money on it NOT working.
Yes, well, don't bother doing anything so rash as actually trying to find out. Principles are far better than facts.
If you spent any time in an academic environment and actually sat on some of the hiring commitees as I have, you'd be quite surprised at what tenured professors get away with. [...] I think if they would have known his political views before he was hired, he never would have been hired in the first place.
Do you know many other university professors who write "if they would have" for "if they had"?
People sue for tenure for much less unjust decisions than this, and they win, so I call bullshit.
My experiance is that for some of the professors I ran into, the academic setting is the only setting they would survive in.
This mythical split between the "real world" and academia is just that, mythical. How did George W. Bush survive in the business world? Plenty of bullshitters and incompetents in business with nothing more going for them than somebody's say-so, plenty of VC clown boys who throw money at them again and again.
One professor in the liberal arts department started the first day with "If you're a conservative, drop this class".
What school, what course, what prof? I call bullshit. Horowitz would suck your cock (if you have one, sir or madam) for proof of a statement like this, and he's probably not even gay!
You have to shut the hell up if you plan on passing the class.
If you sit there silently stewing in your impotent rage (all the while sweatily thinking *I'm so going to post to Free Republic about this later*), how would you ever know what will happen if you speak up? Come back and join the reality-based community. Here, we do things like test our pet theories against experience. Take the red pill.
I'm a "left-wing" professor and I don't grade anyone down for disagreeing with me. Shitty arguments for positions I agree with are still shitty arguments, and they receive the grade they deserve.
If I had no integrity and chose to reward people for agreeing with me and punish those who didn't, there are institutional procedures and protocols set up by which students could appeal their grades. If this happened often, my grading practices would be placed under close scrutiny by the administration. I wouldn't last very long. Harrassment and belittlement are indeed more difficult to prove for the aggrieved student, but there are still ways.
What groups like the one mentioned in this article have thus far failed to do is to provide any credible evidence of such malfeasance. What they do instead is to present evidence of professors' political leanings on the basis of those professors' public statements and activities. Unfortunately, people like you, Anonymous Coward (and you do live up to your name here), take that as evidence that a conservative can't get a fair shake. All it actually proves is that profs have opinions, which I believe they are still allowed to do here in the U.S.
The attitude you so honestly express may be more correctly described as indifference than as hatred. That said, our law recognizes the category of depraved indifference.
The part of "government" they want to be smaller is any part that gives money to poorer people (like Medicaid) or gives money to everyone without making anyone rich (like education budgets). To fix this problem, they created Jack Abramoff.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of the rules of grammar are not much more difficult than figuring out balancing parentheses or proper placement of semicolons in programming languages. That said, they're equally unforgiving: if you use or order the tokens incorrectly, you end up saying something other than you intended.
This is not an exhaustive list, nor are these exclusive possibilities: the same person can have one or more of these or other motivations, I think.
All of this makes me think that "bullied/bullies" is never going to sort out to "Democrats/Republicans" very neatly. There may be a tendency in one or the other direction at any given time, but I expect that the multiplicity and complexity of reasons why people affiliate themselves in these ways makes any correlation difficult to predict.
Well said. See also "cough medicine" and nasal decongestants.
Rosetta will remedy all that.
Certain people would say, "But now we know." For them, looking at lights on a computer screen probably is the only way they can know. So, epistemically, things have in fact improved for them. The rest of us, who already knew the limits of partisans' cognitive style, can just yawn.
What I think would be interesting to know is what benefit there might be to thinking in that way.
This is what I was calling an accusation of unfairness.
As for your other point, I think we all struggle at introspection.
I am teaching the class, and I am fair, and I do have a point.
Good luck finding a line of work where no one ever disagrees with you. Maybe you should become a cop.
Also, I wonder if you are capable of recognizing irony. When I said I create a "herd mentality" above, I added "a herd of free thinkers" or some such thing. A bunch of people who think for themselves do not constitute what people usually refer to when they speak of a "herd mentality."
And now you accuse me of unfairness. On what grounds?
You do realize that "opinion" and "bias" don't mean the same thing, don't you? No, I don't suspect that you do.
That seems to be an article of faith. It's not reflected in the people I see around me. I teach a contentious bioethics class, so I'm constantly running into views that go against mine.
If that were the only problem, a prof's academic integrity would be a suitable counterbalance.
You've really missed the point here. I was arguing that the system is set up in such a way (via grievance procedures and the like) that flagrant lack of academic integrity can be challenged. It's a system that doesn't depend, Pollyanna-ish, on the unfailing good will of everyone involved.
It's not professors having opinions that is the problem. It's that expressing those opinions creates a herd mentality in the classroom.
I freely admit to trying to produce a herd mentality in the classroom: that of a herd of truth-seekers.
Disagreeing with those opinions means fighting the herd, something a young person finds difficult, and should not be forced, to do.
I'm trying to understand this and I can't. I do understand that it is difficult to express one's thoughts in what one feels is an unfriendly environment. (That's why I strive to produce a civil environment in the classroom and hold students to that standard. It's not really difficult to do. That said, I also think it's appropriate to respond to aggressive comments in such a way that reflects how aggressive they are.) But how do you go from "that's difficult" to "no one should have to do that"? I happen to think the skill of remaining in conversation with someone who doesn't agree with you is an essential component of thinking, and probably ultimately of peace, as well.
Adults disagree. You claim that students are "paying for knowledge." Maybe they should gain the knowledge of how to disagree without being disagreeable.
Students expect to learn, and have to have open minds to get the most out of their studies. Students shouldn't have to filter the chaff of political opinion from the grain of truth with which it's presented.
I think you couldn't be more wrong. Some of what I convey to students is information: that, however, is the least significant and easiest to verify or disprove. Much of what I strive to convey to students is the ability to think for themselves. That means precisely what they have to learn to do is to "filter chaff from wheat." That said, I don't do this by pummeling them with anti-administration talking points in classes that are not about that.
You claim it's the nebulous "environment" of presumed authority that is the problem. Let me note in passing how much this resembles a kind of point that's been made by opponents of racism, sexism, etc. for decades, and one that has been routinely mocked as an invalid kind of complaint for appealing to "unreal" entities like environments, communities, and unstated norms. My point is that if you've got actual leftists for professors, like myself, they are very familiar with this kind of idea. I for one strive to make students into authorities. My long practice at challenging half-articulated convictions is a tool for this kind of constructive work, not for "brainwashing." I happen to believe, as you apparently don't, that persuasion requires cooperation on the part of the person being persuaded. They have to choose to treat the person who's doing the persuading as an authority. I strive to help people make those sorts of choices and judgments less on the basis of personality and more on the basis of demonstrable truth.
I say all this only in order to offer a different perspective on what you think you're seeing in the classroom environment.
Responding differently in different situations is not hypocrisy. I don't think this is off-topic, because dumb-ass conservatroids (not to be confused with conservatives) want to fuck up my place of work, an institution I care a great deal about and have given my life and prosperity to. That happened to be the topic of the whole thread, as I recall.
Here, I'm just another schmoe with a 6-digit ID. I have no more power than anyone else. In the classroom, I adhere to a higher standard. It's called responsbility, and learning something about it could help the whiny-ass titty baby I responded to above. As soon as I point out that the deck is not horribly unfairly stacked against him by a malevolent and all-powerful liberal cabal, he starts whining about something different: "How was I supposed to know I could challenge an unfair grade?" As if his ignorance were further proof of the grand conspiracy to defraud everyone. It's not credible, and for not responding to that substantive criticism, neither are you.
Hey, if you won't read the damned student handbook, don't go crying. I thought conservatives were all big, muscular types who disdained liberals for treating the state like a nanny to suckle them. It seems you're just a whiny-ass titty baby, waiting for someone to protect you. That is also of course assuming that such an appeal system would even work. I'd put money on it NOT working.
Yes, well, don't bother doing anything so rash as actually trying to find out. Principles are far better than facts.
Then the prof should have sued.
The mods I'm seeing don't agree with your thesis. Case in point, all posts by general_re. As of now, one 0, Troll, and quite a few 5, Insightfuls.
Do you know many other university professors who write "if they would have" for "if they had"?
People sue for tenure for much less unjust decisions than this, and they win, so I call bullshit.
This mythical split between the "real world" and academia is just that, mythical. How did George W. Bush survive in the business world? Plenty of bullshitters and incompetents in business with nothing more going for them than somebody's say-so, plenty of VC clown boys who throw money at them again and again.
What school, what course, what prof? I call bullshit. Horowitz would suck your cock (if you have one, sir or madam) for proof of a statement like this, and he's probably not even gay!
If you sit there silently stewing in your impotent rage (all the while sweatily thinking *I'm so going to post to Free Republic about this later*), how would you ever know what will happen if you speak up? Come back and join the reality-based community. Here, we do things like test our pet theories against experience. Take the red pill.
Not to mention the constant, craven parroting of GOP talking points on CNN, Fox, etc.
If I had no integrity and chose to reward people for agreeing with me and punish those who didn't, there are institutional procedures and protocols set up by which students could appeal their grades. If this happened often, my grading practices would be placed under close scrutiny by the administration. I wouldn't last very long. Harrassment and belittlement are indeed more difficult to prove for the aggrieved student, but there are still ways.
What groups like the one mentioned in this article have thus far failed to do is to provide any credible evidence of such malfeasance. What they do instead is to present evidence of professors' political leanings on the basis of those professors' public statements and activities. Unfortunately, people like you, Anonymous Coward (and you do live up to your name here), take that as evidence that a conservative can't get a fair shake. All it actually proves is that profs have opinions, which I believe they are still allowed to do here in the U.S.
Beat me to it. Bingo.
The attitude you so honestly express may be more correctly described as indifference than as hatred. That said, our law recognizes the category of depraved indifference.
- There's nothing wrong with it? Or,
- There is something menacing about it and those who are subject to it deserve it because they are bad?
If anybody's engagin in "Un-American Activities," my friend, it's you. Please die.The part of "government" they want to be smaller is any part that gives money to poorer people (like Medicaid) or gives money to everyone without making anyone rich (like education budgets). To fix this problem, they created Jack Abramoff.