We encountered audio-related issues while recording this episode. We apologize for the sound quality. Thanks for listening!

@jgonsalk

3 ай бұрын

Sounds like an awesome discussion and I am still checking it out. I think the issue is over-compression and a fairly aggressive noise gate. But I'm assuming the Shure is working. If it didn't, then maybe you're trying to clean up the camera audio or something like that which would be tough. Or was it something else?

@HeterodoxAcademy

3 ай бұрын

@@jgonsalk Yep, you know how this works.

@MrTahuna333

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for the info. I was wondering what had happened to my ears! Very hard to listen to sadly

@jclaer

3 ай бұрын

It sounds like you were speaking from lying in bed.

@Vanadis240

3 ай бұрын

It's wonderful to have this urgently needed interview with Steven Pinker. Too bad the audio makes it really difficult to listen to. But thank you for the work and effort.

Professor here - so many things I cannot say in class or risk getting burned at the stake! My administration would throw me under the bus faster than the speed of light then cheer for the bus to run me over again. Sad - very sad. I am a conservative professor - we do exist! Registered republican even and I am not 90! I will soon be 60. Love these discussions.

@jp5419

3 ай бұрын

Happy to know professors like you do exist. I think the tide is turning. CV woke the eyes of many parents and we are engaged and actively parenting our children and instilling critical thinking skills and patriotism. My 8th grader and his close buddies laugh at the idiocy of their woke teachers, actively throwing facts in their faces and come home laughing at how their teacher forbade a subject or how hilarious it was to see their head explode. This generation will be the smartest, most resilient in the history of America. Believe it! What's more... we live in NYC 😂

@GabrielBourke

3 ай бұрын

And a Trump supporter

@EmperorsNewWardrobe

3 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing. I’m curious, how far do you think the ‘Street Epistemology’ approach would get you, where, rather than getting into the content of discussion with others, you get into their openness to change their mind via reason and evidence? I guess I’m asking about the value of such an approach with other staff or even your students. I just wonder if it would open any cracks or whether it’s all doomed to the same bus-execution you mentioned

@mysticjedi6730

3 ай бұрын

I have a cousin who is on the autism spectrum. He makes very poor life decisions, investment decisions, spending, etc. When he would say his single stock tanked to half of value , etc I would suggest a better idea.. he would get very upset when you disagree.. over time I kept telling him when he says something he is going to hear what I think about it.. Maybe start the semester with a tall about the free exchange of ideas and progress.. I'm reminded of the movie 2014 the gambler.. the importance of having F U money.. if you had more $$$ maybe you would feel more open to say what you think because you not desperate for cash flow.. .

@ProfessorMcGuigan

3 ай бұрын

I will say there are certain subjects I do not touch, but the students are certainly aware that I am not liberal - so are my colleagues. There is a single narrative on campus and it is taken as a religious position - you cannot talk with zealots! @@mysticjedi6730

As a professor (now retired) who is critical of both the left and right, my observation of the struggle between the left and right tells me education is being replaced with dogmatics.

@Jorbz150

3 ай бұрын

Education has always operated as a form of propaganda. It's almost inevitable, and takes considerable self-control for a teacher not to simply articulate their perspective. It also requires them to see the value in giving their students the ability to learn for themselves. Many professors believe that they already have all meaningful knowledge, so they just want to convince the students of their beliefs rather than teach them how to acquire new ideas.

@999reader

3 ай бұрын

I am also a college professor and do not operate on the basis of propaganda. I propose controversial ideas and always beg my students to challenge me. Since I’m a lot older than they are, they seem to be too intimidated to challenge me or protest. There’s only so far that I can go to make them feel comfortable and still keep my self respect.

@RobertWGreaves

3 ай бұрын

@@999reader excellent. I would sometimes get the class to discuss between themselves first as I maintained respect. We might close it out with me expressing a few observations about the arguments coming from both sides. My students really enjoyed it and they got along well with each other. Fortunately, the college didn’t mind my doing this. I would start classes with 5 to 10 minutes devoted to some controversy or interesting social topic. I taught sound engineering in a music department.

@b.alexanderjohnstone9774

3 ай бұрын

Thank God you're there, mate, doing your bit to pass on some semblance of what was given us to the next generation!

@centerfield6339

3 ай бұрын

As I always say, dogmatics are only for Asterix books.

Great conversation. Fix the audio.

@The_Scouts_Code

3 ай бұрын

Audio was atrocious.

@liberality

3 ай бұрын

​@@The_Scouts_Code First world problem. You're not paying for a product here.

@The_Scouts_Code

3 ай бұрын

lol oki@@liberality

@tuckerbugeater

3 ай бұрын

These guys are going to save the world yet they can't buy cheap microphone

@liberality

3 ай бұрын

@@tuckerbugeater Look at the microphones, there is nothing wrong with them. Can't believe the number of complaints about audio from pampered babies.

This is an encouraging conversation I really hope we are turning a corner in our universities. A renaissance in Liberalism, Logic and Rhetoric would make me very happy.

@liberalmatt

3 ай бұрын

careful! The reactionary right in the US will only conflate your call for liberalism (which I subscribe) with Leftism, socialism etc. I fully agree the trivium needs to be taught, if anything to help people understand the art of persuasion.

@plagship

3 ай бұрын

@@liberalmatt Could be, I certainly assumed I would get a response or two like that but, I find that the safest bet is to assume that every radical and illogical comment or post on the internet is fake for one nefarious end or another. Almost every person I run into in real life doesn't match the caricature of conservates that the talking heads tell me to fear. Pinker's quip about the view from the north pole vis-a-vis the "left" pole, describes the truth of the matter rather nicely.

@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat

3 ай бұрын

Everyone forgets that after the Enlightenment there was a backlash of Romanticism for 50 years. For 50 years after the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution artists and social forces across Europe delved into a culture of intense emotions, "authentic feelings", traditionalism, a longing for an idealized past, and radical politics.

@plagship

3 ай бұрын

​@@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat interesting I am not sure I forgot so much as I never knew. Could you recommend a book, video or podcast that could introduce me to the topic?

@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat

3 ай бұрын

@@plagship I don't know much about it myself, just that it happened. it's just called "Romanticism" or the "Romantic Era" if you want to look it up. Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is probably the most famous Romantic literature. It's all about an evil scientist desecrating the laws of nature, and the monster is trapped in this hell by science that he can't escape.

Thank goodness for the likes of Pinker and Haidt. Imagine if they weren’t here? I would hate to imagine that.

@clarebear764

3 ай бұрын

? That's not Haidt

@jonahtwhale1779

3 ай бұрын

The liberal and soft left college staff are the ones who gave the extreme left ideologies a welcoming home to spread their messages of intolerance. They are in part culpable for the situation we are in.

@jonahansen

3 ай бұрын

@@clarebear764 Yeah, so? Haidt is definitely associated...

@James-ll3jb

3 ай бұрын

Given Pinker's monstrous illogicality in his "How The Mind Works" I just can't take the bonehead seriously....

@RandoBurner

3 ай бұрын

Pinker is an architech of this academic world. What are you talking about?

Pinker is one of the greatest standard-bearers for core liberal principles, and we're lucky to have him. I can't help noticing, though, that he (like me) is getting on in years. We need young professors of his stature to step up.

@jp5419

3 ай бұрын

Fear not. CV open the eyes of millions of clueless parents and we are engaged now and actively raising critical thinkers, resilient and could give a damn about wokeness or anything like it.

@James-ll3jb

3 ай бұрын

Given Pinker's monstrous illogicality in his "How The Mind Works" I just can't take the bonehead seriously....

@brahmdorst5154

3 ай бұрын

Distinguished young professors do stand up. Look up Roland Fryer.

@James-ll3jb

3 ай бұрын

@@brahmdorst5154 who is he?

@karagi101

3 ай бұрын

@@James-ll3jbIf you find him illogical then you must be extremely mentally challenged.

A true professor! As an academic, I deeply appreciate Professor Pinker's words.

I was bullied in grad school at an otherwise prestigious university. Many professors and administrators were disappointing as human beings. The university culture avoids responsibility - no one wants to “step on anyone’s toes” even if it means accountability for ruining someone’s life

I very much appreciated the final sentence. “Great minds do not always think alike. “

Wonderful conversation (sound is not so wonderful ☹️).

Audio was a big problem for me. Tried using the subtitles which made comprehension even worse. I'm guessing redoing the interview would be impossible, so, what about supplying a written version?

@Tweston3ny

3 ай бұрын

Terrible. Thanks for

@roothogordie1451

3 ай бұрын

In the expanded description above, click on "Show Transcript"

@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat

3 ай бұрын

I think it might be better in earbuds if you're using speakers. There was only a handful of parts I couldn't make out.

@guitarmusic524

2 ай бұрын

Sounds like Steven has a head cold.

audio glitches need to be cleaned up when pinker is in the room 🙂

I strongly suggest that your next topic should be "What's wrong with our audio". It's borderline incomprehensible.

This is a great conversation but I’m really struggling to make out what they’re saying. Something seems broken with the audio quality.

@h.h.h.9307

3 ай бұрын

how can it be great when you dont understand it

As a philosophy student in the 1970s, I aggressively advocated Ayn Rands ideas. My professors vigorously opposed and ridiculed me. But they did not cancel me. They permitted me to challenge their ideas in their offices. I dont think that todays schools would be so respectful of opposing ideas.

Swap sound is not helpful

Sound is very muffled like you both are to close to the mics, tough to track. I'm very interested in what is being said but have had to rewind many times 5 min in. Could be listener error....IDK.

@jimsteele9559

3 ай бұрын

No, there is a sound problem.

I have a feeling that there was a technical issue in the microphones !

I was a teacher for a decade and was able to achieve a doctorate level in a third-world country. It's just the same here: If you are honestly searching for truth and trying to bring your students a plurality of views, you'll be pushed out of academia. As was I.

Thank you Dr. Pinker.

At least some folks are trying to reverse a repeat of what occurred in German universities in the early 1930s. We know how that story turned out. I wish them luck.

@ColtraneTaylor

2 ай бұрын

Which side is Pinker on?

The audio-related problems were distracting and, frankly, it would have been nice to hear much more from Pinker and less from Tomasi, given Pinker was the guest and has been at Harvard for so long. I imagine he could have provided many more insights about the problems plaguing the university.

any course that ends in "study" should not be in university.

@6Diego1Diego9

2 ай бұрын

lol did you go to college? Sounds very ignorant.

Very much enjoyed what I can hear of this discussion. The poor sound has been noted already but the transcript is no better. Is there a plan to reissue this with a corrected transcript?

52:50 I think John nailed it here about the goal we should aim for, related to Pinker’s ideas about common knowledge

Shame I can't understand anything. Can you post a transcript?

Great content! Just a pity, that the sound is quite bad.

Did you not test the audio before starting the interview?????

Fascinating conversation. Thank you.

Terrible sound! You've got good microphones. What went wrong?

Taught in Boston in 1970's. A teacher just stopped coming to class. It later turned out that she was gang raped in the stairway near my classroom. She didn't call for help, submitted, and would not identify the gang members because she didn't want to get them into trouble. Half the kids were high, too buzzed to learn. Urban education is lost. Would send kids to charter schools or homeschool today. Cities are rotting.

What amazes me is that so many presumably intelligent people just take the rotten ideas being preached at the universities without any pushback. Insanity as well as fear ….

Perhaps there is an issue with the audio of the recording. You could have a sound technician examine how to enhance the sound quality (for future recordings). I had to play the recording at 0.75 speed. I can listen to almost all recordings (99.5-99.99%) on KZread at normal speed. I am from the Netherlands.

This is great! Hopefully the momentum increases.

@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat

3 ай бұрын

I think this is going to be a very slow and "long crawl through the institutions." I think maybe in 10 years mainstream America will be starting to see FIRE and the Heterodox Academy like they used to see the ACLU. That's when the conversation will really start.

After the recent congressional controversy, I started joking "occupy Harvard Yard" and "defund MIT", not all that seriously (yet), but I sure got a lot of belly laughs.

I wish you pay attention to the sound system. I could barely understand what he is saying.

Poor sound quality. I hope it can be redone. I'm unlikely to forward this because of it.

@jclaer

3 ай бұрын

Amen

This is a great podcast and topic, but please, fix the audio. This was like a bad speakerphone conversation being broadcast over a transistor radio in the 70s.

Well Pinker called it out - the instructors "kissing the students asses". I was wondering if Pinker could actually offer a critique of Harvard, and here we have a great conversation about it. I thought Harvard didn't allow these things? Amazing. And this point about Marcuse's Marxian viewpoints and shutting down free speech, I'm glad this came up... The ideology of Marcuse and friends can co-exist there at college, but it has to be within the marketplace of ideas to discuss. When it's taken as gospel from teachers and college administration, it's bound to go wrong.. I'd argue along with others, things like that are a major source of enabling students to regurgitate this anti-free-speech and anti-diversity-in-thought poison. Those ideas MUST be challenged if they are taught as the go-to source for how the world should work. That's the difference between education and indoctrination. I/we/you.. a lot of people, are aghast at how the education system has been usurped by Marxian activists.

@James-ll3jb

3 ай бұрын

Given Pinker's monstrous illogicality in his "How The Mind Works" I just can't take the bonehead seriously....

@NousNoesis225

3 ай бұрын

@@James-ll3jb You’re clearly the bonehead. That was a brilliant book, and a Pulitzer Finalist for good reason.

@6Diego1Diego9

2 ай бұрын

What's wrong with education being socialist? Do you even know the meaning? You watch too much right wing news.

@benfaubion

2 ай бұрын

@@6Diego1Diego9 Socialism wasn't brought up in the thread, unless you are referring to Marxian points he was discussing. Perhaps you are referring to something else that Pinker said.

@fredwelf8650

2 ай бұрын

Pinker said the administrators were kissing student ass. It was ingenuous of Pinker to pick out one book by Marcuse which was also co-authored by two other professors.

This stark set makes “between two ferns” look fancy…

Audio issues - hard to understand due to EQ settings being set incorrectly

Can you change the audio track WITHOUT the compression and noise gate! It would be better still

This view of the education systems of the UK and USA has been aired for years. In the UK my roots , the Socialists , the party of envy , Thought that hundreds of years of teaching procedure harmed a portion of society. Their answer bring everyone down to the lowest denominator . Being an octogenarian have seen and experience numerous changes , few for the better. When I say with utter truth , that when leaving my small infant school aged seven , none of the pupils were unable to read and write . That was entirely due to the ability and dedication of the female teachers . There was streaming with the class , six or more groups would read from a book , the smart would soon progress to harder reads , whilst the slower would receive extra tuition from the teacher. The system worked , its reward closure to put them all under one roof.

It would help to have a more vigorous grasp of the distinction between "argument" and "quarrel." A quarrel is simply a clash of opinions using words. An argument though, means building a case by stating one's premises, adducing evidence, and drawing a conclusion, and it can be challenged at any of those levels. That's a desirable state of affairs, even for one committed to a given conviction.

What is wrong with the audio? Did nobody check this? And the popping and swooshing is very distracting. Had to quit after 7 minutes.

Please hire a sound engineer (or a new sound engineer). This was tough to listen to, unfortunately.

having really hard time hearing what is said. Did you over compress the sound for some reason? Are really intresset in the topic, but sorry, can't hear. And the automatic translator producing sub titles can't hear either.

Shame that sound quality is so poor. I couldn’t bear it for more than 5 minutes. Maybe still possible to fix?

Thank you, gentlemen. I enjoyed this conversation on an important topic.

Steven Pinker. Living proof that truth and courage go hand in hand. Sadly, not enough professors are like him, i.e., “too big to shout down and fire”

The underlining issue that never gets addressed in these types of discussions and critiques (and I am continually amazed that it doesn't) is the simple fact that society over the past 10, 20, 30 years has drastically changed its mediums of communication, transitioning from a literary (linear, rational) framework to a electronic (non-linear, irrational) framework, These systemic changes have profound all-encompassing effects on ALL facets of society, from education, to law, to democracy, to identity, etc. There are reasons why universities are now being questioned/challenged, and that is bc the linear, literate basis of society (which the were formed on) has moved on! Please, read or re-read Marshall McLuhan, Neil Postman, or even people like Nicholas Carr or Maryanne Wolf - the medium is the message and is the reason we are now experiencing all of these massive institutional and behavioural changes.

@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat

3 ай бұрын

Underrated point. We sometimes forget history is a slave to technology, not the other way around.

@spiritualpolitics8205

3 ай бұрын

True to a point, definitely. Paglia has argued thusly. But obviously ideological capture and dogmatic lockstep has diminished the relevance of our most premiere universities, except insofar as the name still has great (but somewhat now attenuated) job cachet.

@gordonpepper1400

3 ай бұрын

With all due respect, you still don't get it. Understanding media ecology is what has created this 'ideological capture'. It's very difficult to do, but you are still analyzing the content (ideology) of university decisions and positions - to do so is missing the point. Universities need to offer (world-wide) courses and programs on how technology (in particular communication technology) is creating wide-sweeping effects on all facets of society and culture -outside of politics, etc. Our institutions and legal framework are doomed unless we address this ASAP. We are already seeing numerous examples of the court system beginning to fracture (even the supreme court) due to electronic communication, like social media, and the demise of literacy and in particular print culture.

@spiritualpolitics8205

3 ай бұрын

​@@gordonpepper1400 With respect, I think it's a composite vector problem. I share your alarm at the collapse of general literacy. I am a huge Shakespeare fan, and it is now commonly said that Gen Z could not comprehend his plays.... But clearly the composite vector of ideological drift which Haidt has documented owes to a relentless Marxist march leftward. It is clear the left realized after the Cold War that it could replace class with "identity" to increase the power of the state. It's fine to aver the general illiteracy and electronic distractedness has amplified these effects too; I would agree. And driven a great deal of the dissolution of our common culture, yes. And rendered people more pliable, yes. But there's also clearly a very aggressive Marxist agenda operating in the void. The anti-capitalist and anti-Western hate now imbricated is nonpareil in the history of any self-preserving civilization. These two trends fused together are destroying rationality in the public square.

@Scarletpimpanel73

3 ай бұрын

Great point. Really is a key observation.

What's wrong with our sound recording?

Your audio is poor

Tomasi is an excellent interviewer. Pinker is an excellent advocate for free-speech. Unfortunately, the combination of the sibilant sound, perhaps due to the speakers being too close to the microphones, and the rather clipped speech, especially of Pinker, made this difficult for me to understand. I would like to have played this For my university students, but most of them are not native English speakers, and I think they would miss too much of it.

This is a wonderful conversation, but the audio is hideous

Audio could be better

The subject matter and guest is very interesting ... BUT .. I struggle to clearly understand the dialog because the sound quality seems to be very low in bass. 15 minutes in .. I have to bail .. too bad :(

Can't there anything being done - such as remastering the sound track - to make this video listenable? The way as it is now is a plain torture for the audience!

Please repost with corrected audio.

In the 90s, this was not so at my local state university. When I final got to a graduate program in the early 2000s, the climate clearly changed. What was that?

@brek5

3 ай бұрын

Yeah, same here. The culture where I was, selective research uni, was very much go watch anyone, be respectful, possibly take notes, and if we disagreed with it, we'd have a coffee afterwards and discuss why their ideas stunk (any topic... was more academic ideas and not culture war stuff), and word would get around, like, "Oh, yeah, I saw that guy give a speech on X topic, and he's not the thinker he's made out to be because of X, Y, and Z points." We didn't sit in the back and yell and whine.

These philosophies put feelings above outcome. Is there a single injustice these behaviors reverse? No.

@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat

3 ай бұрын

This is one part that has been driving me crazy. Because I do still consider myself a "liberal" even if leftists have pushed me right of center. They DONT EVEN DO ANYTHING. All they do is argue about words, playing 1984 Newspeak language games. Meanwhile racism and division and everything seems to get worse and worse and worse. I visited Portland in 2021 and was absolutely stunned by the level of misery and homelessness I saw on the streets. But all the Portlanders seemed to care about was that you have to call them "our unhoused neighbors." That was extremely important.

If you have complex filters or boosters on the audio, consider removing some of them and testing the audio carefully before the next podcast.

Pinker has long been a personal hero of mine. He has previously expressed that he cultivates his controversy docket carefully, so I have wondered how much he knows but doesn't tell. Reading between the lines of this interview, I can tell that he has not grasped the full gender dynamic at play. As Heather McDonald has observed, universities are now feminized spaces and it is, in her words, "the death of reason." Pinker has probably been blinded to women's true nature because he has successfully reasoned with them in the past. He incorrectly assumed that, like men, women have been swayed by his enormous reasoning capabilities. In fact, he was able to successfully "reason" with women because they clocked him as an alpha, so they tried to get into his frame and agree with him. It is not that women are incapable of reason. Rather, they see it as a threat to their power--which derives from the enormous weight that others put on their emotions. An appeal to reason provides a basis for men to withstand women's emotional insistence, whereas, in the absence of reason, men will cave. So I predict a painful reorientation of his thinking as he finds reasoning with women (and therefore with the university community) to be less and less effective.

@EmperorsNewWardrobe

3 ай бұрын

I think you're implying that men to lead in order for reason to be effective. How do see this coming back?

@gonx9906

3 ай бұрын

What did i just read??

Was the audio recorded under water?

I remember reading Marcuse and internalizing some of his analysis. I was a Frankfurt School guy when I was young. When I tried reading the French fools who got us into this mess, however, I recognized fairly quickly that they “weren’t even wrong” because it was gibberish. Chomsky nailed it right away and pointed out that Foucault was amoral. Then the gibberish became gospel in certain departments but, as cynical as I was, I didn’t foresee it taking over the entire operation. Now we have the great majority of people in the humanities with their heads up their rear ends and I have seen my children come home with third rate woke propaganda for their assigned reading. I don’t know how Pinker and others manage to remain so level-headed and polite. Hats off!

@abcrane

2 ай бұрын

I read Marcuse. I believe it is repressive de-sublimation that lies at the roots of cancel culture. I believe these student-authority conflicts are a result of repressive de-sublimation. Marcuse was protesting war, not whining about things professors said or did. So, I believe that this cancel culture is a "containing" of student angst into "manageable ways." It is easier to contain a few verbal outbursts on a college campus than say a major boycott or a rent strike or a union strike or a street protest against war, etc. I understand that Marcuse had some later writings that did indeed fall towards this cancel stuff. BUT that concept of RDS, I confidently say, lies at the roots here of cancel culture. Or rather, why the angst is channeled in the way that is is-safe enough for the state to carry on as it does, yet contentious enough to "appear" like social change is happening. I believe we should be careful not to cancel a thinker based on SOME of his work, when other aspects are very valuable. Yes, I resonate with Nietzsche, but I differ on a few points. Yet, I still embrace Friedrich, Human, all tooooooo human!

@TeaParty1776

2 ай бұрын

Peter Schwartz, of the Ayn Rand Institute, discusses the systematic irrationalism of Social Justice in various formats.

College is part education and part ‘life experience’. For the many who fail out in their first year it is a very expensive ‘life experience’. There is a lot of money wasted as we send people to College and hope that something productive is achieved

Everything !

Fantastic conversation! And so timely. Thank You! And please do something about that sound quality, it was so poor during the interview.

"Argument to Authority", in particular circumstances, is sound to use as a practical although fallible way of obtaining information that can be considered generally likely to be correct if the authority is a real and pertinent intellectual authority and there is universal consensus about these statements in this field. I've often used Pinker himself in "Argument to Authority". Was I wrong?

@EmperorsNewWardrobe

3 ай бұрын

For that fallacy, I’ve heard the name ‘argument from unqualified authority’. That does distinguish between “it’s true simply because I say it’s true” and “it’s more likely to be true because an expert in the field said it”, the latter of which isn’t a fallacy

@l.w.paradis2108

3 ай бұрын

It also depends on what you are invoking the authority for. If it involves empirical data that not everyone is in a position to view, or that involves special expertise to understand, and you trust the expert who is in a position to collect or interpret that data, that is sensible, absent evidence to the contrary. The same is true of arcane deductive arguments. If you are invoking authority to support something that anyone can verify for themselves, and using that authority's supposed prestige to browbeat others into accepting your view, that's a misuse of expertise -- actually, it's not the use of expertise at all. It's a flat-out fallacy.

@DieFlabbergast

3 ай бұрын

No: it's called common sense, and remains valid despite being out of fashion.

@l.w.paradis2108

3 ай бұрын

@@DieFlabbergast HA

13:30 It should give everyone chills to hear Steven Pinker of all people say "Things have gotten worse."

Poor sound - can it be retro-fixed?

Wokism and the Tower of Babel dynamic, when language gets weaponized to the point that actual communication is eclipsed and the prospect of a shared open future recedes catastrophically

Dealing with a hostile establishment is causing change for new universities to commence and free thinking rules

Generally in agreement. If I can add my two cents, I have three suggestions for universities (if anyone is listening) 1. do away with student evaluations and surveys of professors. The administration should be responsible for oversight and have channels open for students to report abuse or harassment. Otherwise, whether students like or hate a professor is irrelevant. The results should be the only true measure of a professor. 2. Reductions in faculty bureaucracy. They need to focus on teaching and research, not on paperwork. 3. Massive overhaul of the peer-reviewing process. Quality over quantity. Also, the obsession with novelty in the most inane ways produces papers and dissertations of negligible importance and wasting valuable time and resources. 4. Shift responsibility for applying for more funding to the administration or have dedicated development officers who are responsible for understanding and primoting the work of particular professors or their projects.

I have denied knowledge therefore, in order to make room for faith. -Kant, top modern intellectual

9:48 Marcuse counterarguments

You need to get Peter Boghossian on. One of the foremost minds in this area.

Normally I dont give a fig for what Polyanna Pinkerton says, but he is worth a listen here!

bad sound!

So things wrong with your sound..

I was at Harvard around 1970. My area is ancient philosophy and I changed my major from philosophy to Greek & Latin Classics because I was able to obtain a better scholarship. I left Harvard and went to University College London (UCL) to follow a visiting professor and it was at UCL where I obtained my PhD. I learned Japanese and became a professor at Hiroshima University. I retired recently.

@nickmiller76

3 ай бұрын

Was there a point you wanted to make?

@goldsburypeter116

3 ай бұрын

When I was at Harvard, I think it was regarded as a 'good' university, especially the departments of philosophy and the classics. Whatever 'politics' there were, they did not intrude into my academic life. I would not dream of recommending Harvard to any of my own students.

I am also a prof and a semi-passive member of the heterodox academy. But I was lucky. I was in Berkeley from 1985 to 1995. I saw the rot first hand because my friend was a gold medalist undergraduate in anthropology. I have a PH.D. in physics. Despite her high intelligence, she and her fellow students were the worst arrogant bunch I ever met. They could not see any virtue that physicists can predict and measure the gyro-magnetic ratio of the electron to 13 digits. This was not knowledge for them. For my friend, it was no knowledge at all. Their brains were soaked in post-modernism. To be fair, I first notice this while attending an Ancient French reading at the University of Maryland in 1982 where I was exposed to what appeared as pure delusion to a physicist. The prof, a Yale graduate, exposed me to "deconstructionism". If we had that in physics, we would still be pre-Galileo. Insane. In 1995, I had two toddlers, I said : F..k this s..t. I moved to Japan and became a Japanese citizen. The best decision of my life by a long shot. I did it for my children's sake. I am 64 years old. I did two things unthinkable for the average ignorant immigrant: I renounced Canadian citizenship and also my Green Card. Good bye Canada, good bye USA. I see more hope for the USA because, unlike French and English Canadians, you have balls having fought a revolution and a horrible civil war. Canadians were always given rights by others.... A weak bunch of people ready to accept martial law and other abominations.

US higher education “industry” , like the US healthcare industry, has costs that are out of control expensive. The benefits don’t outweigh the cost for a very large number of students. Way too often, it’s a racket.

@johnricercato740

3 ай бұрын

A racket certainly. Once universities became businesses with students as customers all was lost.

Great discussion, poor sound.

Academic freedom needs a a SWAT team on campus.

What's wrong is this: teachers and students in the University spend their time discussing theories to change Society instead of acquiring the practical knowledge necessary to do so.

@NousNoesis225

3 ай бұрын

There needs to be a time and place for conversations about social theories, though. That would seem to be a central purpose of the university.

@horacioaugustofilho6487

3 ай бұрын

I'm not denying the value of studying theories. And yet, if you know nothing about the real world, you'll have no way to ascertain their validity. That's actually the problem with Communism and other left wing proposals. They look good in theory, and render really bad results in practice.

@NousNoesis225

3 ай бұрын

@@horacioaugustofilho6487 It's also the problem with libertarianism and other right-wing proposals. Your previous statement demonized talking about social theory in school. A good mix of theory and practice is the answer. One can't work without the other.

@horacioaugustofilho6487

3 ай бұрын

OK, for a moment I thought you were serious.

@NousNoesis225

3 ай бұрын

@@horacioaugustofilho6487 I'm 100% serious. Communism, right-wing fascism, and libertarianism are all equally stupid and destructive ideas that sometimes look great in theory. Neither the left nor right has a monopoly on stupid ideas.

I don't see where there is "cancel" in the physical science... everything is open to discussion in physics, engineering, chemistry, etc. Cancel culture occurs when groups are being classified, excluded, privileged, etc. Is that bad ? human classification is the first step into exclusion, ethnic cleansing, and ultimately, genocide. is that good ? should we go there ?

I graduated 30 years ago. The recent developments in wokeism, DEI, diversity statements, etc. are dragging up a lot of old memories which I had suppressed a long time ago. Bad experiences with professors and GSIs that were pushing their political agendas. Open and blatant racism not by white people (or even Black and Hispanic people), but by Asian people who had been taught grievance politics (these were fellow students). They were smart kids who had been led astray, given a chip on their shoulder or perhaps enlarging one they already had. An excuse for their issues, someone to blame. The absurdity of it all. There is no doubt in my mind that the universities need to be disrupted and reorganized. So many useless degrees, so much money, so many lives wasted or at least unnecessarily miserable. A detached bubble indeed.

experience divine central authority unity with substantive human rights choice

I've got documentary that shows a person who claims that he was working with the FBI before he came to America he had been a spy with the Soviets and he was looking to be somebody who would try to stand up and declare himself to be an American. So they brought him in and they did a very long amount of time with regarding to find out as much information as he knew what was going on with the Russians. One of those issues was him explaining to the FBI and the CIA, was that what began in the 1920s when the depression occurred in America towards 1930 they sent people to America to speak about things especially socialism to teach things as saying that try to make people think that what's going on within communist Russia was something that would take care of everybody. But the problem with the FBI and primarily with Hoover was that on the one hand they he believed that that the Communist threat was not as bad as what other people spoke about. But he began changing those kind of views when certain people namely one of those people being Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger going through America through the works groups that FDR was putting forward that these people were preaching socialism preaching that they'll need good governments were governments that were communist or socialist. And those people there were actually quite influenced by Soviet agents who would come to America and they spoke with people now these people who came from communist Nations they were people who didn't speak with a Russian accent but they were people who understood Marxism and they understood it's ability to make people stupid to believe the lies that were put forward. Now these people went on to go after and communicate with the people who were involved with such places whether they were professors or somebody doing a political paper or something they would go and speak to them about these situations for what they were primarily going there for was to speak to them and to talk about the kind of issues trying to get students to look into things like Marxism. There were times when they were found out for what they were doing and there were times at certain professors we're caught with trying to teach students these kind of things and the police were called and the police came and the rest of those people as being red spies. What gave the Soviets the green flag was after the house on un-American Activities can about and was broadcast on TV stations and such just like the the same footage that was on television showing Bobby Kennedy going after organized crime. The thing that was called McCarthyism was something that then traded place with such things as what they call witch hunts. And in reality wants those things were done with unfortunately but it brought about was a free hand for the Soviets in America to really go after these different professors and to even bring people over who had been taught Every Which Way about how to infiltrate into America and how to infiltrate specifically into the schools and other areas for them to bring forward their belief structures to preach it and by 1969 1970 especially when and after Watergate by that point in time the educational system within colleges had taken a red turn that they've never retreated from. Now all you're going to be getting in a Ivy League school and those other places are the kind of instructors professors and people teaching things that is not teaching something regarding helping students to have a better education to make more money per month it is to destroy them in regards to such things as getting them agitated for things like going on to protests for Muslim extremists. So thank you you can see that happening right now where you have more people who are doing those kind of things and people who are going to school learning. In these American cities and towns you have the people who are Muslim extremists here in America who will the country cannot even attach up the voices that they hear at these rallies which all they got to do is record them and they know exactly who they are because their voices even though they might be wearing a mask they can't mask their voice and some of these people have been found to be terrorists and you know what the state department has been nothing about those people because Biden's group refuses to bring charges against them even though they know that they' are actual terrorists. Because of Biden following very sotero's wishes where it came to extremists within the Muslim world that he Stood Beside and fostered in countries like Syria like Libya like Egypt all of those lands along with pushing Europe to accept the migrants that were supposedly leaving Syria to find a peaceful place to raise their families yet the only people going there were military age young men not as he said to Congress that Congress is worried about a bunch of babies and and mothers and old people he knew that was a lie when he said that but who is going to argue with him he's black man. Do not agree with him to not believe him makes you a racist.

@nickmiller76

3 ай бұрын

Unreadable.

@karagi101

3 ай бұрын

Go away.

Great interview! but please, that audio does not help.

audio problems.

How much the schools charge,

Don’t worry, Professor, everything will be fine as long as you can keep providing them your optimistic-backed data.

I find the sound is not very good in this clip. Perhaps fix for next time?

Mobs rising up against conservative principles reminds me of the lead up to WW2 in Germany. Never forget the book burnings occurred at the great universities of Germany.

The problem is that they cost too much.

I gave it my best try but the bad audio quality finally defeated me.

I love how geniusdoenxs