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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   37122 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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In general, I don't share the instinctive hatred for academics that many here seem to have. Sure, a lot of them are leftists, but so what? Lots of people are leftists. If I had a meltdown every time someone was a leftist then I'd have a hard time functioning in modern society.

I don't think any sort of "hatred" people here have towards academics is "instinctive," and characterizing it as such is highly uncharitable. I think it's a learned antipathy based on observations and conscious analysis, and that this has very little to do with them being leftists. At best, the antipathy seems to be due to something that us upstream from them being leftists, i.e. the same sort of social/cultural forces that lead these academics to having sloppy thinking also leads to them being leftists.

I enjoy reading the professional output of many humanities academics and I'd be quite happy to have them continue as they are.

I'd wager that the humanities academics that produce professional output that are worth reading are ones who will be most resistant to replacement by GPT and the like. Whether they're completely resistant is an open question, I admit, but for the foreseeable future, I don't think there's much to worry about.

At best, the antipathy seems to be due to something that us upstream from them being leftists, i.e. the same sort of social/cultural forces that lead these academics to having sloppy thinking also leads to them being leftists.

Can you elaborate? Do you have any examples of this sort of "sloppy thinking" in mind?

I don't have any specific examples off the top of my head, but I'm thinking of the (I'm guessing largely unconscious and unintentional) peer pressure within the academia social/cultural spheres pushing people into adopting sloppy thinking in the form of being against rationality/logic/empiricism in favor of taking the word of people that one is predisposed to like. The peer pressure obviously takes many forms, but I'd guess mostly just in who is given higher social status versus who isn't, based on what sorts of opinions one espouses publicly, though some of it's certainly openly intentional directed bullying. These forces also tend to push people towards adopting (certain) leftist views.

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