= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
fubarobfusco comments on [Link] Diversity and Academic Open Mindedness - Less Wrong Discussion
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (148)
I think what you are saying here is "We should not precommit to not hiring slavery apologists." Is that right?
Rather, the commitment to not hiring slavery apologists isn't absolute. It should be treated like a real decision with costs and benefits, with the slavery apologetics considered a serious cost. If you could hire Bob or Steve, where Bob is politically "usual" and Steve is holocaust denialist, you should hire Steve only if he is a considerably better choice than Bob on "usual" grounds.
Edit: I would also add that hiring a slavery apologist when you already have one is a heavier cost still. These are not vacuum decisions. Similarly, if every one of your faculty has political views acceptable to either liberals or conservatives, you should reduce the "nasty cost" of hiring a fascist or a Stalinist.
The thing is current universities are perfectly willing to hire Stalinists.
Yeah, current universities are dominated by Stalinism. Obviously.
"dominated by X" is not the same as "willing to hire X"
Most universities in my country would be perfectly OK to hire a Stalinist, as long as the person does not spend their whole day speaking about it. (Your country may be different.)
What is your evidence for this?
I certainly encountered at least one Stalin apologist in my college years, but that's hardly evidence of an institutional permissiveness, particularly towards Stalinist, which would be somebody who supports Stalin's tactics.
Anybody have any ideas on how to test the theory? Google seems utterly useless; all it comes up with is somebody named Grover Furr. Which may be proof that is can happen, but since AFAICT he was tenured -before- he caused controversy (in 2012), it's at best weak evidence that universities would in fact -hire- a Stalinist. Additionally, I'm not sure his claim qualifies as Stalinism, per se, as it is, in effect, denying that -Stalin- was a Stalinist, but rather a Neo-Stalinist.
Well, not quite a Stalinist, but look at all the eulogies for Soviet apologeticist Eric Hobsbawm by "mainstream" papers and accademics.
Who was almost universally recognized as a great historian and exactly the sort of person I would encourage universities to hire, despite his apologetics for Soviet communism.
So do you think if he had instead been an apologist for facism or apartide or Jim Crow he would have gotten the same recognition?
I know, Viliam. I was responding to the obvious implication. I've been seeing a lot of signs of the sketchy Right in here.