Prager U

[_Ceeboo]

Sorry, I won't be able to reply to all posts directed at me.

As it relates to the toilet and Prager or myself being up in arms. I can only answer for myself. First, I am not in full blown rage over it. it was one small section included in a 5 minute video. I personally find it offensive/disgusting. So what. I recognize that that is just my opinion. You are entitled to have your own opinion about it about what it means and about how beautiful it is, or isn't.

[_Ceeboo]

Odds are, if you support the University of Pennsylvania's decision to remove a portrait of Shakespeare and replace it with a portrait of a black-lesbian poet, you will not find PragerU appealing.

This is the one that stands out to me in the list.

The supposed outrage isn’t because her literary achievements aren’t seen as being on par with Shakespeare (i.e. “replaced with a largely unknown author, in comparison”), or because of her politics/ideology (i.e. “replaced with a feminist”), or any number of the aspects of her writings/speeches/advocacy.

The cues to signal outrage are because she’s 1) Black, and 2) a lesbian.

Nonsense.

[_canpakes]

I personally find it offensive/disgusting.

OK. You find a gold-plated toilet offensive/disgusting.

Is it the gold? Would this toilet be better or less offensive in stainless steel?

[_canpakes]

Odds are, if you support the University of Pennsylvania's decision to remove a portrait of Shakespeare and replace it with a portrait of a black-lesbian poet, you will not find PragerU appealing.

This is the one that stands out to me in the list.

The supposed outrage isn’t because her literary achievements aren’t seen as being on par with Shakespeare (i.e. “replaced with a largely unknown author, in comparison”), or because of her politics/ideology (i.e. “replaced with a feminist”), or any number of the aspects of her writings/speeches/advocacy.

The cues to signal outrage are because she’s 1) Black, and 2) a lesbian.

I wonder if the University has any works from Shakespeare on its grounds, or pictures of the man, or teaches any classes about his writings?

Oh, look - front and center :

https://www.english.upenn.edu/courses/u ... ngl101.001

[_canpakes]

Odds are, if you support the University of Pennsylvania's decision to remove a portrait of Shakespeare and replace it with a portrait of a black-lesbian poet, you will not find PragerU appealing.

Ceebs, why is it necessary to point out that the poet in question is a ‘black-lesbian’, while not bothering to identify her by her name?

What was that you said before, about reducing people to certain labels?

[_Doctor Steuss]

The cues to signal outrage are because she’s 1) Black, and 2) a lesbian.

Nonsense.

So, it's because she's a poet?

Odds are, if you support the University of Pennsylvania's decision to remove a portrait of Shakespeare and replace it with a portrait of a black-lesbian poet, you will not find PragerU appealing.

[_Ceeboo]

Odds are, if you support the University of Pennsylvania's decision to remove a portrait of Shakespeare and replace it with a portrait of a black-lesbian poet, you will not find PragerU appealing.

Ceebs, why is it necessary to point out that the poet in question is a ‘black-lesbian’, while not bothering to identify her by her name?

First, I didn't find it necessary to "point out that the poet in question is a black-lesbian." My above post was using a part of the PragerU video from the same post - who did point it out. And the reason it was pointed out (which seems so obvious to me - but considering the reactions here, I better explain it) is that the University of Pennsylvania removed the portrait of Shakespeare (A WHITE MALE) and replaced it with a portrait of a poet (A BLACK FEMALE LESBIAN) BECAUSE OF RACE/GENDER/SEXUAL ORIENTATION. Or do you think that this decision was about excellence of individuals in their field.

What was pointed out in the video was necessary because IT WAS/IS THE POINT.

[_Res Ipsa]

So what do you think happened, if anything, to this professor after the article was published?

His office door was vandalized. Somebody showed bad restraint.

This must mean that radical leftism has permeated every aspect of our university system.

Not that some college curriculum cannot be criticized (and it should be critically examined), but as an aside, I’m wondering just what the good professor would like to eliminate from his long list of leftist teachings, and/or what he’d prefer to see substituted for them. Otherwise, he comes off sounding uncomfortable with the idea that there might exist options that differ from his own.

Ceeboo, can you shed some light on this?

I can:

First, some context. Sarah Lawrence is not your typical university. It's an elite, private, liberal arts college, charging the highest institution in the nation. Tuition and fees run around $60,000 per year. Trying to pass it off as somehow representative of higher education in America is silly -- just as claiming that Bob Jones University somehow represents academia at large.

Second: The school's newspaper interviewed Abrams:

He stated that he was not against the events he cited in the op-ed. “At no point did I say we shouldn’t do this. I just said we need balance.”

When asked how he thought the school should provide balance, he had no suggestions:

Many of the online comments on his article also questioned what a “meaningful ideological alternative” would be to progressive ideas like white privilege or LGBTQ+ visibility. When questioned about the meaning of this phrase by the Phoenix, Abrams demurred. “People are going to read [the op-ed] with their own pre-existing biases.”

When pressed, Abrams had no suggestions on what could constitute the “alternatives.”

He also apparently had not taken the time to attend any of the events to see how they were actually run or the nature of the content:

“As a former employee of this very office I can say that the professor in question has, in my experience, NEVER attended an event of ours, begging the question of how much of these things are actual criticism,” Knight wrote.

http://www.sarahlawrencephoenix.com/cam ... sors-op-ed

So, he never investigated the events he complains of, he says he doesn't want to cancel those events, and he has no suggestions for how to "balance" them. So what was the point of the piece?

The political asymmetry in U.S. universities is an own goal for the right. It's self inflicted. How, you say? Talk to these guys:

They exhibit an "unbroken record of total abstinence from constructive joy over our whole national history."
—Herbert Hoover

An intellectual is "a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows."
—Dwight D. Eisenhower

"They are more concerned with the trivia and the superficial than they are with the things that have really built America."
—Lyndon B. Johnson

"Pointy-head college professors who can't even park a bicycle straight ... "
—George Wallace

Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was "a pompous egghead."
—Richard M. Nixon

"A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals." —Spiro T. Agnew

Taxpayers should not be asked "to subsidize intellectual curiosity."
—Ronald Reagan

Taxpayers' money is "used to subsidize bizarre and destructive visions of reality" at state universities.
—Newt Gingrich

"There are college students at this conference who are reading Burke and Hayek. When I was your age, you could have told me they were infielders for the Detroit Tigers." —Mitt Romney

The place where Satan was "the most successful and first—first successful­—was in academia. ... And so academia a long time ago fell." —Rick Santorum

"Eggheads of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks."
—Adlai Stevenson

https://www.chronicle.com/article/From- ... ded/130960

The demonization of American universities and those who teach there, has been a longstanding strategy of the right. They should not be surprised then, when the right seeks employment elsewhere and, as a result, is underrepresented in academia. If the right wants more equal representation on faculties and in administration, all it has to do is change course and encourage their best and brightest to become professors or university administrators.

In my own university education, there was no way to tell whether my professors were liberals or conservatives from their teaching. In the one case where the professor's politics might be of interest -- a course on Marxian economics -- the instructor made clear that he was a Marxist. He then taught the subject from a politically neutral position -- teaching both the theory and critical responses to it. At no time did I feel as if he were pushing Marxism on me as a superior alternative to any other economic theory. It appeared to me that all of my professors tried very hard to keep their personal politics out of the classroom.

Now, because people are people, I'm sure there are professors who don't do that. But to smear the entire higher education system with the actions of an extreme few is silly. The whole attack on liberal education is divisive and exacerbates our difficulties with finding solutions to simple problems. Prager U functions just like Fox News. Instead of dealing with and thinking about news that was uncomfortable to them, they cried "liberal bias" and then went out and created their own media that told them what they wanted to hear. The right doesn't like what they hear at universities, so they cry "liberal bias" and create Prager U. More of what they want to hear -- which consists mainly of "why it's perfectly fine to hate the left and believe you are tolerant."

If the goal is to bridge the gap between right and left -- Prager U takes us backwards.

[_Ceeboo]

Gotta run for a bit. So if I don't reply to any more posts directed at me, please consider that the reason might be that I have other things on my plate.

Thanks

[_Res Ipsa]

Ceebs, the main thing that strikes me about your posts is the juxtaposition of this:

Odds are, if you want to eliminate free speech in this country and/or if you are fairly intolerant of any ideas/views/perspectives that are different from yours, you will not find PragerU appealing.

(emphasis added)

with this:

This is the newest Prager U video

"The Left Ruins Everything"

Do you see the disconnect there?