• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

A Thoughtful Response To Politically Correct Behavior—From 50 Years Agoo

Endlessly Amazed

Endlessly, you know, amazed
Joined
Aug 6, 2020
Messages
1,379
Location
Arizona, USA
(Mods, please move this to a better fitting place if possible, or delete if you think too contentious)

Fellow Forteans – I ran across this a few days ago and wished to share it with you. It is the single best statement about un-PC behavior I have ever read. What it is advocating against – a university making social and political action the highest goal – is the reason why, 35 years after it was written, I decided against a university academic career. (Well, that and a 75% pay cut. :) ) Running across this, decades after I had made similar assessments and decisions, oddly enough, made me feel reassured I had made the correct decision.

kalverpt.pdf (uchicago.edu)

Next lifetime, I AM going to get a Ph.D in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Chicago. And then move back to some Nordic country. Just wait and see!
 
That's just perfect. Thank you!
 
Hmmm. Our University is proposing changing the collegiate system (again!) into three Faculties - Environment, Health, and what was originally called Social Justice, but strangely that name seems to have been replaced with something more generic and humanity-based. Probably because how the hell do you fit the Drama department into any of those otherwise?
 
Naive in the extreme.
Signed by seven men, only one of whom was non-white. Yes I did look them up.

Harry Kalven, Jr., Chairman
John Hope Franklin
Gwin J. Kolb
George Stigler
Jacob Getzels
Julian Goldsmith
Gilbert F. White

(There may have been a scrap of inclusion if some were Jewish but I didn't read that far.)

Look at this in context. The late 60s were a time of various civil and human rights protests.
In Chicago and across America there were disastrous riots the year after this document was published following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jnr.
There had already been smaller scale protests in favour of women's rights and gay rights. All three movements were gathering strength.

For a university to claim these huge and imminent changes in society were irrelevant was a pathetic attempt to fend them off.
This is not my personal opinion. Time has proved Messrs Kalven and co. wrong.
 
Hmmm. Our University is proposing changing the collegiate system (again!) into three Faculties - Environment, Health, and what was originally called Social Justice, but strangely that name seems to have been replaced with something more generic and humanity-based. Probably because how the hell do you fit the Drama department into any of those otherwise?
What an interesting schema! No matter how one categorizes, something is going to be an odd fit. Does your university not have physics, mathematics, engineering, etc.? If it does, where do these hard science departments fit? My graduate classes were mainly in a department that hovered, uncertainly, in the interstices of adult education, informatics (we had a fondness for European academics), and business administration. The university faculties were divided into their main field of inquiry (department), schools, and by undergraduate and graduate. My university was good at supporting interdisciplinary studies, and so the formal organization was always secondary to the scholarship.

What are the disciplines which would have fallen into Social Justice? Law? Anthropology? Guidance and counseling?

I love reading about all the different ways universities divide up Fort's circle.
 
What an interesting schema! No matter how one categorizes, something is going to be an odd fit. Does your university not have physics, mathematics, engineering, etc.? If it does, where do these hard science departments fit? My graduate classes were mainly in a department that hovered, uncertainly, in the interstices of adult education, informatics (we had a fondness for European academics), and business administration. The university faculties were divided into their main field of inquiry (department), schools, and by undergraduate and graduate. My university was good at supporting interdisciplinary studies, and so the formal organization was always secondary to the scholarship.

What are the disciplines which would have fallen into Social Justice? Law? Anthropology? Guidance and counseling?

I love reading about all the different ways universities divide up Fort's circle.
Yes, the odd fit at the moment is BioSciences as we fall under both Environment AND Health, and there is a LOT of rumbling going on about the department being split. It's not a popular idea for a scheme that is supposedly about encouraging ease of interdisciplinary cooperation!

Personally I can't see what is wrong with the current collegiate scheme, but then I am not the (new) Vice-Chancellor (sub-heading: keen to make mark!)
 
Yes, the odd fit at the moment is BioSciences as we fall under both Environment AND Health, and there is a LOT of rumbling going on about the department being split. It's not a popular idea for a scheme that is supposedly about encouraging ease of interdisciplinary cooperation!

Personally I can't see what is wrong with the current collegiate scheme, but then I am not the (new) Vice-Chancellor (sub-heading: keen to make mark!)
I am a splitter more than a lumper in these matters - not that anyone has asked for my opinion lately! :)
 
When someone queried my degree (in Creative Writing) by calling it 'not a real subject', I countered with, 'so, you've never read a book then?'

It seemed fitting.
The ex was a high school teacher. Back in the day if teachers met up they'd naturally ask each other 'What do you teach?' to which the waggish reply was 'Kids!'
Oh my poor sides. :rolleyes:

I carefully crafted a reply for the next time I met a teacher.

Me: Oh, so what do you teach?
New acquaintance: Kids! :rollingw:
Me: I asked what do you teach, not whom. I do hope you don't teach English.
 
When someone queried my degree (in Creative Writing) by calling it 'not a real subject', I countered with, 'so, you've never read a book then?'

It seemed fitting.
Who questioned it? Send 'em over to us- we'll learn 'em.
 
The ex was a high school teacher. Back in the day if teachers met up they'd naturally ask each other 'What do you teach?' to which the waggish reply was 'Kids!'
Oh my poor sides. :rolleyes:

I carefully crafted a reply for the next time I met a teacher.

Me: Oh, so what do you teach?
New acquaintance: Kids! :rollingw:
Me: I asked what do you teach, not whom. I do hope you don't teach English.

Unless they considered kids to be animals or things.

Which I imagine teaching will do to you.
 
Unless they considered kids to be animals or things.

Which I imagine teaching will do to you.
Yup, that's the impression you're supposed to get. OK as a teachers' in-joke but rude when said to outsiders.
 
Back
Top