University of Chicago strikes back against political correctness

[britrawick]

A letter to incoming University of Chicago freshmen professed no support for “trigger warnings” or “safe spaces” https://t.co/d2fpqCZ6ZQ
- The New York Times (@nytimes) August 27, 2016
The anodyne welcome letter to incoming freshmen is a college staple, but this week the University of Chicago took a different approach: It sent new students a blunt

Comments

[screamingintune]

we discussed this when I took my teaching seminar in sociology. I think safe spaces are good, clubs and groups for minorities to connect and feel welcomed, but there are some subjects (sociology being one of them) that you could not possibly teach using trigger warnings, because EVERYTHING is potentially triggering.

[meadowphoenix]

As someone who took a lot sociology classes, and also as someone who had many sociology major friends?

Lmao. This is a shallow understanding of sociology if you believe "we're dealing with rape culture today" or "the material we're dealing with today was first created by researchers with colonialist understandings of race and gender in mind" is too hard.

[screamingintune]

but nearly most of the material we deal with is sensitive. I mean, you do the talk on the first day of class that there is difficult material like is responsible, but when you do a unit on race and a unit on gender and unit on poverty it's ALL going to be difficult.

[meadowphoenix]

And so the difficulty with giving the warnings I gave was?

You're not seriously pretending that general units (like poverty) aren't broken down by specific topics right and specific research and a specific direction right (because it's patently ridiculous to believe that you're going to discuss the full breadth of the topic let alone with any depth)? Where did you go to school where the professor said "poverty" and let students completely self-direct the topic or couldn't predict what was going to get a lot of noise?

Like this is baffling to me. It all being difficult doesn't mean it's hard to say what "all" consists of.

[screamingintune]

of course the topics are broken down, but at what school do you go to that you don't get a syllabus with the readings at the beginning of the course? Like how is it a surprise what students are studying when the readings most of the time have to be done before the class meeting itself?

[meadowphoenix]

Okay let me help you out. If I've never read Freud before, I'm going to be surprised when he starts indicating that women suffering from child abuse are just hysterical. Knowing the topics I'm reading doesn't mean I'm going to know what attitude or perspective those topics take. Hence, "these authors deal with gender from a colonialist perspective."

Also, sometimes seminal works and scholars come out of left field with sensitive topics, which is going to be hard to predict if you've never encountered them before. If I'm in an English class about science fiction, someone should note that Lovecraft says a bunch of racist shit. If I'm in a sociology class, and I'm reading Emile Durkheim, someone should note if shit about suicide comes up, which I wouldn't necessarily know, since he's might be mentioned before the topic of suicide comes up since he's seminal. I don't need to talk about poverty without knowing one of the authors we're reading advocates eugenics. Like a quick note that it comes up is what a content/trigger warning

[screamingintune]

I get it when it comes to English classes, but honest, there is NEVER any surprises in sociology. Whenever I've been introduced to Durkheim (and I have, multiple times), the prof has always noted that his best-known work is called Suicide. Sociology doesn't really have any secrets. Sure, if you're teaching a lit class, and there's a horrible rape scene in a book, but again -- it's never been an issue in 4 years of undergrad and 3 years of grad school for Sociology because soc states what it is pretty clearly.

[meadowphoenix]

Congratulations, that is a content warning. Apparently sociology is perfectly capable of doing them. Glad you learned something new.

[screamingintune]

you know what, I've never had any beef with you, there was absolutely no reason for you to be so nasty.

[meadowphoenix]

You are the only one in this conversation who thinks previous beef or lack of beef is relevant to tone, so I'll ignore that part.

But frankly, I don't have the patience with smart people to espouse bad arguments. I gave you examples of content/trigger warnings, and you continued to insist that it was completely impossible for sociology and could not at any point explain why what I suggested was impossible. At all. Still haven't. But somehow it was still ridiculous to you, which flies in the face of logic. I definitely assumed some bad faith, and I'm not inclined to a be a guiding light with regard to it.

[screamingintune]

oh for fuck's sake, you are being so extra. I'm not the only one in this post to point it out, either. Have a nice night.

[elialshadowpine]

I'm sorry. *offers cookie* I do not know what is up with the community this past week or two. I have to say, I do not like the returning feel of ontd_p circa sf_d era.

(Clarification: I do not mean in the sense of people pointing out privilege or correcting/educating others. I mean the overall tone and attitude in the community at that time. It wasn't like this when the community started getting active again earlier this year, and I'm not pleased to see it now.)

[shortsweetcynic]

a friend of mine has a doctorate in sociology with a focus in criminology, and one of the classes he had to teach as part of his degree was Sociology of Murder. he actually got a bad review from one of his students because the material was depressing.

so the next semester he wanted to hand out syllabi with little travel bottles of no more tears shampoo for each student. that was ultimately thumped down by his higher-ups, but he DID put on the syllabus that the class was sociology of murder, not sociology of puppies and kittens. :)

[meadowphoenix]

Sorry, I don't understand how this is in any way relevant to my comment. Could you explain?

[spiritoftherain]

Related to sociology, sharing a funny story related to the subject of your thread. A little less salt with your diet, please?

[meadowphoenix]

Salt's actually very good for me, so my doctor says.

I didn't find it funny, it wasn't related to anything I was saying, and you certainly don't know that user's intentions, unless that's like your sock puppet.

How about you try not to come from my ~diet with such a host of assumptions about what's going on and how I should view it.