13 Sep 2020

Then, They Came for David Hume

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Irish Examiner:

The University of Edinburgh has renamed its David Hume Tower over the philosopher’s “comments on matters of race”.

The building, which will be used as a student study space in the current academic year, will now be known as 40 George Square.

An online petition claiming David Hume “wrote racist epithets” was set up in the summer calling for the building to be renamed and has been signed more than 1,700 times.

The university announced the move in a statement on the work of its Equality and Diversity Committee and its Race Equality and Anti-Racist Sub-committee.

It said its work had been “energised” since the death in the US of George Floyd and campaigning by the Black Lives Matter movement.

“It is important that campuses, curricula and communities reflect both the university’s contemporary and historical diversity and engage with its institutional legacy across the world,” the statement said.

“For this reason the university has taken the decision to rename – initially temporarily until a full review is completed – one of the buildings in the central area campus.”

It added: “The interim decision has been taken because of the sensitivities around asking students to use a building named after the 18th century philosopher whose comments on matters of race, though not uncommon at the time, rightly cause distress today.”

It remains a mystery how, practically universally, the people who have risen to the top in the West’s most elite institutions are all such idiots and cowards that they will instantly surrender to the insolent and irrational demands of students intoxicated with a contemptible and pernicious ideology. Somehow it has happened that the responsibility for transmitting and preserving knowledge has been placed in the hands of people who are incapable of, and indifferent to the moral obligation of, distinguishing irrationality and barbarism from the fundamental values of liberal education.

Why aren’t there grownups in charge?

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Jerryskids

Students are, by definition, ignorant. It puzzles me that their demands to be taught nothing that they don’t already know are treated with any sort of respect at all. You are ignorant, you don’t know what you don’t know, it is inconceivable that your protestations be taken with any seriousness. But, indeed, where are the adults? Who is willing to stand up and tell these ignorant children that they are indeed ignorant children?



A Squaretail

In response to JERRYSKIDS, while I can’t speak for schools in the wilds of Scotland, this situation has arisen in the States because the professors know as little as the students. Our colleges and universities haven’t educated their students for decades. They merely train and indoctrinate their students in ideology rather than educate them, much as you train a hunting dog. As the recipients of such training themselves they are not truly educated themselves. Today’s professors are mostly selfish careerists concerned only with their wallets, virtue signaling and academic politics. They care not at all about doing their ostensible jobs or for their students.



Lee

Introductory theater course at Cal:

“What does it mean to create “safe(r) spaces” and “have hope” in the face of marginalization, depression, grief, and despair? Often, such phrases feel abstract and hard to define. This course will consider how space–architecture, mental and physical environments–are implicated in social movements. We will question our bodies in the context of several specific Bay Area sites to analyze how these alternatives spaces engage with and respond to politics. Additionally, we will examine our role in the university, addressing the ways in which we read, write, and conduct research.”

Back in my day… Intro to theater took the freshman student from the Greeks to contemporary drama, reading three plays a week for a semester. It was a race through the centuries, but it was a great introduction to Western Literature.



Strange Daze

[…] Never Yet Melted ï½» Then, They Came for David Hume It remains a mystery how, practically universally, the people who have risen to the top in the West’s most elite institutions are all such idiots and cowards that they will instantly surrender to the insolent and irrational demands of students intoxicated with a contemptible and pernicious ideology. Somehow it has happened that the responsibility for transmitting and preserving knowledge has been placed in the hands of people who are incapable of, and indifferent to the moral obligation of, distinguishing irrationality and barbarism from the fundamental values of liberal education. […]



Bruce Wayne

For the last 40 years I have been saying that people lose good sense when they become management



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