https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction
We create small, smart cadres of people who watch power and wealth pass them by, and they advocate to overturn the system driving their envy.
"They're just jealous" forms of arguments are an ad-hominem fallacy, where characteristics of the opponent (here their supposed intent) are used to discredit their argument [0]. Not only is there no evidence that these activists aren't sincere (which doesn't mean that they are right) but even if they were driven by envy, that doesn't invalidate their criticism of those in power...
However, I agree that ad hominem is not always fallacious. If I claim that tobacco is not bad for health and it turns out that I have no medical background and that I was paid by the tobacco industry, arguably an ad hominem argument can be used to cast some doubts on my credibility on this particular issue. Probably enough doubts that one doesn't need to pay further attention to what I said.
However it's an approach that should be used with caution. It is much too easy to misuse it to lazily explain away someone's inconvenient argument. It is particularly pernicious when it is using a supposed feeling like jealousy, that are hard to disprove.
After all if Capitalism can't ignore things that don't impact profits how can it be the perfect equalizer it supposedly is?
Unfortunately the money spent by think tanks to prop up Capitalism is vast.
The faculty pushing back against "administrative encroachment" and seeking "the primacy of teaching, learning and research" are your perfect example of an over produced elite?
They push back on institutions taking up activism, not individual faculties engaging in activism.
Administrators (and students) are not faculty.
Whose common knowledge? I have never heard the argument that most faculties are activists.
This argument is a classic ad populum fallacy [0]. Using it to characterise (and discredit) and entire group is not a honorable thing to do.
Out of curiosity, whats the difference? Both sound like disconnected ivory towers to me...
Berkeley has had the left leaning historical reputation from the days of the free speech movement and Vietnam protests. But these days (it-least from an outsiders view) it actually seems more grounded since it's a public school & doesn't do race based admissions (Berkeley is 35% asian & 20% white vs CMC is 16% asian and 35% white)[1][2]
[1] https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/colleges/university-of-ca... [2] https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/colleges/claremont-mckenn...
My guess is that this is at least in part due to the different racial makeup of their respective applicant pools. Going to Cal is a dream of many Asian high schoolers; CMC is not revered in the same way.
[1] https://rankings.thefire.org/rank
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson%27s_Bakery_v._Oberlin_C...
This blog post claims the change was due to methodological changes that don't necessarily make sense. [2]
1: https://www.cmc.edu/newsfeed/cmc-ranks-best-free-speech
2: https://www.cmcforum.com/post/cmc-under-fire-behind-the-rank...
> a negative reaction to white professors employing the n-word hardly persuades me that CMC has a free-speech problem.
"negative reaction" is a framing... Another would be that there were multiple incidents of students reporting professors to the administration for the content of their lectures (And they don't see how that would effect free expression on campus!)
> This is a very strange criterion for evaluating free speech on campus. Some degree of self-censorship is natural, healthy, and wise. What socially aware person expresses every thought that crosses their mind
If this really is a "bad criterion" (I don't think it is), then it'd be a systemic bias effecting every school & not uniquely CMC.
It could be worse, looks like Emory dropped from #4 to #202
Berkeley vs U Chicago or Berkeley vs U Virginia would have clicked.
Also, why are those Jewish students cowering? Has there been violence against them on campus?
I also don’t think the school needs to manufacture student mobs. People get these opinions from the internet far more than school imo. Furthermore, if Jewish students were cowering, which I doubt, it wouldn’t invalidate the mob’s reason for forming, which is in response to an ongoing genocide. I’m glad the school doesn’t crack down on opposition to such.
Contrast the article on Turchin to the one on Tim Berners-Lee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee).
No wishy-washy weasel language. No vague claims of contributions, just straight up: He was here, he did this thing.
As an example, I'm on the neurology faculty. One colleague is an academic activist in the sense that she educates, develops programming, and sits on several committees dedicated to ensuring that historically marginalized groups realize that neurology is a career possibility for them. It gets results, and it's not just self-validating. The claim that belief you can help someone assumes your own superiority is unfortunate.
You say that your colleague's diversity-focused activity gets results, and my question is: what results? A more diverse body of students studying neurology? And if that is the answer, then who cares? What is your argument that increased diversity makes neurology or science better?
If diversity is your objective function, fine. But there are other goals to pursue, and which should be pursued in academia by faculty. I think diversity is very far from what should be the top priority.
The advantage of diversity is that it is an easy metric to understand, pursue and make gains in.
The results are two-fold: most directly, more members of marginalized communities pursue and are successful in the field. More distally, clinical outcomes (patient return, treatment plan adherence, and medical outcomes) are higher when patients see doctors with a shared historically marginalized status, particularly race/ethnicity. That's borne out by the research. So increasing the diversity of the workforce enhances outcomes in diverse patient populations.
Your view is just overly jaded. There are data backing all of this up. It's not just done out of a feeling or a PR move or meaningless corporate metric (though those things indeed contribute to the motivation in a lot of cases).
It would be great if educators they could separate the search for truth from the search for "justice". Many can't. Fields in which facts only exist to support justice narratives probably don't belong in university at all.
(but no, I absolutely didn't go to business school, lol, about as far from it as you can get)