Ranthropologist

Tag: politics

  • Daily Read: Liberal Triggers

    Daily Read: Liberal Triggers

    I am a liberal (shocking, I know). I am also a college professor. This combination causes distress for some people who argue that our universities are “liberal indoctrination centers” where the professors mock conservatives and teach students to be politically correct and overly sensitive victims of identity politics. So why is it that I keep coming across articles like today’s Daily Read, in which a self-identified liberal professor addresses his concerns about how liberal his students have become? Edward Schlosser discusses the new landscape of college teaching, in which professors have become fearful of engaging students on difficult topics such as racism, gender discrimination, sexuality, and violence. Schlosser is afraid that students have become so sensitive to the travails of their particular identities (race, gender, sexual, et al) that they will raise a hue and cry of discrimination if varying ideas about these identities are even discussed. Students have come to believe that they should always feel “safe,” and therefore should not ever be subjected to difficult content in a classroom, even if the content is discussed with respect and sensitivity.

    Many of Schlosser’s points resonated with me, even though I have not had any backlash in my nine years of teaching about sometimes extremely uncomfortable topics such as female genital mutilation, infanticide, violence against women, and racial violence (not to mention teaching evolution to students who frequently come from religious backgrounds). But I have become aware of the trend towards protecting students’ emotional equilibrium by including trigger warnings before difficult material or even professors avoiding topics entirely because of the fear that some students will protest.

    I agree with Schlosser that there may be a threat to free and open exchange of ideas on campus if we cater too much to the idea that students should never feel uncomfortable; however, I also believe that there may be an echo-chamber at work here as articles like this reinforce each other and make it seem as if this is a bigger problem than it actually is. It also relates to the topic of what debates should take place on campuses – e.g., there has been an uptick in students protesting the inclusion of controversial speakers such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali in campus events (or in the case of a debate between skeptic Michael Shermer* and Christian Frank Turek, a letter to the school paper from the Graduate Queer Alliance at Stony Brook University asking for the university to apologize for allowing Turek, who is opposed to gay marriage, to appear. Shermer and Turek co-authored a response that is worth reading. Also, let me make clear that I disagree with much of what Hirsi Ali has to say, but I think it’s still important to allow her a venue in which to say it).

    This is supposed to be a short post so I’m going to leave the topic for now, but there is much more to tackle regarding how to deal with sensitive topics on campus and the liberal response to ideas we find distasteful at best, and openly bigoted at worst. I support having an open, inclusive, and safe (in the traditional sense of the word) environment on campus; but I also believe we can’t truly teach our students how – and not what – to think if we don’t expose them to topics, concepts, and speakers that may sometimes make them feel both emotionally and intellectually uncomfortable.

    I’m a liberal professor, and my liberal students terrify me

    *Full disclosure: I am a member of the Skeptic Society, of which Shermer is president.

  • Je Suis Charlie

    Je Suis Charlie

    My small tribute to Charlie Hebdo, art, and freedom of expression.

    JeSuisCharlie drawing 010815

  • Shifting Perspective: Word Power

    Shifting Perspective: Word Power

    Consider the following brief life histories of two 18-year-olds:

    A was a sullen, withdrawn child. She seemed predisposed to depression early in life, and caused her parents concern when she would run through their house claiming she was being chased by invisible monsters. She had school friends, but at different times in her young life she considered a doll she made out of leaves; a rock; and a small glass bottle to be her closest friends and most prized possessions. By the time she reached sixth grade, her parents were divorced. A lived closer to the working class part of town than the upper middle class areas many of her classmates inhabited. At 13 she was smoking pot with older kids in the neighborhood and was busted at a local discount store for shoplifting. In high school, A held her own but had some difficulties. Math in particular gave her trouble, and she nearly failed freshman algebra, chemistry, and geometry. She participated in very few extracurricular activities and seemed to shift deeper into depression. At one point an incident with a kitchen knife and a suicide threat caused her parents to seek professional help for her. By 15, A had a boyfriend who was already out of school and spent most of her time with a group of older boys, staying out with them until the morning hours. As high school drew to a close, A’s guidance counselor told her that she would not gain entrance into the state university system because of her poor math grades. A did not apply to any colleges during her senior year. After high school graduation she found a low-level job as a receptionist.

    B was a precocious child who was reading adult fiction by second grade. In fourth grade she was allowed into the school-wide spelling bee – typically restricted to 5th and 6th grade students – because she had already completed the spelling and reading lessons through the 6th grade level. Junior high school saw B widening her circle of friends but also maintaining a reputation as an exceptionally bright student. In 8th grade she missed making the county spelling bee by just one word. By high school B was enrolled in honors courses and did well in them with little effort. She was one of only 3 students to earn the highest possible grade on the Advanced Placement exam in English. B was also an accomplished athlete, earning MVP honors for her performance on the swim team during her sophomore year. She participated in clubs as well, including the French Club, Key Club, and Oceanography Club. Her friends were mostly honor students who spent their free time enjoying board games and role playing games. During B’s senior year, her guidance counselor called her to his office to tell her that her score on the verbal portion of the SAT exam was the highest one of his students had ever achieved. At graduation, B chose to spend a year working at a local art gallery and saving money before starting college. She was accepted into a small but prestigious private college the following year.

    Now that you’ve considered the stories of A and B, where do you think they will each end up in life? A sounds troubled, while B sounds accomplished. A has been involved with drugs, crime, and older boys, while B spent her school years studying and participating in extracurricular activities. A was a mediocre student who was discouraged from college by a guidance counselor. B was an honors student who was praised by a guidance counselor and admitted to a prestigious college. Yet, A and B are so very much alike – so alike, in fact, that they are the same person: me.

    That probably wasn’t much of a twist for those of you who know me. The point I am illustrating here is the power of words. The details you pick out of a person’s life story can cause you to view them as a hero or as a villain; as a troublemaker or as a model student; as having a dead end path in life or as being on the road to a successful future. As I’ve said before, humans are pattern-seeking animals, and we don’t often look for all the contextual information we need to flesh out our first impressions.

    The power of words to change our views is something we should be very aware of. It is relevant to so much of what we hear, see, and read in the world today, particularly in news reporting. I bring this up because of the different ways in which people are represented and how subtle those word choices can be. This pertains, in the moment, to the case of Michael Brown (and a few years ago, the case of Trayvon Martin). What we read is what we see, and both of these dead black teenagers have been portrayed as potential thugs and gangsters (and also as angelic innocents). There are multiple examples of how the power of words shapes our perception of events. If you want to find them, there are many articles and commentaries you can read about how people of color are portrayed more negatively in the media than white people.

    I don’t particularly feel like dissecting the racial divide that still exists in our society in this post. Mostly I wanted to engage in the exercise of writing about my own life in two different ways. I challenge you to do the same, and to ask yourself how you might be portrayed if you were the subject of media attention. It behooves us to remember that every single person is more than a single event, a single photograph, a single conversation. They say there are two sides to every story – I say that’s the minimum. Let’s try to consider as many of those sides as we can.

  • Logical Fallacies: The Straw Man

    Logical Fallacies: The Straw Man

    Over the past year, I have been increasing my consumption of online news from a wide range of sources. I am the first to admit that many of my sources come from a particular point of view. I make no secret about being politically liberal, and I feel that I hold my own very well when arguing for my positions. That said, I have started to become uneasy about how many people – myself included – can be easily led to accept an idea or an argument when it is tailored to support a specific ideology. This is why I advocate so fiercely for critical thinking and for exploring all sides of an issue. The thing is, it takes work to understand the other side, and it’s easier to accept the building, and then the tearing down, of the straw man.

    I want to say from the outset that obviously not every argument for or against a position is based on the straw man fallacy, but it is frequently deployed, especially in the online debates that take place in the comment sections of the many sites I read. The danger of the straw man is that, for people who don’t do the work to explore the opposite side, they can accept the straw man as the actual position of the opposition. So what is the straw man? This is the fallacy of misstating or misrepresenting the other person’s position, and then making arguments that refute the misrepresented position. Essentially, it means that you are not actually refuting the other side; you are refuting your misrepresentation of the other side. This can be quite deliberate, or it can be inadvertent, but either way it does not serve the debate.

    You see straw men all over the internet landscape, from mainstream news to social media to political sites, advocacy groups, and even charities. It is so much easier to win somebody to your position if you create an easily understood and fearsome straw man and then talk about how desperately it needs to be destroyed. The problem is that most arguments are much more nuanced than the opposition will present them to be. Now, I firmly believe that there are some arguments that do not deserve anything beyond an initial hearing. For example, the idea that to be balanced, news outlets must present both (or multiple) sides of an issue can have the unfortunate consequence of giving air time and the veneer of credibility to ideas that have absolutely no merit (for example, the views of young earth creationists – or to be honest, any creationists!). However, this is not what I am talking about with the straw man. The straw man is not an idea with no merit like young earth creationism; it is an idea that does not actually represent the opposition’s point of view but it is presented as if it does. A terrific example of this is the abortion debate. The straw man for pro-lifers is the idea that the pro-choice crowd is advocating for the heartless murder of cuddly babies. On the flip side, the pro-choice side creates a straw man when it says that pro-lifers are anti-woman and want to see women dying in back alleys with bloody coat hangers between their legs. Obviously I’m exaggerating to make a point, but I think you can see why straw men like this could rally people to a cause.

    So what am I arguing for? Critical thinking, as always, but specifically I am asking people not to use the straw man. Take the time to try to really understand what the other side believes. Be open to listening (even though it may only take a few minutes to realize that you have good reasons to disagree). Don’t disrespect your opponent by inaccurately simplifying and/or twisting their position so that it’s easier for you to knock it down. I think this sort of thing is what divides us. It leads to screaming headlines and outraged reactions as straw armies rise and fall.

    I hope it’s obvious that I realize there are people who believe in and will support some truly terrible, offensive, misguided, and/or frightening ideas, and those are the real positions worth fighting against. But what good do we do when we get people riled up over something that doesn’t actually represent the other side? How can we process, debate, and try to create actual change in the world if we aren’t discussing what other people actually believe? Is it really satisfying, in the end, to burn up all that straw and leave the real man alive and kicking? Or is it that we are afraid to contemplate that the other side may actually not be as awful as we make it out to be, and we will have to engage with an argument that may be well developed and defensible?

    This is a tangled collection of ideas, to be sure. I want to reiterate, if it’s not clear already, that falling prey to – or deliberately deploying – the straw man fallacy against another’s position does not mean that the actual position is worth defending! But you still need to aim your attack at the other side’s actual argument. There is too much sound and fury over all our cultural conflicts already to waste time building and destroying straw armies.

  • Logical Fallacies: The Appeal to Antiquity

    Logical Fallacies: The Appeal to Antiquity

    The first definition for the word conservative from Dictionary.com reads as follows: “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.” With this definition in mind, it comes as no surprise to me that those who identify themselves as politically conservative often employ the appeal to antiquity, which is a common logical fallacy. When you are averse to change, it makes sense to argue that things should stay the same because “that’s the way they’ve always been.” That argument, in a nutshell, is the appeal to antiquity.

    The appeal to antiquity is part of a family of fallacies known as “irrelevant appeals.” The idea is that because something has been done or believed for a long time, it must be true. Obviously we know that this is not the case; people used to believe that the earth was flat; that all disease was caused by “bad air”; and that phrenology was an accurate science. I know that political conservatives aren’t the only people to employ this fallacy, but I do tend to associate it with common conservative arguments about a variety of hot political topics. For example, an extremely common argument against legalizing gay marriage is that marriage has always been defined as a union between one man and one woman. Aside from the fact that this is not historically accurate, it clearly employs the appeal to antiquity: that’s the way things have always been; therefore, we shouldn’t change anything.

    The opposite of the appeal to antiquity is the appeal to novelty. This fallacy holds that because something is newer it must be better, but that’s just as wrong as the appeal to antiquity. New discoveries are made about things all the time that ultimately turn out not to be true. This is related to the bandwagon fallacy, which proposes that if a bunch of people believe in a new idea it must be true. This holds for recent research into all sorts of things that may be good or bad for us, such as the potential benefits of various dietary supplements. Recent research into the benefits of taking multivitamins has concluded that they do not appear to benefit human health. This may well be true, but it is not the recency of the conclusion that makes it so; and I wouldn’t be surprised if further research disputes this claim. (This topic deserves a rant of its own discussing the rampant fallacies that are employed by consumers of mainstream media reporting on scientific research – both the way the information is presented and the way it is interpreted leaves much to be desired.)

    Back to the appeal to antiquity. Just like the appeal to novelty, the age of the topic under consideration is of no relevance to its veracity. Again, the position being argued may well be true, but it is not its age that makes it so. And conversely, because something is old does not mean it should automatically be abandoned. The point is that the age of a topic under discussion has no relevance to its validity. So, to use a few more examples, just because something is written into old documents that set up the governance of our nation does not mean they remain ideas that should be embraced. For example, should Black Americans still be considered 3/5ths of a person? Should we still allow slavery? Should women still not be allowed to vote? Should Native Americans not be granted US citizenship? And for a very hot topic in our current culture wars… should every American citizen be allowed to own a gun just because that’s always been a part of our governing tradition? Don’t mistake me – there are valid arguments for and against gun ownership, but the appeal to antiquity is not one of them. And as an example of a governing novelty that did not work out: should alcohol still be prohibited? Prohibition did not work – its newness as an amendment to the US Constitution did not make it a success.

    So, if you are going to argue that something should remain as it is, do not make the mistake of deploying the appeal to antiquity. There are many good arguments in support of a variety of positions on our many cultural conflicts, but saying “that’s the way it’s always been” is not one of them. The more carefully you select your arguments, the more likely you are to be heard.

  • Stereotypes, Generalities, and Banalities

    Stereotypes, Generalities, and Banalities

    Another Super Bowl has passed, and with it has passed several attempts by corporations to trick us into thinking we need to buy what they are selling. We all know that the Super Bowl is about more than the game of football; for many, it is a social opportunity as well as a sporting event. Over the past several years, the commercials have become as big, if not a bigger, draw than the game itself. It seems to me that before this became the standard, the commercials were actually better. Madison Avenue saw it for what it was: an enormous audience of sports fans and their associated hangers-on. No longer did the commercials need to be tailored specifically to football fans; they could be crafted to appeal to the general American public, which included the spouses, friends, and families of the actual football fans. I feel no shame in admitting that for years I, too, was more interested in the commercials than in the game. Now, however, my interest has taken a decidedly different turn.

    Two commercials in particular caught my interest, and they were both produced in the service of the same corporation. Chrysler created one ad for its Jeep division, and another for its Ram truck division. The Jeep commercial features a serious narrative intoned by Oprah Winfrey, telling us that we cannot be “whole again” until our men and women in uniform are back home with their families after completing their heroic service. The Ram commercial is soundtracked with an old speech by famous conservative radio commentator Paul Harvey, who extols the virtues and values of the American family farmer. In both commercials, the money shot of the product being sold is saved until the end. This serves the purpose of luring the viewer into a particular state of mind – one of admiration for our heroes, whether military or farming – and then associates that feeling of pride, nostalgia, and lump-in-the-throat patriotism with the product. Manipulative? Absolutely. Does it work? Absolutely.

    So what’s my problem here? I don’t assume that every Super Bowl ad viewer is credulous enough to fall for the Madison Avenue hype. Most viewers know they are being manipulated, even if unconsciously. But how many people really stop to think about it? I’m sure there are reams of research on effective advertising strategies that trick consumers into believing they need things that in reality, they simply want. However, I do think the kind of shameless manipulation manifested in the Jeep and Ram ads is particularly egregious. What do Jeeps have to do with the socioeconomic realities that make so many young Americans believe their only real hope of success in life is to join the military? These young men and women are not heroes in the sense that this commercial wants us to believe; that is, they are not heroic because they put themselves in harm’s way. They are ordinary people with ordinary foibles, and serving in the military does not, in and of itself, make them “heroes.” (This is also a rant for another day; I believe the word hero needs to be defined much more narrowly and that it is cheapened by applying it to every single person who does a difficult job.) If anything, their heroism lies in accepting an extremely narrow range of choices in life and making the best of it. Jeep has nothing to say about changing the structural realities of our society such that status inequalities are erased and military service truly becomes one choice among many, as opposed to an avenue of escape for those who have very few avenues to pursue.

    I have the same issue, although slightly less so, with the hero farmer portrayed by Ram. Undoubtedly family farming is strenuous and difficult work that is not taken lightly by those who pursue it; but at the same time, being a farmer does not somehow instill men (and the commercial features only men as the farmers, with women and children as support staff) with deeper, or truer, or greater values than the rest of us. I realize that the commercial is not meant to imply that only family farmers have these strong, quintessential American values of hard work and sacrifice; but the symbolism of the farmer is very powerful in our national gestalt. And just like the Jeep commercial, I wonder what, exactly, Ram trucks have to do with these values. In my reading about these commercials I read a comment stating that in reality, Ram trucks are probably out of the price range of the average family farmer today – especially since family farms are a dying breed and those that succeed do so without tricked out Rams that are really luxury cars in disguise.

    So we get back to the original point: tugging at our patriotic and bootstrap individualistic values; wanting to see in ourselves what the commercials stereotype, generalize, and banalize about the essential symbols of American culture; and being tricked into thinking that cars, of all things, have anything whatsoever to do with it. Feel free to admire the values, but think carefully about what they really mean… and think extra carefully before accepting the false, hegemonic notion that you can purchase them.