[rKarpinski]

> University faculty-activists are a perfect example of elite overproduction a la Turchin.

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?

[tines]

No, the faculty-activists are the ones _being pushed back against_ by the faculty seeking the "primacy of teaching."

[aaplok]

From the article: "The concerns articulated in the FfY formation statement pertain to universities — and not their members! — as activists".

They push back on institutions taking up activism, not individual faculties engaging in activism.

[rKarpinski]

But the only faculty-activists are the 'Faculty for Yale' mentioned in the article?

Administrators (and students) are not faculty.

[2devnull]

Mentioned in the article, maybe. But it’s common knowledge that most faculty today are de facto activists, they just done self identify as such usually.

[aaplok]

> it’s common knowledge that most faculty today are de facto activists.

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.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

[2devnull]

Listen to the recent pinker mearsheimer debate. Pinker would be a good person to advocate for the triumph of enlightenment values and where else would those values be most evident than the academy, and yet Jewish students are made to cower in fear at the student mobs tolerated, if not in effect manufactured by the educators at the nations’ highest institutions, Harvard, Penn, MIT… I know people who were in forced out of grad school for not engaging in activism, let alone committing the ultimate sin, having heterodox views. Perhaps that’s less common in STEM, where politics are non-essential, but it’s de rigeur in social sciences and I’d imagine much of the humanities. It’s common knowledge in many circles that you’ll get different education at Claremont vs berkeley.

[rKarpinski]

> It’s common knowledge in many circles that you’ll get different education at Claremont vs berkeley.

Out of curiosity, whats the difference? Both sound like disconnected ivory towers to me...

[enterprise_cog]

What were those forced out in grad school for? What activism did they abstain from?

Also, why are those Jewish students cowering? Has there been violence against them on campus?

[BriggyDwiggs42]

“I know people who were in forced out of grad school for not engaging in activism” Really?

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.

[thereticent]

It's not common knowledge; it's a common misconception. And it's pushed heavily by anti-intellectual, anti-academic people in order to advance agenda.

[rKarpinski]

Is it common knowledge? My understanding is that it's generally the administrators and students who are the main forces of activism on campus, not the faculty (outside of some departments).