Diversity Studies

[Thomas1981]

I’ve been looking at adjunct teaching at a local community college. I’m a PhD student working on my thesis and I’m trying to find some extra money. My background is in political science and sociology, so when I interviewed with the administrator they suggested I teach diversity studies. I figured this course would probably be your run-of-the-mill leftist indoctrination course that I would have to grit my teeth to teach so I was hoping NOT to be offered this course. But, this is a REQUIRED course for ALL students that want to get an associate’s degree, so they need lots of instructors. Anyway, I had to attend an observation of the class today. I could not believe what I experienced.

Now, I’ve always known that higher ed is liberal (I’ve been in it for years), but most professors and grad students I know still seek to maintain at least a pretense of objectivity or intellectual curiosity most of the time. They would at least find it intellectually unacceptable to make assertions without evidence and leave no room for debate (basically straight up indoctrination).

I’ve never in my life experienced what I saw in this course. The instructor made offhand comments like men are “such idiots,” constantly put scare quotes on “religious freedom” in a discussion of the Indiana RFRA Law (as if religious freedom is not a “real” thing), of course he totally mis-represented the law (but everyone does so I’m not too hard on him for that). Said anyone that says homosexuality is a choice is “lying through their teeth” (now I will agree that the causation behind homosexuality is still unknown, and most people do not consciously choose to be gay, but some people do choose to identify themselves as gay and engage in homosexual acts). I don’t think that anyone who says everyone is “born gay” or says being gay is “a choice” is lying through their teeth (just maybe misinformed about the complexity of why people are gay).

The textbook was even worse! After waxing wistfully about how homosexual behavior was accepted by the Ancient Greeks (in the form of pederasty) they went on to explain how Europeans in the Middle Ages were so punitive about it. Again, this is not “untrue”, but European Christian societies were not the only societies that persecuted gays and lesbians, Mosaic Law (Jews) , Shariah Law (Muslims) for example, Hindus are deeply divided on the issue. Even in Buddhist countries with a tolerant image (like Thailand) gays are often persecuted. But, the book makes it seem as if it’s just gays vs. white Christians. The pictures of Westboro Baptist Church-type people interspersed with happy gay couples raising children add to the image. Basically, the not so subtle hint in the whole thing was that if you are conservative and/or religious you are probably a “bigot” in need of re-education, and we’re here to be your re-education camp.

Put simply, the whole book is just one long Salon.com article and the instructor just shoved it down the kids’ throats without debate. I guess I lost some of my naivete about community colleges today. I felt the educational content of this class was very minimal. You could have just told the students to surf around on dailykos.com or jezebel for a few hours and have them spit back what they “learned.”

Have any of you gone to community college and experienced this? I’m wondering if I should still teach the course but just do so in a more balanced way without engaging in indoctrination (which I couldn’t do in good conscience anyway). Though I wonder if the administrators make the instructors teach this way.

 

[DerekTM]

When I took economics my professor docked points if anybody dared to question “free market capitalism.” In his class it was Reaganomics or nothing. There were entire lectures wasted where the professor would quote verbatim from student papers and openly shame them for disagreeing with him. He was so relentless in his hostility toward dissent that one of my classmates walked out in the middle of a lecture and never came back.

Teach the facts and minimize personal opinion.

 

[fred_conty]

It seems you don’t have a choice since it required.

If it were me, I would give both sides of any issue to be fair. But I would definitely give the moral side more attention and explanation but from a social welfare point of view, the advantages.

You will never satisfy everyone but if you give each side, when they start shooting at you, at least you can shoot back with your teaching to prove you were fair.

Some of the profs I’ve had based most of the exams on what they gave and not on the book. So you could teach mostly from your notes, and only those sections of the book you want. And then warn your students that it is important to take down notes.

You could also skip over some of the material in the book which you don’t think important or that was treated badly. Or spend more time on some material so that there isn’t much time left for the other.

It may not be as difficult as you think. Pray for guidance and best wishes.

May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.

 

[Ridgerunner]

But for what sounds like a propaganda textbook on relativism, I think it could be fun to teach a class on “diversity”. Why? Because real diversity barely exists in the U.S. and it would be fun to point out the ways in which it has faded into near-nothingness among most.

For instance, what is/was it to be an “Irishman” in America? I recall a waggish saying my Irish immigrant forbears had: “As soon as an Irishman gets money in his pocket, he becomes an Englishman.” And there was truth to that, or at least that he became an American with a British cultural overlay to him. Why the latter? Because he could now afford it and it had pleasant aspects. Why live in a rock shanty like his forbears did when he could live in a colonial-era mansion with white columns and a perfect lawn?

Are Hispanics truly “diverse” in a largely “Anglo” context? Well, a little, but not a whole lot. They’re westerners culturally, Christians in terms of religion, speakers of a European language who mostly get onto English quickly, and have values little different from that of a German-American today in most respects.

Are black Americans truly “diverse”? In some ways, yes, but it’s pretty superficial and to some degree nowadays, induced. What does the average black man want that’s different from what the average white man in America wants? Not very much. What does he value that white Americans don’t? Not much. Flip it over. What does the average Croatian immigrant want in America that the average black man doesn’t? If both get some money in their jeans, how will they truly live differently? Will the Croatian man have a different view of, say, his daughter than the black man will? No.

On the other hand, real diversity exists in the world, just not as so many political people promote it. Is a recent Somali immigrant who goes off to join ISIS truly “diverse”? Very much so. His whole moral system, habits and practices are different. Is a Boko Haram member or those primitive people in Papua New Guinea who still consume human body parts truly “diverse”? Most definitely. Is a Japanese who, having intensely studied it, is mightily determined to live by Bushido truly “diverse” from a black man in America? Yes.

Who is more “diverse” from, say, a white, Anglican, middle class insurance salesman? A black, Baptist, middle class insurance salesman or a white Wiccan who lives in a shack in the woods and offers blood sacrifice to the “earth spirits”? Definitely the latter.

True diversity exists. It’s just not what political correctness tells us it is. It could be interesting to work that out in a class context and teach it. One might actually impart some wisdom.

 

[Thomas1981]

But for what sounds like a propaganda textbook on relativism, I think it could be fun to teach a class on “diversity”. Why? Because real diversity barely exists in the U.S. and it would be fun to point out the ways in which it has faded into near-nothingness among most.

For instance, what is/was it to be an “Irishman” in America? I recall a waggish saying my Irish immigrant forbears had: “As soon as an Irishman gets money in his pocket, he becomes an Englishman.” And there was truth to that, or at least that he became an American with a British cultural overlay to him. Why the latter? Because he could now afford it and it had pleasant aspects. Why live in a rock shanty like his forbears did when he could live in a colonial-era mansion with white columns and a perfect lawn?

Are Hispanics truly “diverse” in a largely “Anglo” context? Well, a little, but not a whole lot. They’re westerners culturally, Christians in terms of religion, speakers of a European language who mostly get onto English quickly, and have values little different from that of a German-American today in most respects.

Are black Americans truly “diverse”? In some ways, yes, but it’s pretty superficial and to some degree nowadays, induced. What does the average black man want that’s different from what the average white man in America wants? Not very much. What does he value that white Americans don’t? Not much. Flip it over. What does the average Croatian immigrant want in America that the average black man doesn’t? If both get some money in their jeans, how will they truly live differently? Will the Croatian man have a different view of, say, his daughter than the black man will? No.

On the other hand, real diversity exists in the world, just not as so many political people promote it. Is a recent Somali immigrant who goes off to join ISIS truly “diverse”? Very much so. His whole moral system, habits and practices are different. Is a Boko Haram member or those primitive people in Papua New Guinea who still consume human body parts truly “diverse”? Most definitely. Is a Japanese who, having intensely studied it, is mightily determined to live by Bushido truly “diverse” from a black man in America? Yes.

Who is more “diverse” from, say, a white, Anglican, middle class insurance salesman? A black, Baptist, middle class insurance salesman or a white Wiccan who lives in a shack in the woods and offers blood sacrifice to the “earth spirits”? Definitely the latter.

True diversity exists. It’s just not what political correctness tells us it is. It could be interesting to work that out in a class context and teach it. One might actually impart some wisdom.

Great points! Sometimes it seems as if all of the focus on racial/ethnic/gender/sexual diversity just covers for a stifling ideological conformity in reality!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Great points! Sometimes it seems as if all of the focus on racial/ethnic/gender/sexual diversity just covers for a stifling ideological conformity in reality!

That was, I believe, recognized by philosphers in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Unfortunately, its ideological outcomes are sometimes unpredictable even by those who promote and attempt to manipulate it. In Weimar Germany, as in the Kerensky period in Russia, mass maleability can go in unexpected and sometimes horrible directions. Holding rational and time-tested mores in common keeps a society stable. When they are shaken to the point they are largely abandoned, nearly anything can fill the void.

Presently, the emphasis is on the idiosyncrasies of “self”. One does not speak of “morals” or of “rational governing propositions”, but of “values” and “self-fulfillment”. Both are subjective and can be absolutely anything but are deemed “right” because they’re subjectively “right”. And, of course, political opportunists can laud bogus diversity and court groups that really have no philosophical moorings but hold certain subjective “values” or concepts of self-aggrandizement in common. And the conceptual creation of such groups, however artificial they might be, is in their interest.

That’s one of the reasons, (but not the only one) in my opinion, why unmarried women tend to vote Democrat and married women tend to vote Republican. The Dem party promotes radical diversity and self-fulfillment conceptually, while the Repub party has a more or less devotion to traditional concepts of conduct, the source of which is outside the self (see comment below). Marriage and family are difficult to sustain without one’s adopting a fair degree of self-negation and adherence to at least a minimum of extrinsically derived traditional mores. When one is single but adult, self-attention and self absorption are much easier.

(comment mentioned above) That is, in my belief, why Repubs are so attentive to the concept of the Constitution. Its whole theory of governance, even self-governance, is extrinsic to the self. “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” That’s extrinsic to the self. If “truths” exist at all and morever if they’re self-evident, they are obviously objective and not dependent on the self for their propriety or application. “That they are endowed by their Creator…” Again, radically extrinsic. This is the exact opposite of sourcing the self for one’s ideas and mores.

 

[Ridgerunner]

One remembers the old joke about the “pu-wang” bird which had one one wing shorter than the others. It flies in ever-decreasing concentric circles until it flies up its own fundamental aperture with a resounding “PU-WANG”. Of course, the bird is a mythical bird, but the concept is quite real.

Anyway, it appears “diversity” has accomplished it on the campus of Mt. Holyoke College. I just read where a presentation of the odious “Vagina monologues” there was canceled due to protests of the “transgendered” because, uh, well, some of the latter, while claiming the radical feminism and self-absorption that apparently underlies the presentation, don’t fit the anatomical qualifications implicit in the title. They claimed it was “exclusionary” and “dismissive” of their claim to femininity. Not wanting to diss “diversity”, the school canceled the presentation.

PU-WANG!

 

[josephback]

I’m at a community college looking to transfer to a four year. Sometimes you can sense that an instructor is politically liberal, but they generally separate personal and professional lives. One of my English teachers said it was her job to judge our English, not our opinion. Likewise I can’t tell what my American Government teacher is, but he doesn’t give any points for the opinion section on a paper because he never wants anyone to think they’re being judged on their opinion.