If you have half a brain--nobody, no matter how radical--is going to change your views. In other words, lemmings are gonna lemming.
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Indoctrination in Higher Education
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Devildoc
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I think it's naïve to think there has not been a cultural shift on campuses and in education. I think the question is not "is there?" but more "how pervasive?" Certainly social media and some conservative sites have shown these things to be real.
That said: some departments are more likely (sociology) than others (engineering) to have faculty that are hard left and who feel compelled by their subject matter to preach their gospel. I think the universities have some culpability in endorsing (or not) specific groups or speakers on campus. Some schools are notorious (UNC-CH*, Berkeley come to mind, but there are others).
I got my BSN in 2003, it wasn't an issue in that program. I did take a butt-load of sociology courses (enough to minor, actually) because they suggested I pad my GPA prior to applying to the school of nursing. Yeah, those classes were pretty off the charts...I was Mr. Evil Whitey trying to keep name-your-favorite-historically-oppressed-group-here. But I was also an adult learner so I kept my head down and my mouth shut and did what I needed to do.
My first degree was poli sci with minor in African area studies (1991), and yeah, there were some student groups that were nutty (left and right), for the most part indoctrination just was not a thing. I had some lefty loon professors in poli sci and a few hard-core on the right, but they never used it as a bully pulpit in the classroom. Interestingly, two faculty were married; he was a closet commie, she was a staunch conservative.
I agree with @TLDR20 , the goal of education is not only to teach material but also to teach multiple perspectives of material and help one develop critical thinking. So I am not sure that just by having some of this on campus is 'indoctrination'. I would also say parents have a role: teach your kids values and ethics early on, have a presence, they may be less likely to turn into whatever monster while in college.
*UNC-CH had the issue last year where they denied tenure to Nicole Hannah-Jones, the writer of The 1619 Project. Most of the school and a lot of alumni made it a race issue; the reality was, she did not have a terminal degree (not to mention that her 1619 Project was full of inaccuracies). The school was also on the forefront of removing statues of southern leaders of the antebellum and civil war period.
That said: some departments are more likely (sociology) than others (engineering) to have faculty that are hard left and who feel compelled by their subject matter to preach their gospel. I think the universities have some culpability in endorsing (or not) specific groups or speakers on campus. Some schools are notorious (UNC-CH*, Berkeley come to mind, but there are others).
I got my BSN in 2003, it wasn't an issue in that program. I did take a butt-load of sociology courses (enough to minor, actually) because they suggested I pad my GPA prior to applying to the school of nursing. Yeah, those classes were pretty off the charts...I was Mr. Evil Whitey trying to keep name-your-favorite-historically-oppressed-group-here. But I was also an adult learner so I kept my head down and my mouth shut and did what I needed to do.
My first degree was poli sci with minor in African area studies (1991), and yeah, there were some student groups that were nutty (left and right), for the most part indoctrination just was not a thing. I had some lefty loon professors in poli sci and a few hard-core on the right, but they never used it as a bully pulpit in the classroom. Interestingly, two faculty were married; he was a closet commie, she was a staunch conservative.
I agree with @TLDR20 , the goal of education is not only to teach material but also to teach multiple perspectives of material and help one develop critical thinking. So I am not sure that just by having some of this on campus is 'indoctrination'. I would also say parents have a role: teach your kids values and ethics early on, have a presence, they may be less likely to turn into whatever monster while in college.
*UNC-CH had the issue last year where they denied tenure to Nicole Hannah-Jones, the writer of The 1619 Project. Most of the school and a lot of alumni made it a race issue; the reality was, she did not have a terminal degree (not to mention that her 1619 Project was full of inaccuracies). The school was also on the forefront of removing statues of southern leaders of the antebellum and civil war period.
TLDR20
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Yeah my point is that the craziness that you read about on infowars or whatever is so minuscule. Even in my sociology class, the readings weren’t crazy, and you could form whatever opinion you wanted based on them. I pulled an A pretty much disagreeing with everything.
I got into a full blown argument about how our maternal death statistics that make America look like garbage are skewed because we have a fatter, older more unhealthy population having babies than say anywhere in Africa..
Indoctrination would be “believe this or else”. This isn’t what is happening. Even in the age of tenure, professors can and do get in trouble, grades are subject to review boards, and teachers are removed from teaching positions.
I got into a full blown argument about how our maternal death statistics that make America look like garbage are skewed because we have a fatter, older more unhealthy population having babies than say anywhere in Africa..
Indoctrination would be “believe this or else”. This isn’t what is happening. Even in the age of tenure, professors can and do get in trouble, grades are subject to review boards, and teachers are removed from teaching positions.
People simply need to start doing their thinking for themselves and then we wouldn't need to have discussions like these. Nothing gets into my mind that I don't want or intentionally let in. I control my mind-space...not any teacher or professor or anyone else for that matter. People need to exercise their critical thinking skills - if they have them....
Devildoc
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I think this is true, for most people. There are a lot of vulnerable people in college. Those are ones ripe to be indoctrinated/propagandized. It didn't take a shrink to figure out who these people were, the one's who were "trying to find themselves."
To @TLDR20 point, I didn't have much issue disagreeing with a lot of the profs. I would even go so far as say, if you could articulate your argument in a semi-coherent way, they'd actually respect you some and generally leave you alone. Unlike him though, I had a couple sociology classes where the readings were so far left youd'a thunk they were satire. I had one class I kept my mouth shut and eyes straight ahead, sociology of race in America. The prof, and older man, was an unabashed student at the school of Malcolm X, and while he never called me out, he railed against whites every class. Oh, I was the only white in that class, too. Ironically when we'd do small group work, the others in the group would ask pretty intelligent, probing questions, and although they disagreed with me, they were always respectful (to a point).
Topkick
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I finished my degree in 2013. In my experience, there was some attempt to indoctrinate young people and then to ostracize those who don't conform. I think its pretty naïve to deny this is happening anywhere based solely on an individual experience. There are what, nearly 4000 degree granting institutions in the US? However, I agree that nobody is going to change your core values unless you want them to and its up to the individual to stand fast. This is not to say that I didn't learn a little respect and gain a little more empathy for others from the experience.
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Devildoc
Verified Military
If you keep up with your friends from college it's interesting to see what career tracks they end up taking and whether or not any of them have changed.
One guy I want to college with was a hotel management major, and if zero is Karl Marx and 10 is Barry Goldwater, he would have been a three. He's been on the Chicago Police department for 20 years, is up for lieutenants exam, and is now super conservative. Another example, a gal I dated, voted Republican because that's what her parents did, and by the end of college she was active in the college Democrats.
One guy I want to college with was a hotel management major, and if zero is Karl Marx and 10 is Barry Goldwater, he would have been a three. He's been on the Chicago Police department for 20 years, is up for lieutenants exam, and is now super conservative. Another example, a gal I dated, voted Republican because that's what her parents did, and by the end of college she was active in the college Democrats.
Locksteady
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As aware as I am of how much MSM likes to amplify issues that don't affect the vast majority of Americans, I'll push back a little on some of this (as with your post, mine is also anecdotal, YMMV, etc. etc.).
Around your same timeframe, I went to a big public university and a smaller private one. Understanding that neither represents all college campuses of their types, or even necessarily the majority, I can say for the public one that there did appear to be a level of formal social indoctrination starting from the ground level, and in particular with student leaders.
In this case, by student leaders I refer to resident assistants/advisors, known to most as 'RAs', who live in various parts of each dorm to
During RA training (because why not for free hots and a cot?), our working group leader began by asking everyone to introduce themselves in a particular way - namely, by announcing our pronouns along with our name. I asked if it was a requirement or just an option for people who wanted others to be clear about their preferred pronouns, and he said no one was 'forced' to do anything, but that it was highly encouraged for everyone to participate so that gender minorities who did so to avoid being misgendered didn't feel singled out. Also, it avoids everyone being misgendered, so why wouldn't you?
He also took scrupulous notes as we introduced ourselves and during our interactive exercises, as well as right after I asked that question.
Later in the training, we were given worksheets that had sections split off into different demographic sections. Sex, race, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, spirituality/religion, economic class, veteran status, abled status, psychological identity (neurodiversity was coming into vogue), and a few other things. Based on our answers, we were told to pick out the ones that were underrepresented in society, and thus more prone to being disadvantaged, and then were to discuss them in groups.
It was an interesting exercise that encouraged people to find things that they felt disadvantaged them while subtly discouraging people who ticked 'higher' boxes in the common oppression hierarchy from pointing out disadvantages that people in the typical 'oppressor' categories may experience - all for the sake of being sensitive to the issues of more widely accepted minority groups.
The whole experience was a shift from what I'd first experienced in school years before, and spelled out some of the logic behind the way that younger millennial and Gen Z students are being socialized.
I went through the training as an alternate in case for whatever reason one of the other selected RAs dropped (no dice), but I can say that underclassmen in a few of my classes did confirm that their RAs did do similar things, such as soft-mandate preferred pronouns during welcome week hall introductions, and for the same reasons above. Also, be aware that at this school (and several other public universities), first-year students were required to live in the dorms, and so it was easy for me to see why this way of thinking was so pervasive and normalized.
This (and any other) way of thinking can and does carry out into every other sphere the person enters during and after school - including our military.
I think your speculation about the whys are mostly accurate for explaining both why the climate itself has changed and what is amplifying its effects, as I also noticed this lack of the same issues too, having first gone to school around the time when you went for your nursing degree.
I'll also add that it was illuminating to see how some then-very-fringe attitudes and ways of assessing the world became as relatively mainstream among the student body and faculty as they did when I returned to school a decade later.
My understanding is that for a while now the faculty has been very left-leaning while, until maybe the last 8 or so years, the student body has had reasonably solid conservative representation, especially compared to most of the other colleges in the area. While he was in law school, a friend of mine (and Federalist Society member) who was feeling outnumbered, politically and ideologically, showed me some interesting statistics about the massive underrepresentation of conservative law professors in higher education (15% nationwide).
At the very least, stats like these can seen alarming for anyone prioritizing diversity of opinion and political thought in higher education, much less for conservatives attending these institutions who encounter more openly hostile students and professors (a bit dated but relevant to our conversation) who feel emboldened (and at times are even encouraged by their mentors) to react to differing views with violence.
I'll leave this here. Lmfao
Devildoc
Verified Military
Apropos I am going to read Closing of the American Mind (Allan Bloom, 1987), discusses this very thing. I will report synopsis with appropriate literary critique.
Devildoc
Verified Military
Not indoctrination, but example of the inmates running the asylum:
Free Speech Under Fire at Saint Vincent College | RealClearEducation
Free Speech Under Fire at Saint Vincent College | RealClearEducation
"invidious" discrimination... I had to look up what that word meant.
TLDR20
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You aren’t the only one
I think that's the graphics card in my PC.
R.Caerbannog
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Interesting tidbit to share. This was being taught in a school in Colorado.
These people are coming after your kids. Something similar to this was mentioned in the "All Politics thread" years ago, the example was a 'gender unicorn', and how radicalized thinking was being pushed into schools from higher up. Well, these people have been making headway.
If you're normal, like it or not, these people are at war with you. The minds of your children are their current objective and they will use a mix of social, political, and economic means, to brainwash your kids. 5th Gen warfare is being used on our young population to destroy our nations future potential. If you have kids prepare accordingly.
School where girl tricked into trans class says MEANT to be secret'
These people are coming after your kids. Something similar to this was mentioned in the "All Politics thread" years ago, the example was a 'gender unicorn', and how radicalized thinking was being pushed into schools from higher up. Well, these people have been making headway.
If you're normal, like it or not, these people are at war with you. The minds of your children are their current objective and they will use a mix of social, political, and economic means, to brainwash your kids. 5th Gen warfare is being used on our young population to destroy our nations future potential. If you have kids prepare accordingly.
School where girl tricked into trans class says MEANT to be secret'
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