Reasoning - a dying art form?

[Lady tehMa]

This is a fairly long article, but in my opinion, it has very good points. What are your opinions on it?

http://newbostonpost.com/2017/11/09/undoing-the-dis-education-of-millennials/

teach in a law school. For several years now my students have been mostly Millennials. Contrary to stereotype, I have found that the vast majority of them want to learn. But true to stereotype, I increasingly find that most of them cannot think, don’t know very much, and are enslaved to their appetites and feelings. Their minds are held hostage in a prison fashioned by elite culture and their undergraduate professors.

They cannot learn until their minds are freed from that prison. This year in my Foundations of Law course for first-year law students, I found my students especially impervious to the ancient wisdom of foundational texts, such as Plato’s Crito and the Code of Hammurabi. Many of them were quick to dismiss unfamiliar ideas as “classist” and “racist,” and thus unable to engage with those ideas on the merits. So, a couple of weeks into the semester, I decided to lay down some ground rules. I gave them these rules just before beginning our annual unit on legal reasoning.

Here is the speech I gave them.

********************************

Before I can teach you how to reason, I must first teach you how to rid yourself of unreason. For many of you have not yet been educated. You have been dis-educated. To put it bluntly, you have been indoctrinated. Before you learn how to think you must first learn how to stop unthinking.

Reasoning requires you to understand truth claims, even truth claims that you think are false or bad or just icky. Most of you have been taught to label things with various “isms” which prevent you from understanding claims you find uncomfortable or difficult.

Reasoning requires correct judgment. Judgment involves making distinctions, discriminating. Most of you have been taught how to avoid critical, evaluative judgments by appealing to simplistic terms such as “diversity” and “equality.”

Reasoning requires you to understand the difference between true and false. And reasoning requires coherence and logic. Most of you have been taught to embrace incoherence and illogic. You have learned to associate truth with your subjective feelings, which are neither true nor false but only yours, and which are constantly changeful.

We will have to pull out all of the weeds in your mind as we come across them. Unfortunately, your mind is full of weeds, and this will be a very painful experience. But it is strictly necessary if anything useful, good, and fruitful is to be planted in your head.

There is no formula for this. Each of you has different weeds, and so we will need to take this on the case-by-case basis. But there are a few weeds that infect nearly all of your brains. So I am going to pull them out now.

First, except when describing an ideology, you are not to use a word that ends in “ism.” Communism, socialism, Nazism, and capitalism are established concepts in history and the social sciences, and those terms can often be used fruitfully to gain knowledge and promote understanding. “Classism,” “sexism,” “materialism,” “cisgenderism,” and (yes) even racism are generally not used as meaningful or productive terms, at least as you have been taught to use them. Most of the time, they do not promote understanding.

In fact, “isms” prevent you from learning. You have been taught to slap an “ism” on things that you do not understand, or that make you feel uncomfortable, or that make you uncomfortable because you do not understand them. But slapping a label on the box without first opening the box and examining its contents is a form of cheating. Worse, it prevents you from discovering the treasures hidden inside the box. For example, when we discussed the Code of Hammurabi, some of you wanted to slap labels on what you read which enabled you to convince yourself that you had nothing to learn from ancient Babylonians. But when we peeled off the labels and looked carefully inside the box, we discovered several surprising truths. In fact, we discovered that Hammurabi still has a lot to teach us today.

One of the falsehoods that has been stuffed into your brain and pounded into place is that moral knowledge progresses inevitably, such that later generations are morally and intellectually superior to earlier generations, and that the older the source the more morally suspect that source is. There is a term for that. It is called chronological snobbery. Or, to use a term that you might understand more easily, “ageism.”

Second, you have been taught to resort to two moral values above all others, diversity and equality. These are important values if properly understood. But the way most of you have been taught to understand them makes you irrational, unreasoning. For you have been taught that we must have as much diversity as possible and that equality means that everyone must be made equal. But equal simply means the same. To say that 2+2 equals 4 is to say that 2+2 is numerically the same as four. And diversity simply means difference. So when you say that we should have diversity and equality you are saying we should have difference and sameness. That is incoherent, by itself. Two things cannot be different and the same at the same time in the same way.

Furthermore, diversity and equality are not the most important values. In fact, neither diversity nor equality is valuable at all in its own right. Some diversity is bad. For example, if slavery is inherently wrong, as I suspect we all think it is, then a diversity of views about the morality of slavery is worse than complete agreement that slavery is wrong.

Similarly, equality is not to be desired for its own sake. Nobody is equal in all respects. We are all different, which is to say that we are all not the same, which is to say that we are unequal in many ways. And that is generally a good thing. But it is not always a good thing (see the previous remarks about diversity).

Related to this: You do you not know what the word “fair” means. It does not just mean equality. Nor does it mean something you do not like. For now, you will have to take my word for this. But we will examine fairness from time to time throughout this semester.

Third, you should not bother to tell us how you feel about a topic. Tell us what you think about it. If you can’t think yet, that’s O.K.. Tell us what Aristotle thinks, or Hammurabi thinks, or H.L.A. Hart thinks. Borrow opinions from those whose opinions are worth considering. As Aristotle teaches us in the reading for today, men and women who are enslaved to the passions, who never rise above their animal natures by practicing the virtues, do not have worthwhile opinions. Only the person who exercises practical reason and attains practical wisdom knows how first to live his life, then to order his household, and finally, when he is sufficiently wise and mature, to venture opinions on how to bring order to the political community.

One of my goals for you this semester is that each of you will encounter at least one idea that you find disagreeable and that you will achieve genuine disagreement with that idea. I need to explain what I mean by that because many of you have never been taught how to disagree.

Disagreement is not expressing one’s disapproval of something or expressing that something makes you feel bad or icky. To really disagree with someone’s idea or opinion, you must first understand that idea or opinion. When Socrates tells you that a good life is better than a life in exile you can neither agree nor disagree with that claim without first understanding what he means by “good life” and why he thinks running away from Athens would be unjust. Similarly, if someone expresses a view about abortion, and you do not first take the time to understand what the view is and why the person thinks the view is true, then you cannot disagree with the view, much less reason with that person. You might take offense. You might feel bad that someone holds that view. But you are not reasoning unless you are engaging the merits of the argument, just as Socrates engaged with Crito’s argument that he should flee from Athens.

So, here are three ground rules for the rest of the semester.



1. The only “ism” I ever want to come out your mouth is a syllogism. If I catch you using an “ism” or its analogous “ist” — racist, classist, etc. — then you will not be permitted to continue speaking until you have first identified which “ism” you are guilty of at that very moment. You are not allowed to fault others for being biased or privileged until you have first identified and examined your own biases and privileges.

2. If I catch you this semester using the words “fair,” “diversity,” or “equality,” or a variation on those terms, and you do not stop immediately to explain what you mean, you will lose your privilege to express any further opinions in class until you first demonstrate that you understand three things about the view that you are criticizing.

3. If you ever begin a statement with the words “I feel,” before continuing you must cluck like a chicken or make some other suitable animal sound.

********************************

To their credit, the students received the speech well. And so far this semester, only two students have been required to cluck like chickens.

On a side note, imagine what this forum would be llike with those three ground rules!

[dirtybiker]

Some people have more weed in their brains than others......

[normaM]

Prof liked his own speech so much he submitted it to be printed.
Wonder how he feels about it really? :/ I feel a wave of ism acomin

[my5cents]

This is a fairly long article, but in my opinion, it has very good points. What are your opinions on it?

http://newbostonpost.com/2017/11/09/undoing-the-dis-education-of-millennials/

Thanks for sharing, well worth the read.

[Catsumi]

Good find, good post. Wish it was required reading on all threads prior to posting.

[Catsumi]

Good find, good post. Wish it was required reading on all threads prior to posting.

[Verum]

Interesting article, but clearly MacLeod is defining terms to meet his own needs. He is basically creating goal posts which are not the same as the accepted norms. For instance, in the case of equality he just uses the mathematical meaning, which is fine, but ignores the fact that for most people, and at most times, they are not using the same meaning. This is creating a situation where he is going to intentionally limit the vocabulary of his students to avoid having them use widely understood terms without excessively verbose context. This would be like expecting a software engineer to explain exactly which kind of "object" she means when she says "object", rather than allow context and widely understood terminology for a topic to fill in the blanks.

I appreciate that he is trying to fix the lazy overuse of these terms, but the fact that he deliberately picked terms which are often associated with use by one group of the political spectrum shows a bias. Were he to have at the same time insisted that use of terms like "politically correct", "fake", "socialist", etc. were also to receive similarly absurd degree of context whenever used, then he might actually appear to be trying to encourage precise and well thought discourse, but instead he looks like someone trying to push his own political agenda through how his students are allowed to discuss the course. This is the very thing we need to stamp out in our Universities and Colleges. It's not that courses should be free of politics, it's that they should not reflect the political opinions and biases of the lecturer, but should be spaces to discuss topics openly, rationally, and without ego or malice.

[put-for-dough]

The Prof. has written one of the best dissertations on reasoning , ( clear and to the point) I have read. Good for him. Time someone tilled the soil and pulled some weeds.

[Lady tehMa]

Interesting article, but clearly MacLeod is defining terms to meet his own needs. He is basically creating goal posts which are not the same as the accepted norms. For instance, in the case of equality he just uses the mathematical meaning, which is fine, but ignores the fact that for most people, and at most times, they are not using the same meaning. This is creating a situation where he is going to intentionally limit the vocabulary of his students to avoid having them use widely understood terms without excessively verbose context. This would be like expecting a software engineer to explain exactly which kind of "object" she means when she says "object", rather than allow context and widely understood terminology for a topic to fill in the blanks.

I appreciate that he is trying to fix the lazy overuse of these terms, but the fact that he deliberately picked terms which are often associated with use by one group of the political spectrum shows a bias. Were he to have at the same time insisted that use of terms like "politically correct", "fake", "socialist", etc. were also to receive similarly absurd degree of context whenever used, then he might actually appear to be trying to encourage precise and well thought discourse, but instead he looks like someone trying to push his own political agenda through how his students are allowed to discuss the course. This is the very thing we need to stamp out in our Universities and Colleges. It's not that courses should be free of politics, it's that they should not reflect the political opinions and biases of the lecturer, but should be spaces to discuss topics openly, rationally, and without ego or malice.

I appreciate your summation :)

Remembering that they are dealing with law school and specific facts, rules upon rules, laws up on laws - I would think that it would be extremely important for him to have them identify each word and define it as per the course, and not the lazy understanding of culture.

I had not heard of the Code of Hammurabi before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi or Plato's Crito https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crito so I needed to look them up. They appear to be foundational to the study of law, should the professor remove them simply because the students did not want to study them?

Critical thinking is extremely important in law. In high school my children each were in a course that covered debate; in each instance they were told to identify beliefs they held, whereupon they were assigned to advocate for the opposite view. This was a very challenging debate for them, indeed for all of the students.

It seems to be that students nowadays are insisting their feelings to be enshrined as fact and when challenged try to shut down the conversation with an "ism". While the prof is weighted to the right on this, should he still allow them to do so? We all have our own personal biases, and they need to be addressed in order to form a cogent argument. I would hope that he would also shut down any other ism in the pursuit of clarity and critical thinking.

[Catsumi]

Back in the days when the earth was still cooling, we were taught Hammurabi's law but not Plato (that came later through self directed study).

What are kids being taught now? .....

never mind, I have seen and heard the results.

[Verum]

I appreciate your summation :)

Remembering that they are dealing with law school and specific facts, rules upon rules, laws up on laws - I would think that it would be extremely important for him to have them identify each word and define it as per the course, and not the lazy understanding of culture.

I had not heard of the Code of Hammurabi before https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi or Plato's Crito https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crito so I needed to look them up. They appear to be foundational to the study of law, should the professor remove them simply because the students did not want to study them?

Critical thinking is extremely important in law. In high school my children each were in a course that covered debate; in each instance they were told to identify beliefs they held, whereupon they were assigned to advocate for the opposite view. This was a very challenging debate for them, indeed for all of the students.

It seems to be that students nowadays are insisting their feelings to be enshrined as fact and when challenged try to shut down the conversation with an "ism". While the prof is weighted to the right on this, should he still allow them to do so? We all have our own personal biases, and they need to be addressed in order to form a cogent argument. I would hope that he would also shut down any other ism in the pursuit of clarity and critical thinking.

I agree that there are problems, and young people are notorious for arguing from emotions rather than from facts, logic and reason. Of course, they're not the only people who do this. Certainly not. They are rarely taught to think critically before reaching university of college, and it can take years to give them the level of critical awareness to be able to argue a point without ego, emotion or a closed mind. I would contend that many never learn this skill. That doesn't mean that it is reasonable to target select words with a clear political bent. It is reasonable to expect his students to argue precisely and to tell them this, but MacLeod's focus is clear, it is not sufficient to make this point, but rather he must call out two terms in particular, ones associated with a certain political view, and make an example of them, above all others used imprecisely. One can ignore his choice of words, but that is just being naive. He is making a political point and it will not be lost on his students. He has nailed his colours to the mast and demonstrated that his class will be openly hostile to certain political viewpoints. This is nothing to be proud of, instead this is something he should be ashamed of.

I have been a university lecturer, though it didn't pay well enough and honestly I am better at other things. In my time as such, I tried to keep my class open and welcoming to all opinions. Opinions which weren't supported were questioned and in only one case did I have to deal with a student who wouldn't let it go when he was demonstrably wrong. Precision was expected and since the subject matter was generally technical in nature, maybe I had it easier than MacLeod. That said, I still cannot ignore his specific targeting as if it is by accident. His article demonstrates to me that he is incapable of leaving his personal biases outside the classroom and worse still, he is not even sufficiently self aware of his failure to do so that he pens an article proclaiming this failure as if it is something to be proud of. I have no doubt that he is a fine lecturer, almost certainly better than I ever was, but in this not insignificant way, he has failed his students and his school.

[Lady tehMa]

I agree that there are problems, and young people are notorious for arguing from emotions rather than from facts, logic and reason. Of course, they're not the only people who do this. Certainly not. They are rarely taught to think critically before reaching university of college, and it can take years to give them the level of critical awareness to be able to argue a point without ego, emotion or a closed mind. I would contend that many never learn this skill. That doesn't mean that it is reasonable to target select words with a clear political bent. It is reasonable to expect his students to argue precisely and to tell them this, but MacLeod's focus is clear, it is not sufficient to make this point, but rather he must call out two terms in particular, ones associated with a certain political view, and make an example of them, above all others used imprecisely. One can ignore his choice of words, but that is just being naive. He is making a political point and it will not be lost on his students. He has nailed his colours to the mast and demonstrated that his class will be openly hostile to certain political viewpoints. This is nothing to be proud of, instead this is something he should be ashamed of.

If he had used "Capitalism" instead of "Communism" and "SJW" instead of "Racist", would that have made a difference in how you perceive the article? What I am hearing from you is not a dislike of him choosing to focus on facts, but that he is highlighting a mindset that you possibly may sympathize with?

Macleod does make an example of them; my understanding is he does so because it is the overwhelmingly prevalent mindset that is to be found in centres of higher learning and needs to be addressed.

I have been a university lecturer, though it didn't pay well enough and honestly I am better at other things. In my time as such, I tried to keep my class open and welcoming to all opinions. Opinions which weren't supported were questioned and in only one case did I have to deal with a student who wouldn't let it go when he was demonstrably wrong. Precision was expected and since the subject matter was generally technical in nature, maybe I had it easier than MacLeod. That said, I still cannot ignore his specific targeting as if it is by accident. His article demonstrates to me that he is incapable of leaving his personal biases outside the classroom and worse still, he is not even sufficiently self aware of his failure to do so that he pens an article proclaiming this failure as if it is something to be proud of. I have no doubt that he is a fine lecturer, almost certainly better than I ever was, but in this not insignificant way, he has failed his students and his school.

May I ask what your topic of lecture was?

I don't know that we have enough data to categorically summarize him as being " incapable of leaving his personal biases outside the classroom". You state "he pens an article proclaiming this failure as if it is something to be proud of" when I personally (and it seems a few others) find nothing objectionable in it. I do recognize his right-leaning bias, but I myself have a centrist-right leaning. Many people upon hearing that, only hear "right". The polarization of politics is making it very difficult to hear each other, in my opinion.

I personally look forward to hearing other rebuttals directed at him, and hearing him respond to them to illustrate his position more fully. I do not believe that his statement is an "end-stop" but should be the beginning of a dialogue of clarity for the sake of clarity.

[Catsumi]

Excellent reply Lady Tehema, and could not agree more. Conversation and debate is immediately given over to labelling, isms, deflections to other (usually long past) issues and blanket statements which conveniently sidesteps the main Point. We see this in castanet threads daily.

It is time to call those out who persist ....maybe we can help halt the spread of this brain disease.

[Verum]

I agree that there are problems, and young people are notorious for arguing from emotions rather than from facts, logic and reason. Of course, they're not the only people who do this. Certainly not. They are rarely taught to think critically before reaching university of college, and it can take years to give them the level of critical awareness to be able to argue a point without ego, emotion or a closed mind. I would contend that many never learn this skill. That doesn't mean that it is reasonable to target select words with a clear political bent. It is reasonable to expect his students to argue precisely and to tell them this, but MacLeod's focus is clear, it is not sufficient to make this point, but rather he must call out two terms in particular, ones associated with a certain political view, and make an example of them, above all others used imprecisely. One can ignore his choice of words, but that is just being naive. He is making a political point and it will not be lost on his students. He has nailed his colours to the mast and demonstrated that his class will be openly hostile to certain political viewpoints. This is nothing to be proud of, instead this is something he should be ashamed of.

If he had used "Capitalism" instead of "Communism" and "SJW" instead of "Racist", would that have made a difference in how you perceive the article? What I am hearing from you is not a dislike of him choosing to focus on facts, but that he is highlighting a mindset that you possibly may sympathize with?

Macleod does make an example of them; my understanding is he does so because it is the overwhelmingly prevalent mindset that is to be found in centres of higher learning and needs to be addressed.

I have been a university lecturer, though it didn't pay well enough and honestly I am better at other things. In my time as such, I tried to keep my class open and welcoming to all opinions. Opinions which weren't supported were questioned and in only one case did I have to deal with a student who wouldn't let it go when he was demonstrably wrong. Precision was expected and since the subject matter was generally technical in nature, maybe I had it easier than MacLeod. That said, I still cannot ignore his specific targeting as if it is by accident. His article demonstrates to me that he is incapable of leaving his personal biases outside the classroom and worse still, he is not even sufficiently self aware of his failure to do so that he pens an article proclaiming this failure as if it is something to be proud of. I have no doubt that he is a fine lecturer, almost certainly better than I ever was, but in this not insignificant way, he has failed his students and his school.

May I ask what your topic of lecture was?

I don't know that we have enough data to categorically summarize him as being " incapable of leaving his personal biases outside the classroom". You state "he pens an article proclaiming this failure as if it is something to be proud of" when I personally (and it seems a few others) find nothing objectionable in it. I do recognize his right-leaning bias, but I myself have a centrist-right leaning. Many people upon hearing that, only hear "right". The polarization of politics is making it very difficult to hear each other, in my opinion.

I personally look forward to hearing other rebuttals directed at him, and hearing him respond to them to illustrate his position more fully. I do not believe that his statement is an "end-stop" but should be the beginning of a dialogue of clarity for the sake of clarity.

Actually, I don't particularly sympathise with those who emotionally discuss any topic and I don't like lazy use of terms, but I also don't like a hostile discussion environment. Heated, fine, passionate, okay, but when you try to colour the discussion to your own agenda, be it rejecting terms like "SJW" or "racist", "equality" or "meritocracy", it is a problem. For me it is not that he chose to discuss the lazy overuse of terms imprecisely, it is that he very particularly targeted a set of terms associated with a political view. Had he targeted any group, from the left or the right, the authoritarians or the liberal, nihilists or existentialists, I would have considered his approach flawed and I thought that was abundantly clear in my post.

Additionally, if he feels that his students are by and large of one particular political leaning, such is as much a reflection of his own political bias and also it is not his place to reject that leaning without proper discussion, no matter how he feels about it. If he was lecturing to a group who expressed racist or homophobic views, to refuse to allow the discussion to continue, to shut down without meaningful discourse those who use terms such as ethnostate, SJW, etc. is not appropriate in a lecture, especially one where meaningful discussion is the core of the subject matter.

Might I suggest that the reason that you and others don't find MacLeod's article to be objectionable is simply because you actually agree with his political leanings, or his claims about his students, rather than the approach he is taking towards political views differing to his own among his students. Would you be so agreeable to a lecturer who was so openly hostile to traditional conservative views? I suspect not, largely because I suspect you agree with his views and the idea that students are brainwashed in a way they never were before. This kind of claim is made by some people in every successive generation, and it just isn't true and never has been.

Sorry, I'm not going into what the subjects I taught were, since I have little doubt that some of my former students could be reading this, but it suffices to say that while they were more technical subjects than most, there was plenty of discussion involving philosophy, law, and logic. Emotions were sometimes problematic as not everyone saw that they were arguing from such and not facts, but in the end, the discussion was constructive and people left with different views than when they started. That includes me, by the way.

[Verum]

Excellent reply Lady Tehema, and could not agree more. Conversation and debate is immediately given over to labelling, isms, deflections to other (usually long past) issues and blanket statements which conveniently sidesteps the main Point. We see this in castanet threads daily.

It is time to call those out who persist ....maybe we can help halt the spread of this brain disease.

The problem is that rejecting the shorthand terms you don't like, ignores the fact that these terms have a commonly accepted and understood meaning. I could reject terms like "brain disease" and demand that when you use such a term without proper clinical diagnosis, that you have voided your right to be heard, or I could, were I more reasonable, request that you clarify what you mean and expand on your statement so that we can all, including yourself, better understand the topic being discussed. So, should I follow MacLeod and shut you down and ignore you, or should I just politely and calmly ask for clarification? I know which is more productive