mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein) (09/26/86)
Jeff Winslow was nice enough to paraphrase me: >>represent the content of a college course. [and a lot more blathering] Jeff Winslow later writes: >...perhaps >your verbose overreaction indicates a certain phobia in that direction? >Or did you perhaps fail to comprehend the original article? Must have been >all that Marxist disinformation you recieved in English classes, I guess. Gosh Jeff, what's with all of the ad hominem attacks? (Assuming you weren't covering totalitarian regimes in your logic class, they would have mentioned it to you that it such an attack is a logical fallacy.) Jeff, you seem to forget that I'm with you 100% on this one. Jeff, I made it perfectly clear I agreed completely with *all* of your conclusions. For example, as others have mentioned, spending 1/3 of the time talking about small South American dictatorships is important in a European history class. (Hell, otherwise I imagine you would have to spend the time talking about stuffy old news like the Reformation. Oooh ick.) But, somehow you misunderstood my entire article, and thought I was disagreeing with you! Well Jeff, you should always remember that the rest of us put those smiley faces in the text to specifically let you know when we are being sarcastic. ___________ Actually I haven't been very impressed with the nature of this whole debate. On one hand, I see the proponents of AIA who claim it will stop "DISINFORMATION". Yet I haven't seen any messages really defining academic disinformation. Nor have I read anything on the methodology to use to make sure you don't squelch academic freedom. Nor have I seen any messages showing that there are any situations which can't be solved internally. On the other hand, there are the critics of AIA who seem to view AIA is a group of Nazi thugs who want to eliminate all academic freedom in the US. The contention seems to be that the power of the AIA is so strong that harassment is perfectly acceptable. (Even to the point of using dial-up modems to harass their toll free number.) None of the critics have bothered explaining why AIA is that powerful, or what exactly AIA has done that they are so incensed about. I seriously doubt that even the strongest AIA critics on here would use such tactics against 99% of the thousands of organizations in this country that they are disagree with. The key point seems to be that no one has bothered to find out (or at least explain to others) anything about the organization to which they have aligned themselves with or against. This is what I think is a little strange. In the hopes of helping both sides I went out and got a copy of the July 1986 issue of the AIA newsletter called "Campus Report" Here were the major stories. The major story was about Professor Barbara Foley who was denied tenure at Northwestern University. The college cited "grave professional misconduct" as its reason. Essentially the reason was because of an InCAR demonstration during which Adolfo Calero was effectively prevented from speaking at the University. Before Calero could begin his speech, Prof. Foley and others stormed the podium and threw a red liquid on Calero. Prof. Foley grabbed the microphone and alledgedly shouted: "He has no right to speak here tonight, and were not going to let him speak. He'll be lucky to get out of here alive." A Yale student parodied the annual Gay and Lesbian Awareness Days (GLAD) at Yale by putting up some posters about Bestiality Awareness Days (BAD). Yale sentenced him to two years of probation. The major point AIA tried to make was that Guildo Calabresi, dean of the Yale Law School was quoted as saying "Wayne Dick's treatment by the executive committee was absolutely dreadful, outrageous. It would have been perfectly appropriate for faculty and administrators to say the poster was disgrateful and that he should be ashamed of himself, but he should not have been in any way punished. I have supported gay rights from the beginning, but this was an ideological decision by the committee that violates his free speech rights." The other major story on the front page was about David Horowitz's shift in politics from a leading anti-Vietnam war activist in the 1960's to a supporter of Reagan in 1986. Some of the major stories in the inside... One story was about "Texas Review." The Texas Review is a conservative student newspaper which was banned from distributing in the prime areas of the University of Texas and is now suing the University with the aid of the ACLU. Another article was about Dr. Frank Newman of the Education Commission of the States. Newman's claim is that universities perform best when political, bureaucratic, and ideological intrusion is limited. Another article was by Admiral James Stockdale a fellow of the Hoover Institution who criticized Stanford when a probe found that the canceling of his course was improper. Jay Mathews of the Washington Post wrote that "political bias in the lecture hall" has been a favorite topic at Stanford. Admiral Stockdale a Stanford graduate who spent seven years in a POW camp and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor was quoted as saying, "I used to feel like I found a home, but now it feels like I'm in the enemy camp." (I have had to paraphrase all of these articles so I probably missed some stuff - but these did seem to be the major stories.) So folks, love it, hate it or ignore it, but knee-jerk reactions are no longer allowed. -- Michael V. Stein Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation - Technical Services UUCP ihnp4!dicome!meccts!mvs
cheryl@batcomputer.TN.CORNELL.EDU (cheryl) (09/29/86)
In article <530@meccts.UUCP> mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein) writes: > > >Gosh Jeff, what's with all of the ad hominem attacks? (Assuming you >weren't covering totalitarian regimes in your logic class, they would >have mentioned it to you that it such an attack is a logical fallacy.) > >Jeff, you seem to forget that I'm with you 100% on this one. Jeff, >I made it perfectly clear I agreed completely with *all* of your >conclusions. For example, as others have mentioned, spending >1/3 of the time talking about small South American dictatorships is >important in a European history class. (Hell, otherwise I imagine >you would have to spend the time talking about stuffy old news like >the Reformation. Oooh ick.) The original complaint, was, however, about spending time on Nicaragua, a CENTRAL American regime. Perhaps you were confusing Nicaragua with Pinochet's Chile? Now *THAT'S* a South American dictatorship. I think that if they were going to do any comparisons of South American Dicatorships with any time period in Europe, they would have to use Hitler's Germany, not early modern Europe. (But Hell, then, you'd have to spend time talking about disgusting old news like the torture and rape of small children, pregnant women being beaten to death, young men being found with seven bullet holes in their heads, etc.) You know, Micheal, there's a whole bunch of little countries down there :-)... complete with unstable governments, medieval land practices, strong influence of the Catholic Church ... but of course, we could learn NOTHING about Early Modern Europe by studying what happens under these circumstances. And certainly, Pinochet is NOTHING like Hitler. He only dresses like him, dresses his troops in Jack-boots, has them goosestepping around Chile, gives his secret police the latitude to torture and kill people without due process.... Yes, I can see why the AIA doesn't want any comparisons made between any time period in Europe and contemporary South and Central America. Cheryl
jeffw@midas.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (09/30/86)
In article <530@meccts.UUCP> mvs@meccts.UUCP (Michael V. Stein) writes: >Gosh Jeff, what's with all of the ad hominem attacks? (Assuming you >weren't covering totalitarian regimes in your logic class, they would >have mentioned it to you that it such an attack is a logical fallacy.) Sounds like you took the class, but failed to learn the material. Or do you actually imagine that you're fooling anybody? >Jeff, you seem to forget that I'm with you 100% on this one. Jeff, >I made it perfectly clear I agreed completely with *all* of your >conclusions. Is this the only joke you have to tell, or what? Better luck next time, Jeff Winslow