Quote from: jimbogumbo on Today at 12:10:29 PMDid I mention the snipers? Yes, State Police head Carter has confirmed that over the two days this "action" was undertaken there were in fact police snipers on rooftops. All to combat a protest which featured no violence, no destruction and in fact little (if any) disruption of campus activities.
Quote from: dismalist on Today at 12:52:02 PMI don't give a shit about which higher education institutions will survive in the eternal struggle for resources. There are enough that some good ones will surely survive. I see the current fracas on campuses as a failure of governance in some places. Those with good governance will succeed.
But, to not put too dismal an edge on this, there is [Robert] Conquest's Third Law of Politics: The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies. :-)
Somebody explains ["duplicative language without appropriate attribution" follows]: What makes this paradox so insightful? I take it to mean that any organisation that survives long enough ends up being run in such a way as to contradict its founding purpose. As an organisation grows and becomes more complex, it ends up acting primarily to ensure its own perpetuation. The purpose for which it was founded becomes secondary to its own survival. In fact, for many in the organisation, possibly the vast majority, its continued survival becomes confused with the purpose it was originally founded to deliver. This can lead to behaviours that seem rational when viewed from the perspective of perpetuating the organisation but look counter-intuitive when considered from the perspective of what the organisation ostensibly exists to do.
This is descriptively good stuff. I'm just predicting that those protesting got the details wrong. To hell with psychologizing -- they're being instrumentalized, useful idiots.
Quote from: jimbogumbo on Today at 12:10:29 PM[. . .]
Never any major shows of police force, because essentially nothing was shut down.
[. . .]
Quote from: dismalist on Today at 12:52:02 PM[. . .]
there is [Robert] Conquest's Third Law of Politics: The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies. :-)
[. . .]
Quotethey're being instrumentalized, useful idiots.
Quote from: lightning on April 30, 2024, 01:50:13 PMI've attended two of them. Both were pleasant and entertaining. It certainly was not a waste of time. The first one that I attended was more like a traditional reunion, in that social media had not taken over yet as the primary medium for staying connected with people from high school. I caught up with people that I had not heard from in years. I maintained contact with them via social media. I was not an early adopter of social media, but after the reunion event, I went all in.
The organizers for the second more recent reunion that I attended were brilliant, in that they acknowledged how social had media replaced a lot of what high school reunions were used for, so the reunion event was shorter, much less formal, and a lot cheaper. I even brought SO Lightning. Folks were friendly. Any enmity or anxieties from the old days did not re-surface.
I'll be honest. Returning to a high school reunion as a tenured full professor at a widely recognized university with recognized D1 athletics, was an ego boost, when re-connecting with the "cool" kids and my clique of "smart" kids, both of whom peaked & had their best years of their life in high school . . . . .
There, I said it. Hate me.