Manifesto for a new university in Austin

[dismalist]

I think your perception that Christianity is incompatible with the search for truth shows just how much a certain ultra-Pietist attitude has (with the encouragement of its adherents) overtaken our perceptions of Christianity.  A good deal of literary studies and classics has its roots in trying to come to grips with the Bible, and the whole point was to allow and promote less dogmatic interpretations.  It's not an accident that Harvard was an early center of Unitarianism; it's where they were led by their search for truth.

But - yes - generally speaking I'm more interested in the Scottish/early American model for higher education than the German one.  In part that's because I'm more interested in the Puritan model of democracy where we govern ourselves directly than the Lutheran model of democracy where we choose experts to govern us.  In turn that means prioritizing making everyone a philosopher rather than creating a cadre of experts.

I appreciate your words, quasi. There is no doubt that the Church was a great contributor to the search for truth. And there is little doubt that reformers helped on average.

I merely see additional phenomena:

--The Puritan version had the witchcraft trials. That's precisely where we are now.
--Lutheran congregations governed and govern themselves. The expert model is not Lutheran, it's Wilsonian and Progressive!

God, or somebody, save us!

[Ruralguy]

Precisely? I don't think so...

[Parasaurolophus]

Precisely? I don't think so...

I dunno, I'm pretty sure some forumites once turned me into a newt.

[mahagonny]

Precisely? I don't think so...

I dunno, I'm pretty sure some forumites once turned me into a newt.

Oh, there you are. Have you figured out the answer yet?

Is it OK to incite violence and racial hatred and then complain that you might get 'canceled' for it? It's a yes or no question.

bonus: Is there a difference between saying something offensive and inciting violence?

[Sun_Worshiper]

Either be in favor of people being held accountable for their words, or don't, but pick a position or we will continue to not take your crying and complaining seriously.

I'm not concerned with getting you to take me seriously. I am expressing myself and reading stuff. Everything's fine.

It is not that we need to let people talk crazy without getting them fired in order to be even-handed. It's that the crazy is the new democratic party. Like when Pres. Biden says 'our biggest terrorist threat is from domestic white supremacists.'
Keep it up, and we'll keep winning elections :-)
[/quote]

Be a proud hypocrite bros...

[dismalist]

I think your perception that Christianity is incompatible with the search for truth shows just how much a certain ultra-Pietist attitude has (with the encouragement of its adherents) overtaken our perceptions of Christianity.  A good deal of literary studies and classics has its roots in trying to come to grips with the Bible, and the whole point was to allow and promote less dogmatic interpretations.  It's not an accident that Harvard was an early center of Unitarianism; it's where they were led by their search for truth.

But - yes - generally speaking I'm more interested in the Scottish/early American model for higher education than the German one.  In part that's because I'm more interested in the Puritan model of democracy where we govern ourselves directly than the Lutheran model of democracy where we choose experts to govern us.  In turn that means prioritizing making everyone a philosopher rather than creating a cadre of experts.

I appreciate your words, quasi. There is no doubt that the Church was a great contributor to the search for truth. And there is little doubt that reformers helped on average.

I merely see additional phenomena:

--The Puritan version had the witchcraft trials. That's precisely where we are now.
--Lutheran congregations governed and govern themselves. The expert model is not Lutheran, it's Wilsonian and Progressive!

God, or somebody, save us!

Actually, come to think of it, money can help save us! There are at least two ways of forming a great university. One is to found it and then do everything right for a thousand years, so that one's reputation is the advertisement. Students flock in happily, paying or not. The other is to buy oneself into the top tier! There was a jingle about the founding of the University of Chicago:

     John D Rockefeller,
     A wonderful man is he.
     Gives all his spare change
     to the U of C!

Nothing like a billionaire with the right mind set to found a great university. Competing billionaires with the right mind sets would be even better.

[WWUpdate]

It's that the crazy is the new democratic party. Like when Pres. Biden says 'our biggest terrorist threat is from domestic white supremacists.'

You've written that people should get their views from all parts of the political spectrum, so I'm sure you won't mind that this summary of terrorist attacks is from the Guardian:

Far-right terror poses bigger threat to US than Islamist extremism post-9/11

You see, just because you're not the target of domestic white supremacists, that doesn't mean that far-right terrorism isn't both real and deadly. Sometimes it makes sense to look at an issue (yes, including race) through the eyes of people who don't share your background or life experience.

[Parasaurolophus]

The "university" appears to be losing members left and right
In addition to other recent walkbacks (walksback?) and departures, Robert Zimmer and Steven Pinker are now out.

[whynotbc]

They lost Zimmer from Advisory Board. Evidently, Pinker is also distancing.

[Puget]

It's that the crazy is the new democratic party. Like when Pres. Biden says 'our biggest terrorist threat is from domestic white supremacists.'

You've written that people should get their views from all parts of the political spectrum, so I'm sure you won't mind that this summary of terrorist attacks is from the Guardian:

Far-right terror poses bigger threat to US than Islamist extremism post-9/11

You see, just because you're not the target of domestic white supremacists, that doesn't mean that far-right terrorism isn't both real and deadly. Sometimes it makes sense to look at an issue (yes, including race) through the eyes of people who don't share your background or life experience.

And you don't have to take either Biden's or the Guardian's word for it-- that assessment came from US intelligence agencies themselves. You know, the people in charge of assessing terrorism threats. The people conservatives used to love, until certain truths became inconvenient for them.

They lost Zimmer from Advisory Board. Evidently, Pinker is also distancing.

Pinker is apparently resigning to spend more time with his family book and BCC show, and because he is so very busy with them, he won't say anything more about it, and won't let anyone comment on his tweet. Uh huh.

[dismalist]

... that assessment came from US intelligence agencies themselves

Central Intelligence Agency? Now there's a contradiction in terms!

[mamselle]

I think your perception that Christianity is incompatible with the search for truth shows just how much a certain ultra-Pietist attitude has (with the encouragement of its adherents) overtaken our perceptions of Christianity.  A good deal of literary studies and classics has its roots in trying to come to grips with the Bible, and the whole point was to allow and promote less dogmatic interpretations.  It's not an accident that Harvard was an early center of Unitarianism; it's where they were led by their search for truth.

But - yes - generally speaking I'm more interested in the Scottish/early American model for higher education than the German one.  In part that's because I'm more interested in the Puritan model of democracy where we govern ourselves directly than the Lutheran model of democracy where we choose experts to govern us.  In turn that means prioritizing making everyone a philosopher rather than creating a cadre of experts.

I appreciate your words, quasi. There is no doubt that the Church was a great contributor to the search for truth. And there is little doubt that reformers helped on average.

I merely see additional phenomena:

--The Puritan version had the witchcraft trials. That's precisely where we are now.
--Lutheran congregations governed and govern themselves. The expert model is not Lutheran, it's Wilsonian and Progressive!

God, or somebody, save us!

Oh, dear.

I was going to watch House re-runs.

But, while I'm certainly not the deity you're invoking for salvation (I'll leave that larger responsibility where it belongs), I do have to clear up a couple of things.

1) The 1692 trials came out of a complex mix of religious, political, historical, and social causes.

The people who participated would not by then have called themselves 'Puritan,' but 'Congregational,' because after 1651 the Separatists in the Plymouth (Old) Colony and the Puritans of the Mass. Bay Colony had effectively merged under the Second Synod's formulations of doctrine, which included the use of congregational polity as a church (meeting) governance model.

There was a religious component to the trials, but there were also political and legal issues that had arisen after the 1684 imposition of the Provincial Governor (Andros), the arrival of Anglicans to fill seats in his government (royal appointees had to be seen participating in Anglican communion at least twice a year, under the usual conventions of 'cuius regio, religio'), and the building and staffing of Anglican churches in an area where English settlers had repaired specifically to avoid the overreaching Anglican practices they saw to be idolatrous.

In addition, whether the 1690/92 publication of Locke's works on toleration were taken seriously or not, the Act of Toleration was also imposed on the colonies, and while many strides had actually been made in what we would now call interreligious dialogue, this effectively stripped the congregational meetings' ability of their legal ability to remove members for disciplinary reasons (and church membership, until a little later, also was required for voting rights, also a standard practice in Old England, so there were social and civil ramifications as well.)

No economic issues (Nussbaum's inheritance theory was disproven by David Brown in 1992) or ergotism caused the trials themselves. In fact, several previous trials had been quashed by the presence of wiser heads in the colony, but the two leaders best equipped to derail the trials and defuse the drama had had to go to Old England to try to negotiate a new charter because the provincial government had renounced the old charter.

Hence, a power vacuum ensued: Increase Mather, Cotton's father, who would have been more level-headed than his son was, and Wm. Phipps, the colonial Governor who could have headed Lt. Gov. Stoughton's self-righteousness off at the pass, were in London. Stoughton was clearly trying to make a name for himself, as was Cotton M.; the rounds of accusations and the use of spectral evidence spiraled into an unnecessary gyre or recrimimnations in which the only way to save oneself was to implicate others.

The wiser, elder heads who could have prevented that did, in fact, immediately put a stop to the trials as soon as they returned, new charter in hand, in September--Phipps voided the 8 further executions Stoughton had signed, and Increase Mather resumed nominal leadership in the Bay Colony's religious affairs; a group of forty accusations in North Andover were also quashed.

No further trials for witchcraft took place in the colony thereafter, and only one in New England, in CT, slightly later; it was an innoculatory experience that shifted many elements further ahead than they did in Old England or the continent for several more decades.

The dramatic 'more-tolerant-than-thou' stance, I'm sorry to say, came from late 19th c. Unitarian historians who, on the one hand wished to claim origination from the colony's founding churches (which was not really true--their covenants and psalter doxologies are all Trinitarian) while dissociating themselves from the stricter viewpoints those very early meetings held.

The whole thing was a sad, tragic, avoidable mess, but it had very little to do with religion.

2) Lutheran self-governance is less congregational in form than the Congregationalists, who originated the self-governance you imply was Luther's.

Lutherans have bishops, and synods, which are binding on their congregations in ways that Congregational polity was and is not. Quasi is more correct in his description, which (if anyone cares to think chronologically about it) cannot be styled Wilsonian, because...maybe...uhn...because Wilson wasn't alive in 1517?

In fact, Luther was an Augustinian monk first, well-schooled in the classics. The model Quasi describes is based more in Plato's Republic than anything else-except, maybe, Scripture, where the use of the terms that are variously translated as 'elder,' 'priest,' and 'deacon' appear.

Lutheran liturgical and politial structures retained many of the Catholic practices he saw to be useful; while eschewing the idea of keeping Popes, Cardinals, or Archbishops, he did retain the 7-fold ministerial form, with three fully ordained positions (bishop, priest, and deacon) and four lesser positions (exorcist, doorkeeper, etc.)

Calvin's 'Institutes' (on which the New England colonies based their first organizational efforts) go beyond that to what he called the 'four-fold ministry,' with ordained clerics as a 'teacher' and 'preacher' in each congregation, and lay 'Ruling Elders' and 'Deacons' to support them.

In colonial practice, the two clerical positions ended up being collapsed into one for less well-off congregations, and when the 'Ruling Elders' began to have a certain degree of decision-making power within the churches, which collided with the minister's authority, that position withered away after a couple of generations, also.

Since earlier Lutherans tended to settle in the middle colonies (the soil was more like what they were used to), while English Dissenters went to New England, the comparisons may have a geographical component as well. 

And I'm very sorry to have to say, Quasi, but the seating of the first Unitarian minister in the Hollis Chair of Divinity had more to do with the newness, popularity, and similarities of Unitarianism to Anglicanism without the English ties that New Englanders (still wary of their parental foe--with good reason, viz. the 1812 War) wanted to avoid. Oh, and possibly the support it would garner.

Of the 13 meetings that adhered to the Congregational Way in Boston, for example, 9 had 'gone Unitarian,' but they were the same 9 that had become more upscale and elite in their membership. It was at least as much a class choice as a theological one, and, well...

M.

[dismalist]

The 1692 trials came out of a complex mix of religious, political, historical, and social causes.

Yup, just like now.

[quasihumanist]

I think your perception that Christianity is incompatible with the search for truth shows just how much a certain ultra-Pietist attitude has (with the encouragement of its adherents) overtaken our perceptions of Christianity.  A good deal of literary studies and classics has its roots in trying to come to grips with the Bible, and the whole point was to allow and promote less dogmatic interpretations.  It's not an accident that Harvard was an early center of Unitarianism; it's where they were led by their search for truth.

But - yes - generally speaking I'm more interested in the Scottish/early American model for higher education than the German one.  In part that's because I'm more interested in the Puritan model of democracy where we govern ourselves directly than the Lutheran model of democracy where we choose experts to govern us.  In turn that means prioritizing making everyone a philosopher rather than creating a cadre of experts.

I appreciate your words, quasi. There is no doubt that the Church was a great contributor to the search for truth. And there is little doubt that reformers helped on average.

I merely see additional phenomena:

--The Puritan version had the witchcraft trials. That's precisely where we are now.
--Lutheran congregations governed and govern themselves. The expert model is not Lutheran, it's Wilsonian and Progressive!

God, or somebody, save us!

I'm more or less a Hicksite Quaker, and we manage our affairs by consensus and have no ministers.  That's my model of governance.  I agree it's quite inefficient; there's a reason the Orthodox Quakers started hiring ministers.  In contrast, just about every other church defers to experts a good deal more than we do.

In secular terms, I want to point to Dewey's argument (brought to my attention by Hilary Putnam) that participatory democracy educates us about the preferences of others, and is to be valued for this reason beyond its ability or failure to provide good government.

Every modern political theory of democracy has to rebut Plato's criticisms of (Athenian) democracy.  What I'm advocating is educating everyone to be a philosopher.  The Wilsonian model claims this is impractical (or impossible) and it makes more sense to provide philosopher-kings with ways to keep in touch with, and be checked by, the needs and wants of everyone else.

[mahagonny]

It's that the crazy is the new democratic party. Like when Pres. Biden says 'our biggest terrorist threat is from domestic white supremacists.'

You've written that people should get their views from all parts of the political spectrum, so I'm sure you won't mind that this summary of terrorist attacks is from the Guardian:

Far-right terror poses bigger threat to US than Islamist extremism post-9/11

You see, just because you're not the target of domestic white supremacists, that doesn't mean that far-right terrorism isn't both real and deadly. Sometimes it makes sense to look at an issue (yes, including race) through the eyes of people who don't share your background or life experience.

I think the worst threat today, as of the last several years, is from BLM, antifa protesters and their ilk. Because not only are they spreading mayhem, they want to defund the police. And they are being encouraged by the media, Maxine Waters, our VP et al.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/americans-killed-protests-political-unrest-acled

ETA: they (BLM) also oppose belief in the value of the nuclear family even though statistics show that boys who grow up with no father in the home are much more likely to get into legal trouble, crime, drugs, mental depression, less likely to finish school etc.