What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[The Minsky Moment]

Economics can only describe an artificial world of rational actors, because the way the world is in economic terms, with irrational actors, is literally indescribable.

Economic history? Behavioural economics? Basically economics as a branch of the humanities, not with the (false) pretensions of a science.

Sure but as a discipline, economics gets its prestige (and infamy) from the strong demand that exists outside the academy, in terms of macro policy advice and macro forecasting. Those very high profile areas still involve creating models of artificial interacting robots, with the impact of the insights of behavioral economics being that some models allow the robots to act like weird and/or suboptimal robots.

[Razgovory]

Then again, Trump is a very stable genius, and the fact that 1/3 of your country still support him has no meaning at all.  You did assure me 4 years ago I was over-reacting and nothing bad would happen   Excuse me if I don't rely on your wise judgement

I really don't understand your dislike of Trump.  Is it because all the rest of us don't like him?  I mean, you share is general view of things.  Nationalism, Culture War, blaming the left for everything, hostility towards educators because they aren't teaching "objective reality", etc.  You are on the outside looking in, but from the inside looking out you look just like another right-wing populist.

[Eddie Teach]

Also, I'm pretty certain Grumbler didn't predict "nothing bad will happen". That would be nuts.

[Camerus]

There are no ideologically neutral educational/research outcomes, if only because the very act of teaching is one which relies on a specific ethos, and very specific values, to say nothing of how research topics and research programs emerge - whether in the humanities, or the sciences.

Isn't that exactly the point, though?  If, as is the stasticallly documented case in the humanities / social sciences, one side of the political spectrum so heavily outweighs the other, we are most certainly bound to get an imbalance in educational/research outcomes.  Hence an intelligent (i.e. non-Trumpian) conservative critique of the current situation of American humanities / social scienes departments as places of leftist capture is not without merit.

I teach students what I think is important for them to know, to understand the bits and pieces of history I teach.  The questions we consider are stuff like the nature of power, the role of individual or collective agency, the problem of interests. There is no streamlined, convenient "liberal" or "conservative" narrative on these things. But do I think it's a problem if everyone I talk about in my courses are rich white men? Yes, I think it is. Of course, it's a political point. It was one when Marxist insisted we should talk about peasants or the working class; it was one when feminists insisted we should talk about women; it was one when postcolonial scholars insisted we should talk about people of color. Do I agree with these points? Yes. I think a history class should cover a diversity of perspective on the human condition. Otherwise, it's back to being an elite hobby, a repository of morality tales. Is this what conservatives want? Or is it because they think working class people, women, people of color, aren't actual agents of history?

I don't think I can speak broadly for "what conservatives want", for one reason simply because I am not sure I classify as a conservative so much as someone who isn't a fan of identity politics and who enjoys ideological diversity.  However, your assumption that non-"progressives" (or whatever term is appropriate, be it non-"identity politics believers", non-"successor ideology adherents" etc.) wish history to be a "repository of morality tales" in which "working class people, women, people of color, aren't actual agents of history" betrays your own deep ideological approach.  This is in spite of the fact that your approach is potentially more highly stewed and invested in pushing a particular brand of intense moralism.

Nevertheless, I would not say that your approach is without merit, that it shouldn't be taught at the academy, that it is invalid, or that it is little more than lesson in "morality tales" - though ones based primarily on ideologically "correct" interpretations of issues like race and gender rather than, say, the appropriate exhibition of classical virtues - it is merely that when too much ideological conformity arises with an institution or field, it becomes problematic.  I think there is very little question that humanities / social science departments have become ideologically imbalanced in recent decades, as evidenced both by qualitative and quantitative data.

[grumbler]

Individuals are irrationals.
As a mass, investors are rational, in their own way: they will invest/divest in what they perceive to be
their best interests.

A popular fiction, especially on the far right.  In fact, many (most?) people cannot accurate perceive what their own long-term financial best interests are.

Yeah, Oex used to say the same thing.
Perspective tends to change when you are litterally surrounded by 11 or 12 very small and nice guys asking you very politely to spontaneously leave the work place they invested

Sorry, but I have no idea what this is trying to say.

Yes it is.  There are no data on what each individual teacher is telling his class.  But there are results: mass of raging leftists ready to commit vandalism and attack peaceful people in the defense of their ideals are coming out of these classes.  That is sufficient to ask questions.

This is more purely anecdotal "evidence" and you would not like me to outline the "questions" your persistent use of it raises in my mind.

It's your choice to not ask yourself these questions.  Your country will be first to go down in flames, it will give me a little bit of time to finish my preparations.

Your smugness must be very reassuring to you; it doesn't scare me in the slightest.

Then again, Trump is a very stable genius, and the fact that 1/3 of your country still support him has no meaning at all.  You did assure me 4 years ago I was over-reacting and nothing bad would happen   Excuse me if I don't rely on your wise judgement

Lying about what i said will get you nowhere.  What I said when trump was elected and people were all up in arms about it was that the system had a lot of inertia and trump would find it difficult to enact the truly right-wing idea people were scared of.  I did note judicial appointments as the worm in the apple.  So I invite you to not rely on my judgement just as you refuse to rely on evidence.  It's no skin off my nose.

[grumbler]

Also, I'm pretty certain Grumbler didn't predict "nothing bad will happen". That would be nuts.

I didn't, but consider the source.

It's rather ironic that Viper uses all of Trump's talking points but accuses me of not listening to his warning about Trump.  If it quacks like  Trumpeter, it's a Trumpeter.

[Sheilbh]

Isn't that exactly the point, though?  If, as is the stasticallly documented case in the humanities / social sciences, one side of the political spectrum so heavily outweighs the other, we are most certainly bound to get an imbalance in educational/research outcomes.  Hence an intelligent (i.e. non-Trumpian) conservative critique of the current situation of American humanities / social scienes departments as places of leftist capture is not without merit.

But there's two points - in terms of the research this goes back to Oex's question. What is the difference between what the academy produces now in the humanities/social sciences and the "conservative" version? And by that I don't mean the sort of Liberty University version. As I say I can't speak for history, but with English for example I don't really know what "conservative" literary criticism looks like. We all still studied the "canon" (as subject to revision as it is - and has always been, F.R. Leavis was determined to exclude Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens for example ) and we all still used the same critical techniques that were developed at the start of the discipline by people like Leavis.

The other point is I'm not sure about educational outcomes. There's been research on student attitudes and they broadly show that going to college generally improves their opinions of conservatives and liberals at about the same rates and worsens them at about the same rate. Obviously there's probably a selection bias issue within students, but their attitudes don't seem to change sgnificantly.

[grumbler]

US government backs off on policy to keep out foreign students who may be online for all or part of the fall semester:

The U.S. reversed a new policy on student visas after a high-profile confrontation with Harvard University, MIT and hundreds of other colleges, ending a standoff that could have sent thousands of students back to their home countries and left schools scrambling to plan for the fall.

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs announced at an online hearing on Tuesday that the government had agreed to rescind last week's requirement that international students take at least one in-person class, even amid the resurgent coronavirus pandemic and as colleges prepare online-only coursework.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-14/harvard-and-u-s-make-deal-on-foreign-student-visas?utm_campaign=pol&utm_medium=bd&utm_source=applenews

I could point put that this is an example of what i was talking about in terms of the inertia of common sense, but I will refrain.

[Sheilbh]

US government backs off on policy to keep out foreign students who may be online for all or part of the fall semester:

The U.S. reversed a new policy on student visas after a high-profile confrontation with Harvard University, MIT and hundreds of other colleges, ending a standoff that could have sent thousands of students back to their home countries and left schools scrambling to plan for the fall.

U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs announced at an online hearing on Tuesday that the government had agreed to rescind last week's requirement that international students take at least one in-person class, even amid the resurgent coronavirus pandemic and as colleges prepare online-only coursework.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-14/harvard-and-u-s-make-deal-on-foreign-student-visas?utm_campaign=pol&utm_medium=bd&utm_source=applenews

I could point put that this is an example of what i was talking about in terms of the inertia of common sense, but I will refrain.

Interestingly this was another area where it turns out post-Brexit Britain is slightly different than I expected. There was a concerted campaign by Tory MPs to try and take advantage of this by offering these students residency in the UK and find places for them in UK universities.

[Oexmelin]

Isn't that exactly the point, though?  If, as is the stasticallly documented case in the humanities / social sciences, one side of the political spectrum so heavily outweighs the other, we are most certainly bound to get an imbalance in educational/research outcomes.  Hence an intelligent (i.e. non-Trumpian) conservative critique of the current situation of American humanities / social scienes departments as places of leftist capture is not without merit.

I am willing to listen to that critique. What I am asking is: what, exactly, is missing from what academia produces now?

In history, my field, I already suggested some answers: that some areas of inquiry are more or less abandoned. Institutional history, for instance. Military history, for another. That's a perfectly valid critique. But that's not really the substance of the current critique. The current critique - well beyond Trumpian circles - is that academia is indoctrinating America's youths into self-hatred and "cultural Marxism" (whatever that is). I wish I was exaggerating.

However, your assumption that non-"progressives" (or whatever term is appropriate, be it non-"identity politics believers", non-"successor ideology adherents" etc.) wish history to be a "repository of morality tales" in which "working class people, women, people of color, aren't actual agents of history" betrays your own deep ideological approach.  This is in spite of the fact that your approach is potentially more highly stewed and invested in pushing a particular brand of intense moralism.

My point is that I do not understand what the substantive conservative critique wishes history to be. I was perfectly transparent about the ideological bias underneath my commitment for history to be inclusive. And I am perfectly transparent about it in the classroom as well. What I want to know is the conservative counter-argument to that approach - and I never really hear it. Is it a matter of approach, or is it a matter of coverage, or emphasis?

Does that commitment to an inclusive history mean it stifles debate in the classroom? I hope not and, in my experience, it has not. Mostly because history is all about attempting to assess the strengths of highly imperfect "causalities", and the plasticity of really fragile explanations, and most students come armed with certainties that I usually find unwarranted, regardless of their location on the ideological spectrum. Some students will often find a lot more value in individualistic explanations, or the ones that naturalize selfishness as an eternal and transcultural component of human behavior. That usually include "liberal" and "conservative students". Just like some conservative students are way more eager to embrace explanations that embrace the strength of collectives - in religious history, for instance - while some liberal students really like their individual progressive heroes.

My sense of the underlying current of the conservative critique is that history (or, really, all humanities) have ceased to be inspiring. This is what I meant by a morality tale. And indeed, many progressive students come to the classroom hoping for the class to inspire them in exactly that sort of way. To provide validation about what things are bad, and what things are good. It's just not how I, and most of the colleagues I know, teach.

I actually think there is some value to that critique. There are some goods argument for making history a repository of morality tales: I think men and women of the Renaissance, who pioneered the sort of history that we have inherited, were right in that it's an occasion to flex the muscles of our judgment. But that is never as simplistic as the most vocal supporters of civic pride make it, or indeed, wish it, to be.

[grumbler]

Interestingly this was another area where it turns out post-Brexit Britain is slightly different than I expected. There was a concerted campaign by Tory MPs to try and take advantage of this by offering these students residency in the UK and find places for them in UK universities. 

I am utterly unsurprised that Tory Bexiteers are smarter than Trumpeters.

If some of these racists had met some of these exchange students, they might change their spots.  I'll admit that half the exchange students* I have worked with have been lumpen, but I learned more about Daoism from a thirty-minute discussion with an exchange student whose father was a Daoist than from all the books I read on the subject.


*excluding the Vietnamese,  who have been 100% delightful to  work with

[Maladict]

  I'll admit that half the exchange students* I have worked with have been lumpen

*excluding the Vietnamese,  who have been 100% delightful to  work with

To get a sense of perspective, what percentage of your regular students would you consider to be lumpen?

[Hamilcar]

Trump's logorrhoea has now devolved to unconnected fragments memories in the process of being erased. His mind is gone.

[Syt]

His China press meeting which was 99% campaign speech yesterday was rather more unhinged than usually.

[Tonitrus]

Both he and Biden come across to me like tired old men.  One just has it a bit more together than the other.