Oxford university ignores calls to censor texts

[mcduffy]

More common sense... but the context is like a Titania McGrath parody!

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/54b63dde-8e40-11ea-866d-11e3826964c3?shareToken=ab7226da0ccaa2d19a63087b31f442c1

I absolutely love that! Wonderful that it's now being seen as this!

“The only thing that truly needs protection at Oxford is freedom of speech and diversity of thought,” not just Oxford!

I like this quote, when I am called a transphobic bigot online I ask "and your point is?"

Professor Jeff McMahan, an expert in moral philosophy, said: “It is a mistake to suppose that one can dismiss arguments for a view that one finds distressing or offensive by branding them as instances of some ism.”

Dear god - so they actually want a generation of English lit grads coming our having only read the three (probably pretty crap) books that they can all agree on (one being the telephone directory) which will drop to none when someone points out that it’s ‘ablest ’ to those with dyslexia.

Feels like another small win... I've been on twitter a fair bit over the weekend and even that didn't bring me down!

Wow, the student union does seem to be trying to out-woke Titania McGrath. Good to see that such an absurd demand has been slapped down. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of students at Oxford university aren't as narrow minded nor have such delicate sensibilities.

Minority groups need 'protection' and trigger warnings from books and ideas that they disagree with? Makes you wonder how women's liberation and civil rights movements managed to get this far if we all fell to pieces due to a lack of 'protection' and trigger warnings in life.

The sort of people who have this kind of mindset are the type that relish the concept of blasphemy. In years past, they would be first in line to call for the beheading or punishment of someone who offended their religious beliefs. These days the whole 'intersectionality and viewing everything as a hierarchy of oppression' has turning into a pseudo belief system that must never be questioned or criticised, and so they find their home in these sort of groups - making pronouncements of how offended they are by everything and everyone around them and demanding the rest of the world should change to suit their beliefs. They have appointed themselves as the moral guardians of the communities they claim to represent.

It's time to weed these idiots out at interview stage, if they're not committed to studying a broad diversity of views and theories they really aren't suited to a university education.

I liked this:

“if you don’t know what a university is for, please leave Oxford and make way for those who do”

Hopefully now some Oxford big men have spoken out, Prof Selina Todd might be afforded the right to free speech and freedom from intimidation at her place of work.

Just thinking about one example given - it sounded like an article on eugenics. Yes eugenics is offensive, but surely it should not be beyond the wit of those attending a medical ethics course to have to think through why it is offensive? where should lines be drawn? Whether the attitude of eugenicists slips into medicine in other ways eg. by suggesting DNR notices as sent out by some GP practices in response to Covid?

I really don’t understand how these people could have got into Oxford in the first place if they cannot see the value in discussing such a text in an ethics course!

This is good news.

Awful thoughts and deeds etc have been carried out against so many people throughout history.

How can you appreciate how far society has come or see how hard groups of people had to fight if the facts aren't allowed to be there.

If course stuff shouldn't be censored. We cant change society if we cant read everything and think for ourselves about what it means and what we did right or wrong. Even if what we read is upsetting.

I think Oxford University need to have a hard look at their recruitment procedures and include a requirement for critical thinking!

Just thinking about one example given - it sounded like an article on eugenics. Yes eugenics is offensive, but surely it should not be beyond the wit of those attending a medical ethics course to have to think through why it is offensive?

Indeed, that purpose was made explicitly clear to the SU by the person who wrote the reading list.

I understand that the only examples quoted in the motion were from that particular module on challenging issues in medical ethics- presumably because they were the most inflammatory and the proposer figured students were too dumb to wonder about the context.

Titania McGrath is on fire right now:

twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1256931521782571010?s=20

😂😂😂

I love Titania McGrath.

So ..... Mr Illsley wants to bury any unpalatable literature in the back of a dark cupboard somewhere? Well, why doesn't he go the whole nine yards and chuck in a motion insisting that we deny the Holocaust? That way, we can pretend the world is pink and fluffy and that all is well

How do these idiots get into any sort of positions of power? Oh, hang on: he's Co-Chairman of Oxford's LGBTQ+ campaign. Yep, a certified heavyweight in the influence sphere!

So only read what he thinks is 'acceptable'. Thank goodness he isn't teaching science.

Copernicus would have got short shrift.

Shirly these appalling books cannot just be hidden away.

They must be burnt.

The most likely circumstances for a revival of eugenics are surely if no one can actually argue against eugenics? Just saying, "But it's evil," won't get you very far.

For similar reasons, I'm also supremely unconcerned by Gove (who, whatever else he did or did not do, was very keen that the Holocaust should be taught in schools) owning a copy of The Bell Curve. I own loads of books I don't agree with, and read them. Only reading what you already agree with is intellectual laziness.

"The most likely circumstances for a revival of eugenics are surely if no one can actually argue against eugenics? Just saying, "But it's evil," won't get you very far."
Precisely. You can't demolish an argument without hearing it first. If Oxford were to censor reading lists as suggested, the students would graduate totally unable to counter-argue, just splutter at something they thought was wrong but unable to marshall actual reasons why. And by being unable to argue their point, they'd lose it.

I don’t understand this. I studied philosophy at Oxford - most of the time we were debating who to kill if given the power to divert a runaway train. These issues - the issues of life and morality and rights are at the heart of philosophy. How do you even study philosophy if you can’t ask all questions. Is eugenics wrong ? Any undergraduate should be able to give you a 45 minute summary of the arguments for and against. Both sides. Equally. That’s the whole sodding point.

Mind you over three years I never read a single philosophical book by a woman. We never examined the issue of rights in the context of pregnancy. I had not one single female tutor or lecturer. That was pretty crap in retrospect. At the time it seemed normal although I knew the rights debate was all skewed. How today’s students would have coped with that I don’t know.