Re: however, this is a tragic situation

Responses below:

Yocum Daniel GS 21 CES/CEOE wrote:

>Jim, why do you criticize the details of the accusation against humanities
>academia because you are suspicious of its honesty and yet when some is
>suspicious of the honesty of the humanities academia, you do not respond
>with the middle ground honest skepticism but rather defense.
>

I'm not obligated to occupy any kind of "middle ground" -- that's all
part of your imagination. I occupy the ground I stand on, Daniel. I
perceive from that location. That's it.

My criticism of the links you posted were specific to the links and
their claims. I quoted directly from the pages, usually, to support my
criticisms. In case you don't remember, my criticisms were that by and
large Universities in CA, NY, and the Ivys were being used to represent
all colleges everywhere in the US. I also complained that anecdotal
evidence from a few institutions (and to add a new one, we never get
both sides of the story -- we hear a student complain about professor
bias, for example, we we're not allowed to hear the professor say the
student's work was late or poorly written or not properly
documented...etc.) was used to illustrate what was supposedly a national
problem.

I did say the problems in the links you supplied seemed common to many
similar articles I've read elsewhere, but this doesn't mean I think
anything is above criticism. I just want to see good, valid criticism.
As criticism of individual programs and schools, those articles were
probably good enough -- I'd like to hear both sides of many of those
stories, though. As criticism of the humanities as a whole, they were,
for the most part, very weak.

If you remember, one study did seem particularly interesting to me. My
criticism was that it -may have- excluded business schools and the
sciences in its collection of data, but I was curious enough to want to
see the data.

Now I hope you can see from this that there's a difference between
criticizing specific, individual articles and making blanket criticism
of an industry with thousands of members across the entire United
States. Saying that any one thing is true of most humanities
departments in the US is bound to have some problems -- just as saying
any one thing is true of all architectural firms or hospitals or
engineering firms is bound to have a problem. Things tend to be run
differently in different places.

> So, you have a bias that you deny with these claims of middle ground and feigned
>neutrality.
>

Quote me -- when did I ever -claim- to be occupying a middle or neutral
ground?

> I may be stupid, but you are full of shit. You want me to
>quote you to you? Ok, I'll start saving a running tab of quotes from now
>on, on your vaunted middle ground. We will tabulate what you choose to
>scrutinize and what you let pass. Will this make you happy?
>
Yes. Then doublecheck it before you say stupid things, like I'm a
materialist or that I claimed neutralilty. It'd save us both a few
headaches.

>You say "You never, ever do" but I remember a post from only yesterday where
>I quoted you and offered it up as a specimen for discussion, hell, that was
>only yesterday and you have already forgotten.
>Daniel
>

I didn't say you never quoted me at all, just that when I ask you to
support some opinion of my ideas from quotations, you never, ever do.
Just above, for example, you specifically say I claim " middle ground
and feigned neutrality." Now you're making a claim about me -- about
things I've said. I want you to back it up with quotations.

I say I never claimed neutrality. I did say in an earlier post that my
criticisms of the articles had to do with how the articles were written
and with the data upon which most of the assertions were based. This
is just another way of saying what I just said above: I occupy the
ground I stand on, Daniel. I perceive from that location. That's it.

Jim

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Received on Tue Sep 30 11:09:52 2003