Promises that should not be made
Which includes the well-intentioned version offered by Bergen Community College.
In the full knowledge of the commitment that I am freely willing to undertake as a student, I promise to respect each and every member of the college community without regard to race, creed, political ideology, lifestyle orientation, gender, or social status sparing no effort to preserve the dignity of those I will come in contact with as a member of the college community…I will embrace and celebrate differing perspectives intellectually.
No; sorry; no can do. I can’t possibly promise to respect each and every member of the college community a priori in that way. Civility is one thing, and respect is another. BCC is within its rights to demand civility, but it is outside its rights to demand respect. And as for sparing no effort – what are the students of BCC, I beg your pardon the members of the college community supposed to do, throw robes of state over every person they come in contact with? How does one even go about sparing no effort to preserve the dignity of those one comes in contact with as a member of the college community? One imagines a crowd of frantic Paramus students crashing into each other in their haste and zeal to preserve each other’s dignity in some nebulous but athletic way.
And then of course there’s the educationally and academically and epistemically absurd promise to embrace and celebrate differing perspectives intellectually. They might as well swear an oath to embrace and celebrate mistakes and falsifications and forgeries! The poor bastards are presumably at Bergen Community College in order to learn something, and learning something is among other things a process of elimination. It’s not a process of embracing and celebrating. For that you need to go to Healing Touch Academy or Cuddly Woolly Institute, but not to a real school.
Well, unless students have changed utterly since my day, they will sign it with their fingers crossed and frat boys will talk about their mutual respect as they pour beer over each other. Surely most students take the piss out of this kind of neo-piety.
No doubt. But all the same, colleges shouldn’t be that confused!
Fortunately this was just a draft, and it looks unlikely that it will go anywhere. I should have pointed that out in the post, actually.
“this thing was *opposed* by faculty, and not just faculty but NEA-aligned unionized faculty.”
It would want to be. Now there is real cause for embracement & celebration in Paramus.
Let the people who drew who up the draft go & embrace their own religion. They should quit foisting their ideological poppycock onto fresh minds. It sounds so intimidating.
You must get more thank-yous, Ophelia, for making peoples’ blood boil. Let me add mine, especially for reminding me how much I like Wendy Kaminer. It’s nice to see this ridiculous proposal being roundly rubbished by the faculty.
Josh, yes, isn’t Wendy Kaminer good? Thanks for appreciation for blood-boiling causation!
Isnt this awfull dont the people that come up with this sort of twoddle ever learn? it just ends up on the web being ridiculed?
I notice that the proposal is that students who don’t take the ‘oath’- which states that they are ‘freely willing’- will not be allowed to enroll.
It seems that BCC have the same concept of free will as the Catholic church
I think one probably wants a little bit more than just “civility”; one can be extremely rude while remaining civil, but I’m fairly sure “respect” is not the answer.
What is it to respect somebody’s race?
I’d think it would not be very civil if somebody said he respected me because I was white.
As to celebrate, I’d hope students were allowed to keep their intellects out of their celebrations.
The policy is overblown, etc, but…You have to understand the condition of US students when they arrive at college. Some are used to thinking that Christianity is the one true religion, all things American are superior, etc. etc. So the policy is trying to get people to open up and listen. All to the good!
Example from experience. In my animal rights class an Indian student found herself laughed at when she mentioned reincarnation. The laughers didn’t have an argument, they simply had a “that’s dumb and weird” reaction. To fend off that sort of serious narrow minded stuff, you need to say something about…what, civility? Students don’t need to just listen politely and speak politely, they need to be open to hearing about and thinking about new ideas. When you encounter new ideas you should be at least initially open to the possibility that they’re right…even if they clash with ones you already have.
To some message along those lines is all to the good, though I think the BCC one does go too far. “Embracing and celebrating different perspectives…” Er, after being open, it’s fine to think hard and decide what you think is true.
I appreciate that a university is not a pub, but back when I used to drink in city cenre pubs in Newcastle quite a few had signs up saying ‘No racism, sexism or homophobia’.
If you stepped out of line a bouncer would politely invite you to sup up and move on. It wasn’t a request or a debate. Everyone knew the rules and it worked. You didn’t have to celebrate or respect anything, just basic courtesy.
“animal right class????”
What kind of foofy granola university did you attend.
There’s your problem, kids growing up wrapped in emotional bubble-wrap, then going on the college where they enroll in “informative” classes on diversity, study skills, and Rainbow Brite.
What happened to academia?
Yes, the policy is a little overblown. And yes, it starts with just ‘basic courtesy’.
The second draft won’t be so overblown, of course. And just a little bit more will be required of ‘basic courtesy’.
Er – Jean teaches the class. She’s a philosopher, and Animal Rights is a perfectly legitimate philosophical subject. Try Googling Peter Singer for example – he’s not exactly foofy.
So kind of you to mention that.
I completely agree O.B there is nothing foofy about teaching animal rights its a very legitimate topic for philosophy, Jean the fact that one of your students laughed at a hidu girl only means that he is a bad manerered pig its hardly a reason to excuse this revolting dreck from B.C.C.
Yes and I bet people used to think that slave trade abolitionists and women’s rights activists were “foofy” too. Just because it’s different doesn’t automatically make it “foofy”, rick. You need a better gauge for issues than that: try reason and rationality for a start. If that’s a little out of your league than maybe a bit of compassion wouldn’t go astray. And if you can’t manage reasoning or compassion then please do us all a favour and don’t breed or vote.
Rats deserve respect as well G.T as do all creatures.