Yale Students Demand Removal of White Authors from Curriculum

[Nick Young]

These are Yale students, top the class honors students with flawless grades and endless lists of extracurricular stuff. They are used to studying their assess off and being perfect. Nearly 50% of the school is composed of valedictorians and salutatorians.

If the material is "far too difficult" for these kids then it's far too difficult for any kids.

It isn't too difficult. The students are just being lazy and want easier work.

I'm sure they are all capable of reading and understanding Milton and Chaucer if they put effort towards it. They just don't want to.

These special snowflakes feel entitled to easy classes studying shitty easy to understand modern poetry while completely ignoring the foundation.

The work is not too difficult. Kids have been reading Chaucer and Milton for hundreds of years. If it was not too difficult for kids in the past, it is not too difficult for kids today.

I am no genius, not even close, and I read Paradise Lost for leisure when I was 16. It is not some incomprehensible and impenetrable work of English like Faulkner or Joyce are.

These Yale kids can do it. They are just entitled and spoiled pieces of shit.

[Dresta]

These are Yale students, top the class honors students with flawless grades and endless lists of extracurricular stuff. They are used to studying their assess off and being perfect. Nearly 50% of the school is composed of valedictorians and salutatorians.

If the material is "far too difficult" for these kids then it's far too difficult for any kids.

That's strange, because it wasn't "far too difficult" for kids 50-100 years ago, before the vast expansions in higher education, and consequent decay in education standards. Unless you think we as human beings have devolved in that space of time, it isn't at all too difficult (this is fact, not speculation). It is only too difficult because our education standards have become so porous, as the egalitarian ethos has ruined elite education, and made even the most prestigious academic institutions mediocre.

I went to a "Russell Group" University too, where almost everyone had an impeccable academic history, and the material was so easy that I could not attend all 3 years, spend most of my time pursuing my own studies, and still graduate with a good grade, after the slightest exam preparation, and a slew of essays written and referenced basically overnight. I told you, that is a direct quotation from a professor (more than one, actually) who teach in such institutions: "students have little love of learning, and just want an easy path to their stamped degree certificate...year after year students have complained about the difficulty of the subject matter, so it's got progressively easier, less individual, more regimented and simplified.."

In this Russell Group University of high acievers, you could go to a science lecture, and if the lecturer said "this isn't going to be on the exam, but is useful to know as well as interesting" an audible groan would pass around the room, many of whom were busy doing some frivilous bullshit on their phones. Universities are filled with people on holiday, not serious students that harbour a love of learning; the preponderance of the former, ruin the whole experience for the latter (not to mention massively hindering their intellectual development).

The academy is decayed beyond repair, and that this is happening at Yale of all places is all the evidence you need to see that this is in fact the case. Egalitarian education has failed, and failed terribly.

You are so full of shit. It's comical.

Oh, ok. Deflect and don't bother to answer the question i posed to you. You admitted that young people are stupid, and yet you buy into an ideology that is primarily propagated and reinforced by the young, and don't see any potential problems with that.

You're such a moron that it's comical, and perhaps another fine creation of a disastrous education system that cultivates mediocrity and blows hubris into the minds of ignorant, puffed up and self-important losers.

[~primetime~]

Yeah sorry, it's very difficult to believe Yale kids are being lazy. They had to work their asses off just to get in. These are the rare freaks that actually love to learn about English poetry.

I believe them when they say their main issue is everyone being white. I don't think they invented that to be lazy or because the material is too hard.



If this was some ordinary university that might be believable, but not Yale.

[Nick Young]

Yeah sorry, it's very difficult to believe Yale kids are being lazy. They had to work their asses off just to get in. These are the rare freaks that actually love to learn about English poetry.

I believe them when they say their main issue is everyone being white. I don't think they invented that to be lazy or because the material is too hard.



If this was some ordinary university that might be believable, but not Yale.

This is what special snowflake culture looks like. Even the elites of the generation are lazy special snowflakes who throw tantrums and play the victim until they get what they want.

There is no English poetry written by non-white English authors that is on par with Chaucer, Milton or Shakespeare in terms of influence or quality.

The Yale students are not even fully educated and yet are attempting to educate their professors about how they should run their course.

[Dresta]

Yeah sorry, it's very difficult to believe Yale kids are being lazy. They had to work their asses off just to get in. These are the rare freaks that actually love to learn about English poetry.

I believe them when they say their main issue is everyone being white. I don't think they invented that to be lazy or because the material is too hard.



If this was some ordinary university that might be believable, but not Yale.

Sorry to break it to you, but Yale is filled to the brim with teenage idiots. My own experience was that the only person I knew at University with a really serious work ethic was an Indian foreign student. Most don't even know what working hard is, you know, because you don't actually need to work hard to get into a place like Yale any more, because the material is so goddam easy. I've directly compared the old General Certificate examinations (replaced by the a-level in the UK), and they were harder than undergrad examinations. Literally any old idiot can graduate with a 2:1 (not sure what the american equivalent is).

Standard have fallen so, so much. It's what happens when you try to raise up the bottom (you only end up pushing down the top, and creating a universal system of mediocrity).

edit: what we have, is a kind of theoretical illiteracy:

[QUOTE]
The causes of such drifts may be found, in part, in the gradual substitution of "pragmatic" standards for old principles of jurisprudence and inherited political institutions. With few exceptions, schools of law have encouraged this progress. There may come to pass the triumph of what Eric Voegelin called "theoretical illiteracy" in law and politics. A university student of considerable native intelligence inquires of me why checks and balances are at all desirable in politics. Why should we not simply train up an elite of governmental administrators, he inquires, trust to their good will and abilities, and let them manage the concerns of the nation?

This growing na

[~primetime~]

Again nearly 50% of the school is composed of valedictorians and salutatorians.

If these kids are idiots then all kids are idiots. If this material is too hard for them, it's too hard for any kids.

[Nick Young]

Again nearly 50% of the school is composed of valedictorians and salutatorians.

If these kids are idiots then all kids are idiots. If this material is too hard for them, it's too hard for any kids.

It was not too hard for kids 50-100 years ago when Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton were taught in HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH.

Ok dude. It is not that hard to be a valedictorian, especially in normal high schools.

I went to magnet schools and "highly gifted" schools for my entire life. This is something you need to understand:


High intelligence and potential does not always go hand in hand with high work ethic or common sense.

Someone simply being intelligent and having a high IQ does not mean that they also are great at everything else.


It is EASY to be a valedictorian. All it requires is turning in your easy school work on time and having a few extracurricular activities that look good on a transcript. This is especially easy if you have helicopter parents who force you to do this shit and plan it all out for you, as many of these kids in Yale have.

Many of the kids I grew up with went to Harvard and Yale, and other prestigious universities.

It is not like they are all elite and driven people. Homework is ****ing easy, even in the AP courses. My friends and I did not study at all in high school and got top grades. I did not study for shit and got 99th percentile in all my SATs except for Math which I got 70th percentile in. Many of my friends similarly did not study and got top grades anyways.


Getting good grades in high school, even AP courses IS NOT HARD AT ALL.

High IQ does not mean you will be driven and make smart decisions.

Again I'm not trying to claim that I am some kind of genius. What I am saying is that the modern education system is ****ing easy. Compared to what kids were learning in school 50-100 years ago, we all have it on easy mode.


Many of these kids have massive egos because they were told by everyone around them their entire lives what little geniuses they are.

These kind of mega egos combined with identity politics=bad news for everyone.



Stop acting like every kid in Yale is some kind of academic super hero. Many of them are just asshole spoiled rich kids.


Kids who went to Yale 100-150 years ago and studied literature were able to quote passages from the Illiad and Aeneid by heart. They literally memorized that shit, as well as several other great poems.

If people back in the day could do that, why can't modern kids do it on easy mode with all the benefits of modern culture?

Standards have relaxed so much and it pisses me off.

[Dresta]

This all comes down to a mistaken view of education.

The absurd claims made by campus activists are a direct consequence of ignorance. Ignorance of the material, ignorance of its context.

What those students are asking, no demanding of their elders is the right to remain ignorant... based on arguments that only make sense if you are as ignorant as they are.

Ultimately, those students are opposed to the very idea of learning... and so ceding to those demands is signing up for the destruction of education itself.

Almost by definition, students shouldn't be the ones to determine the exact content of what is taught... their preferences can only be based on what they already know at a particular point in time, or unfounded opinions... what they already know, they don't need to learn, and unfounded opinions shouldn't be taken into account.

If you don't believe that knowledge is better than ignorance.. and that to overcome their ignorance, the ignorant must learn from a knowledgeable source... what are you doing at university? And what in the hell are you doing teaching there? No one is forcing you to do any of those things.

Similarly, you go to a library to read one of the books on the shelves. You can criticize a book (preferably after you've read it), or you can write your own, but the point of going to a library is to read one of the books that happen to be there for you to read.

This whole idea that everything you need to know is already inside of you is incredibly dangerous. Truth, as well as personal growth, both come from confrontation with things on the "outside"...

Good post brah. Kids are now so ignorant that they aren't even aware of their own ignorance. They've been taught so little that they think they know everything, and think it their right to dictate to others how they ought to be educated, and how the curriculum ought to be fitted to their proclivities.

I found this mentality disturbingly prevalent when I was at University, and it seems to be getting worse, at an alarming rate.

[BoutPractice]

Of course a lot of it also has to do with the politics of identity and social justice.

But again, the tendency to hijack the curriculum based on such concerns stems from a fallacy regarding the purpose of education.

The purpose of education is not to express your identity... but to enrich your understanding through discovery and contact with the outside world.

Neither is the purpose of education to find justice... instead, education requires you to make an honest commitment to truth-seeking, even and especially if the truth isn't just.

[Dresta]

Many of these kids have massive egos because they were told by everyone around them their entire lives what little geniuses they are.

.

This was echoed to me repeatedly by professors. It's that the universities are filled with students who are used to getting close to 100% in everything, and so when they get material they can't understand, or can't get to grips with, and the teacher won't hold their hands and do it for them (like in school), they blame the material, and "demand" changes. You get girls in hysterics over getting a 60 when they're used to getting 100%, and because they suck at private study, the material, or the lecturer, is to blame.

Not everyone who has an impeccable high school record will be able to cope with difficult material that they have to grasp on their own. There is a humungous gap between high school history and taking a proper, rigorous course in classics, for example (you know, as it used to be, when you had to learn Greek and Latin, and read the ancient texts in their original languages). If you took English in the 1940s and 1950s (considered easy alternative to classics), you had to learn old english and read beowolf in its original (a course J.R.R Tolkein used to teach at Oxford); this level of rigour simply does not exist in places like Yale any longer.

[Nick Young]

This was echoed to me repeatedly by professors. It's that the universities are filled with students who are used to getting close to 100% in everything, and so when they get material they can't understand, or can't get to grips with, and the teacher won't hold their hands and do it for them (like in school), they blame the material, and "demand" changes. You get girls in hysterics over getting a 60 when they're used to getting 100%, and because they suck at private study, the material, or the lecturer, is to blame.

Not everyone who has an impeccable high school record will be able to cope with difficult material that they have to grasp on their own. There is a humungous gap between high school history and taking a proper, rigorous course in classics, for example (you know, as it used to be, when you had to learn Greek and Latin, and read the ancient texts in their original languages). If you took English in the 1940s and 1950s (considered easy alternative to classics), you had to learn old english and read beowolf in its original (a course J.R.R Tolkein used to teach at Oxford); this level of rigour simply does not exist in places like Yale any longer.

Yep.

Alot of these kids who grew up with helicopter parents, having their entire lives scheduled, ticking all the boxes through highschool to be the best candidate for college possible FLOP LIKE FISHES once they get in to university and have to do and figure things out on their own without their mom or teacher holding their hand at every step telling them exactly what to do.


UNFORTUNATELY, universities are responding to this by making the courses easier to pass. They view students as "customers" and instead of having academic standards, they go with the "customer is always right" mentality and so lower standards and make things simpler so that their "customers" will be happy and return the next year and give them all of that tuition money.

Source: I worked in the UK education sector for a year. That was how it was. I literally sat in board meetings where Vice-Chancellors of universities would say this kind of shit in minuted meetings, and no one batted an eyelash.

[~primetime~]

It's easy to be valedictorian?

You know only one person can be valedictorian right?

[Nick Young]

It's easy to be valedictorian?

You know only one person can be valedictorian right?

If you go to some buttfuck high school like the kind you went to? Yes. It is easy to be valedictorian if you dedicate you high school career to becoming it and have parents doing their best to help you achieve it.

You probably could have done it yourself dude if you really wanted to and dedicated all of your time since high school year to becoming it.

Fortunately, you chose to live life instead. High school grades and achievements do not mean shit and you did the right thing.

many of these valedictorian kids are sheltered weirdos with massive egos who can't handle freedom once their regimented life goes away when they get to college. For the most part, they are not people we should aspire to be like. I witnessed so many meltdowns from these kinds of "high achievers" during university and I always found it hilarious.

[Dresta]

Kids who went to Yale 100-150 years ago and studied literature were able to quote passages from the Illiad and Aeneid by heart. They literally memorized that shit, as well as several other great poems.

Not only that, but quote from the former in Greek, and the latter in Latin.

Someone with the talents of Enoch Powell, for example, would have no outlet for them in today's universities. There would be no challenge; everything would be dull and straightforward, and therefore of no interest.

While at university, in one Greek prose examination lasting three hours, he was asked to translate a passage into Greek. Powell walked out after one and a half hours, having produced translations in the styles of Plato and Thucydides. For his efforts, he was awarded a double starred first in Latin and Greek, this grade being the best possible and extremely rare. As well as his education at Cambridge, Powell took a course in Urdu at the School of Oriental Studies, now the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, because he felt that his long-cherished ambition of becoming Viceroy of India would be unattainable without knowledge of an Indian language.[6] Powell went on to learn other languages, including Welsh (in which he jointly edited a medieval legal text), modern Greek, and Portuguese.

Was a full professor of ancient Greek at 25 . These sorts of people (i.e. the most talented) have nowhere in the modern academy where they can properly develop their talents. Thus they find the whole process banal and alienating; at a period when they should be developing the most, they are held back by the mass; we've lost sight of what our universities are for, and that is the cultivation and development of the best and brightest, not the levelling of the whole. We live in a culture dominated by the expert, but the expert now goes through the same bog-standard education as everyone else. If you are going to have a society managed by "experts", at least make sure you create the conditions that allow them to become worthy of their title.

More invariably means worse. How things have progressed have proven this hypothesis.

[~primetime~]

If you go to some buttfuck high school like the kind you went to? Yes. It is easy to be valedictorian if you dedicate you high school career to becoming it and have parents doing their best to help you achieve it.

You probably could have done it yourself dude if you really wanted to and dedicated all of your time since high school year to becoming it.

Fortunately, you chose to live life instead. High school grades and achievements do not mean shit and you did the right thing.

many of these valedictorian kids are sheltered weirdos with massive egos who can't handle freedom once their regimented life goes away when they get to college. For the most part, they are not people we should aspire to be like. I witnessed so many meltdowns from these kinds of "high achievers" during university and I always found it hilarious.

You don't know anything about my high school.

There were 3,000 kids in my graduating class, my high school was enormous. Being valedictorian was extremely difficult, obviously.


Parents that get their kids into Yale are good parents, Ivy League kids run this country, don't kid yourself into thinking they are pampered idiots, that's everyone else in the country. Id be proud as fck if my kids went ivy league, only a complete dumb fck wouldn't.