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You must be middle class. In fact, what you described in precisely what the vast majority of the lower class feels like, and grew up feeling like.

You should read the book "Pedagogy of the Oppressed," it's a classic and I bet it'll open your eyes. You might like it.

Oppression is violence [1]. The willful disregard of laws enacted by a democratically elected legislature (from Uber's disregard of Taxi Medallions, airbnb's disregard of occupancy laws, to 2008-era banking scandals) of the upper class (successful entrepreneurs) is oppression against the lower classes.

Usually, this is taken care of through the courts, wherein the judicial system punishes people for crimes -- again, an act of violence. However, in the absence of punishment or a judiciary aligned with the interests of oppressors, the oppressed are morally justified in enacting punishment and responding to violence in kind.

[1] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1967.

Tell us how you really feel: "...His declaration in Pedagogy of the Oppressed that there was 'no such thing as a neutral education' became a mantra for leftist professors, who could use it to justify proselytizing for America-hating causes in the college classroom..."

I know hackernews doesn't obsess about being "fair and unbiased" as much some sites, but I'm unwilling to consider an argument couched in such ridiculous terms.

"the purpose of technical universities is to teach broads concepts on computer science"

Which might be a fine way to teach in those nations where college is free, but even there, ignoring the interests of the student, and sticking with a standard canon of course work, undercuts the uniqueness of each student.

And in those nations where college is not free, then the cost of spending time on broad topics needs to be balanced with the student's ability to pay for it.

The style of teaching that you describe is criticized by Paulo Freire in his book "Pedagogy of the Oppressed".

"In the book Freire calls traditional pedagogy the "banking model" because it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge, like a piggy bank. However, he argues for pedagogy to treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy_of_the_Oppressed

This is a model of teaching that can work well if the student is affluent enough that they don't have to worry about money for several years, but it is a style of teaching that really breaks down for 2 important groups:

1.) adults who need to learn a new skill

2.) just about everyone who lives in a poor country

Freire developed his ideas while he was teaching adults to read and write.

There is a teaching style that caters more to the full circumstances of the students, taking into account their age and their economic situation and their interests, so that the teaching empowers them with knowledge, without also disempowering them in other ways (such as crushing them with debt).

You might be interested in Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

It is essentially a framework that relies on the simple idea you posted. No individual must be forced to acquiesce to supposed "needs" of their culture.

Think for yourself. Know that you are right in your own thoughts, but that others are right in theirs. THOUGHTS being key; he was no moral relativist.

The utilitarian needs of humanity, aka what society should be about, must be openly debated and decided by inclusive dialectic.

He uses his homeland of Brazil to describe how European forms of government were "imported" and forced on the will of the public.

I'll argue until the end traditional values haven't gone anywhere. We still expect social conformity, it's just not towards the Bible. Get a job, start a business, and only do what's profitable.

The very opposite of being free.

"subversively, even as it maintains the status quo." You left that off for some reason. Have you read that book? Good essays, from there you should read Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Pedagogy of Hope (spoiler, I would tell you to read those regardless of what you quoted. . . )

No, I'm not full of it, you just misread my statement; apparently I didn't make it clear enough and I do genuinely apologize for that.

These individuals did, in fact, study what culture means and what it teaches those around us; I never said they didn't. It's called Critical Pedagogy for a reason. Said simply, you are critically thinking about lessons - formal, informal, wherever, whenever. As I said, read Freire - he's easily the best of the group and the most accessible.

What these individuals didn't do was attempt to directly point individual art and entertainment pieces in one direction - that was my original claim.

There is a difference between informing others about culture's lessons and the hidden (for lack of a better word) meaning behind art while asking people to be aware of the lessons they are learning and the lessons they are teaching and the rabid, hateful nonsense that 'social justice warriors' are spouting about specific changes that need to be made to specific games/websites/books, etc.

Do you not see the difference?

"I highly doubt teaching something like "Pedagogy of the Oppressed", which is written by a Marxist and starts with the presumption the audience is "oppressed", is going to contribute much to the success of the students in American society"

Did you see the results the ethnic studies track had? Huge success.

"I have hard time figuring out why one would object to such premise and insist that pupils in government schools should be taught racial hate or resentment."

But teaching the real history of the US isn't resentment; the act of teaching these books, which may use less mainstream language, is being conflated with teaching resentment against white people and teaching only to latin@ people, at the expense of white people (it's right there in the lawsuit) -- in other words, "PC". It's a complicated issue and the website isn't the most well-designed, I admit. Not the best example; Zionism is a better one.

All the responses here have been solidly middle class condemnations. There are so many forces at work here, I don't even know where to begin.

I grew up in the American middle class, and probably felt the same way many of you do. I became more sensitive to this sort of thing by:

a) Talking to my wife, who is an immigrant from a lower class, who came here so she could be something. She's a professor now, so we've seen the whole spectrum of society.

b) Experiencing first hand what the system does to people, even those who try really hard to help themselves. It sucks. It's not fair. It's unjust. It provides perverse incentives. You want to believe that's not true, but it's true.

You see him buying a few beers out of context, and you feel justified in thinking he'd better just man up, but you have no /idea/ what that situation is like, and probably (hopefully?) never will.

I suggest reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed to start to get an inkling of what goes on: http://www.amazon.com/Pedagogy-Oppressed-Paulo-Freire/dp/082...

I've read your first link and I can't make much sense for it. They state Latino students are falling behind and they are out to help them - which is a noble goal and would benefit everybody, as basic education is associated with improving virtually every aspect of life of oneself and surroundings. However I can not see how this could be improving by teaching students something like "ethnic studies", whatever this is. Maybe in Arizona they have some different ones, but so far all examples of ethnic studies I've seen could help people be a professor of ethnic studies and not much more, and demand for those is not high enough to support teaching this in schools. I highly doubt teaching something like "Pedagogy of the Oppressed", which is written by a Marxist and starts with the presumption the audience is "oppressed", is going to contribute much to the success of the students in American society. This btw has nothing to do with author being white or not white (I have no idea if he is) or "white" people being offended (most of any people never heard about this book anyway).

I'm not a big fan of the government prescribing what to teach to the children, but if you have government-run schools, that's what you get. As government intervention goes, I don't think something like: "The legislature finds and declares that public school pupils should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people." (this is mentioned as one of the laws that for some reason prevents "ethnic studies" from being taught) is the worst example of it. I have hard time figuring out why one would object to such premise and insist that pupils in government schools should be taught racial hate or resentment.

It's not inaccurate. there is almost always an element of intimidation.

We're dealing with a problem of unjust exclusion through intimidation and violence. The SJW solution? Exclude white male cis from social participation through violence and intimidation. Not a working path.

That won't work. Read the first 10 pages of Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. He talks about the folly of the oppressed that seek liberation by emulating the destructive behaviors of their oppressors. He explains that the oppressor is confined in his role and cannot be expected, even by force, to change. He/She (the oppressor) must be liberated from the cycle of ignorance, fear, and suffeung by the oppressed.

I tend to agree. It fits with what we've seen in history. It makes sense morally. It also aligns with almost every single moral teaching in the world.