"Two incompatible sacred values in American universities" Jon Haidt, Hayek Lecture Series
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it heavily in diversity and academia debates as an intellectual analysis of the truth versus social justice conflict.
What it is
Jonathan Haidt's Hayek Lecture at Duke argues American universities pursue two potentially incompatible sacred values, truth and social justice. He discusses campus conflict, honor, dignity and victimhood cultures, and viewpoint diversity.
Recommended by 6 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2017 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec plainOldText · 2017-08 · on “Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo”
Somewhat related to the issue at hand and representative of the current, very charged landscape on social issues, is this video: [this video] The speaker makes the case that current social conflicts at many American universities – though probably representative of the general population as well – arise because people are pursuing two, potentially incompatible goals: truth and social justice. I think it's a highly informative video. Of course, I'd love to watch other videos contradicting or challenging this one, if anyone can provide some links.
Strong rec mparr4 · 2017-08 · on “How I, a woman in tech, benefited from sexism in Silicon Valley”
Jonathan Haidt does a great job explaining Honor, Dignity, and Victimhood cultures: [this video] (whole talk is excellent) His take is a little different (that Victimhood culture is a result of a march through time from Honor to Dignity to Victimhood). He's referencing the same paper [1] mentioned in the reason.com article. [1] - Microaggression and Moral Cultures [LINK]
Strong rec Rapzid · 2018-05 · on “Updating the Go Code of Conduct”
I'm glad you posted this.. I had heard about anti CoC a while back(perhaps from you?) but never really dug into it.. Video game journalism was ruined for me back in 2011 and 2012 for reasons we all know and I was hyper aware of at the time. It went through a very dark time and is hopefully coming out the other side now.. I had not really paid much attention to the infiltration of the tech community. While I had noticed a few things such bikeshedding of issues on Github, as well as the whole node.js trigger word ordeal, my distaste for the whole thing at that point led me to largely ignore it.. I've been on a huge information gathering binge since your post though. Randi Harper, electronconf,
Recommends BadassFractal · 2017-05 · on “Why do so few people major in computer science?”
Can we already kill the meme that CS or STEM are hostile to women? Correlation does not imply causation. Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment. Nobody in the right mind looks at the 94% of child care services jobs being filled by women and exclaims "Aha! Systemic sexism against men, matriarchal oppression afoot, we must address this social injustice!", yet all common sense falls apart when it comes to STEM. Good talk on the subject here: [this video]
Recommends ternaus · 2020-07 · on “The Ideological Corruption of Science”
Jon Haidt talks about it for a while. [this video] I would recommend the book: The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure [LINK]
Recommends Rayhem · 2022-12 · on “Young adults are struggling with their mental health”
>I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all... This is the second time this week I'll have linked this here on HN but I'm exceptionally happy to do so. Jonathan Haidt has a topical discussion[1] about that and hypothesizes it stems from an utter lack of viewpoint diversity as kids grow up. He states that universities have sought to remove all emotional distress, when they're supposed to be the place where you go to have your ideas challenged and feel a little distressed about it. [1]: [this video]
Cites z5h · 2017-06 · on “ElectronConf postponed until a “more diverse slate of speakers” can be delivered”
Social justice is not justice. Social justice is not compatible with truth (science, math, physics, software engineering, etc). [this video]
Cites BadassFractal · 2017-08 · on “I’m an Ex-Google Woman Tech Leader and I’m Sick of Our Approach to Diversity”
> I'm sick of tired of the hiring strawman. The reason there's a scarcity of women and other minorities is that many companies have a culture that's full of toxic sewage. Correlation does not imply causation. Is rampant systemic sexism the reason why most oil rig workers are male? Is rampant systemic sexism the reason why 95% of child care teachers are women? [this video] Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment.