I don't get my information from CNN, but to deny its relevance as you're doing is foolish. The importance of the mainstream media is that it's the most widely watched and the most influential, which is reflected in public opinion and public discourse and even your own posts read like MSM talking points.
This kind of reply sounds like an echo chamber.
Perhaps it's because you watch too much CNN that the reading is affected so much? It appears your own bias is preventing real understanding of my posts... Or perhaps I'm just bad at communicating my point
There's a massive difference between "most widely watched" and "only outlet available".
As a % of viewership, there has never been a time where the dominant news outlets had a smaller relative share... Streaming and access to niche content brings greater diversity, which quite likely is a contributing factor to the polarization of mainstream outlets as they struggle to keep eyes on them.
With respect to lower academic standards, I'm a publishing scientist and I teach courses at one of the world's top twenty universities. Students have a harder time keeping up with standard materials, and the top students are almost always foreign exchange students from East Asia, which reflects poorly on the West.
I see... Perhaps I missed where you framed it as the academic standards of western students?
I didn't realize that academic standards excluded the largest populations on the planet... My comments have been from a humanity perspective, not a localized one.
I'd agree that our education system in North America is failing on many fronts, though it's inextricably linked to factors outside of the school system. Greater diversity, contrary to many poorly grounded talking points, is not one of them.
My mentor worked at another elite university and has been assigning the same term paper for nearly twenty five years, so a perfect longitudinal study. He allows the students to write about whatever they want as long as it relates to the course materials, and there's no page limit. Students today benefit from "the entire breadth of the internet" and ... The papers have gotten shorter and less interesting. My mentor says he's less likely to learn anything from the papers, they often just repeat standard information from Wikipedia and show less critical thinking. Note, these are students who are actually better at tasks like multiple choice exams.
The overall approach to evaluation in our academic institutions is part of the systemic issues that need to be addressed... And yet another area that diversity of thought and voices is challenging dogmas of the past...
Elite universities no longer are the gate keepers of knowledge acquisition, yet remain in many fields the gatekeepers to accessing privilege, social capital and socio-economic advancement. Long past are the days where academia was primarily driven by the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.
Follow the money... When research and science is driven by private and corporate donor interests rather than intellectual curiosity, you get what was paid for.
Nevertheless, while institutions can foster advances in human thought they are not nor have ever been the only avenue... that is only more true today precisely because access to knowledge and diverse thought is greater and spreads faster than ever before.
It also means a lot of poor information & thought spreads rapidly. Hence why I fully agree with you that the risk of backlash and regression is prominent...
Indeed, We might screw it all up.
But that wouldn't be because of the rich diversity of voices that greater inclusion and access provide, it will be because those too stuck in their old ways of thinking, or too blind to their unconscious biases, prefer to burn it all down for fear of the only constant in life. Change.
Discernment is an important aspect of critical thinking. Elite universities are increasingly poor places to develop that capacity, and it ain't the students fault... That's what teachers are supposed to be there for, but increasingly that is not the case... It's sadly no longer what their institutions funders pay them to do. Follow the money.
I'm aware of videos such as those your daughter makes. I too have watched Tropes Against Women and Anita Sarkeesian. I used to like them. They make a sport of "Aha ! A sexist stereotype! Please like my video !" That a lot of people now enjoy partaking in. There's an issue with that though ... The overall narratives and scriptwriting from Hollywood are actually weaker structurally today than they were twenty or thirty years ago. Back to the future may be an example of "Cis Heteronormative Patriarchal White Supremacy" (TM) but it has a very strong story and characters that feel real, it's flat out enjoyable forty years after its release. When I watch Netflix now I barely care about the Hollywood productions, I'm most excited about the foreign ones.
Wow... Just wow. You completely missed the mark here.
I'm not sure that my daughter has ever made a school video yet, she's a writer at heart & that's the medium of content I was referring to. See here how your reading drew conclusions that reflect your bias vs what was offered.
This response sounds eerily like a Jordan Peterson YouTube rant lol (admittedly, my disdain for that vacuous fraud and his empty talking points should not frame my reading of your post, but human all to human am I).
An 8 year old in North America watching a film that casually inserts racist tropes like the hero Calvary chasing off the savage Indians and pointing out that it's problematic for that historical injustice to be portrayed this way, is a sign of the kind of progress being made.
At that age, I was playing with Dukes of Hazzard toys and cheering on the Calvary in every film where the good guys gave chase to the bad guys with no concept of what those normalized depictions were actually about. Go on, tell me more about the quality character & plot development of that bygone era
Ironically, that the scene had no relevance to the actual plot, calls into question your romantizing of past script writing & yet again points to a heavy unconscious bias worth exploring.
Needless to say that I disagree with your perspective on art & film history, but let's leave that for another time.
The type of bias on display in your post I too am working my way through... Our kids simply have a head start (at least those not stuck in school systems being forced back in time by politicians & school trustees trying to run backwards).
If your a scientist, than I'd imagine you appreciate the importance of rigorously acknowledging and exploring your own biases, no?
This has veered well away from hockey. Happy to continue the discussion away from the thread... The offer to share some resources that might help you explore thinking outside the spaces that frame your current perspective remains open. Learning beyond mainstream news, elite institutions & netflix is easier than its ever been... At least for now.
