Texas A&M Warns Professor Not to Teach Plato Because of Gender Rules
Category: News & Politics
Via: john-russell • 10 months ago • 36 commentsBy: Alan Blinder (nytimes)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The university is reviewing courses under new rules restricting teaching about race and gender. Administrators told a philosophy professor to cut some lessons on Plato to comply.
Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor at Texas A&M University, was thunderstruck when he was told on Tuesday that he needed to excise some teachings of Plato from his syllabus. It was one way, his department head wrote in an email, that Dr. Peterson's philosophy class could comply with new policies limiting discussion of race and gender.
Days before the start of the spring semester, one of the nation's largest public universities is racing to interpret and enforce the A&M system's rules. Some professors are reconsidering syllabuses at the direction of administrators, or are unsure whether they will be able to lead certain classes. Course sections are being canceled or potentially reclassified, threatening students' schedules.
And professors are worried that they are losing the academic freedom they prize.
"A philosophy professor who is not allowed to teach Plato?" Dr. Peterson said in an interview on Wednesday. "What kind of university is that? Is that really what they want?"
"How," he added, "can we possibly teach philosophy without being allowed to discuss Plato, even if some of Plato's ideas are a little bit controversial?"
Texas A&M, which is in College Station, said in a statement on Wednesday that the university would "teach numerous dialogues by Plato in a variety of courses this semester and will continue to do so in the future." Other, approved sections of the same course, the university said, "include works by Plato but do not include modules on race and gender ideology."
In recent months, bowing to conservative critics in the State Capitol, the university system's regents have eagerly endorsed new limits on academic instruction.
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College students forbidden from learning Plato's thoughts ?
They are old enough to live away from home but not old enough to hear a philosopher from 2500 years ago talk about sex ?
This is a tiny preview of what will happen if the Christian Nationalists take over.
The powers that be don't want people thinking for themselves. God forbid if Plato says something contrary to their morality. I wouldn't know, never read Plato or studied him
Homosexuality was acceptable behavior in the ancient world, maybe because the Bible had not yet taken hold.
Plato is most well known for the book Republic - a fictional idealized state, Kallipolis. The overarching theme is "What is justice?" though it also delves into ideas of the soul, reality, knowledge and education. Kallipolis is run by a philosopher-king who governs by reason, love and truth.
I've been toying with the idea of setting up a new group when I'm not so busy where we can discuss philosophy and logic.
The Greeks were known to practice all manor of sexual behavior, including homosexuality. The part of the Bible that says a man shouldn't lay with another man was one of a whole set of rules for Greek priests converting to Christianity.
I would like that
Plato's retreat?
tho that would mean I would have to pick up some philosophy books
Does Heinlein count?
You don't like Heinlein?
Love his books. Literally read all of them.
Wouldn't call him a philosopher, through.
I've only read 2 Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land. I thought both were full of philisophical ideas.
I think thats true. Anyone can be a philosopher depending on how you define it.
I philosophize often on my deck with a beer in my hand
I hope you’re drinking good beer. Cheap beer leads to bad philosophy.
Time Enough for Love is one of the most important books I've read.
you wouldn't think it's good beer
Also try Christopher Stasheff...
No.
He uses his cell phone!
Also read Michael Moorcock's The War Hound and the World's Pain. Zelanzny's The Chronicles of Amber, the original 5 book series (The Corwin Cycle) is better than the second 5 books (The Merlin Cycle).
What is a philosopher? It is someone who thinks about why we do what we do in order to propose a logical way, an imposition of order, on the how and the why of deriving answers from the chaotic information of what we think we know.
So, one would think that in a college level class on philosophy, one should be able to think for one self, and not need the nanny state overlooking the classroom.
Well then, better ban Homer's Odyssey as well - those Sirens are going to turn the students into sex maniacs. While they're at it, better ban the showing of O Brother Where Art Thou as well.
ezpz, find out which POS thumpers in texas blew the whistle and tack their sacks to their church doors ...
Ahh, the old anti-awareness crowd swings back into college. Only some thoughts can be thought, obviously.
Who are the ones doing the canceling?
I wonder if they are going to allow courses on the Fall of the Weimar Republic? How about the end of the Roman Republic? There are "dangerous" parallels to the current situation in both.
Did anyone know that the expression: "No trump" is now banned from being used while playing the card game Bridge.
that's gonna make the blue hairs mad
Soon these puritanical types will want to ban a Royal Flush!
It can always be found in the bathrooms of Kings.
B-o-o-o-o ! !
LOL
Wait until they find out about Aristotle.
Socrates mentored Plato and Plato was taught Aristotle. They were all weird dudes...
Smart, though. Highly intelligent. Brilliant thinkers.
Most highly intelligent people are a little weird.
Plato wan't Murican.
Screw 'im.
But was he actually "White"?