Friends, Several of you asked that I repost this from earlier this week because you read it once and couldn’t find it again or you heard about it and didn’t know where it was. Herewith: The most important thing I teach my students is to seek out people who disagree with them.
Mr. Reich - Nobody is being arrested for protesting responsibly. Students who are blocking other students from going to class, and students inciting hate and violence are being arrested. You're too smart not to understand the distinction. Why are you conflating and promoting confusion?
I'd just like someone to explain to me how it is that genocide is up for any discussion, anywhere on the planet, as if there's a pro/con argument. This is what boggles my mind, and deeply disturbs me to my core.
Totally agree that we should engage with those with whom we disagree. By the same token, not all opinions are worth serious consideration. The world needs more people who can distinguish the Gazan people from Hamas, Israel from Netanyahu, Iranian people from the theocrats, the Russian people from Putin. A good first step is to stop sloganeering, which inflames passions and is an obstacle to toleration, understanding and peace.
Yes, universities and students should encourage disagreement and discourse BUT not forcing their beliefs upon others or spitting on students or gathering and chanting hurtful slogans and songs or calling for the university to divest resources that these students don't like. What is happening now has gone far beyond discourse- it is pure unadulterated hate. And there are agitators in the groups (not all, of course). What is occurring now is noise- you won't change beliefs or score a good argument because everyone is so full of hate. You can't just chant from the river to the sea- and other such things, which are really calls for a genocide of Jews. Hamas does not want peace with Israel- it wants to obliterate Israel at all costs- even at the damage to its own citizenry. They do not care about their own people and never did. All the years they were in power, there was no business development, no independent creation of goods or services- nothing like what a government does. They took most of the money given to Gaza and utilized it to form their army, making Gazans dependent upon aid from way before Oct 7th. They were planning this for 2 years, using money for food for weapons instead, using money for food for training of its "soldiers" and not for purposes that would help the people. The fact that 13,000 Gazans were employed by UNWRA says it all.
With all due respect, why don't you send your Jewish kids, relatives, friends, others, to continue with their classes on campus? Will you guarantee their safety?
Hamas is responsible for the ongoing 10/7 attack. They are still holding hostages in captivity. They're the oppressors of the Palestinian people and quite frankly, are the Palestinians or vice-versa.
Why don't you read the article from The Hill that discusses the 4 new questions at Passover. It might enlighten you. I believe your opinions on this matter is very damaging and not objective. It's frankly disturbing. If Israel wanted to carry out a massacre, it would look very different. Again, it is Hamas that is responsible for this horrible carnage!
Please offer your protection to the Jewish people that wish to attend their classes. Can you assure their protection? Please answer this!
A good education is a journey. Not a collection of convienient truths but suffering through thoughts that enlighten expand change your view. It also should be an experience of not pleasing professors for external rewards to attain grades, degrees....status...privilege.
You are completely missing the point. What we’re seeing here is hate speech, which is only acceptable to the woke left because it’s against Jews. And yes, Jews, Robert, ARE being harassed. Don’t kid yourself. And you hear NOTHING in these spectacles about the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas and that they are equally, really more responsible for what’s happening in Gaza.
Dr Reich you are absolutely right with one minor exeption. You say 34,000 Palistinians mostly women and childrem, have been killed. What is your source for these figures? Please state your source. It.appears the source is Hamas. What gives with that? Why would you trust a source that, In total terrorist fashion, went into Isreal and SLAUGHTERED 1200 Isrealies and took 250 some odd hostage and started the war? How do we know those numbers are correct? I have another source that says 28,000 of those 34,000 are Hamas Fighters. Please justify your statement of your figures. Otherwise Dr Reich I totally agree with you. What Netanyahu is doing is absolutely horrible. Even if 6,000 women and children are collateral damage that's still too many.
Well said. When I was at Barnard we as students go together with the studesnts at COlumbia, Harvard and Yale and formed Students for Democratic aciton. We helped give life to the civil rights movement, to stop nuclear bomb testing, and start the public radio stataions. Our actions stood the test of time. Instead of jailing students, it is incumbent on the administration of the Universities to channel all that energy. all that vision of what is right for the next generation and help the student organizations have positive effects.
Unfortunately, come of the comments don't seem to realize that protest is not necessarily disruptive, and the recent campus protests have been peaceful and nonviolent — and in many cases, a majority of the protesters against Israel's genocidal attack on Gaza are actually Jewish.
I didn't see them arrest insurrectionist at the site of the insurrection ??? Republicans didn't really have a problem with it, once Trump got them straight ???
Sadly Robert, you are out of date. Universities now are a business, pure and simple, that sell qualifications for excessively high fees and, along the way, meet the absolue minimum standards they can get away with of an education, all packaged up in a glossy marketing package that promises to meet your needs for your dream career. Like most marketing promises it doesn't actually deliver, but it does give you the badge and certificate that might get you to the interview, and enough of the language to blag it through the first year of the job. By then you should have learned enough to blag it until you'd learned the real stuff you really needed to have learned before you started.
I personally think no-one should be allowed to enter university before age 25. Those prospective students should be out doing the kind of job they want the education for, ideally in a hands-on, practical way, and then use their experiences to show they are suitable candidates for a 1st degree. Wouldn't the university world be a better place if architects learned by first building real houses, or naval architects started out as boatbuilders, or social science students had worked of a charity or volunteering in a developing country? Or economists learned at the desk in their local bank, or checkout at their local supermarket?
Although I daresay that so-called 'investment bankers' may learn too much of the skills they'd need at their local bookies or trackside bookmakers!
Today too many university degrees are taught by ex-students who know nothing of their subject except what they studied last year, literally a few pages ahead of their students in the course book. And too many students have simply worked out that the way to pass is to repeat everything their tutor has told them, with no understanding of the meaning of any of it. That is not good enough, and certainly does not, in my book, constitute 'education'.
Perhaps, Robert, your students in the hallowed halls of a top university, and I daresay further selected to be in your presence, might be different. I'm pleased there are a few like that.
Perhaps a few trips into the less-hallowed halls of American learning might disabuse you of the qualities of modern taught higher education?
At least here in france, university fees are only around $450 a year, across the board; 1st degree, masters or doctorate. Imagine if you'd put yourself into tens of thousands of $ of debt for much of the rest of your life, only to receive a crap education that no employer took seriously? Imagine how pissed off you might be if you paid all that money for the qualification and still couldn't get the job. Maybe you guys know someone like that? Maybe even you?
Do you have tips on how to seek out or approach people who disagree with you? I think most of us fear "poking the bear", angering someone we don't understand, or not understanding our own viewpoints sufficiently to be able to defend them adequately. Yet reasoned and extensive discussion about disagreement can only end with some good progress. So how do you go about it?
As a student at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964, I want to share some cautionary words for today's students. The problem with protests is they may strengthen the other side. In 1964 the Cal free Speech Movement strengthened Ronald Reagan and ushered in the conservative movement in America. It seems like the current protests are strengthening the anti Palestinian forces in America and Israel. They have also spawned the vote uncommitted movement.
To simplify things, a vote for uncommitted is a vote for Donald Trump. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for Netanyahu in Israel. A vote for Netanyahu is a vote to annihilate the Palestinian people. Hamas leaders don't care about the Palestinians because they have a "higher purpose" - bringing Iran into the war. Unfortunately, I believe that these protests will have just the opposite effect of the committed students.
If that weren't enough, a vote for uncommitted is also a vote for Donald Trump to call up the U.S. Army to fire bullets into the guts of student protesters or Black Lives Matter protesters. Mr. Trump has promised his "patriots" that he will vanquish peaceful protests in America.
We should celebrate campus demonstrations and debates. Far from arresting demonstrators, we should be building seminars around the issues they highlight. Campus protests aren't disorder - they're a natural form of expression in a free society. They are not to be suppressed. They are to be welcomed and supported, and protected from accidental or intentional violence.
Mr. Reich - Nobody is being arrested for protesting responsibly. Students who are blocking other students from going to class, and students inciting hate and violence are being arrested. You're too smart not to understand the distinction. Why are you conflating and promoting confusion?
I'd just like someone to explain to me how it is that genocide is up for any discussion, anywhere on the planet, as if there's a pro/con argument. This is what boggles my mind, and deeply disturbs me to my core.
Totally agree that we should engage with those with whom we disagree. By the same token, not all opinions are worth serious consideration. The world needs more people who can distinguish the Gazan people from Hamas, Israel from Netanyahu, Iranian people from the theocrats, the Russian people from Putin. A good first step is to stop sloganeering, which inflames passions and is an obstacle to toleration, understanding and peace.
Yes, universities and students should encourage disagreement and discourse BUT not forcing their beliefs upon others or spitting on students or gathering and chanting hurtful slogans and songs or calling for the university to divest resources that these students don't like. What is happening now has gone far beyond discourse- it is pure unadulterated hate. And there are agitators in the groups (not all, of course). What is occurring now is noise- you won't change beliefs or score a good argument because everyone is so full of hate. You can't just chant from the river to the sea- and other such things, which are really calls for a genocide of Jews. Hamas does not want peace with Israel- it wants to obliterate Israel at all costs- even at the damage to its own citizenry. They do not care about their own people and never did. All the years they were in power, there was no business development, no independent creation of goods or services- nothing like what a government does. They took most of the money given to Gaza and utilized it to form their army, making Gazans dependent upon aid from way before Oct 7th. They were planning this for 2 years, using money for food for weapons instead, using money for food for training of its "soldiers" and not for purposes that would help the people. The fact that 13,000 Gazans were employed by UNWRA says it all.
With all due respect, why don't you send your Jewish kids, relatives, friends, others, to continue with their classes on campus? Will you guarantee their safety?
Hamas is responsible for the ongoing 10/7 attack. They are still holding hostages in captivity. They're the oppressors of the Palestinian people and quite frankly, are the Palestinians or vice-versa.
Why don't you read the article from The Hill that discusses the 4 new questions at Passover. It might enlighten you. I believe your opinions on this matter is very damaging and not objective. It's frankly disturbing. If Israel wanted to carry out a massacre, it would look very different. Again, it is Hamas that is responsible for this horrible carnage!
Please offer your protection to the Jewish people that wish to attend their classes. Can you assure their protection? Please answer this!
A good education is a journey. Not a collection of convienient truths but suffering through thoughts that enlighten expand change your view. It also should be an experience of not pleasing professors for external rewards to attain grades, degrees....status...privilege.
You are completely missing the point. What we’re seeing here is hate speech, which is only acceptable to the woke left because it’s against Jews. And yes, Jews, Robert, ARE being harassed. Don’t kid yourself. And you hear NOTHING in these spectacles about the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas and that they are equally, really more responsible for what’s happening in Gaza.
Eloquent writing. I salute you.
Dr Reich you are absolutely right with one minor exeption. You say 34,000 Palistinians mostly women and childrem, have been killed. What is your source for these figures? Please state your source. It.appears the source is Hamas. What gives with that? Why would you trust a source that, In total terrorist fashion, went into Isreal and SLAUGHTERED 1200 Isrealies and took 250 some odd hostage and started the war? How do we know those numbers are correct? I have another source that says 28,000 of those 34,000 are Hamas Fighters. Please justify your statement of your figures. Otherwise Dr Reich I totally agree with you. What Netanyahu is doing is absolutely horrible. Even if 6,000 women and children are collateral damage that's still too many.
Well said. When I was at Barnard we as students go together with the studesnts at COlumbia, Harvard and Yale and formed Students for Democratic aciton. We helped give life to the civil rights movement, to stop nuclear bomb testing, and start the public radio stataions. Our actions stood the test of time. Instead of jailing students, it is incumbent on the administration of the Universities to channel all that energy. all that vision of what is right for the next generation and help the student organizations have positive effects.
I agree with you 100%!
Unfortunately, come of the comments don't seem to realize that protest is not necessarily disruptive, and the recent campus protests have been peaceful and nonviolent — and in many cases, a majority of the protesters against Israel's genocidal attack on Gaza are actually Jewish.
I didn't see them arrest insurrectionist at the site of the insurrection ??? Republicans didn't really have a problem with it, once Trump got them straight ???
Sadly Robert, you are out of date. Universities now are a business, pure and simple, that sell qualifications for excessively high fees and, along the way, meet the absolue minimum standards they can get away with of an education, all packaged up in a glossy marketing package that promises to meet your needs for your dream career. Like most marketing promises it doesn't actually deliver, but it does give you the badge and certificate that might get you to the interview, and enough of the language to blag it through the first year of the job. By then you should have learned enough to blag it until you'd learned the real stuff you really needed to have learned before you started.
I personally think no-one should be allowed to enter university before age 25. Those prospective students should be out doing the kind of job they want the education for, ideally in a hands-on, practical way, and then use their experiences to show they are suitable candidates for a 1st degree. Wouldn't the university world be a better place if architects learned by first building real houses, or naval architects started out as boatbuilders, or social science students had worked of a charity or volunteering in a developing country? Or economists learned at the desk in their local bank, or checkout at their local supermarket?
Although I daresay that so-called 'investment bankers' may learn too much of the skills they'd need at their local bookies or trackside bookmakers!
Today too many university degrees are taught by ex-students who know nothing of their subject except what they studied last year, literally a few pages ahead of their students in the course book. And too many students have simply worked out that the way to pass is to repeat everything their tutor has told them, with no understanding of the meaning of any of it. That is not good enough, and certainly does not, in my book, constitute 'education'.
Perhaps, Robert, your students in the hallowed halls of a top university, and I daresay further selected to be in your presence, might be different. I'm pleased there are a few like that.
Perhaps a few trips into the less-hallowed halls of American learning might disabuse you of the qualities of modern taught higher education?
At least here in france, university fees are only around $450 a year, across the board; 1st degree, masters or doctorate. Imagine if you'd put yourself into tens of thousands of $ of debt for much of the rest of your life, only to receive a crap education that no employer took seriously? Imagine how pissed off you might be if you paid all that money for the qualification and still couldn't get the job. Maybe you guys know someone like that? Maybe even you?
Do you have tips on how to seek out or approach people who disagree with you? I think most of us fear "poking the bear", angering someone we don't understand, or not understanding our own viewpoints sufficiently to be able to defend them adequately. Yet reasoned and extensive discussion about disagreement can only end with some good progress. So how do you go about it?
As a student at the University of California at Berkeley in 1964, I want to share some cautionary words for today's students. The problem with protests is they may strengthen the other side. In 1964 the Cal free Speech Movement strengthened Ronald Reagan and ushered in the conservative movement in America. It seems like the current protests are strengthening the anti Palestinian forces in America and Israel. They have also spawned the vote uncommitted movement.
To simplify things, a vote for uncommitted is a vote for Donald Trump. A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for Netanyahu in Israel. A vote for Netanyahu is a vote to annihilate the Palestinian people. Hamas leaders don't care about the Palestinians because they have a "higher purpose" - bringing Iran into the war. Unfortunately, I believe that these protests will have just the opposite effect of the committed students.
If that weren't enough, a vote for uncommitted is also a vote for Donald Trump to call up the U.S. Army to fire bullets into the guts of student protesters or Black Lives Matter protesters. Mr. Trump has promised his "patriots" that he will vanquish peaceful protests in America.
We should celebrate campus demonstrations and debates. Far from arresting demonstrators, we should be building seminars around the issues they highlight. Campus protests aren't disorder - they're a natural form of expression in a free society. They are not to be suppressed. They are to be welcomed and supported, and protected from accidental or intentional violence.