Open Letter from Ivy League Proffesors

jmp.princeton.edu...

Some Thoughts and Advice for Our Students and All Students
August 29, 2017
 
We are scholars and teachers at Princeton, Harvard, and Yale who have some thoughts to share and advice to offer students who are headed off to colleges around the country. Our advice can be distilled to three words:

Think for yourself.

Now, that might sound easy. But you will find—as you may have discovered already in high school—that thinking for yourself can be a challenge. It always demands self-discipline and these days can require courage.

In today’s climate, it’s all-too-easy to allow your views and outlook to be shaped by dominant opinion on your campus or in the broader academic culture. The danger any student—or faculty member—faces today is falling into the vice of conformism, yielding to groupthink.

At many colleges and universities what John Stuart Mill called “the tyranny of public opinion” does more than merely discourage students from dissenting from prevailing views on moral, political, and other types of questions. It leads them to suppose that dominant views are so obviously correct that only a bigot or a crank could question them.

Since no one wants to be, or be thought of as, a bigot or a crank, the easy, lazy way to proceed is simply by falling into line with campus orthodoxies.

Don’t do that. Think for yourself.

Thinking for yourself means questioning dominant ideas even when others insist on their being treated as unquestionable. It means deciding what one believes not by conforming to fashionable opinions, but by taking the trouble to learn and honestly consider the strongest arguments to be advanced on both or all sides of questions—including arguments for positions that others revile and want to stigmatize and against positions others seek to immunize from critical scrutiny.

The love of truth and the desire to attain it should motivate you to think for yourself. The central point of a college education is to seek truth and to learn the skills and acquire the virtues necessary to be a lifelong truth-seeker. Open-mindedness, critical thinking, and debate are essential to discovering the truth. Moreover, they are our best antidotes to bigotry. 

Merriam-Webster’s first definition of the word “bigot” is a person “who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices.” The only people who need fear open-minded inquiry and robust debate are the actual bigots, including those on campuses or in the broader society who seek to protect the hegemony of their opinions by claiming that to question those opinions is itself bigotry.

So don’t be tyrannized by public opinion. Don’t get trapped in an echo chamber. Whether you in the end reject or embrace a view, make sure you decide where you stand by critically assessing the arguments for the competing positions.

Think for yourself.

Good luck to you in college!

Paul Bloom
Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology
Yale University

Elizabeth Bogan
Senior Lecturer in Economics
Princeton University

Nicholas Christakis
Sol Goldman Family Professor of Social and Natural Science
Yale University

Carlos Eire
T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies
Yale University

Maria E. Garlock
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Co-Director of the Program in Architecture and Engineering
Princeton University

David Gelernter
Professor of Computer Science
Yale University

Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions
Princeton University

Mary Ann Glendon
Learned Hand Professor of Law
Harvard University

William Happer
Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics, Emeritus
Princeton University

Martha Himmelfarb
Professor of Religion
Princeton University

Robert Hollander
Professor of European Literature and French and Italian, Emeritus
Princeton University

Joshua Katz
Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics
Princeton University

Thomas P. Kelly
Professor of Philosophy
Princeton University

Sergiu Klainerman
Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics
Princeton University

Jon Levenson
Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies
Harvard University

John B. Londregan
Professor of Politics and International Affairs
Princeton University

Uwe Reinhardt
James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Public Affairs
Princeton University

Michael A. Reynolds
Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies
Princeton University

Jacqueline C. Rivers
Lecturer in Sociology and African and African-American Studies
Harvard University

Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe
James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Princeton University

Harvey S. Rosen
John L. Weinberg Professor of Economics and Business Policy
Princeton University

Marta Tienda 
Maurice P. During Professor in Demographic Studies and Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School; and Director, Program of Latino Studies
Princeton University

Noël Valis
Professor of Spanish
Yale University

Tyler VanderWeele
Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Director of the Program on Integrative Knowledge and Human Flourishing
Harvard University

Adrian Vermeule
Ralph S. Tyler, Jr. Professor of Constitutional Law
Harvard University

Keith E. Whittington
William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics
Princeton University

Wow. Seems like people are finally speaking up against the idiocy we are seeing day to day. So happy to see professors from almost all sides of the political spectrum endorsing this.

I wonder, is this just damage control due to their enrollment numbers dropping recently?

I would suspect this will be too little too late.

I was expecting to be angered by some typical "liberal college professor propaganda." Color me pleasantly surprised.

Theyll all be fired by next week. A couple might even get lynched...

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
I don't think any will be fired, but lynched they most certainly will be.

What a breath of fresh air.

originally posted by: TheTory
What a breath of fresh air.

No joke. I was wondering if all Universities had gone total leftist.
Some great thoughts in there but how many students will read it and beyond that, act on it?

Open Letter from Ivy League Proffesors

campus orthodoxies.

Looking back on my time as an academic our campus was populated by everything from Hells Angles, Hare Krishnas, Young Republicans and Black Panthers. But that was at Cal State...Must be different at the Ivy League level.

The only orthodoxies I recall that was observed by faculty and students alike, was a fond affection for hedonism.

originally posted by: Asktheanimals

originally posted by: TheTory
What a breath of fresh air.

No joke. I was wondering if all Universities had gone total leftist.
Some great thoughts in there but how many students will read it and beyond that, act on it?

I don't even have a problem with them being mostly leftists.
I have a problem with them tolerating the rampant intolerance that has been shown against any disagreement with their viewpoint.
It is refreshing to see this.

a reply to: KnoxMSP

White elitist professors telling people how to think!

Time to tear down a statue and beat up some innocent people!

grrrrrr. . . . .

Amen to that. Im glad college professors are pushing back finally. a reply to: KnoxMSP

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: KnoxMSP

White elitist professors telling people how to think!

Time to tear down a statue and beat up some innocent people!

grrrrrr. . . . .

Oh lawd! I can see it now, lol.

I really do not see how anyone could counter this without looking completely foolish.

a reply to: KnoxMSP

Blasphemy from those NAZIS.

Resist! We will not be Divided!

The worst part of it is PEOPLE are paying THOUSANDS for a propaganda message instead of a CAREER.
No one HIRES activism downtown for a living wage.
You have to LIVE a political life for that and WHO wants to be around such a liars paradise but lawyers and parasites of said lawyers?
(Art careers are harder)

originally posted by: worldstarcountry
a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
I don't think any will be fired, but lynched they most certainly will be.

They'll get a fair trial then they'll be lynched.

originally posted by: butcherguy

originally posted by: Asktheanimals

originally posted by: TheTory
What a breath of fresh air.

No joke. I was wondering if all Universities had gone total leftist.
Some great thoughts in there but how many students will read it and beyond that, act on it?

I don't even have a problem with them being mostly leftists.
I have a problem with them tolerating the rampant intolerance that has been shown against any disagreement with their viewpoint.
It is refreshing to see this.

It's easy to be apologetic when you are lined up against a wall with a blindfold on. For the most part, they've been encouraging their side
at hate and not intelligent discussion. The economists dreamt up the idea of globalisation, offshoring, outsourcing, cheap labour.
Then the liberals laugh at those worried about their future:

a reply to: KnoxMSP

I this material going to be on the test?

originally posted by: Excallibacca
I was expecting to be angered by some typical "liberal college professor propaganda." Color me pleasantly surprised.

Same here. Wonder when one of them will be called 'insertthepreferred'ist and fired.