The Primary Mission of the University Should Be Social Justice | Berkeley

the primary mission of the University should be social justice three two one go okay oh wow you moved I didn't even say anything you you you're your own intervention wow okay so sorry I have this thing so the primary Mission so you slightly agree tell us why we you agree son um I think like you're at University you're here to like solve the big issues and I think one of those is social justice I think I mean I mean like that term is like taken on its own like like own Spirit over the past few years but I think like at a score like we want Society to be better for more people and that is social justice okay um if I gave you a wand and you could wave the wand and you could do away with either anthropogenic global warming in other words global warming or racism which would you wave the wand to eliminate I mean I feel like that's like a gotcha question right okay substitute something in there anything you want you have a wand you can wave away social justice or you can Rave away racism with one thing or you can I don't know stop inflation and perpetuity I mean oh yeah that's also like like if like these aren't like comparable things you know okay so all right so let me ask you this question I'm trying to drill down to how important that is to you so why is it that if it's correct that the Earth is warming and I don't know if you accept those facts and okay so I accept those faxes too and and why is it that if um you listen to climate scientists they tell us it's a serious problem do you think it's a serious problem I think it's like a misunderstanding of like science versus uncertainty right okay I guess let's just say so where I'm going is why shouldn't the primary mission of the university to be to solve climate change why is it to solve social justice like the primary like University is gearing students to solve all the problems that exist and social justice is one of them because like we're social creatures we live in a society right but that wouldn't be primary it would be primary along with all the other issues we face right do me a favor because I could be totally wrong about this do you define primary lay down can you just look up Prime because I could be totally wrong about this okay tell me you slightly disagree yeah tell us tell us why I would say that it depends on the context of why you're going so things like math don't really have a component but that's it if you make an argument that you believe in meritocracy then that implies that the only variable that should matter is You're competencing Something and and no raised under anything else so I think a component of meritocracy is treating everyone independent of race color social choice there's an implied Justice and meritocracy so yeah so what do we do if there's a conflict between social justice uh and some other value like truth let me give you an example it's not it's I really don't mean it to be a gotcha question so the president of Portland State University came out and said that racial Justice is the highest priority of the university the highest priority that means all priorities you adjudicate the priorities if they fall on the side of um um racial Justice how so you you are slightly disagree so what role should social justice play in the classroom oh and if I made one more I don't want me to complicate this but and what what year did you graduate and what role did it play when you were in school I graduated 2006 and I don't know that the role would have been his I don't think I mean that was before social media really came so it wasn't as but but I would still I would say you'd have to start by asking the question of what does it mean what is promoting social justice mean like like I said argue that treating like it took my meritocracy then I would say if Social Justice Means treating everyone similarly independent or based solely on the variable for which you're engaging then I think being fair is a component but but I don't know how you define social justice to know whether or not we're talking about it similarly okay so we're going to Define that what is the definition of primary do you got it well there you go so you can't have a university that's both geared to solve global climate change and social justice if one is primary universities don't have a primary purpose like they have a multitude of purposes right it's to educate the public so that we can solve problems like the question poses it in such a way that like okay like here's here's a question like if you could wave a wand and you could either fix climate change or you could fix world hunger right climate change okay sure and like would you say that like like both these are important right one species surrendering one is species so I I I'm gonna I'm gonna get back to a second but I morally triage those problems in terms of the scale of the destruction but I'll come back to you hold on a second I have to walk around can you walk up there a little bit okay so you two are strongly disagree this is very interesting why let me read the question I think we've lost track of the question the primary mission of the University should be social justice that's right when you do these you never really know what anybody's gonna say so it's easy to fall down various rabbit holes so you strongly disagree yes um but actually he does make a good point like social justice is a component of society that universities should take on who the man on slightly disagree uh uh but absolutely disagree and slightly agree so that would persuade me action so you want to move yeah okay hi Hey so uh you asked him when he graduated and that may be relevant so I graduated in 1994 from here and so a lot of the in what field uh I was in Biochemistry with a CS minor that's way over my head okay yeah so any anyway um to me it seems like uh there are two relevant questions right one of which uh is the question that you asked which is strongly loaded uh right because primary right means as you pointed out to the exclusion essentially correct absolutely correct that's why yeah so it is a loaded question because if you follow down that particular path then anything else that the university might be here to do like create a promote critical thinking or give context to try and understand problems this problem included okay is secondary to normalize amazing a particular set of people who are here because you're not going to impact it outside of the students that are here right so to to me it's like okay what the University's purpose is with respect to the students that are here and to a much lesser effect to influencing the world outside of the University I mean yes that exists but its primary mission is to the students who are here that's why we're here that's why the the university exists okay and so the idea of saying that you know all the other things that we are here to do we're here to learn about a particular subject area whether it's math or whether it's about social justice right but the point is is that the benefit of a university is its scalability it's preparing a broad set of people to think critically about all of the things whether that's social justice or climate change or biology so one one thing primary Mission so one thing you didn't say and I don't want to put words in your mouth it seems to me that if I just translated everything you said it would it again to tell me if I'm wrong I'm happy to tell you if you're wrong yeah thank you and a gorgeous Plato says it's better to be refuted than than to refute uh so you believe that the primary mission of the University should be truth oh that's an interesting thing um I don't disagree with that okay but uh what I would say is I think the primary purpose of the university is to prepare its students to seek truth which is slightly different okay and I I think that adequate preparation for each individual to pursue truth to the best extent that they can in the field that they can make the greatest impact in is the primary Mission okay all right foreign if there's a conflict between truth and social justice on which side should the university air like what do you can you give me an example yeah like uh the one that we did before this um um what's the definition of a woman or certain facts about climate change or certain fact about biology or certain facts about things that deal with racial or social justice basically Equity Equity is a value that for example whether Equity should be the north star of our institutions like I think as he mentioned universities serve to prepare students and you know like you know solving like real world issues solving social issues or like derivatives of this what's this in that sentence derivatives of preparing students like these are all like that's they they want good in the world they want you know the max amount of people to be happy orally not happy but like have things that they want like just reach goals that they have right and is that best to change I'm not sure that's true but is that best achieved by focusing on Truth or focusing on social justice I don't think these are like this is a choice okay let me ask you a question let's say that we have the unequivocal testimony of black men who claim to be pulled over by the police disproportionately uh to asian females and then we have the data uh of you know the body cams the police radio that matches when the officer calls it in today and we have data that conflicts that on which side should we air should we err on the side of the data or should we err on the side of the lived experiences of the black people of young black men we should take both into account because like why would it be that like something statistically insignificant is seeming significant on an anecdotal level like what does that say about okay so accepted by Fiat though sure like if if you know like if you like listen like old Kanye like you have this anti-anti-police kind of like mentality right like I think like the common phrase like [ __ ] the Police NWA what that's NWA okay well like you know I was listening like the old College Dropout album which also has the line like one of the songs but like like if when there's like a severe mistrust of like the institution that's supposed to protect us like I think that's an anecdote that's very much worth thinking about even if the numbers like per se don't show that like you know like maybe like white people have more crime command against them whatever it doesn't matter like like the fact that there's like severe mistrust means that there's like something there and like we have to use more than just survey right it does mean that there's something there but the question is what's the there what there is there no the question was you said should I use survey like numbers or should I use anecdote and I said like this is like a false dichotomy of a question like you're giving me two choices but like the answer is neither do I'm just do we use that form of reasoning with anything else in our lives yes give me an example of a matter of fact that we adjudicate like that so like when you're doing data science right um all right I'm like a math and CS major all right I'm trying to figure out okay which stocks are going out which stocks are going down all right and I'm looking at like correlations right if I just see correlations I'm not going to just say okay every time this stock goes up I'm gonna buy you know every time silver goes up I'm gonna buy gold right I'm gonna look at is there like a deeper relationship between these two things and and is there like something like about the anecdote like um is there like some kind of thing like external Factor I'm not thinking about like this we do this all the time for like everything we think about we use numbers plus like intuition and like like kind of like thinking you know because like science is like you study like what you choose to study like you ask the question and so I have to respond to the correct correct right but like which questions we're asking is important like just as important absolutely is there anything he said that person persuaded you to move one line to neutral no tell me why because I so okay I think as a starting point I think you have to start by defining what do you mean by social justice and if you say that social justice means you treat people similarly irrespective of race gender then I think that's a starting point to truths like how can we talk about climate change if a black or an Indian or a white person doesn't have a seat at the table so we have to start with equal access to me which is social justice but that's a predecessor to you know meritocracy or learning or anything like that I think the question might be if you define social justice differently then it might be a difference of definition not um right like yeah like that that's a great argument for for your line good at choosing it I thought that was a solid argument for your line would it did you have something that you wanted to say I was just going to say I mean so it's interesting that you're studying data science because that's what I do I mean that's part of what I do but um and to your point right about uh both being important right and sometimes following intuition sure that's absolutely right you're trying to try you're trying to double check models make sure they don't suggest something that's completely absurd right and it's absolutely important to follow your intuition and to follow anecdotes and other things to make sure that your data sets are representative of what you're trying to model right and that speaks very much to what you were saying right I mean if there's something where we're excluding relevant data because of some blindness and that absolutely happens with the way that we see race or gender or all sorts of other things right this makes us produce worse models right so the point is is that we should use all of the tools that we have right to try and get the best most representative data sets so that our models don't lie to us correct right and this is fabulously important right because we're putting an enormous uh power Behind These models which you know right I mean essentially automation allows us to have incredible impact from the results of these models so they better be right you're agreeing or disagreeing with them no I'm I'm agreeing that it is important to use all sorts of things to collect data that's representative but at the end of the day your model isn't running on anecdotes your model is running on data and as long as your data is representative you better trust the data right yeah so in that sense one would defer to the data as long as I felt that the data was representative then yes you defer to the data however if I feel that the data has been cherry-picked or biased in a way that it's going to lead to an improper model prediction then I go back and I look for new data so why did you use the word feel and not think uh specifically and so when he was talking about feeling right there is a very real component to doing this kind of work where you look at models and it produces something and you go okay does that make any sense right and there's this moment where you catch yourself and you look at the model and you say well wait a minute did I just enter it wrong was there okay and so as a as you know as a bug check as a like hey is you know did I enter it wrong all right I gotta have that okay yeah so you've moved are you you and you are you content here now yes I'm content yes anybody said anything that persuaded you to move um if anything in this direction really tell me why where did you start off well I did start off there it's fine too you can keep going all you want so tell me why why would that what has persuaded you to move in that direction uh because of the context of the question social justice should be an aspect of what universities touch upon and like what you learn but it shouldn't be the prime primary that's the key words primary yeah that's probably what would sway me yeah would you like to move it's up to you um yes okay okay go ahead all right um so she's changed her mind did anything he say persuaded you to to persuade you to move Nova can I ask an alternative question you can ask any question you want this is a free speech Zone like you could ask the question could you write that truth if you live in a country where people aren't treated equally so in you know take not to Germany or around it's a great question yeah if if we withhold people from being able to contribute equally then are we giving truth the best opportunity so to reach Pinnacle of Truth it starts with a component of equal access or social justice right right and you arrived at that question even though we treat people unequally now so there must be something false in your question because if everybody because people are treated unequally that enabled you to come up with a question that latched on to truth so the question must be false my question is no because the university is a different ecosystem than what sits outside of it so I think that it's a requirement for people to universities to say look we want truth and that means that I don't say anyone else because of anything other than what they speak you know it's purely what they say so we have to educate that we are equal as a consumer so just a quick question because I thought I think your question is a really really good one so right before so slavery in the South we came up with the idea along the way that slavery is a bad thing and we came up with that idea even though people were treated unequally doesn't that violate the condition of your question no because you can say that in a single context and maybe in a single context you got lucky like you know the the best hand doesn't hurt the worst you know or sometimes the worst thing but but in general you know Society will have the best opportunity arriving to closer truths if we give everyone equal standing so the only thing that separates them is the content of their argument or the content of their data all right I'm just which case I think you have to say we're equal like you have to have that as a starting point you mean you mean equal equality of opportunity or equal rights for people a treat equally under the law yeah I think so yeah absolutely all right cool so uh is everybody satisfied with where they are on the anybody want to move again or a move period everybody's cool all right thank you oh wait you want to move I mean I think we'd all move if the question was posed better right there's like two axes where I and him agree but like based on semantics of the questions we we are on opposite sides and that combined with you know using social justice in the name I think makes for a rhetorically very charged discussion which I don't think it needs to be so I'd say like the question can be a lot better I think what word would you use instead of social justice I think if you had said something like do you think social justice ought to be one of the primary yeah but that's no no this this choosing of like One Singular purpose for a college is just like silly because we don't do that we value multiple things I agree I I couldn't possibly agree more with you I just took that because the president of Portland State University said it that's where I got that question from okay but like people aren't like thinking this deeply about the words they're using on like that's another problem entirely right if you're the president of the university and you're saying that's the primary mission of the University no because like like sometimes you just say things to say them like you don't not everything is like this super like I think down to like first principles and I say like sometimes you just say things and like you think you know I get the vague just of what you're trying to convey you get to Vegas so what I'm trying to say and like we just move on like when we say like social like like when someone gives an email saying oh social justice should be our primary concern I'm like I get that you just want to draw importance to it like I know it's not that deep you know okay all right well we disagree then but okay fair enough that's fair enough all right thanks everybody [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Peter Boghossian

Views: 52,986

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Id: T7rcrYEO_Ck

Length: 22min 3sec (1323 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 23 2022