Jonathan Haidt's Hayek Lecture at Duke argues American universities pursue two potentially incompatible sacred values, truth and social justice. He discusses campus conflict, honor, dignity and victimhood cultures, and viewpoint diversity.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN cites it heavily in diversity and academia debates as an intellectual analysis of the truth versus social justice conflict.
“This is the best intellectual analysis of the situation I've come across so far”HN comment, 2018
Explains campus conflict as clash of truth and social justice goals
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Somewhat related to the issue at hand and representative of the current, very charged landscape on social issues, is this video: this video The speaker makes the case that current social conflicts at many American universities – though probably representative of the general population as well – arise because people are pursuing two, potentially incompatible goals: truth and social justice. I think it's a highly informative video. Of course, I'd love to watch other videos contradicting or challenging this one, if anyone can provide some links.
Strongly recommendsmparr4Aug 2017
“(whole talk is excellent)”
Haidt explains honor, dignity and victimhood cultures
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Jonathan Haidt does a great job explaining Honor, Dignity, and Victimhood cultures: this video (whole talk is excellent) His take is a little different (that Victimhood culture is a result of a march through time from Honor to Dignity to Victimhood). He's referencing the same paper [1] mentioned in the reason.com article. [1] - Microaggression and Moral Cultures link
Strongly recommendsRapzidMay 2018
“This is the best intellectual analysis of the situation I've come across so far”
Intellectual analysis of social justice pressures in tech
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I'm glad you posted this.. I had heard about anti CoC a while back(perhaps from you?) but never really dug into it.. Video game journalism was ruined for me back in 2011 and 2012 for reasons we all know and I was hyper aware of at the time. It went through a very dark time and is hopefully coming out the other side now.. I had not really paid much attention to the infiltration of the tech community. While I had noticed a few things such bikeshedding of issues on Github, as well as the whole node.js trigger word ordeal, my distaste for the whole thing at that point led me to largely ignore it.. I've been on a huge information gathering binge since your post though. Randi Harper, electronconf, USC Legends of Gaming, entryism targeted toward GitHub, shaming and threatening tactics used to seed OSS with CoCs.... Wow. I hadn't realized how out of hand and toxic things had gotten. Luckily, it seems that the industry is somewhat successfully pushing back? I'm getting the sense that the larger community has found its voice and is pushing back against the intellectually bankrupt thinking and tactics.. This is the best intellectual analysis of the situation I've come across so far(I'm still digging though): this video
RecommendsBadassFractalMay 2017
“Good talk on the subject here”
Talk relevant to gender disparity debate in STEM
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Can we already kill the meme that CS or STEM are hostile to women? Correlation does not imply causation. Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment. Nobody in the right mind looks at the 94% of child care services jobs being filled by women and exclaims "Aha! Systemic sexism against men, matriarchal oppression afoot, we must address this social injustice!", yet all common sense falls apart when it comes to STEM. Good talk on the subject here: this video
RecommendsternausJul 2020
“Jon Haidt talks about it for a while.”
Haidt discusses ideological corruption in academia
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Jon Haidt talks about it for a while. this video I would recommend the book: The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure link
RecommendsRayhemDec 2022
“Jonathan Haidt has a topical discussion[1] about that and hypothesizes it stems from an utter lack of viewpoint diversity as kids grow up.”
Haidt on lack of viewpoint diversity and emotional distress on campus
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>I've found that lots of people out there seemingly can't handle disagreement at all... This is the second time this week I'll have linked this here on HN but I'm exceptionally happy to do so. Jonathan Haidt has a topical discussion[1] about that and hypothesizes it stems from an utter lack of viewpoint diversity as kids grow up. He states that universities have sought to remove all emotional distress, when they're supposed to be the place where you go to have your ideas challenged and feel a little distressed about it. [1]: this video
Cites itz5hJun 2017
“Social justice is not justice. Social justice is not compatible with truth (science, math, physics, software engineering, etc).”
Haidt's truth versus social justice argument
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Social justice is not justice. Social justice is not compatible with truth (science, math, physics, software engineering, etc). this video
Cites itBadassFractalAug 2017
“Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment.”
Cited in an argument that disparate outcomes do not imply discrimination
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> I'm sick of tired of the hiring strawman. The reason there's a scarcity of women and other minorities is that many companies have a culture that's full of toxic sewage. Correlation does not imply causation. Is rampant systemic sexism the reason why most oil rig workers are male? Is rampant systemic sexism the reason why 95% of child care teachers are women? this video Disparate outcomes do not imply disparate treatment.
Cites itasabjornNov 2018
“how certain topics have become sacred in academia [5]”
Cited for how topics become sacred in academia
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I think the problem with tptacek's explanation is that it does not address the larger context of how certain topics have become sacred in academia [5], and how breaking or criticising these sacred ideas leads to an outsized reaction. Do you think the reaction was focusing on merits and that it was not an outsized reaction due to someone violating something sacred? Lets dig more into evidence of suppression of biological research: How would you then explain the reactions to anyone stating the biological fact that human gender is overwhelmingly bimodal with almost everyone being male/female [1], suppression of research into intelligence [2], or the diversity pledges some candidates now have to write before becoming professors [3]. The grievance studies hoax proved how grievance studies is acting like ideological whitewashing of extreme political ideas that would be unacceptable otherwise [4]. These ideas are used to justify political actions in universities and in culture to suppress sacrilegious ideas [5], and it is a concept of sacred only a small very loud minority of progressives believe in and these comprise 8% of the population [6]. Personally I find the radical leftist explanation of these two incidences unconvincing: - it seems like the opposition to McKinnon’s paper was argued primarily from a moral angle due to his violation of some progressive sacred principles, and other explanation does not seem to explain the size of the response - The reaction to the grievance st
Cites itRayhemDec 2022
“He argues (among other things) that modern universities are undergoing a truth/social justice schism”
Haidt on the truth versus social justice schism in universities
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Jonathan Haidt's "Two incompatible sacred values in American universities"[1] seems particularly relevant here. He argues (among other things) that modern universities are undergoing a truth/social justice schism, and that attempting to advance both inevitably perverts both. [1]: this video
Cites itnonethewiserMay 2026
“Johnathan Haidt detailed this dynamic a long time ago in a lecture at Duke”
Haidt lecture on truth versus social justice as incompatible university values
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>What did they expect to happen? A mixture. 1) They were delusional and thought SAT/ACT scores werent useful signals for selecting qualified candidates. 2) They didn't care and prioritized the ability to admit people based off race and other demographics. And now they are resolving the dissonance between their mission and admission policy. Johnathan Haidt detailed this dynamic a long time ago in a lecture at Duke entitled "Two incompatible sacred values in American universities." The incompatible values being "truth" and "social justice." this video
