meanwhile im here like "we should physically seize anything of value from the buildings, we should put the alumni and their families on a education and work blacklist since they are all unredeemable rich assholes, and we should build a new school somewhere else that isnt founded by people who profited from slavery"

like seriously everybody, good leftists are not meritocrats, we dont believe that skill or ability should determine someones societal status. talk to any highschool student trying to get into a good college from us to china and they will all be stressed out and the majority that dont succeed are going to be irreconcilably damaged from the experience because of all the cramming they did and the existential dread that a fucking test can determines ones own life trajectory is not something we should be forcing on children, teenagers, young adults, or anybody really.

literally one of the deadliest civil wars in chinese history was caused by a guy failing the civil service examination and that led to him to black out and wake up thinking he was jesus' brother, and there was the austrian who famously was rejected from art school, maybe we should make education more equitable and not have elite universities and that necessitates tearing down the old prestigious ones funded by blood money.

  • DoiDoi [comrade/them, he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    just go argue directly with whoever said the thing that kicked this off for you

    this kind of post is bad

    • janny [they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      eh I wouldn't say it's a bad post. it contains elements of a good idea.

      that being said idk if socialist politics even can give up on the idea of meritocracy whole cloth since it's kind of a corner stone of modernity, it'd be like arguing against the concept of trial by jury because trial by jury sucks in bourgeous states.

      but I'm willing to let him cook because he said fuck harvard and I think he's on to something there

      • DoiDoi [comrade/them, he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        It's not the specific contents - it's the act of taking a disagreement they had elsewhere and then making a separate post about it in this argumentative writing style. It's extremely internet conflict poisoned and we don't have to talk like that to get points across here.

        • DADDYCHILL [none/use name]
          hexagon
          ·
          1 year ago

          so you disagree with me being an asshole, not the contents of what im saying about how colleges are these class dividing machines and something has to be done about them.

          its the what we disagree with.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Trial by jury is bad, though, for all kinds of reasons. Why do you want to be judged by twelve random shmucks hand picked by a lawyer to be as racist as possible?

        Half the point of restorative justice is getting away from the numerous flaws of trial by jury.

        Meritocracy is also bad. Sortition gang rise up!

        • janny [they/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          I mean yeah in its current form it's bad but it is a democratizing reform that in theory is better than having some feudal lord be your judge, jury and executioner.

          Personally I think under socialism (or a more civilized bourgeois society) there ought to be a system of semi-professional juries. Like if you want to make extra cash (it'd have to pay pretty well tbh), want to get out of work frequently, maybe want to become a lawyer and are a nerd you can go through a 1 year education to get educated in not just the law but also the social contexts of the law including law and race, gender, queerness, ect.

          I guess I'd rather see trial by jury reformed significantly than done away with entirely. But yes I do agree in it's current form it often sucks. In part though thats because alot of anti-social middle class people know what to say/do to get our of jury duty so it indirectly selects for people who are very gullible and can be manipulated easier. Sure there's a structural element to fixing that but alot of it is also a cultural view of needed to value civic service.

          • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
            ·
            1 year ago

            Personally I think under socialism (or a more civilized bourgeois society) there ought to be a system of semi-professional juries.

            Cuba uses a "lay juror" system, where one professional judge and two ordinary people doing one-year shifts decide cases. I'm far from an expert on it, but it sounds interesting.

      • DADDYCHILL [none/use name]
        hexagon
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        if most of what i say is good then what is the bad part? i really want to understand why theres so much defense of the ivy leagues here, people are disagreeing with something so simple and symbolic as a name change.

        i believe that we all recognize theres problems in the education system but i feel like the majority of hexbear users have lib solutions to a problem that requires radical solutions.

        • Nakoichi [they/them]M
          ·
          1 year ago

          I think you are taking one comment one user said and applying that to the entire site. I for one have said plenty about the abolition of existing school systems and I think that's a bog standard position among communists. That doesn't mean however, that the physical structures need to be torn down. That's just pointless and wasteful.

        • Zuzak [fae/faer, she/her]
          ·
          1 year ago

          i really want to understand why theres so much defense of the ivy leagues here, people are disagreeing with something so simple and symbolic as a name change.

          What are you talking about? Who is saying this? Where are they saying this? Nobody knows what the fuck you're talking about. If you're going to make a whole post instead of just responding to the person who said it, at the very least you can link to what was said.