Mike Bloomberg speaks out against uniformity - At Harvard

[GuyFox]

Bloomberg speaks out against uniformity of Views - At Harvard

Michael Bloomberg Harvard Commencement Speech 2014
(some called this a "shocking" talk - if it shocked anyone, they need it!)

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"90% of donations went to Barak Obama in the last election."
"Does such uniformity of opinion suggest Freedom of Thought."
"Neither party has a monopoly of the Truth."

===
I would disagree somewhat and say;
"Neither of the Two main parties has a grip on the Truth."
We need MORE than Two Opinions !

[rgray222]

I don't particularly like Bloomberg but I applaud his comments about Harvard and other institutions repressing conservative viewpoints. Bloomberg is also right when he says conservative faculty members are becoming endangered species.
Some of these universities are no longer providing education, they are institutions of indoctrination, with Harvard and other elitist schools leading the way. It has gotten so bad that I cringe when I hear a president appoint someone to a cabinet post with a Harvard background. Young adults should be educated and not indoctrinated, everyone suffers when viewpoints are suppressed and censored.

[GuyFox]

"conservative"?

90% of donations went to Obama - that's not politically conservative.
Harvard grads (at least in my Class) were amongst the first to turn vocally negative on Bush.

But the grads may be more open-minded and diverse in their views than the Left-leaning faculty, heavily populated by Jewish folk,
if that means anything

There was apparently a move in the student body to STOP Bloomberg from speaking.
You can hear a reference to that in this (humorous) speech a day earlier:

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I liked her talk, but not her know-it-all attitude towards Mayor Bloomberg.
Oprah pumps out more dangerous crap than MB in my own personal opinion

[rgray222]

I am not sure you understood my comment. I am simply saying that Harvard and other schools that indoctrinate students do it almost entirely with a liberal viewpoint, they suppress almost all other viewpoints especially conservative ideas. They hire almost all like minded liberal faculty members to the point where people with a different outlook don't even apply for positions. They turn out students that agree with the institutions philosophy and send them out into the world to perpetuate as very liberal slanted frame of reference.
Please reread my first comment.

[Carmody]

I'm not sure that it's ever been any different anywhere else in all of human history.

The shift required largely has nothing do with ideologies or projection of any ideologies - from anyone or anything, for any reason.

We need something akin to a non-instinctual origin in intelligence and rote bodily function/filtering, before any shift to open and true fundamental contemplation is going to happen.

ie, the approximate 88% of us (as individuals), that operates in rote and instinctual function as a filter and base of our self as daily existence, that must change.

Only 12% or so of us is conscious thought and motion, and that is heavily influenced and filtered through rote automatic learned and instinctual function... so we've got a huge human origins/platform/existence problem.

Recognizing this first, and living in that knowing in all things and all ways at all times...before moving forward, is key. Otherwise the circle of logic is too small, and we simply continue to run around on a wheel in a small box.

If one is trying to deal with this issue of bias, in any form, then what I've said cannot be excluded from the fundamental analysis of the situation.

To break human unconsciousness as a state of existence is the area of consideration that needs be looked at squarely, front and center, in self and other, until it is eliminated as the core of the issue.

Of course, with only 12% of the given self actually being conscious and that 12% heavily colored and shifted by the other 88% of sleeping self (entirely dominated you might say), you might understand that there is a big problem.

[rgray222]

"conservative"?


I am not sure you understood my original comment. I am saying that Harvard and other elitist institutions perpetuate an extreme liberal outlook. I am agreeing with Bloomberg when he says that conservative faculty members are becoming an endangered species. Qualified people with a different outlook (not liberal) no longer apply to teach at Harvard.

Within academia Harvard has become a bit of a parody, other (even liberal) institutions know that Harvard has gone way too far to the left. This is openly discussed and well known among universities in the USA. This is precisely what Bloomberg was addressing.

Harvard turns out students that have been indoctrinated not educated. They suppress open discussion especially if that discussion does not fit the extreme liberal mold of the university, conservative viewpoint are a rare commodity at Harvard.

Young adults should be exposed to diverse points of view and they should be free to follow whatever political or economic point of view they find appealing. Suppressing and censoring any outlook should not be tolerated. I believe this was the message Bloomberg was trying to get across.

Reread my original comment.

[Carmody]

99.999 percent or more of 'people'...see other humans with issues.

I see limited levels of spiritual/being/'intelligence' integration with rote instinctual avatar/meatboxes. Seven billion of them.

[GuyFox]

I am not sure you understood my comment. I am simply saying that Harvard and other schools that indoctrinate students do it almost entirely with a liberal viewpoint, they suppress almost all other viewpoints especially conservative ideas. They hire almost all like minded liberal faculty members to the point where people with a different outlook don't even apply for positions. They turn out students that agree with the institutions philosophy and send them out into the world to perpetuate as very liberal slanted frame of reference.
Please reread my first comment.

Yes.
I agree.
The existing faculty at most Universities tends to hire new members who think the same way.
Kudos to President Drew Faust in allowing the Bloomberg address to go ahead,
although I believe she was under pressure to block it.
Harvard students are smart enough to allow themselves to be exposed to BOTH sides of a debate,
and generally speaking Harvard's culture is strongly against brainwashing

(How Harvard Magazine reported the Two Commencement Speeches):

President Drew Faust and entrepreneur, philanthropist, and former mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg, M.B.A. ’66, and newly minted LL.D. ’14, spoke during the afternoon program following Harvard’s 363rd Commencement exercises (view the program here).

Bloomberg delivered a roundhouse address defending the free and open exchange of ideas, in civic discourse and within universities. Faust, who spoke first, focused on universities’ obligations to the future, through discovery, the generation of new questions, and meaning—in effect, talking about the purposes of such discourse within academic communities.
President Faust: “We owe the future answers. We owe the future questions. We owe the future meaning.”
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> more: http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/05/bloomberg-commencement-speech

(comments from the chat there):

Parson Hicks • 3 days ago

I agree with Bloomberg's views on open discourse at commencement exercises. However, I disagree with his long implementation of stop and frisk. When I first heard he was the chosen speaker this year, I was appalled that a university who talks a lot about social justice would invite a man who led the injustice done to hundreds of black and Latino men in NYC. If Bloomberg was a daily recipient of stop and frisk would he feel the same way? If someone had chosen to "debate him" during the ceremony about stop and frisk would he have still support idea of allowing (all) speakers? What is the process of choosing speakers for commencement?


Steve From Texas • 3 days ago

I have been told that Harvard, long ago, refused to accept home schooled students. Since then, they are said to be rather eager to get homeschoolers because they are taught to be self-directed rather than to simply regurgitate up what teachers fed them. So, when will Harvard hire a home schooled PhD?

[Tyy1907]

Is this the same Bloomberg that is pro guncontrol? If it is it makes me think they're really turning it up with regards to gun control.

[GuyFox]

Okay.
You do not need to agree with everything he says and does,
in order to support the Important Message that he delivered at Harvard.

In fact, his own message can be used "against him" to argue that Gun control foes need a voice too.

[Tyy1907]

Okay.
You do not need to agree with everything he says and does,
in order to support the Important Message that he delivered at Harvard.

In fact, his own message can be used "against him" to argue that Gun control foes need a voice too.

Not trying to discredit him or anything, was just sayin. People ought to know for their own discretion. :peace:

[AriG]

"Freedom should exist for everyone" Unless you are looking to buy a "Big Gulp" in Midtown Manhattan...

"To the tyrannical tendencies of Monarchs, mobs, and majorities"....Huh? Is that contrition we hear?

I guess anyone can change. Just hope its not a Trojan Horse.