Professor defends the idea of anachoristic viewpoints when disciplined for sexist/gay unfriendly type views
I just think its funny that when told his views are more 18th century. He defends himself by saying that the point of philosophy is to be able to think independently of the current societal norms
but we need to confront exactly what we are dealing with in Professor Rasmusen’s posts. His expressed views are stunningly ignorant, more consistent with someone who lived in the 18th century than the 21st.
I was just reading Nietzsche, and somewhere he says that the goal of philosophers is to escape from their own time, from the biases they grow up with, what Francis Bacon calls the Idols of the Cave (your culture) and the Idols of the Theatre (false ideas everybody accepts because all the scholars or priests propound them, e.g. bleeding will cure your fever). One thing I try to do is think, "How would someone from the 18th century critique my view? Is what I am saying just a product of 21st century culture?". What I aim for is a view that stands up to both the 18th century and 21st century critiques, not to mention 1st-century, and to critiques from ancient China as well as ancient Greece. The Provost is taking the opposite tack here, saying that we should not care about what other cultures and times think of our views, only what people in 2019 think. One problem for administrators is that the pressures of their office tend to limit their views. They have constituencies to please.