Engineering. Engineers are famously conservative. There’s a paper that broke down how non-white and non-male engineers were less conservative, and which types of engineers tended to skew which way, but a reader must remember that most engineers are white men.
I also read a paper (or maybe a book chapter?) a while back that discussed the fact that the way we teach engineering actively encourages people to become less socially conscious and more conservative. I can’t remember the name of the author, but I remember I found the paper/chapter from this video(total video is 33:52 in length and is a great watch if you’re a video person. However, the link is timestamped to the engineering bit that cites the paper/book I referenced)
I’ll never understand people who cannot understand the difference in language across different eras. Just because we know it’s offensive now doesn’t automatically default everyone who ever used it as being just as bad at all points in the past
We both agree that the term is seen as offensive now, but wasn’t in the past.
My point was that even someone as enlightened as Vonnegut had a blind spot. That goes to the idea of ‘conservative engineers’ who are probably just repeating things they were taught without thinking about it.
If you were taught about the “massacre” at Little Big Horn all your life, it’s hard to consider it from the other side.
And like many fields dominated by white men, they make it harder for non-white non-men to get in. I went to an engineering university (for math) and lived with my white male engineer friends. I watched one of them get into our very competitive grad school despite having bad grades, a late application, and no experience because all of his white professors liked that he wasn’t an Asian exchange student
I know anecdotes aren’t reality, but even on super liberal college campuses there’s still some pockets of right wing people
Engineering. Engineers are famously conservative. There’s a paper that broke down how non-white and non-male engineers were less conservative, and which types of engineers tended to skew which way, but a reader must remember that most engineers are white men.
I also read a paper (or maybe a book chapter?) a while back that discussed the fact that the way we teach engineering actively encourages people to become less socially conscious and more conservative. I can’t remember the name of the author, but I remember I found the paper/chapter from this video(total video is 33:52 in length and is a great watch if you’re a video person. However, the link is timestamped to the engineering bit that cites the paper/book I referenced)
Think of it this way. Kurt Vonnegut was, by pretty much any standards, “woke” as hell.
Because he was a product of his times, he used the phrase “Mongoloid idiot” for Down’s Syndrome because that was the proper scientific term.
I’ll never understand people who cannot understand the difference in language across different eras. Just because we know it’s offensive now doesn’t automatically default everyone who ever used it as being just as bad at all points in the past
I’m not sure if you’re praising or condemning me.
We both agree that the term is seen as offensive now, but wasn’t in the past.
My point was that even someone as enlightened as Vonnegut had a blind spot. That goes to the idea of ‘conservative engineers’ who are probably just repeating things they were taught without thinking about it.
If you were taught about the “massacre” at Little Big Horn all your life, it’s hard to consider it from the other side.
I’m agreeing with you and just kind of generally rambling about the people who would be mad at Vonnegut in your post.
Kinda like the people upset that huckleberry finn has the n word in it
And like many fields dominated by white men, they make it harder for non-white non-men to get in. I went to an engineering university (for math) and lived with my white male engineer friends. I watched one of them get into our very competitive grad school despite having bad grades, a late application, and no experience because all of his white professors liked that he wasn’t an Asian exchange student
I know anecdotes aren’t reality, but even on super liberal college campuses there’s still some pockets of right wing people