I'm definitely not. I also hold such descriptions of these trainings in high skepticism, because I've been through a similar training and had a coworker describe it as such when all the training was doing was surfacing the scientific evidence suggesting unconscious bias is a real phenomenon that people aren't aware of.

The fact my colleague took it so personally says more about them, I think, than the training.

You might have visited different seminars than the ones this thread was originally about, or you might just experience them differently given that you appear to be a staunch believer in white privilege & the post-modern theory of racism.

Religious rituals seem totally normal to the initiated and strange and cult-ish to others.

Conflating trainings derived from theory based on research and evidence with religion is also strange.

I think research & evidence is vague when you include gender & diversity studies in sciences. There's a lot that's barely above an essay, it'll stick for a few years and then get retracted (gender pay gap anyone?) The cultish behavior surrounding it ("I'm a sinner, even though I never know when I'm sinning, I'm worthless, oh please, Lord, forgive me, I submit myself before your will") makes it look like a replacement for religion, not anything stemming from science.

I don't believe the similarity to Maoist struggle sessions is an accident, it's born from the same general school of thought.

There's also the similarity of the class alignment behind today's "neo-Maoist" stuff and the actual Cultural Revolution. https://www.thebellows.org/the-new-cultural-revolution/

The "school of thought" behind the cultural revolution was twofold:

1) Mao had been frozen out after the disaster of the Great Leap Forward, and this was his way of discrediting his enemies and getting back on top.

2) Young people full of fervor are fucking vicious.

None of it really had much to do with marxist philosophy in general or with the things Mao in particular had said before he'd been frozen out. But it says a lot about power.

> None of it really had much to do with marxist philosophy

Nonsense. The Cultural Revolution had much to do with Marxist philosophy. For goodness’ sake, read the May 16 Notification and Sixteen Points.

> "I'm a sinner, even though I never know when I'm sinning"

The entire point of the courses I've seen is to bring people awareness of unconscious bias and thereby help them transition from ignorant commission of error to awareness of the potential for such error. And unconscious bias doesn't make one "worthless," it's (as far as we can tell) pretty ordinary human behavior.

Disclaimer: I realize the below could be interpreted in an inflammatory manner. I DON'T MEAN IT THAT WAY. I just find it absolutely unbelievable that someone could honestly claim not to see the clear religious parallels here.

The entire point of the [bible camp] I've seen is to bring people awareness of [unconscious sinning] and thereby help them transition from ignorant commission of [sin] to awareness of the potential for [sin]. And [unconscious sinning] doesn't make one "worthless," it's (as far as we can tell) pretty ordinary human behavior [since we're all born in sin]. (https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-the-biblical-ev...)

The parallel is obvious and I fail to see your point.

Original sin is a concept couched in Christian mythology. Unconscious bias is a concept derived from statistical study and observation. The similarity is that unconscious bias, like original sin, appears to be innate to the human existence---a byproduct of the way we think about the world, the thousands of quick decisions we make subconsciously to go about our days. The parallel doesn't make it untrue.

The entire point of some exhibits in science museums I've seen is to bring people awareness of optical illusions and help them transition from not knowing that the human eye has some fascinating corner case failure modes to awareness of the existence of those failure modes. And the eye being imperfect doesn't make it "worthless," it's a pretty ordinary side effect of evolution in the context where those failure modes are rare to observe.

In my experince, the true believers find the diversity courses validating.

You don't have to believe the description of the session--there are screenshots in the article.

Nothing about the article suggests that text was forced. I'm not going to trust the Free Beacon's interpretation of some out-of-context screenshots.

The statements standing alone are damning, whether forced or not. That's not how faculty and administrators should be speaking in front of students.

Agree to disagree