The party of free expression has banned the teaching Plato at Texas A&M

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read Plato's Symposium as a teen. It's a classic, obviously, but its totally f-ing weird. I'm a woman and as a teen, I basically learned about misogyny through Greek philosophy. In the Republic, Plato spends a lot of time comparing and contrasting women and tools, eventually concluding that tools, at least, are useful. Then he recommends a sort of Nazi program of taking men and women and having them have sex, then the babies would be raised by the state, in order to eliminate unfairness. Symposium talks a lot about having sex with children.

To this day, I am kind of grossed out by Greek philosophy. Aristotle is the most tolerable. But it's basically written by pedophiles who hate women. I mean, there's no way around it. I don't think it should be banned but I've also noticed that very few people have actually read it, and if you did, you might be over here "wtf-ing" with me.

I have read Symposium too. I am not a fan. But there is no scenario in a free country that it should not be taught in a philosophy class in college to kids who choose to take that class. College should be about reading a bunch of different ideas - even if you are a STEM major. That there is this type of censorship over curriculum and syllabus should worry everyone, regardless of political ideology

DP. Would you also agree that Mein Kampf, Irreversible Damage (by Abigail Shrier), and Jefferson Davis's manifesto on the inferiority of Black people should all be part of the curriculum?

As you are fully aware, every syllabus and curriculum represents choices of what to include and not include. Unless you're advocating a reading list literally millions of books long, you're very accepting of culling books from the syllabus. So, the idea that a book with sadistically criminal, antidemocratic, and hateful ideas has been "banned" and college kids have been impoverished because the limited space on a reading list was not devoted to it is just moronic. People like you are very able to comprehend this when books you don't like are excluded from the reading list, as Mein Kampf has been for generations without a peep from your type. Hiding behind exposure to "a bunch of different ideas" to advocate that a book glorifying pedophilia and the worst sort of misogyny means you are liar, a coward, and a clown, in addition to being a pedophile apologist and woman hater. Shame on you.

Of course every class syllabus represents a choice. But it should never be the choice of the government.

And of course colleges should be free to teach Mein Kampf. In fact, they often do. Here is a syllabus from NYU.

https://cas.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/casCore/documents/summer2014/9554ErtmanSummer14.pdf#:~:text=masterpieces%20of%20music%20drama%20as%20proof%20of,on%20an%20almost%20daily%20basis%20over%20Germany.

Censorship helps nobody ever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read Plato's Symposium as a teen. It's a classic, obviously, but its totally f-ing weird. I'm a woman and as a teen, I basically learned about misogyny through Greek philosophy. In the Republic, Plato spends a lot of time comparing and contrasting women and tools, eventually concluding that tools, at least, are useful. Then he recommends a sort of Nazi program of taking men and women and having them have sex, then the babies would be raised by the state, in order to eliminate unfairness. Symposium talks a lot about having sex with children.

To this day, I am kind of grossed out by Greek philosophy. Aristotle is the most tolerable. But it's basically written by pedophiles who hate women. I mean, there's no way around it. I don't think it should be banned but I've also noticed that very few people have actually read it, and if you did, you might be over here "wtf-ing" with me.

I have read Symposium too. I am not a fan. But there is no scenario in a free country that it should not be taught in a philosophy class in college to kids who choose to take that class. College should be about reading a bunch of different ideas - even if you are a STEM major. That there is this type of censorship over curriculum and syllabus should worry everyone, regardless of political ideology

DP. Would you also agree that Mein Kampf, Irreversible Damage (by Abigail Shrier), and Jefferson Davis's manifesto on the inferiority of Black people should all be part of the curriculum?

As you are fully aware, every syllabus and curriculum represents choices of what to include and not include. Unless you're advocating a reading list literally millions of books long, you're very accepting of culling books from the syllabus. So, the idea that a book with sadistically criminal, antidemocratic, and hateful ideas has been "banned" and college kids have been impoverished because the limited space on a reading list was not devoted to it is just moronic. People like you are very able to comprehend this when books you don't like are excluded from the reading list, as Mein Kampf has been for generations without a peep from your type. Hiding behind exposure to "a bunch of different ideas" to advocate that a book glorifying pedophilia and the worst sort of misogyny means you are liar, a coward, and a clown, in addition to being a pedophile apologist and woman hater. Shame on you.

Of course every class syllabus represents a choice. But it should never be the choice of the government.

And of course colleges should be free to teach Mein Kampf. In fact, they often do. Here is a syllabus from NYU.

https://cas.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/casCore/documents/summer2014/9554ErtmanSummer14.pdf#:~:text=masterpieces%20of%20music%20drama%20as%20proof%20of,on%20an%20almost%20daily%20basis%20over%20Germany.

Censorship helps nobody ever.

The one class you could find where Mein Kampf is taught takes place in BERLIN, GERMANY--not America--and is specifically about the developments in German culture over the past 100 years, with Mein Kampf offered as an example of the negative and racist aspects of German culture. You really think this refutes what I wrote about Mein Kampf being excluded from reading lists HERE IN AMERICA? You are beyond stupid and arguing in extremely bad faith, as anyone who has been in America for more than 30 seconds knows.

This forum is frequented by thousands of people educated in America and you know good and well that virtually none of us were handed Mein Kampf in any class, much less taught it as an example of influential Western philosophy even though that is what it is. I don't know any American who has read Mein Kampf cover to cover. Even asking if people have read it is enough to make everyone bring out the smelling salts and ostracize you. I have read it because I bought myself a copy. Having been forced to read works by white people like Churchill, who was responsible for the killing of millions of people of color, I wasn't impressed by the pretense that reading Mein Kampf would make me go blind just because Hitler killed Europeans. I had to take it down from my personal library, however, and put it in a drawer because dumb ass East Coast liberals like you kept freaking out when they saw it.

Now, look how many words I've had to waste arguing with you that you're no hero for foaming at the mouth at the exclusion of a book celebrating the sodomization of children and the cannibalization of women's body parts to produce children to sodomize. This should tell you that you, like your fellow useless white liberals, are a feckless fool with no moral compass. You have no business speaking up on any public issue when the only principle you're capable of adhering to is that anything Republicans do is bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Apparently Plato’s Symposium has too much discussion of gender and sexuality to conform to Texas’ new brainwashing standards.
https://www.kbtx.com/2026/01/07/texas-am-philosophy-professor-ordered-remove-plato-reading-or-be-reassigned/

I'm on a FB group, unofficial SJC alumni group, they posted about this.

Is it because of the Symposium?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read Plato's Symposium as a teen. It's a classic, obviously, but its totally f-ing weird. I'm a woman and as a teen, I basically learned about misogyny through Greek philosophy. In the Republic, Plato spends a lot of time comparing and contrasting women and tools, eventually concluding that tools, at least, are useful. Then he recommends a sort of Nazi program of taking men and women and having them have sex, then the babies would be raised by the state, in order to eliminate unfairness. Symposium talks a lot about having sex with children.

To this day, I am kind of grossed out by Greek philosophy. Aristotle is the most tolerable. But it's basically written by pedophiles who hate women. I mean, there's no way around it. I don't think it should be banned but I've also noticed that very few people have actually read it, and if you did, you might be over here "wtf-ing" with me.

I have read Symposium too. I am not a fan. But there is no scenario in a free country that it should not be taught in a philosophy class in college to kids who choose to take that class. College should be about reading a bunch of different ideas - even if you are a STEM major. That there is this type of censorship over curriculum and syllabus should worry everyone, regardless of political ideology

DP. Would you also agree that Mein Kampf, Irreversible Damage (by Abigail Shrier), and Jefferson Davis's manifesto on the inferiority of Black people should all be part of the curriculum?

As you are fully aware, every syllabus and curriculum represents choices of what to include and not include. Unless you're advocating a reading list literally millions of books long, you're very accepting of culling books from the syllabus. So, the idea that a book with sadistically criminal, antidemocratic, and hateful ideas has been "banned" and college kids have been impoverished because the limited space on a reading list was not devoted to it is just moronic. People like you are very able to comprehend this when books you don't like are excluded from the reading list, as Mein Kampf has been for generations without a peep from your type. Hiding behind exposure to "a bunch of different ideas" to advocate that a book glorifying pedophilia and the worst sort of misogyny means you are liar, a coward, and a clown, in addition to being a pedophile apologist and woman hater. Shame on you.

I would. I would want to know what these people were thinking and saying. Just like I like the fact that when someone I knew was arguing "state's rights" being the issue for the Civil War I was able to look up the SC articles of secession and point out the first paragraph (after the intro sentence) to him. And yes, I would want to know that about Jefferson Davis and could have used it in that moment (the person I was arguing with was a black conservative).

[Anonymous]

On the syllabus that has been posted online they don't actually read much of Plato’s Symposium. This is the first part

180c He told me that this was the sort of speech Phaedrus delivered, and that after Phaedrus there were a number of others that he did not much remember. Leaving them aside, he recounted Pausanias’ speech. Pausanias said, “Phaedrus, I do not think our proposal to sing the praises of Love purely and simply has been presented in a proper manner. Indeed, if there were only one Eros, all would be well, but it so happens there is not just one. Since there is not only one Eros, it is better to declare, at the outset, which sort of Love we should praise.

181b Now, I shall try to put this right, firstly by stating which Love we should praise, and then by delivering the praise in a manner worthy of the god. Indeed, we all know that there is no Aphrodite without Love. Therefore, if she were one, Love would be one, but since there are two Aphrodites, there must be two Loves. How could there not be two goddesses? One, the daughter of Uranus, is presumably the elder. She has no mother, and we give her the name ‘Heavenly’, while the other is younger, born of Zeus and Dione, and we call her ‘Common’. So it is also necessary that the Love who works with the latter be called Common, while the other Love be called Heavenly, and it is right to do so. Now, although it is necessary to praise all the gods, I should also attempt to explain what has been allotted to each of these Loves. For the following principle applies to every action: its performance, in its own right, is neither noble nor disgraceful. For example, what we are doing now, whether we drink, sing or converse, not one of these is noble in itself. No, they turn out like that in action, according to how the action is performed. When performed nobly and rightly it becomes good, and when not performed rightly it becomes disgraceful. This also applies to loving and to Love. Not all Love is noble and worthy of paeans of praise, only that which exhorts us to love in a noble manner.

181b “Now, the Eros belonging to the Common Aphrodite is truly common. He behaves in whatever manner occurs to him, and he is the Love that the ordinary people experience. And such people, in the first place, love women no less than boys; secondly, they love the bodies of those whom they love, rather than their souls; and finally, with a view only to consummation, they engage with the least intelligent people they can find, heedless of whether they are acting nobly or not. Consequently, they do whatever occurs to them to do, regardless of whether it is good or not. For he comes from the goddess who is much the younger of the two, and, by birth, she partakes of the female as well as the male. But the Love belonging to the Heavenly goddess firstly partakes not of the female but of the male only, and so this love is the love of boys. Secondly, it is older with no trace of wantonness. Hence, those who are inspired with this Love are inclined towards the male, admiring the one who is naturally stronger and possesses more intelligence.

“Indeed, one may recognise those who are impelled to boy-loving itself, in a pure manner, by this kind of love; for they do not love young boys, but only those who have begun to acquire intelligence, approaching the stage when the beard begins to grow. Yes, I think that those who love them at this stage are equipped to love them throughout their entire life, being with them and shar-ing a life together, without deceiving them because they trapped them when foolish and young, and making fools of them by leaving them to run off with someone else. There should also be a law against loving mere boys, so that a great deal of effort be not expended upon an unpredictable outcome, for it is unpredictable as to how young boys will turn out, for better or worse, in soul or in body. Now, although good men willingly impose this law upon themselves, it is also necessary to force the common sort of lovers to behave similarly, just as we, to the best of our ability, restrain them from loving free-born women. These are the people who have given rise to the criticism whereby some dare to suggest that it is shameful to gratify lovers. But they say this when they look at these lovers and behold their inappropriate and unjust behaviour, since it would, of course, not be right to censure any action performed in a respectable and lawful manner.

“Furthermore, in other cities, the law relating to love is easy to understand because it has been simply defined. Yet here, and in Sparta, it is complicated. Now, in Elis and Boeotia, and wherever people are not clever speakers, it has been simply decreed that the gratification of lovers is good, and no one, old or young, would suggest that it is a disgrace. This, I presume, is to save them the trouble of trying to persuade the young people when they are such inadequate speakers. On the other hand, in Ionia, and lots of other places where they live under non-Greek rule, the gratification of lovers is regarded as shameful. For among the non-Greeks, this, along with phi-losophy and love of gymnastics, is shameful because the cities are under tyrannical rule. For I sup-pose it is not to the advantage of the rulers that enlarged views be engendered among the citizenry, nor strong friendships and associations either, and this is exactly what all these activities, and espe-cially love, are inclined to bring about. Our own local tyrants learned this by experience, for Aristogeiton’s love and Harmodius’ friendship, which became steadfast, brought an end to the tyrants’ regime. Accordingly, wherever it is decreed that it is disgraceful to gratify lovers, the decree is there because of the bad state of those who established it, avarice on the part of the rulers and cowardice on the part of the citizenry. And wherever it is simplistically designated as noble, that is due to indolence in the souls of those who make the decree...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read Plato's Symposium as a teen. It's a classic, obviously, but its totally f-ing weird. I'm a woman and as a teen, I basically learned about misogyny through Greek philosophy. In the Republic, Plato spends a lot of time comparing and contrasting women and tools, eventually concluding that tools, at least, are useful. Then he recommends a sort of Nazi program of taking men and women and having them have sex, then the babies would be raised by the state, in order to eliminate unfairness. Symposium talks a lot about having sex with children.

To this day, I am kind of grossed out by Greek philosophy. Aristotle is the most tolerable. But it's basically written by pedophiles who hate women. I mean, there's no way around it. I don't think it should be banned but I've also noticed that very few people have actually read it, and if you did, you might be over here "wtf-ing" with me.

Exactly. Either the losers in this thread haven't read the book before going into hysterics over its exclusion from the reading list or they think a book that extols child rape and the enslavement of women whose sole use is supplying children to rape is essential reading. Should we also include the works of other pedophiles in the syllabus? Maybe a tome by Epstein is just what is needed to round out the curriculum.

If you want an ancient book with misogyny, violence, and slavery you might try reading the Bible. Presumably the government of Texas will ban teaching that too?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The philosophy department at the university ordered the removal. Having read Plato's Republic I am curious as to the context. Definitely need a lot more information before reaching for hysterics.

There really isn't a need for any context. There is no rational world where any portion of Plato's Republic should be banned, particularly in a philosphy course. I mean, I thought we were for western culture, no?

+1

This is an elective course offered to adults, in college.

WTF?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read Plato's Symposium as a teen. It's a classic, obviously, but its totally f-ing weird. I'm a woman and as a teen, I basically learned about misogyny through Greek philosophy. In the Republic, Plato spends a lot of time comparing and contrasting women and tools, eventually concluding that tools, at least, are useful. Then he recommends a sort of Nazi program of taking men and women and having them have sex, then the babies would be raised by the state, in order to eliminate unfairness. Symposium talks a lot about having sex with children.

To this day, I am kind of grossed out by Greek philosophy. Aristotle is the most tolerable. But it's basically written by pedophiles who hate women. I mean, there's no way around it. I don't think it should be banned but I've also noticed that very few people have actually read it, and if you did, you might be over here "wtf-ing" with me.

I have read Symposium too. I am not a fan. But there is no scenario in a free country that it should not be taught in a philosophy class in college to kids who choose to take that class. College should be about reading a bunch of different ideas - even if you are a STEM major. That there is this type of censorship over curriculum and syllabus should worry everyone, regardless of political ideology

DP. Would you also agree that Mein Kampf, Irreversible Damage (by Abigail Shrier), and Jefferson Davis's manifesto on the inferiority of Black people should all be part of the curriculum?

As you are fully aware, every syllabus and curriculum represents choices of what to include and not include. Unless you're advocating a reading list literally millions of books long, you're very accepting of culling books from the syllabus. So, the idea that a book with sadistically criminal, antidemocratic, and hateful ideas has been "banned" and college kids have been impoverished because the limited space on a reading list was not devoted to it is just moronic. People like you are very able to comprehend this when books you don't like are excluded from the reading list, as Mein Kampf has been for generations without a peep from your type. Hiding behind exposure to "a bunch of different ideas" to advocate that a book glorifying pedophilia and the worst sort of misogyny means you are liar, a coward, and a clown, in addition to being a pedophile apologist and woman hater. Shame on you.

Of course every class syllabus represents a choice. But it should never be the choice of the government.

And of course colleges should be free to teach Mein Kampf. In fact, they often do. Here is a syllabus from NYU.


https://cas.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/casCore/documents/summer2014/9554ErtmanSummer14.pdf#:~:text=masterpieces%20of%20music%20drama%20as%20proof%20of,on%20an%20almost%20daily%20basis%20over%20Germany.

Censorship helps nobody ever.

The one class you could find where Mein Kampf is taught takes place in BERLIN, GERMANY--not America--

....

DP.

Why are you so *aggressively* ignorant?

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/01/29/stanford-questioned-over-response-mein-kampf-photo

https://courses.professional.uchicago.edu/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&courseId=3117898

https://home.uchicago.edu/~rfulton/trustees_civ.html

.... Republican ...

Oh, of course

That should have been obvious.

[Anonymous]

I dislike Plato very much and feel he's completely overrated, BUT there should be freedom of instruction in higher education.

[Anonymous]

I would actually like to read Mein Kampf just to see what it says, not bc I'm going to practice what it says. I don't mind reading about people from other cultures who did f'd up sh. - mixed race gay liberal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read Plato's Symposium as a teen. It's a classic, obviously, but its totally f-ing weird. I'm a woman and as a teen, I basically learned about misogyny through Greek philosophy. In the Republic, Plato spends a lot of time comparing and contrasting women and tools, eventually concluding that tools, at least, are useful. Then he recommends a sort of Nazi program of taking men and women and having them have sex, then the babies would be raised by the state, in order to eliminate unfairness. Symposium talks a lot about having sex with children.

To this day, I am kind of grossed out by Greek philosophy. Aristotle is the most tolerable. But it's basically written by pedophiles who hate women. I mean, there's no way around it. I don't think it should be banned but I've also noticed that very few people have actually read it, and if you did, you might be over here "wtf-ing" with me.

I have read Symposium too. I am not a fan. But there is no scenario in a free country that it should not be taught in a philosophy class in college to kids who choose to take that class. College should be about reading a bunch of different ideas - even if you are a STEM major. That there is this type of censorship over curriculum and syllabus should worry everyone, regardless of political ideology

DP. Would you also agree that Mein Kampf, Irreversible Damage (by Abigail Shrier), and Jefferson Davis's manifesto on the inferiority of Black people should all be part of the curriculum?

As you are fully aware, every syllabus and curriculum represents choices of what to include and not include. Unless you're advocating a reading list literally millions of books long, you're very accepting of culling books from the syllabus. So, the idea that a book with sadistically criminal, antidemocratic, and hateful ideas has been "banned" and college kids have been impoverished because the limited space on a reading list was not devoted to it is just moronic. People like you are very able to comprehend this when books you don't like are excluded from the reading list, as Mein Kampf has been for generations without a peep from your type. Hiding behind exposure to "a bunch of different ideas" to advocate that a book glorifying pedophilia and the worst sort of misogyny means you are liar, a coward, and a clown, in addition to being a pedophile apologist and woman hater. Shame on you.

Of course every class syllabus represents a choice. But it should never be the choice of the government.

And of course colleges should be free to teach Mein Kampf. In fact, they often do. Here is a syllabus from NYU.

https://cas.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/casCore/documents/summer2014/9554ErtmanSummer14.pdf#:~:text=masterpieces%20of%20music%20drama%20as%20proof%20of,on%20an%20almost%20daily%20basis%20over%20Germany.

Censorship helps nobody ever.

The one class you could find where Mein Kampf is taught takes place in BERLIN, GERMANY--not America--and is specifically about the developments in German culture over the past 100 years, with Mein Kampf offered as an example of the negative and racist aspects of German culture. You really think this refutes what I wrote about Mein Kampf being excluded from reading lists HERE IN AMERICA? You are beyond stupid and arguing in extremely bad faith, as anyone who has been in America for more than 30 seconds knows.

This forum is frequented by thousands of people educated in America and you know good and well that virtually none of us were handed Mein Kampf in any class, much less taught it as an example of influential Western philosophy even though that is what it is. I don't know any American who has read Mein Kampf cover to cover. Even asking if people have read it is enough to make everyone bring out the smelling salts and ostracize you. I have read it because I bought myself a copy. Having been forced to read works by white people like Churchill, who was responsible for the killing of millions of people of color, I wasn't impressed by the pretense that reading Mein Kampf would make me go blind just because Hitler killed Europeans. I had to take it down from my personal library, however, and put it in a drawer because dumb ass East Coast liberals like you kept freaking out when they saw it.

Now, look how many words I've had to waste arguing with you that you're no hero for foaming at the mouth at the exclusion of a book celebrating the sodomization of children and the cannibalization of women's body parts to produce children to sodomize. This should tell you that you, like your fellow useless white liberals, are a feckless fool with no moral compass. You have no business speaking up on any public issue when the only principle you're capable of adhering to is that anything Republicans do is bad.

You are wrong. Mein Kampf is part of the reading for many US classes in college. I know my kid read excerpts for a western civ class three years ago. She (an American) did end up reading it cover to cover and said that at least we should all be able to agree that it is really bad writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They only banned teaching PART of Plato. That’s so much better. Right? Definitely not insane.

Which "part"? And why? Plato?

Why not ban education altogether? Just everyone go back to a subsistence economy. It worked for prehistoric people.

[Anonymous]

If Gilda Radner and irony were still alive, Emily Litella would be on TV asking why a college in Texas is banning teaching students about Play Dough

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would actually like to read Mein Kampf just to see what it says, not bc I'm going to practice what it says. I don't mind reading about people from other cultures who did f'd up sh. - mixed race gay liberal

I'm the one who said I read Plato as a teen and it was totally fing weird. I read and listen to a lot of crazy stuff. If people say a person someone is dangerous, its basically guaranteed that I will listen to or read their stuff. Anyway Mein Kampf is exactly what you would expect, a racial identitarian manifesto with a focus on territorial expansion. The most interesting part is his discussion of how to control popular opinion. I think that's why this book is actually banned, people will see the playbook.

[Anonymous]

You just cannot make this up . . Posted today by a MAGA congresswoman. It would only be better if she were from Texas and not Florida.