The war came to Stanford, she said!

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2023

We humans attempt to reason: In our view, college football is always better when Stanford is good.

Stanford was quite good in the recent past. It may be hard to recall at this point, but the Cardinal finished fourth in the nation in the A.P. poll after the 2010 season.

To review recent seasons, click here.

Jim Harbaugh was head coach at the time. The next year, David Shaw took over. Under Shaw, the Cardinal finished seventh in the nation in 2011 and 2012, third in the nation in 2015, twelfth in 2016.

Third in the nation in 2015! Things have gone downhill from there. Then too, there's the current New York Times column by Pamela Paul, entitled The War Comes to Stanford.

Part of the column involves the recent conduct of a Stanford instructor in a mandated freshman course, College 101. And yes, that's the actual name of the course! For proof of this matter, click here.

What happened in College 101 this week? For CNN's account of the matter, you can just click this. 

At issue is the proven ability of us the humans to display limited judgment. That said, there isn't a final, objective way to prove that this instructor's judgment was wrong.

Presumably, most people in this country would agree that the instructor's judgment was faulty. Indeed, we would agree that his judgment was faulty. That doesn't necessarily mean that it was, but it may help explain why so many voters are "still with Trump." 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. Given the way our brains are wired, we humans see through a glass very darkly.

At times like these, we tend to seek formulations which suggest that our preferred judgments are plainly correct, full stop. It frequently isn't as simple as that. As rational assessment collapses around us, we'll try to discuss this next week.

We love college football when Stanford is good! Elsewhere on the Stanford campus, and even at the New York Times, the challenges have been coming thick and fast this week.  

College football is fairly easy. Especially at times like these, rational assessment is heart-breaking, tragic, quite hard.