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What a bunch of crybabies
Every time conservatives point out the preponderance of liberals in higher education, the response is usually the same: What a bunch of crybabies.
Peter Wood at National Review is tired of this rebuttal.
This what-a-bunch-of-crybabies response is so common that I have abbreviated it, and write WABOC in the margins when it turns up, as always it does, when the academic left is momentarily faced with the evidence of its exclusionary hiring policies. WABOC is a bit rich coming from folks whose cri de coeur has been the unfairness of America’s majorities to America’s minorities. The ruinous thought that they themselves are a self-satisfied majority heedless of minority rights must be banished the instant it occurs. Hence WABOC becomes the rally cry, and the smug sense of having done with that bit of impertinence.
His great article goes on to remind us this:
[Higher education] isn’t conspiring to keep Republicans or conservatives out of academic appointments, but on the other hand they are not attracted to having people around who don’t play the same ideological game.
This is my favorite bit:
In many fields in the humanities today, it is the highest praise to say that someone has “destabilized” the meaning of a text, or “subverted” a tradition. To “transgress” means to undermine the stale, old, and (in this view) inevitably oppressive order. Those departments caught up in this brave new construction of intellectual towers are not about to appoint, or even seriously consider appointing, colleagues who would speak for value of the very traditions that the departments are attempting to sunder.
Practically speaking, there is much less room for a political scientist who thinks the Cold War was an appropriate response to Soviet aggression; a historian who thinks that the U.S. was right to fight the Vietnam War and could have been prevailed; or a professor of English who thinks that there are works of literature the greatness of which lies in the intrinsic power of the writing.
Nothing new here, but it continues to fascinate me.
back to top55 Comments to “What a bunch of crybabies”
Top-level academic scholarship operates at an international level. On an international scale, Democrats are actually very much a conservative political party. In fact, if a party ran on the last Democratic platform in any other modern Western nation, the only country in which they might have a prayer of being elected is Australia. On a global scale, many American college professors are in fact moderate to conservative — the fact is simply that American politics is drastically out of sync with the global scale.
I agree that ideological hegemony is an important issue in academic disciplines. But reducing it to domestic political association ignores global realities while simultaneously obfuscating the issue of academic integrity.
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I think this is the equivalent of liberals complaining that there are too many conservatives in boardrooms, executive suites and the inner rings of the Pentagon.
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Obviously, Arcadia, you don’t know about Ben and Jerry.
A corporation is about making a profit and benefiting the shareholder. A school is supposedly about sharing ideas. Big difference.
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Arcadia, but with this VERY important difference: boardrooms and such do not CLAIM to be bastions of tolerance, diversity, and open-mindedness.
If liberals admit that they want to shift power structures, then don’t complain when conservatives note that they have shifted. Feigning incredulity (”What? There’s not a preponderance of liberals in university humanities departments!) doesn’t become the people who do so.
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Stephen, you make a good point. Many of our political liberals are owhere near as liberal as their European counterparts.
But we are talking about universities, where many of our professors keep up just fine with the ultraliberals in European universities. I’ve met some of them.
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Academia typically suffers from a sense of self-importance rooted in the presumption that the critic is superior to the doer. I like Theodore Roosevelt’s perspective:
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt. “Citizenship in a Republic,” Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
He also said:
“Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger.” T. R. (1894)
So that the point is not misunderstood, I don’t see a cut & dried world composed only of thinkers vs doers. Better to strive to be a thoughtful doer. All other options are just too easy.
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“…the fact is simply that American politics is drastically out of sync with the global scale.”
I wonder just what is wrong with that? And just why is it so different? And could the fact that we have a stronger work ethic than almost any other country in the world be related? Does a populace that has a high percentage of members that at least have a Judaeo-Christian worldview have anything to do with it?
Hmmm…
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Arcadia has a point. Corporations are the real bastion of power now, not academia. And corporations are primarily run by conservatives and Republicans, with a few liberals like Ben & Jerry to put on a fake “diversity” show.
*****
Stephen also has a good point. The “left” in America would be the middle/moderates in any other western country, save AU.
*****
Conservatives dominate in many areas of influence in our country:
1. Corporations and business
2. Think Tanks (very important)
3. Talk radio
4. Mega-churches
5. The military
6. Book publishing/periodicals
There are only two places that liberals dominate:
1. Higher education
2. MSM/Hollywood
It shows you how far to the right this country has gone that conservatives are complaining that they don’t own everything in our culture.
One must also understand that the bleating about the supposed “WABOC” is pure propaganda from the right.
Folks shouldn’t be fooled when they hear complaints about academia being biased toward the left – this is all a play for absolute control by the right. You can be sure if the right were in control of academia they would purge the left in a heartbeat.
Lets not forget our history: at one time the right controlled our universities and there was no diversity of opinion. The right was not interested in things like fairness and equality. Only now, when they’re in the minority do they cry for “diversity, equality, and fairness”. They are using those values solely to gain power so they can get rid of those values and the liberals who brought them into being. Most liberals are not fooled by their “Damascus Road” experience.
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Kyle, I agree, except for the fact that in Europe such “ultraliberalism” is decidedly mainstream, and is indeed the moderate position between liberalism and socialism.
MIM, no one said there’s something wrong with it. The wrongness comes from the expectation that members of a body of international academia should operate within an American political paradigm.
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Charlotte Allen, in a Wall Street Journal article from 2005, said, “America’s 700-plus religiously affiliated colleges and universities are enjoying an unprecedented surge of growth and a revival of interest.”
Allen referred to a book titled, “God on the Quad” (by Naomi Schaefer Riley), which claimed that the number of students attending the 100 schools that make up the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities has risen 60 percent between 1990 and 2002.
Private Christian colleges tend to offer a more holistic experience to undergrads, providing not just a quality education, but also a healthy community wherein students and professors are more likely to interact at a personal level–going to church together and featuring a better student to professor ratio than most state schools. Also, private Christian colleges tend to keep the professor’s community profile higher by not resorting as often to letting grad students do most of the actual classroom teaching (though both do that to some degree).
To generalize, the “publish or perish” syndrome is heavier at secular universities (which may have good and/or bad aspects to it). And, objectively speaking, secular universities (public or private) may tend to be more likely to function as major research institutions–which takes a lot more funding.
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Anlir, the bastions of the right don’t claim to be anything but that. Corporations, the military, and megachurches don’t claim to exist to promote broadmindedness and diversity. Corporations exist to make money. The military exists to defend us. Megachurches exist (supposedly) to promote the Gospel.
That to me is the HUGE difference and why the liberal dominance of universities is more bothersome than conservative dominance in those other institutions.
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Kyle A,
Well you might have a point. I think America’s colleges and Universities should proudly proclaim their liberal values. They should be proud to uphold those values, which have made this country a more tolerant and diverse place. Perhaps their motto could be “Standing in the gap against the Right”.
Our colleges and universities are still the destination point for people all over the world. So they must be doing something right.
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Anlir, at least they would be honest.
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I don’t even know what you people are talking about. When you get a degree in Physics, it’s neither liberal nor conservative. It’s PHYSICS.
A degree in engineering? Once again, neither liberal nor conservative.
Chemistry?
Agriculture?
Geology?
Paleontology?
Biology?
Physiology?
Botany?
Astronomy?
Architecture?
—-In many fields in the humanities today
Humanities????
What is that? Oh wait, I mean, besides being an elective, what on earth is a career in “humanities”?
Come on, what you guys are REALLY whining and complaining about is they don’t teach “magical creation” or “Bible reading” in any college or university above “tier four”.
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I kind of like WABOC — isn’t the complaint that they won’t let (conservatives) in? What is that but an appeal to an unexpressed tho’ real idea of diversity. Yep, same diversity that is also protested against.
Here I think we’re missing the diverse roles that modern higher education plays: it is at once education (the training of the person), but also a place for voc ed, and not least at ts higher echelons an entrance into the ruling caste structure — a place to make connections. A Christian view is probably best associated with the first of these three; it being a the more middle-class sort of approach. In the other two, I cannot think of why any one would object to any prejudice.
Voc ed/professional school? You’re there for the certification (pharmacist, MD, JD, MBA, etc); the school’s chief value is its ability to equip the student with skills.
Aristocratic/elite? Again, it’s not the content as much as it is the connections. Here, a lot of the conservative plaint is that of the kids being left out of the cool group.
Dear as I love philosophic combat some days, nonetheless I rather suspect more faith is lost in the bar out on the commercial strip than in the classroom. The practical atheism of a- and im-morality is the enemy.
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Just another annoying anecdote to throw in the works…
Australia’s Academia are every bit as leftist, if not more so than the rest of the ‘West’. Australia is home to Monash University, where they do sickening, painful and cruel experiments on unborn babies. I used to attend lectures of some Australian professors that make Peter Singer look like a moderate.
Maybe I just happened to have met the worst examples of Australian professors, I certainly hope there are some sensible ones there.
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Corporations are the real bastion of power now, not academia.
Crazy, crazy, Anlir. The heads of corporations, with extremely few exceptions, were all trained in the academic setting. Hence, the influence of liberal-saturated academia carries over into the corporate world.
You libs and anti-Christians always decry the GOP as controlling the corporate universe, yet you forget that the richest in the USA are actually . . . Democrats.
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The “universities are liberal” complaint is oversimplified.
In my (admittedly limited) experience:
The business college will tend slightly conservative.
The hard science will tend moderate to slightly liberal.
The humanities will tend hard liberal.
As a humanities guy myself (MA in English Lit), I have found it impossible to broaden my understanding of communication and persuasion and still find Fox News palatable. I’ve found it hard to broaden my appreciation of literature (so much of which is about the underdogs and the overlooked) and still buy the hard-boiled “the weak deserve their fate” approach taken by my ultra-conservative family.
I wonder how HSK does it. I suspect he’s a classicist (or at least one at heart). Much more at home with merciless Achilles in his rage than Orwell’s harried British officer reluctantly shooting that elephant. Better the wily Odysseus than the whiny Leopold Bloom. Am I right?
In short, I suspect the discipline one studies determines and is determined by one’s political leanings (bonus points with my pomo prof on that one). I also think conservative values lend themselves less readily to the university’s unprofitable (in more meanings than the pecuniary, to be honest) exchange of ideas.
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JJF,
You wonder how I do what?
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Well lets look at this simply in the context of this blog.
We have seen a number of individuals outright reject the scientific evidence on a number of topics. Not argue that the evidence is specifically wrong on a given point, mind you, but that because it disagrees with their interpretation of the Bible, they will reject the evidence out of hand.
Now this will work well in certain religious ontexts, but it will not work well in most academic settings.
If individuals are not willing to be data driven and evidence driven, it is unlikely that they will find modern academia interesting and appealing.
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#18: The hard science will tend moderate to slightly liberal.
There is no “liberal” in science. That’s because it’s “science”. It’s like saying, “Liberal math” or “conservative physics”. It doesn’t make a lick of sense.
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There may not be “liberal” in science, but there can be science professors who hold liberal views. How about fanatical global warming activists or other environmentally correct scientists? How about biologists who favor abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research? How about anti-nuclear weapon activists?
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Kyle A post 22,
so lets do these in pieces:
1) the scientific evidnce to support global warming is quite strong. I suspect that you will find it difficult to argue that they are not following the evidence when the conclude that the evidence supports global warming (and then the arguments do begin)
2) finding issue with abortion, stem cell research etc. dependes on a crisp definition of what is meant by humanness. When I asked this question in another discussion on this blog, no pro-life proponent could give a definition which would seem satisfying to an evidence driven mind set
3) and why is anti-nuclear weapopns not evidence driven? It is clear that with the weapons we have we could potentially annihiliate all human life on earth. Again a reasonable evidence driven position
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So let me get this straight. Conservatives, who oppose affirmative action generally, whine that the academy is too liberal, and that they should essentially be granted affirmative action.
Um… no.
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DC LAWYER wrote; “Let me get this straight”
Then he twists the issue into a senseless knot. No one has called for government affirmative action here. We are pointing out that a gross bias undemiably exists at most secular universities against the right. We point it out so that customers will freely consider more balanced and fair choices for their education.
Conservatives want employment and educational decisions made on the basis of merit. I have heard or made no suggestions for quotas or AA. If secular and leftist schools don’t offer this (and they rarely do), we can choose freely to support private Christian universities, who do a much better job these days.
Conservatives think that students should choose their schools on the basis of merit.
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Musing (#23), you prove my point. All those liberal causes are “evidence driven” and a priori scientifically sound.
DC Lawyer (#24): No, conservatives complain that liberals in academia are insincere when they say that they want diversity and open-mindedness. You do think that people should pracitce what they preach don’t you?
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Exactly DC Lawyer. Conservative have only recently become converts to “affirmative action”. They will use AA solely to gain power, and then once in control they will get rid of it, because they never really believed in “affirmative action” in the first place.
If one understands that for conservatives, power and control are their fundamental values (not “affirmative action”), one isn’t fooled by their sudden bleating for “diversity” and “affirmative action”. It’s the classical “Trojan Horse” move.
Just because we liberals believe in diversity and affirmative action doesn’t mean we should stand by and let conservatives use those things to destroy all the good work that’s been done. Put another way, you don’t hand your enemy a sword with which he could slay you, no matter how much he begs and tells you he’s “defenseless” against an unseen enemy.
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So, Anlir admits that there is a culture war! At least he’s being honest.
Of course, Anlir, it might be nice for you or DC Lawyer to cite one source for your assertion that conservatives want to force universities to higher them through affirmative action programs.
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Kyle A,
It’s my understanding that David Horowitz is going around the country trying to get state legislatures to put in “affirmative action” for conservatives in their university systems. So far he’s failed, but he keeps trying.
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HSK:
I wonder how you maintain conservative political ideas and an appreciation for literature. At least for modern literature (which is why I suspect you as a classical literature man).
Modern literature seems to me so much about the individual, often the individual against society, often the not particularly worthy or noteworthy individual against society. Empathy with a wastrel or a rogue or a depressed bum seems the most common rhetorical device of modern literature.
Conservatism, on the other hand, seems to value the “Big Idea.” Sacrifice for the country. Be willing to accept soldiers’ and citizens’ deaths as long as the cause is worthwhile. Be willing to accept poverty as long as the economy at large is strong. It is generally apathetic to individual suffering, as long as the Big Picture is rosy.
But modern literature distrusts “the Big Idea” for which individuals ought to sacrifice as a lie (or at least a half-truth). I’ll submit there are so few conservative humanities professors because it is near impossible to really appreciate Orwell and then go vote for a neo-conservative, to really appreciate Faulkner and then go vote for “trickle down economics,” to really appreciate any work of literature impressed with the intrinsic worth of the human individual and then go vote for a candidate who wants to double Guantanamo Bay.
It’s really hard not to see Willie Stark when I look at Karl Rove, you know?
This isn’t meant as a personal attack, btw. I appreciate the great majority of your posts — both their content and your dry, humorous tone. This is just something that puzzles me.
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JJF,
How do I “maintain conservative political ideas and an appreciation for [modern] literature”?
I’m not sure the two are mutually exclusive, unless we are equivocating the meaning of “conservative,” as well as “literature.”
I might agree that the stereotype of the conservative (as a boorish, anti-intellectual, fundamentalist, young-Earth, unfeeling zealot for capitalism) and the stereotype of appreciator of modern literature (as a liberal, irrational, atheistic/agonistic, rabid enthusiast for abstract concepts championed by Rousseau and a believer in some kind of earthly/utopian salvation through education-slash-government-intervention) would seem to be contradictory, but I assure you that conservatism is perfectly reconcilable with the appreciation of all kinds of literatures, including modern.
Most of my favorite books were written in the 20th century, although I am not even sure that fact is relevant.
I was not offended by your question.
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Obviously, Arcadia, you don’t know about Ben and Jerry.
Neither do you. Ben and Jerry don’t own Ben and Jerry’s anymore. Unilever owns Ben and Jerry’s.
Crazy, crazy, Anlir. The heads of corporations, with extremely few exceptions, were all trained in the academic setting. Hence, the influence of liberal-saturated academia carries over into the corporate world.
Outkast – most business schools aren’t saturated by liberal thought. Neither are most science and engineering schools. While many so-called “liberal” universities may have liberal humanities departments, their business, science and engineering schools are not.
Nice try.
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#24 So let me get this straight. Conservatives, who oppose affirmative action generally, whine that the academy is too liberal, and that they should essentially be granted affirmative action.
Um… no.
How magnanimous! So affirmative action *shouldn’t* be objectively applied. Ummm…OK.
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Conservatives can appreciate a work of literature without totally agreeing with its message. I pity you if you have learned your economics from a novel. I pity you if you are so seeped in liberalsim that you can’t appreciate Dante.
Modern education in the humanities is pathetic. My experience in college was that most humanities majors were too lazy to think. There is a lot more to humanities than what most people have been spoon fed, which is often garbage.
My children have benefitted from a more or less Christian classical education. Their exposure to the humanities can’t even be compared with the best our good local public school has to offer. And their testing proves it. We talk about history and literature all the time.
In my view, the liberal schools are in a steep clutural decline. Fifty years ago high school graduates were better read than today’s college grads. The cultural ignorance is astounding.
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No more about affirmative action. Bush’s father, through connections and money, got him into H. University over thousands of more qualified students. Family connections got him into a military unit that included 5 Dallas Cowboys and the sons of several Senators.
Affirmative action is being moved to the head of the line over more qualified and deserving individuals. Funny that conservatives don’t care if the rich do it. They only whine about helping the poor. Odd.
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If an entity refused to take blacks or hispanics or women, then the liberals would be screaming long and loud (as well as suing).
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kyle a post 26,
and so you are suggesting reaching conclusions without evidence?
That of course will get you into a very interesting discussion into academic circles!
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Musing, I would hardly suggest that.
I suggest that even science professors can hold liberal views that influence the conclusions they draw from the evidence. I think their views can also determine what evidence they accept or reject in the first place. I also suggest that even on topics that are not really scientific, such as whether abortion is right or wrong, science professors still throw out opinions. I’ve heard them do it.
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Grade inflation is an issue that exposes the hollowness of even the Ivy League schools. This is particularly bad in the humanities. Princeton has a new policy about it.
Compared to previous generations our standards are abysmal. I have a fifth grade reader from 120 years ago that many college students today could not understand. The knowledge of history is especially poor. And only Christians seem to be interested in the classical languages.
I know high school librarians that will not stock books with more than 400 pages, not even for reference. It is easier than ever to get old books today as the college libraries cull their stacks.
I’ve posted this here before -
http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/report/major_findings_finding1.html
Note that only Harvard’s seniors scored higher than conservative school Grove City’s seniors.
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Everyone has opinions. No one agrees that abortion is “right”, everyone agrees it’s “wrong”.
The split comes from the “choice”.
Some feel the “choice” belongs to the woman. Others believe it is their choice to make “for” the woman.
FROM #35: If an entity refused to take blacks or hispanics or women, then the liberals would be screaming long and loud (as well as suing).
You make my point. Somehow, it’s wrong to accept affirmative action for blacks or hispanics or women, but affirmative action for the rich is just dandy. Many of the thousands Bush vaulted ahead of could certainly afford the school. They just didn’t have the connections. The rich’s own private “affirmative action”.
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kyle a post 38,
hmm I think I will agree with you that all people have opinions.
The real questions I believe I am asking are:
1) are we willing to be driven by the evidence first
2) are we willing to allow a logic driven discussion of the evidence
Both these would seem to be essential to success in a modern university environment.
This by comparison with an auhority driven model of the discussion where a given text is given credance over the evidence.
Now many times I have been on the painful end of these types of discussion in academic circles where I was presenting unpopular evidence or unpopular interpretations of evidence. What I have found was:
a) it was always very exciting
b) if my case was sound it would always eventually get a fair hearing
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#38: even science professors can hold liberal views
That’s because they most likely believe in “science” and not “mysticism” or the “occult”. That would certainly make them seem more “liberal”.
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#30 JJF asks HSK:
“I wonder how you maintain conservative political ideas and an appreciation for literature. At least for modern literature (which is why I suspect you as a classical literature man).”
Now isn’t this when someone points out that precisely because of the liberal academy JJF has never been given any answers to this question. There are few or no conservatives in is university or college to teach the other side.
“I’ll submit there are so few conservative humanities professors because it is near impossible to really appreciate Orwell and then go vote for a neo-conservative, to really appreciate Faulkner and then go vote for “trickle down economics,” to really appreciate any work of literature impressed with the intrinsic worth of the human individual and then go vote for a candidate who wants to double Guantanamo Bay.”
You were not taught by a liberal professor that it is precisely because of “…the intrinsic worth of the human individual…” that we hold people in Guantanamo Bay. A conservative professor might have taught you that, but you probably didn’t have the choice.
This is one example of what a one-sided education does o the unwitting student. I don’t see why liberals even have to have this pointed out to them. Isn’t it obvious?
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HSK:
I don’t think we must retreat to extreme stereotypes in order to see the disconnect between modern lit and modern American conservative political philosophy. I would bet that 3 out of 4 books in the canon of “modern literature” militate against conservative political philosophy, some of them quite explicitly. And I’m even using “modern” broadly — I’m not just talking about the disaffected and disillusioned post-WWI writers. Voltaire thinks our belief in Providence is stupid. Swift thinks the state has some responsibility toward the impoverished Irish. Dickens thinks laissez-faire economics is a travesty that should be quickly ended by stiff government regulation over big business.
I agree with Amphibolos that one can enjoy a work of literature with which one does not entirely agree. But after a while, wouldn’t you get the sense that most of these authors hate so much of what I hold dear. Candide makes me uncomfortable, in part because I can’t help but love its wit and style. I can’t imagine that discomfort being a regular part of my reading experience.
Admittedly, the conservatism of my rural youth may be unrepresentative, or my ideas about conservatism may be prejudiced by a lodged hate and a certain loathing I bear Dick Cheney (that I follow thus a losing suit against him — impeach that criminal!)
I learned my economics from an economics professor. I consider the time entirely wasted and wish I’d spent it reading a novel. Or Adam Smith and Karl Marx. As it is, I’ve learned that macroeconomics is the study of charts having to do with alphanumeric terms that begin with M.
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#43: A conservative professor might have taught you that
A conservative professor might teach, “Gays are bad because the Bible tells you so”. Beyond that is a decided lack of critical thinkging. The student might ask “what makes them bad”? The conservative says, “Because the Bible tells you so”.
You simply can’t get past, “Because the Bible tells you so”. Critical thinking goes out the door. Any questioning of the Bible leads to liberalism and critical thinking.
Where is there critical thinking in, “Because the Bible tells you so”? You can’t find it because it isn’t there. Then the conservatives cry and whine that liberals don’t understand them and are close minded. How hard is it to understand, “Because the Bible tells you so”? It’s so easy. The conservatives assume that if you heard the Bible’s message of “Because the Bible tells you so”, you would automatically become a conservative and if you don’t, it’s because you refuse to listen to the message, therefore, closed liberal mind.
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Tisk-tisk, Harrison — you could have answered JJF very nicely without denigrating Rousseau!
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JJF, and others:
You can’t “agree” or “disagree” with a good story. It’s not a proposition to be confirmed or refuted.
Knowing this as I do, I can always enjoy a well-told story, no matter who does the telling.
That’s one problems Christian conservatives have when reading literature. They try to fit it into their worldview bucket, but the best stories don’t fit in worldview buckets.
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#45
Is this an example of a straw man argument?
I don’t see the “Because the Bible says so” argument at work among those who know better. Example:
http://www.family.org/socialissues/A000001140.cfm
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Harrison Scott Key,
You do indeed keep managing to provide interesting twists and turns!
It certainly keeps ones interest up! You are anything but predictable!
Thanks!
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There are both Christian and secular conservative schools. Let them compete with the feminist, pacifist, multi-cultural, PC fluff schools for the best students.
If the elite universities don’t offer elite clases, students will go elsewhere.
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amphipolis post 50,
indeed well spoken. The academic competition will in the end win out.
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TO #48: You can’t use the invented “info” from a site that has such an agenda. Any group that advocates people disowning their own children is not focused on the “family”.
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#45 RDEAN
My point is,If someone is only presented with one side of an arguement, only one view of a controversy, one point of view on politics then there will only be one answer. This is unlikely to give good answers.
It has been amply demonstrated that the academy is Leftist, Liberal. What kind of education will a student get? This is a bad idea. Why does anyone have to be convinced? Why is there even a question that it should be changed? Where’s the beef?
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#53: Why does anyone have to be convinced?
Christians want to convince scientists that spend their entire careers pursuing scientific knowledge that they are wrong and “God did it”. So is that leftist? Doe that make determined ignorance “conservative”?
Wah wah. Physics, biology, botany, physiology, Math, English, engineering, none of these are “leftists”. Unfortunately, I suspect there are few of the super religious in these fields. Why? Are they too busy crying about imaginary “leftist” universities that they prefer to stay away from evil education? You should also stay away from the benefits of science. It’s not fair to complain about it and then rely on it. It’s only “crocodile” tears.
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bob buckles post 53,
but of course the university is not presenting one side of the argument, if for no other reason than liberal and leftist are so unspecific as to provide minimal information. within this ceontext there is still huge variability.
And in fact there are any number of intellectual conservatives who find universities very pleasant.
What you must accept, however, is the model of evidenced based anaysis. As outkast and victoria have been careuflly pointing out, this makes it tough for certain forms of religious models to work smoothly in a modern academic environment.
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