Thinking That Makes the World Worse

National Review Online ^ | June 5, 2006 | Carrie Lukas

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Americans are used to hearing how academia is out of touch with the real world. Stories from college campuses even periodically make front-page news. Conservative speakers are heckled on campus. Harvard president Larry Summers speculates about innate gender differences—something most Americans consider common sense—and is censured and essentially forced out by the faculty. Yale University enrolls a former Taliban official. Colorado University professor Ward Churchill compares victims of the September 11th attacks to Nazis.

These are some public examples of campus radicalism in action. Yet the big embarrassing stories aren’t the only reason we should be concerned about universities. The real crisis is the grinding, daily bias on college campuses that’s so bland it’s easy to ignore.

I was reminded of this insidiousness when I returned to Harvard for the five-year reunion of my graduation from the Kennedy School of Government. I looked forward to catching up with friends, but the weekend was classic KSG. In addition to the usual cash-bar receptions and class dinner, the school offered panel discussions with names like “The UN’s Footsoldiers,” “Mobilizing Adaptive Work,” and “What We Can Learn From Non-Profits.”

Now that’s the self-important, government-celebrating, liberal elitism that I remember! These titles brought back memories of countless lectures celebrating the nobility of “public service.” The message was always the same: While businesspeople are fueled by an ugly desire for dollars, government officials are servants of the people. Self-sacrificing and motivated by the public good, those toiling in agencies and public offices deserve a special kind of reverence.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

5th reunion at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government -- what a departure from the real world!

[socialismisinsidious]

Another good article by Lukas. Thanks for posting.

Liberals never see their own hypocrisy and if they did it would be condoned b/c after all 'the ends justifies the means' and they, being elite, know best (said in liberal whine)

[JamesP81]

I thought you might want to ping the college education list (I'd have done it myself, except I don't have the list handy on the computer I'm on).

[LurkedLongEnough]

I recently offered to help plan the xxth reunion of my college class and observed the same attitudes. The planners are totally infiltrated by radicals, and when a conservative voice disagrees, it is mercilessly heckled as "intolerant of our class diversity". I wonder if they realize that their views are in fact repelling 70-90% of the rest of the alumni.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Pinging one of my daughter's articles.

[Republicanprofessor]

College Education Ping list.

Let JamesP81, McVey, or me know if you want on or off this ping list.

Thanks for the heads up JamesP81. An interesting article.

[mcvey]

And all too typical. Working at a school that is hip-deep in "social justice" demands--it may be made part of our core curriculum--I get to see a really ugly side of this debacle.

Social Justice, as we see it at our school, demands three things:

1. A belief that any property can be redistributed to any chosen group or cause (which means using force, of course, only these "pacifists" never look at what it takes to redistribute property.)

2. An absolute suspension of judgment toward groups who they believe are "victims"--I wish I could get away with what the victims do. Of course, many of our officially-recognized victims turn those from "privileged" groups into victims on a regular basis. Living in the inner-city has given me a healthy appreciation of what our "socially discriminated" groups do for a living.

3. And a seething anti-Americanism, which, for reasons that have always baffled me, means that their rejection of what they consider to be American (or as some still say, AmeriKa) makes them morally superior.

It is bizarre that they have never considered that in other countries that practice their form of social justice (such as Venezuela) they would lose their jobs and probably their freedom)

McVey

[Sergio]

And the money line of the article is...

The honored alum instead toasted their noble sacrifice to “public service,” patting themselves on the back for helping a victim that they helped create.

That's it folks, liberalism in a nutshell.