[SJackson]

Part I: Edward Feser: Why Are Universities Dominated by the Left?

[SJackson]

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[joesnuffy]

modern educators = agents of social change

[Jeff Chandler]

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[DBrow]

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[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Of the varieties of liberal, left-wing, and gnostic ideologies that fascinate American academic types, most have some sort of vague mythology of progress which is supposed to evolve through social liberation or secular humanist enlightenment. The targets usually are: capitalism, Christianity, Western culture (Dead White Western males), or any of the variations of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. What you are usually dealing with are people fixated and frozen at an adolescent stage of development with lingering issues of hostility towards authority figures, parents, or their middle-class or religious upbringing. The wild, fantasy-laden syntheses they present combining Karl Marx with Sigmund Freud(and Nietzsche) usually involve all sorts of logical contradictions. These are emotional outbursts from bitter, disgruntled, and very highly irrational people.

[Tolik]

As the intelligentsia has gotten progressively more "progressive," so too under its influence -- via the universities, media, mainline churches, etc. -- has the average non-intellectual, just not as thoroughly or ideologically. He thus lives in a state of cognitive dissonance, torn, to use the argot of commentators on the 2000 presidential election, between the "blue state" devil whispering enticingly into his left ear and the ever more desperate pleadings of the "red state" angel at his right ear. The call to self-reliance and self-restraint, to family and faith, still has for him its charms; yet the prospects of ever-expanding government handouts at others' expense, and of endless sensual indulgence without consequences (except to one's children, ex-spouses, the unborn, and future generations, but never mind them) -- such prospects exert a pull too powerful for the average citizen of the modern West to resist, flabby and desiccated as he is already from half a century or so of welfarism and sexual "liberation."  

.....

That is why Leftism has gotten, with the passing decades, ever closer to sheer lunacy; and also why, as such lunacy has permeated ever more deeply into modern Western society, the ideas of conservative thinkers have come to seem to the common man increasingly romantic, unrealistic, and unattainable. If the typical contemporary Westerner does not quite resonate to the ravings of Marxists and postmodernists, neither is he much drawn to the doctrines of Thomists, Burkeans, or Hayekians. He is too far gone for that. He wants his conservatism heavily watered down, at least enough to leave room for a Federal prescription drug benefit and easy access to pornography, should the mood for it strike him. If this makes for inconsistency… well, he's happy to let the professors worry about such things.

And if what they tell him is that he ought to discard the conservatism altogether and opt instead for a worldview specifically designed to justify the benefits and the porn, he is, with the passing years, ever increasingly ready to listen. The modern intellectual plays just the role his Medieval predecessor did: justifying, propagating, and systematically working out the consequences of a worldview the common man is already committed to in an unsophisticated and inchoate way. The opium of the intellectuals promises to become the opium of the people.

[Joe Republc]

I haven't read this yet, but I have to ping.

Part I was excellent!

-- Joe

[Joe Republc]

Great read!

This was the first time I've read anything by Mr. Feser. So perhaps other readers wouldn't be as surprised as I was by this statement:

"I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God!"

Although I can't say I've ever shared the author's hope there is no God (even when my faith has wavered), the author's points in the article ring true and are very insightful:

- The main driving force behind the Left is the rejection of any natural law created by God and imposed upon man. In other words, if you reject the idea of God's absolute and revealed law, you're OK. (To illustrate the point, he suggests that a Creationist would probably be tolerated by the Left if he or she were pro-choice.)

- The science vs. religion conflict is false, or beside the point at best.

- Modern philosophy tries but cannot convincingly explain seemingly immaterial things -- such as our minds or such as mathematical concept -- only in materialistic terms.

- The Left have their own religion; it's materialism or naturalism.

- Most of modern man - outside the intelligentsia, share much of the rejection of God's imposition on our lives, as well as the naturalistic worldview. But modern man still has a sentimental attachment to Western tradition and religion.

"..Leftism has gotten, with the passing decades, ever closer to sheer lunacy; and also why, as such lunacy has permeated ever more deeply into modern Western society, the ideas of conservative thinkers have come to seem to the common man increasingly romantic, unrealistic, and unattainable. ....He wants his conservatism heavily watered down, at least enough to leave room for a Federal prescription drug benefit and easy access to pornography, .... If this makes for inconsistency… well, he's happy to let the professors worry about such things."

Yes! That is so true. And I must confess it quite accurately reflects the muddled thinking I had in college.

Bottom line: great article. (Though if I were his editor I'd break up a few of Mr. Feser's sentences for clarity.)

-- Joe

[Joe Republc]

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[John Jorsett]

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[centurion316]

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[diotima]

You should read both of these essays.

[Hobsonphile]

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