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Why professors are liberal: They're intelligent
San Diego Union ^ | December 3, 2004 | Various

Posted on 12/03/2004 12:55:13 PM PST by Ramonan

In his column, "Campuses remain Democratic havens," George Will certainly tries hard to explain why faculty members at our prominent universities are overwhelmingly liberal. But as is often the case with Will, he fails to mention the obvious. These people are liberal because they are intelligent, thoughtful and well-educated. They know something of labor and social history and realize that for most people a return to conditions of the early 20th century would not be in their interest. Finally, they are unpersuaded by slogans like "compassionate conservative" and "ownership society," which are primarily a cover for the transfer of society's wealth into the pockets of the rich.

THOMAS ALDEN Borrego Springs

Demonstrating once again that you can be articulate, educated, powerful and connected yet still have no clue to what is actually going on, Will bemoans the lack of "conservative" thought on college campuses. The first thing that comes to my mind is thank God. If most professors' ideological rudders represented those of the current Republican Party, institutions of higher learning would be teaching creationism as the explanation of man's existence on Earth, ignoring more than a century of anthropological discoveries because they conflicted with biblical teachings. Government studies would renounce labor unions as pseudocommunist fronts, since businesses always do what is best for workers. Law schools would concern themselves primarily with property law, since only owners of property have rights.

CLIFF HANNA San Diego

(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; Philosophy; Political Humor/Cartoons; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: academia; bias; clueless; college; education; elites; faculty; georgewill; liberalism; msm; university
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To: 101st-Eagle
Had an "intelligent" liberal professor banging his shoe on his desk about why we should have dropped the A-bomb on Mt. Fuji to demonstrate its power vise killing thousands. When someone pointed out the fact they didn't surrender after the first bomb and that we only had a limited amount of nuclear fuel to begin with and about another 10 reasons why this was foolish, the professor cut him off and basically called him a liar.
121 posted on 12/03/2004 1:40:03 PM PST by lt.america (Captain was already taken)
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To: All
I think modern day academia are addicted to Gramsci, Lukacs, Adorno, Fromm, and Marcuse.

Nothing like taking classes with a Prof. who thinks 'Eros and Civilization' is the gospel truth.
122 posted on 12/03/2004 1:42:48 PM PST by rollo tomasi (Working hard to pay for deadbeats and corrupt politicians)
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To: Ramonan

Forgot to mention they tend to run toward communist thinking too.


123 posted on 12/03/2004 1:42:54 PM PST by Pylot
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To: lt.america
Every year without fail, it seems that some MIT type can't resist the urge to walk across the "frozen" Charles River.
They get 1600's on their SATs, then they wash up in Scituate.
Too bad it's never Chomsky.
124 posted on 12/03/2004 1:42:54 PM PST by massgopguy (massgopguy)
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To: Brad Cloven
Those who can't, teach.

And those who can't teach will publish and gain tenure.

125 posted on 12/03/2004 1:44:46 PM PST by Sooth2222
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To: rollo tomasi

I studied English at the Grad Level and all those names were on my reading list.

Though you have to admit Adorno's 'There is no poetry after Auschwitz' is one of the 20th century's best aphorisms. Terse and chilling.


126 posted on 12/03/2004 1:46:28 PM PST by Borges
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To: Mudcat
some extremely intelligent, highly accomplished people in this world are complete morons outside of their very specific fields of endeavor.

You said it. I work for a law firm. Need I say more?

127 posted on 12/03/2004 1:47:13 PM PST by stanz (Those who don't believe in evolution should go jump off the flat edge of the Earth.)
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Intelligent and educated are not neccesarily the same thing.


128 posted on 12/03/2004 1:48:09 PM PST by Trampled by Lambs ("Making Al Gore regret inventing the internet, one post at a time")
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To: Borges

All the really good philosophical thinking was done by the end of the 18th Century.


129 posted on 12/03/2004 1:48:10 PM PST by My2Cents ("Well...there you go again.")
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bttt


130 posted on 12/03/2004 1:48:42 PM PST by jdm (Stockhausen, Kagel, Xenakis -- world capitals or avant-garde composers?)
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To: Ramonan

I've spent plenty of years in acadamia on the science and engineering side where most professors are in fact quite conservative. The title should read "Why the pseudo intelligent left who've infested the soft sciences and liberal arts think they're so smart".


131 posted on 12/03/2004 1:48:43 PM PST by SpaceBar
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To: Ramonan

What a crock, they are liberal because they are socialists. They aren't so intelligent if they can't see that it has never worked primarily because it is against human nature.


132 posted on 12/03/2004 1:48:50 PM PST by austingirl
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To: Mase

And those who can't be guidance counselors, there's always the school psychologist.


133 posted on 12/03/2004 1:49:01 PM PST by My2Cents ("Well...there you go again.")
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To: My2Cents

Schopenhauer and Nietzche were great writers and thinkers even if their work has led to some unpleasant ends. But any great thinker can lay claim to such. 18th century philophy led to communism.


134 posted on 12/03/2004 1:50:10 PM PST by Borges
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To: SpaceBar
in acadamia on the science and engineering side where most professors are in fact quite conservative

That's because they deal with real world laws and principles, and tangible results.

135 posted on 12/03/2004 1:50:19 PM PST by My2Cents ("Well...there you go again.")
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To: Ramonan

For us stupid folks (hyuck) out here, I want to know one thing that is attractive about the liberal agenda? Is the choice to kill one's own offspring? Is it being overtaxed? What is it?


136 posted on 12/03/2004 1:50:40 PM PST by HungarianGypsy (We are the pirates who don't do anything....)
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To: kkindt
The reason most faculty are liberal is because the faculty that has been liberal for generations are the ones who pick new faculty.

Many thanks for your excellent post. I attended one of the most leftist colleges in the US back in the 70's and remember well the rigid enforcement of many forms of orthodoxy through the school, including Skinnerian behaviorism in the Psych department and Keynesian theory in Econ. This continued commitment to orthodoxy in academia is having a impact on quality, as in the case of Mary Habek, one of the best young military historians around, who was recently denied tenure by Yale.

Institutions of learning which do not permit any true competition of ideas are in very real danger of losing their reason for existence.

137 posted on 12/03/2004 1:51:45 PM PST by macbee ("Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." - Napoleon Bonaparte)
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To: laotzu
"the transfer of society's wealth"

Great catch!
I have been exposed to this BS for so long it sailed right by me.
Universally, the validation of a true liberal is the unshakeable faith in the conviction that both "government" and "society" has wealth, or worth or intelligence. Keeping that faith allows less guilt to steal the wealth from the individuals who actually earn and hold wealth and property.

138 posted on 12/03/2004 1:51:54 PM PST by Publius6961 (The most abundant things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.)
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To: jdege
"Actually, liberal professors seem to gravitate to fields where it's very difficult to demonstrate that they are incompetents."

Not necessarily true. In my experience, the hard sciences (math, physics, chemistry) have as many liberals as the social sciences. Engineering is another matter altogether, however.

139 posted on 12/03/2004 1:52:01 PM PST by Truthsayer20
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To: Borges

I should correct that: I meant 17th Century philosophers (e.g., Locke). Hegel being an example of 18th Century philosophers.


140 posted on 12/03/2004 1:52:56 PM PST by My2Cents ("Well...there you go again.")
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