Him?
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 ...
Just thought I'd add that raw intelligence has nothing to do with it. Hitler was said to be highly intelligent. I'm sure Karl Marx or Joseph Stalin weren't mental dullards either. Raw brainpower and wisdom are completely independent concepts.
I'm calling BS on your story. What university was this? And why didn't you raise h*ll about this?
Subtle way to remind us that those who choose to teach at that level are not the most moral upright citizens. yes, I've noticed that.
Him?
Should this not have been tabbed with a barf-alert?
Plus, it's probably a good bet that univerity profs earned their doctorates spewing Skinnerian behaviorism in psychology, or Keynesian theory in econ, or Darwinism in the bio-sciences. Adherence to "orthodoxy" has much to do with the fact that their degrees and careers have been based upon it. Question the Skinner school of behavior, etc., and you're questioning the validity and basis of their professional standing.
because they're usually tenured and in a union or both.
There's no way to can their candy asses no matter how
stupid, incapable or arrogant they are.
The idiot liberal student just blurted "YOUR POINT IS MOOT!" and felt that was the end of it. No real need to substantiate or define his position. The instructor was behind him all the way. What a joke. I have learned much more in life from my own personal studies.
Oops I meant 'heredity'
The author is only partly right. We CONSERVATIVE professors are intelligent and thoughtful. The rest are slugs.
I represent that remark. I could say, those who can't teach, post.
"The mistake these people make is to state that this professors are intelligent. They're not. If they were intelligent they would be out in the world applying they're knowledge and making a lot of money. The old saying holds true. Those that can... Do. Those that can't... Teach. So the whole idea that professors are intelligent is fiction."
So you equate someone's intelligence directly to the size of their wallet? Ridiculous. I guess all those poor Jesuit Priests teaching out there are stupid. Yah that makes sense.
Huh? TRANSFER? How so? They make it sound like rich people get rich by STEALING.
Don't mistake being an intellectual from being intelligent.
Usually it is insecure types who insist on unions and tenure to maintain their esteemed status in society. Truly competent people don't go around insisting people call them "Doctor" -- or "Reverend."
In Hawaii, teachers usually give their students extra credit for writing letters to the editor telling the public that teachers should get more pay and are deserving of the "most intelligent" designation. The newspapers eat them up like candy -- so impressed are they with their insight and innocence.
Everybody should be so naive.
Alas! Professors are the products of their education.
"Oh, no! San Diego!" ping.
Dec 2nd 2004
From The Economist print edition
If you loathe political debate, join the faculty of an American university
TOM WOLFE'S new novel about a young student, “I am Charlotte Simmons”, is a depressing read for any parent. Four years at an Ivy League university costs as much as a house in parts of the heartland—about $120,000 for tuition alone. But what do you get for your money? A ticket to “Animal House”.
In Mr Wolfe's fictional university the pleasures of the body take absolute precedence over the life of the mind. Students “hook up” (ie, sleep around) with indiscriminate zeal. Brainless jocks rule the roost, while impoverished nerds are reduced to ghost-writing their essays for them. The university administration is utterly indifferent to anything except the dogmas of political correctness (men and women are forced to share the same bathrooms in the name of gender equality). The Bacchanalia takes place to the soundtrack of hate-fuelled gangsta rap.
Mr Wolfe clearly exaggerates for effect (that's kinda, like, what satirists do, as one of his students might have explained). But on one subject he is guilty of understatement: diversity. He fires off a few predictable arrows at “diversoids”—students who are chosen on the basis of their race or gender. But he fails to expose the full absurdity of the diversity industry...
[Click link above to read the full article]
From dictionary.com
Usage Note: Transpire has been used since the mid-18th century in the sense “leak out, become publicly known,” as in Despite efforts to hush the matter up, it soon transpired that the colonels had met with the rebel leaders. This usage has long been standard. The more common use of transpire to mean “occur” or “happen” has had a more troubled history. Though it dates at least to the beginning of the 19th century, language critics have condemned it for more than 100 years as both pretentious and unetymological. There is some sign that resistance to this sense of transpire is abating, however. In a 1969 survey the usage was acceptable to only 38 percent of the Usage Panel; nearly 20 years later, 58 percent accepted it in the sentence All of these events transpired after last week's announcement. Still, many Panelists who accepted the usage also remarked that it was pretentious or pompous.
Intelligent - Ha! Yes, the engineering professors at MIT and Carnegie Mellon are smart, many lib art profs are over-educated sophists who could afford (through trust funds or AA) to get their PHD.
Otherwise, I can't label anyone who paid a total of $500,000 (after interest on loans) to make 50g a year intelligent.
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