Why professors are liberal: They're intelligent

San Diego Union ^ | December 3, 2004 | Various

[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

[evad]

He's right, liberals are intelligent.

They just can't learn anything!

[siunevada]

they are intelligent, thoughtful and well-educated government employees that vote as their unions tell them to vote

they are intelligent, thoughtful and well-educated people who cast their votes for a man lacking any discernable principles

[My2Cents]

Survey's show that those who go into education in general aren't as intelligent as those who go into pretty much any other profession -- health, business, engineering, law.

[petercooper]

Remember, most liberal "intellectuals" are simply educated beyond their intelligence.

[Mikey_1962]

Just keep thinking that way...PLEASE! The rest of us unwashed, uneducated, conservatives will keep running our "stupid" candidates and keep winning.

So...who is intellegent now?

[Clint N. Suhks]

Those who can...do, those who can't...teach.

[watchdog_writer]

Have you ever considered the possibility that since many "intellectuals" do not believe in God that they set themselves up as the supreme authority. I suspect that the reason why most non-believers are liberal is conservatives most often believe in a supreme being.

[ElkGroveDan]

THOMAS ALDEN Borrego Springs

OUCH! That liberal is living out in redneck country.

[Revolting cat!]

You're intelligent which is why you support every murdering dictator in the world who claims to be for the good things and against the bad! I think I get it now!

(It's easy to argue like this letter writer using generalities and lofty ideals. Once you get into the nitty gritty, mention their heroes by name and their deeds, for example, or their successes like the War on Poverty, all their clever arguments kinda collapse.)

[SCALEMAN]

"Those who can't, teach"

Careful there... I taught for 7 years until they finally starved me out. Thats a pretty broad brush you paint with.

[My2Cents]

Faculty in universities are overwhelmingly liberal because the university campus is a cacoon where faculty are largely sheltered from the demands and realities of the world as it is and operates. I believe that being a "liberal" has nothing to do with intelligence, and has everything to do with the worldview one has. The kind of worldview that develops inside the cacoon of academia is contrary to the way the world actually is, and actually works. University professors may be highly intelligent, but many of them are also highly deluded, and highly foolish.

[DennisR]

What an idiot. The reason Liberals end up as professors is not because they are intelligent but because they go to school so long they naturally meld into academia. I would love to see how many liberal-arts types are political liberals as opposed to other disciplines (medical, business, engineering) types. I think there might be a difference.

And just because one has a Ph.D. does not necessarily equate to being "intelligent." I took a comparative religion class where the professor marked me down on an essay because he said that "transpired" (a word I had used) does not mean "happened/occurred." Huh?

[shubi]

Please include a Barf alert next time.

[Logical me]

Those intelligent liberal jackasses found a place they could light and if there long enough, have a guarantee job and place to promote their garbage.

[My2Cents]

Most of the ultra lefties in Hollywood never went to college.

[Congressman Billybob]

What unmitigated bullsh*t. When you look at the high schools in the "Red Counties," the ones that went to Bush, you see some interesting results. The schools have higher SAT scores, more students graduating, more going to college, less dropping out, and less going to prison, than the "Blue Counties."

By and large the Bush County populations are smarter, better, more law-abiding, than the Kerry County populations. That general rule reverses among those who have advanced degrees on college campuses.

It is just another example that people can be "too educated for their own good." It means that sometimes book learning drives out common sense, and the possessors of advanced degrees wind up being dumb as a hoe handle in the real world. (Having spent 22 years and counting in education, I have met many of the breed, and barely escaped that fate myself.)

Congressman Billybob

Click for latest, "Appointing Justices to the Supreme Court."

[Borges]

Also there are really are certain fields that don't have a very large sustainable marketplace. A literary critic can do valuable research on 17th century English poetry but without the patronage of the Academe there is not enough demand for such research to make a living.

[My2Cents]

Or maybe it's just because they don't have to work for a living.

And have three months off during the summer, and frequent "sabbaticals."

[ashtanga]

Some birkenstockers are indeed smart, in the sense that they can learn new words, write prose, even create poetry. This I don't deny. But anyone who believes that public policy should be directed by self-congratulations is as deficient in critical thinking skills as the toothless hillbilly sleeping with the hound dog. Worse, these balding ghouls with greasy ponytails often teach the young, who in turn...Savage says that birkenstockism is a mental disease; it is more of a transposed religion, a sort of false god that answers the hunger humans have for contact with the inexplicable.

[mountainlyons]

The most educated people I ever met needed help doing daily tasks. I had to design some trusses for a Civil Engineer that had a masters degree. I showed a Physics professor how a question on a test worked abut a bicycle. A lot of reading and tests does not have anything to do with common sense.