Texas town sees Red as Marxist professor gets tenure

Washington Times ^ | 3/27/02 | Hugh Aynesworth

[kattracks]

TEXAS CITY, Texas

[CasearianDaoist]

They hate our govemental system. They would replace it with theirs. They despise the notion that the people might rule government; rather, they believe that the government must rule people. Republicanism, democracy all are the fruits of the west and must be destroyed at all cost. Man must be remade in their image and against his own will if need be. The very notion of the individual is an obscene to them. Man is imperfect but can be perfected; that perfection, of course, can only be acheived if the people are forced to obey their (Marxist) masters.

[Calculus_of_Consent]

He will not only fail you if you do,but see that you are thrown out of the college and not allowed to return. Trust me on this,it happened to me in the early 1970's.

So, what's your point? The idea is to get people who already have college degrees to take the class for continuing education. So what if he kicks you out? You arn't going to get your degree. Besides you don't have to be rude or obnoxious to make him look like an idiot. You just have to ask the right questions and follow up with the right informantion.

[ClancyJ]

establishes that you are pressing one ideology over another in an effort to produce people you think are "productive."

So, instead of promoting the American ideals, we are to turn our classes over to any and all other idealists to present their views of government? Why is this better? What is wrong with the American ideals that they have to be ignored?

Isn't it just so much easier to overtake our country if it can be done through educating the young in their own colleges paid for by the parents? How easy to cast aspersions on those merely wanting to raise their young with the American ideals as being unsophisticated, uneducated, un prepared for life. This is not true but teaching American ideals is indeed a threat to the goal of taking over the American government for socialism, Marxism, communism and all other alternative governments.

Try your nonsense about teaching them alternative views somewhere else - I see it for what it is. It is an attempt to take over America from within their own institutions which was laid out years ago in the communist agenda.

[CasearianDaoist]

No, Marxism cancels the past. It deconstructs it. It's only concern with it is an ideological one. As a parody of science it must eschew ontology. It cannot comprehend the individual nor forbear a civilization of individuals. It must negate them both intellectually and physically. All are "clockworks" in the unfolding dialectic of history.

Unwittingly you have used the parlance of Marxism yourself without knowing it - parlance of moral relativism. That is just the point

[ClancyJ]

I am beginning to see the need for a conservative college. A college that teaches conservative ideals and American democracy principles. We need a Fox News for our colleges. There are many families that do not want Marxism taught as the truth.

[CasearianDaoist]

We need to withhold funds from them until they cleanup the sh*ithole they have created.

[BikerNYC]

So, instead of promoting the American ideals, we are to turn our classes over to any and all other idealists to present their views of government? Why is this better?

It isn't better. It's just different. I recognize that an ideology is being imposed even in the selection of courses a college chooses to offer.

You said it best when you said: Don't we have the right to determine what is put into the minds of the young we have spent years raising? No?

In other words: "We've already indoctrinated our kids with our values and you come around and want to undo all that?"

Some professors want to do that, for sure. Yet others want to reinforce the values you have already instilled in them. Either way it is a struggle for the minds of those who attend college. And, morever, we are willing to pay to subject ourselves and our loved ones to that because we see value in it.

[CasearianDaoist]

sorry imean "its" instead of It's...too early in the day

[Dr. Frank fan]

I guess that I will be one of the few who would be opposed to denying tenure just because someone is a "Marxist". I saw no indication from this or earlier articles about this case that the professor is a poor teacher; he lets his views be known in class, but that seems to be it. (Should he hide his views?)

Of course, there are other arguments one could have. For example, the existence of tenure in the first place. But in this case I guess I come down on the side of academic freedom. Let his ideas fall because they are stupid and debunked, not because he is hounded by the community (an act which only martyrs him and gives him attention). Let's also try to remember that the shoe could always be (and in most universities, usually is!) on the other foot. Denying tenure to, and cleansing departments of, conservatives is the norm. If you've read a great, sometimes-tragically-hilarious book called The Shadow University you know what I'm talking about. If not I recommend it.

[BikerNYC]

No, Marxism cancels the past. It deconstructs it. It's only concern with it is an ideological one.

There are only so many hours in a day. Teachers have to select what to teach in those hours. The very selection of what to teach, no matter what is chosen, is ideological.

Unwittingly you have used the parlance of Marxism yourself without knowing it - parlance of moral relativism. That is just the point.

And you claim that one moral position is better than another, not only for yourself but for all, and you want to teach that (which is fine), yet refuse to see that as a form of indoctrination.

[CasearianDaoist]

It is not indoctrination to uphold the rational standard of intellectual inquiry between free individuals. That culture of the individual is what our western civilization is about. Inculcating that culture is a primary goal of higher education. That Left wish to dispose of that - their notions of man stand in direct contraction of the history of man. Their only intellectual method is indoctrination. You are so close to it that you do not grasp that you have been taken over by it and have internalized it. Again, this is my point.

[BikerNYC]

Let's also try to remember that the shoe could always be (and in most universities, usually is!) on the other foot.

When I was in law school, I was voted president of the Student Bar Association, as were a number of other conservatives. When it came time to set the budget for student groups for the next year, many of them wanted to slash the budgets of the more liberal groups. I held out and fought that, arguing that it was better to have more voices around and you never know when the same thing might happen to us. My view prevailed.

Sure enough, the next year more liberal people were elected to student government, and many of them tried to cut the budgets of the more conservative groups. The new liberal president, however, fought that and kept the funding of those groups as I had kept it for the liberal groups.

[BikerNYC]

It is not indoctrination to uphold the rational standard of intellectual inquiry between free individuals. That culture of the individual is what our western civilization is about. Inculcating that culture is a primary goal of higher education.

Main Entry: in·cul·cate
Pronunciation: in-'k&l-"kAt, 'in-(")
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -cat·ed; -cat·ing
Etymology: Latin inculcatus, past participle of inculcare, literally, to tread on, from in- + calcare to trample, from calc-, calx heel
Date: 1550
: to teach and impress by frequent repetitions or admonitions

The partial origin of this word from "to trample" is particurly noteworthy.

You seek to have students believe in the "culture of the individual" (wow, does that phrase sound Marxian), by banging it into their heads time and time again. That's fine. But I find it amusing that you think inculcating students in this fashion is somehow above the dirty little ritual of getting people to believe what you believe by only letting them hear what you have to say.

[CasearianDaoist]

Absolutely, the western tradition is a vastly superior framework than Marxism. Again, your only point seem to be that one can view civilizations from a relativist posture. This is not a particularly fresh or insightful point of view. Marxists have been using it for over a century. It is the fallacy of substituting epistimology for ontology - the theroy of knowing for the theroy of meaning. Of both Marxism and this standard dodge I would say that 1) it accomplishes little that is good or meaninful, 2) that view is only possible through the western framework that you would disparage and 3) it aids much that is evil.

I beleive that a serious rading history, philosophy, science, econmics and politics bears this out.

[oyez]

If a math professer taught classes contrary to the laws of math he would be fired. If a psysics prof tought things backwards he would be tossed out, likewise if a professer teaches a false doctrine like Marxism he should be thrown out. Its amazing how people who could not make it in the real world are given teaching positions.

[BikerNYC]

I'm not a Marxist. I have little use for that particular philosophy. It doesn't help me explain the world so it has little value for me.

I agree with everything you have to say. I agree that the Western approach to the individual is better. I just think that when we teach that to young people we are indoctrinating them in the full sense of the word. And I have absolutely no problem with education doing that.

[constitutiongirl]

I had a pol-sci prof who was a complete Commie. One day I asked him if he'd give me his car. He's said no, of course. I told him that I came from a working class background, I am the child of immigrants and I thought that with his elevated sense of class-consciousness he'd be compelled to give a proletariat his car in order to show how strongly he held his bourgois background in contempt. Another time I told him I looked forward to a dictatorship of the proletariat, so that I could give him a job mowing my lawn. I got some great laughs from the class, but he was livid. After that, he refused to acknowledge me in class. I will not even tell the grade I received from him...it was worth it though.

[CasearianDaoist]

"You seek to have students believe in the "culture of the individual" (wow, does that phrase sound Marxian), by banging it into their heads time and time again. That's fine. But I find it amusing that you think inculcating students in this fashion is somehow above the dirty little ritual of getting people to believe what you believe by only letting them hear what you have to say."

Have you been following the posts? You are not speaking to my point. Now we degenerate into ad homeum attacks and depart from discourse. Sigh...this is the standard leftist rebuttal.
It is sad...

[Dr. Frank fan]

If a math professer taught classes contrary to the laws of math he would be fired.

That is because mathematics is a discipline in which statements are proved with absolute logical rigor; what you are calling "laws of math" probably should be called "true statements". A math professor who taught false statements probably should be fired, yes.

If a psysics prof tought things backwards he would be tossed out,

This isn't necessarily true; it depends on the "backwards" physical theory the professor is promulgating. Many if not most currently accepted physical theories would have been considered "backwards" at one time. I'm no physicist but I'm sure that in physics departments across the land at this moment, there are great debates and vehement disagreements about theories. The scientific process depends upon allowing new theories to be considered, and tested, and rejected if appropriate. Firing all physics profs who teach "backwards" theories would be counterproductive and unscientific. (There are limits, of course; a physics prof who taught undergraduates that Newton's law F=ma was wrong and should be replaced by F = ma^3 might be in trouble.... :)

likewise if a professer teaches a false doctrine like Marxism he should be thrown out.

All I can say is that those other two subjects you mentioned (math and physics) are subject to rigor and logic. This prof, apparently, teaches "politics and American government". I basically agree with you that Marxism is a "false doctrine", but the subject is so fuzzy to begin with that this distinction may be meaningless.

Besides, it's far from clear that the professor was "teaching Marxism" to begin with. He is Marxist, sure, and admits it. No doubt he influences some of the more malleable minds in his class by certain statements. But it's doubtful that he is "teaching Marxism".

Not all disciplines are amenable to the same amount of logic or rigor. Let's extend your argument a bit further to an even fuzzier field, the field of Art: Should professors be thrown out for teaching "incorrect" theories of Art? But what would that even mean? "Politics and American government" may not be as fuzzy and subjective as Art, sure, but on the other hand it doesn't exactly deal in theorems and objectively testable physical predictions.