Let's take back our universities from 60's crowd

Houston Chronicle ^ | January 5, 2003 | DANIEL PIPES

[driftless]

correction: IF we were a Marxist country....not IS we were

[livius]

Why do radicals see the U.S. as evil? You might as well ask why do poisonous snakes bite.

Beacause it's in their nature.

Personally, I think the only thing to do is to start new institutions of higher education, such as Tom Monaghan's Ave Maria University (now in Florida).

But what I really and truly wish is that we could get these lefties out of the state systems, at least. Even if I never intend to go to one of the state universities or send any child or grandchild to them, my tax dollars go to support them. It upsets me greatly to know that I'm supporting a bunch of smug, self-satisfied (and lazy, tenure-seeking) creeps who hate and attack everything I and most Americans consider valuable.

[Drippy]

On a good note,I notice that the anti-war protests at my local state university are small and numbers at these affairs are way down from the levels of the Vietnam era.Back then protests grew to 4-5000.Lately there have been small protests,but most students seem unwilling or don't feel a need to oppose the war on terrorism.

[eleni121]

Having been a student and an educator in higher academe for many years I can give you some observations of my own:

The politically extreme on the left tend to hire those who mimic their own ideologies.

Those who favor the free market capitalism of the US tend to be seen as academic dolts - that is people not able to discern the inner workings and subversive nature of the free market. Add to this those who are on the "religious right" - those who espouse the tenets of fundamental Christianity and Judaism and abhor the manifestations of social behavior such as homosexuality, New Age spiritualism, and a value free way of life.

These anti American ideologues generally espouse the philosophy of the leadership of the progressive elite as I call it - that there are those who through their own gifts of thought and intelligence who are more equipped than the masses to rule them and formulate policies that will redistribute the wealth that the economic elites have amassed through no inherent superiority of their own - but by luck or by illegal means. Therefore, it is up to the intellectual elites and their agents to redistribute this wealth to those who are the have nots.

Most of these academic nags on the Left are exactly that - Leftists who absolutely hate the fact that they do not have the same power as the business elites have and are incapable of reaching the kind of wealth status that business elites do. What else is left for them to do but nag, complain, and use propaganda in their classrooms to maintain the lie that there is a conspiracy against the "common man" and the academes by the financial elites.

Finally, I have survived the generally unionist left wing atmosphere at my college by strong and logical arguments to the point where they can run but they cannot hide. I have been doing this since I got tenure; I would never have done this at the beginning since I would never have survived the tenure process. I also do propaganda although I do not see it as such. Since others and generally the media espouse socialist ideologies in their classrooms I also propose alternative (conservative) ways of thinking to my students. I enjoy the feedback and especially relish the fact that my students gain the ability to question authority (the leftist establishment).

[Celtjew Libertarian]

As the 60s radicals die out, the campus will become less and less radical leftist.

Even Gen-xers who start on the radical left, seem more likely to drift to the right as they get more experience. By the time the radical leftists realize what's happened, there will be a core of tenured gen-X moderates, conservatives, libertarians, and the like.

[pray4liberty]

Furthermore, it's quite painless. If you can blame us for the problems of Arabs trying to kill us, you can absolve yourself of the responsibility of trying to do something about it.

Well said. Liberals are adolescent in their thinking and judgment, no matter how old they are.

[pray4liberty]

Even Gen-xers who start on the radical left, seem more likely to drift to the right as they get more experience...

...and pay more of their hard-earned money in taxes. When it comes down to a battle between one's wallet and one's ideology, the wallet will win.

And this is really what the radical left is afraid of. No doubt they'll accuse their students of "selling out" when the reality is that, the students have to make a living and pay off their student loans when they get out of school. And who hires them? Those evil corporations.

[Six Bells]

"Outside stakeholders -- board members, alumni, parents of students and, in the case of state institutions, state legislators -- need to start worrying more about politics than about football."

I hope he has a backup plan.

[Revolting cat!]

American universities have turned into hotbeds of opposition

First sentence of the article and wrong too! What opposition? The Left is the establishment nowadays! The Krintong crowd, while in power, played like they were the opposition. Unfortunately, the Republicans play along with this game, pretending they are the establishment. And so, Mr Pipes plays right into the hands of the Left. They pretend to be the dissidents while they control the media, the academe, the local governments, and the federal government regardless of who's at the helm by dictating the national agenda (ever heard of "racism", "the homeless", "the chilrun", "global warming"?), while the sheepish Pubbies play along. It's time to expose the paradigm and subvert it, the cat sez!

[Chu Gary]

You should read Walter Williams most recent editorial which has some pithy comments about diversity and multi-culturalism, the two-headed evil monster.

[rwfromkansas]

I am considering writing a column in the campus newspaper on Republican views being snuffed out at colleges. Could you give me some info on Bush being disinvited? Thanks.

[RichardMoore]

Well, you are both mostly right. But it's Darwin, Marx and Freud; They were all anti-Christian and they are all unarguably unquestioned in the modern world. And it was G K Chesterton who pointed in out back in the 1920's. If you want to have a better education we should throw those bums out and study Chesterton. But the problem is much deeper that that. The whole idea of compulsary education by the State is anti-democratic and wrong-headed. The common man is not educated to make him smarter but rather to make him lose his common sense.

[RichardMoore]

But we are Marxist. That's right, our society believes Marx was right about one thing...economics rules the world. Chesterton said, and rightly so, that the communists and the capitalists were both collectivists. The communists want to give the common guy what they think he needs and no more while the capitalists want to give the common guy just enough to get by.

But to further my point, what we are in today is an economic war. These terroists have attacked our economy and our sense of certainty. But make no mistake those who run our country, whether Liberal/Democrat or Conservative/Republican believe that we can change the world through economics, or trade. And that means that they believe that on this point Marx was right; economics is everything.

We are like the Liliputians who continue to argue about which side of the egg to crack. Communism is dead and Industrial capitailsm is dying. But it is too difficult for us to see that fact because we all believe in Darwin, Freud and Marx. Until we become un-educated we will all continue to bicker about who is worse than whom. Commercialism is just another form of collectivism. And it is obviously killing western Christian culture.

[Bernard Marx]

There's an organization that's actually kicking some butt and taking names, not just talking about the problem: the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

For an example of its impact go to: http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1213-05.htm<>

Fun to read something like that for a change, isn't it?

With Lynne Cheney as one of its founders, the ACTA lets trustees and rich alumni know how their multimillion dollar endowments are actually being spent. Some have withdrawn or redirected their giving after learning of the partisan political and often anti-American nature of university spending. Go to their site and give them all the financial and other support possible:

http://www.goacta.org/

Another group that is fighting the good fight from inside academe is the National Association of Scholars. If you're qualified to join please do and put your dollars to work in an essencial cause. Their web site is: http://www.nas.org/

[Bernard Marx]

The Liberal Arts faculties are teaching generally useless subjects, and these branches of the Universities should simply be closed down.

If you mean that literature, history, philosophy, etc. are currently being taught badly by many politically-indoctrinated fools, that's one thing. But if you mean that the subjects themselves are useless and should be closed down, I would consider that one of the most outrageously uneducated -- and useless -- remarks I've heard in my lifetime.

[tubebender]

How about offering them free LSD if they move to Cuba ?

[Lessismore]

The combined expenditure by parents and government of upwards of $100K on a Bachelor's of Arts degree in literature, history, philosopy, etc, represents an egregious waste of resources.

I'm not denying that there is great benefit in studying them throughout ones life. Perhaps if the subjects were banned they would be better studied.

[Bernard Marx]

A college "education" that costs in the $100,000 range is ridiculous, no matter what the subjects are. But saying literature, philosophy, history should be eliminated as "an egregious waste of resources" is just plain wrong. To use a literary phrase, that's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. These subjects are the basis of ALL education. Besides, deciding how others can spend their money is not a conservative position. Your initial statement had nothing to do with resource allotment or cost/benefit, although I'm all in favor of big changes in that area.

It's definitely time to get a shovel and clean out the [higher education] barn. But the costly manure that needs to be shoveled starts with stuff like Queer Studies, Women's Studies [substitute Chicano, Black, Native American, anything but Straight White Male (which won't be found) for "Queer"] etc., and all the partisan quasi-educational crap that has infected liberal arts departments in the past 40 years.

It's time to get rid on all non-essential bells and whistles in higher education, and institute a method of faculty hiring that preserves academic freedom but assures that the conservative point of view will be at least equal to all others. I'd prefer that it be dominant but equal is good. All of this is difficult to do. That's why it probably won't happen until there's a major crisis of some sort. But the gutless acquiescence to the Sixties ideological thugs by college and university administrators was one of the great tragedies of my lifetime.

[Lessismore]

My original statement was "The Liberal Arts faculties are teaching generally useless subjects, and these branches of the Universities should simply be closed down."

In particular, I was using "useless" in its utilitarian sense, so a poor cost/benefit was implied.

Luckily my kids graduated while the price tag was $25K to $30K per year. My co-workers tell me that the going rate is closer to $35K per year at the private colleges and universities which their children attend. This tends to be subsidized by the taxpayer through grants/loans to the student. But the rates charged students and parents are not the whole amount, and the taxpayer picks up additional support through a variety of grants directly to the institution, as well as through the tax deductibility of charitable contributions to the endowment funds.

For this, you get a graduate with a BA who is moderately more employable, although this is not because of anything the graduate learned. It is mainly because the graduate now has a certificate from an august institution that certifies the person was rigorously selected for admission in the beginning, had the minimal gumption necessary to see the program through, and has accumulated 4 years of maturity.

Instead, we should insist on more rigorous curricula in the liberal arts in high school, and then require colleges to both provide education which fits their graduates to make a living in the modern world as well as lays a foundation for life-long education.