Posted on 01/05/2003 11:31:40 AM PST by Dog Gone
American universities have turned into hotbeds of opposition, and it's time to take them back.
Take the issue of Iraq. Americans generally focus on the regime's brutal behavior toward its own population and the threat it poses to the outside, while disagreeing over how to respond. Yet ask professors what the problem is, and they are most likely to reply that the United States, not Iraq, is the main menace and that oil, not nukes, is the Bush administration's central concern.
Two professors of history typify this outlook. Eric Foner of Columbia University asserts that a pre-emptive war against Iraq would take us back "to the notion of the rule of the jungle." He preposterously finds Washington, D.C.'s argument today "exactly the same" as that used by the Japanese to justify their assault on Pearl Harbor.
Glenda Gilmore of Yale University sees U.S. imperialism in Washington's confrontation with Iraq. It's "the first step in Bush's plan to transform our country into an aggressor nation that cannot tolerate opposition." She has also stated: "We have met the enemy, and it is us."
Views like these echo through the campuses, confirming that universities remain, as they have been since the mid-1960s, the most radical, adversarial and alienated major institution in American life.
That's not to suggest censorship; professors have full privileges to freedom of expression. But it does point to the need to raise some difficult questions:
Why do American academics so readily see their own country as the problem?
Why do universities hire people who relentlessly apologize for U.S. enemies?
Why do professors consistently misunderstand the most important challenges facing the country, such as the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Persian Gulf War and now the war on terror?
What long-term impact does a radicalized and repressive university atmosphere have on students?
The country needs its universities to become more mature, responsible and patriotic. To achieve this change means taking the wayward academy back from the faculty and administrators who now run it.
It's important to remember that universities, built over decades and even centuries, do not belong -- legally, financially or morally -- to the employees who happen to staff them. The latter do not have a right to hijack these vital institutions out of the mainstream of American life.
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.
They must take steps to re-create a politically balanced environment, as it was before the 1960s, in which sound scholarship and sound teaching can again take place.
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.
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).
Well said. Liberals are adolescent in their thinking and judgment, no matter how old they are.
...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.
I hope he has a backup plan.
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!
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.
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/
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.
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.
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.
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