Pwoudlee Iggerant
Have you been to college? I've two Bachelor of Science degrees, one in biology from a Jesuit institution (Seattle University) and one in computer science from a state school (Armstrong Atlantic State University, part of the University System of Georgia, along with Georgia Tech). The faculty in the science and math departments of both universities tended to be conservative folks. Sure there are a few liberals, probably a percentage point or two more than you'd find in the white house about right now. Instructors in liberal arts did tend to be more liberal. Is this a big surprise or scandal?
To hear conservative pundits talk, liberal instructors are a big problem. They claim these people force their point of views on pliable and unwilling minds. This is so ridiculous it has hard to take seriously, much less debunk. Like the flat earth people. Orbital pictures are fake, light bends, making the horizon appear to be on a curve, the moon shot was an elaborate hoax, etc. They claim you must argue from the frame of their accepted beliefs -- impossible when a you can't even agree on facts. A circular argument to nowhere.
College students are grown ups. It's not likely some long haired professor is going to change their world view with classroom coercion. Quite the opposite, given that age group is still pretty flippin' rebellious. The only time in nine years as a student or instructor at the undergraduate level I saw an instructor apparently try to push a political bent on a class it was a right leaning Jesuit philosophy instructor, who I suspect was trying engender some debate.
Now, I did see students who thought college professors were trying to force feed ideologies to then. Every one of them was someone whose breadth of intelligence was limited (by choice or nature) or who had no imagination. Never were these instructors telling someone what opinion was correct. They were insisting students consider viewpoints they disagreed with, and investigate facts that on the surface did not comply with their position in making their case. For those unaccustomed to the concept, we said it is called "(critical) thinking." Doh.
Are the students and conservatives whining about these brainwashing liberal instructors profoundly stupid or lazy? Does it really matter? We are seeing the result of their arrogance of ignorance. It is destroying our country's liberties, reputation, safety, and dreams. The American Dream kind of dies an ignoble death when you assign all your assets, liberty, and privacy to corporate america -- this is one field, maybe the only where conservatives have shown a great deal of imagination. I never appreciated how many people fell into the whining category. If it truly is over 50% as w claims, is our destiny doomed to completely descend into the hands brutish and mediocre tyrants?
The democrats flounder because they can't find common ground for fixing problems which need to be addressed. The republicans rely on fear mongering to sustain their iron grip. The democrats now rely on our disgust with the historically unprecedented level of corruption the republicans are showering themselves with. Neither party is seriously promoting any change, rather they seem to be campaigning to control the corruption for their ends. Neither party seems to understand why most of their adherents are not fiercely loyal. Neither party can conceive of trying to actually represent the plebeians. Us, the plebeians, the people they are representing wonder why there seems to be no choices which are ethical or give a rat's ass about the average Joe when they go to the ballot box.
To hear conservative pundits talk, liberal instructors are a big problem. They claim these people force their point of views on pliable and unwilling minds. This is so ridiculous it has hard to take seriously, much less debunk. Like the flat earth people. Orbital pictures are fake, light bends, making the horizon appear to be on a curve, the moon shot was an elaborate hoax, etc. They claim you must argue from the frame of their accepted beliefs -- impossible when a you can't even agree on facts. A circular argument to nowhere.
College students are grown ups. It's not likely some long haired professor is going to change their world view with classroom coercion. Quite the opposite, given that age group is still pretty flippin' rebellious. The only time in nine years as a student or instructor at the undergraduate level I saw an instructor apparently try to push a political bent on a class it was a right leaning Jesuit philosophy instructor, who I suspect was trying engender some debate.
Now, I did see students who thought college professors were trying to force feed ideologies to then. Every one of them was someone whose breadth of intelligence was limited (by choice or nature) or who had no imagination. Never were these instructors telling someone what opinion was correct. They were insisting students consider viewpoints they disagreed with, and investigate facts that on the surface did not comply with their position in making their case. For those unaccustomed to the concept, we said it is called "(critical) thinking." Doh.
Are the students and conservatives whining about these brainwashing liberal instructors profoundly stupid or lazy? Does it really matter? We are seeing the result of their arrogance of ignorance. It is destroying our country's liberties, reputation, safety, and dreams. The American Dream kind of dies an ignoble death when you assign all your assets, liberty, and privacy to corporate america -- this is one field, maybe the only where conservatives have shown a great deal of imagination. I never appreciated how many people fell into the whining category. If it truly is over 50% as w claims, is our destiny doomed to completely descend into the hands brutish and mediocre tyrants?
The democrats flounder because they can't find common ground for fixing problems which need to be addressed. The republicans rely on fear mongering to sustain their iron grip. The democrats now rely on our disgust with the historically unprecedented level of corruption the republicans are showering themselves with. Neither party is seriously promoting any change, rather they seem to be campaigning to control the corruption for their ends. Neither party seems to understand why most of their adherents are not fiercely loyal. Neither party can conceive of trying to actually represent the plebeians. Us, the plebeians, the people they are representing wonder why there seems to be no choices which are ethical or give a rat's ass about the average Joe when they go to the ballot box.
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