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If someone with a military background tells you that you have a bad attitude, it usually means something along the lines that you're a whiner and that you're mentally weak. Military types generally don't like being around with such minded people and you'll find this drama in that History Channel show, Top Shot, where marksmen with varying personalities and backgrounds clash.

That said you don't need a positive attitude but if you're around team situations and people in general...definitely a plus. As the cliche goes, life isn't about just what you know but who you know. Its also about how you treat others and how others perceive you.

Phyrixis and Dogma are correct.

Wrex, it looks like you're looking for excuses. On the other hand, sometimes personalities don't mix, and you have to drop a class and take it with a different professor. I took English I and had to drop with a certain professor because after the 3rd week I was already down to a C for the whole semester, with my grade rapidly dropping. We just didn't understand each other and we didn't communicate very well.

I ended up taking the same class with a different professor, and got an A, and my second professor asked the first professor how I could possibly have been failing so bad when I did such wonderful work in his class. The first professor just shrugged. We just didn't get along.

However, there has only ever been one incident in my college career like that, so I'd have to say that is the exception.

I hate school, I'm too old to be messing with it, and I wish I would have taken it when I was younger. You could say I have a bad "attitude". However, I also know that my future and career development depend on that degree being completed, so I don't complain to the prof's, I just grit my teeth and fight my way through it, asking a million questions and using all the resources available to me.

My "attitude" is that in the end, even though I hated it, it wouldn't kill me and it was worthwhile, so I better take it seriously and do the best I can so that I can finish.

I think that's probably what your professor was referring to.

Interestingly Schopenhauer was known as a pessimist!

whitedragon wrote:Wrex, it looks like you're looking for excuses. On the other hand, sometimes personalities don't mix, and you have to drop a class and take it with a different professor. I took English I and had to drop with a certain professor because after the 3rd week I was already down to a C for the whole semester, with my grade rapidly dropping. We just didn't understand each other and we didn't communicate very well.

We covered nearly four weeks of material in one week, it was a cram class. I have taken other summer courses, but none of them covered so much terminology, or so much reading. I spent around 12 hours finishing the essay that the prof decided to drop on us at the end of the week. I asked her about it, because it took so much of my time to do well. If I have to spend 6 days a week in school or study, I am just not going to be very happy about it for some requirement class.

I don't like being flanked by a bunch of extra work at the end of the week, because I spend a good portion of my study time organizing my schedule around the material I expect to be required of me. I am not an amazing student, but I am simply no good at all in an environment like that; I feel that few people are. I have worked several 6 day weeks doing labor, heavy labor. I am not a lazy person, and I don't look for excuses, I try to figure out what I am doing wrong. In this case, I wasn't doing anything wrong, I just find it unreasonable to expect 50 hours of study and lecture/lab... for a 4 credit course. Besides the fact that I wouldn't have that time if I wanted too.

Too much is just too much, and I got insufficient responses on nearly every question I asked the teacher.

I ended up taking the same class with a different professor, and got an A, and my second professor asked the first professor how I could possibly have been failing so bad when I did such wonderful work in his class. The first professor just shrugged. We just didn't get along.

It wasn't that I didn't get along with the prof, I just felt that the class did not allow me to prepare myself adequately. I will just be taking this class in another semester; not one in the summer.

I hate school, I'm too old to be messing with it, and I wish I would have taken it when I was younger. You could say I have a bad "attitude". However, I also know that my future and career development depend on that degree being completed, so I don't complain to the prof's, I just grit my teeth and fight my way through it, asking a million questions and using all the resources available to me.

When my answers started to generally consist of using google, I really began to lose faith in the teacher.

My "attitude" is that in the end, even though I hated it, it wouldn't kill me and it was worthwhile, so I better take it seriously and do the best I can so that I can finish.

I think that's probably what your professor was referring to.

This was a required course, that I care very little about. I like learning, just about things that are interesting, and those that concern my career. If the goal of a class is to make me consider a completely unrelated degree... I honestly don't get it... it makes no sense to me. Building random things, because they are random, is more fun when I get to build sand castles.

On the "those who can't do, teach" thing:
In adult education, teaching isn't such an issue. What's needed is knowledge, often specific and deep, of a subject. The people present in adult education are making a choice to be there, and therefore there is no issue of classroom management. Disruptive students can simply be removed. As long as the material is presented clearly, I would expect that most adults would get on with it. Many academics are also researchers first and lecturers second.
When teaching kids, especially teenagers, it's a bit different. They may not want to be there at all, and may have absolutely zero interest in your subject. Your job is to motivate them to learn and achieve, while also controlling their behaviour and preventing them from interfering with others. In my view, this requires a fair amount of skill. I still don't see teaching as a particularly difficult job (working on a fishing boat and researching were both far harder, in their own ways) but it's still a job that requires a lot of skills that are often hidden from the average high school student.
Wrex, sounds like your issue was with an unreasonable workload compared to the value of the course. I don't fully understand the american system, but we had a guy when I was studying experimental physics who tried to cram 3-4 months worth of statistical mechanics into 1 and a half months of course time. I loved the subject and worked my arse off, but my grade was less than impressive at the end, just too much material to cover. You probably made a fairly good decision.

I think the notion that Academia is biased towards liberalism is false. Unless all those conservative think tanks are really liberal pawns?

Ahhh, wha?

Just to calibrate, let me put it this way: what percentage of voting college professors would you think voted Democrat, vs Republican?

As far as think tanks go, the left has their share as well, and I'm not sure they're exactly "academia." When I think of academia, I am thinking of people actually employed in education and educational institutions. Think tanks are often driven by donations, venture capital, etc.

Your job is to motivate them to learn and achieve, while also controlling their behaviour and preventing them from interfering with others. In my view, this requires a fair amount of skill.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that teaching is easy, or that there's no skill to it. On the contrary, it's a very difficult job, and requires not only expertise in the subject matter, but expertise in human learning. You have to know the info, PLUS how to get dummy to absorb it. If anything, one has to be BETTER at a subject to teach it than to simply do it...

So, my point isn't to say that teaching is easy. My point is to say that most of the people who are teaching today are incompetents, and that (at least for America) the educational system is little more than a society of mutual admiration that concerns itself with instilling liberal ideology in students, and propping up liberal ideology through supposed "research" which all boils down to echo-chamber garbage.

While it's perhaps not the best comparison, I view it all as being like Al Gore's Nobel Prize. It's this bizzare confirmation loop, where the left says "oh, but we must be right, because we agree with us!"

I went to a VERY well respected liberal arts college. There was certainly a curriculum of vaguely interesting practical topics (particularly around hard science), but when it came to any sort of social or cultural discussion, the only way they're letting you through is if you can regurgitate liberal ideology back to them. Black people are victims of the white man, other cultures are victims of American imperialism, capitalism abuses the people, etc. etc. You have to repeat these mantras back to the professors in your own words, or you're going nowhere.

Some kids bought it. To me it seemed like pitifully transparent brainwashing, and I enjoyed fooling them into thinking I actually agreed with them.

The School of Media, Music and Performance at my Uni is VERY 'liberal'. One of the first things my course co-ordinator said in my first lecture was 'capitalism doesn't work'. He said it with great emphasis. I actually laughed out loud at that - I mean, I wasn't expecting the music department to be a hotbed of conservativism, but still...

Phryxis wrote:
Just to calibrate, let me put it this way: what percentage of voting college professors would you think voted Democrat, vs Republican?

There are numerous studies documenting the strong tendency of college professors to self-identify as liberals, but academia is not solely constituted by college professors. Not in my mind anyway. Moreover, I'm not entirely certain the degree to which self-identification is relevant here. I know the majority of my professors described themselves as liberal, and many voted Democrat, but they're actual beliefs tended towards a sort of weird middle. One example being my foreign policy prof who vehemently supported national health care, a balanced budget, an interventionist military, and 2nd amendment rights; while calling himself a liberal the entire time. Another prof referred to himself as a liberal, while being a virtual party line libertarian. In my opinion the term doesn't have enough certainty in its meaning for it to be useful in determining the actual leanings of an individual; especially given a sample consisting of academics, who are more likely to lean on esoteric or qualified definitions.

Phryxis wrote:
As far as think tanks go, the left has their share as well, and I'm not sure they're exactly "academia."

I was only using think tanks as an example of overtly conservative institutions within academia. True, there are overtly liberal ones as well, but the vast majority are nonpartisan, with diverse fellows; leading to them being labeled as 'liberal' or 'conservative' at the essential discretion of the person doing the labeling. Just look at place like the Bookings Institution, and the various ways it has been referred to over time.

Phryxis wrote:
When I think of academia, I am thinking of people actually employed in education and educational institutions. Think tanks are often driven by donations, venture capital, etc.

I generally consider any institution, or individual, that devotes its time to either higher education, or the publication of research to be a component of academia. So colleges and universities, but also the RAND Corporation, Heritage Institute, AEI, people writing for publication in their spare time, etc.


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Phryxis wrote:Black people are victims of the white man, other cultures are victims of American imperialism, capitalism abuses the people, etc. etc. You have to repeat these mantras back to the professors in your own words, or you're going nowhere.

That wasn't my experience in academia and, as we've discussed before, we both went to very similar schools. I had to discuss those topics, of course, though I was never forced to take a class which turned on them. But I was never forced to agree with my professor in order to get a better grade. In fact, I recall getting an A on a paper in which I thoroughly trashed my prof's own research on racial inequality, and the possibility of racism directed towards a majority population. I don't doubt that people's grades are affected by the prejudice of their professors, but I don't think it happens nearly as often as is said. I mean, its not simply a critique that comes from conservative students, but from liberal ones as well; often taking the stance that their prof simply isn't radical enough to appreciate their work.

There's also a point to be made with respect to the internalization of knowledge. Sure, a teacher my select a large variety of material which supports the idea that blacks are victimized by whites. But its also your job as a student to engage with that material in such a way that allows you to remember it. That's what participating in academia is about. Not accepting an argument as fact, but accepting it as a representation of a position based on a set of facts. In essence, the difference is between saying "This is the fact of the matter." and "This is what Guy X says is the fact of the matter."

In my opinion the term doesn't have enough certainty in its meaning for it to be useful in determining the actual leanings of an individual; especially given a sample consisting of academics, who are more likely to lean on esoteric or qualified definitions.

In general, I think we're probably on a similar page. I agree there are a lot of people who defy a stereotypical classification, even amongst professors.

That said, a couple exceptions who STILL call themselves "liberals" don't change the overall mass. Even in your more expansive/inclusive view of academia, the "college professor" is the rank and file of that community, and the fact that they're probably 2:1 Democrat:Republican at the polls puts the community as a whole far to the left of the American center.

So, I agree, you can't point at a group of 1 million people, and say "liberals" and have any real piercing insight as a result, but at the same time, if you don't want to devote the trillion or so words it'd take to really accurately describe each person's individual political beliefs, calling college professors "a bunch of zealot liberals" is about as accurate as five words on the subject are going to get.

I don't doubt that people's grades are affected by the prejudice of their professors, but I don't think it happens nearly as often as is said.

Again, we're probably on a similar page, but I think you're giving the professors a bit too much ofa free pass.

I certainly think that cogent disagreement would be accepted the majority of the time, but all it takes is missing a read on one psycho, and now you're getting a C- in a class.

You may view that as an acceptable rate, but I view it as exactly how it looks when you live amongst extremist nutballs. For example, Sadr City is full of extremist nutballs. That doesn't mean that every single person in the whole joint is picking up an RPG for Uncle Muqtada, because you've got old men, women, non-confrontational randoms, etc. etc. But at the end of the day, this is a community that will still generate a population of nutballs.

Basically what I'm saying is that there's a certain saturation point of manifesting nutballs, at which point a community can be considered to be "nutball." That saturation isn't 100%.

I mean, its not simply a critique that comes from conservative students, but from liberal ones as well; often taking the stance that their prof simply isn't radical enough to appreciate their work.

Sure, but outliers don't make the curve. I once heard that 80% of college profs vote Democrat. A quick google suggested the ratio was 2:1 D:R as I mentioned above. Either way, they've got a very pronounced bias. Just because an individual can find themselves to the left even of that, we're not interested in that person.

I think it's a very real problem that higher education system in the US is claiming to serve the needs of the population, and yet is significantly out of sync with the country politically.

I suppose this trend has always existed with academia being left of society, the less practical a person's work is, the more likely they are to trend left, but it's no less irritating to somebody who has to pay them a lot of money to rubber stamp their kids for salary approval.

That's what participating in academia is about. Not accepting an argument as fact, but accepting it as a representation of a position based on a set of facts.

Funny, you never struck me as an idealist.

Love the sentiment. Hate how sad and bedgraggled it looks dashed on the rocky shores of reality.

Because anecdotes are fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGqPo5ofk0s

That dude is a straight up lunatic. And, apparently a professor at UCLA. I could point to other people, like Ward Churchill, who are tenured professors at major universities, and who are RAVING LUNATICS. I'm aware of no case of this happening with a right-wing lunatic. It's always a lefty.

So, you can say there's a balance of thought in academia, but in any environment where a guy like that can feel comfortable with his ideas, where Ward Churchill can feel comfortable with his ideas, you have to have some pretty extreme left wing thought going on.

Phryxis wrote:
Basically what I'm saying is that there's a certain saturation point of manifesting nutballs, at which point a community can be considered to be "nutball." That saturation isn't 100%.

I'm not sure I follow you're reasoning here. Even the smallest, most tightly nit communities seem like they are often beset by crazies. They may not even be overtly crazy; just the sort of person who cannot engage rationally with one subject or another.

Since I've been using anecdotal evidence throughout, I may as well use another piece of it. My dad is a minister in a small town in Illinois; roughly 600 people. Its a tightly knit group centered around 2 churches with active memberships of around 200 each. Last week I went out there with him in order to do an audit on their secretaries accounting numbers, and work through the insurance paperwork for a wind and water damage claim. Everything was going fine until 3 council members showed up at the meeting and begged us not to file a claim (which will work out to ~150k) because they were convinced the insurance company would work some fiscal voodoo and take the church. These were otherwise completely normal people, who jumped feet first into crazy whenever insurance was mentioned. Now, granted they don't have the same sort of power over a child's future as college professors, but they point towards the potential of 'nutball' to apply to any community.

Its the sort of thing that makes me wonder if all communities fall under that classification.

Phryxis wrote:
Sure, but outliers don't make the curve. I once heard that 80% of college profs vote Democrat. A quick google suggested the ratio was 2:1 D:R as I mentioned above. Either way, they've got a very pronounced bias. Just because an individual can find themselves to the left even of that, we're not interested in that person.

I think it's a very real problem that higher education system in the US is claiming to serve the needs of the population, and yet is significantly out of sync with the country politically.

I should clarify that I agree that there are more classical liberals than classical conservatives in academia, but I do not believe the divide is as large as the available statistics seem to indicate. That said, I'm not certain why educational institutions must be in political sync with the country that they occupy. I mean, I appreciate the significance of leveraging the standard diversity argument, but it seems as though politics would be largely irrelevant to the majority of disciplines. Obviously not departments like political science and cultural studies, but economics, biology, etc. should be pretty much free from political trappings.

Phryxis wrote:
I suppose this trend has always existed with academia being left of society, the less practical a person's work is, the more likely they are to trend left, but it's no less irritating to somebody who has to pay them a lot of money to rubber stamp their kids for salary approval.

I think academia has a natural tendency to be progressive. This makes sense, as there isn't much of a future for academics that aren't willing to produce new material. Progresivism naturally overlaps with liberalism

Phryxis wrote:
Funny, you never struck me as an idealist.

Love the sentiment. Hate how sad and bedgraggled it looks dashed on the rocky shores of reality.

Maybe I should have said that's what its supposed to be about. Obviously it doesn't hold perfectly true all the time, but in my experience most professors are capable of imparting that sentiment to their students. Maybe my experience was uncommon, I don't know.

Phryxis wrote:
Because anecdotes are fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGqPo5ofk0s

That dude is a straight up lunatic. And, apparently a professor at UCLA.

It says in the text that he's a high school history teacher, but he is nuts. In my experience high school teachers are lot more crazy, and a lot less professional than college professors. I think it has something to do with the tendency of the position to attract activist college graduates.

Phryxis wrote:
I could point to other people, like Ward Churchill, who are tenured professors at major universities, and who are RAVING LUNATICS. I'm aware of no case of this happening with a right-wing lunatic. It's always a lefty.
So, you can say there's a balance of thought in academia, but in any environment where a guy like that can feel comfortable with his ideas, where Ward Churchill can feel comfortable with his ideas, you have to have some pretty extreme left wing thought going on.

I'm not sure Ward Churchill ever felt particularly comfortable with his ideas. Dude was pretty whacked out, and he seemed to be widely regarded as a terrible scholar. Moreover, I'm not even sure I'd describe him as a liberal.

Anyway, in terms of crazy conservatives professors, I give you Leonard Peikoff.

I'm not sure I follow you're reasoning here.

Yeah, I could tell it wasn't clear enough...

So, we agree that not all college professors will grade based on your willingness to conform to their political ideology, but some will.

Let's just pretend that 10% will grade based on your position, rather than on quality of argument.

You might say "that's only 10%, that's not so bad." My point is that you don't need 100% of a community to act like lunatics for it to be a lunatic community. For example, maybe some professors are just too nonconfrontational, and even though they think you're wrong and stupid, they won't ding you. Others might understand that it's good to have debate, but not so much so that they create an atmosphere of free thought, because, after all, 10% of their co-workers think crushing dissent is a good plan.

So, basically what I'm saying is "it takes a village." For every obviously manifesting nutball, there's a parent who raised a nutball, an uncle who encouraged a nutball, a friend who inspired a nutball, etc. etc.

I do not believe the divide is as large as the available statistics seem to indicate.

I've got to take issue with your preference for personal experience over (relatively) scientific examination. I can't speak to your experience, it may be that you had a lot of conservative professors, but in my experience, every single one was a flaming liberal. I could take that as fact, but instead I prefer to go with studies that are more objective and more comprehensive.

I think we both have to take the studies at face value. They're not iron-clad fact, but they're more valid than our personal experience in describing the political makeup of the nation's professors.

I think academia has a natural tendency to be progressive.

There's a WHOLE crazy big debate here.

First off, "progressive" is a tricky word. It's a political movement, and then it's also just the idea of "trying to make progress." Different things.

Also, liberalism isn't necessarily "progress" unless you consider movement towards Socialism to be defacto progress. And, of course, that's "liberalism" as it's used in 2010 America, not as the word actually should mean, which would be more like "libertarian."

I wish there was a better word for it, but there isn't... There's a certain ideology, which is commongly called "liberal," which is anti-capitalist, anti-war, pro-government, pro social programs, very concerned with race/gender issues and "social justice," etc. etc. There's no really good word for this. You hear "progressive" a lot. You hear "liberal" a lot. Both are overloaded to the point of inaccuracy.

Whatever the word is, it's the ideology that permeates academia.

economics, biology, etc. should be pretty much free from political trappings.

Sure, but I wouldn't allow the interactions in these contexts to dilute the liberal bias of academia. The reason they're not trying to brainwash you in electronics class isn't because they don't think it's awesome, it's just that it's not a relevant topic.

Even if the electronics teacher never talks politics to a student, he's still part of a community of professors that enourage one another to try to force liberal ideology on students. If there was a healthy, honest debate amongst the faculty, you wouldn't see them feeling so empowered to jam their views down kids' throats.

I'm not sure Ward Churchill ever felt particularly comfortable with his ideas.

He felt comfortable enough to publish them. Why wouldn't he? He was a tenured professor. If they give you tenure, are you not going to feel comfortable?

Now, don't get me wrong, guys like that, crazy people, they find encouragement in very odd places... But I really don't think he'd say what he said, and do what he did, if he didn't have at least some level of support from people around him.

And Peikoff voted for Kerry.

Hot chicks won't screw losers with meek attitudes unless they are prostitutes and the loser has $$$.

Phryxis wrote:
I've got to take issue with your preference for personal experience over (relatively) scientific examination. I can't speak to your experience, it may be that you had a lot of conservative professors, but in my experience, every single one was a flaming liberal. I could take that as fact, but instead I prefer to go with studies that are more objective and more comprehensive.

I think we both have to take the studies at face value. They're not iron-clad fact, but they're more valid than our personal experience in describing the political makeup of the nation's professors.

Ah, let me clarify. I'm taking you're ratio of 2-1 at face value, as I'm not sure what studies are being referenced or what their methodology is, and then considering what it means to self-identify as either a liberal or conservative. If we were talking only about voting tendencies, then that wouldn't make sense. But, since we're talking about the propensity for group-think in the academy, I think its important to avoid white-washing either side of the debate.

Phryxis wrote:
There's a WHOLE crazy big debate here.

First off, "progressive" is a tricky word. It's a political movement, and then it's also just the idea of "trying to make progress." Different things.

Yeah, I realized that about 20 minutes after I wrote it, but didn't feel like going back to clarify. I'll do that now by simply saying that my intended meaning was closer to the latter; defining progress as simply improving conditions as defined by the person producing the research.

Phryxis wrote:
I wish there was a better word for it, but there isn't... There's a certain ideology, which is commongly called "liberal," which is anti-capitalist, anti-war, pro-government, pro social programs, very concerned with race/gender issues and "social justice," etc. etc.

Whatever the word is, it's the ideology that permeates academia.

I don't disagree that such an ideology exists. I simply disagree that said ideology permeates all facets of academia. Academics generally self-identify as liberals, but the vagaries of the term don't necessarily imply that they believe all, or even most, of the above,

Phryxis wrote:
But I really don't think he'd say what he said, and do what he did, if he didn't have at least some level of support from people around him.

Ward Churchill very rarely published in peer reviewed journals. He claims it occurred 27 times, in a publication history including 150 items, but Boulder indicated they felt is was notably lower. I'm sure he found support somewhere, but that doesn't mean it necessarily the academy. Of course, it is certainly a good place to look.

Honestly, what I find more interesting about people like Churchill, and how they're allowed to remain in their positions for so long, is the degree to which the American collegiate system is more focused on research than instruction.

Phryxis wrote:
And Peikoff voted for Kerry.

He also called him a terrible candidate, and basically said that he only voted for him because the previous Bush Administration went entirely against sound economic policy. Well, that and, like most faithful objectivists, he hates religion. Also, he now wants everyone to vote Republican to kick out Obama. Now, objectivism certainly isn't conservatism, but it is on the 'conservative' end of the spectrum.

kronk wrote:Hot chicks won't screw losers with meek attitudes unless they are prostitutes and the loser has $$$.

um what.

And dogma are you arguing that there isn't actually a liberal bias in academia or that the bias doesn't have an effect on the students or isn't important.

Speaking of Ward Churchill, how exactly does one only publish twenty-eight times in peer-reviewed publications and still have a job?

youbedead wrote:
And dogma are you arguing that there isn't actually a liberal bias in academia or that the bias doesn't have an effect on the students or isn't important.

I'm arguing that the liberal bias in academia is both relatively unimportant, and that is less pronounced than the relevant statistics indicate. The latter turns on the idea that self-identification is not a compelling means of determining the ideological affiliation of any individual. The former turns on the notion that the majority of the academy is apolitical; in essence no one cares about your political affiliations in biology class.


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Nurglitch wrote:Speaking of Ward Churchill, how exactly does one only publish twenty-eight times in peer-reviewed publications and still have a job?

wikipedia wrote:
In 1978, Churchill began working at the University of Colorado at Boulder as an affirmative action officer in the university administration. He also lectured on American Indian issues in the ethnic studies program. In 1990, the University of Colorado hired him as an associate professor, although he did not possess the academic doctorate usually required for the position. The following year he was granted tenure in the Communications department, without the usual six-year probationary period, after having been declined by the Sociology and Political Science departments.

In 1992, Alfred University awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters after giving a lecture about American Indian history. In 1996, Churchill moved to the new Ethnic Studies Department of the University of Colorado. In 1997, he was promoted to full professor. He was selected as chair of the department in June 2002

Churchill's entire career is a mystery.

I'm arguing that the liberal bias in academia is both relatively unimportant, and that is less pronounced than the relevant statistics indicate.

This is an agree to disagree moment. You've earned enough of my respect that I won't put us through the pointless maze of trying to convince one another otherwise.

Suffice it to say that I think that academia is a liberal echo chamber, and it's actually getting dangerous just how much they self-reinforce and train intolerance into the population.

Churchill's entire career is a mystery.

Well, it's a mystery in your worldview, where campuses aren't dominated by liberals.

To my worldview, where liberal victim theology is at the core of everything we think and do, it's no mystery at all. He saw what was coming way back in 1980.

He's actually somewhat revolutionary in that respect, as I think he realized that the nation was about to turn to an extended period of white guilt navel gazing, and he rode that in.

He basically said "I'm an American Indian, you know what you did to my people, you need to make amends by giving me a chance to teach the truth. PS. I'm a lunatic and will create problems." America is a land of litigious guiltmongering, so he got the strings pulled to grant his tenure. The liberals at CU bought the victim BS. The ones manning the purse strings figured a professor is cheaper to pay than a team of lawyers.

The stuff he was saying is reprehensible. That's what I believe, and I have a feeling you agree. CU said it was reprehensible too, but I don't think they really believe that. I think they're extreme liberals, and when they hear what he said, while they might think it's a bit over the top, they agree enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. Do that long enough, and he thinks he's really onto something, and he starts saying it to people he shouldn't. Then you have to clean up the mess you made.

dogma wrote:

youbedead wrote:
And dogma are you arguing that there isn't actually a liberal bias in academia or that the bias doesn't have an effect on the students or isn't important.

I'm arguing that the liberal bias in academia is both relatively unimportant, and that is less pronounced than the relevant statistics indicate. The latter turns on the idea that self-identification is not a compelling means of determining the ideological affiliation of any individual. The former turns on the notion that the majority of the academy is apolitical; in essence no one cares about your political affiliations in biology class.

Ah i got it so you believe that many of the professors describe themselves as liberal despite being quite far from liberal ideologies. and that no really gives a damn about your politics in a non political class.


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Phryxis wrote:

I'm arguing that the liberal bias in academia is both relatively unimportant, and that is less pronounced than the relevant statistics indicate.

This is an agree to disagree moment. You've earned enough of my respect that I won't put us through the pointless maze of trying to convince one another otherwise.

Suffice it to say that I think that academia is a liberal echo chamber, and it's actually getting dangerous just how much they self-reinforce and train intolerance into the population.

wait sensible debate on dakka ot. HERESY! HERESY I SAY!