Critical Thinking Abjured

[PoliticalChic]

Joanna Williams writes particularly perceptive essays for the Brit 'Spiked.com.' In the following, she reveals exactly what a sham Liberal-lead higher education has become....and it applies to America as well as Britain.






1." Teaching students not to think- Conformist and cowardly, contemporary academic culture actively inhibits critical thinking.

2. When calls to censor academics come not from heavy-handed managers but from feminist colleagues seeking to curtail debate, academic freedom is not as clear-cut an issue as it may have been in the past.

3. There are few formal restrictions preventing academics saying or writing whatever they want...

4. More problematic, particularly in the social sciences, is a growing sense that there are some views that just cannot be expressed. On the one hand, the pseudo-radical, broadly left-wing consensus that pervades universities means that castigating neoliberalism, the influence of the popular media, and the desire to consume, will automatically garner the support of the peers who will review your work for publication and you for promotion.





5. On the other hand, not paying lip-service to the importance of feminism, the welfare state, and protecting the environment, is more likely to see your work rejected.






6. Holding, and expressing, controversial ideas that will test the limits of academic freedom requires an ability to think critically. Too often it seems that universities today actually seek to prevent criticality and instead try to coerce groupthink ....

7. ... through the enculturation of particular collective values....an individual’s values and principles are no longer a private affair... they’re to be ‘given’ to you, which means you can be explicitly told which opinions to hold.






8. That the [ body that claims to ‘champion excellent learning and teaching in higher education] expects lecturers to demonstrate collective values, and that universities have gone along with this, suggests criticality is no longer considered a fundamental part of the academic enterprise.

9. .... encourages the teaching and assessing of pre-determined outcomes which may include personal behaviour and individually held principles rather than knowledge. Such lists of values curtail free speech by creating a moral orthodoxy of what it is acceptable to say.




a. ... the promotion of values has replaced the teaching of knowledge is seen in the titles of some university courses...'students can study for a Masters degree in ‘advancing equality, rights and inclusion’...

10. ... titles of such courses suggest not so much pre-determined knowledge outcomes as pre-determined values upon which students will be assessed. It is virtually impossible for students to question, let alone challenge, the fundamental concepts of sustainability, inclusion or feminism and still successfully complete their studies."
Teaching students not to think | Education | spiked




The result of such non-education can be clearly and constantly seen in the post from our Left-wing brethren.

Challenge the Progressive orthodoxy and the attack is exactly what they have "learned" in college.

 

[Agit8r]

the promotion of values has replaced the teaching of knowledge

Sounds like those worthless creationist charter schools

 

[PoliticalChic]

the promotion of values has replaced the teaching of knowledge

Sounds like those worthless creationist charter schools

Your alma mater?
C'mon, now....you must have learned SOMETHING????

 

[PoliticalChic]

"The desire to use higher education to promote particular values goes beyond a focus on British academics. Universities all around the world have signed up to the United Nations Rio+ 20 Higher Education Sustainability Initiative which requires institutions to commit to:

• Teach sustainable development concepts

• Encourage research on sustainable development issues

• Green our campuses

• Support sustainability efforts




This list confuses values and knowledge. Instead of interrogating concepts such as sustainable development, the pro-environment focus encourages the teaching and assessing of pre-determined outcomes which may include personal behaviour and individually held principles rather than knowledge.
Such lists of values curtail free speech by creating a moral orthodoxy of what it is acceptable to say."
Ibid.



This is why our universities produce brain-washed political robots, rather than thinking individuals.

 

[rightwinger]

Who needs critical thinking when there is cut and paste?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Who needs critical thinking when there is cut and paste?

I get such a kick out of the dolts who don't realize that they are inadvertently admitting that they have no way of arguing with the thesis.....merely the way of presentation.

Raise your paw.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Leftism is so pervasive, that if applied to any other way of looking at life, it would be widely recognized as a form of brainwashing!

Image a person who attended only fundamental Christian schools from preschool through graduate school, who never saw a secular, let alone anti-Christian, film, and who only read religious books. Most would say that they had been ‘brainwashed.”

Yet, we regularly find individuals who only attended secular liberal schools from preschool through college, watched or listened to only Left-of-center television, movies, music, and had essentially no exposure to religious or conservative ideas. Brainwashed?

Of course not! Liberals are open-minded!!!
The irony here is that the denial itself shows how very effective the brainwashing has been.




Now, Christians or Jews who have rarely been exposed to secular ideas and values would readily acknowledge same. It is only those on the Left who fool themselves into believing that they have been exposed to all points of view.

Universities have become to Liberalism what a Christian seminary is to Christianity. The difference is that Christian seminaries acknowledge their purpose, to produce committed Christians.
Dennis Prager, "Still The Best Hope," chapter two.




a. “The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible.” The University's Part in Political Life” (13 March 1909) in PWW (The Papers of Woodrow Wilson) 19:99.



b. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_ANRgcvjkk&feature=fvwrel]Eric Holder D.O.J "We Must Brainwash People About Guns" - YouTube[/ame]

 

[rightwinger]

Leftism is so pervasive, that if applied to any other way of looking at life, it would be widely recognized as a form of brainwashing!

Image a person who attended only fundamental Christian schools from preschool through graduate school, who never saw a secular, let alone anti-Christian, film, and who only read religious books. Most would say that they had been ‘brainwashed.”

Yet, we regularly find individuals who only attended secular liberal schools from preschool through college, watched or listened to only Left-of-center television, movies, music, and had essentially no exposure to religious or conservative ideas. Brainwashed?

Of course not! Liberals are open-minded!!!
The irony here is that the denial itself shows how very effective the brainwashing has been.




Now, Christians or Jews who have rarely been exposed to secular ideas and values would readily acknowledge same. It is only those on the Left who fool themselves into believing that they have been exposed to all points of view.

Universities have become to Liberalism what a Christian seminary is to Christianity. The difference is that Christian seminaries acknowledge their purpose, to produce committed Christians.
Dennis Prager, "Still The Best Hope," chapter two.




a. “The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible.” The University's Part in Political Life” (13 March 1909) in PWW (The Papers of Woodrow Wilson) 19:99.



b. Eric Holder D.O.J "We Must Brainwash People About Guns" - YouTube

Corrollary to those whose critical thinking is restricted to cut and paste:

You Tube Videos

 

[PoliticalChic]

Leftism is so pervasive, that if applied to any other way of looking at life, it would be widely recognized as a form of brainwashing!

Image a person who attended only fundamental Christian schools from preschool through graduate school, who never saw a secular, let alone anti-Christian, film, and who only read religious books. Most would say that they had been ‘brainwashed.”

Yet, we regularly find individuals who only attended secular liberal schools from preschool through college, watched or listened to only Left-of-center television, movies, music, and had essentially no exposure to religious or conservative ideas. Brainwashed?

Of course not! Liberals are open-minded!!!
The irony here is that the denial itself shows how very effective the brainwashing has been.




Now, Christians or Jews who have rarely been exposed to secular ideas and values would readily acknowledge same. It is only those on the Left who fool themselves into believing that they have been exposed to all points of view.

Universities have become to Liberalism what a Christian seminary is to Christianity. The difference is that Christian seminaries acknowledge their purpose, to produce committed Christians.
Dennis Prager, "Still The Best Hope," chapter two.




a. “The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible.” The University's Part in Political Life” (13 March 1909) in PWW (The Papers of Woodrow Wilson) 19:99.



b. Eric Holder D.O.J "We Must Brainwash People About Guns" - YouTube

Corrollary to those whose critical thinking is restricted to cut and paste:

You Tube Videos

Good to see that you aren't prepared to deny that your hand-wringing over the format is because of how damaged you are by the content.

 

[norwegen]

In America, progressivism found an ally in academia because that is where history could most easily be revised. The muckraking of the founders, for example, sprouted wings with such revisionist historians as John Bach McMaster, who in his 1896 essay The Political Depravity of the Founding Fathers called the founders our masters and said their politics were shenanigans. Revisionist historian Sydney George Fisher then posited that the reputation of the founders was inflated with myth and fables.* As Abraham Lincoln warned, the achievements of the founders "must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time."

The progressives didn't stop at the founders, of course. They berated the founding itself. In his Spirit of American Government, J. Allen Smith said that the Constitution was reactionary and aristocratic.

Charles Beard was a very popular Progressive Era historian who incorporated the ideas of Marx, Freud, and behaviorist psychology in his attempts to change our thinking about history and the origins of the Constitution. He removed the mantle of disinterested virtue that surrounded the founders and described them as ordinary and common.

The revising of American history has a long list of authors, including Woodrow Wilson, another academic. While historians with no academic connections have continued to write biographies and history books that are popular with Americans, it is our educational institutions that have altered our history and demonized our heroes. And it's still somewhat the same way today, although these progressive ideas have been seeping more and more into the thinking of non-academics. Liberalism is a cancer that really began to spread significantly in academia. Note, for example, the success of state-supported schools and the struggles that private schools are facing.


* Evolution of the Constitution of the United States, Showing That It Is a Development of Progressive History and Not an Isolated Document Struck Off at a Given Time or an Imitation of English or Dutch Forms of Government

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Our educational system needs to be completely reformed; it's failing our kids.

If it were a car that we depended upon to get our kid to some sporting event, it would only start 1 day out of three and on 80% of the 2 days it started, it would stall out half way to the event.

 

[PoliticalChic]

And instruction in class isn't the only bias that batters students.....


1. "University of South Carolina textbook ... accusations that President Ronald Reagan was sexist and conservatives view people as incapable of “charity” and "lazy."
The textbook.... used for the three credit course “Introduction to Social Work Profession and Social Welfare.”


2. The mandated reading includes sections such as “Conservative Extremes in the 1980’s and Early 1990’s,” which claims Reagan “ascribed to women primarily domestic functions’ and failed to appoint many women to significant positions of power during his presidency.”

The excerpts sent to Campus Reform make no mention of Reagan’s appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court Justice; his appointment of the first female U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick; Elizabeth Dole, the first female appointed to Secretary of the Department of Transportation; or that over 1,400 women were chosen by Reagan to fill powerful, policy-making positions.



3. “Conservatives ‘tend to take a basically pessimistic view of human nature. People are conceived of as being, self-centered, lazy and incapable of true charity,’” the text states.


4. Wealthy individuals are also a topic of scorn throughout the course reading, which argues that “[the] wealthy find that having a social class of poor people is useful.”

First, poor people can do the ‘dirty work’ for rich people that the latter don’t want to do,” such as dangerous or menial jobs. “Second, having a poor social class emphasizes that the wealthy are higher in the social structure. . .and allows them to look down on classes below them.” University textbook claims Reagan was sexist, conservatives view people as incapable of 'charity,' 'lazy'

 

[norwegen]

Our educational system needs to be completely reformed; it's failing our kids.

If it were a car that we depended upon to get our kid to some sporting event, it would only start 1 day out of three and on 80% of the 2 days it started, it would stall out half way to the event.

The first area that needs reform is history.

 

[PoliticalChic]

In America, progressivism found an ally in academia because that is where history could most easily be revised. The muckraking of the founders, for example, sprouted wings with such revisionist historians as John Bach McMaster, who in his 1896 essay The Political Depravity of the Founding Fathers called the founders our masters and said their politics were shenanigans. Revisionist historian Sydney George Fisher then posited that the reputation of the founders was inflated with myth and fables.* As Abraham Lincoln warned, the achievements of the founders "must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time."

The progressives didn't stop at the founders, of course. They berated the founding itself. In his Spirit of American Government, J. Allen Smith said that the Constitution was reactionary and aristocratic.

Charles Beard was a very popular Progressive Era historian who incorporated the ideas of Marx, Freud, and behaviorist psychology in his attempts to change our thinking about history and the origins of the Constitution. He removed the mantle of disinterested virtue that surrounded the founders and described them as ordinary and common.

The revising of American history has a long list of authors, including Woodrow Wilson, another academic. While historians with no academic connections have continued to write biographies and history books that are popular with Americans, it is our educational institutions that have altered our history and demonized our heroes. And it's still somewhat the same way today, although these progressive ideas have been seeping more and more into the thinking of non-academics. Liberalism is a cancer that really began to spread significantly in academia. Note, for example, the success of state-supported schools and the struggles that private schools are facing.


* Evolution of the Constitution of the United States, Showing That It Is a Development of Progressive History and Not an Isolated Document Struck Off at a Given Time or an Imitation of English or Dutch Forms of Government

In her book, "The Death of Feminism," Dr. Phyllis Chesler speaks of her experiences in academia:


1. Academic feminists who received tenure, promotion, and funding, tended to be pro-abortion, pro-pornography (anti-censorship), pro-prostitution (pro-sex workers), pro-surrogacy, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-American…proponents of simplistic gender-neutrality (women and men are exactly the same) or essentialist: men and women are completely different, and women are better. They are loyal to their careers and their cliques, not to the truth.

2. [In their writing, they] have pretended that brilliance and originality can best be conveyed in a secret, Mandarin language that absolutely no one, including themselves, can possibly understand…and this obfuscation of language has been employed to hide a considerable lack of brilliance and originality and to avoid the consequences of making oneself clear.

3. Liberals stamp out dissent by social and professional ostracism and legal discrimination.

 

[norwegen]

In America, progressivism found an ally in academia because that is where history could most easily be revised. The muckraking of the founders, for example, sprouted wings with such revisionist historians as John Bach McMaster, who in his 1896 essay The Political Depravity of the Founding Fathers called the founders our masters and said their politics were shenanigans. Revisionist historian Sydney George Fisher then posited that the reputation of the founders was inflated with myth and fables.* As Abraham Lincoln warned, the achievements of the founders "must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time."

The progressives didn't stop at the founders, of course. They berated the founding itself. In his Spirit of American Government, J. Allen Smith said that the Constitution was reactionary and aristocratic.

Charles Beard was a very popular Progressive Era historian who incorporated the ideas of Marx, Freud, and behaviorist psychology in his attempts to change our thinking about history and the origins of the Constitution. He removed the mantle of disinterested virtue that surrounded the founders and described them as ordinary and common.

The revising of American history has a long list of authors, including Woodrow Wilson, another academic. While historians with no academic connections have continued to write biographies and history books that are popular with Americans, it is our educational institutions that have altered our history and demonized our heroes. And it's still somewhat the same way today, although these progressive ideas have been seeping more and more into the thinking of non-academics. Liberalism is a cancer that really began to spread significantly in academia. Note, for example, the success of state-supported schools and the struggles that private schools are facing.


* Evolution of the Constitution of the United States, Showing That It Is a Development of Progressive History and Not an Isolated Document Struck Off at a Given Time or an Imitation of English or Dutch Forms of Government

In her book, "The Death of Feminism," Dr. Phyllis Chesler speaks of her experiences in academia:


1. Academic feminists who received tenure, promotion, and funding, tended to be pro-abortion, pro-pornography (anti-censorship), pro-prostitution (pro-sex workers), pro-surrogacy, and anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, and anti-American…proponents of simplistic gender-neutrality (women and men are exactly the same) or essentialist: men and women are completely different, and women are better. They are loyal to their careers and their cliques, not to the truth.

2. [In their writing, they] have pretended that brilliance and originality can best be conveyed in a secret, Mandarin language that absolutely no one, including themselves, can possibly understand…and this obfuscation of language has been employed to hide a considerable lack of brilliance and originality and to avoid the consequences of making oneself clear.

3. Liberals stamp out dissent by social and professional ostracism and legal discrimination.

If conservatives start calling themselves pornographers and prostitutes, maybe the moonbats will praise them.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Joanna Williams writes particularly perceptive essays for the Brit 'Spiked.com.' In the following, she reveals exactly what a sham Liberal-lead higher education has become....and it applies to America as well as Britain.






1." Teaching students not to think- Conformist and cowardly, contemporary academic culture actively inhibits critical thinking.

2. When calls to censor academics come not from heavy-handed managers but from feminist colleagues seeking to curtail debate, academic freedom is not as clear-cut an issue as it may have been in the past.

3. There are few formal restrictions preventing academics saying or writing whatever they want...

4. More problematic, particularly in the social sciences, is a growing sense that there are some views that just cannot be expressed. On the one hand, the pseudo-radical, broadly left-wing consensus that pervades universities means that castigating neoliberalism, the influence of the popular media, and the desire to consume, will automatically garner the support of the peers who will review your work for publication and you for promotion.





5. On the other hand, not paying lip-service to the importance of feminism, the welfare state, and protecting the environment, is more likely to see your work rejected.






6. Holding, and expressing, controversial ideas that will test the limits of academic freedom requires an ability to think critically. Too often it seems that universities today actually seek to prevent criticality and instead try to coerce groupthink ....

7. ... through the enculturation of particular collective values....an individual’s values and principles are no longer a private affair... they’re to be ‘given’ to you, which means you can be explicitly told which opinions to hold.






8. That the [ body that claims to ‘champion excellent learning and teaching in higher education] expects lecturers to demonstrate collective values, and that universities have gone along with this, suggests criticality is no longer considered a fundamental part of the academic enterprise.

9. .... encourages the teaching and assessing of pre-determined outcomes which may include personal behaviour and individually held principles rather than knowledge. Such lists of values curtail free speech by creating a moral orthodoxy of what it is acceptable to say.




a. ... the promotion of values has replaced the teaching of knowledge is seen in the titles of some university courses...'students can study for a Masters degree in ‘advancing equality, rights and inclusion’...

10. ... titles of such courses suggest not so much pre-determined knowledge outcomes as pre-determined values upon which students will be assessed. It is virtually impossible for students to question, let alone challenge, the fundamental concepts of sustainability, inclusion or feminism and still successfully complete their studies."
Teaching students not to think | Education | spiked




The result of such non-education can be clearly and constantly seen in the post from our Left-wing brethren.

Challenge the Progressive orthodoxy and the attack is exactly what they have "learned" in college.

Hmmmmm...challenge the Conservative dogma and be attacked, now that rings true! Evidence? Of course, see any thread posted by PoliticalChic.

 

[HelenaHandbag]

Who needs critical thinking when there is cut and paste?

Strange you haven't uttered a peep when hazelnut has gone on his periodic spam-a-thons.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Who needs critical thinking when there is cut and paste?

Strange you haven't uttered a peep when hazelnut has gone on his periodic spam-a-thons.

We have to cut our pal Wingy some slack, Helena......

He's an 'old timer' ....his high school field trip was the Gold Rush.....

...and he tries to the best of his ability to post....but relevance isn't his strong suit. So, he complains about the form of the post.
Bless his little old shriveled heart.




Plus....his memory isn't what I suppose it once was....sometimes he mistakes the USMB for the incontinence hotline.....


To get an idea of how bad the situation is.....he even forgot that he was a Left-winger when he made up an avi!

 

[PoliticalChic]

Joanna Williams writes particularly perceptive essays for the Brit 'Spiked.com.' In the following, she reveals exactly what a sham Liberal-lead higher education has become....and it applies to America as well as Britain.






1." Teaching students not to think- Conformist and cowardly, contemporary academic culture actively inhibits critical thinking.

2. When calls to censor academics come not from heavy-handed managers but from feminist colleagues seeking to curtail debate, academic freedom is not as clear-cut an issue as it may have been in the past.

3. There are few formal restrictions preventing academics saying or writing whatever they want...

4. More problematic, particularly in the social sciences, is a growing sense that there are some views that just cannot be expressed. On the one hand, the pseudo-radical, broadly left-wing consensus that pervades universities means that castigating neoliberalism, the influence of the popular media, and the desire to consume, will automatically garner the support of the peers who will review your work for publication and you for promotion.





5. On the other hand, not paying lip-service to the importance of feminism, the welfare state, and protecting the environment, is more likely to see your work rejected.






6. Holding, and expressing, controversial ideas that will test the limits of academic freedom requires an ability to think critically. Too often it seems that universities today actually seek to prevent criticality and instead try to coerce groupthink ....

7. ... through the enculturation of particular collective values....an individual’s values and principles are no longer a private affair... they’re to be ‘given’ to you, which means you can be explicitly told which opinions to hold.






8. That the [ body that claims to ‘champion excellent learning and teaching in higher education] expects lecturers to demonstrate collective values, and that universities have gone along with this, suggests criticality is no longer considered a fundamental part of the academic enterprise.

9. .... encourages the teaching and assessing of pre-determined outcomes which may include personal behaviour and individually held principles rather than knowledge. Such lists of values curtail free speech by creating a moral orthodoxy of what it is acceptable to say.




a. ... the promotion of values has replaced the teaching of knowledge is seen in the titles of some university courses...'students can study for a Masters degree in ‘advancing equality, rights and inclusion’...

10. ... titles of such courses suggest not so much pre-determined knowledge outcomes as pre-determined values upon which students will be assessed. It is virtually impossible for students to question, let alone challenge, the fundamental concepts of sustainability, inclusion or feminism and still successfully complete their studies."
Teaching students not to think | Education | spiked




The result of such non-education can be clearly and constantly seen in the post from our Left-wing brethren.

Challenge the Progressive orthodoxy and the attack is exactly what they have "learned" in college.

Hmmmmm...challenge the Conservative dogma and be attacked, now that rings true! Evidence? Of course, see any thread posted by PoliticalChic.

Some folks have an 'ignore' list. I have an 'abuse' list.

Congrats....you've made it.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Joanna Williams writes particularly perceptive essays for the Brit 'Spiked.com.' In the following, she reveals exactly what a sham Liberal-lead higher education has become....and it applies to America as well as Britain.






1." Teaching students not to think- Conformist and cowardly, contemporary academic culture actively inhibits critical thinking.

2. When calls to censor academics come not from heavy-handed managers but from feminist colleagues seeking to curtail debate, academic freedom is not as clear-cut an issue as it may have been in the past.

3. There are few formal restrictions preventing academics saying or writing whatever they want...

4. More problematic, particularly in the social sciences, is a growing sense that there are some views that just cannot be expressed. On the one hand, the pseudo-radical, broadly left-wing consensus that pervades universities means that castigating neoliberalism, the influence of the popular media, and the desire to consume, will automatically garner the support of the peers who will review your work for publication and you for promotion.





5. On the other hand, not paying lip-service to the importance of feminism, the welfare state, and protecting the environment, is more likely to see your work rejected.






6. Holding, and expressing, controversial ideas that will test the limits of academic freedom requires an ability to think critically. Too often it seems that universities today actually seek to prevent criticality and instead try to coerce groupthink ....

7. ... through the enculturation of particular collective values....an individual’s values and principles are no longer a private affair... they’re to be ‘given’ to you, which means you can be explicitly told which opinions to hold.






8. That the [ body that claims to ‘champion excellent learning and teaching in higher education] expects lecturers to demonstrate collective values, and that universities have gone along with this, suggests criticality is no longer considered a fundamental part of the academic enterprise.

9. .... encourages the teaching and assessing of pre-determined outcomes which may include personal behaviour and individually held principles rather than knowledge. Such lists of values curtail free speech by creating a moral orthodoxy of what it is acceptable to say.




a. ... the promotion of values has replaced the teaching of knowledge is seen in the titles of some university courses...'students can study for a Masters degree in ‘advancing equality, rights and inclusion’...

10. ... titles of such courses suggest not so much pre-determined knowledge outcomes as pre-determined values upon which students will be assessed. It is virtually impossible for students to question, let alone challenge, the fundamental concepts of sustainability, inclusion or feminism and still successfully complete their studies."
Teaching students not to think | Education | spiked




The result of such non-education can be clearly and constantly seen in the post from our Left-wing brethren.

Challenge the Progressive orthodoxy and the attack is exactly what they have "learned" in college.

Hmmmmm...challenge the Conservative dogma and be attacked, now that rings true! Evidence? Of course, see any thread posted by PoliticalChic.

Some folks have an 'ignore' list. I have an 'abuse' list.

Congrats....you've made it.

Bring it on (yikes! Did I channel George W. Bush?)! Well, abuse me if it suits your needs, I can take it. What you didn't do, and should, is acknowledge the truth of my statement. You troll, you receive criticism from some, and that some you verbally assault.