Why Professors are Predominantly ‘leftist.’

[Father Time]

So, then, where in you post will I find you statement along the lines that most of academia is left leaning?

And your statement that this bias doesn't find its way into the curriculum or classroom, that is an excellent example of 'anecdotal.'

Ok do tell me where I said those things.

Exactly.

You neglected to say 'those things.'

Your point being?

 

[geauxtohell]

Now I wonder should I counter with stories of people being persecuted for having new ideas and forced to submit to tradition for traditions sake.

Or should I just laugh at the pathetic attempt to associate new ideas with totalitarianism and forced acceptance?

I think I'll choose the latter.

You mean there is another option aside from laughter when it comes to PC's diatribes?

 

[JakeStarkey]

Laugher is the appropriate response for PoliticalChic.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I have come to realize that one of the problems of those on the left is the echo chamber in which they live. This board may be their only interface with the real world.

I haven't had time to read every post, but did somebody earlier say that those not aligned with the 'Right" aren't necessarily "Left"?

That is the most succinct summation of the problem I think. Most liberals don't believe they are liberal. They believe they are perfectly rational, normal, and have it all together while all the rest of us are out of sync with the real world.

As a journalism major and being part of the media off an on throughout my adult life, I see the problems in academia as the same that exists in most of the mainstream media.

Those anti-establishment, anti-traditional values, and sometimes anti-America children of the 60's eventually put away their hookahs and beads and became productive members of the middle class but they didn't lose all that dogma. And eventually it was they who achieved senority in the news rooms and in academia and were mostly impressed by and hired people who believed and talked as they did. Conservatives were either mostly not hired or found themselves in such a philosophically hostile environment that they left and found other things to do.

And now the Left takes pride that they dominate in both realms and sometimes look down their noses at those on the Right who they see as less 'nice people' or 'less intellectual' or 'less well educated'.

And of course that perpetuates the problem and lopsidedness that exists. As George Will once commented based on that study you cite, the Left values diversity in everything but thought.

Excellent.

A cogent, informed post based on real live experience.

" Most liberals don't believe they are liberal."
Intuitive analysis.
It is because they haven't studied enough of the history of the left, of repercussions of leftist thought.
Even when the proof is right in front of them, as though they were afraid of the realizations that their axioms are flawed.


And "As a journalism major ..." you were able to cut through the fog. A sign of a superior intellect.

"Those anti-establishment, anti-traditional values, and sometimes anti-America children of the 60's eventually put away their hookahs and beads and became productive members of the middle class but they didn't lose all that dogma."
Succinct.

But we must give them their props! They infiltrated, and bided their time. And it gained them a Presidency!

November will tell which way America will go.

 

[Father Time]

Is it just me or does it seem like PC will jump onto any theory without question if it makes liberals look bad?

 

[Father Time]

Oh and a little off topic but please note PC has just said liberals don't really have much encounter with the real world which will be interesting to note if she ever wants to call them elitists.

 

[geauxtohell]

Is it just me or does it seem like PC will jump onto any theory without question if it makes liberals look bad?

and all while claiming that liberals lack critical thinking skills?

It's not just you.

 

[Foxfyre]

Now I wonder should I counter with stories of people being persecuted for having new ideas and forced to submit to tradition for traditions sake.

Or should I just laugh at the pathetic attempt to associate new ideas with totalitarianism and forced acceptance?

I think I'll choose the latter.

You mean there is another option aside from laughter when it comes to PC's diatribes?

Well since you don't apparently have anything at all with which to dispute PC's 'diatribes', lets explore that George Will article I cited earlier and which so far you have ignored. He apparently did some pretty thorough research and cites some pretty impressive sources for his conclusions:

Excerpt

. . . .Another study, of voter registration records, including those of professors in engineering and the hard sciences, found nine Democrats for every Republican at Berkeley and Stanford. Among younger professors, there were 183 Democrats, six Republicans.

But we essentially knew this even before the American Enterprise magazine reported in 2002 on examinations of voting records in various college communities. Some findings about professors registered with the two major parties or with liberal or conservative minor parties:

Cornell: 166 liberals, 6 conservatives.

Stanford: 151 liberals, 17 conservatives.

Colorado: 116 liberals, 5 conservatives.

UCLA: 141 liberals, 9 conservatives. . . .

. . . .A filtering process, from graduate school admissions through tenure decisions, tends to exclude conservatives from what Mark Bauerlein calls academia's "sheltered habitat." In a dazzling essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University and director of research and analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, notes that the "first protocol" of academic society is the "common assumption" -- that, at professional gatherings, all the strangers in the room are liberals.

It is a reasonable assumption, given that in order to enter the profession, your work must be deemed, by the criteria of the prevailing culture, "relevant." Bauerlein says that various academic fields now have regnant premises that embed political orientations in their very definitions of scholarship:

"Schools of education, for instance, take constructivist theories of learning as definitive, excluding realists (in matters of knowledge) on principle, while the quasi-Marxist outlook of cultural studies rules out those who espouse capitalism. If you disapprove of affirmative action, forget pursuing a degree in African-American studies. If you think that the nuclear family proves the best unit of social well-being, stay away from women's studies."

This gives rise to what Bauerlein calls the "false consensus effect," which occurs when, because of institutional provincialism, "people think that the collective opinion of their own group matches that of the larger population." There also is what Cass Sunstein, professor of political science and jurisprudence at the University of Chicago, calls "the law of group polarization." Bauerlein explains: "When like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts toward extreme versions of their common beliefs." They become tone-deaf to the way they sound to others outside their closed circle of belief. . . .

The whole essay as it appeared in the Washington Post can be seen here:
washingtonpost.com: Academia, Stuck To the Left

 

[PoliticalChic]

Now I wonder should I counter with stories of people being persecuted for having new ideas and forced to submit to tradition for traditions sake.

Or should I just laugh at the pathetic attempt to associate new ideas with totalitarianism and forced acceptance?

I think I'll choose the latter.

Actually,I don't believe that you can live up to your threat: you cannot counter the horrors of the leftist regimes anywhere, nor anytime: I challenge you to show comparable atrocities.

So, pick up the gauntlet, let's see if you are 'au fait...'

"“In its many enthroned variations, from Lenin's 1917 revolution to the recent MarxistLeninist regimes of Africa, communism has killed upwards of 100 million people65 million in China alone. Courtois and his colleagues do not simply unfold the numbers relentlessly and numbingly. Instead, they painstakingly explore the many ways the killing was done-from summary execution to forced deportations, from mass starvation to the gulag-and examine its many pretexts.”
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression
Foreign Affairs (Book Review); New York; Nov/Dec 1999; Robert Legvold;


Last century: over one hundred million slaughtered.

And the great hero of the left, FDR, laughing about Soviet agents in his administration.
If you are unfamiliar with that, I would be happy to aid in your education.

Wise up.

 

[logical4u]

Maybe, many in our society 'know' that no matter how smart you are, if you are a coal miner, a fisherman, a logger or a hundred other dangerous jobs, you can still be killed at work. That slip of paper does not make a difference when it comes to working in a dangerous profession. Education, DOES NOT HAVE TO BE FORMAL, there is a school most of us attend, either in place of college or in addition to college... it is the school of hard knocks (also known as paying your dues), and every time you start a new job, you will be forced to attend a 'crash course'.

The left seems to believe that intellect is more important than wisdom. For those of us that work in dangerous jobs, intellect without wisdom (some call it experience) will get you killed quicker than 'trying your luck'. What looks good on paper doesn't necessarily work in REALITY.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know that a college education doesn't make someone intelligent or smart anymore than the lack of one makes someone dumb or what-have-you. It's brought up on every thread about this.

Statistically speaking though, earning potential increases for every year of education.

Which is why it is strange that some conservatives love to hate higher education.

Conservatives do not 'hate' higher education; they consider the 'value', before participating. In many cases, the value (increased salary) is not worth the cost (time, effort and financial) involved.

We do get frustrated with people that have 'an education' (from a higher 'learning' institution), getting a job position that pays better than ours, and then, they want us (those that chose a different path) to 'train them'. Then they jump to the next better paying job, making us farther behind in 'real' duties (because we were short one while they were 'training', plus the time they took from us for required work).

To be fair, I have to say, one of the smartest people I ever did meet, was an engineer with an advanced degree.

Conservatives also get frustrated with 'degrees' being touted as necessary for 'every' job that pays well. It may not need it, but some 'degreed person' in personnel thinks it is unfair for a person that digs ditches and changes light bulbs to be paid more than them; so when they write the job description and requirements, they cost the employer 'qualified applicants' for applicants that look good on paper.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Laugher is the appropriate response for PoliticalChic.

So that's where the term 'grinning idiot' comes from!

 

[Father Time]

"you cannot counter the horrors of the leftist regimes"

Thank you for twisting what I actually said I'd do. This is about people being punished for not accepting new ideas but I can find people being punished for not accepting old ideas.

Like Galileo, or Christians being killed in ye olde Rome.

Although do tell me what was the point of your stories in the first place, that considering new ideas will lead to forcing people to accept those new ideas?

 

[PoliticalChic]

"you cannot counter the horrors of the leftist regimes"

Thank you for twisting what I actually said I'd do. This is about people being punished for not accepting new ideas but I can find people being punished for not accepting old ideas.

Like Galileo, or Christians being killed in ye olde Rome.

I'm pretty sure the folks who were slaughtered and maimed thought they were 'punished'.

And your stretch back two thousand years to find some example that, of course, has nothing to do with the political concepts under debate here, speaks volumes of the vapid nature of your thinking.

 

[Father Time]

"you cannot counter the horrors of the leftist regimes"

Thank you for twisting what I actually said I'd do. This is about people being punished for not accepting new ideas but I can find people being punished for not accepting old ideas.

Like Galileo, or Christians being killed in ye olde Rome.

I'm pretty sure the folks who were slaughtered and maimed thought they were 'punished'.

And your stretch back two thousand years to find some example that, of course, has nothing to do with the political concepts under debate here, speaks volumes of the vapid nature of your thinking.

Unlike your stories of dictatorships that no one was supporting or mentioning which were clearly relevant to this discussion eh?

 

[PoliticalChic]

"you cannot counter the horrors of the leftist regimes"

Thank you for twisting what I actually said I'd do. This is about people being punished for not accepting new ideas but I can find people being punished for not accepting old ideas.

Like Galileo, or Christians being killed in ye olde Rome.

I'm pretty sure the folks who were slaughtered and maimed thought they were 'punished'.

And your stretch back two thousand years to find some example that, of course, has nothing to do with the political concepts under debate here, speaks volumes of the vapid nature of your thinking.

Unlike your stories of dictatorships that no one was supporting or mentioning which were clearly relevant to this discussion eh?

Your inability to respond to the challenge, and the use of vulgarity, pretty much defines you.

 

[Father Time]

I'm pretty sure the folks who were slaughtered and maimed thought they were 'punished'.

And your stretch back two thousand years to find some example that, of course, has nothing to do with the political concepts under debate here, speaks volumes of the vapid nature of your thinking.

Unlike your stories of dictatorships that no one was supporting or mentioning which were clearly relevant to this discussion eh?

Your inability to respond to the challenge, and the use of vulgarity, pretty much defines you.

I gave you instances of people being punished for having new ideas, which is what this was about despite your attempts to turn everything into 'dem evil stupid lefties' vs. everyone else.

The least you can do is be honest about what the original challenge was.

And harping on the use of profanity is stupid, really really stupid, and it's something I'd expect from someone with nothing substantive.

 

[geauxtohell]

Well since you don't apparently have anything at all with which to dispute PC's 'diatribes',

How does one dispute a diatribe, exactly? People are entitled to their opinions. Regardless of how asinine they are.

lets explore that George Will article I cited earlier and which so far you have ignored.

Because I find Will to be an incessant bore. As has been cited by several studies on here, the % of professors who consider themselves to be "liberal" is less than 50%.

Hardly the "liberal domination" of academia that conservatives get all tizzied up about.

The only thing I found relevant about the Will piece is this:

. . . .A filtering process, from graduate school admissions through tenure decisions, tends to exclude conservatives from what Mark Bauerlein calls academia's "sheltered habitat." In a dazzling essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University and director of research and analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, notes that the "first protocol" of academic society is the "common assumption" -- that, at professional gatherings, all the strangers in the room are liberals.

since it claims discrimination. Even with that, it's largely anecdotal. Will can no more prove that there is a political bias in the tenure process than I can prove that the core of Jupiter is a huge diamond.

 

[geauxtohell]

We do get frustrated with people that have 'an education' (from a higher 'learning' institution), getting a job position that pays better than ours, and then, they want us (those that chose a different path) to 'train them'. Then they jump to the next better paying job, making us farther behind in 'real' duties (because we were short one while they were 'training', plus the time they took from us for required work).

Why? Like it or not, there is value to a degree and people with degrees are going to be favored for higher salaried positions over those without them (in general).

 

[Foxfyre]

Well since you don't apparently have anything at all with which to dispute PC's 'diatribes',

How does one dispute a diatribe, exactly? People are entitled to their opinions. Regardless of how asinine they are.

lets explore that George Will article I cited earlier and which so far you have ignored.

Because I find Will to be an incessant bore. As has been cited by several studies on here, the % of professors who consider themselves to be "liberal" is less than 50%.

Hardly the "liberal domination" of academia that conservatives get all tizzied up about.

The only thing I found relevant about the Will piece is this:

. . . .A filtering process, from graduate school admissions through tenure decisions, tends to exclude conservatives from what Mark Bauerlein calls academia's "sheltered habitat." In a dazzling essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University and director of research and analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, notes that the "first protocol" of academic society is the "common assumption" -- that, at professional gatherings, all the strangers in the room are liberals.

since it claims discrimination. Even with that, it's largely anecdotal. Will can no more prove that there is a political bias in the tenure process than I can prove that the core of Jupiter is a huge diamond.

Okay my turn to ask for a source or support for your opinion. A number of studies, cited by PC, G Will, and myself, iclearly identifies a liberal bias in academia AND the media.

What is your authoritative source for your opinion that the number of professors who consider themselves to be liberal is less than 50%? Do you have one that cites a scientific poll or study as we have cited to support our opinion>?

And further, how do you argue against my point that liberals mostly consider themselves to be in the mainstream and the 'normal' ones while the rest of us who express views consdiered to be right of center or conservative to be the ones who are out of the mainstream?

Whether or not you consider Will a bore, he is not stating the facts he stated in a vacuum. Most liberals in academia or the media automatically assume that those among them are liberal.

 

[geauxtohell]

And the great hero of the left, FDR, laughing about Soviet agents in his administration.
If you are unfamiliar with that, I would be happy to aid in your education.

FDR is considered, without a doubt, the greatest American President of the 20th Century.

Ironically, his effectiveness is still evident today and can be viewed by conservatives need to denigrate him.

Ironically, the denigration is usually while sticking up for a drunken fiend like Joseph McCarthy.