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I'm just curious about the supposed significance of Droopy's uncovering of leftism in academia.

Before I pose my question, let me make a pertinant revelation. I have been in academics for 30 years. I have been at several major universities and travelled to many academic meetings. I also socialize with academics outside of my field. I have met exactly zero avowed communists (though I am sure they exist), zero academics enamored with Ebonics or hip hop, and all of about three who identify themselves as socialist. In my own department I am not even sure if democrats or republicans dominate.

That said, I have to wonder what Droopy thinks should be done about left leaning intellectual ideas in universities.
It seems to me that a 1st order rough ideal is that an academic ought to be free to pursue what is interesting and compelling. If that means Marx, Freud, Von Mises or Jefferson, then so be it. All that we should hope for is that such academics show good faith in making their arguments clear and trying to make their art as compelling as possible. We can also politely demand that objects of study show enough complexity and richness to make the study of such non-trivial and nonfrivolous(We might forgo the study of the aerodynamic properties of halloween costumes for example).

Fairly wide disagreement about what is edifying should be tolerated. Academics also ought to be able to make their ideas, conclusions and arguments known to students without fear as long as counter argument is encouraged and so on. Of course, we should not tolerate ideas that are hostile to whole groups of people or that are in extremely bad taste by widely accepted standards. We should not allow ideas or acts of intellectual expression that obviously disrupt the environment of learning and scholarship etc. (I haven’t personally seen a single case of such problems).


But Droopy tells us with considerable outrage that some academic somewhere dares to think a thought to the left of himself or that some academic sees authenticity and value in some hip hop music (remember the Jazz culture?) or studies 19th century erotic literature or whatever.


Well, ....so what???

What does he think is wrong exactly? What should be done? Some sort of new McCarthyism? Does he wish to curtail academic freedom?
Are we in academia free to pursue intellectual ideas according to our own tastes and according to our own sense of rationality or scholarliness? Or not? Can academics criticize the rigor, richness, or self-consistency of another’s ideas or not?

Tarski wrote:...In my own department I am not even sure if democrats or republicans dominate....

If you'd like to know how substantially your department has been intellectually compromised, I'm sure Dr. Droopy could explain it to you in detail. After all, studying this issue has been one of the top focuses of his research over the past 25 years.

Tarski wrote:
Before I pose my question, let me make a pertinant revelation. I have been in academics for 30 years. I have been at several major universities and travelled to many academic meetings. I also socialize with academics outside of my field. I have met exactly zero avowed communists (though I am sure they exist), zero academics enamored with Ebonics or hip hop, and all of about three who identify themselves as socialist. In my own department I am not even sure if democrats or republicans dominate.

Your anecdotes are, of course, meaningless. Read The Professors, One Party Classroom, and Indoctrination U for the empirical evidence for and sociocultural impact of, the thorough domination of American academia by the Left. This is far, far too well known, documented, and exposed at this point, for this kind of the-Rosenbergs-are-innocent pleas of ignorance or dismay.

The understanding that the vast majority of American college and universities are all but utterly dominated by the cultural Left, including administration and, most tellingly, the humanities and social sciences, is little more than a banal observation, at this point in time, and hardly calls for further elucidation.

That said, I have to wonder what Droopy thinks should be done about left leaning intellectual ideas in universities.

Horowitz et al (a large number of conservative intellectuals, scholars, journalists, and grassroots commentators) have been over this ad nauseum for the last three decades or so, and I've made this explicit in this, and other forums, on a number of occasions.

I couldn't do better than just quote from ABOR itself with bold face text for clear, unambiguous emphasis on the key principles:

1. All faculty shall be hired, fired, promoted and granted tenure on the basis of their competence and appropriate knowledge in the field of their expertise and, in the humanities, the social sciences, and the arts, with a view toward fostering a plurality of methodologies and perspectives. No faculty shall be hired or fired or denied promotion or tenure on the basis of his or her political or religious beliefs.

2. No faculty member will be excluded from tenure, search and hiring committees on the basis of their political or religious beliefs.

3. Students will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis of their political or religious beliefs.

4. Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should reflect the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge in these areas by providing students with dissenting sources and viewpoints where appropriate. While teachers are and should be free to pursue their own findings and perspectives in presenting their views, they should consider and make their students aware of other viewpoints. Academic disciplines should welcome a diversity of approaches to unsettled questions.

5. Exposing students to the spectrum of significant scholarly viewpoints on the subjects examined in their courses is a major responsibility of faculty. Faculty will not use their courses for the purpose of political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination.

6. Selection of speakers, allocation of funds for speakers programs and other student activities will observe the principles of academic freedom and promote intellectual pluralism.

7. An environment conducive to the civil exchange of ideas being an essential component of a free university, the obstruction of invited campus speakers, destruction of campus literature or other effort to obstruct this exchange will not be tolerated.

8. Knowledge advances when individual scholars are left free to reach their own conclusions about which methods, facts, and theories have been validated by research. Academic institutions and professional societies formed to advance knowledge within an area of research, maintain the integrity of the research process, and organize the professional lives of related researchers serve as indispensable venues within which scholars circulate research findings and debate their interpretation. To perform these functions adequately, academic institutions and professional societies should maintain a posture of organizational neutrality with respect to the substantive disagreements that divide researchers on questions within, or outside, their fields of inquiry.

It seems to me that a 1st order rough ideal is that an academic ought to be free to pursue what is interesting and compelling.

True. See above.

If that means Marx, Freud, Von Mises or Jefferson, then so be it.

True. See above.

All that we should hope for is that such academics show good faith in making their arguments clear and trying to make their art as compelling as possible. We can also politely demand that objects of study show enough complexity and richness to make the study of such non-trivial and nonfrivolous(We might forgo the study of the aerodynamic properties of halloween costumes for example).

See above.

Fairly wide disagreement about what is edifying should be tolerated.

See above.

Academics also ought to be able to make their ideas, conclusions and arguments known to students without fear as long as counter argument is encouraged and so on.

See above (but the pervasive problem of "political correctness" is that many professors use their lectern to evangelize for particular sectarian ideological doctrines, not present opposing perspectives in an honest and balanced manner).

Of course, we should not tolerate ideas that are hostile to whole groups of people

And here's where the mischief begins. This is just more than vague enough to invite the censorship and punishment of ideologically "incorrect" speech and ideas be people in positions of power who are threatened by alternative arguments (how do we define "hostile" here, and what clever interpretations can be constructed to extend its meaning to encompass the silencing of any particular expression of ideological diversity (the only kind really missing in American higher ed)?).

We should not allow ideas or acts of intellectual expression that obviously disrupt the environment of learning and scholarship etc.

Yup, and here we go with the "hostile environment" ploy, beloved of countless campus speech codes, that has been milked for all its worth for thirty years, especially be feminists and multiculturalists, to impose and maintain a kind of intellectual Stalinist conformity of public expression throughout much of modern academia against ideological enemies.

But Droopy tells us with considerable outrage that some academic somewhere dares to think a thought to the left of himself or that some academic sees authenticity and value in some hip hop music (remember the Jazz culture?) or studies 19th century erotic literature or whatever.

Good grief! You're not even in the arena of ideas at all. You're not even in the debate and you have, as usual, made no honest effort to understand and digest the ideas and arguments of those who disagree with you. Like soooooo many on the left, you don't actually read what those you disagree with have actually said or make even a modest attempt to meet them in the marketplace of ideas with an actual comprehension of what it is you oppose.

So sadly typical.

What does he think is wrong exactly? What should be done? Some sort of new McCarthyism? Does he wish to curtail academic freedom?

Despite the now well understood reality that about 90% of what is called "McCarthyism" is little more than ham-fisted mythology created by the Let itself as cover to mask its own, very real nefariousness, I've been over this before, and made that and other perspectives clear.

Yet again, another leftist comes to the table of debate utterly ignorant of the conservative intellectual movement, its core principles, history, and clear prescriptions on discreet subjects. Tarski, like so many on the Left, has always been battling a cartoon. One happy aspect of being a conservative, and doing so much reading of the Left's own primary sources, is that we get to come to that table with a substantial understanding of the Left, while they struggle against what is primarily a creation of their own prejudices.

Are we in academia free to pursue intellectual ideas according to our own tastes and according to our own sense of rationality or scholarliness? Or not?

Absolutely, so long as you teach, when you're in the classroom, and do not evangelize, proselytize, and indoctrinate (teach your ideas, tastes, and predilections as settled answers to questions of the human condition, while disparaging or ignoring counter-argument and alternative perspectives. The questions, in other words, are not settled, but open, from a serious philosophical perspective.

Can academics criticize the rigor, richness, or self-consistency of another’s ideas or not?

No, they should all be waterboarded, shot, burned at the stake, decapitated, and then sent to Detroit.

Analytics wrote:If you'd like to know how substantially your department has been intellectually compromised, I'm sure Dr. Droopy could explain it to you in detail. After all, studying this issue has been one of the top focuses of his research over the past 25 years.

Also, don't forget the continual stream of A grades on his "thesis papers" during his two years at university.

Elphaba wrote:Also, don't forget the continual stream of A grades on his "thesis papers" during his two years at university.

They were term papers for certain classes, among which were the final pater for my post-undergraduate 20th century French philosophy class, and yes, I received 'A' grades for all of them as I did for most of the classes I took.

Got a problem with it?

Analytics wrote:

Tarski wrote:...In my own department I am not even sure if democrats or republicans dominate....

If you'd like to know how substantially your department has been intellectually compromised, I'm sure Dr. Droopy could explain it to you in detail. After all, studying this issue has been one of the top focuses of his research over the past 25 years.

Tarski is in the hard sciences, a department unusually (for obvious reasons) resistant to ideological corruption (however, both the career of Trofim Lysenko, the popularity of Rachael Carson's pseudoscience alarmist tract Silent Spring, the rise and dominance of the theory of AGW, based upon what is now know to be a number of cases of gross academic hucksterism laced heavily with a feverish ideological agenda, and numerous other examples primarily connected to the environmental movement, shows that even the sciences, given enough ideological fanaticism, enough money, and enough low information citizens, can be rather easily subverted and harnessed to ideological ends (and this is especially the case with the "social sciences").

Droopy: I couldn't do better than just quote from ABOR itself with bold face text for clear, unambiguous emphasis on the key principles:

I am absolutely certain that each of those principles is both implicitly and explicitly basic operating policy--indeed to the point of obsession.

Yup, and here we go with the "hostile environment" ploy, beloved of countless campus speech codes, that has been milked for all its worth for thirty years, especially be feminists and multiculturalists, to impose and maintain a kind of intellectual Stalinist conformity of public expression throughout much of modern academia against ideological enemies.

Actually, I was thinking of the worry of how to deal with professors that humiliate students by laughing at their mistakes etc. and also about intolerance toward religions.
Should a professor be allowed to comment on the dress of a traditional muslim female in the classroom? Should they be able to use class time to tell jokes about Mormons?
I see tons of effort to accomodate students with respect to religion. We have to get training and put disclaimers in our syllabi etc.

The problem is that those on the far right wouldn't be satisfied unless we are obliged to allow certain professors to teach creationism in biology class or obliged to hire an equal number of Austrian ecomomists (in some kind of ironic affirmative action).

Hopefully, everyone agrees that we who hire in academia ought to tactfully steer clear of flat earther "scientists", holocoust deniers, Atlantis archeologists and so on.
But every time we do steer clear we have made a judgement.
The problem is that the right is itself often steeped in fringe nonsense (creationism etc.).
The point is that we have to make some judgements and everytime we do, some group will think we are unfairly excluding them.
In particular, majority academic opinions about troublesome topics such as intelligence and race, climate change, and evolution/creationism are based on empirical science, careful reasoning and so on (the group with the fringe ideas always thinks there is a conspiracy). I know for a fact that each of these topics is approached with obsessive care and academics are constantly trying to give alternative ideas a fair shake in part exactly so as to avoid accusation of the sort you are making. In fact, we go too far tolerating nonsense.

The problem is that you guys living in the conservo-bubble are confused about who is in the bubble and who isn't. I realize you think academicians are living in a closed minded politically motivated intellectual bubble and anything outside your bubble is labelled leftist. But while conceding that no group of thinkers and no institution is completely free of prejudice and systematic blind spots, the bubble accusation is far far more appropriate as a description of your world.
In any case, our conclusions and judgments about what is just too far out to be tolerated and about what is intellectually rigorous and compelling are just that----our judgements.
So unless you think we should not make any judgements at all (thus allowing flat earthers, creationist and holocaust denier free reign in the classroom) then you will have to live with our good faith judgments. The fact that you and other dittoheads think such judgements are not in good faith and not intellectually honest or whatever isn't good enough. You have to convince.

Tarski wrote:
I am absolutely certain that each of those principles is both implicitly and explicitly basic operating policy--indeed to the point of obsession.

What problem do you have with any of the principles of the ABOR. Please be specific.

The problem is that those on the far right wouldn't be satisfied unless we are obliged to allow certain professors to teach creationism in biology class or obliged to hire an equal number of Austrian ecomomists (in some kind of ironic affirmative action).

Please read the ABOR again (if you even bothered to read it the first time), and then show me where any of what you have said above is either supported or implied in that document.

Affirmative Action, of any kind whatsoever, is implicitly rejected by the ABOR and explicitly opposed by virtually ever conservative/libertarian of any note with whom I am familiar (the core truth of the matter here, Tarski, is that leftist ideas are the only ideas that have ever needed any kind of affirmative action and required the vigorous enforcement of intellectual conformity to have any kind of dominance. That's what the cultural war on and over the American campus and its speech codes, diversity programs/indoctrination, and entire departments given over to sectarian ideologies or one-sided presentations of questions of the human condition has been all about. Truth, on the other hand, stands on its own on its own merits).

Hopefully, everyone agrees that we who hire in academia ought to tactfully steer clear of flat earther "scientists", holocoust deniers, Atlantis archeologists and so on.

You're not even being marginally serious, which doesn't surprise me. These are not the issues of concern that brought forth the ABOR as a manifesto of dissent and the need for a return to serious academic standards to the reign of political correctness within American academia.

The problem is that the right is itself often steeped in fringe nonsense (creationism etc.).

A small subset of conservatives - fundamentalist Protestants - are steeped in creationism. The substantial majority is not (and serious scientific/philosophical questions about some of the more speculative theoretical major claims of Darwinism is not "creationism")

Secondly, the Left is crawling with extremists and extreme, intellectually fluffy ideas, and always has been, and the problem we face now is that most of these ideas are now mainstream within the cultural Left.

The point is that we have to make some judgements and everytime we do, some group will think we are unfairly excluding them.

Which, in a free society, is really their problem. Intellectual standards must be set and then maintained for there to be any serious "intellectual" pursuits, in the academic sense, at all.

The problem is that you guys living in the conservo-bubble are confused about who is in the bubble and who isn't. I realize you think academicians are living in a closed minded politically motivated intellectual bubble and anything outside your bubble is labelled leftist.

The Left is the Left, and is easily discernible and definable as a body of beliefs, concepts and perspectives.

Tarski asks, quite simply, "What should be done?", and in response, Droopy offers up absolutely nothing. Instead, he repeats his usual spiel about how "The Left" has infiltrated the academy, Affirmative Action is unfair, etc.

Droopy: Specifically, which conservative ideas do you think need to be taught in US universities? Which specific things are being overlooked or censored by "The Left"?

Doctor Scratch wrote:Tarski asks, quite simply, "What should be done?", and in response, Droopy offers up absolutely nothing. Instead, he repeats his usual spiel about how "The Left" has infiltrated the academy, Affirmative Action is unfair, etc.

Droopy: Specifically, which conservative ideas do you think need to be taught in US universities? Which specific things are being overlooked or censored by "The Left"?

Regardless of what should be done, what empirical evidence is there that backs Droopy’s claim? If the Left “thoroughly dominates American academia,” then this domination can be quantified. What percentage of college professors are Leftists? How is that measured? In what way to they dominate?

The only thing close to this that I’ve seen Droopy offer in these rants goes something like this:

1. Real science has debunked global warming
2. The vast majority of climatologists at universities pretend that it is true (or worse, are so stupid they believe it’s true)
3. Therefore the vast majority of climatologists at universities aren’t real scientists teaching about how to evaluate the evidence, what the evidence is, and what it implies. Rather, they are spewing discredited left-wing-propaganda etc.

Talk about fractal wrongness.

Or maybe the problem is on my end? What is the empirical evidence that the left thoroughly dominates American academia?