Is America the root cause of the problems in the world? Are terrorists freedom fighters while GWB is more akin to Hitler? Are most Republicans racists who are more like Nazi’s than egalitarian Americans? The answers to these question is often YES if you are one of the influential and powerful 101 American college faculty members highlighted in this book by David Horowitz, entitled The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.
In a CBN interview yesterday, Horowitz discussed the problem with liberal professors in American colleges:
"In Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at most colleges, the ratio of liberal to conservative professors is about 9:1. UC-Berkeley and Stanford did a study that estimated 7:1 and 9:1 across all professorships at their schools, but in Junior Professors, the ratio is about 30:1. That’s because the left has instituted a black list [of ideas] about 20 years ago, it’s very ruthless, [which] excludes libertarians, believing Christians, and conservatives in general from faculties.
On Faculty Search Committees, Horowitz said:
"Three members of the faculty choose from 100-800 applicants for one position, and narrow it down to 3 applicants for the rest of the faculty to review….The left refers to this as "revolution by search committee." *** polemic warning *** Because the left’s ideas of Universities is like everything else – they are institutions to USE to attack [the problems in] larger society – they don’t see them as schools, but as indoctrination and training centers."
Horowitz has a blog (Dangerous Professors) where he answers critics, and posts other nice rants.
Alternative explanation: Only a small perecentage of those dedicated to the "life of the mind" in academia can find any intellectual justification for being conservative. The rest just turn out liberal.
That's why the conservative right had to start all their "think-tanks" peopled by second-rate conservative academics who couldn't hack it in their chosen fields. Their solution: cry "discrimination"! Of course, complaining about discrimination is bad only when liberals do it.
Right. Get over it – academics are liberal for the same reason oilmen are conservative. what they do makes them construct the world a certain way, except, of course, they reach opposite conclusions.
academics are liberal for the same reason oilmen are conservative
Do you mean that liberal academics are in it for the money and power? ;)
Seriously, though, I don't think that liberals dominate academia because they are smarter or more virtuous. Perhaps they are more idealistic and mistrusting of power, so they retreat from the "real world" into academia.
My perception of liberals is that they are "all heart, no brain" (present company excluded ;), in that they want to do good, but their schemes to do so are often hairbrained. Conservatives, on the other hand, may be characterized as "all brains, no heart", more concerned with maintaining the status quo and power structure than helping people. So they gravitate to powerful positions. But being grounded in the real world, their plans for righting the world (pun intended) actually work better (e.g. compare welfare to workfare).
This is why "compassionate conservatism" is so appealing – it brings head and heart together. Perhaps the liberals need to pursue "reasoned liberalism" as a platform. I remember Newt talking about "scientific environmentalism" as an antidote to whacko leftist environmentalism. Same idea.
Hmm..this sounds like the old conservative canard about liberals being soft-headed while, of course, conservatives are not.
This is complete and utter tripe. Soft-headedness is the quality of an *individual*, not an ideological position.
Case in point: George Bush. My pet dog could probably govern better than he could. Still, it's not fair to accuse *all* conservatives of being incompetent liars just because Bush and Reagan were. Those are individual qualities.
Well, I also cited the old liberal canard about conservatives being hard-hearted, while of course, liberals are not. I think these generalizations are somewhat true.
While certain individuals may be exceptions, I do believe that in general, liberals are more prone to "emotional reasoning" instead of logical reasoning, though this quality is shared by unthinking conservatives as well.
As we both will admit, there are a lot more conservative *think* tanks than liberal, while there are probably a lot more liberal *action* or protest groups than conservative. Or maybe I'm just blowing smoke.
I think of it like I do the difference between teaching and preaching. As it is said, one is telling, the other yelling. Or better put, the former is practical instruction, the second is motivational. But then again, liberals haven't really motivated their people to elect liberals, so maybe they're not so good at that either ;). But I see liberals as more motivated to do good, but much less practical, and conversely for conservatives.
Yes, these are generalizations, but not without merit. I'm not generalizing from the few to the many (as you did in your Bush example), but quite the opposite.
Actually, I think these generalizations are true – except in the opposite direction.
In my experience, liberals tend to be intelligent, well-educated, urban members of the reality-based community. They tend to value and fight for justice and equality.
Conservatives tend to lack intellectual capacity (hence the ubiquitous "think"-tanks since they can't get employment in regular academic settings) and also to be easily swayed by appeals to God/the Flag/Patriotism/Mom & Apple Pie. One of the reasons I admire Seeker is the sheer mental gymnastics it must take to be both intelligent *and* a conservative in modern-day America.
Libertarianism does make some sense, is ideologically sound and intellectually defensible. Most right-wing academics are libertarian for this reason. However, I would guess that most conservatives in America are social conservatives and not libertarians. Why follow your head when you can trust your God, your heart and your President?
Quote: "Conservatives tend to lack intellectual capacity (hence the ubiquitous "think"-tanks since they can't get employment in regular academic settings) and also to be easily swayed by appeals to God/the Flag/Patriotism/Mom & Apple Pie."
Bull.. .http://jonjayray.netfirms.com/rudin.html
Septeus, help me out here, how does that link apply to the argument here? Thx.