How to make American Higher Education a laughingstock

Hobit wrote:

I see no need to "indoctrinate" students. I am more concerend with pounding history into their little Britney clogged brains! I rarely allow politics into the classrooom.

If anyone here believes that I've got some beach front property in Arizona I will sell for a very good price.

Perc, I'm not going to argue with you. Go flog your monkey somewhere else.

Hobit:

Actually I believe the donkey belongs to your party and everyone is flogging it/him.

It's not already a laughingstock?

Well, not. Our universities are held in pretty high regard by other nations. They are seen (or were, until the hyperpatriotism xenophobia bug hit after 11th September) as places where education and free exchange of ideas were more important than political affiliation. If this stupid idea goes through that would pretty much be the end of that. Universities would probably fall into the mess that primary and secondary schools have, where state school boards can forbid the teaching of certain subjects, etc... A great deal of my time in teaching western civ is taken up with correcting mistakes kids have learned in HS, or filling in gaping lacunae. In my upper division Medieval class, the students are often surprised by how little they understand of the era. Most of what they know comes from bad sword and sorcery fiction (which I'm also partial to, but...) and the History Channell. I spend more time trying to get people to understand what I had such difficulty adjusting to: The idea that history is about synthesis and understanding what it is to be human than about dates and battles and kings. Unfortunately many sacred cows get hit by the proverbial freight train in the process. This nefarious movement by the far right would prop up the dying cows as exempla for students about how "superior" Western Civilization is. Current scholoarshp rejects any doctrine of "superiority."

Hobit wrote:

This nefarious movement by the far right would prop up the dying cows as exempla for students about how "superior" Western Civilization is. Current scholoarshp rejects any doctrine of "superiority."

If you reject the notion of "Western superiority" how do you account for the fact that most of Muslim world is at or near the bottom of the "food chain" now versus being at or near the top during the reign of the Ottoman empire.

Now don't take offense at this question----I would appreciate a serious answer because I find it puzzling

What food chain? Your questions make no sense.

Hobit

Sorry I phrased the question badly----instead I will post two articles found on the web. Perhaps you would disect and sythesize the two articles for us. You may reject the one from the Ayn Rand institute because it may be tainted with conservative ideas.


Economic System of Islam



BIBLIOGRAPHY

ISSUES
IN ISLAMIC ECONOMICS
SOURCES ON ISLAMIC ECONOMICS AND FINANCES

ISLAMIC ECONOMICS AND FINANCE DIRECTORIES
ISLAMIC BANKING, FINANCE
IN THE WORLD

MUSLIM BUSINESSES
IN THE WORLD







Islamic Economic system is based on four principles:

1. All the wealth belongs to Allah (swt):
"And give them of the wealth of Allah which He has given you." [An-Nur: 33]

2. The community is the trustee of the wealth:
"Believe in Allah and His Messenger, and spend whereof He has made you
heirs."[Al-Hadid: 7]

3. Hoarding of wealth is prohibited:
"And those who hoard up gold and silver and spend not in the way of Allah;
announce to them a painful chastisement." [At-Tauba: 34]

4. Circulation of wealth is a duty:

"Whatsoever Allah may restore unto His Messenger - is due unto Allah and unto His
Messenger - the orphans and the needy ...so that it may not be confined to the rich
amongst you." [Al-Hashr:7]

Based on these principles, Islam differs fundamentally from man-made systems (such as communism/socialism and capitalism) in defining the economic problem.




Islam uniquely considers distribution as the economic problem, and Muslims do not share the obsession of capitalists and communists with production. Because Islam differentiates between the basic needs and luxuries, there exists no concept of relative scarcity of resources in Islam. The resources available on earth are sufficient to secure the basic needs (food, clothing, and shelter) of fifty billion human beings. Such a misunderstanding has concealed the reality that starvation, poverty, and economic backwardness, result from maldistribution exasperated by man-made laws and systems. Under the Islamic system, Nigeria alone could support the whole of Africa, as occurred in the past when, under the system of Islam, Africa sent food to relieve the famine in Medinah during the rule of Omar bin al-Khattab.

The current systems have created a vampire club of institutions - such as the IMF (International Monetary Fund), World Bank, and NGO's (Non Governmental Organizations) - that employ tactics such as loans and structural deficit replanning to siphon off the world's resources to the so-called developed nations, leaving behind a gross inequality in distribution of wealth. The world order has resulted in a bleak scenario in which most of the world chokes from the exploitation of a few elitist nations that continue, under the protection of laws and systems that are designed to serve their interests, to squander the wealth of the world and systematically tighten their control of societies around the globe.

Unfortunately, the current systems cleverly mask the inequality in wealth that they produce by assessing the wealth and productivity by the GNP (Gross National Product) or the average income per capita, deceptively duping the observer into regarding the total production as a means of measuring the well being of each citizen when, in actuality, such figures give no indication of the status of the individuals. America, for example, sucks up over a third of the world's resources, yet poverty in America has escalated to such levels that a new class of people - the "fourth" or under class - has emerged. In Cairo, the average income obscures the fact that while some reside in penthouse flats, others settle for the night in cemeteries. Such a contradiction results from the current systems that fail to differentiate between "economic system" and "economic science," and, as a result, view human beings not as humans but as statistics and figures on the stock market.

By using labels like "Third World" and "First World," this economic conspiracy has worked behind a deceived populace who fail to realize that the "Third World" countries are actually First World in terms of resources. While organizations like Mercy International and UNICEF keep the masses content under the circus act of "humanitarian aid," the capitalist machine works behind the stage to gobble up the resources of the world.

The implementation of Islam would eliminate the stranglehold by which the elites control the polices of the world and milk its resources. Unlike the current systems, Islam will not impose any limits on the amount of wealth that an individual can acquire, thus creating and maintaining an incentive to work. The shortsightedness of limiting production stems from the man-made ideologies that fail to understand the nature of creation. Because the Islamic system reflects the wisdom of the Creator, then the implementation of Islam will provide a society conducive to life that will address the needs of humanity based on the correct understanding of life. Muhammad (saaw) said, "The son of Adam, if he had two valleys of gold, would desire a third and would not be satisfied till he bites the dust."

While generating massive abundance and wealth of resources by eliminating all the restrictions and oppressive systems that prevent production, Islam will safeguard against abuses of exploitation in acquiring wealth by limiting the way in which wealth is acquired. For instance, Islam denies the "free" market of Capitalism which has led to the situation of "survival of the fittest". Such an unrestricted environment has led directly to the current situation where multinational companies have scavenged the resources of the world like parasites unrestricted in their "freedom." Under the Khilafah, natural and vital resources would be categorized as public property and a right of every citizen of the state - Muslim or otherwise - in accordance with the Prophet's (saw) Hadith that states, "The humans have a right to three things - water, green pastures, and fire-based fuels (An-Naar)."

In Islam, public revenue from oil and natural resources would be used to secure the needs of the whole Muslim Ummah, and not to line the pockets of casino owners. The Khilafah would provide public and vital resources without charge to cover the needs of every individual and family, and the monopolies that multinational corporations maintain to dictate the lives of the people would dissipate.

The Shariah also defines certain rules that regulate company structure, effectively preventing abuse and corruption. For instance, Islam forbids monopolies by outlawing the hoarding of wealth (Al-Ihtikar), and eliminating copyright or patency laws that would open the avenue for potential monopolies to develop. Also, Islam protects the ownership of businesses and companies by restricting ownership of companies only to those who contribute both capital and effort to the company or business, thus effectively putting the seal on such concepts as "corporate takeover" from ever becoming a reality.

In the systems of today, the stock market offers no such protection and allows for any outsider to secure a share in any business or corporation and impose his policies on the company agenda, even if that individual puts no effort or work into the business. Today, food manufacturers have cultivated the art of burning surplus food and dumping surplus milk into the ocean to artificially inflate prices by creating "scarcity," an art that would cease to exist with the implementation of Islam.

Unlike today's system, which opens all doors for anyone to access wealth by any means, Islam categorizes wealth in a systematic way that both protects the right of individuals to access wealth and, simultaneously protects the society and secures the needs of the Ummah. Islam mandates vital and natural resources as public property while allowing for unlimited access to luxury items. Also, Islam protects the society in ways that corrupt man-made systems have overlooked by defining certain needs as "prohibited needs." For instance, to protect the honor (ird) of the woman, Islam would outlaw all forms of prostitution, pornography, or any type of sexual bombardment that exploits the charms and physical attractiveness of women. In addition, Islam would prohibit alcohol and gambling, killing every industry and institution derived from such filth that has seeped the Capitalist Nations in a downward spiral of corruption, social turmoil, and moral devastation.

In addition, the form of currency in Islam will break the economic hold of the Kuffar over the Muslim lands. The Khilafah would link the currency to gold, silver or some other precious resource. By backing the currency with resources of real value, Islam creates a stable medium of exchange and eliminates the concepts of linking currencies that allow nations to manipulate currencies and maintain a monopoly over the financial markets of the world.

Just a glance at the economic system in Islam suffices to explain the fear and dread that America and the West have shown towards Islam, and explains the dedication and effort exerted towards curtailing or suppressing the resurgence of Islam as a system. Such a system would not only break the grip that the Capitalist nations have secured over the wealth and resources of the Muslim lands and dethrone their upper hand over the policies of the world, but would provide the long-awaited solutions to life that they have kept a secret from their own people with their extensive media manipulation and education. Because the currency in Islam is linked to gold or other precious resources, the implementation of Islam would cut the economic chains that America employs by linking other currencies to the dollar.

In addition, the effectivity with which the Islamic economic systems correctly defines the economic problem and secures the needs of every individual, and eliminates all forms of economic and social corruption, would provide fuel for the foreign policy of the state that would enable the Khilafah to easily spread Islam ideologically throughout the world.

For such a system to emerge, the Ummah must revitalize within itself the Islamic way of life and cultivate the Islamic culture and the Islamic Aqeedah as the sole basis for providing solutions to its problems. Without the clear conviction in the Islamic Aqeedah and the comprehensive understanding of the Islamic system, the corrupt regimes will continue to tame and manipulate the Muslim masses with empty slogans, while behind the curtains, the feudal landlords of Pakistan will maintain their status and the Gulf sheikhs will continue to squander the public resources of the Ummah.




The following editorial has been produced by the Ayn Rand Institute's MediaLink department. Visit MediaLink at http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/.


Released: April 15, 2003

The Ideological Reconstruction of Iraq



By Elan Journo

Estimated to cost as much as $200 billion, the plan for rebuilding post-war Iraq is astounding in its scope?-from repairing roads and sewer systems to revamping the Iraqi government payroll system and printing school textbooks. Yet no one is paying attention to the deepest foundations needed to support a free and prosperous society. What the Arab world really needs is not a transfusion of foreign money, but a transfusion of crucial Western ideas.
Although the Middle East has abundant supplies of oil and other resources, its people are shockingly poor. This is true not only of Iraq, but also of most of its neighbors. In Muslim countries from Morocco to Bangladesh, the average annual income is only half that of the world average.
Tyranny by monarchs, clerics, or dictators is the norm. Censorship of the press is flagrant, even in so-called moderate countries like Egypt. There is no rule of law, and in the few places that claim to have representative government, it is mere window dressing. Syria's laws, for instance, guarantee the fascist Baath party two-thirds of the seats in parliament.
The plight of the Middle East is not an accident. It is born of and reinforced by certain ideas: the precepts of Islam, which subordinate reason to faith and the individual to the collective.
In Islam piety demands the total surrender of one's life to Allah?-and to those claiming to be His representatives on earth. In practice a Muslim has no right to his own life. Whatever he earns from his effort is his only in trust and by permission; all wealth belongs to Allah. To purify himself from the supposedly base activity of earning a living, a Muslim is required by Islamic law to pay "zakat," an alms tax owed to his community. Property rights are anathema to Islam. The individual's life and values may be sacrificed to the needs and claims of his family, clan, tribe?-or ruler.
Most fundamentally, however, it is his mind?-his rational judgment?-that a Muslim must surrender in order to demonstrate his faith in his religion's key tenets. Muslims may eat at McDonald's, listen to rock-and-roll, and wear Western fashions; but these are only superficial changes masking a deep-seated hostility to any idea that contradicts the dictates of traditional Muslim faith?-to "Westoxification," as they call it.
But to subordinate reason to faith is to chain the individual's mind, allowing only repetition of dogma and obedience to authority. Two statistics capture both the extent of the Arab world's self-enforced insularity and its consequences. Since the 9th century the Arab world has translated about 100,000 books from other languages?-slightly fewer than are translated in Spain in a single year. The result: in 1999 the combined Gross Domestic Product of all Arab countries, even counting the vast wealth generated by oil, was $531 billion?-slightly less than the wealth generated by Spain alone.
While life in the West has become longer and safer thanks to galloping advances in science, science and technology in the Arab-Islamic world have stagnated. Though Egypt has nearly 70 million inhabitants, it has only 3,782 active research scientists?-while Israel, the lone Western state in the region, has fewer than 6 million people but more than 11,000 research scientists, and is noted for its high-tech industries.
The pitiful state of Arab science, the tyrannies, the economic misery?-these all stem from the Muslims' rejection of a cardinal Western value: reason. Rationality means a dedication to basing one's conclusions only on evidence and logic?-and respect for reason entails respect for the individual's mind and thus for his freedom to think and to control his own life.
Respect for reason reached its height in the West during America's founding era, the 18th-century Enlightenment. After centuries of struggle the Enlightenment thinkers sidelined religion and allowed science and reason to flourish. The West made room for the self-assertion and rational confidence of a scientist whose discovery contradicts received opinions, or a businessman whose practices turn his industry on its head. The result was the Industrial Revolution and a culture still propelled by a torrent of innovations that have raised our standard of living to glorious new heights?-from the horse-drawn buggy to routine air travel to the ability to land a man on the moon.
If it is to enjoy prosperity and freedom?-and if it is to be a long-term ally of the United States?-the new Iraq needs to share in this intellectual legacy and learn the meaning and value of the Enlightenment's respect for reason.

Elan Journo is a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, California. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

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Posting articles that rely on misrepresentation of passages from the Koran and the Hadith, both of which make up Sharia, will get you nowhere. The subject of this thread is the attempt by the conservatives to introduce right wing indoctrination into higher education. From your posts and your tone it is clear that you favour this. Thank you. Go away.

Now who's being evasive professor?

Hobit wrote:

A great deal of my time in teaching western civ is taken up with correcting mistakes kids have learned in HS, or filling in gaping lacunae. In my upper division Medieval class, the students are often surprised by how little they understand of the era.

This nefarious movement by the far right would prop up the dying cows as exempla for students about how "superior" Western Civilization is. Current scholoarshp rejects any doctrine of "superiority."

Are you trying to correct mistakes or are you trying to rewrite history more to your liking----in other words are you trying"indoctrinate" your students?

Back up your words professor ----- this little exercise is very germane to the topic

Well, soon enough history will be looking back on us as unhealthy, unhygienic, odd-talking, uncivilized weirdos in the same patronizing way many want us to look at our predecessors.

Neither of the above. I,and others in the same field, do just what I said above: fill in lacunae and offer expanded information. Right now in my HIST 3050 (The Middle Ages) we are discussing the dispersion of Christianity in Europe in the 4th-8th centuries, and the various "flavours" if you will, that were in competition. Celtic Rite Christianity flourished in Ireland and the British Isles. Aryan Christianity was fairly widespread throughout southern Europe, and the Mozarabic Rite developed in the Iberian Penninsula in the period from about 800CE onward. These were eventually subsumed into a conglomeration that would become "Latin Christianity" by various means, such as alliances of local leaders with missionaries from Rome, and the growth of the power of the Bishop of Rome compared to the localized power bases of the smaller, less centrrally organized orthodoxies.
Most graduates of US high schools have only heard of one "Church" in the west during the Late Antique/Early Medieval era. I know I hadn't heard of the others,and I went to a Jesuit high school. Knowledge of these competing orthodoxies is important to help one understand later events in western Christendom. I don't think that I am "indoctrinating " anyone. If I were to imply that one system were better than any others, that would be indoctrination. The concept of "better" and the corresponding value judgements placed on civilizations has no part in modern academic discourse. Value judgements are the province of people like Daniel Pipes,and those who seek appoint faculty by political party.

Hobit wrote:

If I were to imply that one system were better than any others, that would be indoctrination. The concept of "better" and the corresponding value judgements placed on civilizations has no part in modern academic discourse.

Then why would you object to hiring few more conservative professors? You imply that only liberal professors possess ethical academic standards----care to try and justify that allegation?

Again, you, seem to have difficulty with reading for content. I object to vetting of faculty regarding political oreintation. period. End of sentence. Do I object to conservative professors? No. Do I object to liberal profs? No. Do I object to purple profs with orange polka dots? No. I object to political orientation as an employment category. I object to peole being hired because they are liberal, conservative, martian, etc.... I also object to people not being hired for the same reasons. I also object to politicians mucking about with the curriculum, which is really the goal of this whole sort of thing. I know many liberal arts and social science faculty members who are politically conservative,and view this with at least as much trepidation and contempt as I do. What is at stake is intellectual freedom.

Exactly.

The whining of conservatives who say there aren't enough of their ilk on campus is hogwash. Their motive is to overwhelm everything with a politically-tainted view and THAT is unethical. What must really prickle is the fact that most students, being young, think conservativism sucks.

perception- You are quite correct in your post regarding the fact that brain science has shown that "ethics" can indeed be taught into the twentieth year.

Your allusion to the "blank slate" leads me to suspect that you are familiar with the wonderful book by the Harvard professor, Steven Pinker, whose ideas would play havoc with the simplicities offered by Tartarin and Hobibit.

The Western Canon, as outlined by Harold Bloom in his book- "The Western Canon" contains more material than can be read in a lifetime.

Bloom suggests that a reading of the works outlined in the Canon would be a better choice than reading the current garbage trumpeted as great literature.

Bloom contrasts the sublime Proust with the acerbic and and Androphobic Alice Walker. Bloom, of course, indicates that precious time would be utilized much more profitably reading Proust rather than Walker.

Unfortunately, despite the "fear" that conservatives are taking over the Universities, it is clear that the kind of garbage written by Walker, Morison and Angelou are driving out the truly great literature.

As Judge Robert H. Bork commented in his book, "Slouching Towards Gomorrah"

quote

"(Stanford) had a very popular required course in Western culture. The idea was that students should have at least a nodding acquaintance with the minds and works that have shaped the West that constitute our heritage. But radicals and minorities objected both because Western culture should not be celebrated being racist, sexist, violent, imperialistic and not at all like those wonderful Third World cultures, and because the authors that were assigned --Aristotle,Machiavelli, Rousseau, John Locke and Shakespeare--were all white males.
The culmination of the campaign consisted of a conga line snaking across campus, led by Jesse Jackson, the protestors chanting, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture's gotta go"

And go it did"



Conservatives taking over HIgher Education?????

Anyone who knows anything about Higher Education would laugh out loud at that comment.

When I read that value judgements have no place in the teaching of history and that there is no such thing as the concept of "better' being used, I wonder why the Roman system of numbers did not continue to be used instead of the Arabic system.

Could it possibly be that the Arabic System was
better?

This Bloom of yours sounds pretty damned racist: by what you report, he's compared one very odd Frenchman, Marcel Proust to Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Maya Angelou, who all happen to be black and female. If Walker is "androphobic," it is little to be wondered at. But let's be sure to include in our Western Cannon (of which i've personally read, i'd wager, as much as, or more of, than you), our fine friend Plato--the proto-facist with his praise of the militaristic slave-state, Sparta. Let's not leave out a single misogynist, racist, elitest writer in the cannon. Let's make sure they're all white, that they all come from Europe, and, as much as possible, let's make sure they have no tainted "liberal" values.

It doesn't seem to occur to you, does it, that one can read Plato (third-rate) and Proust (first-rate, and definitely an odd boy), and then read Morrison (first-rate) or Walker (third-rate), in the attempt to find some balnace?

Gotta go to work, otherwise, i'd love to stay and point out how one sided your nonsense is.